A digitally altered photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell that replaced Epstein’s body with the judge who approved Trump’s search warrant
@what.i.meme.to.say / Twitter
Fox News aired a digitally altered photo of the judge who green-lit the search warrant for Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
An image of the judge was tacked onto an old photo of Jeffrey Epstein getting a foot rub by Ghislaine Maxwell.
The photo aired during “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Thursday while Brian Kilmeade was a guest host.
Fox News aired a digitally altered photo that replaced an old image of Jeffrey Epstein getting a foot rub from Ghislaine Maxwell with the body and face of the federal judge who signed off on the warrant allowing FBI agents to search former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
The altered photo — originally an image of the late convicted sex offender Epstein cozying up to convicted sex trafficker Maxwell on a private jet — was broadcast during “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Thursday while Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade was serving as guest host.
“Also a picture of Bruce Reinhart,” Kilmeade said during the segment as the fake image showing Reinhart — a magistrate judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida — was shown to viewers.
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 12, 2022
In the photo, Reinhart can be seen with a box of Golden Oreos and a bottle of Early Times whiskey in his right hand. Epstein’s upper body in the image was replaced with Reinhart’s.
“This is the judge in charge of the, of the, of the, um, as you know, of the warrant, and we’ll see if he’s going to release it next — he likes Oreos and whiskey,” Kilmeade said during the broadcast.
During the broadcast, Kilmeade asked Fox News’ Sean Hannity whether he can “relate to that,” prompting Hannity himself to call out the photo for being altered.
“I think that’s actually a picture of Jeffrey Epstein with somebody putting [Reinhart’s] head on there,” Hannity told Kilmeade, adding, “I’m guessing, I don’t know.”
Kilmeade responded, “It might be his plane. Who knows?”
“I’ll let you determine that in the morning. We’ll be watching,” a chuckling Hannity said.
The image used for the broadcast was credited to the meme social media account @what.i.meme.to.say. The account didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment on Twitter or Instagram.
Reinhart approved the warrant that allowed the FBI to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property on Monday.
The judge has reportedly received violent and antisemitic threats by far-right extremists since signing off on the warrant.
—Brian Kilmeade (@kilmeade) August 12, 2022
In a tweet on Friday, Kilmeade addressed the use of the doctored photo in Thursday night’s segment and said he was “showing a meme in jest.”
“Last night while subbing for Tucker Carlson, we showed you an image of Judge Bruce Reinhart w/ Ghislaine Maxwell that was sourced on screen to a meme pulled from Twitter & wasn’t real,” Kilmeade wrote. “This depiction never took place & we wanted to make clear that we were showing a meme in jest.”
When reached on Friday, a spokesperson for Fox News declined to comment further.