Left-wing “fact-checkers” recently rushed to claim their most hated rival, conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, was not put on a hit list because he dared to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month.
And almost on cue, a Russian national was arrested earlier this week for allegedly being paid by Ukrainian intelligence services to kill Carlson while he was in Moscow to meet with Putin.
Citing an unidentified report, the Economic Times, an Indian publication, reported on Tuesday that the suspect, Vasiliev Pyotr Alexeieovich, 35, was busted for an assassination attempt on Carlson. The Times played a video that appeared to be a police interrogation of Alexeieovich discussing the plot.
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The Russian claimed that Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence recruited him in November and trained him in communications and explosives.
The agency also offered him $4,000 to off Carlson. Alexeieovich said in the video that his “curators” told him to pick up the bomb on Jan. 31 and place it under a car in the underground parking garage at the Four Seasons hotel in Moscow.
Alexeieovich asserted that he was initially unaware of the target. But he now believes it was Carlson who arrived in Russia for an eight-day trip on Feb. 1.
It was unclear what led Alexeieovich to determine that his supposed target was Carlson.
The suspect also said the plot was foiled when he was “detained” during the planning process.
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Simon Ateba, the chief White House correspondent for Today News Africa, a frequent thorn in the side of Biden’s press flaks, also circulated the video of Alexeieovich’s supposed confession.
The video also drew the attention of Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
On X on Monday, she posted, “This is true and extremely terrifying. Journalism is a dangerous job but also one of the most important. We must always protect free speech and a free press. It’s the only way to protect people from governments.”
Also, on X, Carlson himself had not commented on the incident or the alleged arrest of Alexeieovich as of Tuesday, although the news created a stir among his fans.
The video surfaced a couple of weeks after the mainstream media dismissed assertions that Carlson was put on a “kill list” by the Ukrainian government for supposedly being pro-Putin.
“Fact-checkers” from The Associated Press, Forbes, and others looked into social media claims that Carlson was a target and called it false.
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At issue was a post about the Myrotvorets Center, a pro-Ukrainian group, that allegedly made the former Fox News anchor part of its “Purgatory” project, which spotlights those who “have deliberately acted against the national security of Ukraine,” the AP reported.
The AP also quoted Emily Channell-Justice, the director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute, who, when asked if Carlson was on a hit list, told the outlet, “No, categorically no.”
Yet, as the Tampa Free Press reported last September, Carlson, Elon Musk, and journalists Glenn Greenwald and Jack Posobiec were all on the same Myrotvorets list.
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