Jeb Bush super PAC ad features Boston Marathon bombing conspiracy theorist
There’s plentyoffootage of Marco Rubio getting criticized in the media for missing Senate votes while running for president — which makes it all the more puzzling why the main super PAC backing Jeb Bush chose to use footage of a Boston Marathon bombing conspiracy theorist in their ad to make the same point.
Right to Rise USA’s ad, “Promotion,’’ centers around footage of TV anchor and journalist Benn Swann pointing out that a third of Rubio’s missed votes occurred before he announced his presidential candidacy.
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Swann, who has won multiple local TV reporting awards and now produces online content, has questioned official accounts on 9/11 and mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Aurora, Colorado.
In 2013, while working for Cincinnati Fox-affiliate WXIX, Swann suggested that the FBI knew about the Boston Marathon bombing before it happened — even questioning if the government recruited and trained the perpetrators. On his YouTube channel later that year, Swann raised the notion that the FBI executed Ibragim Todashev, a suspected friend of the Tsarnaev brothers.
Asked about the decision to include Swann in the ad, Right to Rise USA spokesman Paul Lindsay told Boston.com, “What matters are the facts in the ad.’’
“There’s no conspiracy over the fact that Marco Rubio has missed more votes in the last three years than any other U.S. Senator,’’ Lindsay said.
For his part, Rubio missed 35 percent of the votes in 2015, the most of any current senator (including fellow presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul).
When criticized in the second Republican debate for missing Senate votes, Rubio pointed to previous senators running for president, including Barack Obama and John Kerry, that missed a much higher percentage of votes.
Though Obama and Kerry’s missed votes were during an election year, Politifact rated Rubio’s defense as true.
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