Billionaire Bill Ackman spent the days following ABC's presidential debate promoting false claims that a network “whistleblower” had allegedly uncovered collusion between ABC and the Kamala Harris campaign. Now, a month and numerous refusals laterhe sees the claims differently.
“It seems quite clear that the alleged @abc history of the whistleblower debate claiming that @KamalaHarris pre-asked questions and other benefits were bogus.” – Ackman published on X, along with a blog post by Megyn Kelly discussing dubious claims.
However, Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, did not admit that he was an early proponent of the lie. By the name of an X account called “Black Insurrectionist”. claimed he was in touch with a whistleblower who claimed Harris' campaign had been given debate topics ahead of her showdown with Donald Trump, and demanded that Trump – and only Trump – be fact-checked.
The statement was then published on X by the website Leading Report, which has a history of spreading misinformation about everything from politicians to networks. It was this post that caught Ackman's attention, prompting him to share it with his 1.4 million followers. “If this turns out to be true, it would be a serious violation of journalistic ethics and a fatal blow to @ABCNetwork reputation,” he wrote then.
But the network has already denied allegations of question-swapping. However, Bill Ackman posts, and he posts a lot on X. And for five days after the debate, he continued to make these statements his only obsession.
Once the Black Rebel account published a heavily redacted “testimony” written by the alleged whistleblower, Ackman doubled in an open letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger on September 15 regarding X.
“I believe the allegations are credible,” Ackman wrote, imploring Iger to investigate the matter.
“Our democracy depends on transparency, especially regarding events that could influence the outcome of a presidential election,” Ackman added.
But now, a month later, Ackman has admitted what was obvious all along: the allegations were false.
A Pershing Square spokesman declined to comment.
