Late last night, Huffington Post editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington announced that her company had hired 33-year-old Donté Stallworth, the former NFL wide receiver, to cover national security as a paid editorial fellow. One problem: Stallworth apparently believes that the September 11, 2001 attacks were an inside job.

Stallworth is already well-known for pleading guilty to manslaughter in 2009 and hinting at some kind of conspiracy theory involving the vaccine for the H1N1 virus in 2013. He is less well-known for denying that hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon:

Or denying that Osama bin Laden masterminded the attacks:

Or promoting Loose Change, a series of quasi-documentary films that argued the hijacked planes had been somehow replaced by drones; that the original flights’ passengers had in fact disappeared; and that the World Trade Center had been destroyed by controlled demolitions (among many other conspiracy theories):

The Huffington Post has previously asserted that its editorial policy “prohibits the promotion and promulgation of conspiracy theories—including those about 9/11.” The site seems to have carved out an exception for Stallworth, though. Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim told Poynter’s Andrew Beaujon: “You know, that was five years ago, and people say dumb things, but that shouldn’t define him.”

But does Stallworth think what he said was actually dumb? We’re not so sure:

Update: Three minutes after this post was published, Stallworth tweeted the following:

However, the most recent tweet indicating Stallworth’s 9/11 beliefs was from 9 months ago—not 5 years:


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