Does a photo in a social meme show Fox News anchor Chris Wallace and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein together? No, that's not true: The implication is that Wallace, who is the target of social media attacks after he moderated the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, visited Epstein's private island. This is a photo of Wallace and George Clooney at the actor's home on Lake Como, Italy, in 2012.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) where it was published on October 1, 2020. The caption read:
Yes that is Chris Wallace with Jeffery Epstein you can guess which island they are on!
Anymore questions why Chris Wallace was such an ASS HAT? He is part of the problem
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
Yes that is Chris Wallace with Jeffery Epstein you can guess which island they are on! Anymore questions why Chris Wallace was such an ASS HAT? He is part of the problem
Posted by Rick Reno Stevens on Thursday, October 1, 2020
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Oct 1 16:30:28 2020 UTC)
In 2012, Wallace visited Clooney's house on Lake Como in Italy. In a video interview, a Politico reporter asked Wallace about his getaway with Clooney. Twenty-four seconds into the video, the photo that Facebook users are claiming is the late Epstein and Wallace flashes across the screen. The woman on the left of the photo is Lorraine Smothers, Wallace's wife.
Wallace is the target of lots of attacks on social media in the wake of his performance as moderator of the first presidential debate, which was chaotic to say the least. Some criticized Wallace for letting the debate get out of hand, while prominent right-wing social media users quickly started accusing Wallace of being partial towards Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
Wallace also made news back in July for aggressively fact-checking President Trump throughout a lengthy sit-down interview, something few other reporters have done over the last four years.
Since Epstein was a convicted sex offender and known to bring young girls to his homes, the implication of a close friendship between Epstein and anyone is enough to raise conspiracy suspicions, of "guilt by association."
This accusation is born out of the QAnon conspiracy theory that there is a ring of prominent Democrats and celebrities who are child molesters and child sex traffickers. The QAnon conspiracy theory is also fueled in large part by the falsehood that there is a group of Democrats, deemed the "deep state," who are waging a secret campaign to take Trump down, and now that Wallace has become a Trump adversary in some people's eyes, he is getting roped into these conspiratorial accusations that are usually reserved for Democrats and celebrities.
