Former Florida Health Official Rebekah Jones’ Claim About State’s Skewed COVID Data Proven False: Report
By Fox News // May 31, 2022
ABOVE VIDEO: Florida’s surgeon general is the ‘anti-Fauci’: Gov. Desantis
(FOX NEWS) – Rebekah Jones, the fired Florida health official who became a media darling in 2020 after she accused the Ron DeSantis administration of pressuring her to fudge the state’s COVID data, saw her claims quietly fall apart last week.
Jones has long claimed the Florida Department of Health manipulated coronavirus numbers at the Republican governor’s behest to allow the state to reopen at the height of the pandemic. However, her story was declared to be bogus by an internal report by Inspector General Michael J. Bennett, who investigates whistleblower complaints in the Sunshine State.
“Based upon an analysis of the available evidence, the alleged conduct, as described by the complainant, did not occur,” the report said.
Cornell Law School professor and media critic William A. Jacobson believes mainstream media coverage of Jones “continued the tradition of treating incredible people as credible based on how damaging their accusations would be to a Republican” in power.
“In this case, the target was Republican star Governor Ron DeSantis, so anything went. Now that the story has been exposed as a fable, CNN and other media who hyped the accusations have mostly moved on,” Jacobson told Fox News Digital.
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