Kyle Rittenhouse Accuses Ex-Lawyer Of Setting Him Up With Proud Boys For Photo Opp, Denies Supporting Group
Nov. 24 2021, Published 10:58 a.m. ET
Kyle Rittenhouse is denying he supports the Proud Boys despite being photographed with the group throwing up hand gestures used by white supremacists.
The 18-year-old sat down for a new interview with Ashleigh Banfield on NewsNationNow where he talked about his January 2021 meeting with members of the hate group.
In photos, Kyle is seen wearing a shirt that reads "free as fu-k" while he posed with another man inside a restaurant. He threw up the "OK" sign with his hands which is used by members of the group.
Rittenhouse is now claiming the entire thing was set up by his former lawyers Lin Wood and John Pierce. The teenager claims he had no idea the "OK" sign was used by racists and claims he just did what he was told.
“I didn’t know that the OK hand sign was a symbol for white supremacy just as I didn’t know those people in the bar were Proud Boys. They were set up by my former attorney (Pierce) who was fired because of that, for putting me in situations like that with people I don’t agree with.”
Kyle said John wasn't at the meeting but had plans to use the Proud Boys as security for his law firm. “I definitely don’t think it looked good to hang out with people who are now known to be Proud Boys. I definitely wouldn’t do that again."
Donald Trump Posed For Photos With Kyle Rittenhouse At Mar-A-Lago Days After Acquittal
“I found out they were Proud Boys when I saw the headlines,” he added.
Kyle said he thought the men were construction workers. "I thought they were just a bunch of, like, construction dudes based on how they looked," he told Banfield.
During his interview, he also blamed his former lawyers for putting out a narrative that he belonged to a militia group. Kyle ended up firing the lawyer "because he was like going on with all this QAnon and election fraud stuff and just stuff we don’t agree with."
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Kyle's interview comes days after he met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. "He should never have been put through that. That was prosecutorial misconduct," the former President told Sean Hannity after the sit-down.
