Sheriff Joe Arpaio's claim that he was the last person to be interviewed by conservative writer Andrew Breitbart is not true.
The claim came out during the height of Arpaio's media attention for his "birther" investigation, and like many of Arpaio's sensational claims -- like arresting Elvis or being kidnapped during his DEA days (or was he kidnapped by Elvis?) -- there's not a single shred of evidence that the Breitbart call ever happened.
See also:
-Joe Arpaio's New Birther "Evidence," as Usual, Was Debunked Months Ago
In fact, there's evidence that it never happened.
There's a Tea Party fellow from Sun City by the name of Brian Reilly, who's on board with the belief that Obama's from Kenya or wherever but is among the people who realized that the "Cold Case Posse" investigation was a complete scam.
Reilly's been writing pieces calling out the "Cold Case Posse" for some time now, and he's now apparently debunked what he calls the Breitbart/Arpaio "urban legend."
During one of Arpaio's press conferences on President Obama's birth certificate last year, conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi said he arranged the interview between the two just hours before Breitbart died.
Arpaio said nothing of that during the press conference, but eventually worked it into his index of Arpaio mythology.
Arpaio later told a radio audience that Breitbart called him that night, and had "information" for him in advance of the birther press conference. That led to further conspiracy theories that the government killed Breitbart for knowing about Obama's fake birth certificate, or something like that.
Not quite. Arpaio admitted he didn't even remember the phone call (which wouldn't be surprising, even if it actually took place), and said that Corsi told him it happened.
Now, Reilly discovered that Corsi changed his story, after another conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, Alex Jones, brought it up on his radio program.
"The Breitbart situation is also mysterious to me," Corsi said. "We think now it was one of his staff, it was, uh, I'll get the name here in a minute, uh, one of the, Anita, uh, MonCrief who made the call with one of the Tea Party people."
Whoops.
Corsi continued, "We thought it was Breitbart, Breitbart himself on the line. I handed the phone to the sheriff. The gentleman on the line is talking about Breitbart. It may have been Anita MonCrief trying to get us in touch with Breitbart. And we maybe never actually even connected."
MonCrief is a woman, and certainly has a womanly voice.
Reilly noted that MonCrief, who had written some content for Breitbart's website, posted a lengthy "exclusive" interview with Arpaio the next day, on a different website.
Myth busted. To see more details about the bogus claim found by Reilly, click here.
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Follow Matthew Hendley on Twitter at @MatthewHendley.
