UC Berkeley’s official alumni website has repeated Robert Reich’s conspiracy theory that claims Breitbart News was “in cahoots” with anti-fascist protesters to cause violence and start the riot during Breitbart Senior Editor MILO’s show at the college last week.
“Is it a simple free speech issue or something far darker and conspiratorial?” asked Glen Martin in the post on UC Berkeley’s alumni site, titled “Do Milo’s Intentions Matter?”
“In a post following the cancelled talk, former U.S. Labor Secretary and Goldman School of Public Policy professor Robert Reich outlined implications to the uproar that went far deeper than Yiannopoulos’ proclivity for ‘racist and misogynistic vitriol.'” wrote Martin. “Reich noted that a Breitbart article that ran the day before the scheduled talk maintained Yiannopoulos intended to demand the pulling of federal funds from Cal and the prosecution of university officials for ‘endangering’ students and quashing First Amendment rights. Reich then observed that the morning following the canceled event, Donald Trump ‘coincidentally’ tweeted [about the possibility of defunding schools that don’t uphold the First Amdendment].”
Following the violent riot last week, which left several people injured, President Trump slammed UC Berkeley and their sub-par response to the incident, before raising the idea of defunding the college and other schools who fail to enforce the First Amendment on their campuses.
UC Berkeley’s alumni site also repeated the false claim that MILO planned to release the name of illegal immigrant students at the college– a claim echoed by the left-wing media, but repeatedly denied by MILO.
On Monday, UC Berkeley published a mirror copy of Reich’s conspiracy theory on their official blog, before sending out the link on their verified Twitter account.
Reich claimed in the conspiracy theory posted to UC Berkeley’s blog that the negative press attention, and President Trump’s response towards left-wing rioters “raises the possibility that Yiannopoulos and Breitbart were in cahoots with the agitators in order to lay the groundwork for a Trump crackdown on universities and their federal funding.”
“I wouldn’t bet against it,” he proclaimed.
Several prominent left-wing outlets have also published Reich’s unfounded conspiracy theory since he originally raised it during a discussion on CNN, including Salon.
The Washington Post, however, rebuked the theory in an article of their own, describing Reich’s idea as “phantasmagorical.”
“So let’s see: Yiannopoulos, who is an outsider to Berkeley and generally unwelcome there, succeeds in secretly arranging for more than 100 thugs to assemble in this city and then invade the Berkeley campus and cause more than $100,000 in damage, all to create a pretextual motive for Trump to alter federal funding for the UC system,” questioned The Washington Post. “And Yiannopoulos manages to do this without a single one of the thugs spilling the beans and tipping off the fact that this violent criminal conspiracy is organized by Yiannopoulos, not his opponents.”
“To even describe the plot is to make clear how phantasmagorical the whole idea is. Occam’s razor applies here. Or, as medical students are taught, when you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras,” they continued. “There is no way Yiannopoulos organized these protests, subjecting himself to serious criminal liability and placing the fate of his career on the sealed lips of more than 100 conspirators. Instead, the simplest explanation is the correct one: The persons responsible are left-wing anarchists, as the New York Times (among others) has described in this recent article.”
Refuse Fascism, one of the far-left groups behind the riot, was reported to have received $50,000 from a group backed by socialist billionaire George Soros, while an alleged UC Berkeley employee is currently being investigated following allegations that he assaulted a MILO fan during the Breitbart senior editor’s show at the college, which turned into a riot last week.
“Anti-fascists” started several fires, smashed windows and ATMs, looted downtown stores, attacked cars, and assaulted dozens of MILO fans, male and female, who they falsely accused of being “Nazis.”
The day after, MILO’s tour bus was tracked down by “anti-fascists” and vandalized, forcing both him and his team to evacuate the premises after his location was leaked online.
Despite the large amount of violence, numerous reports indicate that police officers refused to intervene, and only one suspect was arrested.
Following the riot, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin repeatedly smeared MILO as a “white nationalist,” and declared that he would not be welcome back in the city, while several celebrities and news outlets expressed support for the riot, including Hollywood director Judd Apatow, who deleted his tweet shortly after, and Fusion, who smeared MILO as a “Nazi,” before praising rioters.
UC Berkeley’s student newspaper also published several defenses of the violence that took place during MILO’s show last week.
Four anti-fascists were arrested last week after they became violent during a protest against libertarian commentator and VICE co-founder Gavin McInnes, who was speaking at New York University.
The anti-fascists, who were dressed in the same style as those at the riot in Berkeley, stole an attendee’s MAGA hat, burned it, attempted to assault McInnes, and hurled obscenities at police officers, before storming the venue and interrupting the speech throughout.
DANGEROUS is available to pre-order now via Amazon, in hardcover and Kindle editions. And yes, MILO is reading the audiobook version himself!
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.