Rittenhouse Continues to Bash 'Fraud' Lawyer Lin Wood on Right-Wing Media Martyr Tour

Conservative darling Kyle Rittenhouse continues to make the rounds on right-wing talk shows following his acquittal last month, and he continues to blast his former attorney, Trump ally Lin Wood, for what the teen claims was poor legal representation. Wood, meanwhile, is denying Rittenhouse’s accusations and posting increasingly unhinged messages on his Telegram.

“Kyle, you were in jail for too long,” conservative activist Charlie Kirk told the teen when he appeared on an episode of his podcast, which was released late Tuesday.

“That is correct,” Rittenhouse replied.

“Why were you in jail for 87 days?” Kirk asked.

Rittenhouse said that his attorneys at the time, Wood and John Pierce — who now represents the “QAnon Shaman” — had “started raising funds without my family’s permission” after his arrest. “They went on to fight an extradition [to Wisconsin] using a novel argument, saying I was in a militia so John Pierce can get paid, Lin Wood can get paid and grow his business and profit, apparently,” Rittenhouse said. But they lost that battle, and Rittenhouse was moved from a juvenile facility in Illinois to an adult facility in Wisconsin. According to Rittenhouse, Wood and Pierce were not even aware he’d been moved. He later fired both and hired new legal representation.

Rittenhouse’s public criticism of Wood may have spurred a days-long meltdown in which the lawyer has burned bridges with his former allies, including Trump’s disgraced ex-national security advisor Gen. Michael Flynn and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, both of whom helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election. Over the weekend, Wood posted on Telegram audio of a phone conversation with Flynn in which Flynn told Wood he thought the QAnon movement was “total nonsense” and a “disinformation campaign created by the left.”

On Tuesday evening, Wood posted what appeared to be fundraising balance sheets from #FightBack Foundation, the organization he and Pierce started last year to raise money for Rittenhouse’s defense. Money from the foundation was used to pay the teen’s bail, Wood has claimed. Although their authenticity has not been verified, the documents show purported deposits and expenses for the foundation. One line states that $2 million, nearly all the money raised, was spent on Rittenhouse’s bail.

Rittenhouse told Tucker Carlson the Monday after his acquittal that he believes the lawyers were “trying to raise money so they could take it for their own benefit” instead of using it to bail him out. Now, both Rittenhouse and Wood are claiming that the money that went to the state should be returned to them.

“Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec tonight joined the parade of Deep State actors who have interviewed Kyle Rittenhouse to allow Kyle to lie about me and #FightBack,” Wood posted late Tuesday. “If Kyle Rittenhouse felt that I or #FightBack kept him in jail to grift off of him, why did he wait to publicly complain about our alleged misconduct for a full year after #FightBack posted the $2M cash bail and was told to stand down so the family could take over fundraising at the end of 11/20?”

Rittenhouse’s appearance on Kirk’s podcast is the latest in a string of conservative media stops he’s made since his acquittal. The same theme runs throughout all of them: Rittenhouse is a victim, and the the fact that he even stood trial after killing two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last summer is a gross miscarriage of justice. Rittenhouse attacking Wood, too, has been a recurring theme. “Lin Wood and John Pierce like to think they’re the heroes in this case,” he told Kirk. “They’re just a bunch of fraud men.”

Source: Read Full Article