CNN has added former NFL player Donte Stallworth as a contributor.
Stallworth has made several appearances on the network to comment on the ongoing NFL controversy surrounding players kneeling during the national anthem.
The first mention of the former NFL player being a CNN contributor was on Sept. 30 during CNN's "New Day" Saturday. Stallworth made eight previous appearances in 2017 on the network before the network labeled him as a CNN contributor on that date. Stallworth joins CNN's killer team of contributors that includes American Urban Radio Networks' White House correspondent April Ryan and Playboy correspondent Brian Karem.
During his most recent CNN segment, Stallworth stated many of the players, in addition to protesting police brutality, are also protesting about the "gender pay gap" and "housing discrimination."
"It’s also, again from what I’m hearing from players directly involved in these talks, they’re telling me it’s also about the gender pay gap, it’s also about housing discrimination, they have so many things that they are interested in and advocating for and they want the NFL to take ownership in and help be able to use the NFL’s platform," Stallworth said.
Prior to joining CNN as a contributor, Stallworth was hired by the Huffington Post, now known as HuffPost, to cover national security issues. His hiring caused backlash, not because Stallworth plead guilty to DUI manslaughter, but after his comments about being a 9/11 truther surfaced.
"Gggrrrrrrrrrrrrr @ ppl who actually believe a plane hit the pentagon on 9/11… hole woulda been ASTRONOMICALLY bigger, God bless lost lives," Stallworth wrote in one tweet.
"NO WAY 9/11 was carried out by ‘dying’ Bin Laden, 19 men who couldn’t fly a damn kite. STILL have NO EVIDENCE Osama was connected, like Iraq," he added in another tweet.
https://twitter.com/DonteStallworth/status/2747758285?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediaite.com%2Fonline%2Fhuffposts-new-national-security-fellow-is-an-ex-nfl-player-and-911-truther%2F
https://twitter.com/DonteStallworth/status/2747382851?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediaite.com%2Fonline%2Fhuffposts-new-national-security-fellow-is-an-ex-nfl-player-and-911-truther%2F
In 2014, Stallworth announced he no longer believed 9/11 to be an inside job.
Just to be clear, I no longer feel the way I did in that tweet 5 years ago.
— Donté Stallworth (@DonteStallworth) September 4, 2014
After a lot of reading and researching on it, my views changed... and that's ok.
— Donté Stallworth (@DonteStallworth) September 4, 2014
Credit goes to James Bamford, whose great book disabused me of that stuff and showed what a disastrous intelligence failure 9/11 was.
— Donté Stallworth (@DonteStallworth) September 4, 2014
Stallworth isn't the only CNN employee that has ties to the 9/11 truther movement. Political commentator and the host of CNN's "The Ugly Truth" Van Jones has been accused of being a 9/11 truther after his name appeared on a "9/11 truth statement," which directed the New York attorney general to investigate whether the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the attack. Jones has denied he was aware of the content of the statement, and he has since said 9/11 was carried out by Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.
The Washington Free Beacon reached out to CNN to find out when the network officially hired Stallworth as a contributor. CNN has yet to respond.