Several bombshell claims were made last week in an unverified document circulating online purporting to prove close collaboration between ABC News and Kamala Harris’s team before her debate with former president Donald Trump.
The document is claimed to be a sworn statement penned by a staffer at ABC News. It was first published Sunday by an X account with the name ‘Black Insurrectionist.’
The document, said to be a sworn affidavit signed by a notary public the day before the debate, says the network gave Harris questions ahead of time while agreeing to a series of other preconditions to give the vice president an advantage over Trump.
Also prohibited at the debate were inquiries about Harris’ stint as California Attorney General, as well as those involving her brother-in-law, Tony West, the document shows. It includes several other stipulations, as well as redactions obscuring the supposed staffer’s identity.
A statement from ABC did not address the specific claims, instead saying: ‘ABC News followed the debate rules that both campaigns agreed on… No topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.’
The unverified document, said to be a sworn affidavit signed by a notary public on September 9, has sparked controversy with its bevy of claims
A statement from ABC did not address the specific claims, instead saying: ‘ABC News followed the debate rules that both campaigns agreed on… No topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates’
The document, which describes containing a seal from the notary public that is not actually visible, says it was written by a New York resident.
‘I have worked for ABC news for over 10 years in various technical and administrative positions,’ it reads, before stating that the staffer ‘observed significant transformations in the nature of news reporting at the organization’ within that span, as well as a ‘shift from unbiased reporting to a model influenced by external factors.’
The purported staffer, who says they are not a supporter of Donald Trump, states that the intent of the affidavit is solely to ‘address concerns regarding perceived biases within news reporting within my employer’s debate.’
It was purportedly penned by a staffer who has worked at the station for some ten years, during which time they said ABC’s style of reporting has become increasingly troublesome
The document goes on to cite ‘promises made [that] the candidates would be held to firm discussions regarding their proposed policy stances and that the debate would not deteriorate into an ad campaign,’ where ‘candidates would simply make blanket statements without specific policy or explanation as to…’
The end of that sentence is redacted, along with several others.
The next section offers some purported insight into the political landscape of the ABC office, where the writer claimed employees were ‘looking for a fair and honest debate’ while questioning ‘the clear biased [sic] that is well known throughout the company.’
It specifically mentions ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, as well as C-suite staffers at the station and its connected companies.
‘It is common knowledge that Debate Moderators as well as Chief Executive Officers of my employer are well known not to support Donald Trump,’ the section reads.
‘This led to several employees speaking up in regards to how fair the debate was going to be.’
Pictured are some of the purported agreements reached by the two parties
The next section includes ‘specific instances related to the debate’ that ‘raise concerns about procedural fairness.’
The first was that the Harris campaign supposedly ‘received particular accommodations, including, but not limited to, the providing of a podium significantly smaller than that used by Donald Trump, and assurances regarding split-screen television views that would favorably impact [Harris’s] appearance.’
The next stipulation was that Trump ‘would be subjected to fact-checking during the debate, while Kamala Harris would not face comparable scrutiny.’
Pictured are some of the purported agreements reached by the two parties. The document has not been verified
It adds how Harris’ team supposedly ‘required assurances that Donald Trump would be fact checked,’ allegedly ‘via multiple communications with the Harris campaign.
‘The Trump campaign was not included in the negotiations,’ it goes on to state.
It then claims that ‘the Harris campaign was provided with sample questions that, while not the exact questions, covered similar topics that would appear during the debate.’
The document then gets into ‘Harris campaign-imposed restrictions on the scope of questioning,’ including: ‘No questions regarding the perceived health of President Joe Biden’, ‘No inquiries related to her tenure as Attorney General in San Francisco,’ and lastly, ‘No questions concerning her brother-in-law, Tony West.’
West, a prominent attorney who once worked as the general counsel for Uber, ‘faces allegations of embezzling billions of dollars in taxpayer funds,’ according to alleged affidavit.
One post on X featuring the document has been viewed nearly 8million times in a little over 24 hours
Those claims are also unproven and have never been reported.
The document claims that West, who is married to Harris’s sister, Maya, ‘may be involved in [her] administration if she’s elected.’
The New York Times recently reported that West is ‘a major force behind Ms. Harris’s campaign and its record-setting fund-raising,’ and serves as a ‘critical point of contact for business leaders and major donors.’
The document then claims ABC ’employees expressing favorable views toward [Trump] experience significant concerns about potential retribution.’
The assertion is made before several lines of redacted text.
The purported staffer further claimed to have sent the document to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
‘I have also dispatched a Federal Express package containing this affidavit, sent on September 9th, 2024, and delivered to my residence on September 10th, 2024, which will remain unopened for potential investigative purposes,’ the document states.
The document alleges that ABC News gave Harris questions ahead of the debate, along with agreeing to preconditions to give her a leg up on former President Donald Trump
The staffer then claims to have ‘secretly recorded several conversations that will prove that the Harris Campaign insisted upon not only the Fact Checking of Donald Trump, but also insisted on what questions were not to be asked under any circumstances.’
‘I make these statement under the penalty of perjury and without coercion of any kind,’ it concludes.
Despite being unproven, the document has picked up steam on social media, being shared by several high-profile figures.
They include Senator Ted Cruz, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, billionaire hedge-funder Bill Ackman, and Elon Musk, with the latter reposting statements expressing belief in the claims made by Ackman.
Days earlier, before the documents were shared, Trump himself reposted an account claiming an ‘ABC whistleblower allegedly will release an affidavit’ showing that ‘the Harris campaign was given sample questions.’
Such claims first surfaced on the account of right-wing influencer and January 6 participant Philip Anderson last week, two days after the debate.
That same day, a ‘verified’ poster with the handle ‘Black Insurrectionist–I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS’ claimed they would release ‘an affidavit from an ABC whistleblower’ by the end of the weekend.
On September 15, the account that has already demonstrated preexisting biases posted the document in question, with an accompanying caption.
‘The affidavit states how the Harris campaign was given sample question which were essentially the same questions that were given during the debate and separate assurances of fact checking Donald Trump and that she would NOT be fact checked,’ the poster wrote.
A review of recent activity from the account – which launched in November 2023 – showed one post made in August billing Harris and Tim Walz as ‘disgusting creatures’ and their supporters as ‘the delightful cesspool of humanity we are fighting here today.’
It adds that the potential president and vice president may be ‘just plain flat out disgusting pedophiles.’
Another called for ’70 million people to do mass civil disobedience that will halt this country’ to avoid a Harris win.
‘The government just does what we want,’ it added. The poster did not reveal how they came in contact with the supposed writer of the document.
ABC News has denied all of the allegations aired in it.
