Kanye West‘s leaked antisemitic rant made on the set of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight has led to a man being indicted.
Tim Burke, a freelance journlist, was indicted on more than a dozen charges after the FBI searched his home and seized his computers.
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Burke was charged with one count of conspiracy, six counts of accessing a computer without authorization, and seven counts of intercepting or disclosing wire, oral or electronic communications.
Though the indictment does not mention Fox News, West, or Carlson by name, it accuses Burke of hacking computers owned by “a multinational media company headquartered in New York City”.
The Tampa Bay Times confirmed that the charges relate to footage of West and Carlson that was leaked in October 2022.
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The leaked footage was of unaired interview segments between West and Carlson in which the rapper made a number of antisemitic comments and spread conspiracy theories that Jewish people control the economy.
Carlson was also captured making comments about female staffers, including describing one as “yummy”.
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Burke, through his attorney, has denied the charges, saying: “We are confident that when all the facts come out, it will be demonstrated that Timothy never hacked anyone and that all the information he provided was accessible to the public.”
West has a history of making antisemitic comments.
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Despite a past apology for his remarks about Jewish people, he recently doubled down on his antisemitism.
Shortly after appearing at the Super Bowl, West spoke to TMZ, saying: “They got the right to their opinion. I got the right to my opinion. You understand what I’m saying?
“We all have the right to our opinions but so many people will lose their jobs, lose their careers for taking the steps that we took. We went down for like a year and a half.”
Kanye also directly addressed the fallout from his October 2022 tweet saying he was going to go “death con 3” on Jewish people: “I even sent the apology and [adidas] still fuck with me. Some of the stuff I was saying was true.
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“So until y’all come up and say, ‘Yo, what he was saying, some of that was true,’ go ahead with all that … Black people can’t be antisemitic. We are Jews, you understand what I’m saying? We are Jew.”
He added: “For all the Jewish kids that love me, I’m sorry if y’all had to hear a grown up conversation with us screaming at each other, but we got to a point where something needed to happen, something needed to be said.”
