As for Sandy Hook, Swann said it sounds like a similar situation. Noting the “official narrative” says that alleged shooter Adam Lanza acted alone, “That is what police have said, but again, there is evidence beginning to emerge that that wasn’t [the case].” He shows footage from a helicopter that has been circulated widely among conspiracy theorists allegedly showing two shooters running into the woods behind the school (media accounts say the man was a parent who ran from the school after hearing gunshots).
“So what you need to know here is that in all three of these cases, there isn’t just wild speculation that maybe there was more than one shooter. In fact, there’s a good reason to question this whole narrative. Because there has been no evidence so far -- no evidence provided by police, other than what they told us -- that there is only one shooter here.” ….
In another recent episode of the show, Swann takes a generous look at the LIBOR conspiracy theory, which speculates that there is a connection between Lanza and Holmes via their fathers’ alleged upcoming testimony on the banking scandal. Swann eventually dismisses the bulk of the theory, but not before credulously investigating the connection and the claims of “alternative media.”
“However, and here’s where it gets interesting,” Swann continues, “it does appear that Peter Lanza’s GE capital division, over which he was vice president, again according to ABC News, was involved in a bid-rigging scheme that used LIBOR rates to manipulate the bond market. That is the story as we know it so far. Is there more? Maybe. And we’ll keep looking for it.”
More recently, Swann was also the guy who was pushing Pizzagate to Trump's demented fans for months that got him suspended for a while. The Daily Beast did a profile of how dangerously unhinged Swann is at the beginning of this year.
In his last job at Russian state-TV outfit Russia Today in 2015, he reported that “any credible evidence does not seem to exist” that Russia shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, simply that it “fit the narrative the U.S. administration was hoping for.” On his own YouTube channel he said he had “major problems with the theory” that the Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting and Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings were each conducted by “lone gunmen.” ….
Swann took the same approach to Tuesday’s Pizzagate exposé, saying he spent the “last month investigating” it. In the report, Swann never reached out to any of the mentioned pizza shops, the FBI, the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, John Podesta, the Clinton campaign, or any of the people named or featured in pictures that aired throughout the report. ….
Swann ends the segment by asking, “Why hasn’t any investigation taken place?” into Comet Pizza, the shop Edgar M. Welch shot into with an AR-15 last month. Welch said he was “investigating” the fictional sex-slave ring he thought was in its backrooms or basement.
“Keep in mind again, there is no proof here that there is a child sex ring being operated out of a D.C. pizza parlor. Investigators have already proven there is nothing to this story, right?” Swann concludes. “Well, actually, no.”
I also thought this was interesting about his current place of work.
Update: National CBS News spokesperson Christa Robinson sent a statement to The Daily Beast after publication of this article.
"WGCL-TV in Atlanta is not owned or operated by CBS. As such, CBS News has no editorial control over the station’s news product," she said.
So CBS News can’t do a damn thing about Swann’s irresponsible fake news “reporting”. Now, I immediately thought CBS 46 in Atlanta might be one of those stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group that John Oliver warned us about.
But no, it’s not.
Sinclair, by the way, does not own any TV stations in Atlanta. Neither does Tribune. Locally, Tegna owns the NBC affiliate 11Alive and WATL-TV Meredith owns WGCL-TV, the CBS affiliate, and Peachtree TV (WPCH-TV). CBS owns WUPA-TV (the CW affiliate). Fox owns Fox 5 (WAGA). And Cox owns WSB-TV, the ABC affiliate.
So, in addition to the mayor's race down there that got heated along racial lines, you've got a dedicated InfoWars/Breitbart crowd that just loooooooooves Swann as well. Any of them living in the Atlanta area are probably avid viewers of this news broadcast. Pretty good chance the woman who wrote in to Ms. Reed is an avid Breitbart reader as well.
Surely he’ll distance himself from the likes of that racist viewer Kathy Rae, but he’s done quite a bit in stoking their fear and paranoia and distrust of the “fake news” media for several years now, making them more prone to take action, whether it’s with a letter to their local anchor, or taking a gun to a pizza joint in D.C. because you believe there’s a secret child sex ring there.