“Shoutout to Judge Schroeder,” Wheaton said, “who got the result he worked so hard to ensure. His racist little white nationalist heart must be full of joy today.”
Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation and hosts Star Trek YouTube show The Ready Room, has claimed that the judge who presided over Kyle Rittenhouse's case has a "racist little white nationalist heart."
In reality, Judge Bruce Schroeder is a Democrat who was appointed twice by Democrats over the course of his career.
On Wheaton's personal Facebook page, he wrote "We all knew Rittenhouse was going to walk, and it's still infuriating."
"Shoutout to Judge Schroeder," he added, "who got the result he worked so hard to ensure. His racist little white nationalist heart must be full of joy today."
He might as well have been repeating talking points from Joy Reid of MSNBC.
But he didn't stop there. A follower asked if Rittenhouse was "cleaning grafittis [sic] and trying to protect people which had nothing to do with anything, from guys who were sneaking in to riot?"
"From things, that user said, "I found he was trying to protect a gas station getting lit up with a burning dumpster by rioters, and later getting chased by those guys? (one of which was said to be a prosecuted pedophile and bad person kind of guy)."
"And one of the chasers, who later was a witness, confessed he had a gun pulled out on Rittenhouse, chasing him and pointing at him which got the witness shot in the arm? And this confession and a lawyer asking dumb questions about some amandments [sic] which got him yelled at by the judge without the jury in room?
"Of course I do not condone violence or something, but some sources say he was defending himself while helping people, and the only crime he really was guilty of was carrying a rifle," he wrote, concluding with: "Please do not get me wrong, I just want to understand and maybe you can enlighten me about said facts."
In response, Wheaton said "No. Everything you're asking about is based on right wing lies, deliberately spread to make this murderer more sympathetic. You have been misinformed. Those sources you cite are lying."
However, the source that user could likely have been citing was the trial itself, which was live streamed from the Kenosha Courthouse. Rittenhouse was cleaning graffiti from a local school, and had deep ties to the community. He was threatened by Joseph Rosenbaum, who according to eye witness testimony, was advancing menacingly on Rittenhouse before the teen shot him.
Anthony Huber beat Rittenhouse with a skateboard before Rittenhouse shot at him. Gaige Grosskreutz advanced on Rittenhouse with his own gun drawn, which he testified to under oath.
The number of lies told about Rittenhouse between the time of the shooting on August 25, 20202 through the trial were legion. The White House has called him a white supremacist, without evidence. In fact, the one photo that has been used to claim Rittenhouse is a white supremacist, where he was seen with people who were reported to be Proud Boys, has been discredited as a set-up by attorney's who had their own agenda, and not Rittenhouse's best interests, at heart.
Lies included that Rittenhouse had no connection to the community; he had deep ties. They said he brought a gun to a Black Lives Matter protest, but it during riots where rioters had burned down local businesses. They said he was there to kill people, yet a jury of his peers determined that he acted in self-defense.
And they inferred that and allowed readers to believe Rittenhouse shot three black men. He didn't. The men Rittenhouse shot had long criminal records.
Wheaton appears, however, to believe that Rittenhouse shot "non-white" people. in an exchange with Dan Bongino, Wheaton appeared to indicate that Rittenhouse got off on self-defense because he was "Hunting non-white humans." Many international media outlets believed this lie as well, but that didn't make it true.
When this was pointed out to Wheaton, he doubled down on his remarks.
"They were," Wheaton wrote. "And the people who will now be hunted with impunity by white supremacists will largely be non-white people, because that's the way America works."
Wheaton did not comment on the homicide trial of Ahmaud Arbery, wherein the three men who chased him and shot him were convicted of homicide and are awaiting sentencing for their brutal, inhumane crime.
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