It’s difficult to predicate a claim of defamation on a statement that can be characterized as opinion, but I think Vox’s Aaron Rupar crosses the line in his account of the Trump rally in Minneapolis last week. Referring to Power Line last week, Rupar wrote: “Citing articles from a fringe right-wing Minnesota-based blog, Trump called Omar ‘a disgrace to our country’ and pushed unfounded conspiracy theories about her marital history.” Calling Power Line “a fringe right-wing” site — that is a lie exploiting the ignorance of Rupar’s readers for its effect.
Rupar doesn’t name Power Line. He doesn’t suggest a factual basis for his characterization of the site. He doesn’t even link to the site so that readers can check out what he’s talking about. Rather, he links to his own tweet with a video of President Trump talking about my work on Omar.
Rupar has received the memo: the voluminous evidence supporting the proposition that Omar married her brother in 2009 is to be disparaged as a “conspiracy theory.” I discussed the theme of “conspiracy theory” applied to the Omar saga in three posts this month, here (part 1), here (part 2), and here (part 3). Following the stupid cliché applied by the media to the Omar saga, Rupar shows himself to be a mindless lout.
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