Kyle Rittenhouse on Monday announced that he is launching a new initiative aimed at holding major media outlets and celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg accountable for telling “malicious defamatory lies.”
Last November, the 18-year-old was acquitted of all charges related to the shooting deaths of two antifa rioters, and the injury of a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August of 2020. The jury found that he had acted in self-defense. Charges ranged from intentional homicide to recklessly endangering safety.
Rittenhouse shared a video on Twitter promoting the new Media Accountability Project, which raises funds for his legal challenges against media outlets and personalities that defamed him before, during, and after his trial.
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power,” the teen said, quoting Malcolm X.
It's time to hold the worst offenders in our media accountable in court for their malicious and defamatory lies. Donate: https://t.co/U4NBli1bvD pic.twitter.com/IxuUYfF9Hf
— Kyle Rittenhouse (@ThisIsKyleR) February 22, 2022
“Me and my team have decided to launch The Media Accountability Project as a tool to help fundraise and hold the media accountable for the lies they said and deal with them in court,” Rittenhouse said on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight.
“I don’t want to see anybody else have to deal with what I went through. So I want to hold them accountable for what they did to me, because I don’t want to see anybody have to go through what I went through,” the teen told Carlson.
When asked if he would be suing any news organizations, Rittenhouse offered a sample of who is currently on his “list.”
“Well, right now, we’re looking at quite a few politicians, celebrities, athletes, Whoopi Goldberg’s on the list,” Rittenhouse said. “She called me a ‘murderer’ after I was acquitted by a jury of my peers. She went on to still say that.”
He also mentioned the Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur, who allegedly called him a “murderer” before the trial and “continues to call me a ‘murderer.'”
“We’re going to hold everybody who lied about me accountable, such as everybody who called me a White supremacist,” Rittenhouse said. “They’re all going to be held accountable. And we’re going to handle them in a courtroom.”
TUCKER: "Will you be suing any news organizations?"
KYLE RITTENHOUSE: "We're looking at quite a few, politicians, athletes, celebrities, Whoppi Goldberg is on the list, she called me a murderer after I was acquitted… So is Cenk [Uyhur] from the Young Turks." pic.twitter.com/MULZf38Vkf
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 22, 2022
The teen is following the same path as Nicholas Sandmann, the Covington Catholic student who was defamed in the media following a viral incident involving a Native American activist in January of 2019.
Sandmann was only 16-years-old when the out-of-context viral video prompted a media campaign to smear him and his classmates as virulent racists.
The short clip showed him standing in front of Native American activist Nathan Phillips wearing a red Make America Great Again hat and smiling while Phillips banged on a drum and chanted in his face. Corporate media outlets falsely portrayed Sandmann as the aggressor in the situation, which happened near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial following the March For Life.
He ended up suing multiple media outlets for defamation and has won undisclosed settlements from the Washington Post, NBC News, and CNN.
After the verdict last Fall, Sandmann reached out to Rittenhouse by phone, and reported on Twitter that Kyle was in “good spirits.”
During an interview with Carlson a week after the trial, Rittenhouse hinted that he had plans to hold the individuals and media outlets who misrepresented his case accountable.
“I have really good lawyers who are taking care of that right now,” Rittenhouse said. ”So, I’m hoping one day there will be some, there will be accountability for the actions that they did.”
Rittenhouse also said at the time that he felt that Joe Biden had “defamed” him when he tweeted out a video in 2020 implying that he was a white supremacist.
“It’s actual malice—defaming my character for him to say something like that,” he said.