Feb. 25 (UPI) — Officials in Sweden claim they’ve never heard of Nils Bildt, the man described by Fox News as a “Swedish defense and national security advisor.”
On Thursday, The O’Reilly Factor featured two Swedes. The guests debated whether or not refugees and immigration have influenced crimes rates in the Scandinavian country.
One of the guests, Nils Bildt, was described — both verbally by Bill O’Reilly and in text on the screen — as a “Swedish defense and national security advisor.”
Officials with Sweden’s foreign and defense ministries have since confirmed Nils Bildt does not hold any official position within the Swedish government.
“We have no spokesman by that name,” said Marie Pisäter, an official with the Swedish Defense Ministry.
The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported Friday that Bildt moved to the U.S. from Sweden in 1994. The paper determined his original surname was Tolling, and that he was convicted of a violent crime in Virginia in 2014.
Bildt is one of the founders of an international consulting firm called Modus World LLC which, according to its website, specializes in “operations and management of possible kidnap and ransom situations.”
Bildt told reporters he hasn’t misrepresented himself.
“I made clear that I am an independent analyst,” Bildt told DN.
Fox News defended their decision to call Bildt a national security adviser.
“Our booker made numerous inquiries and spoke to people who recommended Nils Bildt and after pre-interviewing him and reviewing his bio, we agreed that he would make a good guest for the topic that evening,” David Tabacoff, The O’Reilly Factor’s executive producer, told the Washington Post.
Last week, Trump referenced a terrorist attack in Sweden that never happened.
