Apparently Giuliani’s staffer didn’t like the questions he was being asked about 9/11 and decided to have a reporter removed from the New Hampshire Republican Debate. To make matters worse, the reporter had the nerve to be asking his question during a press conference. The reporter, Matt Lepacek is a freelancer associated with Alex Jones’s Infowars.com (a group that explores issues outside of the mainstream press and pursues alternate explanations to the official accounts of what took place during 9/11).
Mr. Lepacek had official CNN press credentials for the event and his only genuine offenses appear to be his connection to a non-major outlet that the Giuliani campaign dislikes and having the audacity to ask a staffer a question during a press conference.
On the word of Giuliani’s press secretary and despite protests from CNN staff members, the state police were called in and arrested Lepacek, charging him with felony criminal trespass.
…his camera was seized by staff members who shut off the camera, according to Luke Rudkowski, also a freelance Infowars reporter on the scene. He said police physically assaulted both reporters after Rudkowski objected that they were official members of the press and that nothing illegal had taken place. Police reportedly damaged the Infowars-owned camera in the process.
The story quoted is here and includes videos of the arrest. An update, including claims that criminal indictments are being pursued against the police and the Guiliani staffers involved can be found here .
Infowars and Alex Jones may not be my (or your) cup of tea, but the reporter in question was credentialed and had every right by law to be there. This type of attack on a free press and our constitutional right to a free press should chill everyone and anyone –no matter what your political views are.
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