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Nazi the­o­reti­cian and Thiel polit­i­cal icon Carl Schmitt
Pho­to Cred­it: wikiedia.org

COMMENT: On Sun­day, July 19, it was Dave’s plea­sure and priv­i­lege to host inves­tiga­tive reporter Bar­rett Brown.

Where­as the spin on “L’Affaire Epstein” has been “Israel, Israel, Israel;” “Mossad, Mossad, Mossad” etc., Bar­rett has fixed the vec­tor of Jef­frey Epstein square­ly in the fas­cist right-wing.

Heav­i­ly net­worked with Peter Thiel, “Team Epstein” was cement­ed to the Thiel/Palantir milieu by the bril­liant Nazi hack­er Andrew “Weev” Aueren­heimer.

In turn, that pha­lanx was inex­tri­ca­bly linked with a nation­al secu­ri­ty milieu sur­round­ing Thiel pro­tégé and alleged financier of the Nazi Dai­ly Stormer Jeff Giesea.

When Bar­rett Brown detailed this rela­tion­ship and its links to var­i­ous hack­ers and hack­er ele­ments, his work was atten­u­at­ed by his pub­lish­er. He was able to set forth the uncen­sored ver­sion of his arti­cle in a Sub­stack pre­sen­ta­tion.

Top­ics of Dis­cus­sion and Analy­sis Include: Aueren­heimer being sent to prison for a hack com­mit­ted by an asso­ciate; Bar­rett Brown being sent to prison for his work with the Anony­mous milieu; The gen­e­sis of an online fas­cist “army” gam­ing the can­di­da­cy of Don­ald Trump; The role of Wik­iLeaks in sup­port­ing Don­ald Trump in 2016; The dom­i­nance of the inter­net by the likes of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk; The exten­sive net­work­ing between the Thiel/Epstein/Auernheimer milieu with 4chan; The Thiel/Epstein net­work­ing with regard to invest­ment vehi­cles and funds; Review of Peter Thiel’s adher­ence to the polit­i­cal wis­dom of Carl Schmitt, Hitler’s top legal the­o­reti­cian; Review of Elon Musk giv­ing the Nazi salute at the inau­gu­ra­tion in 2025.

In addi­tion, Bar­rett Brown answered a num­ber of queries craft­ed by the bril­liant Pter­rafractyl (the con­tribut­ing edi­tor of the Spit­firelist blog):

Some ques­tions regard­ing the 2016 elec­tion and Andrew ‘Weev’ Auern­heimer’s role as Peter Thiel’s unof­fi­cial hack­er, as well as the rev­e­la­tion that, in Novem­ber 2014, tech­nol­o­gist Vin­cen­zo Ioz­zo emailed the financier Jef­frey Epstein, alert­ing him that a nov­el hedge fund strat­e­gy he and Epstein had been devel­op­ing was already being exe­cut­ed by Auern­heimer and fund­ed by Thiel:  There was a sto­ry about the 2016 hack­ing of the Democ­rats that was poten­tial­ly explo­sive when it was first revealed and yet there’s been almost no fol­low up on it.  That would be the sto­ry of GOP financier Peter Smith, who was run­ning an oper­a­tion involv­ing Steve Ban­non and Kellyanne Con­way to find Hillary Clin­ton’s emails.  The alleged premise was the assump­tion that they had already been hacked and it was a mat­ter of con­nect­ing up with the hack­ers to obtain them (https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-964-lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/#comment-124121).  And as we also saw, Smith end­ed up con­sult­ing with both Charles John­son and “Guc­cifer 2.0”, who both report­ed­ly rec­om­mend­ed that Smith’s group con­tact Auern­hiemer in that pur­suit, who was liv­ing in Ukraine (https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-965-are-we-going-to-have-a-third-world-war/comment-page‑1/#comment-124823).  John­son also claimed he “put the world out” to a hid­den oppo­si­tion research net­work of right-wing groups that were also try­ing to obtain Hillary’s emails (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/11/gop-researcher-who-sought-clinton-emails-had-alt-right-help-215359/).  That hid­den oppo net­work includ­ed Bar­bara Ledeen, Newt Gin­grich, and Judi­cial Watch (https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-964-lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/#comment-131196).  It’s a col­lec­tion of sto­ries that sug­gest a pos­si­ble far right ori­gin for the 2016 elec­tion hacks, with Auern­heimer poten­tial­ly play­ing a far more sig­nif­i­cant role than is cur­rent­ly appre­ci­at­ed.  The SPLC report­ed that Auer­heimer relo­cat­ed to Transnis­tria in 2017, and we’ve bare­ly heard any­thing about him since.  It’s been almost a decade.  Does any­one know what Auern­heimer has been up to for the last decade?  Might he be lay­ing low due to an under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed role he played in the 2016 elec­tion?  We know Thiel serves as a link between the two, but is there evi­dence of direct inter­ac­tions between Epstein and Auern­heimer?  And has any­one ever inves­ti­gat­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Epstein was part of one of the mys­te­ri­ous right-wing net­works that were seek­ing Hillary’s emails?  Was Thiel attempt­ing to build his own far right ver­sion of Anony­mous with his affil­i­a­tions with Auern­heimer?

* Regard­ing the rev­e­la­tion that, in Novem­ber 2014, tech­nol­o­gist Vin­cen­zo Ioz­zo emailed the financier Jef­frey Epstein, alert­ing him that a nov­el hedge fund strat­e­gy he and Epstein had been devel­op­ing was already being exe­cut­ed by Auern­heimer and fund­ed by Thiel, do we know any­thing more about that?  We know Epstein’s inter­est in Valar Ven­tures start­ed in 2014.  Did Thiel and Epstein meet as a result of this shared hedge fund strat­e­gy or did they already know each oth­er?  Is there any evi­dence of Thiel and Epstein inter­act­ing pri­or to 2014?

* Back in 2020, Buz­zfeed had a piece about a July 29, 2016, din­ner par­ty host­ed by Peter Thiel that had a kind of ‘Who’s Who’ of the Alt Right guest list.  Atten­dees includ­ed Richard Spencer and Jeff Giesea.  Kevin DeAn­na was the fea­tured guest.  We are told Thiel hoped the Alt Right would suc­ceed in main­stream­ing white nation­al­ism and oth­er far right con­cepts (here’s a com­ment with that Buz­zfeed piece https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-1017-supreme-court-trump-card-family-trump-family-anthony-kennedy-and-peter-thiel/#comment-353641 )  And when we see in your arti­cle how Jeff Giesea pub­lished a piece on memet­ic war­fare in the NATO Strate­gic Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Cen­tre of Excellence’s offi­cial jour­nal Strat­Com in 2016, it’s appar­ent that white nation­al­ist meme war­fare had indeed already been suc­cess­ful­ly main­streamed to an extent, at least with­in the halls of NATO.  Giesea’s piece was focused on using online memes to counter ISIS, a seem­ing­ly pos­i­tive appli­ca­tion of the youth-direct­ed online sub­cul­tures found on places like 4Chan.  And as your piece notes, it was none oth­er than Jef­frey Epstein who met with 4chan’s cre­ator, Chris Poole, back in 2011 about Epstein’s appar­ent inter­est in using 4chan’s mem­ing as a far right cul­tur­al engine, just days before Poole set up the infa­mous /pol forum, the forum that would go on to cul­ti­vate so many of the Alt Right polit­i­cal memes that were on the ascen­dance by 2016.  We’ve also learned that Epstein and Thiel’s rela­tion­ship goes back to at least 2014, when Epstein report­ed­ly first met with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Thiel’s Valar Ven­tures (https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr1378-team-trump-takes-the-field-part‑4/#comment-387248).  Ever since we learned about Epstein’s inter­ac­tions with 4chan Christo­pher Poole short­ly before the cre­ation of the /pol forum and Epstein’s inter­est in pro­mot­ing big­otry by weaponiz­ing the ‘hive mind’ of the inter­net, there’s been a lin­ger­ing ques­tion about what role Epstein played in the cre­ation of the cul­tur­al zeit­geist that paved the way for Don­ald Trump’s entry in pol­i­tics.  A cul­tur­al zeit­geist that Thiel was clear­ly very inter­est­ed in cul­ti­vat­ing.  One of the biggest ques­tions loom­ing over the Epstein sto­ry is the ques­tion of whose inter­ests he was actu­al­ly serv­ing.  Giv­en Epstein’s neb­u­lous ties to the US nation­al secu­ri­ty state and intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ties, Thiel’s very clear ties to intel­li­gence and his many pow­er­ful alliances across the US ‘Deep State’ (the actu­al Deep State and not the car­toon­ish one MAGA is always clam­or­ing about), and NATO’s pro­mo­tion of Jeff Giesea’s right-wing troll memet­ic war­fare tac­tics, should we view the rise of the pro-white nation­al­ist online meme cul­ture as pos­si­bly a delib­er­ate prod­uct of a kind of domes­tic ‘memet­ic’ psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare influ­ence oper­a­tion by ele­ments of the US nation­al secu­ri­ty state?  A kind of dig­i­tal Glad­io unleashed in the wake of Occu­py Wall Street, with Thiel and Epstein serv­ing as some of the unof­fi­cial orga­niz­ers?  Or per­haps a kind of pri­vate intel­li­gence right-wing counter-point to the suc­cess of the 2008 Oba­ma cam­paign in har­ness­ing the polit­i­cal pow­er of the inter­net?  In oth­er words, Thiel and Epstein cer­tain­ly had their own motives for want­i­ng to pro­mote far right memet­ic online cul­ture.  But with both have ‘intel­li­gence pup­pet mas­ter’ on their CVs, should­n’t we view them as pos­si­bly work­ing for the inter­ests of a larg­er net­work?  Could Epstein’s rela­tion­ship with Thiel be key to under­stand­ing Epstein’s hypo­thet­i­cal role as an intel­li­gence asset?

*  One of the bizarre and intrigu­ing details we learned about Epstein’s his­to­ry in the lead up to the 2016 cam­paign is the fact that he appar­ent­ly made hun­dreds of ref­er­ences to ‘piz­za par­ties’ (https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftrs-1379–1380-team-trump-takes-the-field-parts-5-and‑6/#comment-387845) in the years lead­ing up to 2016 but also after the ‘Piz­za­Gate’ meme had sat­u­rat­ed the cul­ture.  Was the embrace of the ‘Piz­za­Gate’ meme by the Alt Right just a coin­ci­dence or was it an inten­tion­al­ly plant­ed meme.  Per­haps a mes­sage to the many elites who attend­ed Epstein’s many piz­za par­ties?

* Part of what makes the rise of Jef­frey Epstein as a kind of pro­tect­ed child pimp for elites such a grim­ly intrigu­ing­ly top­ic is the fact that right-wing con­spir­a­cy cul­ture, root­ed in mod­ern adap­ta­tions of the Pro­to­cols of the Elders of Zion, has long been based on blood libel nar­ra­tives about the tor­ture of gen­tile chil­dren by elite Jew­ish cabals secret­ly run­ning the world.  Nar­ra­tives that go back many decades when it comes to the mod­ern Amer­i­can far right con­spir­a­cy cul­ture.  And fol­low­ing his fed­er­al ‘sweet­heart’ deal in 2008, Epstein became a kind of poster-child for the ‘elite Jew­ish cabal run­ning the world’ for years on out­lets like Alex Jones’s Info Wars.  Epstein’s sweet­heart deal was a mas­sive gift to the far right’s ‘Pro­to­cols of the Elders of Zion’ nar­ra­tive and they did­n’t pass up on the oppor­tu­ni­ty.  Nar­ra­tives about elite Jew­ish child abus­ing pow­er net­works — aka Illu­mi­nati — were per­co­lat­ing on the inter­net years before Trump entered the polit­i­cal are­na or Piz­za­Gate became a thing.  And when Epstein showed an inter­est in using 4chan to har­ness the pow­er of white nation­al­ism and big­otry back in 2011, he was like­ly already well aware of the fact that ‘Jew­ish child abus­ing elite net­works run­ning the world’ was already deeply embed­ded in the con­spir­a­to­r­i­al far right Nazism that was already in the process of being main­streamed on the inter­net.  And Thiel’s and Epstein’s many oth­er col­lab­o­ra­tors were also obvi­ous­ly aware of the cen­tral role of the ‘Jew­ish child abus­ing elite net­works run­ning the world’ meme in the very far right cir­cles they inhab­it.  Which rais­es the ques­tion of whether or not the coterie of ‘Alt Right’ white nation­al­ists Thiel was assem­bling in 2016 were aware of Thiel’s busi­ness rela­tion­ship with Jef­frey Epstein at that time?  Jeff Giesea, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked with Thiel, would be some­one of par­tic­u­lar focus for this ques­tion.  Did Giesea know in 2016 about Epstein’s invest­ments in Thiel’s Valar Ven­tures?  And more gen­er­al­ly, was the cul­ti­va­tion of the leg­end of Jef­frey Epstein — a Jew­ish bil­lion­aire who wield­ed child-sex black­mail con­trol over West­ern elites — pos­si­bly an inten­tion­al con­struct, at least post-‘sweetheart deal’?  Was the down­fall of Epstein and the explo­sion of polit­i­cal scan­dal that fol­lowed some­thing that has been long fore­seen and planned for by Epstein’s own far right allies as a means of pro­mot­ing a ‘Jew­ish elites REALLY DO run the world!’ nar­ra­tive?  Trump may not be enjoy­ing all the heat but that does­n’t mean his far right fel­low trav­el­ers aren’t ulti­mate­ly enjoy­ing the fall­out.

*  Jeff Giesea was report­ed­ly part of the “79 Days Report”, pub­lished in Octo­ber of 2020 by the Clare­mont Insti­tute and the and Texas Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Foun­da­tion — a group backed by Texas bil­lion­aire theo­crat GOP king­mak­er Tim Dunn.  The report described a sim­u­la­tion car­ried out by the groups about dif­fer­ent elec­tion out­come sce­nar­ios.  Specif­i­cal­ly, it imag­ined Trump win­ning reelec­tion but left-wing groups refus­ing to accept the out­come and engag­ing in large scale street protests.  The sim­u­la­tion envi­sions a sce­nario where Trump wins ambigu­ous­ly through a vote in the House, result­ing in large scale street protests by antifa and BLM groups.  Mar­tial law gets declared and mili­tias like the Oath Keep­ers are dep­u­tized to help keep order.  It was like a mir­ror image of the upcom­ing Jan­u­ary 6 plot­ting.  Giesea was one of a num­ber of notable fig­ures to take part in the sim­u­la­tion includ­ing Her­itage Foun­da­tion pres­i­dent Kevin Roberts, who is now known for his dec­la­ra­tion on July 2, 2024, that the Sec­ond Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion is com­ing and will remain blood­less ‘if the left allows it’.  Charles Hay­wood, the Christo­fas­cist busi­ness­man behind Soci­ety for Amer­i­can Civic Renew­al (SACR), also took part, along with John East­man, the Clare­mont Insti­tute fel­low who played key roles in ratio­nal­iz­ing the Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s oppo­si­tion to the actu­al out­come of the 2020 elec­tion (https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-90-a-review-and-analysis-of-serpents-walk/#comment-365184).  Jeff Giesea seems to be an incred­i­bly well con­nect­ed fel­low who is man­ag­ing to oper­ate in both white nation­al­ist and more ‘main­stream’ con­ser­v­a­tive cir­cles with­out being noticed.  He has long been a Thiel ally, his com­pa­nies have received Thiel seed mon­ey, and he even got his start work­ing for Thiel Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment.  Should we per­haps view Giesea as a kind of Thiel proxy when it comes to many of his inter­ac­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the polit­i­cal sphere?  Is he a more inte­gral part of Thiel’s extend­ed influ­ence net­work than is cur­rent­ly appre­ci­at­ed?

*  Charles John­son claimed Ban­non was inter­est­ed in replac­ing Epstein as a source of infor­ma­tion from var­i­ous intel­li­gence net­works (https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-318-kidding-around-child-molestation-and-pedophilia-in-the-gop/comment-page‑1/#comment-364521).  Does that sug­gest Epstein was oper­at­ing a kind of net­work of dif­fer­ent pri­vate intel­li­gence oper­a­tions?  How does Steve Ban­non fig­ure into all of this?  He’s heav­i­ly over­lapped with the white nation­al­ist net­work sur­round­ing Thiel and is noto­ri­ous­ly close to Epstein.  Is there any indi­ca­tion Ban­non was involved with Thiel’s or Epstein’s efforts main­stream white nation­al­ism or set up pri­vate hacker/intelligence net­works?