Hours after a jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on charges of homicide, Fox News personality Tucker Carlson announced that he will not only interview the teenager but air a documentary about him.
Mr Rittenhouse was charged with five felonies after fatally shooting two men and injuring another in the volatile aftermath of police brutality protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin on 25 August, 2020.
On 19 November, the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight revealed that a film crew had followed the 18-year-old during the trial, though defense attorney Mark Richards told CNN that he did “not approve of that”.
“I threw them out of the room several times,” Mr Richards said on Friday following the verdict. “I don’t think a film crew is appropriate for something like this.”
Mr Richards said that making the film was part of the Rittenhouse family’s fundraising efforts for legal costs. He described the film crew’s presence as “a definite distraction” throughout the murder trial.
The attorney told CNN that he had told Mr Rittenhouse that he was uncomfortable with Fox News’ presence.
Mr Richards went on to say that “Kyle’s going to have some hard choices in his life about the direction he goes and what he stands for”.
“Those will have to be made by Kyle, eventually,” he added.
Mr Carlson will interview Mr Rittenhouse on 22 November. The documentary will air in December.
During the trial, attorneys for Mr Rittenhouse claimed that he fired his AR-15-style rifle in self-defense against members of a violent mob that began chasing after him.
Following two weeks of testimony and four days of deliberations, prosecutors failed to convince jurors that Mr Rittenhouse provoked the already-chaotic scene by bringing the rifle into the crowd.
A statement from Fox News says the documentary, made by “Tucker Carlson Originals”, will “include additional portions of the interview as well as exclusive behind-the-scenes access to Rittenhouse and his defense team”.
A preview clip shared by the Fox News anchor shows Mr Rittenhouse on a couch, followed by images of Kenosha unrest and scenes outside the Kenosha County Courthouse. Mr Rittenhouse narrates the one-minute and 45-second clip.
“It’s the stuff that keeps you up at night,” he says. “Once you finally do get to sleep, your dreams are about what happened and you’re waking up in a dark, cold sweat.”
In the final moments of the clip, an off-camera voice inside a car leaving the courthouse asks Rittenhouse how he feels about the verdict.
“The jury reached the correct verdict. Self-defense is not illegal,” Rittenhouse says. “I believe they came to the correct verdict and I’m glad everything went well. It’s been a rough journey but we made it through it. We made it through the hard part.”
Fox News hosts have repeatedly come to Mr Rittenhouse’s defense throughout the trial. On his programme after the teenager’s acquittal, Mr Carlson said the jury was “brave enough to reach the right and obvious conclusion”.
What do fundraising efforts have to do with Tucker Carlson? Huh? What does that mean? Did Tucker and/or Fox help fund the defense?
This is sooooo shady.