During an exclusive CNN interview, actor Alec Baldwin stated that the “only time” he was “worried” about the consequences of the fatal “Rust” movie set shooting, was after former President Donald Trump weighed in on the tragedy.
Implying that his physical safety was in danger, Baldwin claimed that Trump had “instructed people to commit acts of violence” on January 6, and now “he was pointing fingers at me.”
CNN “New Day” aired Baldwin’s interview with CNN entertainment reporter Chloe Melas on Friday, where they discussed the fallout from the tragic shooting on the Hollywood set of the movie “Rust.”
Baldwin maintained during his interview that he didn’t pull the trigger, telling Melas, “I never once said – never – that the gun went off in my hand automatically. I always said I pulled the hammer back, and I pulled it back as far as I could. I never took a gun and pointed it at somebody and clicked the thing.”
Baldwin also noted that he hired his own private investigator to look into the alleged accident, who was assured by the sheriff’s department that he would not be charged over the “Rust” shooting.
“That private investigator, as you probably know, did not have a difficult time accessing the staff of the sheriff’s department and that person told us, quote, unquote, ‘We have known in the department since January that Alec would not be charged with a crime,’” he explained.
Melas spoke to Baldwin’s attorney, who insisted that if Baldwin were charged with a crime over the shooting, it would be a “huge miscarriage of justice.”
CNN claimed Trump antagonized the actor, stating, “but the then-president fanned flames against him.” (Though Trump had been out of office for nearly a year by this point.)
Baldwin described to Melas how he was victimized by Trump over the shooting. “The former President of the United States said, ‘He probably shot her on purpose.’”
He then implied that Trump was physically endangering him because he had allegedly done the same to his political enemies on January 6.
“To me [that] was the only time I thought that I needed – that I was worried what was going to happen. Because here was Trump, who instructed people to commit acts of violence and he was pointing the finger at me and saying, I was responsible for the death,” Baldwin said.
Deadline Hollywood reported last November that Trump stopped just short of accusing Baldwin of purposefully shooting Hutchins, openly pondering, “maybe he loaded it.” As The Hill noted, the former president added, “he had something to do with it.”
As Fox Digital reported, during filming on October 21, “a gun Alec Baldwin was holding discharged during a rehearsal for the film, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.” Since the shooting, Baldwin has maintained that the shooting was an accident and that the supposed prop gun had fired off live rounds without him pulling the trigger.
Last December, he stated, “The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger.” Though an FBI investigation revealed that “the gun used on the New Mexico movie set could not have been fired without the trigger being pulled.”
Scrutiny fell upon the “Rust” set’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, as to why a gun with live rounds was passed to Baldwin during filming. Gutierrez-Reed has since sued Seth Kenney, “the man who provided the prop ammunition used by the production team.”
Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers have criticized the Santa Fe, New Mexico, Sheriff’s Department for not clearing up the question of where the live rounds came from. It has “made a conscious decision not to pursue this question at all by refusing to ask the FBI to test any of the rounds for fingerprints or DNA,” they said.
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