Mark Robin­son is a demon­stra­bly tal­ent­ed politi­cian. Or at least that’s one way of inter­pret­ing his mete­oric rise. After all, he only won his first polit­i­cal office, Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of North Car­oli­na, in 2020. And here he is in 2024 as the GOP’s guber­na­to­r­i­al nom­i­nee. And, of course, he’s the dar­ling of the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project, focused on recruit­ing pas­tors to run for office. The “Some Folks Need Killing!” guy is great for recruit­ing pas­tors. Now you know.

But it’s worth keep­ing in mind that it could be argued Robin­son’s polit­i­cal career start­ed long before that. As TPM doc­u­ment­ed, Robin­son had been a pro­lif­ic pur­vey­or of far right con­tent on social media for over a decade and effec­tive­ly became a right-wing star after a pro-gun speech he gave at a city coun­cil meet­ing in 2018 went viral. And as we also saw, it was 2019 when Robin­son appeared for an extend­ed con­ver­sa­tion with Sean Moon, son of Rev­erend Sun Myung Moon who now runs his own church in Penn­syl­va­nia that treats AR-15 rifles as divine tools for God’s cho­sen peo­ple. The next year, he goes on to win his first polit­i­cal race. Weeks lat­er, the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion tran­spires, with Sean Moon there at the Capi­tol among the pro-Trump mob. And where do we find Don­ald Trump on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2021, the 20th Anniver­sary of the 9/11 attacks? At a Uni­fi­ca­tion Church event. The CNP may be the dom­i­nant theo­crat­ic enti­ty in the US, but the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church is no slouch. It still has clout.

And that brings us to the fol­low Covert Action Intel­li­gence Bul­letin from back in the Spring of 1987 about the fas­ci­nat­ing ties between the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church and the domin­ion­ist forces behind the CNP. Ties that were on full dis­play at the time. The piece, by Fred Clark­son (who cov­ered David Lane’s open calls from a vio­lent domin­ion­ist rev­o­lu­tion in 2013), cov­ers the his­to­ry of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church’s then-decades-long invest­ments in acquir­ing pow­er and influ­ence inside the Unit­ed States. A his­to­ry that obvi­ous­ly cen­ters around snug­gling up to the Repub­li­can Par­ty. But as we’re going to see, Moon had some major allies in this effort. Allies who made their affil­i­a­tion with Moon’s agen­da abun­dant­ly clear after Moon was sen­tenced to an 18-month prison sen­tence in 1984 over sys­tem­at­ic tax fraud. And as we’re going to see, these allies were more or less the same net­work of evan­gel­i­cal reli­gious lead­ers who ral­lied around Ronald Rea­gan in 1980 and went on to form the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CNP) the fol­low­ing year.

The sup­port for Moon pri­mar­i­ly man­i­fest­ed through the DC-based Coali­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom (CRF), itself formed in 1984 as a project by the Asso­ci­a­tion of Con­cerned Tax­pay­ers, head­ed by Repub­li­can rep­re­sen­ta­tive George Hansen. On the board of the CRF was a list of now famil­iar names: Tim LaHaye, Jer­ry Fal­well, James Robi­son, Rex Hum­bard, D. James Kennedy, and Jim­my Swag­gart. As we saw, it was James Robi­son who played a key role in 1979 bring­ing togeth­er the group of evan­gel­i­cal domin­ion­ists who ral­lied behind Ronald Rea­gan’s cam­paign the fol­low­ing year. Includ­ing Tim LaHaye, one went on to become one of the CNP’s found­ing mem­bers in 1981 and group’s first pres­i­dent.

Also note that, not only do Fal­well and Dr. D. James Kennedy also show up on the CNP list, but so does William T. Allen (Chair­man of the Board, D. James Kennedy Min­istries) and Dr. Frank Wright (Pres­i­dent & CEO, D. James Kennedy Min­istries). In oth­er words, CRF board was stacked with CNP heavy­weights. And that’s the group that was wag­ing

Moon’s legal plight was­n’t the only issue the CRF and Hansen were upset about that year. The loss of tax-exempt sta­tus for Bob Jones Uni­ver­si­ty over its racist poli­cies out­raged Hansen. Keep in mind that Bob Jones III is anoth­er promi­nent CNP mem­ber.

But the CRF’s ties to Moon aren’t just found in their vocif­er­ous defense of Moon fol­low­ing his sen­tenc­ing. CRF pres­i­dent Don Sills took $500,000 from Moon sources. Beyond that, CRF spokesper­son and exec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber Joseph Paige was active in key Uni­fi­ca­tion Church enti­ty CAUSA.

Anoth­er exam­ple the ties between Moon and this pow­er­ful net­work of evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers can be found in the right-wing lob­by Chris­t­ian Voice, found­ed in 1978 by CNP mem­ber Robert Grant. While Chris­t­ian Voice char­ac­ter­izes itself as a lob­by for all evan­gel­i­cals, that was a char­ac­ter­i­za­tion that did­n’t sit well with then-direc­tor of the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Evan­gel­i­cals Robert P. Dugan, who described Chris­t­ian Voice as “not con­struct­ed to be a rep­re­sen­ta­tive orga­ni­za­tion and its polit­i­cal posi­tions may well be deter­mined by a hand­ful of activists meet­ing over lunch. They are account­able to no one but them­selves.” Even Paul Weyrich anoth­er CNP founder — described the group as “con­ser­v­a­tive first and Chris­t­ian inci­den­tal­ly, as opposed to oth­er groups that are Chris­t­ian first, and con­ser­v­a­tive inci­den­tal­ly.”

What are the ties between Chris­t­ian Voice and the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church? Well, it turns out the group’s leg­isla­tive direc­tor, Gary Jarmin, was a long-time Uni­fi­ca­tion Church activist in the 1970s. And while Jarmin claimed to have left the group after join­ing the CRF, it also turns out he helped to orga­nize the first CAUSA North Amer­i­ca con­fer­ence in 1983, along with Chris­t­ian Voice Advi­so­ry Board mem­bers W. Steuart McBir­ney and Ray Allen. Jarmin and Grant went on to attend CAUSA’s 1985 con­fer­ence too.

So that’s the very inter­est piece of his­to­ry to keep in mind when we’re look­ing at this his­toric arc of how the same net­work behind rise of the ‘Reli­gious Right’ in the 1980s and the for­ma­tion of the CNP has grown to the point where its on the cusp on imple­ment­ing that long sought theoc­ra­cy. On the cusp of win­ning that pow­er demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly or on the cusp of a vio­lent rev­o­lu­tion. Either way, they are on the cusp. Which means their fel­low trav­el­ers, like the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church and its AR-15-wor­ship­ping off­shoots, are on the cusp too:

Covert Action Infor­ma­tion Bul­letin
No 27, Spring 1987

“Moon’s Law: God Is Phas­ing Out Democ­ra­cy”

by Fred Clark­son

Over the years, Rev­erend Sun Myung Moon, the founder, spir­i­tu­al leader, and tit­u­lar head of the vast Uni­fi­ca­tion Church con­glom­er­ate, has repeat­ed­ly declared that his goal is glob­al theoc­ra­cy. He has expressed his desire for polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic con­trol orig­i­nat­ing from cen­tral­ized reli­gious pow­er. Moon and his orga­ni­za­tion have been con­sis­tent in their efforts to car­ry out this vision. They are not always suc­cess­ful, but they per­sist. What is essen­tial to under­stand about the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church and its relat­ed oper­a­tions is that its reli­gion and its pol­i­tics are vir­tu­al­ly insep­a­ra­ble. Equal­ly impor­tant to under­stand is that the Moon orga­ni­za­tion [see note 1 below] is an inte­gral part of the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League (WACL), which in turn has played a piv­otal role in the devel­op­ment and activ­i­ties of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church.

In the U.S. the Moon orga­ni­za­tion has sought allies on many fronts, notably the New Right, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the reli­gious Right. These efforts have met with mixed suc­cess, but there is no doubt that it has made deep inroads into Amer­i­can polit­i­cal life. Where they intend going may be gauged by Moon’s ser­mons. In 1973, for exam­ple, he declared, “My dream is to orga­nize a Chris­t­ian polit­i­cal par­ty, includ­ing the Protes­tant denom­i­na­tions and Catholics, and all the oth­er reli­gious sects.2

The pur­pose of this arti­cle is to detail the reli­gious and polit­i­cal ori­gins of the Moon phe­nom­e­non in the U.S. in order to clar­i­fy the more con­fus­ing elements.3

Inside the League

The World Anti-Com­mu­nist League (WACL) is an inter­na­tion­al coali­tion of fas­cist and con­ser­v­a­tive groups and polit­i­cal par­ties found­ed in 1966 by agents of the gov­ern­ments of Tai­wan and South Korea.4 One of the orig­i­nal groups was the Asian People’s Anti-Com­mu­nist League (APACL). Its Japan­ese affil­i­ate, Shokyo Ren­go, became a WACL chap­ter in 1968. Shokyo Ren­go (Vic­to­ry Over Com­mu­nism) began after a 1967 meet­ing between Sun Myung Moon, Ryoichi Sasakawa, Yoshio Kodama, and two of his lieu­tenants. Kodama was the head of Japan­ese orga­nized crime, the Yakuza. One of [Moon’s] lieu­tenants, Osa­mi Kubo­ki, became head of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church in Japan, as well as a leader in WACL. Soon after­ward, WACL began indoc­tri­nat­ing young Yakuza gang mem­bers in anti­com­mu­nist ide­ol­o­gy sim­i­lar to what the Moon orga­ni­za­tion was already doing in Korea with gov­ern­ment offi­cials. Sasakawa, an impor­tant World War II Japan­ese fas­cist leader, became the head of Shokyo Ren­go, and Kodama its chief advi­sor.

Sasakawa’s rela­tion­ship to the Moon orga­ni­za­tion, which dates back to 1958, con­tin­ues to this day, includ­ing ongo­ing financ­ing of both the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church and Shokyo Ren­go, which is con­trolled by the Church.

Sasakawa, Kodama, and oth­er impor­tant “Class A” war crim­i­nals were mys­te­ri­ous­ly released from Sug­amo prison only a year and a half after World War II. They went on to found the rul­ing Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and have played promi­nent roles since. One fel­low inmate, Nobusuke Kishi, became a prime min­is­ter. In 1959, Kishi helped estab­lish a qua­si-gov­em­men­tal, boat-rac­ing/gam­bling fran­chise, which he gave to Sasakawa, who grew fan­tas­ti­cal­ly rich from the pro­ceeds. Kishi was also the prime mover in estab­lish­ing APACL in Japan and remained active in WACL through­out the 1960s, serv­ing as chair­man of the plan­ning com­mit­tee in 1970.

Sasakawa was described by U.S. Army intel­li­gence as “one of the most active fas­cist orga­niz­ers pri­or to the war.” In the 1930s both Sasakawa and Kodama were jailed: Sasakawa for plot­ting the mur­der of a for­mer pre­mier, and Kodama for plot­ting the mur­der of a prime min­is­ter. Kodama was a noto­ri­ous war prof­i­teer and Japan­ese intel­li­gence agent in Chi­na. “His long and fanat­ic involve­ment in ultra-nation­al­ist activ­i­ties, vio­lence includ­ed, and his skill in appeal­ing to youth make him a man who, if released from intern­ment, would sure­ly be a grave secu­ri­ty risk.”5

Mean­while, the first Moon mis­sion­ar­ies arrived in the U.S. in 1959. By the ear­ly 1960s, Moon fronts had been estab­lished and were work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Kore­an Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency (KCIA). Indeed, short­ly after the mil­i­tary coup which ele­vat­ed Park Chung Hee to pow­er in 1961, his KCIA direc­tor (and founder), Kim Jong Pil, stat­ed that he intend­ed to “orga­nize and uti­lize” the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church as a “polit­i­cal tool” (see side­bar), accord­ing to the Octo­ber 31, 1978 Report of the Sub­com­mit­tee on Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tions of the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, known as the Fras­er Report.6

The Fras­er Report, a House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives inves­ti­ga­tion into Kore­an covert oper­a­tions in the U.S., chaired by Don­ald Fras­er (Dem.-Minn.), reveals that one of the ear­ly KCIA/Moon projects was the Kore­an Cul­tur­al Free­dom Foun­da­tion (KCFF). The osten­si­bly non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion quick­ly turned from a “cul­tur­al” to a polit­i­cal oper­a­tion under the influ­ence of “Hon­orary Chair­man” Kim Jong Pil, who want­ed the “Free­dom Cen­ter” in Seoul, South Korea to be its prin­ci­pal project. Thus, by the spring of 1964, KCFF was rais­ing funds from Amer­i­cans for the Free­dom Cen­ter, which was, in fact, an APACL project pro­mot­ed and sub­si­dized by the Kore­an gov­ern­ment with at least $796,231.,7 The Free­dom Cen­ter serves as the “sec­re­tari­at” of WACL to this day.

In 1966, KCFF launched anoth­er KCIA project, Radio Of Free Asia (ROFA), which broad­cast anti­com­mu­nist pro­gram­ming to the region. The Kore­an gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed the broad­cast facil­i­ties, and the KCIA con­trolled the pro­gram­ming through their psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare sec­tion, called the “7th Bureau.”8 Dur­ing its peri­od of orga­ni­za­tion, Lt. Col. Bo Hi Pak, a mil­i­tary attaché at the Kore­an Embassy in Wash­ing­ton, actu­al­ly ran KCFF, despite a series of Amer­i­can fig­ure­heads fronting the Free­dom Cen­ter and ROFA fundrais­ing cam­paigns. Pak had been giv­en a spe­cial dis­charge from the Kore­an Army, appar­ent­ly to devote full time to KCFF in Wash­ing­ton. He was among Moon’s prin­ci­pal oper­a­tives as well, and used KCFF for Church pur­pos­es. KCFF hood­winked a num­ber of promi­nent Amer­i­cans, includ­ing for­mer pres­i­dents Eisen­how­er and Tru­man to serve on its advi­so­ry board. Using their names, KCFF raised funds for their projects and some mon­ey was appar­ent­ly skimmed to fund the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church.9

The Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion for Vic­to­ry Over Com­mu­nism (IFVC) was formed in 1968 in Seoul. This was Moon’s prin­ci­pal polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion. Shokyo Ren­go, the Japan­ese affil­i­ate, was also formed in 1968. The Amer­i­can affil­i­ate was incor­po­rat­ed in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. in 1969 as the Free­dom Lead­er­ship Foun­da­tion (FLF). Shokyo Ren­go host­ed the 1970 WACL Con­fer­ence in Tokyo, for which Moon claimed to have raised $1.4 million.10 FLF Pres­i­dent Allen Tate Wood attend­ed as a “youth del­e­gate” with sev­er­al Amer­i­can Moonies. He lat­er broke with Moon, gave press con­fer­ences denounc­ing Moon, and tes­ti­fied before the Fras­er Com­mit­tee. While vis­it­ing Korea on the same trip, Wood was instruct­ed by Moon to “win the pow­er cen­ters” of the U.S. for him, begin­ning with academia.11 Moon also told him that “part of our strat­e­gy in the U.S. must be to make friends in the FBI, the CIA and police forces, the mil­i­tary and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty… as a means of enter­ing the polit­i­cal are­na, influ­enc­ing for­eign pol­i­cy, and ulti­mate­ly of estab­lish­ing absolute domin­ion over the Amer­i­can peo­ple.”12

Accord­ing to the Fras­er Report, polit­i­cal oper­a­tions in the U.S. were at first opposed by reli­gious “purists” in the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church. How­ev­er it was “point­ed out to them that the Church in Japan and Korea car­ried exten­sive anti­com­mu­nist polit­i­cal pro­grams. They were told it was Master’s expressed desire to begin polit­i­cal work in the Unit­ed States. There­after, a member’s objec­tion to polit­i­cal activ­i­ties was con­sid­ered infi­deli­ty to Mas­ter and was like being dis­obe­di­ent to God.”13 In 1971, Moon came to the U.S. after his immi­gra­tion dif­fi­cul­ties were over­come through the inter­ven­tion of Sen­a­tor Strom Thur­mond (Rep.-S.C.), who had spo­ken at Moon’s 1970 WACL con­fer­ence in Tokyo. Based on inter­views with ex-Moonies, Robert Boettch­er, the staff direc­tor of the Fras­er Com­mit­tee, wrote that Moon was “appalled” by Amer­i­can indi­vid­u­al­ism, and he con­sid­ered relo­cat­ing to Ger­many, where peo­ple “were trained in total­ism.” Some for­mer mem­bers recall that Nazi films on orga­niz­ing Hitler Youth were shown as exam­ples to Moonie lead­ers. Noth­ing was more impor­tant than devel­op­ing a cadre of strong lead­ers total­ly sub­servient to his will.”14

Wood has said that “[u]nder the aegis of Amer­i­can Youth for a Just Peace (AYJP)…set up by myself and a man named Charles Stephens, the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church car­ried out exten­sive lob­by­ing in the spring of 1970. This lob­by­ing was car­ried out by church mem­bers under orders from their superiors…to try to indi­cate to Congress…strong grass­roots sup­port for a hard line in Viet­nam.” He also empha­sized that because “the church’s tax exempt sta­tus would be threat­ened if we car­ried out our polit­i­cal activ­i­ties open­ly, we were care­ful to hide our real iden­ti­ty behind the guise of AYJP. Dur­ing this time, AYJP received ‘anony­mous’ dona­tions from ‘friends of the Pres­i­dent’ [Nixon] through con­nec­tions with Charles Col­son and Jeb Magrud­er. So the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church in the 1970s was the recip­i­ent of mon­ey to car­ry out the pro­grams of the gov­ern­ment.”

“Mr. Moon has said,” con­tin­ued Wood, “that ‘God is phas­ing out democ­ra­cy.’ Well, whether or not God is doing it, it is clear that Sun Myung Moon wants to do this… so right now, the Unit­ed States is act­ing as a seedbed for fas­cist reli­gious cults whose objec­tive is in the end to destroy the Con­sti­tu­tion, and remake Amer­i­ca in the image of an auto­crat­ic hier­ar­chi­cal fas­cist state.”15

In 1975, Moon pub­licly denounced WACL as “fas­cist” and pur­port­ed­ly with­drew; how­ev­er, this was most like­ly sim­ply an effort to keep a low­er pro­file. The Wash­ing­ton Post, cov­er­ing the 1978 WACL con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton, report­ed that the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church was absent and no longer involved.16 How­ev­er, a Uni­fi­ca­tion Church min­is­ter hired bus­es for CIA-con­nect­ed Cuban exiles to attend, accord­ing to inter­views with the Cubans by Jeff Stein, writ­ing in New York mag­a­zine.17 It is clear that the Moon orga­ni­za­tion nev­er real­ly left WACL. Osa­mi Kubo­ki has been a mem­ber of the WACL exec­u­tive board for many years, and even host­ed the 1982 WACL con­fer­ence in Japan.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the youth sec­tion of WACL, cur­rent­ly head­ed by David Finzer18 of the Wash­ing­ton-based Con­ser­v­a­tive Action Foun­da­tion, has report­ed­ly received a grant from the South Kore­an WACL chapter.19 Finzer’s group is pro­vid­ing sem­i­nars on “polit­i­cal tech­nol­o­gy” for WACL Youth, and orig­i­nat­ed the Chevron/Gulf boycott—a cam­paign which received sup­port from the RAMBO Coali­tion (see side­bar in “Shep­herd­ing,” in this issue)—designed to high­light the efforts of Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA to over­throw the gov­ern­ment of Ango­la.

“An Auto­mat­ic Theoc­ra­cy”

While WACL gen­er­al­ly pro­motes fas­cist polit­i­cal pro­grams, when the Moon orga­ni­za­tion is involved, the mes­sages released are more explic­it­ly theo­crat­ic. Essen­tial­ly, Moon’s fol­low­ers believe he is the new Mes­si­ah, the sec­ond com­ing, not of Jesus but of the Mes­si­ah. Moon says that God told him: “You are the son I have been seek­ing, the one who can begin my eter­nal history.”20 He says that God has revealed his plan to him and that he has spo­ken with Jesus, Moses, and oth­er great his­tor­i­cal reli­gious fig­ures.

Moon intends to bend the U.S. to “God’s will,” which will lead to a final war with Sovi­et com­mu­nism, and final­ly to the King­dom of Heav­en on Earth. Accord­ing to The Divine Prin­ci­ple, the basic the­o­log­i­cal work of Uni­fi­ca­tion­ism, World War III is “inevitable”. This war may be fought with weapons, or with “ide­ol­o­gy,” in order to “sub­ju­gate and uni­fy the Satan­ic world.” The orga­ni­za­tion cre­at­ed to refine and pro­mote this ide­ol­o­gy appears to be CAUSA (see side­bar) which the Uni­fi­ca­tion News describes as an “ide­o­log­i­cal move­ment,” which “unites all reli­gious peo­ple as a God-accept­ing force against the God-deny­ing forces such as communism.”21

The Divine Prin­ci­ple denounces the tri­par­tite con­sti­tu­tion­al sys­tem of west­ern democ­ra­cies, stat­ing that “Since the Con­sti­tu­tion is not made of God’s words” the three branch­es of gov­ern­ment “can­not help oppos­ing and con­flict­ing with one anoth­er, and lack mutu­al har­mo­ny and order.”

More­over, in 1973, Moon said that “Amer­i­can style democ­ra­cy” is ‘‘a good nurs­ery for the growth of communism.”22 Ten years lat­er he told his annu­al Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence for the Uni­ty of the Sci­ences (ICUS) that ‘‘nei­ther Democ­ra­cy nor Com­mu­nism pro­vides the means to cure the ills of soci­ety…. Not only has Democ­ra­cy been unsuc­cess­ful at this task, but it has proved itself unable to resist and over­come the destruc­tive­ness of Com­mu­nism…. What is need­ed is a third alter­na­tive, a move­ment based on a new under­stand­ing of truth…this is the Uni­fi­ca­tion Move­ment, with Uni­fi­ca­tion ideology.”23

...

Thus the Moon orga­ni­za­tion has been con­sis­tent over the years, from their basic book through the speech­es of the Mas­ter and his most promi­nent dis­ci­ple. One for­mer mem­ber observed that Moon’s teach­ings “were often referred to by oth­er mem­bers as an ‘ide­ol­o­gy’ that would change the polit­i­cal sys­tems of the world. It was made clear to me that so long as the church-relat­ed aspects of the group were empha­sized, Moon’s fol­low­ers would be in a pro­tect­ed posi­tion as far as first amend­ment reli­gious free­dom was con­cerned, and be able to take advan­tage of the tax laws as well.”24

Moon’s theo­crat­ic aspi­ra­tions are well doc­u­ment­ed in a series of speech­es and ser­mons from the 1970s, com­piled under the title Mas­ter Speaks. In 1973, for exam­ple, Moon declared that “[w]hen it comes to our age, we must have an auto­mat­ic theoc­ra­cy to rule the world. So we can­not sep­a­rate the polit­i­cal field from the reli­gious…. Sep­a­ra­tion between reli­gion and pol­i­tics is what Satan likes most.” In Moon’s king­dom, Korea would be the cen­tral nation; the Rome of a new Empire. What is more, “In the ide­al world cen­tered upon God, every­one will speak only Kore­an, so no inter­preter will be necessary.”25

Moon’s reli­gion-is-every­thing ide­ol­o­gy includes the econ­o­my. He says that under his sys­tem, “even in Japan and Ger­many, the peo­ple will not buy prod­ucts from their own coun­try, but will buy accord­ing to cen­tral­ized instruc­tions. What kind of sys­tem of thought or econ­o­my can func­tion to give these cen­tral­ized instruc­tions? Reli­gion is the only sys­tem that can do that.”26

...

“A Move­ment Like Le Pen’s”

Moon’s polit­i­cal oper­a­tions have tak­en many forms. In Brazil, for exam­ple, CAUSA/Brazil has orga­nized a long-term cam­paign to col­lect eight mil­lion sig­na­tures on an “anti­com­mu­nist man­i­festo.” They plan to use these peti­tions to pres­sure the Brazil­ian Congress.28 At stake is the Brazil­ian Con­sti­tu­tion, which is to be draft­ed by the new Con­gress. The head of CAUSA/Brazil says 57 can­di­dates received “logis­ti­cal but not finan­cial sup­port.” He said “we are form­ing the future base for a large par­ty, though at present we are still apo­lit­i­cal” and “we want­ed to form a move­ment like Le Pen’s in France.”29

Le Pen is the leader of the fas­cist Nation­al Front which, accord­ing to the British jour­nal Search­light, has close ties to the Moon orga­ni­za­tion. Search­light report­ed that “accord­ing to Le Pen’s estranged wife, CAUSA is an impor­tant financier of the Nation­al Front.” The head of CAUSA in France was a mem­ber of the French del­e­ga­tion to the 1986 WACL con­fer­ence in Luxembourg.30

...

The Moon orga­ni­za­tion has a long his­to­ry of elec­toral activism. The Fras­er Report not­ed that they, in alliance with “pow­er­ful rightwing fig­ures in Japan, such as Ryoichi Sasakawa,…openly par­tic­i­pat­ed in elec­tion cam­paigns there.”33 Even before Moon came to the U.S., he had high ambi­tions. Allen Tate Wood told the Fras­er com­mit­tee that the Moon orga­ni­za­tion sought to gain enough influ­ence in the U.S. to be able to “dic­tate pol­i­cy on major issues, to influ­ence leg­is­la­tion, and to move into elec­toral politics.”34

After Amer­i­can Youth for a Just Peace was dis­band­ed in 1971, its co-founder Charles Stephens moved to New York, and ran (unsuc­cess­ful­ly), first for the State leg­is­la­ture in 1972, and for Con­gress in 1974. In both cam­paigns, FLF pro­vid­ed “vol­un­teers.” Also in 1974, the Moon orga­ni­za­tion pro­vid­ed con­sid­er­able sup­port for Repub­li­can Louis Wyman in his unsuc­cess­ful bid for the U.S. Sen­ate seat from New Hamp­shire. Wyman report­ed­ly promised to hire a church mem­ber for his staff if he won.35 Venge­ful Moonies con­verged on Min­neso­ta in 1978 in a suc­cess­ful effort to defeat Rep. Don Fras­er, the spon­sor of the con­gres­sion­al inves­tiga­tive report on Kore­a­gate, in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­ate primary.36 Moon called Fraser’s defeat an “act of God.”

The Moon organization’s par­ty of choice has always been the Repub­li­cans, and the New Right of the GOP in par­tic­u­lar. This rela­tion­ship, epit­o­mized by Moon’s VIP seat at the first Rea­gan inau­gur­al, has been denounced repeat­ed­ly by the mod­er­ate Repub­li­can Ripon Soci­ety. Ripon pres­i­dent Rep. Jim Leach (Rep.-Iowa) wrote that the “ties between the New Right and Moon under­cut the New Right’s rai­son d’être. A polit­i­cal move­ment bas­ing its appeal on old-fash­ioned patri­o­tism and fam­i­ly val­ues sim­ply can­not jus­ti­fy alliance with a cult that preys on the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the Amer­i­can fam­i­ly and advo­cates alle­giance to an inter­na­tion­al social order oper­at­ing with cell-like secrecy.”37

The FLF, though appar­ent­ly sup­plant­ed by CAUSA as Moon’s U.S. polit­i­cal arm, is still occa­sion­al­ly active. In May 1984 FLF paid for three Repub­li­can Sen­ate staff mem­bers, rep­re­sent­ing Sen­a­tors Robert Kas­ten (Rep.-Wisc.), Steve Symms (Rep.-Idaho), and William Arm­strong (Rep.-Colo.), to “fly to Cen­tral Amer­i­ca where they met with gov­ern­ment lead­ers and U.S. Embassy offi­cials in Hon­duras and Guatemala and joined the offi­cial U.S. observ­er del­e­ga­tion to the Sal­vado­ran election.”38

Con­vict­ed Felons

In 1984, Moon entered Dan­bury Fed­er­al Prison to serve an 18-month sen­tence for con­spir­a­cy to file false tax returns, to obstruct jus­tice, and to com­mit perjury.39 The Moon orga­ni­za­tion claims that Moon and his co-defen­dant Takeru Kamiya­ma were unfair­ly pros­e­cut­ed due to racial and reli­gious intol­er­ance on the part of the U.S. gov­ern­ment. Remark­ably, the Moon orga­ni­za­tion has used the dis­as­ter of Moon’s impris­on­ment to ben­e­fit its pub­lic image. Across the polit­i­cal spec­trum, many peo­ple offered grudg­ing sup­port for Moon because they believed he was mis­treat­ed by the judi­cial sys­tem. The Moon orga­ni­za­tion has skill­ful­ly exploit­ed these sen­ti­ments, and indeed, had a major role in cre­at­ing them. What began as a cam­paign for “reli­gious free­dom” has become a mul­ti-faceted strat­e­gy to fur­ther the Moon­ist agen­da. In 1984, Bo Hi Pak said that “free­dom of reli­gion has become a major issue in Amer­i­ca, and Rev­erend Moon is the ral­ly­ing point.”40 Echo­ing this theme. New York Uni­fi­ca­tion Church leader Ken Sudo told fel­low Moonie lead­ers in May 1985 that, “Father went to Dan­bury as the leader of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church, but when he comes out, he must be the leader of the Free World.”41

If Moon had only failed to pay income tax on $160,000 he would not ordi­nar­i­ly have been pros­e­cut­ed on crim­i­nal charges. But evi­dence of will­ful vio­la­tion of the law made crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion inevitable. In 1973, tax lawyers and accoun­tants told Moon’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives to keep his per­son­al assets sep­a­rate from those of the Church. Kamiya­ma ignored this advice and pre­pared Moon’s tax­es under Master’s per­son­al super­vi­sion. They forged and back­dat­ed ledgers to hide Moon’s assets with­in the Church’s. The pros­e­cu­tion proved, among oth­er things, that the paper used to fal­si­fy the 1973 records was not even man­u­fac­tured until 1974.42

Moon’s defense on appeal, (known as the “Mes­si­ah defense”) is con­sis­tent with his theo­crat­ic ambi­tions. Moon claimed that some of his fol­low­ers believed he is “poten­tial­ly the new Mes­si­ah,” the “embod­i­ment” of the Church, and thus exempt from per­son­al income tax­es. The court held, how­ev­er, that even Mes­si­ahs are not exempt from tax­es, and have a sta­tus as an indi­vid­ual dis­tinct from the church. Free­dom of reli­gion is “sub­or­di­nate to the crim­i­nal laws of the coun­try.” The court ruled that “To allow oth­er­wise would be to per­mit church lead­ers to stand above the law.”

Moon as Mar­tyr

The Moon-as-mar­tyr cam­paign has been orches­trat­ed by the Moon orga­ni­za­tion, pub­lic rela­tions firms, and grantees. The most promi­nent exam­ple is the Wash­ing­ton-based Coali­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom (CRF) which, accord­ing to CRF pres­i­dent Don Sills, has received at least $500,000 from Moon sources.43 A promi­nent CRF spokesper­son and exec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber is Joseph Paige. As Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of the Black Bap­tist Shaw Divin­i­ty School, Paige received $60,000 from the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church for his school, which in turn gave Moon a much pub­li­cized hon­orary doc­tor­ate. Paige is also active in CAUSA.44

In 1984, the Asso­ci­a­tion of Con­cerned Tax­pay­ers, head­ed by then Rep. George Hansen (Rep.-Idaho), start­ed CRF.45 A CRF fundrais­ing let­ter signed by Hansen declared that “a dead­ly gov­ern­ment assault against reli­gion has erupt­ed in Amer­i­ca [and] pow­er­ful gov­ern­ment forces are mov­ing quick­ly to smash the great con­sti­tu­tion­al guar­an­tees pro­tect­ing the free­dom of reli­gion.” Hansen strong­ly object­ed when the IRS with­drew tax-exempt sta­tus from Bob Jones Uni­ver­si­ty because of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and poli­cies against inter­ra­cial dat­ing. He also con­demned the state of Nebras­ka for arrest­ing fun­da­men­tal­ist Everett Sileven after Sileven refused to allow teach­ers at his pri­vate school to be cer­ti­fied by the state as required by state law.46

The obsta­cle to “reli­gious free­dom” as defined by Moon and much of the Chris­t­ian Right, is “sec­u­lar” gov­ern­ment, which they see as a step­ping stone to “Satan­ic, athe­is­tic, Com­mu­nism.” Bo Hi Pak declared that the world is a bat­tle­ground between “God and no God.”47 CRF claims that the Moon pros­e­cu­tion and the alleged attack on reli­gion by gov­ern­ment “is large­ly the result of the ungod­ly sec­u­lar human­ist phi­los­o­phy that has con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed our schools, the media, and the var­i­ous lev­els of gov­ern­ment.” The 1985 CAUSA Lec­ture Man­u­al stat­ed that “in the Unit­ed States, an inter­me­di­ary stage pri­or to com­mu­nism may be sec­u­lar humanism.”48

The CRF exec­u­tive com­mit­tee has devel­oped rapid­ly since 1984, to include most of the major tel­e­van­ge­lists, such as Tim LaHaye, Jer­ry Fal­well, James Robi­son, Rex Hum­bard, D. James Kennedy, and Jim­my Swag­gart. Recent­ly, the Moon orga­ni­za­tion opened an inter­na­tion­al front in its “reli­gious free­dom” cam­paign. Accord­ing to Moon’s New York City Tri­bune, the World Coun­cil on Reli­gious Lib­er­ty (WCRL) was found­ed in Decem­ber 1986 at a con­fer­ence in Gene­va, Switzer­land. The Chair­man of WRCL is Joseph Paige, and its “Chair­man of the North Amer­i­can Cau­cus” is Don Sills. They have recruit­ed Dr. Robert G. Muller, assis­tant Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed Nations, as chair­man of the Council’s Inter­na­tion­al Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee. The Council’s head­quar­ters are in Raleigh, North Car­oli­na, which is also home to Paige’s Shaw Divin­i­ty School.49

Gray Areas

While “Father” Moon served time, his fol­low­ers orga­nized an elab­o­rate pub­lic rela­tions cam­paign which includ­ed the reli­gious free­dom cam­paign, efforts to get Supreme Court review of the Moon case, and final­ly a cam­paign to get Moon par­doned. The Moon orga­ni­za­tion hired, among oth­ers, the pub­lic rela­tions firm of Gray and Co., head­ed by Robert Kei­th Gray, a for­mer Rea­gan cam­paign offi­cial. In ear­ly 1984, accord­ing to sources famil­iar with the inci­dent, Gray and Co. direc­tor Robert B. Ander­son solicit­ed the sig­na­ture of promi­nent Wash­ing­ton Rab­bi Joshua Haber­man for Hansen’s reli­gious free­dom peti­tion to Pres­i­dent Rea­gan. The peti­tion was gen­er­al in nature, but was then used in CRF’s direct mail blitz. Haber­man with­drew, say­ing he had been deceived and that his name was being used to advance caus­es which he did not sup­port.

Robert Ander­son, a for­mer Trea­sury Sec­re­tary in the Eisen­how­er admin­is­tra­tion, was already involved with the Moon orga­ni­za­tion at the time. He spoke at the found­ing con­fer­ence of CAUSA North Amer­i­ca in Mon­tego Bay, Jamaica in 1983. He also head­ed a Moon-fund­ed front known as the Glob­al Eco­nom­ic Action Insti­tute from 1983 to 1986. He was suc­ceed­ed in this post by for­mer Sen­a­tor Eugene McCarthy.

Gray, who co-chaired the 1981 Rea­gan Inau­gur­al Com­mit­tee, was the first Pres­i­dent of the George­town Club, an elite social club financed by his friend, KCIA oper­a­tive Tong­sun Park (see side­bar). Accord­ing to a for­mer KCIA direc­tor, the George­town Club was a KCIA front used by Park to facil­i­tate “lob­by­ing activ­i­ties” in the 1970s.50 For at least the past few years, Gray and Co. has been reg­is­tered as a for­eign agent for Japan and South Korea.

The par­don cam­paign failed. How­ev­er, four months after his release from prison, Moon vis­it­ed Korea where, in the Olympic sta­di­um, a ral­ly of about 30,000 peo­ple was host­ed by his orig­i­nal polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion (still a part of WACL), the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion for Vic­to­ry over Com­mu­nism (IFVC). Accord­ing to the Lon­don Times, no senior Kore­an gov­ern­ment offi­cials were present. How­ev­er, Osa­mi Kubo­ki read a mes­sage of sup­port from Japan­ese Prime Min­is­ter Naka­sone. Kubo­ki said both Naka­sone and for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Kishi had “inter­ced­ed on Moon’s behalf with Pres­i­dent Rea­gan.” Accord­ing to the Times of Lon­don, Naka­sone “tele­phoned the Pres­i­dent because of Mr. Moon’s sta­tus as an inter­na­tion­al leader, while Mr. Kishi, a sup­port­er of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church in Japan, had writ­ten to the Pres­i­dent three times.”51

Kishi, who was a WACL leader in the late 1960s, is also involved with CAUSA’s Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil (ISC). ISC’s pur­pose includes orga­niz­ing retired mil­i­tary offi­cers of the West­ern Alliance, and hold­ing anti­com­mu­nist con­fer­ences. Kishi also co-chaired Moon’s 1984 World Media Con­fer­ence in Tokyo.

Kishi’s involve­ment under­scores the impor­tance of Japan to the Moon orga­ni­za­tion. Despite its Kore­an roots and the his­tor­i­cal ani­mos­i­ty between Korea and Japan, the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church has had a lim­it­ed pop­u­lar fol­low­ing in Korea and very large sup­port in Japan. Indeed, its pre­dom­i­nant source of fund­ing has been Japan. The Wash­ing­ton Post, quot­ing a for­mer rank­ing Japan­ese Moon offi­cial, report­ed that some $800 mil­lion had flowed from Japan to the U.S. Uni­fi­ca­tion Church over the pre­ced­ing nine years (1975–1984).52 Where the mon­ey went is a mat­ter of intense spec­u­la­tion. Some was invest­ed in busi­ness­es and real estate. Hun­dreds of mil­lions have by now spent on Moon’s major pub­li­ca­tions, notably the Wash­ing­ton Times, the New York City Tri­bune, and the newsweek­ly Insight mag­a­zine. But clear­ly too, Moon mon­ey has been invest­ed in domes­tic Amer­i­can pol­i­tics; and the funds doc­u­ment­ed here are but the tip of the ice­berg. (See side­bar.)

Inside the New Right

Part of Moon’s U.S. strat­e­gy has been to seek alliances with the reli­gious Right. How­ev­er, the rela­tion­ship has been high­ly con­tro­ver­sial with­in the move­ment. While Moon mon­ey is wide­ly rumored to be a major finan­cial under­pin­ning of the New Right, it is often kept secret because so many con­ser­v­a­tives find the Moon orga­ni­za­tion repug­nant.

Jer­ry Fal­well of the Moral Major­i­ty, and one of the founders and exec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers of the Coali­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom, dropped his sup­port for Moon in ear­ly 1984. His spokesper­son, Ron God­win, denounced as “pecu­liar” those who take mon­ey from a church whose “founder believes he’s divine…. They’re tak­ing mon­ey from a cult whose doc­trines are 180 degrees opposed. It’s a lit­tle like the Jew­ish Nation­al Fund accept­ing mon­ey from Arafat.”53

But by August 1985, Fal­well had cut short a tour of South Africa to appear at a press con­fer­ence at Moon’s God and Free­dom Ban­quet. Both events were orga­nized by CRF. God­win lat­er became the busi­ness man­ag­er of Insight.

In a let­ter to Bo Hi Pak, taped onto a cas­sette by Rev. Tim LaHaye of the Amer­i­can Coali­tion for Tra­di­tion­al Val­ues (ACTV is a polit­i­cal coali­tion of tel­e­van­ge­lists), LaHaye thanked Pak for pro­vid­ing “time­ly” and “gen­er­ous help” in con­nec­tion with an “extreme­ly expen­sive” move of ACTV’s head­quar­ters from Cal­i­for­nia to Wash­ing­ton, DC.54 Like Fal­well, LaHaye was one of the founders and exec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers of CRF. LaHaye lat­er denied receiv­ing mon­ey from the Moon orga­ni­za­tion.

Whose Voice Is Chris­t­ian Voice?

The rightwing Chris­t­ian Voice claims 350,000 mem­bers, includ­ing 40,000 min­is­ters who become mem­bers by virtue of hav­ing respond­ed to direct mail fund­ing appeals. The orga­ni­za­tion, which employs 17 field orga­niz­ers, stepped into the void left by the depar­ture of the Moral Major­i­ty and ACTV from sig­nif­i­cant polit­i­cal activ­i­ty. How­ev­er, they may have over­stepped their posi­tion.

Chris­t­ian Voice has come under fire recent­ly for mis­rep­re­sent­ing itself, and for its ties to the Moon orga­ni­za­tion. Its claim to rep­re­sent 45 mil­lion Chris­t­ian evan­gel­i­cals has been chal­lenged, notably by Robert P. Dugan of the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Evan­gel­i­cals. He told Chris­tian­i­ty Today mag­a­zine that Chris­t­ian Voice is “not con­struct­ed to be a rep­re­sen­ta­tive orga­ni­za­tion and its polit­i­cal posi­tions may well be deter­mined by a hand­ful of activists meet­ing over lunch. They are account­able to no one but them­selves.” New Right leader Paul Weyrich char­ac­ter­ized Chris­t­ian Voice as “con­ser­v­a­tive first and Chris­t­ian inci­den­tal­ly, as opposed to oth­er groups that are Chris­t­ian first, and con­ser­v­a­tive inci­den­tal­ly.”55

The rela­tion­ship between Chris­t­ian Voice and the Moon orga­ni­za­tion has plagued them for some time. At the cen­ter of this con­tro­ver­sy is lob­by­ist Gary Jarmin, a Moonie from 1967–1973 who was active in Moon’s Free­dom Lead­er­ship Foun­da­tion and who many sus­pect may be a Moon agent in the New Right. A May 1981 arti­cle in Moth­er Jones raised this ques­tion. Jarmin, who was the leg­isla­tive direc­tor of Chris­t­ian Voice at the time, insist­ed, ‘Tm no longer affil­i­at­ed with the church; I’m not a mem­ber of it and I don’t con­sult with their peo­ple. This orga­ni­za­tion, [Chris­t­ian Voice] is run by a board of direc­tors for whom I work, which is not in any way affil­i­at­ed with or con­trolled by the church. I think my actions speak loud­er than my words.”56 Nev­er­the­less, by Feb­ru­ary 1983 Jarmin had helped orga­nize the first CAUSA North Amer­i­ca con­fer­ence, held in Jamaica. Also in atten­dance were Chris­t­ian Voice chair­man Robert Grant and Advi­so­ry Board mem­bers W. Steuart McBir­ney and Ray Allen, and polit­i­cal strate­gist Colonel V. Don­er.

The rela­tion­ships go even deep­er. The three-mem­ber board of Chris­t­ian Voice’s polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee is chaired by Jarmin, and includes Rev. Don Sills of the Moon-fund­ed Coali­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom. In August of 1985, Jarmin helped orga­nize CRF’s God and Free­dom Ban­quet held in cel­e­bra­tion of Moon’s release from jail. He also led leg­isla­tive work­shops at secre­tive CAUSA indoc­tri­na­tion ses­sions for Amer­i­can state leg­is­la­tors dur­ing 1986. These events drew about 100 con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors from both par­ties to all-expense-paid jun­kets, osten­si­bly to dis­cuss the Con­sti­tu­tion. A more elite ver­sion of these meet­ings is the CAUSA-spon­sored Amer­i­can Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence, where Jarmin has also spo­ken. Jarmin has been joined at oth­er CAUSA events by Robert Grant, who addressed the 1985 CAUSA Nation­al Con­fer­ence in San Fran­cis­co. Grant cur­rent­ly chairs the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the Coali­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom.

Although CRF declares its inde­pen­dence from the Moon orga­ni­za­tion (despite the Moon fund­ing), the cur­rent exec­u­tive direc­tor of CRF is Dan Hold­grei­we, a long­time Moon oper­a­tive who worked for Moon’s Free­dom Lead­er­ship Foun­da­tion from the late 1970s to the ear­ly 1980s.57

The Moon rela­tion­ship with Chris­t­ian Voice sur­faced as a last-minute issue in the 1986 Col­orado Sen­ate race between Rep. Ken Kramer (Rep.) and Rep. Tim Wirth (Dem.). Kramer, who is a mem­ber of the Chris­t­ian Voice Con­gres­sion­al Advi­so­ry Board, claimed not to know of the Moon con­nec­tion. He told the Den­ver Post, “I’m not a Moonie,”58 and assert­ed to the Rocky Moun­tain News that the Moon con­nec­tion, if proven, would “be a mat­ter of great con­cern to me, and I would have to take a new look at the sit­u­a­tion…. I do not sup­port the Moonies in any way.”59 Nev­er­the­less, Wirth won the race.

CAUSA and the Catholic Church

While best known for its grow­ing rela­tion­ship with Protes­tant fun­da­men­tal­ism, the Moon orga­ni­za­tion has active­ly sought close links with the Catholic Church, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Latin America.60 Their suc­cess has been decid­ed­ly mixed. The Bish­ops of Hon­duras, El Sal­vador, Pana­ma, and Japan have all denounced the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church in pas­toral let­ters. While this has put a crimp in their oper­a­tions, Moon­ism is not with­out allies. The Arch­bish­op of La Pla­ta, Argenti­na, spon­sored the first CAUSA sem­i­nar in that coun­try, and lat­er award­ed an hon­orary doc­tor­ate to Moon from the Catholic Uni­ver­si­ty, while he was in jail.

Accord­ing to an inter­nal strat­e­gy doc­u­ment dat­ed Jan­u­ary 1985, CAUSA views its rela­tion­ship with the Catholic Church as “extreme­ly impor­tant…. One [pas­toral] let­ter of the Bish­ops in any coun­try will con­sid­er­ably dam­age our activ­i­ties. If it hap­pens in a Third World coun­try, all the faith­ful Catholics will go away, leav­ing us with ‘non-faith­ful’ ones, mak­ing our sit­u­a­tion even more miserable.”61

Indeed, the Hon­duran Bish­ops denounced CAUSA as “anti-Chris­t­ian” and declared that the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church “cre­ates a species of mate­r­i­al and spir­i­tu­al slav­ery” that pos­es “seri­ous dan­gers to the psy­cho­log­i­cal, reli­gious, and civic integri­ty of any­one who yields to its influence.”62 The Japan­ese Bish­ops, not­ing major the­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences with the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church, also “dis­cour­age all Catholics from any col­lab­o­ra­tion with it. While the Holy See is con­trary to any par­tic­i­pa­tion by the faith­ful, it is even more opposed to what­so­ev­er [sic] atten­dance and col­lab­o­ra­tion on the part of Catholic priests.”63

The prin­ci­pal Moon advo­cate with­in the Church appears to be Father Sebas­t­ian Matczak, a Pol­ish priest who has spo­ken fre­quent­ly at CAUSA con­fer­ences, and who teach­es phi­los­o­phy at the Uni­fi­ca­tion Sem­i­nary in Bar­ry­town, New York. The CAUSA paper notes that “Dr. Matczak, in his lat­est vis­it to Rome the past Jan­u­ary [1984] could ver­i­fy that the bad rep­u­ta­tion of our move­ment is main­ly com­ing from Latin Amer­i­ca, while there they say that offi­cial doc­u­ments from the Vat­i­can pre­vent them from any rela­tion with us.”64

Despite seri­ous obsta­cles to Moon­ist advances on the Catholic Church, the orga­ni­za­tion claims that CAUSA has a “strong con­nect­ing point” with the Church in most Latin coun­tries. The inter­nal report notes, how­ev­er, that the strat­e­gy of seek­ing rela­tion­ships with the hier­ar­chy, and invit­ing priests to CAUSA con­fer­ences, has gen­er­al­ly failed. As a result, “it seems that we have to open two fronts, one in Rome, one in Latin Amer­i­ca.” The lat­ter option empha­sized secret and high­ly selec­tive CAUSA con­fer­ences with priests as a way to build a core of sup­port­ers, whose favor­able reports would per­co­late up to the Vat­i­can. Dr. Matczak report­ed­ly “finds this strategy…the only way and an absolute neces­si­ty.” The twin goals of this plan were to “STOP THE NEGATIVITY FROM WITHIN” (the Catholic Church) and to “Declare war to the Lib­er­a­tion theology.”65

It is pos­si­ble that the Rome option is still viable. A new Moon unit called AULA (Asso­ci­a­tion for the Uni­fi­ca­tion of Latin Amer­i­ca) was formed in Rome in Decem­ber 1984.66 AULA’s sec­ond annu­al con­fer­ence, in Decem­ber 1985 in Rome, was attend­ed by a dozen for­mer pres­i­dents of Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries and was received by the Pope. The Moon orga­ni­za­tion is skilled at using the pres­tige of out-of-pow­er politi­cians. Two weeks lat­er three for­mer pres­i­dents of Colom­bia, and two of Cos­ta Rica rep­re­sent­ed AULA at Moon’s wel­come home ral­ly in Seoul, South Korea.67

Accord­ing to Uni­fi­ca­tion News, AULA is draft­ing a pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion for a “Unit­ed States of Latin America.”68 AULA’s con­sti­tu­tion­al spe­cial­ist is Cleon Skousen, head of the Nation­al Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Stud­ies, who worked close­ly with CAUSA in 1986, orga­niz­ing con­fer­ences of con­ser­v­a­tive U.S. state leg­is­la­tors. Accord­ing to Church and State mag­a­zine, Skousen is not only far-right but “believes Amer­i­ca is a ful­fill­ment of Mor­mon proph­esy regard­ing the pre-mil­len­ni­al prepa­ra­tion of the Earth.”69

Pri­or to becom­ing the cur­rent “prophet” of the Mor­mon church, Ezra Taft Ben­son endorsed Skousen’s work as hav­ing “the Lord’s approval” and appeared at many Skousen events. Benson’s son Mark, is on Skousen’s board of direc­tors. Skousen is the most vis­i­ble link in an appar­ent Moon/Mormon alliance. Anoth­er impor­tant link is U.S. Sen­a­tor Orrin Hatch (Rep.-Utah), who is a Mor­mon Bish­op and has spo­ken at sev­er­al CAUSA/Skousen con­fer­ences in the past year which have had a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of Mor­mon politi­cians from Utah and Ida­ho in atten­dance.

...

————

“Moon’s Law: God Is Phas­ing Out Democ­ra­cy” by Fred Clark­son; Covert Action Infor­ma­tion Bul­letin; No 27, Spring 1987

“Accord­ing to the Fras­er Report, polit­i­cal oper­a­tions in the U.S. were at first opposed by reli­gious “purists” in the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church. How­ev­er it was “point­ed out to them that the Church in Japan and Korea car­ried exten­sive anti­com­mu­nist polit­i­cal pro­grams. They were told it was Master’s expressed desire to begin polit­i­cal work in the Unit­ed States. There­after, a member’s objec­tion to polit­i­cal activ­i­ties was con­sid­ered infi­deli­ty to Mas­ter and was like being dis­obe­di­ent to God.”13 In 1971, Moon came to the U.S. after his immi­gra­tion dif­fi­cul­ties were over­come through the inter­ven­tion of Sen­a­tor Strom Thur­mond (Rep.-S.C.), who had spo­ken at Moon’s 1970 WACL con­fer­ence in Tokyo. Based on inter­views with ex-Moonies, Robert Boettch­er, the staff direc­tor of the Fras­er Com­mit­tee, wrote that Moon was “appalled” by Amer­i­can indi­vid­u­al­ism, and he con­sid­ered relo­cat­ing to Ger­many, where peo­ple “were trained in total­ism.” Some for­mer mem­bers recall that Nazi films on orga­niz­ing Hitler Youth were shown as exam­ples to Moonie lead­ers. Noth­ing was more impor­tant than devel­op­ing a cadre of strong lead­ers total­ly sub­servient to his will.”14″

Rev­erend Moon final­ly arrived in the US in 1971, thanks to the inter­ven­tion Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Strom Thur­mond. Five years after the found­ing of the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League and three years after Moon’s Shokyo Ren­go orga­ni­za­tion was made a WACL chap­ter. And while Moon’s plans for the US had a large ‘anti-Com­mu­nist’ com­po­nent, it went much fur­ther. In a theo­crat­ic direc­tion. Accord­ing to The Divine Prin­ci­ple — the basic the­o­log­i­cal work of Uni­fi­ca­tion­ism — “Since the Con­sti­tu­tion is not made of God’s words,” the US’s sys­tem of sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, “can­not help oppos­ing and con­flict­ing with one anoth­er, and lack mutu­al har­mo­ny and order”:

...
The World Anti-Com­mu­nist League (WACL) is an inter­na­tion­al coali­tion of fas­cist and con­ser­v­a­tive groups and polit­i­cal par­ties found­ed in 1966 by agents of the gov­ern­ments of Tai­wan and South Korea.4 One of the orig­i­nal groups was the Asian People’s Anti-Com­mu­nist League (APACL). Its Japan­ese affil­i­ate, Shokyo Ren­go, became a WACL chap­ter in 1968. Shokyo Ren­go (Vic­to­ry Over Com­mu­nism) began after a 1967 meet­ing between Sun Myung Moon, Ryoichi Sasakawa, Yoshio Kodama, and two of his lieu­tenants. Kodama was the head of Japan­ese orga­nized crime, the Yakuza. One of [Moon’s] lieu­tenants, Osa­mi Kubo­ki, became head of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church in Japan, as well as a leader in WACL. Soon after­ward, WACL began indoc­tri­nat­ing young Yakuza gang mem­bers in anti­com­mu­nist ide­ol­o­gy sim­i­lar to what the Moon orga­ni­za­tion was already doing in Korea with gov­ern­ment offi­cials. Sasakawa, an impor­tant World War II Japan­ese fas­cist leader, became the head of Shokyo Ren­go, and Kodama its chief advi­sor.

Sasakawa’s rela­tion­ship to the Moon orga­ni­za­tion, which dates back to 1958, con­tin­ues to this day, includ­ing ongo­ing financ­ing of both the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church and Shokyo Ren­go, which is con­trolled by the Church.

Sasakawa, Kodama, and oth­er impor­tant “Class A” war crim­i­nals were mys­te­ri­ous­ly released from Sug­amo prison only a year and a half after World War II. They went on to found the rul­ing Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and have played promi­nent roles since. One fel­low inmate, Nobusuke Kishi, became a prime min­is­ter. In 1959, Kishi helped estab­lish a qua­si-gov­em­men­tal, boat-rac­ing/gam­bling fran­chise, which he gave to Sasakawa, who grew fan­tas­ti­cal­ly rich from the pro­ceeds. Kishi was also the prime mover in estab­lish­ing APACL in Japan and remained active in WACL through­out the 1960s, serv­ing as chair­man of the plan­ning com­mit­tee in 1970.

Sasakawa was described by U.S. Army intel­li­gence as “one of the most active fas­cist orga­niz­ers pri­or to the war.” In the 1930s both Sasakawa and Kodama were jailed: Sasakawa for plot­ting the mur­der of a for­mer pre­mier, and Kodama for plot­ting the mur­der of a prime min­is­ter. Kodama was a noto­ri­ous war prof­i­teer and Japan­ese intel­li­gence agent in Chi­na. “His long and fanat­ic involve­ment in ultra-nation­al­ist activ­i­ties, vio­lence includ­ed, and his skill in appeal­ing to youth make him a man who, if released from intern­ment, would sure­ly be a grave secu­ri­ty risk.”5

...

In 1975, Moon pub­licly denounced WACL as “fas­cist” and pur­port­ed­ly with­drew; how­ev­er, this was most like­ly sim­ply an effort to keep a low­er pro­file. The Wash­ing­ton Post, cov­er­ing the 1978 WACL con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton, report­ed that the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church was absent and no longer involved.16 How­ev­er, a Uni­fi­ca­tion Church min­is­ter hired bus­es for CIA-con­nect­ed Cuban exiles to attend, accord­ing to inter­views with the Cubans by Jeff Stein, writ­ing in New York mag­a­zine.17 It is clear that the Moon orga­ni­za­tion nev­er real­ly left WACL. Osa­mi Kubo­ki has been a mem­ber of the WACL exec­u­tive board for many years, and even host­ed the 1982 WACL con­fer­ence in Japan.

...

While WACL gen­er­al­ly pro­motes fas­cist polit­i­cal pro­grams, when the Moon orga­ni­za­tion is involved, the mes­sages released are more explic­it­ly theo­crat­ic. Essen­tial­ly, Moon’s fol­low­ers believe he is the new Mes­si­ah, the sec­ond com­ing, not of Jesus but of the Mes­si­ah. Moon says that God told him: “You are the son I have been seek­ing, the one who can begin my eter­nal history.”20 He says that God has revealed his plan to him and that he has spo­ken with Jesus, Moses, and oth­er great his­tor­i­cal reli­gious fig­ures.

Moon intends to bend the U.S. to “God’s will,” which will lead to a final war with Sovi­et com­mu­nism, and final­ly to the King­dom of Heav­en on Earth. Accord­ing to The Divine Prin­ci­ple, the basic the­o­log­i­cal work of Uni­fi­ca­tion­ism, World War III is “inevitable”. This war may be fought with weapons, or with “ide­ol­o­gy,” in order to “sub­ju­gate and uni­fy the Satan­ic world.” The orga­ni­za­tion cre­at­ed to refine and pro­mote this ide­ol­o­gy appears to be CAUSA (see side­bar) which the Uni­fi­ca­tion News describes as an “ide­o­log­i­cal move­ment,” which “unites all reli­gious peo­ple as a God-accept­ing force against the God-deny­ing forces such as communism.”21

The Divine Prin­ci­ple denounces the tri­par­tite con­sti­tu­tion­al sys­tem of west­ern democ­ra­cies, stat­ing that “Since the Con­sti­tu­tion is not made of God’s words” the three branch­es of gov­ern­ment “can­not help oppos­ing and con­flict­ing with one anoth­er, and lack mutu­al har­mo­ny and order.”

More­over, in 1973, Moon said that “Amer­i­can style democ­ra­cy” is ‘‘a good nurs­ery for the growth of communism.”22 Ten years lat­er he told his annu­al Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence for the Uni­ty of the Sci­ences (ICUS) that ‘‘nei­ther Democ­ra­cy nor Com­mu­nism pro­vides the means to cure the ills of soci­ety…. Not only has Democ­ra­cy been unsuc­cess­ful at this task, but it has proved itself unable to resist and over­come the destruc­tive­ness of Com­mu­nism…. What is need­ed is a third alter­na­tive, a move­ment based on a new under­stand­ing of truth…this is the Uni­fi­ca­tion Move­ment, with Uni­fi­ca­tion ideology.”23
...

But Moon’s orga­niz­ing in the US did­n’t start with his arrival in 1971. The Amer­i­can affil­i­ate of Shokyo Ren­go, the Free­dom Lead­er­ship Foun­da­tion, was incor­po­rat­ed in 1969 in Wash­ing­ton DC, with the mis­sion of win­ning the “pow­er cen­ters” and guid­ed by the advice from Moon, “part of our strat­e­gy in the U.S. must be to make friends in the FBI, the CIA and police forces, the mil­i­tary and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty… as a means of enter­ing the polit­i­cal are­na, influ­enc­ing for­eign pol­i­cy, and ulti­mate­ly of estab­lish­ing absolute domin­ion over the Amer­i­can peo­ple”. Absolute domin­ion is a com­mon theme in this milieu:

...
The Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion for Vic­to­ry Over Com­mu­nism (IFVC) was formed in 1968 in Seoul. This was Moon’s prin­ci­pal polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion. Shokyo Ren­go, the Japan­ese affil­i­ate, was also formed in 1968. The Amer­i­can affil­i­ate was incor­po­rat­ed in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. in 1969 as the Free­dom Lead­er­ship Foun­da­tion (FLF). Shokyo Ren­go host­ed the 1970 WACL Con­fer­ence in Tokyo, for which Moon claimed to have raised $1.4 million.10 FLF Pres­i­dent Allen Tate Wood attend­ed as a “youth del­e­gate” with sev­er­al Amer­i­can Moonies. He lat­er broke with Moon, gave press con­fer­ences denounc­ing Moon, and tes­ti­fied before the Fras­er Com­mit­tee. While vis­it­ing Korea on the same trip, Wood was instruct­ed by Moon to “win the pow­er cen­ters” of the U.S. for him, begin­ning with academia.11 Moon also told him that “part of our strat­e­gy in the U.S. must be to make friends in the FBI, the CIA and police forces, the mil­i­tary and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty… as a means of enter­ing the polit­i­cal are­na, influ­enc­ing for­eign pol­i­cy, and ulti­mate­ly of estab­lish­ing absolute domin­ion over the Amer­i­can peo­ple.”12

...

The Moon orga­ni­za­tion has a long his­to­ry of elec­toral activism. The Fras­er Report not­ed that they, in alliance with “pow­er­ful rightwing fig­ures in Japan, such as Ryoichi Sasakawa,…openly par­tic­i­pat­ed in elec­tion cam­paigns there.”33 Even before Moon came to the U.S., he had high ambi­tions. Allen Tate Wood told the Fras­er com­mit­tee that the Moon orga­ni­za­tion sought to gain enough influ­ence in the U.S. to be able to “dic­tate pol­i­cy on major issues, to influ­ence leg­is­la­tion, and to move into elec­toral politics.”34

After Amer­i­can Youth for a Just Peace was dis­band­ed in 1971, its co-founder Charles Stephens moved to New York, and ran (unsuc­cess­ful­ly), first for the State leg­is­la­ture in 1972, and for Con­gress in 1974. In both cam­paigns, FLF pro­vid­ed “vol­un­teers.” Also in 1974, the Moon orga­ni­za­tion pro­vid­ed con­sid­er­able sup­port for Repub­li­can Louis Wyman in his unsuc­cess­ful bid for the U.S. Sen­ate seat from New Hamp­shire. Wyman report­ed­ly promised to hire a church mem­ber for his staff if he won.35 Venge­ful Moonies con­verged on Min­neso­ta in 1978 in a suc­cess­ful effort to defeat Rep. Don Fras­er, the spon­sor of the con­gres­sion­al inves­tiga­tive report on Kore­a­gate, in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­ate primary.36 Moon called Fraser’s defeat an “act of God.”

The Moon organization’s par­ty of choice has always been the Repub­li­cans, and the New Right of the GOP in par­tic­u­lar. This rela­tion­ship, epit­o­mized by Moon’s VIP seat at the first Rea­gan inau­gur­al, has been denounced repeat­ed­ly by the mod­er­ate Repub­li­can Ripon Soci­ety. Ripon pres­i­dent Rep. Jim Leach (Rep.-Iowa) wrote that the “ties between the New Right and Moon under­cut the New Right’s rai­son d’être. A polit­i­cal move­ment bas­ing its appeal on old-fash­ioned patri­o­tism and fam­i­ly val­ues sim­ply can­not jus­ti­fy alliance with a cult that preys on the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the Amer­i­can fam­i­ly and advo­cates alle­giance to an inter­na­tion­al social order oper­at­ing with cell-like secrecy.”37

The FLF, though appar­ent­ly sup­plant­ed by CAUSA as Moon’s U.S. polit­i­cal arm, is still occa­sion­al­ly active. In May 1984 FLF paid for three Repub­li­can Sen­ate staff mem­bers, rep­re­sent­ing Sen­a­tors Robert Kas­ten (Rep.-Wisc.), Steve Symms (Rep.-Idaho), and William Arm­strong (Rep.-Colo.), to “fly to Cen­tral Amer­i­ca where they met with gov­ern­ment lead­ers and U.S. Embassy offi­cials in Hon­duras and Guatemala and joined the offi­cial U.S. observ­er del­e­ga­tion to the Sal­vado­ran election.”38
...

But by 1984, Moon’s US activ­i­ties man­aged to land him an 18-month prison sen­tence over tax fraud. Some­how, Moon’s defense team did­n’t find suc­cess with their “Mes­si­ah defense”:

...
In 1984, Moon entered Dan­bury Fed­er­al Prison to serve an 18-month sen­tence for con­spir­a­cy to file false tax returns, to obstruct jus­tice, and to com­mit perjury.39 The Moon orga­ni­za­tion claims that Moon and his co-defen­dant Takeru Kamiya­ma were unfair­ly pros­e­cut­ed due to racial and reli­gious intol­er­ance on the part of the U.S. gov­ern­ment. Remark­ably, the Moon orga­ni­za­tion has used the dis­as­ter of Moon’s impris­on­ment to ben­e­fit its pub­lic image. Across the polit­i­cal spec­trum, many peo­ple offered grudg­ing sup­port for Moon because they believed he was mis­treat­ed by the judi­cial sys­tem. The Moon orga­ni­za­tion has skill­ful­ly exploit­ed these sen­ti­ments, and indeed, had a major role in cre­at­ing them. What began as a cam­paign for “reli­gious free­dom” has become a mul­ti-faceted strat­e­gy to fur­ther the Moon­ist agen­da. In 1984, Bo Hi Pak said that “free­dom of reli­gion has become a major issue in Amer­i­ca, and Rev­erend Moon is the ral­ly­ing point.”40 Echo­ing this theme. New York Uni­fi­ca­tion Church leader Ken Sudo told fel­low Moonie lead­ers in May 1985 that, “Father went to Dan­bury as the leader of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church, but when he comes out, he must be the leader of the Free World.”41

If Moon had only failed to pay income tax on $160,000 he would not ordi­nar­i­ly have been pros­e­cut­ed on crim­i­nal charges. But evi­dence of will­ful vio­la­tion of the law made crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion inevitable. In 1973, tax lawyers and accoun­tants told Moon’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives to keep his per­son­al assets sep­a­rate from those of the Church. Kamiya­ma ignored this advice and pre­pared Moon’s tax­es under Master’s per­son­al super­vi­sion. They forged and back­dat­ed ledgers to hide Moon’s assets with­in the Church’s. The pros­e­cu­tion proved, among oth­er things, that the paper used to fal­si­fy the 1973 records was not even man­u­fac­tured until 1974.42

Moon’s defense on appeal, (known as the “Mes­si­ah defense”) is con­sis­tent with his theo­crat­ic ambi­tions. Moon claimed that some of his fol­low­ers believed he is “poten­tial­ly the new Mes­si­ah,” the “embod­i­ment” of the Church, and thus exempt from per­son­al income tax­es. The court held, how­ev­er, that even Mes­si­ahs are not exempt from tax­es, and have a sta­tus as an indi­vid­ual dis­tinct from the church. Free­dom of reli­gion is “sub­or­di­nate to the crim­i­nal laws of the coun­try.” The court ruled that “To allow oth­er­wise would be to per­mit church lead­ers to stand above the law.”
...

And it was dur­ing Moon’s prison sen­tence when we got to see the fruits of Moon’s years of cul­ti­vat­ing influ­ence inside US cen­ters of pow­er. In par­tic­u­lar, theo­crat­ic cen­ters of pow­er, with the DC-based Coali­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom (CRF) play­ing a lead­ing role. Only formed in 1984 itself, the CRF was an off­shoot of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Con­cerned Tax­pay­ers, head­ed by Repub­li­can rep­re­sen­ta­tive George Hansen. But Moon’s legal plight was­n’t the CRF’s only ral­ly­ing cry. Hansen was also out­raged over loss of tax-exempt sta­tus by Bob Jones Uni­ver­si­ty over its racial dis­crim­i­na­tion poli­cies. And yes, as we should expect, Bob Jones III is a CNP mem­ber. But the CRF was­n’t just Hansen’s pet project. Its board host­ed most of major tel­e­van­ge­lists at the time, includ­ing Tim LaHaye, Jer­ry Fal­well, James Robi­son, Rex Hum­bard, D. James Kennedy, and Jim­my Swag­gart. As we saw, it was James Robi­son who played a key role in 1979 bring­ing togeth­er the group of evan­gel­i­cal domin­ion­ists who ral­lied behind Ronald Rea­gan’s cam­paign the fol­low­ing year. Includ­ing Tim LaHaye, one went on to become one of the CNP’s found­ing mem­bers in 1981 and group’s first pres­i­dent. Also note that, not only do Fal­well and Dr. D. James Kennedy also show up on the CNP list, but so does William T. Allen (Chair­man of the Board, D. James Kennedy Min­istries) and Dr. Frank Wright (Pres­i­dent & CEO, D. James Kennedy Min­istries). In oth­er words, CRF board is stacked with CNP heavy­weights. So when we find how, not only did the CRF jump to Moon’s defense, but that CRF pres­i­dent Don Sills was tak­ing large dona­tions from Moon sources and promi­nent CRF spokesper­son and exec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber Joseph Paige was active in CAUSA, it’s pret­ty unam­bigu­ous that the CRF viewed Moon as an impor­tant ally. And why not? This is a net­work of theocrats with a shared goal:

...
Moon as Mar­tyr

The Moon-as-mar­tyr cam­paign has been orches­trat­ed by the Moon orga­ni­za­tion, pub­lic rela­tions firms, and grantees. The most promi­nent exam­ple is the Wash­ing­ton-based Coali­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom (CRF) which, accord­ing to CRF pres­i­dent Don Sills, has received at least $500,000 from Moon sources.43 A promi­nent CRF spokesper­son and exec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber is Joseph Paige. As Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of the Black Bap­tist Shaw Divin­i­ty School, Paige received $60,000 from the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church for his school, which in turn gave Moon a much pub­li­cized hon­orary doc­tor­ate. Paige is also active in CAUSA.44

In 1984, the Asso­ci­a­tion of Con­cerned Tax­pay­ers, head­ed by then Rep. George Hansen (Rep.-Idaho), start­ed CRF.45 A CRF fundrais­ing let­ter signed by Hansen declared that “a dead­ly gov­ern­ment assault against reli­gion has erupt­ed in Amer­i­ca [and] pow­er­ful gov­ern­ment forces are mov­ing quick­ly to smash the great con­sti­tu­tion­al guar­an­tees pro­tect­ing the free­dom of reli­gion.” Hansen strong­ly object­ed when the IRS with­drew tax-exempt sta­tus from Bob Jones Uni­ver­si­ty because of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and poli­cies against inter­ra­cial dat­ing. He also con­demned the state of Nebras­ka for arrest­ing fun­da­men­tal­ist Everett Sileven after Sileven refused to allow teach­ers at his pri­vate school to be cer­ti­fied by the state as required by state law.46

The obsta­cle to “reli­gious free­dom” as defined by Moon and much of the Chris­t­ian Right, is “sec­u­lar” gov­ern­ment, which they see as a step­ping stone to “Satan­ic, athe­is­tic, Com­mu­nism.” Bo Hi Pak declared that the world is a bat­tle­ground between “God and no God.”47 CRF claims that the Moon pros­e­cu­tion and the alleged attack on reli­gion by gov­ern­ment “is large­ly the result of the ungod­ly sec­u­lar human­ist phi­los­o­phy that has con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed our schools, the media, and the var­i­ous lev­els of gov­ern­ment.” The 1985 CAUSA Lec­ture Man­u­al stat­ed that “in the Unit­ed States, an inter­me­di­ary stage pri­or to com­mu­nism may be sec­u­lar humanism.”48

The CRF exec­u­tive com­mit­tee has devel­oped rapid­ly since 1984, to include most of the major tel­e­van­ge­lists, such as Tim LaHaye, Jer­ry Fal­well, James Robi­son, Rex Hum­bard, D. James Kennedy, and Jim­my Swag­gart. Recent­ly, the Moon orga­ni­za­tion opened an inter­na­tion­al front in its “reli­gious free­dom” cam­paign. Accord­ing to Moon’s New York City Tri­bune, the World Coun­cil on Reli­gious Lib­er­ty (WCRL) was found­ed in Decem­ber 1986 at a con­fer­ence in Gene­va, Switzer­land. The Chair­man of WRCL is Joseph Paige, and its “Chair­man of the North Amer­i­can Cau­cus” is Don Sills. They have recruit­ed Dr. Robert G. Muller, assis­tant Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed Nations, as chair­man of the Council’s Inter­na­tion­al Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee. The Council’s head­quar­ters are in Raleigh, North Car­oli­na, which is also home to Paige’s Shaw Divin­i­ty School.49

...

Inside the New Right

Part of Moon’s U.S. strat­e­gy has been to seek alliances with the reli­gious Right. How­ev­er, the rela­tion­ship has been high­ly con­tro­ver­sial with­in the move­ment. While Moon mon­ey is wide­ly rumored to be a major finan­cial under­pin­ning of the New Right, it is often kept secret because so many con­ser­v­a­tives find the Moon orga­ni­za­tion repug­nant.

Jer­ry Fal­well of the Moral Major­i­ty, and one of the founders and exec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers of the Coali­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom, dropped his sup­port for Moon in ear­ly 1984. His spokesper­son, Ron God­win, denounced as “pecu­liar” those who take mon­ey from a church whose “founder believes he’s divine…. They’re tak­ing mon­ey from a cult whose doc­trines are 180 degrees opposed. It’s a lit­tle like the Jew­ish Nation­al Fund accept­ing mon­ey from Arafat.”53

But by August 1985, Fal­well had cut short a tour of South Africa to appear at a press con­fer­ence at Moon’s God and Free­dom Ban­quet. Both events were orga­nized by CRF. God­win lat­er became the busi­ness man­ag­er of Insight.

In a let­ter to Bo Hi Pak, taped onto a cas­sette by Rev. Tim LaHaye of the Amer­i­can Coali­tion for Tra­di­tion­al Val­ues (ACTV is a polit­i­cal coali­tion of tel­e­van­ge­lists), LaHaye thanked Pak for pro­vid­ing “time­ly” and “gen­er­ous help” in con­nec­tion with an “extreme­ly expen­sive” move of ACTV’s head­quar­ters from Cal­i­for­nia to Wash­ing­ton, DC.54 Like Fal­well, LaHaye was one of the founders and exec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers of CRF. LaHaye lat­er denied receiv­ing mon­ey from the Moon orga­ni­za­tion.
...

And then there’s the ties between Moon and Chris­t­ian Voice, a rightwing group that claims to be Chris­t­ian lob­by for all evan­gel­i­cals. It was a self-char­ac­ter­i­za­tion that faced some push­back from fig­ures like Robert P. Dugan of the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Evan­gel­i­cals, who described the group as “not con­struct­ed to be a rep­re­sen­ta­tive orga­ni­za­tion and its polit­i­cal posi­tions may well be deter­mined by a hand­ful of activists meet­ing over lunch. They are account­able to no one but them­selves.” Inter­est­ing­ly, Paul Weyrich — anoth­er CNP founder — described the group as “con­ser­v­a­tive first and Chris­t­ian inci­den­tal­ly, as opposed to oth­er groups that are Chris­t­ian first, and con­ser­v­a­tive inci­den­tal­ly.” And as we can see, Gary Jarmin — a for­mer Moonie activist — was Chris­t­ian Voice’s leg­isla­tive direc­tor. Jarmin even helped to orga­nize the first CAUSA North Amer­i­ca con­fer­ence in 1983 while serv­ing in that role. Also in atten­dance at the CAUSA con­fer­ence were Chris­t­ian Voice chair­man (and CNP mem­ber) Robert Grant and Advi­so­ry Board mem­bers W. Steuart McBir­ney and Ray Allen. Grant and Jarmin also addressed the 1985 CAUSA con­fer­ence. Grant was, at the time of this 1987 piece, chair­ing the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the CRF. It’s quite a tight net­work:

...
Whose Voice Is Chris­t­ian Voice?

The rightwing Chris­t­ian Voice claims 350,000 mem­bers, includ­ing 40,000 min­is­ters who become mem­bers by virtue of hav­ing respond­ed to direct mail fund­ing appeals. The orga­ni­za­tion, which employs 17 field orga­niz­ers, stepped into the void left by the depar­ture of the Moral Major­i­ty and ACTV from sig­nif­i­cant polit­i­cal activ­i­ty. How­ev­er, they may have over­stepped their posi­tion.

Chris­t­ian Voice has come under fire recent­ly for mis­rep­re­sent­ing itself, and for its ties to the Moon orga­ni­za­tion. Its claim to rep­re­sent 45 mil­lion Chris­t­ian evan­gel­i­cals has been chal­lenged, notably by Robert P. Dugan of the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Evan­gel­i­cals. He told Chris­tian­i­ty Today mag­a­zine that Chris­t­ian Voice is “not con­struct­ed to be a rep­re­sen­ta­tive orga­ni­za­tion and its polit­i­cal posi­tions may well be deter­mined by a hand­ful of activists meet­ing over lunch. They are account­able to no one but them­selves.” New Right leader Paul Weyrich char­ac­ter­ized Chris­t­ian Voice as “con­ser­v­a­tive first and Chris­t­ian inci­den­tal­ly, as opposed to oth­er groups that are Chris­t­ian first, and con­ser­v­a­tive inci­den­tal­ly.”55

The rela­tion­ship between Chris­t­ian Voice and the Moon orga­ni­za­tion has plagued them for some time. At the cen­ter of this con­tro­ver­sy is lob­by­ist Gary Jarmin, a Moonie from 1967–1973 who was active in Moon’s Free­dom Lead­er­ship Foun­da­tion and who many sus­pect may be a Moon agent in the New Right. A May 1981 arti­cle in Moth­er Jones raised this ques­tion. Jarmin, who was the leg­isla­tive direc­tor of Chris­t­ian Voice at the time, insist­ed, ‘Tm no longer affil­i­at­ed with the church; I’m not a mem­ber of it and I don’t con­sult with their peo­ple. This orga­ni­za­tion, [Chris­t­ian Voice] is run by a board of direc­tors for whom I work, which is not in any way affil­i­at­ed with or con­trolled by the church. I think my actions speak loud­er than my words.”56 Nev­er­the­less, by Feb­ru­ary 1983 Jarmin had helped orga­nize the first CAUSA North Amer­i­ca con­fer­ence, held in Jamaica. Also in atten­dance were Chris­t­ian Voice chair­man Robert Grant and Advi­so­ry Board mem­bers W. Steuart McBir­ney and Ray Allen, and polit­i­cal strate­gist Colonel V. Don­er.

The rela­tion­ships go even deep­er. The three-mem­ber board of Chris­t­ian Voice’s polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee is chaired by Jarmin, and includes Rev. Don Sills of the Moon-fund­ed Coali­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom. In August of 1985, Jarmin helped orga­nize CRF’s God and Free­dom Ban­quet held in cel­e­bra­tion of Moon’s release from jail. He also led leg­isla­tive work­shops at secre­tive CAUSA indoc­tri­na­tion ses­sions for Amer­i­can state leg­is­la­tors dur­ing 1986. These events drew about 100 con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors from both par­ties to all-expense-paid jun­kets, osten­si­bly to dis­cuss the Con­sti­tu­tion. A more elite ver­sion of these meet­ings is the CAUSA-spon­sored Amer­i­can Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence, where Jarmin has also spo­ken. Jarmin has been joined at oth­er CAUSA events by Robert Grant, who addressed the 1985 CAUSA Nation­al Con­fer­ence in San Fran­cis­co. Grant cur­rent­ly chairs the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the Coali­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom.

Although CRF declares its inde­pen­dence from the Moon orga­ni­za­tion (despite the Moon fund­ing), the cur­rent exec­u­tive direc­tor of CRF is Dan Hold­grei­we, a long­time Moon oper­a­tive who worked for Moon’s Free­dom Lead­er­ship Foun­da­tion from the late 1970s to the ear­ly 1980s.57
...

How deep does the rela­tion­ship between the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church and this CNP net­work of domin­ion­ists go? Well, as we can see, it was quite deep in the 1980s. Open­ly so, despite the denials. And that deep rela­tion­ship has had four decades to fes­ter. So, you know, ‘way too deep’ is the like­ly answer. We’ll pre­sum­ably find out more about this ongo­ing rela­tion­sh­iop after the theoc­ra­cy gets imposed. Or rather, those not killed dur­ing the theo­crat­ic rev­o­lu­tion will get to find out more.

As we’ve seen, the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project is mas­sive mul­ti-state effort that’s been oper­at­ing for years now. Since 2005. And as we’ve also seen, the project has a num­ber of state-based spin offs — the Texas Renew­al Project, the Iowas Renew­al Project, etc — with major financ­ing com­ing from the Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Asso­ci­a­tion (AFA) run by CNP mem­bers Don and Tim Wild­mon. But as we’re going to see in the fol­low­ing report from Novem­ber 2011, there’s anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant enti­ty behind the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project: The Niemoller Foun­da­tion.

Found­ed in 2005 by San Anto­nio tycoon James Leininger, the Niemoller Foun­da­tion was formed as a 501(c)(3) tax exempt non-prof­it enti­ty. As part of that tax-exempt sta­tus, the foun­da­tion was sup­posed to avoid par­tic­i­pat­ing in direct sup­port of, or attacks against, an par­tic­u­lar can­di­dates for office. As we’ll see, it was the Niemoller Foun­da­tion that was financ­ing an ear­ly iter­a­tion of the Texas Renew­al Project — then known as the Texas Restora­tion Project — that was effec­tive­ly oper­at­ing as a sophis­ti­cat­ed get-out-the-vote effort tar­get­ing church­es in sup­port of then-Texas Gov­er­nor Rick Per­ry’s 2006 re-elec­tion cam­paign.

As we should expect, Leininger hap­pens to be an ardent theo­crat. He’s also described as Rick Per­ry’s Sven­gali. And As we’ve seen, Leininger isn’t just a major con­ser­v­a­tive donor in Texas. He’s the founder of a Texas enti­ty that has repeat­ed­ly popped up in rela­tion to theo­crat­ic ini­tia­tives not just in Texas but nation­al­ly: the Texas Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Foun­da­tion (TPPF). Yep.

This is the same ‘think tank’ where where fel­low Texas theo­crat­ic bil­lion­aire Tim Dunn has served as a board mem­ber since 1998. Dunn still serves as the TPPF’s Vice Chair­man. As we also saw, for­mer TPPF pres­i­dent and CNP mem­ber Kevin Roberts went on to become the cur­rent pres­i­dent of the Her­itage Foun­da­tion. This is the same Kevin Roberts who leads the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project 2025 scheme and recent­ly declared the Sec­ond Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion is under­way and will remain blood­less “if the left allows it to be.” Also recall how the TPPF and the Clare­mont Insti­tute ran the “79 Days Report ‘sim­u­la­tions in 2020 imag­in­ing con­test­ed elec­tion sce­nar­ios. Kevin Roberts, John East­man, and fas­cist busi­ness­man Charles Hay­wood all par­tic­i­pat­ed in the sim­u­la­tions.

And, of course, Leininger is a mem­ber of the CNP, as we should expect giv­en Leininger’s clear theo­crat­ic ambi­tions. But he’s not the only CNP mem­ber cit­ed as a major fun­der. Wealthy busi­ness­man Bob J. Per­ry — also a financier of the “Swift Boat Vet­er­ans for Truth” smear cam­paign — was also an ear­ly donor Niemoller foun­da­tion donor as the group was financ­ing the Texas Restora­tion Project to oper­ate as a Rick Per­ry get-out-the-vote oper­a­tion. In addi­tion, key CNP mem­bers Kel­ly Shack­elford and David Bar­ton were orga­niz­ing pro-Per­ry events in asso­ci­a­tion with the project. Recall how not only did Mike John­son call Shack­elford his men­tor but Shack­elford served as the CNP’s vice pres­i­dent in 2020. He was also part of the del­e­ga­tion of CNP mem­bers who met with Don­ald Trump back in June of 2016 to give the Trump cam­paign their bless­ing.

It’s also note­wor­thy how Leininger and his fel­low theocrats eager­ly viewed the Great Reces­sion that was still play­ing out back in 2011 as an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to return the US to God. Gov­ern­ment could not be part of the solu­tion for the Great Reces­sion. Only God. Evan­ge­list James Robi­son was a cham­pi­on of this view and had been search­ing for a politi­cian to push this idea with the pub­lic. Rick Per­ry — the first major politi­cian to embrace the then-nascent Tea Par­ty move­ment — was Robison’s choice.

That’s all part of the con­text, and rel­e­vance, of the now infa­mous 2011 domin­ion­ist orga­niz­ing in asso­ci­a­tion with the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project around Rick Per­ry’s 2011 pres­i­den­tial run: The whole ‘Renew­al’ ini­tia­tive effec­tive­ly start­ed off as a 2006 Rick Per­ry guber­na­to­r­i­al re-elec­tion effort with exten­sive fund­ing from one of Tim Dun­n’s long-time fel­low theocrats:

The Amer­i­can Prospect

God Help Us

Will Rick Perry’s blend of Chris­t­ian-right, small-gov­ern­ment, and pro-cor­po­rate fer­vor land him in the White House?

by Bob Moser
Novem­ber 28, 2011

In April, Rick Per­ry trav­eled to North Texas for a tap­ing of tel­e­van­ge­list James Robison’s TV show, Life Today. For six months, start­ing as soon as he was re-elect­ed Texas gov­er­nor in Novem­ber 2010, Per­ry had been criss­cross­ing the coun­try to pro­mote his sec­ond book, Fed Up!, while test­ing the pres­i­den­tial waters with poten­tial donors and con­ser­v­a­tive activists. His vis­it with Robi­son, a hell­fire-breath­ing pas­tor known as “God’s hit man” (for “giv­ing ’em so much hell nobody will ever want to go there”), had the poten­tial to pay seri­ous div­i­dends. Robi­son had led the Chris­t­ian-right cam­paign that helped lift Ronald Rea­gan to the White House in 1980, and he was re-emerg­ing as the chief insti­ga­tor of a nation­al effort to mobi­lize evan­gel­i­cals to defeat Barack Oba­ma in 2012. With for­mer Arkansas Gov­er­nor Mike Huck­abee-who left divin­i­ty school in 1976 to work for Robi­son-hav­ing for­gone the race, the pas­tor was search­ing for a can­di­date the resur­gent evan­gel­i­cal right could anoint.

Per­ry, who has spent more time evan­ge­liz­ing about his faith than any gov­er­nor in the his­to­ry of Texas, was ready for his audi­tion. Beam­ing, he gazed up into the stu­dio lights. “I think we’re in a time of great revival­ness in this world,” he declared.

“I think it’s an awak­en­ing,” Robi­son agreed.

“I know there’s a lot of con­cern,” Per­ry said. “I think in Amer­i­ca, that from time to time, we have to go through some dif­fi­cult times, and I think we’re going through those dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic times for a pur­pose-and that’s to bring us back to those bib­li­cal prin­ci­ples … not spend­ing all of our mon­ey, not ask­ing for Pharaoh to give every­thing to every­body and to take care of folks, because at the end of the day, it’s slav­ery. And we become slaves to gov­ern­ment.”

The idea that the reces­sion was a blessed oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn Amer­i­cans against gov­ern­ment and toward “bib­li­cal prin­ci­ples” was already a famil­iar one for Robison’s fol­low­ers. It was a mes­sage that Per­ry was poised to car­ry into the main­stream. Robi­son had been look­ing for a promi­nent pub­lic offi­cial to con­vene a large-scale prayer and fast­ing ral­ly to spread the word. Per­ry took up the call. He would soon be invit­ing Chris­tians and polit­i­cal lead­ers to a Hous­ton sta­di­um ral­ly, The Response, explain­ing that while the coun­try was fac­ing grim eco­nom­ic times, “There is hope for Amer­i­ca. It lies in heav­en, and we will find it on our knees.”

Only God, not gov­ern­ment, could heal the bro­ken econ­o­my. It was a theme that knit togeth­er all three of Per­ry’s core con­stituen­cies: right-wing evan­gel­i­cals, who had mobi­lized behind Per­ry’s 2006 re-elec­tion; anti-tax Tea Partiers, who had helped him to a third term as gov­er­nor in 2010; and cor­po­rate con­ser­v­a­tives, who have bankrolled his rise from the begin­ning. Per­ry’s mes­sage was a nat­ur­al out­growth of the resur­gence in recent years of “bib­li­cal cap­i­tal­ism,” an idea that first sprung up in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry as a coun­ter­weight to the social gospel, which used scrip­ture to sup­port labor reforms and pro­gres­sive tax­a­tion. In recent years, the tenets of bib­li­cal cap­i­tal­ism have been spread most famous­ly by David Bar­ton, for­mer vice chair­man of the Texas GOP and the reli­gious right’s favorite his­to­ri­an. Bar­ton, a long­time Per­ry ally whom Glenn Beck calls “the most impor­tant man in Amer­i­ca,” has been tour­ing the coun­try for years, not only preach­ing that the Unit­ed States was found­ed by and for Chris­tians but also cher­ry-pick­ing scrip­ture to assert that the Bible oppos­es capital–gains and estate tax­es, unions and min­i­mum-wage laws.

For Robi­son and Bar­ton, the reces­sion offered the ide­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to spread that word and argue that big gov­ern­ment had caused the eco­nom­ic calami­ty because it was “against God.” “Depend­ing on the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is idol­a­try,” as Robi­son put it in June. “We must con­trol it, or it will con­trol us. Stop the mad­ness! Hitler believed that Ger­many need­ed a gov­ern­ment over the peo­ple, not of the peo­ple. God deliv­er us from that kind of insan­i­ty.” Get­ting more spe­cif­ic, Robi­son inveighed against “intru­sive reg­u­la­tion,” while call­ing for the tax code to be revised “so we can rejoice togeth­er because it would stim­u­late eco­nom­ic growth.”

In May, meet­ing with Robi­son, Bar­ton, and a large group of evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers to orga­nize The Response, Per­ry echoed the mes­sage. Amer­i­cans’ “pur­suit of hap­pi­ness” was “in jeop­ardy,” he said. “It’s in jeop­ardy because of tax­es. It’s in jeop­ardy because of reg­u­la­tion. It’s in jeop­ardy because of a legal sys­tem that’s run amok. And I think it’s time for us to just hand it over to God and say, ‘God, you’re going to have to fix this.’ ”

While Per­ry insist­ed that The Response was an “apo­lit­i­cal” event, its orga­niz­ers were dozens of evan­gel­i­cal heavy­weights whom Robi­son brought togeth­er, in the spring and sum­mer, for a series of meet­ings to mobi­lize for 2012. Pub­licly, they claimed to be strate­giz­ing to defeat Oba­ma-to use the polit­i­cal moment to “help inspire … a restora­tion of free­dom’s foun­da­tion,” as Robi­son explained. “I don’t think we’re ever going to solve the eco­nom­ic cri­sis with­out hav­ing a king­dom men­tal­i­ty.”

As Per­ry moved toward announc­ing his can­di­da­cy, the evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers decid­ed that he had the “king­dom men­tal­i­ty” they were look­ing for-and, unlike Michele Bach­mann, a chance to win. It was­n’t just that Per­ry was the only major politi­cian in Amer­i­ca auda­cious and faith­ful enough to con­vene his own mega-prayer ral­ly. It was­n’t just that he claimed to be “called” by God to run. It was­n’t just that he slashed bud­gets and stripped reg­u­la­tions. It was­n’t just that he had pro­mot­ed absti­nence-only sex edu­ca­tion, cam­paigned suc­cess­ful­ly for a gay-mar­riage ban, defund­ed Planned Par­ent­hood, and signed some of the coun­try’s most restric­tive abor­tion laws. It was that he did all this while he called for “restor­ing Amer­i­ca to its Chris­t­ian prin­ci­ples.”

The Response drew 30,000 peo­ple to Hous­ton’s Reliant Sta­di­um on the first Sat­ur­day in August. Per­ry ser­mo­nized along with John Hagee, the Chris­t­ian Zion­ist mega­pas­tor who blamed gays for Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na and once called Catholi­cism a “god­less the­ol­o­gy.” While Per­ry’s mes­sage most­ly con­sist­ed of long pas­sages of scrip­ture, his clos­ing prayer rein­forced the idea that only God, not gov­ern­ment, could solve the nation’s woes: “Lord, you are the source of every good thing. You are our only hope. … Father, our heart breaks for Amer­i­ca. We see dis­cord at home. We see fear in the mar­ket­place. We see anger in the halls of gov­ern­ment. As a nation, we have for­got­ten who made us, who pro­tects us, who bless­es us. And for that, we cry out for your for­give­ness.”

Ten days lat­er, Per­ry announced his pres­i­den­tial bid in South Car­oli­na, promis­ing to “make Wash­ing­ton, D.C., as incon­se­quen­tial in your life as I can.” Almost overnight, he emerged as the Repub­li­can right’s lead­ing alter­na­tive to for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney. Just as quick­ly, he became the most mis­un­der­stood con­tender for the White House.

...

In ear­ly debates-includ­ing his dis­as­trous per­for­mance in Orlan­do that led to a sec­ond-place fin­ish well behind Her­man Cain in the straw poll-Per­ry’s oppo­nents took aim at his few con­ser­v­a­tive here­sies, most notably sign­ing a bill to allow in-state col­lege tuition for some undoc­u­ment­ed stu­dents. Per­ry’s fum­bling retort-accus­ing those who dis­agreed with his posi­tion of not hav­ing “a heart”-made mat­ters worse. As nation­al reporters rushed to knock out pro­files of the mete­or ris­ing on the Repub­li­can right, a nar­ra­tive was emerg­ing: Per­ry was paint­ed as a say-any­thing sort who had shift­ed with the polit­i­cal winds to win eight elec­tions in Texas with­out suf­fer­ing a defeat. The new meme was summed up by a Politi­co head­line: “Rick Per­ry’s non-ide­ol­o­gy.”

It is an easy but mis­lead­ing sto­ry to tell. Per­ry was first elect­ed to the Texas House in 1984 as a Demo­c­rat. He switched par­ties in 1989, as Repub­li­cans began to chip away at Democ­rats’ cen­tu­ry-old dom­i­na­tion of Texas pol­i­tics, in order to run against lib­er­al pop­ulist Agri­cul­ture Com­mis­sion­er Jim High­tow­er. Hand­picked by Karl Rove, Per­ry rode Gov­er­nor George W. Bush’s coat­tails to become lieu­tenant gov­er­nor in 1998, suc­ceed­ing to the gov­er­nor’s office when Bush left for Wash­ing­ton in Decem­ber 2000. When Bush and Rove man­u­fac­tured a revival of evan­gel­i­cal pol­i­tics, Per­ry became a “faith-based” politi­cian when he ran for gov­er­nor in 2002 and 2006. Then, fac­ing a tough re-elec­tion chal­lenge in 2010 from Sen­a­tor Kay Bai­ley Hutchi­son, he embraced the Tea Par­ty.

This nar­ra­tive makes a good yarn-yet anoth­er sto­ry of yet anoth­er politi­cian who pre­tends to stand for some­thing but only cares about win­ning elec­tions. But it miss­es the heart, and the threat, of Per­ry’s pol­i­tics. While it’s true that he has cal­i­brat­ed his cam­paigns to fit the moment, Per­ry is an ide­o­logue. Indeed, he is the bold­est cham­pi­on of a new con­ser­vatism that draws its pow­er from blend­ing the most rad­i­cal wings of the GOP: those who believe that Chris­tians are Amer­i­ca’s cho­sen lead­ers, that cor­po­ra­tions should be unfet­tered, and that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment should shrink and cede pow­er back to the states. His pol­i­tics have indeed evolved-in con­cert with that of the Repub­li­can right, as it’s hard­ened from a move­ment that saw gov­ern­ment as “the prob­lem,” in Rea­gan’s words, to one that views gov­ern­ment as the ene­my. Per­ry, far from being a fol­low­er in that shift to the hard right, has long been one of its prime insti­ga­tors.

When Per­ry first mate­ri­al­ized in Austin in the mid-’80s, he imme­di­ate­ly estab­lished what kind of politi­cian he was. The swag­ger­ing, glad-hand­ing ten­ant farmer’s son from West Texas became part of a bud­get-cut­ting gang on the Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, deemed the “Pit Bulls” because they sat on the low­er dais in the hear­ing room as they pushed for aus­ter­i­ty in Tex­as­’s state gov­ern­ment. “Then and there,” says long­time Demo­c­ra­t­ic state Sen­a­tor Eliot Shap­leigh, “he and his band of Pit Bulls put Texas on a path toward his lega­cy project of cut­ting tax­es for the wealthy and mak­ing gov­ern­ment work only for a select few.”

...

As agri­cul­ture com­mis­sion­er, Per­ry’s main accom­plish­ment was in line with Rea­gan Repub­li­can­ism-fight­ing and gut­ting reg­u­la­tions on farms and agribusi­ness. In the months after he became gov­er­nor, Per­ry behaved in some respects like his pre­de­ces­sor, who was known for work­ing cor­dial­ly with Texas Democ­rats and for court­ing the state’s ris­ing Lati­no vote. Per­ry signed the now-con­tro­ver­sial tuition bill. But at the end of the 2001 leg­isla­tive ses­sion, he threw down a gaunt­let; in one day in June, in what became known as “the Father’s Day Mas­sacre,” he vetoed 78 bills, includ­ing a ban on exe­cut­ing the men­tal­ly retard­ed and a num­ber of non­con­tro­ver­sial appro­pri­a­tions. It was a loud and star­tling rebuke, and it set a pat­tern. Per­ry’s goal as gov­er­nor would be to do what he now says he’d do as pres­i­dent: make gov­ern­ment “incon­se­quen­tial.”

In late August, two weeks after he launched his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, Per­ry was back in Texas, 70 miles west of Austin on a ranch owned by San Anto­nio tycoon James Leininger. Known in Texas as Per­ry’s Sven­gali, Leininger made a for­tune sell­ing hos­pi­tal beds. Their rela­tion­ship dates back at least to the 1990s, when Leininger helped Per­ry buy his first cam­paign plane. In 1998, Per­ry ran for lieu­tenant gov­er­nor against pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­t­ic state comp­trol­ler John Sharp; Per­ry looked like a like­ly los­er in a tight race-until Leininger stepped up and helped guar­an­tee a $1.1 mil­lion loan that fund­ed a last-minute media blitz for the cam­paign. “I con­grat­u­late Leininger,” Sharp said after Per­ry edged him out with 50.04 per­cent of the vote. “He want­ed to buy the reins of state gov­ern­ment, and by God, he got them.”

An evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian, Leininger was then the largest sin­gle donor to con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­cans in Texas and a major con­trib­u­tor to the nation­al par­ty. He embod­ied a new kind of Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment fig­ure. Like Domi­no’s Piz­za founder Tom Mon­aghan and Home Depot founder Bernie Mar­cus, Leininger gives huge sums to can­di­dates not just in exchange for favors but also to advance right-wing social and eco­nom­ic poli­cies. Leininger was the Koch broth­ers before the Koch broth­ers. In Per­ry’s three guber­na­to­r­i­al races, Leininger has donat­ed near­ly $250,000. In 2004, he sub­si­dized a trip to the Bahamas that brought Per­ry togeth­er with his oth­er great polit­i­cal influ­ence, anti-gov­ern­ment cru­sad­er Grover Norquist of Amer­i­cans for Tax Reform.

In a pat­tern that has char­ac­ter­ized his polit­i­cal career, Per­ry has more than repaid Leininger’s gen­eros­i­ty. Two “eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment” funds con­trolled by Per­ry have giv­en near­ly $6 mil­lion to two biotech­nol­o­gy firms in which Leininger holds a sig­nif­i­cant share. Per­ry has suc­cess­ful­ly pushed one of Leininger’s pet projects, tort reform-an inter­est spurred by a spate of law­suits brought against his com­pa­ny, which has been repeat­ed­ly accused of man­u­fac­tur­ing hos­pi­tal beds that dropped and injured nurs­es and patients. Ear­li­er this year, Per­ry capped off a series of tort-reform mea­sures with a “los­er pays” bill that forces lit­i­gants who lose a law­suit to pay the legal expens­es of the com­pa­nies they’ve sued.

That kind of give-and-take between Per­ry and big-mon­ey Repub­li­cans has not been lim­it­ed to Leininger. Near­ly half of the cor­po­ra­tions Per­ry has reward­ed from his eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment funds have been owned by major donors to his cam­paigns. Per­ry’s two largest con­trib­u­tors-Bob Per­ry (no rela­tion to the gov­er­nor) and Harold Sim­mons-have seen their gen­eros­i­ty repaid. In 2006, when Per­ry ran for re–election, Bob Per­ry, a home­build­ing mag­nate whose pet issue is dereg­u­la­tion, gave the gov­er­nor $275,000; he also donat­ed $2 mil­lion to the Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion-which, in turn, gave Per­ry $1 mil­lion in the clos­ing weeks of the cam­paign. Dur­ing his tenure, Per­ry has stripped numer­ous envi­ron­men­tal, finan­cial, and work­place rules from the books. The gov­er­nor’s sec­ond-largest bene­fac­tor is Sim­mons, known in Texas as the “buy­out king” and best known nation­al­ly for help­ing fund the Swift Boat Vet­er­ans for Truth cam­paign against Sen­a­tor John Ker­ry in the 2004 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion (Bob Per­ry was the oth­er major fun­der). He has con­tributed $1.2 mil­lion to the gov­er­nor over the years. Sim­mons stands to make mil­lions by build­ing a mas­sive waste dump in West Texas to house the coun­try’s radioac­tive trash‑a project approved by Per­ry-appoint­ed reg­u­la­tors, though state sci­en­tists have deter­mined the site is unsafe.

Per­ry’s rela­tion­ship with Leininger is of a dif­fer­ent order. The gov­er­nor has lent his full weight to the San Anto­ni­an’s social cru­sades. Leininger chipped in the bulk of funds for a cam­paign to enact an anti-gay-mar­riage amend­ment in Texas, backed by Per­ry. But Leininger’s over­whelm­ing inter­est has been in fight­ing “sec­u­lar” pub­lic edu­ca­tion, pour­ing mil­lions into pri­ma­ry chal­lenges to Repub­li­cans who oppose school vouch­ers and putting mil­lions more behind state school-board can­di­dates who sup­port the teach­ing of cre­ation­ism, absti­nence-only sex edu­ca­tion, and a ver­sion of Amer­i­can his­to­ry that pro­motes Chris­t­ian nation­al­ism. Per­ry has appoint­ed three state edu­ca­tion-board chairs backed by Leininger.

Now, as Per­ry seeks the pres­i­den­cy, Leininger is doing his part again. On the week­end of August 27, he brought togeth­er some 200 evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers and pas­tors for a pri­vate retreat-and anoth­er major audi­tion for Per­ry. Accord­ing to the Los Ange­les Times, the atten­dees includ­ed David Bar­ton, James Robi­son, Richard Land of the South­ern Bap­tist Con­ven­tion, Tony Perkins of the Fam­i­ly Research Coun­cil, and James Dob­son of Focus on the Fam­i­ly. “The Texas gov­er­nor … was grilled about his beliefs and his record in extra­or­di­nar­i­ly frank ses­sions,” the Times report­ed. “He respond­ed by describ­ing his rela­tion­ship with Jesus and pledg­ing to pur­sue the anti-abor­tion and anti-gay mar­riage agen­da cham­pi­oned by the evan­gel­i­cal right.”

An effort to mobi­lize the nation’s pas­tors behind Per­ry was already under way, mod­eled on a Leininger-fund­ed project that helped the gov­er­nor win re-elec­tion in 2006. That year in the gen­er­al elec­tion, Per­ry faced a dif­fi­cult four-way field that includ­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress­man Chris Bell, cig­ar-chomp­ing satirist Kinky Fried­man, and Car­olyn Kee­ton Stray­horn, the Repub­li­can state comp­trol­ler who ran as an inde­pen­dent. With both Fried­man and Stray­horn appeal­ing to inde­pen­dents and mod­er­ate Repub­li­cans, the cam­paign was sure to be a tough one-Per­ry’s clos­est since 1998. But Leininger had the answer. Along with sev­er­al oth­er wealthy con­ser­v­a­tives, he helped cre­ate the Texas Restora­tion Project.

The Restora­tion Project invit­ed thou­sands of Texas min­is­ters to six “Pas­tors’ Pol­i­cy Brief­in­gs,” closed-door events fund­ed by the Niemoller Foun­da­tion, a Hous­ton non­prof­it bankrolled by Leininger and friends. The pas­tors and their spous­es were urged to orga­nize their church­es behind Per­ry; lat­er, as the cam­paign revved up, they were called upon to get out the vote. “The mis­sion is the mobi­liza­tion of pas­tors and pews as a way to restore Texas and Amer­i­ca to our Judeo-Chris­t­ian her­itage,” said David Lane, chief orga­niz­er of the events and one of Per­ry’s most ardent allies on the evan­gel­i­cal right. At the end of each brief­ing, Per­ry offered a ser­mon. “This I know,” he told atten­dees at one gath­er­ing. “He who counts every hair on our heads and every drop in the oceans; He who knows the num­ber of our days and every thought before it enters our heads; this all-know­ing, all-pow­er­ful Cre­ator loves us so much that there is not a mat­ter so triv­ial or so small that we can’t sur­ren­der it to Him and say, ‘Father, your will be done!’ I cer­tain­ly know this to be the heart­felt prayer of a gov­er­nor.”

“For us, it seemed like clas­sic machine pol­i­tics,” says Dan Quinn of the Texas Free­dom Net­work, a non­prof­it that sup­ports church-state sep­a­ra­tion. “Some of Per­ry’s biggest donors gave mon­ey to a non­prof­it that then fun­neled it into these events around the state where pas­tors attend­ed for free and heard one speak­er after anoth­er speak in praise of the gov­er­nor-and then the gov­er­nor comes out at the end. It seemed naked­ly par­ti­san and polit­i­cal.” An Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice com­plaint filed by Quin­n’s group went nowhere, with the agency say­ing it did not have suf­fi­cient evi­dence that the mon­ey was being chan­neled direct­ly into Per­ry’s cam­paign.

Per­ry’s cam­paign sent Christ­mas cards to the pas­tors who’d attend­ed the Texas “brief­in­gs,” using the Restora­tion Pro­jec­t’s list. A week before the 2006 elec­tion, David Bar­ton and oth­ers made calls to the thou­sands who’d attend­ed, encour­ag­ing them to mar­shal their flocks behind Per­ry. It worked. Per­ry nar­row­ly won re-elec­tion with 39 per­cent of the vote.

In 2008, Lane, with finan­cial back­ing from Leininger and the anti-gay evan­gel­i­cal group Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Asso­ci­a­tion, began to expand the Restora­tion Project into polit­i­cal­ly impor­tant states around the coun­try. Near­ly 10,000 pas­tors have attend­ed all-expens­es-paid two-day “brief­in­gs” in Neva­da, New Hamp­shire, Ohio, South Car­oli­na, Col­orado, Ten­nessee, Cal­i­for­nia, Flori­da, and Iowa. Speak­ers have includ­ed sev­er­al poten­tial pres­i­den­tial con­tenders and can­di­dates such as Michele Bach­mann, Haley Bar­bour, Newt Gin­grich, and Mike Huck­abee. This year in Flori­da, Per­ry was the fea­tured speak­er.

“Per­ry and Lane have tru­ly mas­tered the tac­tic that Rove used for W. in Ohio in 2004,” Quinn says. “They’ve tak­en that strat­e­gy and real­ly honed it in Texas, more so than I’ve seen any­where else, and now they’ve export­ed that mod­el to most of the pres­i­den­tial bat­tle­ground states.”

On April 15, 2009, the typ­i­cal­ly dap­per gov­er­nor of Texas strode onto a makeshift stage out­side Austin City Hall wear­ing an unfa­mil­iar cos­tume-hunt­ing jack­et, jeans, boots, and base­ball cap-and deliv­ered the most impor­tant speech of his life. “I got­ta say it gives me that thrill up my leg when I see all these peo­ple stand­ing out here,” he told the 1,000 plac­ard-wav­ing cit­i­zens who’d come out on a blus­tery morn­ing to rail at Oba­ma and stim­u­lus spend­ing and to wit­ness Rick Per­ry’s Tea Par­ty debut. He’d been viewed with sus­pi­cion by some small-gov­ern­ment purists in Texas, not only for his exec­u­tive order to man­date HPV vac­cines but also for his ambi­tious (and unsuc­cess­ful) pro­pos­al to launch a mas­sive infra­struc­ture project called the Trans-Texas Cor­ri­dor. One Tea Parti­er car­ried a sign that read “Big Gov­ern­ment Per­ry,” hand­ing out leaflets on the theme.

But as the gov­er­nor blast­ed Oba­ma’s “social­ism” and railed at the main­stream medi­a’s deroga­to­ry cov­er­age of “tea bag­gers,” his recep­tion went from warm to hot. “I’m just not sure you’re a bunch of right-wing extrem­ists,” he hollered. “But if you are, I’m with you! ‘Cause you are a true patri­ot today in this coun­try. And I might add, you’re sur­round­ed by fel­low patri­ots-indi­vid­u­als who embrace the con­cepts like low­er tax­es and small­er gov­ern­ment and free­dom for every indi­vid­ual. I’m talk­ing about states’ rights! States’ rights! States’ rights!”

“Secede!” one hoarse voice called out over the clam­or of whoops and cheers. “Seceeeeede!” Per­ry nev­er used the word him­self but did say: “Since the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion was first rat­i­fied, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has slow­ly, steadi­ly, and suc­cess­ful­ly erod­ed the notion of states’ rights. … I hap­pen to agree with the sev­enth gov­er­nor of this great state, Sam Hous­ton. He once said, ‘Texas has yet to learn sub­mis­sion to any oppres­sion, come from what source it may!’ ”

As Per­ry left the stage, bask­ing in his foot-stomp­ing recep­tion, ral­ly orga­niz­er Jason Moore, a local talk-radio host, hal­looed, “Maybe it’s Per­ry for pres­i­dent now!”

As the first major Amer­i­can politi­cian to embrace the nascent Tea Par­ty, Per­ry had found a way to over­come a dan­ger­ous chal­lenger, three-term Sen­a­tor Kay Bai­ley Hutchi­son, in the 2010 Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry-and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly to launch him­self into the nation­al spot­light. Soon he was writ­ing op-eds in The Wall Street Jour­nal, get­ting glow­ing reviews from Glenn Beck and Rush Lim­baugh, and tour­ing the coun­try non­stop to preach about the virtues of the “Texas mod­el”: low tax­es, light reg­u­la­tions, and a fron­tier men­tal­i­ty of self-depen­dence. “There is still a land of oppor­tu­ni­ty, friends-it’s called Texas,” Per­ry said. “We’re cre­at­ing more jobs than any oth­er state in the nation.” He then pro­vid­ed one more rea­son for Tex­as­’s suc­cess: “Would you rather live in a state like this or in a state where a man can mar­ry a man?”

Rail­ing at Wash­ing­ton was noth­ing new for him; the gov­er­nor had built his career on oppos­ing gov­ern­ment spend­ing. In 2003, when Texas faced a $10 bil­lion short­fall, he seized the moment. With help from Grover Norquist, who came to Texas to per­suade waf­fling Repub­li­cans to bal­ance the bud­get with cuts alone, Per­ry held the line on tax­es-even though it meant drop­ping more than 200,000 chil­dren from the Chil­dren’s Health Insur­ance Pro­gram and anoth­er 500,000 from Med­ic­aid. He also pushed the nation’s most aggres­sive round of dereg­u­la­tion and tort reform. “Texas is open for busi­ness,” he pro­claimed.

Ear­ly this year, per­fect­ly timed to suit his pres­i­den­tial ambi­tions, came anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to show small-gov­ern­ment con­ser­v­a­tives he was the real deal. In Jan­u­ary, the state comp­trol­ler announced that Texas had a $27 bil­lion bud­get hole for the next two years-rep­re­sent­ing near­ly one-quar­ter of the state’s already-lean spend­ing. The deficit was the direct result of a mas­sive prop­er­ty-tax cut Per­ry cham­pi­oned in 2006. It was Norquist’s favorite strat­e­gy: Cut tax­es, and spend­ing reduc­tions will have to fol­low.

“Now is not the time to get wob­bly,” Norquist said as he toured the state with Per­ry in March, urg­ing the gov­er­nor and leg­is­la­tors to stand firm against grow­ing anx­i­eties about huge cuts to schools and social pro­grams. “Do more tort reform, more tax reduc­tion, more spend­ing restraint.” Invok­ing “polit­i­cal philoso­pher Rahm Emanuel,” Norquist told an audi­ence that includ­ed Per­ry, “Some­times the only way to get the bureau­cra­cy to rethink what it’s doing is to tell them there’s a cri­sis.”

Per­ry insist­ed that the leg­is­la­ture close the bud­get gap with no new rev­enues-and with­out touch­ing the state’s $9 bil­lion Rainy Day Fund. He sup­port­ed a bud­get that cut $4 bil­lion from pub­lic schools and $2 bil­lion from Med­ic­aid. “I don’t think there is any­thing that is so impor­tant that [it] can­not be cut,” he said.

The only large pro­gram that did not fall vic­tim to the bud­getary blood­let­ting was Per­ry’s most cher­ished ini­tia­tive: the Texas Enter­prise Fund and the Emerg­ing Tech­nol­o­gy Fund, which have doled out more than $600 mil­lion in tax­pay­er mon­ey to cor­po­ra­tions of his choos­ing. “He takes from us so that he can play with his cor­po­rate slush fund and award his friends’ busi­ness­es,” Debra Med­i­na, Per­ry’s lib­er­tar­i­an chal­lenger in the 2010 Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry, said in a debate.

When asked about his gov­ern­ing prin­ci­ples in an inter­view last year, Per­ry respond­ed: “I’m a big believ­er in wealth first. You can­not have expand­ed edu­ca­tion pro­grams, you can­not take care of health and human ser­vice needs of those who can’t take care of them­selves, you can­not have the infra­struc­ture in your state that will dri­ve your econ­o­my, unless you have wealth to pay for it.”

Per­ry’s eco­nom­ic approach is the purest ver­sion of trick­le-down that the Unit­ed States has ever seen. That’s made Texas a case study of what hap­pens when wealth is first. Despite the nation’s high­est rate of job cre­ation, more than one-quar­ter of Tex­ans have no health insur­ance, a high­er per­cent­age than in any state. Home­own­ers’ insur­ance pre­mi­ums are the nation’s high­est. Texas ties with Mis­sis­sip­pi for the top per­cent­age of min­i­mum-wage jobs. Under Per­ry, Texas school fund­ing and achieve­ment have plum­met­ed to near the bot­tom of nation­al rank­ings; the state has the coun­try’s high­est per­cent­age of cit­i­zens with­out high-school diplo­mas. Tex­as­’s Med­ic­aid reim­burse­ments are the sec­ond low­est in the coun­try. Child pover­ty and hunger, along with incar­cer­a­tion rates, are among the high­est.

While his Tea Par­ty rhetoric made Per­ry famous, his lead­er­ship of an often over­looked orga­ni­za­tion-the Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion (RGA)-made him a major play­er in nation­al Repub­li­can cir­cles. He has been both its finance chair and chair. The RGA’s stat­ed pur­pose is to elect Repub­li­can gov­er­nors. But under Per­ry and Mis­sis­sip­pi Gov­er­nor Haley Bar­bour, the group has become a pow­er­ful force tug­ging Repub­li­cans toward the far right. Its ide­o­log­i­cal mis­sion is reflect­ed in the agen­das of its most gen­er­ous donors: Koch Indus­tries, which gave $1.1 mil­lion in 2010; Bob Per­ry, who gave $6 mil­lion; and Rupert Mur­doch’s News Cor­po­ra­tion sub­sidiary News Amer­i­ca, which donat­ed $1.25 mil­lion.

...

The Repub­li­can right has been a fick­le beast in 2011, first swoon­ing over Michele Bach­mann before dis­card­ing her, day­dream­ing in vain of Paul Ryan and Mar­co Rubio, and-when the ear­ly debates kept Per­ry from cement­ing his posi­tion as Mitt Rom­ney’s only viable foe-tak­ing up with Her­man Cain and chant­i­ng “9–9‑9.” But no pres­i­den­tial can­di­date is bet­ter suit­ed to the cur­rent Repub­li­can moment than Rick Per­ry. He has always spe­cial­ized in anger and out­rage. He exem­pli­fies a move­ment that sees no gray areas. Almost every­where he goes, Per­ry quotes Ronald Rea­gan: “We need bold col­ors, not pale pas­tels.” At a stop in New Hamp­shire, Per­ry made sure the point was­n’t missed: “I am that bright col­or.”

If he can regain his foot­ing and ham­mer home the con­sid­er­able gray areas in Rom­ney’s record, Per­ry may yet prove the Bar­ry Gold­wa­ter of 2012. After all, as he told a packed house of 10,000 at Lib­er­ty Uni­ver­si­ty in mid-Sep­tem­ber, God “does­n’t require per­fect peo­ple to exe­cute his per­fect plan. Moses was this hot­head­ed mur­der­er who was afraid to speak in pub­lic. God used him to lead the Israelites to free­dom. ... Paul was a per­se­cu­tor of Chris­tians; God used him to spread the gospel to the ends of the uni­verse.”

Now, Per­ry implied, God was using him to bring his mes­sage to ear­ly-21st-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca. The stakes, he said, were clear: “Amer­i­ca is going to be guid­ed by some set of val­ues. The ques­tion is gonna be, whose val­ues?”

Dur­ing the fall, as Per­ry floun­dered, it was easy to for­get how many times he has risen from the grave. He was giv­en lit­tle chance of win­ning his first statewide race, against the beloved cow­boy pop­ulist Jim High­tow­er; in 1998, run­ning for lieu­tenant gov­er­nor, Per­ry was tied in the polls up to Elec­tion Day; a year before his re-elec­tion as gov­er­nor in 2010, Repub­li­cans pre­ferred Kay Bai­ley Hutchi­son by a seem­ing­ly insur­mount­able mar­gin, 56 per­cent to 31 per­cent. He won them all. One rea­son: his pugilis­tic cam­paign style, which Per­ry intro­duced to the coun­try in the late-Octo­ber Las Vegas debate and which left Rom­ney’s aides call­ing him a “bul­ly.” Per­ry does not defeat his oppo­nents; he oblit­er­ates them.

Per­ry also wins because of his fundrais­ing abil­i­ties and con­nec­tions to ide­o­log­i­cal­ly dri­ven big donors, which he devel­oped at the Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion. His evan­gel­i­cal net­work has been instru­men­tal in his vic­to­ries, and clear­ly Per­ry hopes the orga­niz­ing efforts of James Robi­son and David Lane will boost his chances in the pri­maries. While he has infused his cam­paign mes­sage with bib­li­cal cap­i­tal­ism, he has also avoid­ed alien­at­ing the Chris­t­ian right by reject­ing calls to dis­as­so­ci­ate him­self from Texas pas­tor Robert Jef­fress, who called Mor­monism a “cult” at the Val­ues Vot­ers Sum­mit in Octo­ber. Although his debat­ing skills have nev­er been sharp-he’s avoid­ed debates in Texas as much as pos­si­ble-Per­ry is a retail politi­cian of the first order. As Iowans and New Hamp­shirites are dis­cov­er­ing, he small-talks, back-slaps, and baby-kiss­es his way through a crowd with relish‑a qual­i­ty that will help in the small ear­ly-pri­ma­ry states, includ­ing South Car­oli­na and Neva­da.

...

The debate in Orlan­do was Per­ry’s low­est moment-the nation­al press was soon writ­ing him off-but ear­li­er that same day, he dis­played all the qual­i­ties that make him a for­mi­da­ble cam­paign­er. He bound­ed onto the stage at a ral­ly for Ralph Reed’s Faith & Free­dom Coali­tion, wear­ing an open ging­ham shirt and jack­et, wife Ani­ta on his arm. Per­ry has long been lam­pooned back home for an antic, arm-flap­ping style of tel­e­van­ge­lis­tic speechi­fy­ing, but he’s calmed down his style con­sid­er­ably. Stand­ing still at the podi­um, Per­ry clinched his hands prayer­ful­ly. As always, his words had the old evan­gel­i­cal fer­vor.

“I’m cam­paign­ing the only way I know how,” he said. “That’s as a true believ­er.” The crowd whooped and cheered and sur­round­ed the stage six deep, as Per­ry moved seam­less­ly into his mes­sage, mix­ing small-gov­ern­ment and Chris­t­ian-right ortho­doxy. “Our founders did­n’t need a nan­ny state to carve out the great­est civ­i­liza­tion known to man. We did­n’t need a nan­ny state to win the Sec­ond World War and then the Cold War. And we did­n’t need a nan­ny state to revive our econ­o­my, to cre­ate jobs, and to renew our nation’s promise.” In clos­ing, to wild cheers and amens, Per­ry invoked Abra­ham Lin­coln: “My con­cern is not whether God is on my side. My great­est con­cern is to be on God’s side.”

———–

“God Help Us” by Bob Moser; The Amer­i­can Prospect; 11/28/2011

“The idea that the reces­sion was a blessed oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn Amer­i­cans against gov­ern­ment and toward “bib­li­cal prin­ci­ples” was already a famil­iar one for Robison’s fol­low­ers. It was a mes­sage that Per­ry was poised to car­ry into the main­stream. Robi­son had been look­ing for a promi­nent pub­lic offi­cial to con­vene a large-scale prayer and fast­ing ral­ly to spread the word. Per­ry took up the call. He would soon be invit­ing Chris­tians and polit­i­cal lead­ers to a Hous­ton sta­di­um ral­ly, The Response, explain­ing that while the coun­try was fac­ing grim eco­nom­ic times, “There is hope for Amer­i­ca. It lies in heav­en, and we will find it on our knees.””

The Great Reces­sion was a blessed oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn Amer­i­cans against gov­ern­ment and towards “bib­li­cal prin­ci­ples”. That was the great hope of pow­er­ful pas­tors like James Robi­son as the finan­cial cri­sis was play­ing out. And oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case the prin­ci­ples of the kind of ‘Bib­li­cal cap­i­tal­ism’ pro­mot­ed by fig­ures like Glenn Beck and David Bar­ton. Two of Rick Per­ry’s long-time key allies. Only God could heal the econ­o­my. Slash­ing the size of gov­ern­ment was a bib­li­cal­ly ordained response to the cri­sis. A cri­sis caused by a gov­ern­ment that was “against God”:

...
Only God, not gov­ern­ment, could heal the bro­ken econ­o­my. It was a theme that knit togeth­er all three of Per­ry’s core con­stituen­cies: right-wing evan­gel­i­cals, who had mobi­lized behind Per­ry’s 2006 re-elec­tion; anti-tax Tea Partiers, who had helped him to a third term as gov­er­nor in 2010; and cor­po­rate con­ser­v­a­tives, who have bankrolled his rise from the begin­ning. Per­ry’s mes­sage was a nat­ur­al out­growth of the resur­gence in recent years of “bib­li­cal cap­i­tal­ism,” an idea that first sprung up in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry as a coun­ter­weight to the social gospel, which used scrip­ture to sup­port labor reforms and pro­gres­sive tax­a­tion. In recent years, the tenets of bib­li­cal cap­i­tal­ism have been spread most famous­ly by David Bar­ton, for­mer vice chair­man of the Texas GOP and the reli­gious right’s favorite his­to­ri­an. Bar­ton, a long­time Per­ry ally whom Glenn Beck calls “the most impor­tant man in Amer­i­ca,” has been tour­ing the coun­try for years, not only preach­ing that the Unit­ed States was found­ed by and for Chris­tians but also cher­ry-pick­ing scrip­ture to assert that the Bible oppos­es capital–gains and estate tax­es, unions and min­i­mum-wage laws.

For Robi­son and Bar­ton, the reces­sion offered the ide­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to spread that word and argue that big gov­ern­ment had caused the eco­nom­ic calami­ty because it was “against God.” “Depend­ing on the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is idol­a­try,” as Robi­son put it in June. “We must con­trol it, or it will con­trol us. Stop the mad­ness! Hitler believed that Ger­many need­ed a gov­ern­ment over the peo­ple, not of the peo­ple. God deliv­er us from that kind of insan­i­ty.” Get­ting more spe­cif­ic, Robi­son inveighed against “intru­sive reg­u­la­tion,” while call­ing for the tax code to be revised “so we can rejoice togeth­er because it would stim­u­late eco­nom­ic growth.”

In May, meet­ing with Robi­son, Bar­ton, and a large group of evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers to orga­nize The Response, Per­ry echoed the mes­sage. Amer­i­cans’ “pur­suit of hap­pi­ness” was “in jeop­ardy,” he said. “It’s in jeop­ardy because of tax­es. It’s in jeop­ardy because of reg­u­la­tion. It’s in jeop­ardy because of a legal sys­tem that’s run amok. And I think it’s time for us to just hand it over to God and say, ‘God, you’re going to have to fix this.’ ”

While Per­ry insist­ed that The Response was an “apo­lit­i­cal” event, its orga­niz­ers were dozens of evan­gel­i­cal heavy­weights whom Robi­son brought togeth­er, in the spring and sum­mer, for a series of meet­ings to mobi­lize for 2012. Pub­licly, they claimed to be strate­giz­ing to defeat Oba­ma-to use the polit­i­cal moment to “help inspire … a restora­tion of free­dom’s foun­da­tion,” as Robi­son explained. “I don’t think we’re ever going to solve the eco­nom­ic cri­sis with­out hav­ing a king­dom men­tal­i­ty.”

...

Per­ry also wins because of his fundrais­ing abil­i­ties and con­nec­tions to ide­o­log­i­cal­ly dri­ven big donors, which he devel­oped at the Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion. His evan­gel­i­cal net­work has been instru­men­tal in his vic­to­ries, and clear­ly Per­ry hopes the orga­niz­ing efforts of James Robi­son and David Lane will boost his chances in the pri­maries. While he has infused his cam­paign mes­sage with bib­li­cal cap­i­tal­ism, he has also avoid­ed alien­at­ing the Chris­t­ian right by reject­ing calls to dis­as­so­ci­ate him­self from Texas pas­tor Robert Jef­fress, who called Mor­monism a “cult” at the Val­ues Vot­ers Sum­mit in Octo­ber. Although his debat­ing skills have nev­er been sharp-he’s avoid­ed debates in Texas as much as pos­si­ble-Per­ry is a retail politi­cian of the first order. As Iowans and New Hamp­shirites are dis­cov­er­ing, he small-talks, back-slaps, and baby-kiss­es his way through a crowd with relish‑a qual­i­ty that will help in the small ear­ly-pri­ma­ry states, includ­ing South Car­oli­na and Neva­da.
...

That ded­i­ca­tion to “Bib­li­cal cap­i­tal­ism” and shrink­ing the size of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is a big part of con­text of Rick Per­ry emerg­ing as the polit­i­cal avatar of this net­work: Per­ry was­n’t just an advo­cate of Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ism. He’s a “wealth first” ide­o­logue and he’s not afraid of admit­ting it:

...
The only large pro­gram that did not fall vic­tim to the bud­getary blood­let­ting was Per­ry’s most cher­ished ini­tia­tive: the Texas Enter­prise Fund and the Emerg­ing Tech­nol­o­gy Fund, which have doled out more than $600 mil­lion in tax­pay­er mon­ey to cor­po­ra­tions of his choos­ing. “He takes from us so that he can play with his cor­po­rate slush fund and award his friends’ busi­ness­es,” Debra Med­i­na, Per­ry’s lib­er­tar­i­an chal­lenger in the 2010 Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry, said in a debate.

When asked about his gov­ern­ing prin­ci­ples in an inter­view last year, Per­ry respond­ed: “I’m a big believ­er in wealth first. You can­not have expand­ed edu­ca­tion pro­grams, you can­not take care of health and human ser­vice needs of those who can’t take care of them­selves, you can­not have the infra­struc­ture in your state that will dri­ve your econ­o­my, unless you have wealth to pay for it.”

Per­ry’s eco­nom­ic approach is the purest ver­sion of trick­le-down that the Unit­ed States has ever seen. That’s made Texas a case study of what hap­pens when wealth is first. Despite the nation’s high­est rate of job cre­ation, more than one-quar­ter of Tex­ans have no health insur­ance, a high­er per­cent­age than in any state. Home­own­ers’ insur­ance pre­mi­ums are the nation’s high­est. Texas ties with Mis­sis­sip­pi for the top per­cent­age of min­i­mum-wage jobs. Under Per­ry, Texas school fund­ing and achieve­ment have plum­met­ed to near the bot­tom of nation­al rank­ings; the state has the coun­try’s high­est per­cent­age of cit­i­zens with­out high-school diplo­mas. Tex­as­’s Med­ic­aid reim­burse­ments are the sec­ond low­est in the coun­try. Child pover­ty and hunger, along with incar­cer­a­tion rates, are among the high­est.
...

So it should come as no sur­prise to see how Rick Per­ry was effec­tive­ly the first major politi­cian to embrace the Tea Par­ty. His ide­ol­o­gy was effec­tive­ly a theo­crat­ic ver­sion of Grover Norquist’s ide­ol­o­gy:

...
As the first major Amer­i­can politi­cian to embrace the nascent Tea Par­ty, Per­ry had found a way to over­come a dan­ger­ous chal­lenger, three-term Sen­a­tor Kay Bai­ley Hutchi­son, in the 2010 Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry-and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly to launch him­self into the nation­al spot­light. Soon he was writ­ing op-eds in The Wall Street Jour­nal, get­ting glow­ing reviews from Glenn Beck and Rush Lim­baugh, and tour­ing the coun­try non­stop to preach about the virtues of the “Texas mod­el”: low tax­es, light reg­u­la­tions, and a fron­tier men­tal­i­ty of self-depen­dence. “There is still a land of oppor­tu­ni­ty, friends-it’s called Texas,” Per­ry said. “We’re cre­at­ing more jobs than any oth­er state in the nation.” He then pro­vid­ed one more rea­son for Tex­as­’s suc­cess: “Would you rather live in a state like this or in a state where a man can mar­ry a man?”

Rail­ing at Wash­ing­ton was noth­ing new for him; the gov­er­nor had built his career on oppos­ing gov­ern­ment spend­ing. In 2003, when Texas faced a $10 bil­lion short­fall, he seized the moment. With help from Grover Norquist, who came to Texas to per­suade waf­fling Repub­li­cans to bal­ance the bud­get with cuts alone, Per­ry held the line on tax­es-even though it meant drop­ping more than 200,000 chil­dren from the Chil­dren’s Health Insur­ance Pro­gram and anoth­er 500,000 from Med­ic­aid. He also pushed the nation’s most aggres­sive round of dereg­u­la­tion and tort reform. “Texas is open for busi­ness,” he pro­claimed.

Ear­ly this year, per­fect­ly timed to suit his pres­i­den­tial ambi­tions, came anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to show small-gov­ern­ment con­ser­v­a­tives he was the real deal. In Jan­u­ary, the state comp­trol­ler announced that Texas had a $27 bil­lion bud­get hole for the next two years-rep­re­sent­ing near­ly one-quar­ter of the state’s already-lean spend­ing. The deficit was the direct result of a mas­sive prop­er­ty-tax cut Per­ry cham­pi­oned in 2006. It was Norquist’s favorite strat­e­gy: Cut tax­es, and spend­ing reduc­tions will have to fol­low.

“Now is not the time to get wob­bly,” Norquist said as he toured the state with Per­ry in March, urg­ing the gov­er­nor and leg­is­la­tors to stand firm against grow­ing anx­i­eties about huge cuts to schools and social pro­grams. “Do more tort reform, more tax reduc­tion, more spend­ing restraint.” Invok­ing “polit­i­cal philoso­pher Rahm Emanuel,” Norquist told an audi­ence that includ­ed Per­ry, “Some­times the only way to get the bureau­cra­cy to rethink what it’s doing is to tell them there’s a cri­sis.”

Per­ry insist­ed that the leg­is­la­ture close the bud­get gap with no new rev­enues-and with­out touch­ing the state’s $9 bil­lion Rainy Day Fund. He sup­port­ed a bud­get that cut $4 bil­lion from pub­lic schools and $2 bil­lion from Med­ic­aid. “I don’t think there is any­thing that is so impor­tant that [it] can­not be cut,” he said.
...

And that all brings us to the key role of San Anto­nio tycoon James Leininger, described as Rick Per­ry’s Sven­gali. As we’ve seen, Leininger isn’t just a major con­ser­v­a­tive donor in Texas. Leininger found­ed the Texas Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Foun­da­tion (TPPF), the ‘think tank’ where fel­low Texas theo­crat­ic bil­lion­aire Tim Dunn has served as a board mem­ber since 1998. Dunn still serves as the TPPF’s Vice Chair­man. As we also saw, for­mer TPPF pres­i­dent and CNP mem­ber Kevin Roberts went on to become the cur­rent pres­i­dent of the Her­itage Foun­da­tion. This is the same Kevin Roberts who leads the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project 2025 scheme and recent­ly declared the Sec­ond Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion is under­way and will remain blood­less “if the left allows it to be.” Also recall how the TPPF and the Clare­mont Insti­tute ran the “79 Days Report ‘sim­u­la­tions in 2020 imag­in­ing con­test­ed elec­tion sce­nar­ios. Kevin Roberts, John East­man, and fas­cist busi­ness­man Charles Hay­wood all par­tic­i­pat­ed in the sim­u­la­tions. And, of course, Leininger is a mem­ber of the CNP, as we should expect giv­en Leininger’s clear theo­crat­ic ambi­tions:

...
In late August, two weeks after he launched his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, Per­ry was back in Texas, 70 miles west of Austin on a ranch owned by San Anto­nio tycoon James Leininger. Known in Texas as Per­ry’s Sven­gali, Leininger made a for­tune sell­ing hos­pi­tal beds. Their rela­tion­ship dates back at least to the 1990s, when Leininger helped Per­ry buy his first cam­paign plane. In 1998, Per­ry ran for lieu­tenant gov­er­nor against pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­t­ic state comp­trol­ler John Sharp; Per­ry looked like a like­ly los­er in a tight race-until Leininger stepped up and helped guar­an­tee a $1.1 mil­lion loan that fund­ed a last-minute media blitz for the cam­paign. “I con­grat­u­late Leininger,” Sharp said after Per­ry edged him out with 50.04 per­cent of the vote. “He want­ed to buy the reins of state gov­ern­ment, and by God, he got them.”

An evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian, Leininger was then the largest sin­gle donor to con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­cans in Texas and a major con­trib­u­tor to the nation­al par­ty. He embod­ied a new kind of Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment fig­ure. Like Domi­no’s Piz­za founder Tom Mon­aghan and Home Depot founder Bernie Mar­cus, Leininger gives huge sums to can­di­dates not just in exchange for favors but also to advance right-wing social and eco­nom­ic poli­cies. Leininger was the Koch broth­ers before the Koch broth­ers. In Per­ry’s three guber­na­to­r­i­al races, Leininger has donat­ed near­ly $250,000. In 2004, he sub­si­dized a trip to the Bahamas that brought Per­ry togeth­er with his oth­er great polit­i­cal influ­ence, anti-gov­ern­ment cru­sad­er Grover Norquist of Amer­i­cans for Tax Reform.

In a pat­tern that has char­ac­ter­ized his polit­i­cal career, Per­ry has more than repaid Leininger’s gen­eros­i­ty. Two “eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment” funds con­trolled by Per­ry have giv­en near­ly $6 mil­lion to two biotech­nol­o­gy firms in which Leininger holds a sig­nif­i­cant share. Per­ry has suc­cess­ful­ly pushed one of Leininger’s pet projects, tort reform-an inter­est spurred by a spate of law­suits brought against his com­pa­ny, which has been repeat­ed­ly accused of man­u­fac­tur­ing hos­pi­tal beds that dropped and injured nurs­es and patients. Ear­li­er this year, Per­ry capped off a series of tort-reform mea­sures with a “los­er pays” bill that forces lit­i­gants who lose a law­suit to pay the legal expens­es of the com­pa­nies they’ve sued.

That kind of give-and-take between Per­ry and big-mon­ey Repub­li­cans has not been lim­it­ed to Leininger. Near­ly half of the cor­po­ra­tions Per­ry has reward­ed from his eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment funds have been owned by major donors to his cam­paigns. Per­ry’s two largest con­trib­u­tors-Bob Per­ry (no rela­tion to the gov­er­nor) and Harold Sim­mons-have seen their gen­eros­i­ty repaid. In 2006, when Per­ry ran for re–election, Bob Per­ry, a home­build­ing mag­nate whose pet issue is dereg­u­la­tion, gave the gov­er­nor $275,000; he also donat­ed $2 mil­lion to the Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion-which, in turn, gave Per­ry $1 mil­lion in the clos­ing weeks of the cam­paign. Dur­ing his tenure, Per­ry has stripped numer­ous envi­ron­men­tal, finan­cial, and work­place rules from the books. The gov­er­nor’s sec­ond-largest bene­fac­tor is Sim­mons, known in Texas as the “buy­out king” and best known nation­al­ly for help­ing fund the Swift Boat Vet­er­ans for Truth cam­paign against Sen­a­tor John Ker­ry in the 2004 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion (Bob Per­ry was the oth­er major fun­der). He has con­tributed $1.2 mil­lion to the gov­er­nor over the years. Sim­mons stands to make mil­lions by build­ing a mas­sive waste dump in West Texas to house the coun­try’s radioac­tive trash‑a project approved by Per­ry-appoint­ed reg­u­la­tors, though state sci­en­tists have deter­mined the site is unsafe.

Per­ry’s rela­tion­ship with Leininger is of a dif­fer­ent order. The gov­er­nor has lent his full weight to the San Anto­ni­an’s social cru­sades. Leininger chipped in the bulk of funds for a cam­paign to enact an anti-gay-mar­riage amend­ment in Texas, backed by Per­ry. But Leininger’s over­whelm­ing inter­est has been in fight­ing “sec­u­lar” pub­lic edu­ca­tion, pour­ing mil­lions into pri­ma­ry chal­lenges to Repub­li­cans who oppose school vouch­ers and putting mil­lions more behind state school-board can­di­dates who sup­port the teach­ing of cre­ation­ism, absti­nence-only sex edu­ca­tion, and a ver­sion of Amer­i­can his­to­ry that pro­motes Chris­t­ian nation­al­ism. Per­ry has appoint­ed three state edu­ca­tion-board chairs backed by Leininger.
...

And as we can see, it was James Leininger’s Niemoller Foun­da­tion that helped launch the ini­tial “Texas Restora­tion Project” (even­tu­al­ly renamed the Texas Renew­al Project), with an ini­tial goal of help­ing Rick Per­ry’s 2006 re-elec­tion cam­paign. So while the Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion (AFA) may be the enti­ty that has long housed the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project, it sounds like a lot of the mon­ey for the effort came for Leininger’s Niemoller Foun­da­tion. Also note how the goal of the Texas Restora­tion Project was­n’t real­ly to encour­age pas­tors to run for office them­selves. The mis­sion was get­ting those pas­tors to ral­ly their con­gre­ga­tions around Rick Per­ry. It’s a reminder that, while the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project claims to be focused on recruit­ing pas­tors to run for office, the orga­ni­za­tion dou­bles as as church-based get-out-the-vote oper­a­tion:

...
Now, as Per­ry seeks the pres­i­den­cy, Leininger is doing his part again. On the week­end of August 27, he brought togeth­er some 200 evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers and pas­tors for a pri­vate retreat-and anoth­er major audi­tion for Per­ry. Accord­ing to the Los Ange­les Times, the atten­dees includ­ed David Bar­ton, James Robi­son, Richard Land of the South­ern Bap­tist Con­ven­tion, Tony Perkins of the Fam­i­ly Research Coun­cil, and James Dob­son of Focus on the Fam­i­ly. “The Texas gov­er­nor … was grilled about his beliefs and his record in extra­or­di­nar­i­ly frank ses­sions,” the Times report­ed. “He respond­ed by describ­ing his rela­tion­ship with Jesus and pledg­ing to pur­sue the anti-abor­tion and anti-gay mar­riage agen­da cham­pi­oned by the evan­gel­i­cal right.”

An effort to mobi­lize the nation’s pas­tors behind Per­ry was already under way, mod­eled on a Leininger-fund­ed project that helped the gov­er­nor win re-elec­tion in 2006. That year in the gen­er­al elec­tion, Per­ry faced a dif­fi­cult four-way field that includ­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress­man Chris Bell, cig­ar-chomp­ing satirist Kinky Fried­man, and Car­olyn Kee­ton Stray­horn, the Repub­li­can state comp­trol­ler who ran as an inde­pen­dent. With both Fried­man and Stray­horn appeal­ing to inde­pen­dents and mod­er­ate Repub­li­cans, the cam­paign was sure to be a tough one-Per­ry’s clos­est since 1998. But Leininger had the answer. Along with sev­er­al oth­er wealthy con­ser­v­a­tives, he helped cre­ate the Texas Restora­tion Project.

The Restora­tion Project invit­ed thou­sands of Texas min­is­ters to six “Pas­tors’ Pol­i­cy Brief­in­gs,” closed-door events fund­ed by the Niemoller Foun­da­tion, a Hous­ton non­prof­it bankrolled by Leininger and friends. The pas­tors and their spous­es were urged to orga­nize their church­es behind Per­ry; lat­er, as the cam­paign revved up, they were called upon to get out the vote. “The mis­sion is the mobi­liza­tion of pas­tors and pews as a way to restore Texas and Amer­i­ca to our Judeo-Chris­t­ian her­itage,” said David Lane, chief orga­niz­er of the events and one of Per­ry’s most ardent allies on the evan­gel­i­cal right. At the end of each brief­ing, Per­ry offered a ser­mon. “This I know,” he told atten­dees at one gath­er­ing. “He who counts every hair on our heads and every drop in the oceans; He who knows the num­ber of our days and every thought before it enters our heads; this all-know­ing, all-pow­er­ful Cre­ator loves us so much that there is not a mat­ter so triv­ial or so small that we can’t sur­ren­der it to Him and say, ‘Father, your will be done!’ I cer­tain­ly know this to be the heart­felt prayer of a gov­er­nor.”
...

By 2008, the “Texas Restora­tion Project” had expand­ed to oth­er states like Neva­da, New Hamp­shire, Ohio, South Car­oli­na, Col­orado, Ten­nessee, Cal­i­for­nia, Flori­da, and Iowa, thanks to fund­ing from the Niemoller Foun­da­tion and the AFA. And as Dan Quinn of the Texas Free­dom Net­work reminds us, the Niemoller Foun­da­tion is osten­si­bly a non-par­ti­san non-prof­it group that engages in bla­tant par­ti­san­ship like putting on pro-Rick Per­ry events. That was mod­el expand­ed to oth­er states thanks to all that Niemoller/AFA fund­ing and David Lane’s orga­niz­ing efforts:

...
“For us, it seemed like clas­sic machine pol­i­tics,” says Dan Quinn of the Texas Free­dom Net­work, a non­prof­it that sup­ports church-state sep­a­ra­tion. “Some of Per­ry’s biggest donors gave mon­ey to a non­prof­it that then fun­neled it into these events around the state where pas­tors attend­ed for free and heard one speak­er after anoth­er speak in praise of the gov­er­nor-and then the gov­er­nor comes out at the end. It seemed naked­ly par­ti­san and polit­i­cal.” An Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice com­plaint filed by Quin­n’s group went nowhere, with the agency say­ing it did not have suf­fi­cient evi­dence that the mon­ey was being chan­neled direct­ly into Per­ry’s cam­paign.

Per­ry’s cam­paign sent Christ­mas cards to the pas­tors who’d attend­ed the Texas “brief­in­gs,” using the Restora­tion Pro­jec­t’s list. A week before the 2006 elec­tion, David Bar­ton and oth­ers made calls to the thou­sands who’d attend­ed, encour­ag­ing them to mar­shal their flocks behind Per­ry. It worked. Per­ry nar­row­ly won re-elec­tion with 39 per­cent of the vote.

In 2008, Lane, with finan­cial back­ing from Leininger and the anti-gay evan­gel­i­cal group Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Asso­ci­a­tion, began to expand the Restora­tion Project into polit­i­cal­ly impor­tant states around the coun­try. Near­ly 10,000 pas­tors have attend­ed all-expens­es-paid two-day “brief­in­gs” in Neva­da, New Hamp­shire, Ohio, South Car­oli­na, Col­orado, Ten­nessee, Cal­i­for­nia, Flori­da, and Iowa. Speak­ers have includ­ed sev­er­al poten­tial pres­i­den­tial con­tenders and can­di­dates such as Michele Bach­mann, Haley Bar­bour, Newt Gin­grich, and Mike Huck­abee. This year in Flori­da, Per­ry was the fea­tured speak­er.

“Per­ry and Lane have tru­ly mas­tered the tac­tic that Rove used for W. in Ohio in 2004,” Quinn says. “They’ve tak­en that strat­e­gy and real­ly honed it in Texas, more so than I’ve seen any­where else, and now they’ve export­ed that mod­el to most of the pres­i­den­tial bat­tle­ground states.”
...

Now let’s take a clos­er look at the non-prof­it fraud the TFN accused the Niemoller Foun­da­tion of per­pe­trat­ing under the guise of ‘non-par­ti­san’ activ­i­ties. AS the TFN described, the Texas Restora­tion Project masked a sophis­ti­cat­ed vot­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and mobi­liza­tion strat­e­gy intend­ed to ben­e­fit the Per­ry cam­paign in 2006. A strat­e­gy with the CNP’s fin­ger­prints all over it: In addi­tion to Leininger, CNP mem­ber Bob Per­ry also made major dona­tions to the effort, with CNP mem­bers Kel­ly Shack­elford and David Bar­ton help­ing to orga­nize the oper­a­tion:

Texas Free­dom Net­work

TFN Asks IRS to Inves­ti­gate Foun­da­tion Linked to Texas Restora­tion Project

Uncov­ered Tax Records Show Major Fun­ders Were Also Rick Per­ry Back­ers; Sim­i­lar Groups Back­ing Mike Huckabee’s GOP Pres­i­den­tial Bid

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan­u­ary 10, 2008

The Texas Free­dom Net­work is ask­ing the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice to inves­ti­gate whether a Hous­ton-based non­prof­it foun­da­tion and its back­ers improp­er­ly sought to drag church­es into Gov. Rick Perry’s reelec­tion cam­paign in 2006.

“It’s bad enough when politi­cians and their finan­cial back­ers mis­use faith by drag­ging our hous­es of wor­ship into par­ti­san cam­paigns,” TFN Pres­i­dent Kathy Miller said today. “It’s even worse if they break the law to do so. It now appears that the orga­niz­ers of the Texas Restora­tion Project may have done both to sup­port Gov. Perry’s reelec­tion, and by fun­nel­ing the mon­ey through a pri­vate foun­da­tion hid the source of its financ­ing from vot­ers.”

Tax records just uncov­ered by TFN indi­cate that a Hous­ton-based 501(c)(3) non­prof­it called the Niemoller Foun­da­tion, cre­at­ed in May 2005, spent about $1.26 mil­lion in 2005 to fund the activ­i­ties of the Texas Restora­tion Project. The foundation’s list of four “sub­stan­tial con­trib­u­tors” includ­ed three major donors to Rick Perry’s polit­i­cal cam­paigns over the years: San Anto­nio busi­ness­man Jim Leininger, Hous­ton home­builder Bob Per­ry, and East Texas chick­en tycoon Bo Pil­grim. The fourth donor list­ed by the foun­da­tion, beer and wine dis­trib­u­tor Don O’Neal of Col­leyville, has also giv­en small­er amounts to Per­ry cam­paigns.

The Texas Restora­tion Project host­ed thou­sands of pas­tors and their spous­es at six “Pas­tors’ Pol­i­cy Brief­in­gs” in 2005, at a time when Repub­li­cans Sen. Kay Bai­ley Hutchi­son and state Comp­trol­ler Car­ole Stray­horn were con­sid­er­ing seek­ing their party’s nom­i­na­tion for gov­er­nor. They spon­sored a sev­enth event to cel­e­brate Gov. Perry’s inau­gu­ra­tion in 2007. Gov. Per­ry spoke at all sev­en “brief­in­gs.” No oth­er can­di­dates or poten­tial can­di­dates for gov­er­nor in 2006 received invi­ta­tions to speak.

Orga­ni­za­tions sim­i­lar to the Texas Restora­tion Project have cropped up in oth­er states. The South Car­oli­na Renew­al Project and Iowa Renew­al Project have host­ed speech­es by Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mike Huck­abee. Speak­ers at those have includ­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Texas group. The Amer­i­can Prospect is report­ing that new pas­tors’ brief­in­gs have been set for this month in advance of pri­ma­ry elec­tions in South Car­oli­na, Cal­i­for­nia and Flori­da.

In Texas, speak­ers and orga­niz­ers were enthu­si­as­tic in their praise for Gov. Per­ry at each of the events. They also encour­aged pas­tors at the gath­er­ings to mount vot­er reg­is­tra­tion dri­ves and turn con­gre­gants out at the polls. The group’s osten­si­ble goal was to win vot­er approval in Novem­ber 2005 for a state con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment bar­ring same-sex mar­riage and civ­il unions. Those efforts, how­ev­er, appear to have masked a sophis­ti­cat­ed vot­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and mobi­liza­tion strat­e­gy intend­ed to ben­e­fit the Per­ry cam­paign in 2006, Miller said.

...

To qual­i­fy for tax exemp­tion under the fed­er­al tax code, a 501(c)(3) orga­ni­za­tion like the Niemoller Foun­da­tion must not par­tic­i­pate or inter­vene in any polit­i­cal cam­paign on behalf of or in oppo­si­tion to any can­di­date for pub­lic office. In a 2006 speech, the IRS com­mis­sion­er said his agency had found nine non­prof­its, includ­ing church­es, had bro­ken the law by “giv­ing improp­er pref­er­en­tial treat­ment to cer­tain can­di­dates by per­mit­ting them to speak at func­tions.”

The Rev. Lau­rence White and his wife are two of three direc­tors on the Niemoller Foundation’s gov­ern­ing board. White is also chair­man of the Texas Restora­tion Project. The foun­da­tion report­ed income of about $1.3 mil­lion in 2005 and spent all but about $29,000 in that year. Expen­di­tures cov­ered Texas Restora­tion Project activ­i­ties includ­ing more than $700,000 for the six pas­tors’ events and pay­ments to orga­ni­za­tions tied to the Texas Restora­tion Project.

Oth­er ties between the Per­ry cam­paign and the Niemoller Foundation/Texas Restora­tion Project include the fol­low­ing:

* The Niemoller Foundation’s expen­di­tures in 2005 includ­ed near­ly $475,000 paid to San Jac­in­to Pub­lic Affairs, an Austin-based firm that orga­nized the Texas Restora­tion Project’s events. The firm earned at least $4 mil­lion from work for the Repub­li­can Par­ty of Texas and elec­toral can­di­dates between July 2003 and Novem­ber 2007.
* The Per­ry cam­paign sub­se­quent­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed direct­ly with thou­sands of pas­tors recruit­ed by the Texas Restora­tion Project, sug­gest­ing coor­di­na­tion between the cam­paign and the Restora­tion Project.
* Press reports in 2005 indi­cat­ed at least one of Gov. Perry’s pas­tors’ brief­ing speech­es was con­sid­ered a cam­paign event, with the Per­ry cam­paign releas­ing the tran­script of his speech. (“Per­ry mobi­lizes evan­gel­i­cals as gov’s race heats up,” Matt Cur­ry, Asso­ci­at­ed Press, June 11, 2005)
* The Niemoller Foun­da­tion doled out $200,000 to Plano-based Free Mar­ket Foun­da­tion and San Anto­nio-based Jus­tice at the Gates in 2005. The two groups helped recruit pas­tors to Texas Restora­tion Project events. Free Mar­ket Foun­da­tion pres­i­dent Kel­ly Shack­elford and Jus­tice at the Gate direc­tor Susan Wed­ding­ton served on Gov. Perry’s reelec­tion steer­ing com­mit­tee.
* Days before the guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion in Novem­ber 2006, the Texas Restora­tion Project sent e‑mails to pas­tors on its mail­ing list, encour­ag­ing them to par­tic­i­pate in a statewide con­fer­ence call (which took place the fol­low­ing week) to “dis­cuss what we can do this elec­tion cycle to moti­vate our pews to vote their val­ues.” Shack­elford and David Bar­ton, who until June 2006 had served as vice chair of the Texas Repub­li­can Par­ty, were among the orga­niz­ers and promi­nent speak­ers on the call.

...

———

“TFN Asks IRS to Inves­ti­gate Foun­da­tion Linked to Texas Restora­tion Project” ; Texas Free­dom Net­work; 01/10/2008

“To qual­i­fy for tax exemp­tion under the fed­er­al tax code, a 501(c)(3) orga­ni­za­tion like the Niemoller Foun­da­tion must not par­tic­i­pate or inter­vene in any polit­i­cal cam­paign on behalf of or in oppo­si­tion to any can­di­date for pub­lic office. In a 2006 speech, the IRS com­mis­sion­er said his agency had found nine non­prof­its, includ­ing church­es, had bro­ken the law by “giv­ing improp­er pref­er­en­tial treat­ment to cer­tain can­di­dates by per­mit­ting them to speak at func­tions.””

As the TFN found, the Niemoller Foun­da­tion claims to be a 501(c)(3) non-prof­it, mean­ing it could­n’t engage in any polit­i­cal cam­paign direct­ly on behalf or against a can­di­date while main­tain­ing its tax-exempt sta­tus. As the TFN describes it, those ear­ly pas­tor events of the “Texas Restora­tion Project” were effec­tive­ly mask­ing a sophis­ti­cat­ed vot­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and mobi­liza­tion strat­e­gy intend­ed to ben­e­fit the Per­ry cam­paign in 2006. That’s the mod­el that was expand­ed to oth­er states:

...
The Texas Restora­tion Project host­ed thou­sands of pas­tors and their spous­es at six “Pas­tors’ Pol­i­cy Brief­in­gs” in 2005, at a time when Repub­li­cans Sen. Kay Bai­ley Hutchi­son and state Comp­trol­ler Car­ole Stray­horn were con­sid­er­ing seek­ing their party’s nom­i­na­tion for gov­er­nor. They spon­sored a sev­enth event to cel­e­brate Gov. Perry’s inau­gu­ra­tion in 2007. Gov. Per­ry spoke at all sev­en “brief­in­gs.” No oth­er can­di­dates or poten­tial can­di­dates for gov­er­nor in 2006 received invi­ta­tions to speak.

...

In Texas, speak­ers and orga­niz­ers were enthu­si­as­tic in their praise for Gov. Per­ry at each of the events. They also encour­aged pas­tors at the gath­er­ings to mount vot­er reg­is­tra­tion dri­ves and turn con­gre­gants out at the polls. The group’s osten­si­ble goal was to win vot­er approval in Novem­ber 2005 for a state con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment bar­ring same-sex mar­riage and civ­il unions. Those efforts, how­ev­er, appear to have masked a sophis­ti­cat­ed vot­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and mobi­liza­tion strat­e­gy intend­ed to ben­e­fit the Per­ry cam­paign in 2006, Miller said.
...

And as we should expect, the list fig­ures involved with the those 2006 efforts to re-elec­tion Rick Per­ry includes a num­ber of CNP mem­bers. On top of Jim Leininger, we find “Swift Vote Vet­er­ans for Truth” financier Bob Per­ry serv­ing as a major donor and Kel­ly Shack­elford and David Bar­ton help­ing to orga­nize pro-Per­ry events. Recall how not only did Mike John­son call Shack­elford his men­tor but Shack­elford served as the CNP’s vice pres­i­dent in 2020. He was also part of the del­e­ga­tion of CNP mem­bers who met with Don­ald Trump back in June of 2016 to give the Trump cam­paign their bless­ing. In oth­er words, Rick Per­ry’s 2006 re-elec­tion effort was effec­tive­ly a CNP Rick Per­ry re-elec­tion effort. Before it became a tem­plate to export to oth­er states:

...
Tax records just uncov­ered by TFN indi­cate that a Hous­ton-based 501(c)(3) non­prof­it called the Niemoller Foun­da­tion, cre­at­ed in May 2005, spent about $1.26 mil­lion in 2005 to fund the activ­i­ties of the Texas Restora­tion Project. The foundation’s list of four “sub­stan­tial con­trib­u­tors” includ­ed three major donors to Rick Perry’s polit­i­cal cam­paigns over the years: San Anto­nio busi­ness­man Jim Leininger, Hous­ton home­builder Bob Per­ry, and East Texas chick­en tycoon Bo Pil­grim. The fourth donor list­ed by the foun­da­tion, beer and wine dis­trib­u­tor Don O’Neal of Col­leyville, has also giv­en small­er amounts to Per­ry cam­paigns.

...

The Rev. Lau­rence White and his wife are two of three direc­tors on the Niemoller Foundation’s gov­ern­ing board. White is also chair­man of the Texas Restora­tion Project. The foun­da­tion report­ed income of about $1.3 mil­lion in 2005 and spent all but about $29,000 in that year. Expen­di­tures cov­ered Texas Restora­tion Project activ­i­ties includ­ing more than $700,000 for the six pas­tors’ events and pay­ments to orga­ni­za­tions tied to the Texas Restora­tion Project.

Oth­er ties between the Per­ry cam­paign and the Niemoller Foundation/Texas Restora­tion Project include the fol­low­ing:

* The Niemoller Foundation’s expen­di­tures in 2005 includ­ed near­ly $475,000 paid to San Jac­in­to Pub­lic Affairs, an Austin-based firm that orga­nized the Texas Restora­tion Project’s events. The firm earned at least $4 mil­lion from work for the Repub­li­can Par­ty of Texas and elec­toral can­di­dates between July 2003 and Novem­ber 2007.
* The Per­ry cam­paign sub­se­quent­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed direct­ly with thou­sands of pas­tors recruit­ed by the Texas Restora­tion Project, sug­gest­ing coor­di­na­tion between the cam­paign and the Restora­tion Project.
* Press reports in 2005 indi­cat­ed at least one of Gov. Perry’s pas­tors’ brief­ing speech­es was con­sid­ered a cam­paign event, with the Per­ry cam­paign releas­ing the tran­script of his speech. (“Per­ry mobi­lizes evan­gel­i­cals as gov’s race heats up,” Matt Cur­ry, Asso­ci­at­ed Press, June 11, 2005)
* The Niemoller Foun­da­tion doled out $200,000 to Plano-based Free Mar­ket Foun­da­tion and San Anto­nio-based Jus­tice at the Gates in 2005. The two groups helped recruit pas­tors to Texas Restora­tion Project events. Free Mar­ket Foun­da­tion pres­i­dent Kel­ly Shack­elford and Jus­tice at the Gate direc­tor Susan Wed­ding­ton served on Gov. Perry’s reelec­tion steer­ing com­mit­tee.
* Days before the guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion in Novem­ber 2006, the Texas Restora­tion Project sent e‑mails to pas­tors on its mail­ing list, encour­ag­ing them to par­tic­i­pate in a statewide con­fer­ence call (which took place the fol­low­ing week) to “dis­cuss what we can do this elec­tion cycle to moti­vate our pews to vote their val­ues.” Shack­elford and David Bar­ton, who until June 2006 had served as vice chair of the Texas Repub­li­can Par­ty, were among the orga­niz­ers and promi­nent speak­ers on the call.
...

And what hap­pened to the TFN’s calls for the IRS to revoke the Niemoller Foun­da­tion’s tax-exempt sta­tus? The IRS ruled in the Niemoller Foun­da­tion’s favor in 2009. That’s also part of the con­text of the broad­er Amer­i­can Renew­al Project active today. This church-focused get-out-the-vote mod­el may have start­ed as a Rick Per­ry re-elec­tion effort but it was the kind of mod­el these theocrats were eager to export to one state after anoth­er. Which is exact­ly what they’ve done, thanks, in part to the IRS’s unwill­ing­ness to address this bla­tant abuse of tax exempt non-prof­it sta­tus. But also thanks to the seem­ing­ly end­less financ­ing finances from peo­ple with more mon­ey than God and plans to reshape soci­ety to ensure they get even more.

Oh look, the CNP had anoth­er group exposed. This time it was ProP­ub­li­ca, report­ing on a new domin­ion­ist mega-donor orga­niz­ing enti­ty: The Zik­lag group. It’s anoth­er 501(c)(3) tax-exempt ‘char­i­ty’ that in real­i­ty exists to help Repub­li­cans win elec­tions. As the founder of the group, Ken Eldred, puts it, he want­ed to want­ed to cre­ate a donor net­work like the one cre­at­ed by Charles and David Koch but for Chris­tians. Real­ly wealthy Chris­tians. Aspir­ing mem­bers need a net worth of $25 mil­lion to even apply. And if they aren’t Domin­ion­ist evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians they prob­a­bly aren’t going to want to apply any­way. The Zik­lag group is like the Koch net­work but specif­i­cal­ly for Domin­ion­ists.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen reports on a ‘Zik­lag’ domin­ion­ist ini­tia­tive in recent years. As we’ve seen, Eldred also found­ed Unit­ed in Pur­pose, an orga­ni­za­tion that appears to large­ly exist to pro­mote domin­ion­ist projects. Recall how Unit­ed in Pur­pose’s for­mer direc­tor, CNP Mem­ber Bill Dal­las, co-orga­nized the big gath­er­ing of evan­gel­i­cals in New York City in June of 2016 to effec­tive­ly give their bless­ings to the then-nom­i­nat­ed Don­ald Trump. Then, in Feb­ru­ary of 2020, Eldred played a key role in orga­niz­ingthe for­mu­la­tion of CNP plans to deal with the results of the 2020 elec­tion in the event of an pop­u­lar or elec­toral vote loss. They devel­oped a three-pronged strat­e­gy: The first prong was an expan­sion of the use of vot­er data to turn out the GOP vote and sup­press the Demo­c­ra­t­ic vote. The sec­ond was to mobi­lize sup­port­ers in swing states to ignite Tea Par­ty-like protests against COVID lock­downs. The third was find­ing physi­cians will­ing to pub­licly dis­miss the dan­gers of COVID in a media blitz. Unit­ed in Pur­pose called the cam­paign “Oper­a­tion Zik­lag”.

We’ve also seen Eldred’s Unit­ed in Pur­pose show in rela­tion to a num­ber of oth­er key CNP orga­niz­ers, like Ralph Reed and Gin­ni Thomas. For exam­ple, Unit­ed in Pur­pose part­ners with Ralph Reed’s Faith and Free­dom Coali­tion in GOTV efforts. And then there’s the fact that Gin­ni Thomas start­ed emcee­ing an annu­al Impact Awards awards cer­e­mo­ny cel­e­brat­ing some of the best-known Trump allies, put on in con­junc­tion with Unit­ed in Pur­pose. Plus, when Gin­ni Thomas tried to per­suade state leg­is­la­tors in her efforts to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion results uti­liz­ing the web­site everylegalvote.com to reach out to the leg­is­la­tors, she was using a web­site built by Unit­ed in Pur­pose. And then there’s the fact that Unit­ed in Pur­pose’s board mem­bers include CNP exec­u­tive direc­tor Bob McEwen and has a net­work of allies and clients that include the Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Asso­ciate, the Fam­i­ly Research Coun­cil, and Reed’s Faith & Free­dom Coali­tion. And as we’ll see in the fol­low­ing ProP­ub­li­ca report, it was CNP mem­ber Char­lie Kirk who was invit­ed to the 2023 Zik­lag gath­er­ing where he made the pitch that Zik­lag was the counter to George Soros and oth­er lib­er­al bil­lion­aires. Kirk, McEwen, Reed, and Thomas all very active CNP orga­niz­ers, which is what Unit­ed in Pur­pose appears to be designed to facil­i­tate. Inter­est­ing­ly, Eldred, the osten­si­ble leader of the group, stands out for not show­ing up on the leaked CNP mem­bers lists. Almost every­one else involved with this sto­ry is a CNP mem­ber.

The group appears to made copi­ous use of the ‘Sev­en Moun­tains’ domin­ion­ist ter­mi­nol­o­gy. The chair of the ‘edu­ca­tion moun­tain’ is CNP mem­ber Peter Bohlinger. As we’re going to see, whip­ping up hys­ter­ics over edu­ca­tion is one of the prongs in the groups three-pronged strat­e­gy for 2024. Specif­i­cal­ly, whip­ping up hys­ter­ics over trans­gen­der chil­dren. That ini­tia­tive is dubbed “Watch­tow­er”, along with the “Check­mate” prong — focused on ‘elec­tion integri­ty’ efforts — and the “Steeple­chase” prong ded­i­cat­ed to polit­i­cal­ly mobi­liz­ing con­ser­v­a­tive pas­tors. While there’s no indi­ca­tion David Lane’s Amer­i­can Renew­al Project is involved with the Steeple­chase efforts, it’s hard not to notice the enor­mous over­lap.

As we should prob­a­bly expect, the ‘Check­mate’ ini­tia­tive cen­ters around anoth­er major CNP fig­ure: Cle­ta Mitchell. As we’ve seen, it was Mitchell who played a key orga­niz­ing role in the CNP efforts to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion. An insur­rec­tion with the CNP’s fin­ger­prints all over it. Notably, the sup­port from Zik­lag for Mitchell appears to have been chan­neled through a $600,000 dona­tion in 2022 to the Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute (CPI). Recall how the CPI serves as a kind of CNP orga­ni­za­tion­al moth­er­ship, spin­ning off all sorts of new groups and deeply involved with the Sched­ule F/Project 2025 plot. It’s a reminder that, while this Zik­lag Group is por­trayed as a kind of inde­pen­dent domin­ion­ist orga­niz­ing enti­ty, it’s real­ly just anoth­er CNP front group. Albeit one that is more explic­it­ly ‘Sev­en Moun­tains’ ori­ent­ed than usu­al.

Fit­ting­ly, it sounds like one of the lead­ing fig­ures in the pop­u­lar­iza­tion of the Sev­en Moun­tains man­date, Lance Wall­nau, is also play­ing a lead­ing role in this Zik­lag Group. In 2013, Wall­nau co-authored the book Invad­ing Baby­lon: The 7 Moun­tain Man­date. And as we also saw, Wall­nau was push­ing the idea that Don­ald Trump is a God-ordained change agent anal­o­gous to the Bib­li­cal fig­ure King Cyrus in the first year of Trump’s pres­i­den­cy. Wall­nau sits on the board of the Truth and Lib­er­ty Coali­tion, along­side David Bar­ton. The group tar­gets pub­lic schools and col­lab­o­rates with the CNP’s Moms for Lib­er­ty. In March 2022, Wall­nau bragged that “we” had “flood­ed” South­lake, Texas with “one thou­sand peo­ple” who “took over the school boards… the city coun­cil… the mayor’s office.” He added that, “The media doesn’t know it because we nev­er said it was a church ini­tia­tive. We called it a com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tive.”

And yes, the Zik­lag Group claims to be a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-par­ti­san char­i­ty despite hav­ing three major ini­tia­tives focused on par­ti­san elec­tion results. As mul­ti­ple tax experts tell ProP­ub­li­ca, this appears to be a gross mis­rep­re­se­n­a­tion for an enti­ty blant­ly engaged in par­ti­san orga­niz­ing. But as we’ve also seen, trolling the IRS with bla­tant­ly fraud­u­lent claims of non-par­ti­san­ship is a long-stand­ing pas­time of this domin­ion­ist net­work. As the ProP­ub­lic report points out, while con­fi­den­tial donor net­works reg­u­lar­ly chan­nel hun­dreds of mil­lionos of dol­lars into polit­i­cal and char­i­ta­ble groups — like the lib­er­al Democ­ra­cy Alliance to the Koch-affil­i­at­ed Stand Togeth­er orga­ni­za­tion — those groups don’t claim to be 501(c)(3) char­i­ties like this Zik­lag is claim­ing. As experts describe, Zik­lag appears to be the first coor­di­nat­ed effort to get wealthy donors to fund an overt­ly Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist agen­da. This is also a good time to recall how two of the key enti­ties back­ing the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project — the Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Asso­ci­a­tion and the Niemoller Foun­da­tion — bothclaim to be and 501(c)(3) char­i­ties. In oth­er words, Zik­lag isn’t the first domin­ion­ist 501(c)(3). But it does appear to be nov­el in its focus on mega-donors-only for domin­ion­ist orga­niz­ing.

So that’s all part of the back­ground of this seem­ing­ly ‘new’ domin­ion­ist net­work ProP­ub­li­ca report­ed on last month. And in a tech­ni­cal sense it is rel­a­tive­ly new. Or new-ish. And yet, it’s also obvi­ous­ly just one more enti­ty in this same old CNP domin­ion­ist net­work that has been accru­ing pow­er, and ambi­tion, for decades. For char­i­ty, of course:

ProP­ub­li­ca

Inside Zik­lag, the Secret Orga­ni­za­tion of Wealthy Chris­tians Try­ing to Sway the Elec­tion and Change the Coun­try

The lit­tle-known char­i­ty is backed by famous con­ser­v­a­tive donors, includ­ing the fam­i­lies behind Hob­by Lob­by and Uline. It’s spend­ing mil­lions to make a big polit­i­cal push for this elec­tion — but it may be vio­lat­ing the law.

by Andy Kroll, ProP­ub­li­ca, and Nick Surgey, Doc­u­ment­ed
July 13, 5 a.m. EDT

A net­work of ultra­wealthy Chris­t­ian donors is spend­ing near­ly $12 mil­lion to mobi­lize Repub­li­can-lean­ing vot­ers and purge more than a mil­lion peo­ple from the rolls in key swing states, aim­ing to tilt the 2024 elec­tion in favor of for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

These pre­vi­ous­ly unre­port­ed plans are the work of a group named Zik­lag, a lit­tle-known char­i­ty whose donors have includ­ed some of the wealth­i­est con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian fam­i­lies in the nation, includ­ing the bil­lion­aire Uih­lein fam­i­ly, who made a for­tune in office sup­plies, the Greens, who run Hob­by Lob­by, and the Wallers, who own the Jock­ey appar­el cor­po­ra­tion. Recip­i­ents of Ziklag’s largesse include Alliance Defend­ing Free­dom, which is the Chris­t­ian legal group that led the over­turn­ing of Roe v. Wade, plus the nation­al pro-Trump group Turn­ing Point USA and a con­stel­la­tion of right-of-cen­ter advo­ca­cy groups.

ProP­ub­li­ca and Doc­u­ment­ed obtained thou­sands of Ziklag’s mem­bers-only email newslet­ters, inter­nal videos, strat­e­gy doc­u­ments and fundrais­ing pitch­es, none of which has been pre­vi­ous­ly made pub­lic. They reveal the group’s 2024 plans and its long-term goal to under­pin every major sphere of influ­ence in Amer­i­can soci­ety with Chris­tian­i­ty. In the Bible, the city of Zik­lag was where David and his sol­diers found refuge dur­ing their war with King Saul.

...

Ziklag’s 2024 agen­da reads like the work of a polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion. It plans to pour mon­ey into mobi­liz­ing vot­ers in Ari­zona who are “sym­pa­thet­ic to Repub­li­cans” in order to secure “10,640 addi­tion­al unique votes” — almost the exact mar­gin of Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s win there in 2020. The group also intends to use con­tro­ver­sial AI soft­ware to enable mass chal­lenges to the eli­gi­bil­i­ty of hun­dreds of thou­sands of vot­ers in com­pet­i­tive states.

In a record­ing of a 2023 inter­nal strat­e­gy dis­cus­sion, a Zik­lag offi­cial stressed that the objec­tive was the same in oth­er swing states. “The goal is to win,” the offi­cial said. “If 75,000 peo­ple wins the White House, then how do we get 150,000 peo­ple so we make sure we win?”

Accord­ing to the Zik­lag files, the group has divid­ed its 2024 activ­i­ties into three dif­fer­ent oper­a­tions tar­get­ing vot­ers in bat­tle­ground states: Check­mate, focused on fund­ing so-called elec­tion integri­ty groups; Steeple­chase, con­cen­trat­ed on using church­es and pas­tors to get out the vote; and Watch­tow­er, aimed at gal­va­niz­ing vot­ers around the issues of “parental rights” and oppo­si­tion to trans­gen­der rights and poli­cies sup­port­ing health care for trans peo­ple.

...

But Zik­lag is not a polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion: It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt char­i­ty, the same legal des­ig­na­tion as the Unit­ed Way or Boys and Girls Club. Such orga­ni­za­tions do not have to pub­licly dis­close their fun­ders, and dona­tions are tax deductible. In exchange, they are “absolute­ly pro­hib­it­ed from direct­ly or indi­rect­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in, or inter­ven­ing in, any polit­i­cal cam­paign on behalf of (or in oppo­si­tion to) any can­di­date for elec­tive pub­lic office,”accord­ing to the IRS.

ProP­ub­li­ca and Doc­u­ment­ed pre­sent­ed the find­ings of their inves­ti­ga­tion to six non­par­ti­san lawyers and legal experts. All expressed con­cern that Zik­lag was test­ing or vio­lat­ing the law.

The report­ing by ProP­ub­li­ca and Doc­u­ment­ed “casts seri­ous doubt on this organization’s sta­tus as a 501(c)(3) orga­ni­za­tion,” said Roger Col­in­vaux, a pro­fes­sor at Catholic University’s Colum­bus School of Law.

“I think it’s across the line with­out a ques­tion,” said Lloyd Hitoshi May­er, a Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame law pro­fes­sor.

Zik­lag offi­cials did not respond to a detailed list of ques­tions. Mar­tin Nuss­baum, an attor­ney who said he was the group’s gen­er­al coun­sel, said in a writ­ten response that “some of the state­ments in your email are cor­rect. Oth­ers are not,” but he then did not respond to a request to spec­i­fy what was erro­neous. The group is seek­ing to “align” the cul­ture “with Bib­li­cal val­ues and the Amer­i­can con­sti­tu­tion, and that they will serve the com­mon good,” he wrote. Using the offi­cial tax name for Zik­lag, he wrote that “USATrans­Form does not endorse can­di­dates for pub­lic office.” He declined to com­ment on the group’s mem­bers.

There are no bright lines or mag­ic words that the IRS might look for when it inves­ti­gates a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion for engag­ing in polit­i­cal inter­ven­tion, said May­er. Instead, the agency exam­ines the facts and cir­cum­stances of a group’s activ­i­ties and makes a con­clu­sion about whether the group vio­lat­ed the law.

The biggest risk for char­i­ties that inter­vene in polit­i­cal cam­paigns, May­er said, is loss of their tax-exempt sta­tus. Donors’ abil­i­ty to deduct their dona­tions can be a major sell, not to men­tion it can cre­ate “a halo effect” for the group, May­er added.

“They may be able to get more mon­ey this way,” he said, adding, “It boils down to tax eva­sion at the end of the day.”

“Domin­ion Over the Sev­en Moun­tains”

Zik­lag has large­ly escaped scruti­ny until now. The group describes itself as a “pri­vate, con­fi­den­tial, invi­ta­tion-only com­mu­ni­ty of high-net-worth Chris­t­ian fam­i­lies.”

Accord­ing to inter­nal doc­u­ments, it boasts more than 125 mem­bers that include busi­ness exec­u­tives, pas­tors, media lead­ers and oth­er promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians. Poten­tial new mem­bers, one doc­u­ment says, should have a “con­cern for cul­ture” demon­strat­ed by past dona­tions to faith-based or polit­i­cal caus­es, as well as a net worth of $25 mil­lion or more. None of the donors respond­ed to requests for com­ment.

Tax records show rapid growth in the group’s finances in recent years. Its annu­al rev­enue climbed from $1.3 mil­lion in 2018 to $6 mil­lion in 2019 and near­ly $12 mil­lion in 2022, which is the lat­est fil­ing avail­able.

The group’s spend­ing is not on the scale of major con­ser­v­a­tive fun­ders such as Miri­am Adel­son or Barre Seid, the elec­tron­ics mag­nate who gave $1.6 bil­lion to a group led by con­ser­v­a­tive legal activist Leonard Leo. But its fund­ing and strat­e­gy rep­re­sent one of the clear­est links yet between the Chris­t­ian right and the “elec­tion integri­ty” move­ment fueled by Trump’s base­less claims about vot­ing fraud. Even sev­er­al mil­lion dol­lars fund­ing mass chal­lenges to vot­ers in swing coun­ties can make an impact, legal and elec­tion experts say.

Zik­lag was the brain­child of a Sil­i­con Val­ley entre­pre­neur named Ken Eldred. It emerged from a pre­vi­ous orga­ni­za­tion found­ed by Eldred called Unit­ed In Pur­pose, which aimed to get more Chris­tians active in the civic are­na, accord­ing to Bill Dal­las, the group’s for­mer direc­tor. Unit­ed In Pur­pose gen­er­at­ed atten­tion in June 2016 when it orga­nized a major meet­ing between then-can­di­date Trump and hun­dreds of evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers.

After Trump was elect­ed in 2016, Eldred had an idea, accord­ing to Dal­las. “He says, ‘I want all the wealthy Chris­t­ian peo­ple to come togeth­er,’” Dal­las recalled in an inter­view. Eldred told Dal­las that he want­ed to cre­ate a donor net­work like the one cre­at­ed by Charles and David Koch but for Chris­tians. He pro­posed nam­ing it David’s Mighty Men, Dal­las said. Female mem­bers balked. Dal­las found the pas­sage in Chron­i­cles that ref­er­ences David’s sol­diers and read that they met in the city of Zik­lag, and so they chose the name Zik­lag.

The group’s stature grew after Trump took office. Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence appeared at a Zik­lag event, as did for­mer Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment Sec­re­tary Ben Car­son, Sen. Ted Cruz, then-Rep. Mark Mead­ows and oth­er mem­bers of Con­gress. In its pri­vate newslet­ter, Zik­lag claims that a coali­tion of groups it assem­bled played “a huge­ly sig­nif­i­cant role in the selec­tion, hear­ings and con­fir­ma­tion process” of Amy Coney Bar­rett for a Supreme Court seat in late 2020.

Con­fi­den­tial donor net­works reg­u­lar­ly invest hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars into polit­i­cal and char­i­ta­ble groups, from the lib­er­al Democ­ra­cy Alliance to the Koch-affil­i­at­ed Stand Togeth­er orga­ni­za­tion on the right. But unlike Zik­lag, nei­ther of those orga­ni­za­tions is legal­ly set up as a true char­i­ty.

Zik­lag appears to be the first coor­di­nat­ed effort to get wealthy donors to fund an overt­ly Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist agen­da, accord­ing to his­to­ri­ans, legal experts and oth­er peo­ple famil­iar with the group. “It shows that this idea isn’t being dis­missed as fringe in the way that it might have been in the past,” said Mary Ziegler, a legal his­to­ri­an and Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis law pro­fes­sor.

...

One the­ol­o­gy pro­mot­ed by Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist lead­ers is the Sev­en Moun­tain Man­date. Each moun­tain rep­re­sents a major indus­try or a sphere of pub­lic life: arts and media, busi­ness, church, edu­ca­tion, fam­i­ly, gov­ern­ment, and sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. Ziklag’s goal, the doc­u­ments say, is to “take domin­ion over the Sev­en Moun­tains,” fund­ing Chris­t­ian projects or installing devout Chris­tians in lead­er­ship posi­tions to reshape each moun­tain in a god­ly way.

To address their con­cerns about edu­ca­tion, Ziklag’s lead­ers and allies have focused on the pub­lic-school sys­tem. In a 2021 Zik­lag meet­ing, Ziklag’s edu­ca­tion moun­tain chair, Peter Bohlinger, said that Ziklag’s goal “is to take down the edu­ca­tion sys­tem as we know it today.” The pro­duc­ers of the film “Sound of Free­dom,” fea­tur­ing Jim Caviezel as an anti-sex-traf­fick­ing activist, screened an ear­ly cut of the film at a Zik­lag con­fer­ence and asked for funds, accord­ing to Dal­las.

The Sev­en Moun­tains the­ol­o­gy sig­nals a break from Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ists such as Jer­ry Fal­well Sr. and Pat Robert­son. In the 1980s and ’90s, Falwell’s Moral Major­i­ty focused on work­ing with­in the demo­c­ra­t­ic process to mobi­lize evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers and elect politi­cians with a Chris­t­ian world­view.

The Sev­en Moun­tains the­ol­o­gy embraces a dif­fer­ent, less demo­c­ra­t­ic approach to gain­ing pow­er. “If the Moral Major­i­ty is about gal­va­niz­ing the vot­ers, the Sev­en Moun­tains is a rev­o­lu­tion­ary mod­el: You need to con­quer these moun­tains and let change flow down from the top,” said Matthew Tay­lor, a senior schol­ar at the Insti­tute for Islam­ic, Chris­t­ian and Jew­ish Stud­ies and an expert on Chris­t­ian nation­al­ism. “It’s an out­lined pro­gram for Chris­t­ian suprema­cy.”

“The Amor­phous, Tumul­tuous Wild West”

The Chris­t­ian right has had com­pelling spokes­peo­ple and fierce com­mit­ment to its caus­es, whether they were end­ing abor­tion rights, allow­ing prayer in schools or dis­play­ing the Ten Com­mand­ments out­side of pub­lic build­ings. What the move­ment has often lacked, its lead­ers argue, is suf­fi­cient fund­ing.

...

Speak­ing late last year to an invi­ta­tion-only gath­er­ing of Zik­lag­gers, as mem­bers are known, Char­lie Kirk, who leads the pro-Trump Turn­ing Point USA orga­ni­za­tion, named left-lean­ing phil­an­thropists who were, in his view, fund­ing the destruc­tion of the nation: MacKen­zie Scott, ex-wife of Ama­zon founder Jeff Bezos; bil­lion­aire investor and lib­er­al phil­an­thropist George Soros; and the two founders of Google, Lar­ry Page and Sergey Brin.

“Why are sec­u­lar peo­ple giv­ing more gen­er­ous­ly than Chris­tians?” Kirk asked, accord­ing to a record­ing of his remarks. “It would be a tragedy,” he added, “if peo­ple who hate life, hate our coun­try, hate beau­ty and hate God want­ed it more than us.”

“Zik­lag is the place,” Kirk told the donors. “Zik­lag is the counter.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, Pence, in a 2021 appear­ance at a pri­vate Zik­lag event, praised the group for its role in “chang­ing lives, and it’s advanced the cause, it’s advanced the king­dom.”

A dri­ving force behind Ziklag’s efforts is Lance Wall­nau, a promi­nent Chris­t­ian evan­ge­list and influ­encer based in Texas who is described by Zik­lag as a “Sev­en Moun­tains vision­ary & advi­sor.” The fiery preach­er is one of the most influ­en­tial fig­ures on the Chris­t­ian right, experts say, a bridge between Chris­t­ian nation­al­ism and Trump. He was one of the ear­li­est evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers to endorse Trump in 2015 and lat­er pub­lished a book titled “God’s Chaos Can­di­date: Don­ald J. Trump and the Amer­i­can Unrav­el­ing.” More than 1 mil­lion peo­ple fol­low him on Face­book. He doesn’t try to hide his views: “Yes, I am a Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist,” he said dur­ing one of his livestreams in 2021. (Wall­nau did not respond to requests for com­ment.)

Wall­nau has remained a Trump ally. He called Trump’s time in office a “spir­i­tu­al war­fare pres­i­den­cy” and pop­u­lar­ized the idea that Trump was a “mod­ern-day Cyrus,” refer­ring to the Per­sian king who defeat­ed the Baby­lo­ni­ans and allowed the Jew­ish peo­ple to return to Jerusalem. Wall­nau has vis­it­ed with Trump at the White House and Trump Tow­er; last Novem­ber, he livestreamed from a black-tie gala at Mar-a-Lago where Trump spoke.

Wall­nau did not come up with the notion that Chris­tians should try to take con­trol of key areas of Amer­i­can soci­ety. But he improved on the idea by intro­duc­ing the con­cept of the sev­en moun­tains and urged Chris­tians to set about con­quer­ing them. The con­cept caught on, said Tay­lor, because it empow­ered Chris­tians with a sense of pur­pose in every sphere of life.

As a preach­er in the inde­pen­dent charis­mat­ic tra­di­tion, a fast-grow­ing off­shoot of Pen­te­costal­ism that is unaf­fil­i­at­ed with any major denom­i­na­tion, Wall­nau and his acolytes believe that God speaks to and through mod­ern-day apos­tles and prophets — a ver­sion of Chris­tian­i­ty that Tay­lor, in his forth­com­ing book “The Vio­lent Take It By Force,” describes as “the amor­phous, tumul­tuous Wild West of the mod­ern church.” Wall­nau and his ideas lin­gered at the fringes of Amer­i­can Chris­tian­i­ty for years, until the boost from the Trump pres­i­den­cy.

The Zik­lag files detail not only what Chris­tians should do to con­quer all sev­en moun­tains, but also what their goals will be once they’ve tak­en the sum­mit. For the gov­ern­ment moun­tain, one key doc­u­ment says that “the bib­li­cal role of gov­ern­ment is to pro­mote good and pun­ish evil” and that “the word of God and prayer play a sig­nif­i­cant role in pol­i­cy deci­sions.”

For the arts and enter­tain­ment moun­tain, goals include that 80% of the movies pro­duced be rat­ed G or PG “with a moral sto­ry,” and that many peo­ple who work in the indus­try “oper­ate under a biblical/moral world­view.” The edu­ca­tion sec­tion says that home­school­ing should be a “fun­da­men­tal right” and the gov­ern­ment “must not favor one form of edu­ca­tion over anoth­er.”

Oth­er inter­nal Zik­lag doc­u­ments voice strong oppo­si­tion to same-sex mar­riage and trans­gen­der rights. One reads: “trans­gen­der accep­tance = Final sign before immi­nent col­lapse.”

Head­ing into the 2024 elec­tion year, Zik­lag exec­u­tive direc­tor Drew Hiss warned mem­bers in an inter­nal video that “loom­ing above and beyond those sev­en moun­tains is this evil force that’s been man­i­fest­ing itself.” He described it as “a con­trol­ling, evil, dia­bol­i­cal pres­ence, real­ly, with tyran­ny in mind.” That pres­ence was con­cen­trat­ed in the gov­ern­ment moun­tain, he said. If Zik­lag­gers want­ed to save their coun­try from “the pow­ers of dark­ness,” they need­ed to focus their ener­gies on that gov­ern­ment moun­tain or else none of their work in any oth­er area would suc­ceed.

“Oper­a­tion Check­mate”

In the fall of 2023, Wall­nau sat in a gray arm­chair in his TV stu­dio. A large TV screen behind him flashed a sin­gle word: “ZIKLAG.”

“You almost hate to put it out this clear­ly,” he said as he detailed Ziklag’s elec­toral strat­e­gy, “because if some­body else gets ahold of this, they’ll freak out.”

He was joined on set by Hiss, who had just become the group’s new day-to-day leader. The two men were there to record a spe­cial mes­sage to Zik­lag mem­bers that laid out the group’s ambi­tious plans for the upcom­ing elec­tion year.

The forces arrayed against Chris­tians were many, accord­ing to the con­fi­den­tial video. They were locked in a “spir­i­tu­al bat­tle,” Hiss said, against Democ­rats who were a “rad­i­cal left Marx­ist force.” Biden, Wall­nau said, was a senile old man and “an emp­ty suit with an agen­da that’s writ­ten and man­aged by some­body else.”

In the files, Zik­lag says it plans to give out near­ly $12 mil­lion to a con­stel­la­tion of groups work­ing on the ground to shift the 2024 elec­torate in favor of Trump and oth­er Repub­li­cans.

A promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive get­ting mon­ey from Zik­lag is Cle­ta Mitchell, a lawyer and Trump ally who joined the the Jan­u­ary 2021 phone call when then-Pres­i­dent Trump asked Georgia’s sec­re­tary of state to “find” enough votes to flip Geor­gia in Trump’s favor.

Mitchell now leads a net­work of “elec­tion integri­ty” coali­tions in swing states that have spent the last three years advo­cat­ing for changes to vot­ing rules and how elec­tions are run. Accord­ing to one inter­nal newslet­ter, Zik­lag was an ear­ly fun­der of Mitchell’s post-2020 “elec­tion integri­ty” activism, which vot­ing-rights experts have crit­i­cized for stok­ing unfound­ed fears about vot­er fraud and seek­ing to unfair­ly remove peo­ple from vot­ing rolls. In 2022, Zik­lag donat­ed $600,000 to the Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute, which in turn funds Mitchell’s elec­tion-integri­ty work. Inter­nal Zik­lag doc­u­ments show that it pro­vid­ed fund­ing to enable Mitchell to set up elec­tion integri­ty infra­struc­ture in Flori­da, North Car­oli­na and Wis­con­sin.

Now Mitchell is pro­mot­ing a tool called EagleAI, which has claimed to use arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to auto­mate and speed up the process of chal­leng­ing inel­i­gi­ble vot­ers. EagleAI is already being used to mount mass chal­lenges to the eli­gi­bil­i­ty of hun­dreds of thou­sands of vot­ers in com­pet­i­tive states, and, with Ziklag’s help, the group plans to ramp up those efforts.

Accord­ing to an inter­nal video, Zik­lag plans to invest $800,000 in “EagleAI’s clean the rolls project,” which would be one of the largest known dona­tions to the group.

Zik­lag lists two key objec­tives for Oper­a­tion Check­mate: “Secure 10,640 addi­tion­al unique votes in Ari­zona (mir­ror­ing the 2020 mar­gin of 10,447 votes), and remove up to one mil­lion inel­i­gi­ble reg­is­tra­tions and around 280,000 inel­i­gi­ble vot­ers in Ari­zona, Neva­da, Geor­gia, and Wis­con­sin.”

In a record­ing of an inter­nal Zoom call, Ziklag’s Mark Bour­geois stressed the elec­toral val­ue of tar­get­ing Ari­zona. “I care about Mari­co­pa Coun­ty,” Bour­geois said at one point, refer­ring to Arizona’s largest coun­ty, which Biden won four years ago. “That’s how we win.”

For Oper­a­tion Watch­tow­er, Wall­nau explained in a mem­bers-only video that trans­gen­der pol­i­cy was a “wedge issue” that could be deci­sive in turn­ing out vot­ers tired of hear­ing about Trump.

The left had won the bat­tle over the “homo­sex­u­al issue,” Wall­nau said. “But on trans­gen­derism, there’s a prob­lem and they know it.” He con­tin­ued: “They’re gonna wan­na talk about Trump, Trump, Trump. … Mean­while, if we talk about ‘It’s not about Trump. It’s about par­ents and their chil­dren, and the state is a threat,’” that could be the “tar­get on the fore­head of Goliath.”

The Zik­lag files describe tac­tics the group plans to use around parental rights — poli­cies that make it eas­i­er for par­ents to con­trol what’s taught in pub­lic schools — to turn out con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ers. In a fundrais­ing video, the group says it plans to under­write a “mes­sag­ing and data lab” focused on parental rights that will sup­ply “win­ning mes­sag­ing to all our part­ner groups to cre­ate uni­fied focus among all on the right.” The goal, the video says, is to make parental rights “the dif­fer­ence-mak­er in the 2024 elec­tion.”

Accord­ing to Wall­nau, Zik­lag also plans to fund bal­lot ini­tia­tives in sev­en key states — Ari­zona, Col­orado, Flori­da, Michi­gan, Mon­tana, Neva­da and Ohio — that take aim at the trans­gen­der com­mu­ni­ty by seek­ing to ban “gen­i­tal muti­la­tion.” The sev­en states tar­get­ed are either pres­i­den­tial bat­tle­grounds or have com­pet­i­tive U.S. Sen­ate races. None of the ini­tia­tives is on a state bal­lot yet.

...

The last prong of Ziklag’s 2024 strat­e­gy is Oper­a­tion Steeple­chase, which urges con­ser­v­a­tive pas­tors to mobi­lize their con­gre­gants to vote in this year’s elec­tion. This project will work in coor­di­na­tion with sev­er­al promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive groups that sup­port for­mer pres­i­dent Trump’s reelec­tion, such as Turn­ing Point USA’s faith-based group, the Faith and Free­dom Coali­tion run by con­ser­v­a­tive oper­a­tive Ralph Reed and the Amer­i­ca First Pol­i­cy Insti­tute, one of sev­er­al groups close­ly allied with Trump.

Zik­lag says in a 2023 inter­nal video that it and its allies will “coor­di­nate exten­sive pas­tor and church out­reach through pas­tor sum­mits, church-focused mes­sag­ing and events and the cre­ation of pas­tor resources.” As preach­er and activist John Amanchuk­wu said at a Zik­lag event, “We need a church that’s will­ing to do any­thing and every­thing to get to the point where we reclaim that which was stolen from us.”

Six tax experts reviewed the elec­tion-relat­ed strat­e­gy dis­cus­sions and tac­tics report­ed in this sto­ry. All of them said the activ­i­ties test­ed or ran afoul of the law gov­ern­ing 501(c)(3) char­i­ties. The IRS and the Texas attor­ney gen­er­al, which would over­see the South­lake, Texas, char­i­ty, did not respond to ques­tions.

While not all of its polit­i­cal efforts appeared to be clear-cut vio­la­tions, the experts said, oth­ers may be: The stat­ed plan to mobi­lize vot­ers “sym­pa­thet­ic to Repub­li­cans,” Zik­lag offi­cials open­ly dis­cussing the goal to win the elec­tion, and Wallnau’s call to fund bal­lot ini­tia­tives that would “deliv­er swing states” while at the same time voic­ing explic­it crit­i­cism of Biden all raised red flags, the experts said.

“I am trou­bled about a tax-exempt char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion that’s set up and its main oper­a­tion seems to be to get peo­ple to win office,” said Phil Hack­ney, a pro­fes­sor of law at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh and an expert on tax-exempt orga­ni­za­tions.

“They’re plan­ning an elec­tion effort,” said Mar­cus Owens, a tax lawyer at Loeb and Loeb and a for­mer direc­tor of the IRS’ exempt orga­ni­za­tions divi­sion. “That’s not a 501(c)(3) activ­i­ty.”

———–

“Inside Zik­lag, the Secret Orga­ni­za­tion of Wealthy Chris­tians Try­ing to Sway the Elec­tion and Change the Coun­try” by Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey; ProP­ub­li­ca; 07/13/2024

“Accord­ing to the Zik­lag files, the group has divid­ed its 2024 activ­i­ties into three dif­fer­ent oper­a­tions tar­get­ing vot­ers in bat­tle­ground states: Check­mate, focused on fund­ing so-called elec­tion integri­ty groups; Steeple­chase, con­cen­trat­ed on using church­es and pas­tors to get out the vote; and Watch­tow­er, aimed at gal­va­niz­ing vot­ers around the issues of “parental rights” and oppo­si­tion to trans­gen­der rights and poli­cies sup­port­ing health care for trans peo­ple.”

A triple-pronged strat­e­gy for win­ning elec­tions in 2024: Watch­tow­er, Check­mate, and Steeple­chase. In oth­er words, mon­ster­ing trans­gen­der kids, deny­ing elec­tions in the same man­ner that result­ed in the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion, and engag­ing in Amer­i­can Renew­al Project-style ‘pas­tor out­reach’ efforts. And it’s about as unpop­ulist a move­ment as one can imag­ine: only Domion­in­sts ded­i­cat­ed to the “Sev­en Moun­tains” Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist cap­ture of soci­ety, and worth at east $25 mil­lion, need apply. So of course we’re see­ing CNP mem­ber Peter Bohlinger serv­ing as Zik­lag’s ‘edu­ca­tion moun­tain’ chair. Zik­lag has all the hall­marks of a clas­sic CNP oper­a­tion. And while it’s fair to char­ac­ter­ize the ‘Sev­en Moun­tains’ the­ol­o­gy as a ‘break’ from the kind of Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ism as a ‘break’, rhetor­i­cal­ly speak­ing, from the kind of Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ism ped­dled by CNP founders like Pat Robert­son and Jer­ry Fall­well in the 1980s, as Sarah Pos­ner has point­ed out, the under­ly­ing theo­crat­ic ambi­tions aren’t real­ly dif­fer­ent. ‘Sev­en Moun­tains’ is more of drop­ping of the mask for the same move­ment than a real change in ambi­tions:

...
Zik­lag has large­ly escaped scruti­ny until now. The group describes itself as a “pri­vate, con­fi­den­tial, invi­ta­tion-only com­mu­ni­ty of high-net-worth Chris­t­ian fam­i­lies.”

Accord­ing to inter­nal doc­u­ments, it boasts more than 125 mem­bers that include busi­ness exec­u­tives, pas­tors, media lead­ers and oth­er promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians. Poten­tial new mem­bers, one doc­u­ment says, should have a “con­cern for cul­ture” demon­strat­ed by past dona­tions to faith-based or polit­i­cal caus­es, as well as a net worth of $25 mil­lion or more. None of the donors respond­ed to requests for com­ment.

Tax records show rapid growth in the group’s finances in recent years. Its annu­al rev­enue climbed from $1.3 mil­lion in 2018 to $6 mil­lion in 2019 and near­ly $12 mil­lion in 2022, which is the lat­est fil­ing avail­able.

The group’s spend­ing is not on the scale of major con­ser­v­a­tive fun­ders such as Miri­am Adel­son or Barre Seid, the elec­tron­ics mag­nate who gave $1.6 bil­lion to a group led by con­ser­v­a­tive legal activist Leonard Leo. But its fund­ing and strat­e­gy rep­re­sent one of the clear­est links yet between the Chris­t­ian right and the “elec­tion integri­ty” move­ment fueled by Trump’s base­less claims about vot­ing fraud. Even sev­er­al mil­lion dol­lars fund­ing mass chal­lenges to vot­ers in swing coun­ties can make an impact, legal and elec­tion experts say.

...

One the­ol­o­gy pro­mot­ed by Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist lead­ers is the Sev­en Moun­tain Man­date. Each moun­tain rep­re­sents a major indus­try or a sphere of pub­lic life: arts and media, busi­ness, church, edu­ca­tion, fam­i­ly, gov­ern­ment, and sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. Ziklag’s goal, the doc­u­ments say, is to “take domin­ion over the Sev­en Moun­tains,” fund­ing Chris­t­ian projects or installing devout Chris­tians in lead­er­ship posi­tions to reshape each moun­tain in a god­ly way.

To address their con­cerns about edu­ca­tion, Ziklag’s lead­ers and allies have focused on the pub­lic-school sys­tem. In a 2021 Zik­lag meet­ing, Ziklag’s edu­ca­tion moun­tain chair, Peter Bohlinger, said that Ziklag’s goal “is to take down the edu­ca­tion sys­tem as we know it today.” The pro­duc­ers of the film “Sound of Free­dom,” fea­tur­ing Jim Caviezel as an anti-sex-traf­fick­ing activist, screened an ear­ly cut of the film at a Zik­lag con­fer­ence and asked for funds, accord­ing to Dal­las.

The Sev­en Moun­tains the­ol­o­gy sig­nals a break from Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ists such as Jer­ry Fal­well Sr. and Pat Robert­son. In the 1980s and ’90s, Falwell’s Moral Major­i­ty focused on work­ing with­in the demo­c­ra­t­ic process to mobi­lize evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers and elect politi­cians with a Chris­t­ian world­view.

The Sev­en Moun­tains the­ol­o­gy embraces a dif­fer­ent, less demo­c­ra­t­ic approach to gain­ing pow­er. “If the Moral Major­i­ty is about gal­va­niz­ing the vot­ers, the Sev­en Moun­tains is a rev­o­lu­tion­ary mod­el: You need to con­quer these moun­tains and let change flow down from the top,” said Matthew Tay­lor, a senior schol­ar at the Insti­tute for Islam­ic, Chris­t­ian and Jew­ish Stud­ies and an expert on Chris­t­ian nation­al­ism. “It’s an out­lined pro­gram for Chris­t­ian suprema­cy.”
...

And Bol­hinger being just the first of string of CNP fig­ures run­ning or coor­di­nat­ing with Zik­lag, with for­mer Unit­ed in Pur­pose direc­tor Bill Dal­las being a notable exam­ple. It’s Unit­ed in Pur­pose’s founder, Ken Eldred, who appar­ent­ly found­ed Zik­lag in the spir­it of ‘like the Koch Broth­ers’ influ­ence net­work but just for super-rich Domion­ists’ fol­low­ing Trump’s win in 2016. Recall how it was Unit­ed in Pur­pose’s then-direc­tor and CNP Mem­ber Bill Dal­las who co-orga­nized the big gath­er­ing of evan­gel­i­cals in New York City in June of 2016 to give their bless­ings to the then-nom­i­nat­ed Don­ald Trump. Eldred went on to orga­nize the for­mu­la­tion of CNP plans in Feb­ru­ary of 2020 to deal with the results of the 2020 elec­tion in the event of an pop­u­lar or elec­toral vote loss. They devel­oped a three-pronged strat­e­gy: The first prong was an expan­sion of the use of vot­er data to turn out the GOP vote and sup­press the Demo­c­ra­t­ic vote. The sec­ond was to mobi­lize sup­port­ers in swing states to ignite Tea Par­ty-like protests against COVID lock­downs. The third was find­ing physi­cians will­ing to pub­licly dis­miss the dan­gers of COVID in a media blitz. Unit­ed in Pur­pose called the cam­paign “Oper­a­tion Zik­lag”.

And then there’s all the CNP mem­bers we’ve seen pop up in rela­tion to Unit­ed in Pur­pose activ­i­ties. For exam­ple, Unit­ed in Pur­pose part­ners with Ralph Reed’s Faith and Free­dom Coali­tion in GOTV efforts. Also recall how Gin­ni Thomas start­ed emcee­ing an annu­al Impact Awards awards cer­e­mo­ny cel­e­brat­ing some of the best-known Trump allies, put on in con­junc­tion with Unit­ed in Pur­pose. Plus, when Gin­ni Thomas tried to per­suade state leg­is­la­tors in her efforts to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion results uti­liz­ing the web­site everylegalvote.com to reach out to the leg­is­la­tors, she was using a web­site built by Unit­ed in Pur­pose. And then there’s the fact that Unit­ed in Pur­pose’s board mem­bers include CNP exec­u­tive direc­tor Bob McEwen and has a net­work of allies and clients that include the Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Asso­ciate, the Fam­i­ly Research Coun­cil, and Reed’s Faith & Free­dom Coali­tion. And as we can see, it was CNP mem­ber Char­lie Kirk who was invit­ed to the 2023 Zik­lag gath­er­ing where he made the pitch that Zik­lag was the counter to George Soros and Google bil­lion­aires. Kirk, McEwen, Reed, and Thomas all very active CNP orga­niz­ers, which is what Unit­ed in Pur­pose appears to be designed to facil­i­tate. It’s anoth­er CNP ini­tia­tive, found­ed by Eldred, who stands outs in this group by not show­ing up on the leaked CNP mem­ber­ship lists:

...
Zik­lag was the brain­child of a Sil­i­con Val­ley entre­pre­neur named Ken Eldred. It emerged from a pre­vi­ous orga­ni­za­tion found­ed by Eldred called Unit­ed In Pur­pose, which aimed to get more Chris­tians active in the civic are­na, accord­ing to Bill Dal­las, the group’s for­mer direc­tor. Unit­ed In Pur­pose gen­er­at­ed atten­tion in June 2016 when it orga­nized a major meet­ing between then-can­di­date Trump and hun­dreds of evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers.

After Trump was elect­ed in 2016, Eldred had an idea, accord­ing to Dal­las. “He says, ‘I want all the wealthy Chris­t­ian peo­ple to come togeth­er,’” Dal­las recalled in an inter­view. Eldred told Dal­las that he want­ed to cre­ate a donor net­work like the one cre­at­ed by Charles and David Koch but for Chris­tians. He pro­posed nam­ing it David’s Mighty Men, Dal­las said. Female mem­bers balked. Dal­las found the pas­sage in Chron­i­cles that ref­er­ences David’s sol­diers and read that they met in the city of Zik­lag, and so they chose the name Zik­lag.

The group’s stature grew after Trump took office. Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence appeared at a Zik­lag event, as did for­mer Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment Sec­re­tary Ben Car­son, Sen. Ted Cruz, then-Rep. Mark Mead­ows and oth­er mem­bers of Con­gress. In its pri­vate newslet­ter, Zik­lag claims that a coali­tion of groups it assem­bled played “a huge­ly sig­nif­i­cant role in the selec­tion, hear­ings and con­fir­ma­tion process” of Amy Coney Bar­rett for a Supreme Court seat in late 2020.

...

Speak­ing late last year to an invi­ta­tion-only gath­er­ing of Zik­lag­gers, as mem­bers are known, Char­lie Kirk, who leads the pro-Trump Turn­ing Point USA orga­ni­za­tion, named left-lean­ing phil­an­thropists who were, in his view, fund­ing the destruc­tion of the nation: MacKen­zie Scott, ex-wife of Ama­zon founder Jeff Bezos; bil­lion­aire investor and lib­er­al phil­an­thropist George Soros; and the two founders of Google, Lar­ry Page and Sergey Brin.

“Why are sec­u­lar peo­ple giv­ing more gen­er­ous­ly than Chris­tians?” Kirk asked, accord­ing to a record­ing of his remarks. “It would be a tragedy,” he added, “if peo­ple who hate life, hate our coun­try, hate beau­ty and hate God want­ed it more than us.”

“Zik­lag is the place,” Kirk told the donors. “Zik­lag is the counter.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, Pence, in a 2021 appear­ance at a pri­vate Zik­lag event, praised the group for its role in “chang­ing lives, and it’s advanced the cause, it’s advanced the king­dom...
...

And then we get to /lance Wall­nau, described as as dri­ving force behind the Zik­lag efforts. As we’ve seen, Wall­nau is an NAR leader who has played a big role in pop­u­lar­iz­ing the ‘Sev­en Moun­tains Man­date’ Domin­ion­ist the­ol­o­gy. In 2013, Wall­nau co-authored the book Invad­ing Baby­lon: The 7 Moun­tain Man­date. And as we also saw, Wall­nau was push­ing the idea that Don­ald Trump is a God-ordained change agent anal­o­gous to the Bib­li­cal fig­ure King Cyrus in the first year of Trump’s pres­i­den­cy. Wall­nau sits on the board of the Truth and Lib­er­ty Coali­tion, along­side David Bar­ton. The group tar­gets pub­lic schools and col­lab­o­rates with the CNP’s Moms for Lib­er­ty. In March 2022, Wall­nau bragged that “we” had “flood­ed” South­lake, Texas with “one thou­sand peo­ple” who “took over the school boards… the city coun­cil… the mayor’s office.” He added that, “The media doesn’t know it because we nev­er said it was a church ini­tia­tive. We called it a com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tive.” Wall­nau is a lead­ing domin­ion­ist and Zik­lag is a domin­ion­ist effort, like the most of the CNP does:

...
A dri­ving force behind Ziklag’s efforts is Lance Wall­nau, a promi­nent Chris­t­ian evan­ge­list and influ­encer based in Texas who is described by Zik­lag as a “Sev­en Moun­tains vision­ary & advi­sor.” The fiery preach­er is one of the most influ­en­tial fig­ures on the Chris­t­ian right, experts say, a bridge between Chris­t­ian nation­al­ism and Trump. He was one of the ear­li­est evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers to endorse Trump in 2015 and lat­er pub­lished a book titled “God’s Chaos Can­di­date: Don­ald J. Trump and the Amer­i­can Unrav­el­ing.” More than 1 mil­lion peo­ple fol­low him on Face­book. He doesn’t try to hide his views: “Yes, I am a Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist,” he said dur­ing one of his livestreams in 2021. (Wall­nau did not respond to requests for com­ment.)

Wall­nau has remained a Trump ally. He called Trump’s time in office a “spir­i­tu­al war­fare pres­i­den­cy” and pop­u­lar­ized the idea that Trump was a “mod­ern-day Cyrus,” refer­ring to the Per­sian king who defeat­ed the Baby­lo­ni­ans and allowed the Jew­ish peo­ple to return to Jerusalem. Wall­nau has vis­it­ed with Trump at the White House and Trump Tow­er; last Novem­ber, he livestreamed from a black-tie gala at Mar-a-Lago where Trump spoke.

Wall­nau did not come up with the notion that Chris­tians should try to take con­trol of key areas of Amer­i­can soci­ety. But he improved on the idea by intro­duc­ing the con­cept of the sev­en moun­tains and urged Chris­tians to set about con­quer­ing them. The con­cept caught on, said Tay­lor, because it empow­ered Chris­tians with a sense of pur­pose in every sphere of life.

As a preach­er in the inde­pen­dent charis­mat­ic tra­di­tion, a fast-grow­ing off­shoot of Pen­te­costal­ism that is unaf­fil­i­at­ed with any major denom­i­na­tion, Wall­nau and his acolytes believe that God speaks to and through mod­ern-day apos­tles and prophets — a ver­sion of Chris­tian­i­ty that Tay­lor, in his forth­com­ing book “The Vio­lent Take It By Force,” describes as “the amor­phous, tumul­tuous Wild West of the mod­ern church.” Wall­nau and his ideas lin­gered at the fringes of Amer­i­can Chris­tian­i­ty for years, until the boost from the Trump pres­i­den­cy.

...

In the fall of 2023, Wall­nau sat in a gray arm­chair in his TV stu­dio. A large TV screen behind him flashed a sin­gle word: “ZIKLAG.”

“You almost hate to put it out this clear­ly,” he said as he detailed Ziklag’s elec­toral strat­e­gy, “because if some­body else gets ahold of this, they’ll freak out.”

He was joined on set by Hiss, who had just become the group’s new day-to-day leader. The two men were there to record a spe­cial mes­sage to Zik­lag mem­bers that laid out the group’s ambi­tious plans for the upcom­ing elec­tion year.

The forces arrayed against Chris­tians were many, accord­ing to the con­fi­den­tial video. They were locked in a “spir­i­tu­al bat­tle,” Hiss said, against Democ­rats who were a “rad­i­cal left Marx­ist force.” Biden, Wall­nau said, was a senile old man and “an emp­ty suit with an agen­da that’s writ­ten and man­aged by some­body else.”

In the files, Zik­lag says it plans to give out near­ly $12 mil­lion to a con­stel­la­tion of groups work­ing on the ground to shift the 2024 elec­torate in favor of Trump and oth­er Repub­li­cans.

...

And as evi­dence of the Zik­lag group’s ongo­ing focus on over­turn­ing unfa­vor­able elec­tion results through any means nec­es­sary, here’s show­ing as a recip­i­ent of the Zik­lag group’s giv­ing. The same elec­tion refut­ing spe­cial­ist Cle­ta Mithell who played a key orga­niz­ing role in the large-scale CNP effort to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion. It’s worth not­ing how that sup­port from Zik­lag for Mitchell appears to have been chan­neled through a $600,000 dona­tion in 2022 to the Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute (CPI). Recall how the CPI serves as a kind of CNP orga­ni­za­tion­al moth­er­ship, spin­ning off all sorts of new groups and deeply involved with the Sched­ule F/Project 2025 plot. So when we see large dona­tions from a Domin­ion­ist group like Zik­lag get­ting chan­neled to Mitchel­l’s elec­tion-over­turn­ing efforts via the CPI, it’s a reminder that the CPI isn’t just a tool of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­men­t’s mega-donors. It’s a tool of the domion­in­ist mega-donors who helped orga­nize Jan­u­ary 6, as is the Zik­lag group:

...
A promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive get­ting mon­ey from Zik­lag is Cle­ta Mitchell, a lawyer and Trump ally who joined the the Jan­u­ary 2021 phone call when then-Pres­i­dent Trump asked Georgia’s sec­re­tary of state to “find” enough votes to flip Geor­gia in Trump’s favor.

Mitchell now leads a net­work of “elec­tion integri­ty” coali­tions in swing states that have spent the last three years advo­cat­ing for changes to vot­ing rules and how elec­tions are run. Accord­ing to one inter­nal newslet­ter, Zik­lag was an ear­ly fun­der of Mitchell’s post-2020 “elec­tion integri­ty” activism, which vot­ing-rights experts have crit­i­cized for stok­ing unfound­ed fears about vot­er fraud and seek­ing to unfair­ly remove peo­ple from vot­ing rolls. In 2022, Zik­lag donat­ed $600,000 to the Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute, which in turn funds Mitchell’s elec­tion-integri­ty work. Inter­nal Zik­lag doc­u­ments show that it pro­vid­ed fund­ing to enable Mitchell to set up elec­tion integri­ty infra­struc­ture in Flori­da, North Car­oli­na and Wis­con­sin.

Now Mitchell is pro­mot­ing a tool called EagleAI, which has claimed to use arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to auto­mate and speed up the process of chal­leng­ing inel­i­gi­ble vot­ers. EagleAI is already being used to mount mass chal­lenges to the eli­gi­bil­i­ty of hun­dreds of thou­sands of vot­ers in com­pet­i­tive states, and, with Ziklag’s help, the group plans to ramp up those efforts.

Accord­ing to an inter­nal video, Zik­lag plans to invest $800,000 in “EagleAI’s clean the rolls project,” which would be one of the largest known dona­tions to the group.

Zik­lag lists two key objec­tives for Oper­a­tion Check­mate: “Secure 10,640 addi­tion­al unique votes in Ari­zona (mir­ror­ing the 2020 mar­gin of 10,447 votes), and remove up to one mil­lion inel­i­gi­ble reg­is­tra­tions and around 280,000 inel­i­gi­ble vot­ers in Ari­zona, Neva­da, Geor­gia, and Wis­con­sin.”

In a record­ing of an inter­nal Zoom call, Ziklag’s Mark Bour­geois stressed the elec­toral val­ue of tar­get­ing Ari­zona. “I care about Mari­co­pa Coun­ty,” Bour­geois said at one point, refer­ring to Arizona’s largest coun­ty, which Biden won four years ago. “That’s how we win.”
...

So giv­en the domin­ion­ist nature of this group’s ambi­tions, we should­n’t be sur­prised the third prong in the Zik­lag group’s strat­e­gy is a con­ser­v­a­tive pas­tor mobi­liza­tion effort, coor­di­nat­ed with groups like Char­lie Kirk’s Turn­ing Points USA, Ralph Reed’s Faith and Free­dom Coali­tion, and the Amer­i­ca First Pol­i­cy Insti­tute, one of the enti­ties play­ing an impor­tant role in the Sched­ule F/Project 2025 plot. Is there any coor­di­nat­ing with the effort Amer­i­can Renew­al Project? There does­n’t appear to be any indi­ca­tion of that yet but it’s hard not to notice the enor­mous over­lap in shared inter­ests and efforts. In oth­er words, what are the odds the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project fun­ders aren’t also Zik­lag donors? It’s the same CNP-orga­nized domin­ion­ist effort. The same one:

...
The last prong of Ziklag’s 2024 strat­e­gy is Oper­a­tion Steeple­chase, which urges con­ser­v­a­tive pas­tors to mobi­lize their con­gre­gants to vote in this year’s elec­tion. This project will work in coor­di­na­tion with sev­er­al promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive groups that sup­port for­mer pres­i­dent Trump’s reelec­tion, such as Turn­ing Point USA’s faith-based group, the Faith and Free­dom Coali­tion run by con­ser­v­a­tive oper­a­tive Ralph Reed and the Amer­i­ca First Pol­i­cy Insti­tute, one of sev­er­al groups close­ly allied with Trump.

Zik­lag says in a 2023 inter­nal video that it and its allies will “coor­di­nate exten­sive pas­tor and church out­reach through pas­tor sum­mits, church-focused mes­sag­ing and events and the cre­ation of pas­tor resources.” As preach­er and activist John Amanchuk­wu said at a Zik­lag event, “We need a church that’s will­ing to do any­thing and every­thing to get to the point where we reclaim that which was stolen from us.”
...

Final­ly, there’s the glar­ing tax code vio­la­tion for Zik­lag’s ‘char­i­ta­ble’ tax-deductible efforts that’s anoth­er par­al­lel with the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project — housed by the ‘char­i­ta­ble’ Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Asso­ci­a­tion and financed by the ‘char­i­ta­ble’ Niemoller Foun­da­tion. All 501(c}(3) enti­ties, alleged­ly engaged in non­par­ti­san tax deductible activ­i­ties:

...
In a record­ing of a 2023 inter­nal strat­e­gy dis­cus­sion, a Zik­lag offi­cial stressed that the objec­tive was the same in oth­er swing states. “The goal is to win,” the offi­cial said. “If 75,000 peo­ple wins the White House, then how do we get 150,000 peo­ple so we make sure we win?”

...

But Zik­lag is not a polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion: It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt char­i­ty, the same legal des­ig­na­tion as the Unit­ed Way or Boys and Girls Club. Such orga­ni­za­tions do not have to pub­licly dis­close their fun­ders, and dona­tions are tax deductible. In exchange, they are “absolute­ly pro­hib­it­ed from direct­ly or indi­rect­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in, or inter­ven­ing in, any polit­i­cal cam­paign on behalf of (or in oppo­si­tion to) any can­di­date for elec­tive pub­lic office,”accord­ing to the IRS.

ProP­ub­li­ca and Doc­u­ment­ed pre­sent­ed the find­ings of their inves­ti­ga­tion to six non­par­ti­san lawyers and legal experts. All expressed con­cern that Zik­lag was test­ing or vio­lat­ing the law.

The report­ing by ProP­ub­li­ca and Doc­u­ment­ed “casts seri­ous doubt on this organization’s sta­tus as a 501(c)(3) orga­ni­za­tion,” said Roger Col­in­vaux, a pro­fes­sor at Catholic University’s Colum­bus School of Law.

“I think it’s across the line with­out a ques­tion,” said Lloyd Hitoshi May­er, a Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame law pro­fes­sor.

Zik­lag offi­cials did not respond to a detailed list of ques­tions. Mar­tin Nuss­baum, an attor­ney who said he was the group’s gen­er­al coun­sel, said in a writ­ten response that “some of the state­ments in your email are cor­rect. Oth­ers are not,” but he then did not respond to a request to spec­i­fy what was erro­neous. The group is seek­ing to “align” the cul­ture “with Bib­li­cal val­ues and the Amer­i­can con­sti­tu­tion, and that they will serve the com­mon good,” he wrote. Using the offi­cial tax name for Zik­lag, he wrote that “USATrans­Form does not endorse can­di­dates for pub­lic office.” He declined to com­ment on the group’s mem­bers.

There are no bright lines or mag­ic words that the IRS might look for when it inves­ti­gates a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion for engag­ing in polit­i­cal inter­ven­tion, said May­er. Instead, the agency exam­ines the facts and cir­cum­stances of a group’s activ­i­ties and makes a con­clu­sion about whether the group vio­lat­ed the law.

The biggest risk for char­i­ties that inter­vene in polit­i­cal cam­paigns, May­er said, is loss of their tax-exempt sta­tus. Donors’ abil­i­ty to deduct their dona­tions can be a major sell, not to men­tion it can cre­ate “a halo effect” for the group, May­er added.

“They may be able to get more mon­ey this way,” he said, adding, “It boils down to tax eva­sion at the end of the day.”

...

Con­fi­den­tial donor net­works reg­u­lar­ly invest hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars into polit­i­cal and char­i­ta­ble groups, from the lib­er­al Democ­ra­cy Alliance to the Koch-affil­i­at­ed Stand Togeth­er orga­ni­za­tion on the right. But unlike Zik­lag, nei­ther of those orga­ni­za­tions is legal­ly set up as a true char­i­ty.

Zik­lag appears to be the first coor­di­nat­ed effort to get wealthy donors to fund an overt­ly Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist agen­da, accord­ing to his­to­ri­ans, legal experts and oth­er peo­ple famil­iar with the group. “It shows that this idea isn’t being dis­missed as fringe in the way that it might have been in the past,” said Mary Ziegler, a legal his­to­ri­an and Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis law pro­fes­sor.

...

Six tax experts reviewed the elec­tion-relat­ed strat­e­gy dis­cus­sions and tac­tics report­ed in this sto­ry. All of them said the activ­i­ties test­ed or ran afoul of the law gov­ern­ing 501(c)(3) char­i­ties. The IRS and the Texas attor­ney gen­er­al, which would over­see the South­lake, Texas, char­i­ty, did not respond to ques­tions.

While not all of its polit­i­cal efforts appeared to be clear-cut vio­la­tions, the experts said, oth­ers may be: The stat­ed plan to mobi­lize vot­ers “sym­pa­thet­ic to Repub­li­cans,” Zik­lag offi­cials open­ly dis­cussing the goal to win the elec­tion, and Wallnau’s call to fund bal­lot ini­tia­tives that would “deliv­er swing states” while at the same time voic­ing explic­it crit­i­cism of Biden all raised red flags, the experts said.

“I am trou­bled about a tax-exempt char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion that’s set up and its main oper­a­tion seems to be to get peo­ple to win office,” said Phil Hack­ney, a pro­fes­sor of law at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh and an expert on tax-exempt orga­ni­za­tions.

“They’re plan­ning an elec­tion effort,” said Mar­cus Owens, a tax lawyer at Loeb and Loeb and a for­mer direc­tor of the IRS’ exempt orga­ni­za­tions divi­sion. “That’s not a 501(c)(3) activ­i­ty.”
...

Don’t hold your breath wait­ing for the IRS to final­ly crack down on this bla­tant trolling that’s been going on for decades. Trolling that dou­bles as effec­tive tax eva­sion. To help finance a move­ment ded­i­cat­ed to the com­plete cap­ture of soci­ety. It’s hard to get more par­ti­san than that. And yet this is all for ‘char­i­ty’. LOL. The joke is on us.

“You won’t have to do it any­more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote any­more, my beau­ti­ful Chris­tians.” That was the high­ly dis­turb­ing mes­sage deliv­ered by Don­ald Trump a lit­tle over a month ago at the Turn­ing Point Action’s “Believ­ers Sum­mit” in West Palm Beach, Flori­da. Chris­tians just had to vote this one last time and they could be done with vot­ing for­ev­er. It was a mes­sage that was under­stand­ably inter­pret­ed as just one more open hint at plans to effec­tive­ly end what’s left of the US’s demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions. An inter­pre­ta­tion that log­i­cal­ly fol­lows the ongo­ing Sched­ule F/Project 2025 Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist plot.

And while it’s cer­tain­ly very pos­si­ble Trump real­ly did intend to send a mes­sage of “I’ll per­ma­nent­ly ‘fix’ democ­ra­cy so you nev­er lose again” mes­sage to this audi­ence, it’s worth not­ing how that rhetoric syn­er­gizes with the mes­sag­ing tar­get­ing evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers com­ing from anoth­er keen­ly inter­est­ed group: David Lane and his claims over the years that only around a quar­ter of evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers even both­er vot­ing in pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. It’s a mes­sage Lane has appar­ent­ly been shar­ing with audi­ences at his var­i­ous Amer­i­can Renew­al Project ‘pas­tor events’ for years. Nor is Lane the only one to make this claim. Mike Huck­abee, for exam­ple, has made the same claims.

It’s not a par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing mes­sage to hear com­ing from some­one in Lane’s posi­tion. He’s lead­ing a group ded­i­cat­ed to polit­i­cal­ly orga­niz­ing pas­tors and, in turn, their con­gre­ga­tions. A mes­sage about a vast untapped pool of vot­ers sit­ting in these con­gre­ga­tions has a lot of obvi­ous appeal. And yet, as we’re also going to see, it’s not actu­al­ly true. Evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers in US vote at rough­ly the same lev­els as oth­er demo­graph­ics, con­sis­tent­ly hov­er­ing some­where around 50 per­cent vot­ing rates.

But there’s anoth­er very inter­est­ing polit­i­cal sto­ry relat­ed to this quest to increase the evan­gel­i­cal vote: before Don­ald Trump came along to con­quer the Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry in 2016, it was Ted Cruz who was not only lead­ing the Repub­li­can pack but did so through a high effec­tive strat­e­gy of tar­get­ing pas­tors. A strat­e­gy that not only had par­al­lels with David Lane’s Amer­i­can Renew­al Project but was lit­er­al­ly part of it. As we’re going to see, Cruz was a reg­u­lar attendee at Lane’s var­i­ous ‘pas­tor events’ going back to 2013, along with Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz. It turns out Rafael is also quite close to Lane and a reg­u­lar speak­er at these events. Along with chief domin­ion­ist pseu­do-his­to­ri­an David Bar­ton. This is a good time to recall how, back in 1980, both Mike Huck­abee and Rafael Cruz were involved with the orga­niz­ing of the Jame Robison’s “Reli­gious Round­table” that whipped up major evan­gel­i­cal enthu­si­asm for Ronald Rea­gan’s pres­i­den­tial run. Rafael Cruz has been a key dri­ving force behind the politi­ciza­tion of the evan­gel­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty for decades, effec­tive­ly groom­ing his son to be ‘God’s pres­i­dent’ some­day.

And that brings us to anoth­er aspect of Rafael’s activism that should be kept in mind: recall those sto­ries in 2022 about how the domin­ion­ist Moms for Lib­er­ty and the Truth and Lib­er­ty Coali­tion — run by Lance Wall­nau and David Bar­ton — work­ing to suc­cess­ful­ly take con­trol of school boards in Texas by focus­es on anti-tran­s/an­ti-LGBTQ hys­te­ria. Wall­nau is the promi­nent New Apos­tolic Ref­or­ma­tion (NAR) leader who co-authored of a pop­u­lar 2013 book pro­mot­ing the idea of domin­ion­ism. Fol­low­ing Trump’s elec­tion in 2016, Wall­nau start­ed push­ing the idea back in 2018 that Trump was a God-ordained change agent anal­o­gous to the Bib­li­cal fig­ure of King Cyrus. A “mod­ern-day Cyrus”, as Wall­nau described Trump. This was a sto­ry about a domin­ion­ist cap­ture of school boards in Texas. A high­ly suc­cess­ful cap­ture that had them plan­ning a nation­al roll­out of the strat­e­gy.

As we also saw, one of the groups also work­ing on that effort was Patri­ot Mobile, a con­ser­v­a­tive chris­t­ian cell­phone com­pa­ny with a busi­ness mod­el that pledges to spend some of the prof­its on con­ser­v­a­tive caus­es. It’s worth tak­ing a clos­er look at the group and its efforts in those school board cap­tures. Found­ed in 2012, the com­pa­ny ini­tial­ly boast­ed of a busi­ness mod­el that pledged to sup­port groups that opposed abor­tion, defend reli­gious free­dom, pro­tect gun rights and sup­port the mil­i­tary. After Trump’s elec­tion, Patri­ot Mobile became much more overt­ly domin­ion­ist. By 2022, it was one of the enti­ties deeply involved this this school board cap­ture effort, includ­ing coor­di­nat­ing with the True Texas Project on the effort. As we’ve seen, the True Texas Project is one of those groups heav­i­ly reliant on the finances of Texas theo­crat­ic bil­lion­aire Tim Dunn through his Defend Texas Lib­er­ty PAC. And also infest­ed with Nazis. As we saw, not only is the group found­ed by Julie McCar­ty, who open­ly sym­pa­thized with the motives of El Paso shoot­er Patrick Cru­sius. But just three weeks before that now-infa­mous Octo­ber sev­en hour long meet­ing with Nick Fuentes at the head­quar­ters of Dun­n’s Pale Horse Strate­gies polit­i­cal group held in ear­ly Octo­ber 6 2023, the True Texas Project held a ‘pass­ing the torch’ event in Dal­las that fea­tured John Doyle and Jake Lloyd Col­glazier. Doyle has fre­quent­ly appeared along­side Nick Fuentes at events. For exam­ple, Doyle and Fuentes co-led a Lans­ing Michi­gan “Stop the Steal” ral­ly in the lead up to the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol Insur­rec­tion. Col­glazier was one of the most promi­nent mem­bers of Fuentes’s ‘groyper army’. In 2019, Col­glazier, Fuentes, and Patrick Casey — the leader of Iden­ti­ty Evropa, since rebrand­ed as the “Amer­i­can Iden­ti­ty Move­ment” — were the head­lin­ers at a white nation­al­ist con­fer­ence where they advo­cat­ed a strat­e­gy of pulling the Repub­li­can Par­ty fur­ther to the right with a strat­e­gy of attack­ing Repub­li­cans for issues like being weak on immi­gra­tion or sup­port for Israel. In 2018, Casey was open­ly telling NBC News he was plan­ning on infil­trat­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty, with an empha­sis on befriend­ing and win­ning over young col­lege Repub­li­cans. The True Texas Project was list­ed as an affil­i­at­ed on Patri­ot Mobile’s own web­site as one of its affil­i­ate. So when we see Patri­ot Mobile coor­di­nat­ing with the True Texas Project, keep in mind that it’s one of mul­ti­ple Nazi-friend­ly groups close­ly asso­ci­at­ed both Nick Fuentes and Tim Dunn who have a youth-focused strat­e­gy of rad­i­cal­iz­ing Repub­li­cans even more.

Dur­ing this school board cap­ture cam­paign in 2022, none oth­er than Rafael Cruz was giv­ing week­ly Bible study class­es at the Patri­ot Mobile head­quar­ters. The lec­tures, broad­cast on Youtube, were domin­ion­ists lessons in how the sep­a­rate of church and state should real­ly only be seen as ‘one-way’, with gov­ern­ment pro­hib­it­ed from med­dling with church but church­es free to wield what­ev­er influ­ence they deem appro­pri­ate over gov­ern­ment. Not only is it a reminder that Rafael Cruz’s decades of polit­i­cal activism is still very much active today, but it rais­es the ques­tion as to who is more influ­en­tial these days when it comes to mobi­lizes con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ers: Ted Cruz or his dad? Rafael is clear­ly very influ­en­tial with this com­mu­ni­ty and has been since before Ted Cruz first got elect­ed.

It’s also worth keep­ing in mind that it was Rafael Cruz who Don­ald Trump sug­gest­ed may have played a role in the JFK assas­si­na­tion back dur­ing the GOP pri­ma­ry race of 2016, when Ted was his only remain­ing obsta­cle to the nom­i­na­tion. It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing win­kle to this ongo­ing sto­ry of Rafael Cruz’s decades of domin­ion­ist activism, which includ­ed groom­ing his son to be “God’s pres­i­dent” some day. A role his son could have secured in 2016 had Trump not charmed the par­ty with his fas­cist mad­ness. We can only assume Rafael’s activism has a ‘Trump is a divine­ly inspired actor’ mes­sage since that’s the mes­saged embraced by the rest of this move­ment. But it was sup­posed to be his son. Instead it was Trump, who accused him of being involved in the JFK assas­si­na­tion, which is all the more fas­ci­nat­ing because we can’t real­ly rule out the pos­si­bil­i­ty he worked with Lee Har­vey Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba leaflet­ing activ­i­ties.

So while Trump’s “you won’t have to do it any­more” mes­sage to evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers cer­tain­ly has an air of omi­nous­ness due to the theo­crat­ic author­i­tar­i­an per­ils posed by a sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion, it’s worth keep­ing in mind that focus­ing on surg­ing the evan­gel­i­cal vote is the same strat­e­gy the GOP has been rely­ing on for decades. It was the same strat­e­gy Rafael Cruz has been help­ing David Lane cul­ti­vate for years through the Amer­i­can Renew­al Pro­jec­t’s numer­ous ‘pas­tor gath­er­ings’, and the same strat­e­gy that was sup­posed to secure the GOP nom­i­na­tion for Ted Cruz in 2016 before Trump came along. And it’s ulti­mate­ly the same strat­e­gy at the heart of the anti-tran­s/an­ti-LGBTQ pan­ics get­ting whipped up at the local lev­el.

In oth­er words, if the prospect of a sec­ond Trump term — with all of the asso­ci­at­ed Project 2025 theo­crat­ic ambi­tions — almost sounds like what we might expect from a Ted Cruz pres­i­den­cy, that’s because that’s sort of what Trump’s pres­i­den­cy real­ly was: the theo­crat­ic poli­cies that appeal to Ted Cruz vot­ers, but deliv­ered with that dement­ed Trumpian flare that seems to have more pop­u­lar appeal. When we see Don­ald Trump active­ly dis­tanc­ing him­self from the polit­i­cal­ly tox­ic nature of Project 2025’s theo­crat­ic agen­da, he’s not just run­ning away from his own agen­da. He’s run­ning away from the Cruz agen­da. An Rafael Cruz groomed Ted to exe­cute at the exec­u­tive lev­el. But Trump is the one God chose instead. Either way, it’s domin­ion­ist agen­da, MAGA pati­na or not. An agen­da designed to appeal to the core of evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers that David Lane and Rafael Cruz have been cul­ti­vat­ing for decades and that was sup­posed to pro­pelled Ted Cruz into the White House in 2016, before Don­ald Trump hijacked it:

Yahoo News

Ted Cruz’s con­tro­ver­sial super-PAC leader divides evan­gel­i­cals

Jon Ward·Chief Nation­al Cor­re­spon­dent
Jan­u­ary 29, 2016

Last Sat­ur­day night in north­east­ern Iowa, moments before Glenn Beck deliv­ered a 56-minute speech in which he even­tu­al­ly got around to endors­ing Sen. Ted Cruz for pres­i­dent, a wil­lowy man with pow­der puff white hair strolled to the lectern and said a few words.

Not once did the man — who spoke of Beck as “a vision­ary” and who laid his hands on Beck in prayer before­hand — men­tion Cruz’s name.

David Bar­ton also nev­er told the crowd inside the Five Sul­li­van Broth­ers Con­ven­tion Cen­ter his name, even though he intro­duced oth­er speak­ers and served as the event’s de fac­to mas­ter of cer­e­monies.

Barton’s anonymi­ty was fit­ting. It was some­thing of a metaphor for the rela­tion­ship between Cruz and Bar­ton, both of whom hail from Texas. Cruz has main­tained a del­i­cate bal­ance in his asso­ci­a­tion with Bar­ton, a fig­ure who is a hero to some evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians, and a fraud to oth­ers.

Few fig­ures rep­re­sent the split run­ning down the mid­dle of Amer­i­can evan­gel­i­cal­ism bet­ter than Bar­ton, a 62-year-old self-taught his­to­ri­an (crit­ics call him a pseu­do-his­to­ri­an) who has for more than two decades stumped across the coun­try telling con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians that their nation’s reli­gious her­itage has been cov­ered up and stolen from them by god­less sec­u­lar pro­gres­sives.

Many in the crowd doubt­less knew who Bar­ton was even with­out an intro­duc­tion. He is some­thing of a celebri­ty to those who have viewed his videos at church events or online, or who saw him on Fox News when he reg­u­lar­ly appeared on Beck’s show. But Barton’s rep­u­ta­tion has tak­en some big hits in the last few years, and the integri­ty of his arti­cles, videos and books has been wide­ly called into ques­tion, most aggres­sive­ly by some con­ser­v­a­tive evan­gel­i­cal schol­ars and writ­ers. One his­to­ry pro­fes­sor at a Chris­t­ian uni­ver­si­ty said Bar­ton was the con­ser­v­a­tive ver­sion of left-wing aca­d­e­m­ic Howard Zinn.

“Nei­ther of them are his­to­ri­ans. They just want to use and manip­u­late the past to serve their own polit­i­cal or ide­o­log­i­cal agen­das in the present,” wrote John Fea, chair of the his­to­ry depart­ment at Mes­si­ah Col­lege in Mechan­ics­burg, Pa.

Yet Bar­ton is help­ful to Cruz because the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date has built his strat­e­gy for win­ning the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion around win­ning in Iowa, the first state to vote in the pri­ma­ry process, and a place where 60 per­cent of the GOP elec­torate iden­ti­fies as evan­gel­i­cal. Too close an asso­ci­a­tion with Bar­ton, how­ev­er, would open Cruz up to ques­tions about the influ­ence on his think­ing of a man whose views about faith and pol­i­tics can often sound like Chris­t­ian recon­struc­tion­ism — the belief that gov­ern­ment laws and poli­cies should be drawn explic­it­ly from the Bible.

Bar­ton argued in 2011 that the pro­gres­sive income tax, cap­i­tal gains tax and the estate tax (or death tax), are all con­trary to the Bible. “Jesus has two entire teach­ings on the cap­i­tal gains tax,” Bar­ton claimed, cit­ing Luke 19:13–26 and Matthew 25:14–29. And, he added, “Jesus did not like the min­i­mum wage.”

The Bible does not address any of these issues explic­it­ly. Bar­ton was tak­ing para­bles told by Jesus in the New Tes­ta­ment and inter­pret­ing them quite lib­er­al­ly. Bar­ton said in an inter­view that his crit­ics often mis­in­ter­pret or exag­ger­ate his many claims. “I like the Con­sti­tu­tion we’ve got. I’m not try­ing to replace it with the Bible,” he said. When asked about his com­ments about Jesus’ views on tax pol­i­cy, Bar­ton deflect­ed the ques­tion. “What I often say in report­ing his­to­ry doesn’t mean that’s what I’m advo­cat­ing for pol­i­cy right now,” he said.

Bar­ton may say state­ments about Jesus’ view of tax­es aren’t pre­scrip­tive, but for Chris­tians who believe the Bible should gov­ern all aspects of their lives, Barton’s com­ments pro­vide a the­o­log­i­cal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for ignor­ing their tax bill that takes high­er prece­dence than the law. If the word of God is explic­it­ly opposed to what the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice is doing, such a believ­er might rea­son with him­self, then he or she is in fact bound to oppose and defy the IRS.

These are not the types of state­ments the Cruz cam­paign wants their can­di­date being ques­tioned about on the cam­paign trail. In Sep­tem­ber Bar­ton was named as the leader of a pro-Cruz super-PAC, Keep the Promise, mak­ing him an offi­cial sup­port­er of Cruz’s but with­out any offi­cial con­nec­tion to Cruz’s cam­paign. Of course, if Cruz world was uncom­fort­able with Barton’s endorse­ment, they wouldn’t have want­ed him involved with the super-PAC at all.

One of Barton’s most notice­able projects so far in the cam­paign was to gath­er rough­ly 300 pas­tors and “faith lead­ers” at the Texas ranch of frack­ing bil­lion­aire Far­ris Wilks dur­ing the week after Christ­mas for a day of dis­cus­sion and prayer. (Wilks had giv­en $10 mil­lion to Keep the Promise III, one of three super-PACs under the umbrel­la of the one run by Bar­ton.)

...

Some in the sprawl­ing world of the mul­ti­ple Cruz super-PACs have tak­en pot­shots at Bar­ton. “David Bar­ton is known among evan­gel­i­cal pas­tors but he’s not known as a polit­i­cal strate­gist or a fundrais­er,” said an offi­cial from one of Cruz’s super-PACs. “He’s prob­a­bly one of the least active peo­ple on the whole team.”

But pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions with those who know the PAC’s work­ings sug­gest Bar­ton is a cen­tral fig­ure, mak­ing key hires and man­ag­ing deci­sion mak­ing and strat­e­gy. In Novem­ber, Bar­ton was the per­son who hired Drew Ryun, a for­mer Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee oper­a­tive who in recent years has worked in grass­roots pol­i­tics out­side Wash­ing­ton, often tak­ing on the estab­lish­ment.

Barton’s hir­ing for the PAC last Sep­tem­ber was anoth­er nod to old­er evan­gel­i­cals that Cruz should be their man. Cruz had appealed to the Jer­ry Fal­well wing of evan­gel­i­cal­ism since announc­ing his can­di­da­cy last spring at Lib­er­ty Uni­ver­si­ty, the Chris­t­ian col­lege found­ed by the late Fal­well, whose son Jer­ry Jr. now runs the school (and who endorsed Don­ald Trump this week). Cruz has worked hard to build a net­work of pas­tors and Chris­t­ian activists across Iowa who are key to high turnout on the night of the cau­cus­es.

Barton’s endorse­ment, said Iowa Repub­li­can oper­a­tive Ann Trim­ble-Ray, is “prob­a­bly more impact­ful with the con­sis­tent cau­cus-goer” than an endorse­ment from some­one like for­mer Alas­ka Gov. Sarah Palin, who last week came out for Trump. He’s not the only Chris­t­ian activist with more sway than Palin, said Trim­ble-Ray, who serves as Iowa Rep. Steve King’s point per­son in west­ern Iowa. Phyl­lis Schafly, the nona­ge­nar­i­an but still-ven­er­at­ed con­ser­v­a­tive activist, is also influ­en­tial among old­er reli­gious vot­ers, Trim­ble-Ray said, and she has endorsed Trump as well.

...

Cruz is smart enough to know that if he remains com­pet­i­tive in the Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry beyond Iowa, he will need sup­port from evan­gel­i­cals who think Bar­ton is an embar­rass­ment. One of the more robust fac­tions inside Amer­i­can evan­gel­i­cal­ism is this set: a most­ly younger group who reject the cul­ture war approach of Falwell’s Moral Major­i­ty. (I’ve dubbed them the “Keller wing,” after New York city pas­tor and author Tim Keller.)

These faith vot­ers are not yet as reli­able a vot­ing bloc as the old­er faith vot­ers in states like Iowa, who have been con­di­tioned to orga­nize polit­i­cal­ly around faith issues. But there are influ­en­tial evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers — some of them more polit­i­cal­ly active than oth­ers — who have no time for a fig­ure like Bar­ton.Rus­sell Moore of the South­ern Bap­tists, megachurch pas­tor Rick War­ren, who is on a faith advi­so­ry board for Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mar­co Rubio, and even Keller him­self employ a style that takes a dif­fer­ent approach to post-Chris­t­ian Amer­i­ca than some­one like Bar­ton.

Bar­ton argues that Amer­i­ca was found­ed as a Chris­t­ian nation, though he insist­ed to me that he defined this only as “a nation that was influ­enced by Chris­t­ian prin­ci­ples and cul­ture.” He says that much of America’s found­ing doc­u­ments — in par­tic­u­lar the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence — and its laws were derived from the Bible. The impli­ca­tion, despite his denials, is that this is what it should be again.

To many, Barton’s argu­ment that Amer­i­ca was a Chris­t­ian nation at its found­ing is, as jour­nal­ist Julie Inger­soll put it, vital to old­er Chris­tians’ “myth­ic under­stand­ing” of them­selves. It is a vital com­po­nent of their iden­ti­ty that they are part of the nation’s true her­itage.

Many younger evan­gel­i­cals, even those who wish for greater spir­i­tu­al vital­i­ty in the nation and for more Chris­t­ian influ­ence in cul­ture and pol­i­tics, don’t have or seek the same iden­ti­ty. They embrace the notion of being pil­grims, sojourn­ers, even aliens in a strange land, as a way of life and iden­ti­ty that lines up more close­ly with their faith and the teach­ings of the Bible. In oth­er words, they’re more com­fort­able being a cul­tur­al minor­i­ty, and advo­cat­ing for their beliefs and poli­cies based on their beliefs from such a posi­tion. For old­er evan­gel­i­cals, who grew up at a time when Amer­i­can cul­ture endorsed and affirmed their way of life and their beliefs, this is a more fright­en­ing propo­si­tion.

And old­er evan­gel­i­cals like Bar­ton often see the younger gen­er­a­tion as cow­ards, shrink­ing away from the nec­es­sary cul­tur­al com­bat, afraid of the slings and arrows of stand­ing up for what is right. In this world­view, crit­i­cism and oppo­si­tion is a badge of hon­or, and can be viewed as val­i­da­tion that one is on the right track.

...

Barton’s cred­i­bil­i­ty has been called into ques­tion more than once since he self-pub­lished his first book in 1989, “The Myth of Sep­a­ra­tion.” In the mid-90s he had to retract a dozen quotes he had used from his­tor­i­cal fig­ures, most­ly the Found­ing Fathers, after his­to­ri­ans found errors and inac­cu­ra­cies. Nonethe­less, his pop­u­lar­i­ty with fun­da­men­tal­ist Chris­tians con­tin­ued to grow. Much of Barton’s allure is based on his col­lec­tion of what he says is more than 100,000 orig­i­nal doc­u­ments that date back to the pre-1812 Amer­i­can rev­o­lu­tion­ary era, which he stores in a vault at the head­quar­ters of his orga­ni­za­tion, Wall­Builders, in Ale­do, Texas. He pep­pers his pre­sen­ta­tions or talk­ing points with a dizzy­ing num­ber of ref­er­ences and quo­ta­tions.

Bar­ton became a nation­al fig­ure dur­ing George W. Bush’s pres­i­den­cy. He was elect­ed co-chair of the Texas GOP and by 2004 he had been hired by the Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee to help get social con­ser­v­a­tives to the polls to reelect Bush. In 2005, Time Mag­a­zine named Bar­ton one of the most influ­en­tial evan­gel­i­cals in Amer­i­ca. Bar­ton was an advis­er to for­mer Arkansas Gov. Mike Huck­abee, who won the Iowa cau­cus­es in 2008 before his pres­i­den­tial can­di­da­cy lost steam.

In May of 2012, Bar­ton was inter­viewed by a puz­zled but impressed Jon Stew­art on “The Dai­ly Show.” But around that same time, Barton’s lat­est book on Thomas Jef­fer­son came under heavy scruti­ny from a group of evan­gel­i­cal schol­ars. The same week in August that Bar­ton was skep­ti­cal­ly pro­filed by Nation­al Pub­lic Radio, Thomas Nel­son, the book’s pub­lish­er, pulled the book from stores and ceased pub­li­ca­tion, even though the book had hit the New York Times best­seller list. The pub­lish­er had “lost con­fi­dence” in Barton’s book based on inquiries from con­ser­v­a­tive his­to­ri­ans.

“The with­draw­ing a book from the mar­ket is extreme­ly rare. It’s so rare I can’t think of the last time we’ve done this,” said Thomas Nelson’s pub­lish­er, Bri­an Hamp­ton.

The flame wars between Bar­ton and his crit­ics have con­tin­ued to this day, as Barton’s book, “The Jef­fer­son Lies,” was repub­lished ear­li­er this month by World Net Dai­ly. Even among some Bar­ton friends and sup­port­ers, his cred­i­bil­i­ty has been hurt, in large part because the crit­i­cism of his work came not from lib­er­al aca­d­e­mics but from his­to­ri­ans and oth­er aca­d­e­mics who are Chris­tians and work at Chris­t­ian insti­tu­tions.

“That’s what scared me,” said Don McEl­roy, the for­mer chair­man of the Texas Board of Edu­ca­tion, who was at the cen­ter of a major fight over cur­ricu­lum stan­dards in 2010 and who praised Barton’s input as a mem­ber of a six-per­son review board. “I can’t imag­ine [Bar­ton] mak­ing mis­takes, but I was stunned by the crit­i­cism.”

“Most of the time I find him to be right as rain,” McEl­roy said of Bar­ton.

Bar­ton remains defi­ant. “Lib­er­als will fight the truth with lies, good with evil, hon­esty with deceit,” he wrote on Twit­ter this week with a link to his book. Ear­li­er this month he was on Beck’s show on the TV net­work that Beck start­ed and owns, The Blaze, argu­ing that Thomas Jef­fer­son “came out very clear­ly” against gay rights.

...

Cruz told Politi­co ear­li­er this year that Bar­ton is “a good man, a coura­geous leader and a friend.”

“David’s his­tor­i­cal research has helped mil­lions redis­cov­er the found­ing prin­ci­ples of our nation and the incred­i­ble sac­ri­fices that men and women of faith made to bequeath to us the freest and most pros­per­ous nation in the world,” Cruz said.

Some spec­u­late that Bar­ton is a Cruz-whis­per­er push­ing him toward theoc­ra­cy, but — set­ting aside the ques­tion of what exact­ly Bar­ton wants the gov­ern­ment to look like — there’s lit­tle evi­dence that the two men are close.

How­ev­er, Bar­ton has deeply influ­enced Raphael Cruz, the candidate’s father, who spent much of the last year trav­el­ing across Iowa speak­ing in church­es about his son. Raphael Cruz’s world­view is sim­i­lar to Barton’s, and Barton’s his­tor­i­cal research has giv­en Raphael Cruz more fod­der to believe that Amer­i­ca is los­ing its soul, and that Chris­tians must “take this coun­try back.” Raphael Cruz has pub­lished a new book, “A Time for Action: Empow­er­ing the Faith­ful to Reclaim Amer­i­ca,” in which he quotes and cites Bar­ton.

“Rafael and David are extreme­ly close,” said Gary Miller, who runs a group called “Talk Less! Pray More!” and also works with oper­a­tives like David Lane who orga­nize events to bring politi­cians to speak to groups of Chris­t­ian pas­tors across the coun­try.

“When it comes to Ted, there is a friend­ship, but I get the dis­tinct impres­sion that Ted Cruz is his own man,” Miller said. “He cer­tain­ly rec­og­nizes that David Bar­ton has a voice among evan­gel­i­cals, but you also would have to know that David Bar­ton dri­ves some evan­gel­i­cals crazy. I’m not one of those, but I have friends of mine who are.”

“There’s a wider range of evan­gel­i­cals that have to be embraced,” he said.

Ted Cruz strad­dles the worlds inside con­ser­v­a­tive evan­gel­i­cal­ism. At 45, he is young enough to under­stand the men­tal­i­ty of the Keller wing. But he was raised by a strong-willed polit­i­cal refugee from Cuba who came to fierce­ly embrace the com­bat­ive cul­ture war approach of the Fal­well wing. And he knows that the “take back Amer­i­ca” crowd is for the moment the dom­i­nant vot­ing bloc in Repub­li­can pol­i­tics.

And thus, he wel­comes the embrace of a fig­ure like Bar­ton, but at arms length.

———-

“Ted Cruz’s con­tro­ver­sial super-PAC leader divides evan­gel­i­cals” by Jon Ward; Yahoo News; 01/29/2016

“Barton’s anonymi­ty was fit­ting. It was some­thing of a metaphor for the rela­tion­ship between Cruz and Bar­ton, both of whom hail from Texas. Cruz has main­tained a del­i­cate bal­ance in his asso­ci­a­tion with Bar­ton, a fig­ure who is a hero to some evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians, and a fraud to oth­ers.”

The anony­mous ‘Ted Cruz whis­per­er’. That’s how David Bar­ton was depict­ed in this piece of Jan­u­ary of 2016. Bar­ton’s form of Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ism has clear­ly had a pro­found influ­ence on Cruz, serv­ing as a kind of the­o­log­i­cal men­tor. And yet, thanks to the con­tro­ver­sial nature of Bar­ton’s the­ol­o­gy, it’s a men­tor­ship that could end up becom­ing a polit­i­cal lia­bil­i­ty out­side of the­o­log­i­cal­ly-friend­ly cir­cles. So when we see Bar­ton was act­ing as the de fac­to mas­ter of cer­e­monies at this Cruz cam­paign event with­out ever intro­duc­ing him­self, we can see how Bar­ton’s polit­i­cal endorse­ments sort of oper­ate in a ‘If You Know, You Know’ man­ner:

...
David Bar­ton also nev­er told the crowd inside the Five Sul­li­van Broth­ers Con­ven­tion Cen­ter his name, even though he intro­duced oth­er speak­ers and served as the event’s de fac­to mas­ter of cer­e­monies.

...

Few fig­ures rep­re­sent the split run­ning down the mid­dle of Amer­i­can evan­gel­i­cal­ism bet­ter than Bar­ton, a 62-year-old self-taught his­to­ri­an (crit­ics call him a pseu­do-his­to­ri­an) who has for more than two decades stumped across the coun­try telling con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians that their nation’s reli­gious her­itage has been cov­ered up and stolen from them by god­less sec­u­lar pro­gres­sives.

...

Yet Bar­ton is help­ful to Cruz because the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date has built his strat­e­gy for win­ning the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion around win­ning in Iowa, the first state to vote in the pri­ma­ry process, and a place where 60 per­cent of the GOP elec­torate iden­ti­fies as evan­gel­i­cal. Too close an asso­ci­a­tion with Bar­ton, how­ev­er, would open Cruz up to ques­tions about the influ­ence on his think­ing of a man whose views about faith and pol­i­tics can often sound like Chris­t­ian recon­struc­tion­ism — the belief that gov­ern­ment laws and poli­cies should be drawn explic­it­ly from the Bible.

Bar­ton argued in 2011 that the pro­gres­sive income tax, cap­i­tal gains tax and the estate tax (or death tax), are all con­trary to the Bible. “Jesus has two entire teach­ings on the cap­i­tal gains tax,” Bar­ton claimed, cit­ing Luke 19:13–26 and Matthew 25:14–29. And, he added, “Jesus did not like the min­i­mum wage.”

The Bible does not address any of these issues explic­it­ly. Bar­ton was tak­ing para­bles told by Jesus in the New Tes­ta­ment and inter­pret­ing them quite lib­er­al­ly. Bar­ton said in an inter­view that his crit­ics often mis­in­ter­pret or exag­ger­ate his many claims. “I like the Con­sti­tu­tion we’ve got. I’m not try­ing to replace it with the Bible,” he said. When asked about his com­ments about Jesus’ views on tax pol­i­cy, Bar­ton deflect­ed the ques­tion. “What I often say in report­ing his­to­ry doesn’t mean that’s what I’m advo­cat­ing for pol­i­cy right now,” he said.

Bar­ton may say state­ments about Jesus’ view of tax­es aren’t pre­scrip­tive, but for Chris­tians who believe the Bible should gov­ern all aspects of their lives, Barton’s com­ments pro­vide a the­o­log­i­cal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for ignor­ing their tax bill that takes high­er prece­dence than the law. If the word of God is explic­it­ly opposed to what the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice is doing, such a believ­er might rea­son with him­self, then he or she is in fact bound to oppose and defy the IRS.

These are not the types of state­ments the Cruz cam­paign wants their can­di­date being ques­tioned about on the cam­paign trail. In Sep­tem­ber Bar­ton was named as the leader of a pro-Cruz super-PAC, Keep the Promise, mak­ing him an offi­cial sup­port­er of Cruz’s but with­out any offi­cial con­nec­tion to Cruz’s cam­paign. Of course, if Cruz world was uncom­fort­able with Barton’s endorse­ment, they wouldn’t have want­ed him involved with the super-PAC at all.

...

Some in the sprawl­ing world of the mul­ti­ple Cruz super-PACs have tak­en pot­shots at Bar­ton. “David Bar­ton is known among evan­gel­i­cal pas­tors but he’s not known as a polit­i­cal strate­gist or a fundrais­er,” said an offi­cial from one of Cruz’s super-PACs. “He’s prob­a­bly one of the least active peo­ple on the whole team.”

But pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions with those who know the PAC’s work­ings sug­gest Bar­ton is a cen­tral fig­ure, mak­ing key hires and man­ag­ing deci­sion mak­ing and strat­e­gy. In Novem­ber, Bar­ton was the per­son who hired Drew Ryun, a for­mer Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee oper­a­tive who in recent years has worked in grass­roots pol­i­tics out­side Wash­ing­ton, often tak­ing on the estab­lish­ment.
...

Sim­i­lar­ly, we can see how Bar­ton was instru­men­tal in orga­niz­ing the Decem­ber 2015 gath­er­ing at the Texas ranch of Far­ris Wilks, who turned out to be a major Cruz donor. Recall how the bil­lion­aire Wilks broth­ers are key part­ners with Tim Dunn in the theo­crat­ic cap­ture of the Texas Repub­li­can Par­ty. It’s a reminder that, while Bar­ton serves as a poten­tial­ly potent, but also poten­tial­ly con­tro­ver­sial, spokesper­son for Cruz when deal­ing with the pub­lic, he’s a theo­crat­ic mega-donor super-star in the right cir­cles:

...
One of Barton’s most notice­able projects so far in the cam­paign was to gath­er rough­ly 300 pas­tors and “faith lead­ers” at the Texas ranch of frack­ing bil­lion­aire Far­ris Wilks dur­ing the week after Christ­mas for a day of dis­cus­sion and prayer. (Wilks had giv­en $10 mil­lion to Keep the Promise III, one of three super-PACs under the umbrel­la of the one run by Bar­ton.)
...

And as the arti­cle describes, while Ted Cruz and David Bar­ton may not be par­tic­u­lar­ly close per­son­al­ly, it’s a very dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion when we’re talk­ing about Bar­ton and Rafael Cruz, who are described as extreme­ly close:

...
Some spec­u­late that Bar­ton is a Cruz-whis­per­er push­ing him toward theoc­ra­cy, but — set­ting aside the ques­tion of what exact­ly Bar­ton wants the gov­ern­ment to look like — there’s lit­tle evi­dence that the two men are close.

How­ev­er, Bar­ton has deeply influ­enced Raphael Cruz, the candidate’s father, who spent much of the last year trav­el­ing across Iowa speak­ing in church­es about his son. Raphael Cruz’s world­view is sim­i­lar to Barton’s, and Barton’s his­tor­i­cal research has giv­en Raphael Cruz more fod­der to believe that Amer­i­ca is los­ing its soul, and that Chris­tians must “take this coun­try back.” Raphael Cruz has pub­lished a new book, “A Time for Action: Empow­er­ing the Faith­ful to Reclaim Amer­i­ca,” in which he quotes and cites Bar­ton.

“Rafael and David are extreme­ly close,” said Gary Miller, who runs a group called “Talk Less! Pray More!” and also works with oper­a­tives like David Lane who orga­nize events to bring politi­cians to speak to groups of Chris­t­ian pas­tors across the coun­try.

“When it comes to Ted, there is a friend­ship, but I get the dis­tinct impres­sion that Ted Cruz is his own man,” Miller said. “He cer­tain­ly rec­og­nizes that David Bar­ton has a voice among evan­gel­i­cals, but you also would have to know that David Bar­ton dri­ves some evan­gel­i­cals crazy. I’m not one of those, but I have friends of mine who are.”
...

And as the fol­low­ing Boston Globe arti­cle, also from Jan­u­ary of 2016, describes, it’s not just that Rafael Cruz and David Bar­ton are long­time close asso­ciates. Rafael was seen by many as his son’s ‘secret weapon’ in the GOP pri­mar­i­ly pre­cise­ly because the elder Cruz has so much sway with evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers. Beyond that, as the arti­cle also describes, Ted Cruz has effec­tive­ly been groomed by his father to run for pres­i­dent since he was a child. So when we see how David Bar­ton was play­ing a key role ral­ly evan­gel­i­cals around Ted Cruz’s 2016 pres­i­den­tial bid, keep in mind that this was a moment Rafael had been plan­ning on for a very long time. Per­haps longer than Ted had been:

The Boston Globe

Ted Cruz’s father gives him edge among con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians

By Tra­cy Jan Globe Staff,
Jan­u­ary 26, 2016, 8:45 p.m.

MARION, Iowa — The Texas pas­tor paced before the wood­en cross in a rur­al church, point­ing toward the heav­ens as he lament­ed the sor­ry state of the coun­try.

Cast your vote in the Iowa cau­cus, he exhort­ed the con­gre­ga­tion, and reclaim Amer­i­ca!

“If the right­eous are not run­ning for office and not even vot­ing, what is left?” he asked dur­ing Sun­day morn­ing ser­vice at Grace Bap­tist Church in Iowa. “The wicked elect­ing the wicked. And we get what we deserve.”

Meet Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz’s 76-year-old father, a cru­cial — if some­times divi­sive — ele­ment of the Texas sen­a­tor’s cam­paign to win over con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian vot­ers. The senior Cruz’s cru­sades at church­es across Iowa have paid big div­i­dends; with strong sup­port among evan­gel­i­cals, Cruz has pulled with­in strik­ing dis­tance of front-run­ner Don­ald Trump in next week’s first-in-the-nation cau­cus.

Rafael Cruz has drawn crit­i­cism for mak­ing incen­di­ary state­ments: He has com­pared Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to Fidel Cas­tro and advo­cat­ed that the pres­i­dent be sent “back to Kenya.” He accus­es gay activists of try­ing to legal­ize pedophil­ia. He con­tends pub­lic schools are brain­wash­ing chil­dren with sec­u­lar­ism. But among many Chris­tians here, he’s preach­ing to the choir, draw­ing cries of “Amen!” “Preach!” and “C’mon!” from the pews.

For more than a year, Rafael Cruz, a trim, spry man with a ring of white hair, has been preach­ing the same fire and brim­stone ser­mon at church­es and in pri­vate meet­ings with pas­tors all over Iowa and the coun­try, on a mis­sion to ral­ly this crit­i­cal demo­graph­ic toward polit­i­cal activism — and sup­port his son for the pres­i­den­cy.

...

When Rafael Cruz was asked by a reporter to respond to crit­ics who dis­miss his views as extrem­ist, a cam­paign aide hov­er­ing near­by whis­pered to him not to answer. The advice was ignored.

“If they don’t agree, they don’t agree,” said an unapolo­getic Cruz. “But my son is try­ing to be pres­i­dent to all Amer­i­cans.”

Ted Cruz said in an inter­view that his father is a pow­er­ful voice for free­dom and that his mes­sage should res­onate deeply even among non-Chris­tians.

Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tives say they are par­tic­u­lar­ly drawn to Rafael Cruz because of his dra­mat­ic life sto­ry. He was an active oppo­nent of Cuba’s Batista dic­ta­tor­ship who fled to the Unit­ed States in 1957 on a stu­dent visa and $100 sewn into his under­wear. He stud­ied math at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas Austin, learn­ing Eng­lish by watch­ing movies and sup­port­ing him­self by wash­ing dish­es.

He and his sec­ond wife, an Amer­i­can, even­tu­al­ly moved to Cana­da, where Ted Cruz was born in 1970. But Rafael Cruz, an alco­holic, aban­doned his wife and tod­dler son and returned to Texas. It was there that he found God, lead­ing him to rec­on­cile with his fam­i­ly in 1975 and bring­ing them back to the Unit­ed States.

By the time Ted Cruz was 9, his father was pro­vid­ing heavy dos­es of con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian pol­i­tics at the din­ner table. By 13, the younger Cruz had mem­o­rized the Con­sti­tu­tion and through high school toured the state of Texas, deliv­er­ing speech­es on free mar­ket eco­nom­ics and the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“Essen­tial­ly his father groomed him for this moment,” said Steve Deace, a con­ser­v­a­tive Iowa radio talk show host who has endorsed Cruz. “That back­sto­ry was cru­cial in influ­enc­ing a lot of peo­ple.”

Empha­siz­ing the fam­i­ly’s reli­gious ties with­in Iowa’s Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty seems to be work­ing. While Trump is hold­ing on to a lead of around 5 points, Ted Cruz remained the favorite among evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians, accord­ing to the lat­est Des Moines Reg­is­ter poll: 37 per­cent of self-iden­ti­fied evan­gel­i­cals or born-again Chris­tians sup­port­ed Cruz, com­pared to 17 per­cent for Trump.

Of Iowans who have said they plan to cau­cus next week, between 40 and 50 per­cent iden­ti­fy as evan­gel­i­cals, said J. Ann Selz­er, poll­ster for the Des Moines Reg­is­ter.]

“Rafael is an amaz­ing clos­er,” said Bryan Eng­lish, Cruz’s Iowa state direc­tor and a for­mer pas­tor who shut­tled Rafael Cruz all over the state in his Dodge Dako­ta last year to more than 1,000 meet­ings. “Too many politi­cians over the years come in, wave a Bible, quote a cou­ple of vers­es, and think they’re a part of our move­ment. We’ve been burned.”

The elder Cruz, many evan­gel­i­cals say, speaks to the authen­tic­i­ty of Ted Cruz’s rela­tion­ship with God. That’s a key rea­son he won the sought-after endorse­ment last month of Bob Van­der Plaats, pres­i­dent of The Fam­i­ly Leader, an influ­en­tial Chris­t­ian advo­ca­cy group.

“He’s a clar­i­fy­ing check that Ted’s the real deal,” said Van­der Plaats dur­ing an inter­view from his Urban­dale office, half a mile from Cruz’s Iowa head­quar­ters.

Pas­tor Joseph Brown, head of Mar­i­on Avenue Bap­tist Church in Wash­ing­ton, Iowa, leads 99 Pas­tors for Cruz, a grass-roots effort to secure an endorse­ment from a pas­tor in each coun­ty and use their built-in audi­ences every Sun­day to pro­pel Cruz to a win. Brown, who had not pre­vi­ous­ly insert­ed him­self in pol­i­tics, said he came up with the idea after lis­ten­ing to Rafael Cruz chal­lenge pas­tors to get involved.

...

On Sat­ur­day, as Ted Cruz held a ral­ly with radio host Glenn Beck at a Bap­tist col­lege in a Des Moines sub­urb, Rafael Cruz and Deace auto­graphed copies of their new books at a church 16 miles away.

“We have to get the right­eous involved in the polit­i­cal process,” Rafael Cruz told a cou­ple in their ear­ly 70s. He flipped to Chap­ter 13 of his book “A Time For Action.”

“I give action steps here, what peo­ple need to do to get involved,” Cruz said.

The cou­ple, Cheryl and Dave Kutsch­er, bought two copies, so they could read it simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. They said they sup­port Ted Cruz, in large part because of his father.

“If Ted ever got out of line, Rafael would put him back in place,” said Dave Kutsch­er, a land devel­op­er.

The next day, at the Mar­i­on church, Cruz, dressed in a blue suit, railed against the abo­li­tion of prayer and Bible read­ing in schools as the cause of sky­rock­et­ing teen preg­nan­cy, dropout rates, and van­dal­ism. Now, he said, “homo­sex­u­al mar­riage” is the lat­est “frontal attack on reli­gious lib­er­ty.”

“The dev­il over­played his hand because this deci­sion has act­ed as a cat­a­lyst to awak­en the sleep­ing giant,” Cruz said, his voice boom­ing through the church. He nev­er men­tioned his son’s name.

On Mon­day, about 150 Iowa pas­tors attend­ed a pri­vate din­ner at a Des Moines air­port hotel host­ed by David Lane, a Chris­t­ian activist from Cal­i­for­nia whose group, Amer­i­can Renew­al Project, mobi­lizes pas­tors to run for polit­i­cal office.

The din­ner served as a final oppor­tu­ni­ty for pas­tors to hear from Ted Cruz him­self. Lane, who allowed the Globe to attend the closed event with the agree­ment of the cam­paign, has host­ed sim­i­lar din­ners for oth­er can­di­dates, includ­ing Mike Huck­abee, Rand Paul, and Mar­co Rubio. But Cruz has drawn the largest crowd by far, dou­ble that of Rubio’s, Lane said.

As guests dined on hon­ey pecan chick­en and straw­ber­ry cheese­cake par­faits, Ted Cruz deliv­ered his father’s mantra of the impor­tance of vot­ing on bib­li­cal val­ues.

“What mat­ters in the next 167 hours is who shows up on cau­cus night,” Cruz said. “This is entire­ly about turnout. And the men and women in this room have the pow­er to change the elec­tion and the course of his­to­ry.”

Sit­ting a few feet away, Rafael Cruz looked up at his son and beamed.

———-

“Ted Cruz’s father gives him edge among con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians” By Tra­cy Jan Globe Staff; The Boston Globe; 01/26/2016

“Meet Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz’s 76-year-old father, a cru­cial — if some­times divi­sive — ele­ment of the Texas sen­a­tor’s cam­paign to win over con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian vot­ers. The senior Cruz’s cru­sades at church­es across Iowa have paid big div­i­dends; with strong sup­port among evan­gel­i­cals, Cruz has pulled with­in strik­ing dis­tance of front-run­ner Don­ald Trump in next week’s first-in-the-nation cau­cus.”

Rafael Cruz is quite the crowd pleas­er. At least for the right kind of crowd. Like an Iowan Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry audi­ence.

But as we can see, Rafael has­n’t just been meet­ing with church­go­ers to pro­mote his son’s pres­i­den­tial bid. He had been meet­ing in pri­vate with pas­tors all over the US for at least a year at that point. And had been prepar­ing Ted for this role since child­hood:

...
Rafael Cruz has drawn crit­i­cism for mak­ing incen­di­ary state­ments: He has com­pared Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to Fidel Cas­tro and advo­cat­ed that the pres­i­dent be sent “back to Kenya.” He accus­es gay activists of try­ing to legal­ize pedophil­ia. He con­tends pub­lic schools are brain­wash­ing chil­dren with sec­u­lar­ism. But among many Chris­tians here, he’s preach­ing to the choir, draw­ing cries of “Amen!” “Preach!” and “C’mon!” from the pews.

For more than a year, Rafael Cruz, a trim, spry man with a ring of white hair, has been preach­ing the same fire and brim­stone ser­mon at church­es and in pri­vate meet­ings with pas­tors all over Iowa and the coun­try, on a mis­sion to ral­ly this crit­i­cal demo­graph­ic toward polit­i­cal activism — and sup­port his son for the pres­i­den­cy.

...

Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tives say they are par­tic­u­lar­ly drawn to Rafael Cruz because of his dra­mat­ic life sto­ry. He was an active oppo­nent of Cuba’s Batista dic­ta­tor­ship who fled to the Unit­ed States in 1957 on a stu­dent visa and $100 sewn into his under­wear. He stud­ied math at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas Austin, learn­ing Eng­lish by watch­ing movies and sup­port­ing him­self by wash­ing dish­es.

He and his sec­ond wife, an Amer­i­can, even­tu­al­ly moved to Cana­da, where Ted Cruz was born in 1970. But Rafael Cruz, an alco­holic, aban­doned his wife and tod­dler son and returned to Texas. It was there that he found God, lead­ing him to rec­on­cile with his fam­i­ly in 1975 and bring­ing them back to the Unit­ed States.

By the time Ted Cruz was 9, his father was pro­vid­ing heavy dos­es of con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian pol­i­tics at the din­ner table. By 13, the younger Cruz had mem­o­rized the Con­sti­tu­tion and through high school toured the state of Texas, deliv­er­ing speech­es on free mar­ket eco­nom­ics and the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“Essen­tial­ly his father groomed him for this moment,” said Steve Deace, a con­ser­v­a­tive Iowa radio talk show host who has endorsed Cruz. “That back­sto­ry was cru­cial in influ­enc­ing a lot of peo­ple.”
...

And when we see how Rafael sought out the endorse­ment of key Iowa con­ser­v­a­tive king-mak­er, Bob Van­der Plaats, recall how Van­der Plaats end­ed up endorse Ron DeSan­tis in the 2024 Iowa cau­cus, trig­ger­ing a big fight for Van­der Plaats with the ‘Pas­tors for Trump’ group that’s emerged in recent year. In fact, Pas­tors for Trump was start­ed not long after Van­der Plaats began open­ly crit­i­ciz­ing Don­ald Trump fol­low­ing Trump’s now-infa­mous din­ner at Mar-a-Lago with Kanye West and neo-Nazi leader Nick Fuentes. It’s a reminder that the race of evan­gel­i­cal endorse­ments has become more com­pli­cat­ed since Trump’s cap­ture of the Repub­li­can Par­ty:

...
Empha­siz­ing the fam­i­ly’s reli­gious ties with­in Iowa’s Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty seems to be work­ing. While Trump is hold­ing on to a lead of around 5 points, Ted Cruz remained the favorite among evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians, accord­ing to the lat­est Des Moines Reg­is­ter poll: 37 per­cent of self-iden­ti­fied evan­gel­i­cals or born-again Chris­tians sup­port­ed Cruz, com­pared to 17 per­cent for Trump.

Of Iowans who have said they plan to cau­cus next week, between 40 and 50 per­cent iden­ti­fy as evan­gel­i­cals, said J. Ann Selz­er, poll­ster for the Des Moines Reg­is­ter.]

“Rafael is an amaz­ing clos­er,” said Bryan Eng­lish, Cruz’s Iowa state direc­tor and a for­mer pas­tor who shut­tled Rafael Cruz all over the state in his Dodge Dako­ta last year to more than 1,000 meet­ings. “Too many politi­cians over the years come in, wave a Bible, quote a cou­ple of vers­es, and think they’re a part of our move­ment. We’ve been burned.”

The elder Cruz, many evan­gel­i­cals say, speaks to the authen­tic­i­ty of Ted Cruz’s rela­tion­ship with God. That’s a key rea­son he won the sought-after endorse­ment last month of Bob Van­der Plaats, pres­i­dent of The Fam­i­ly Leader, an influ­en­tial Chris­t­ian advo­ca­cy group.

“He’s a clar­i­fy­ing check that Ted’s the real deal,” said Van­der Plaats dur­ing an inter­view from his Urban­dale office, half a mile from Cruz’s Iowa head­quar­ters.
...

And then we get a ref­er­ence to one of David Lane’s Amer­i­can Renew­al Project events, fea­tur­ing Ted Cruz. An event attend­ed by Rafael too:

...
On Mon­day, about 150 Iowa pas­tors attend­ed a pri­vate din­ner at a Des Moines air­port hotel host­ed by David Lane, a Chris­t­ian activist from Cal­i­for­nia whose group, Amer­i­can Renew­al Project, mobi­lizes pas­tors to run for polit­i­cal office.

The din­ner served as a final oppor­tu­ni­ty for pas­tors to hear from Ted Cruz him­self. Lane, who allowed the Globe to attend the closed event with the agree­ment of the cam­paign, has host­ed sim­i­lar din­ners for oth­er can­di­dates, includ­ing Mike Huck­abee, Rand Paul, and Mar­co Rubio. But Cruz has drawn the largest crowd by far, dou­ble that of Rubio’s, Lane said.

As guests dined on hon­ey pecan chick­en and straw­ber­ry cheese­cake par­faits, Ted Cruz deliv­ered his father’s mantra of the impor­tance of vot­ing on bib­li­cal val­ues.

“What mat­ters in the next 167 hours is who shows up on cau­cus night,” Cruz said. “This is entire­ly about turnout. And the men and women in this room have the pow­er to change the elec­tion and the course of his­to­ry.”

Sit­ting a few feet away, Rafael Cruz looked up at his son and beamed.
...

And that brings us to the fol­low­ing April 2015 piece from the Wash­ing­ton Times describ­ing a rela­tion­ship we should more or less expect at this point: it turns out David Lane and Rafael Cruz have a long­stand­ing work­ing rela­tion­ship. The kind of rela­tion­ship that could have been very help­ful had Ted won the pri­ma­ry. Because as the Cruz cam­paign explained at the time, Ted Cruz’s path to the White House was pred­i­cat­ed on acti­vat­ed two dif­fer­ent groups of evan­gel­i­cals: reg­u­lar evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers and non-reg­u­lar evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers. And as David Lane explained, one of his goals was get­ting preach­ers to ener­gize the then 30-to-40 mil­lion evan­gel­i­cals not reg­is­tered to vote. It’s a reminder that, while the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project might have a pub­lic focus on recruit­ing pas­tors to run for office, at its core the project appears to be more about using pas­tors to con­vert non-vot­ing evan­gel­i­cals into vot­ers:

The Wash­ing­ton Times

Evan­gel­i­cal pas­tors descend on Las Vegas to learn to moti­vate Chris­tians to vote

By Kel­ly Rid­dell
Wednes­day, April 22, 2015

Hun­dreds of Evan­gel­i­cal pas­tors and their wives will descend on Las Vegas Thurs­day to learn how to moti­vate their con­gre­ga­tions to get out and vote, prefer­ably for social con­ser­v­a­tives.

David Lane, an evan­gel­i­cal polit­i­cal activist and event spon­sor, is eager to get preach­ers to tack­le gov­ern­ment poli­cies from the pul­pit and ener­gize the esti­mat­ed 30 to 40 mil­lion evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians who are not reg­is­tered to vote.

“Somebody’s prin­ci­ples are going to reign supreme, it’s either our prin­ci­ples or some­body else’s prin­ci­ples,” said Mr. Lane. “By us stay­ing home, we’re elect­ing peo­ple who oppose our val­ues. Evan­gel­i­cal believ­ers and pro-life Catholic Chris­tians, our con­stituen­cy, has to engage if we’re going to save Amer­i­ca.”

There are about 65 to 80 mil­lion evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians in Amer­i­ca, half of those are not reg­is­tered to vote, and only about 25 per­cent of the ones who are reg­is­tered do, accord­ing to Mr. Lane.

Repub­li­can Sen. Ted Cruz, who announced his pres­i­den­tial bid at the Chris­t­ian-found­ed Lib­er­ty Uni­ver­si­ty last month, is depend­ing on these votes. He’s also look­ing to defy some estab­lish­ment Repub­li­cans and those in the media who say he’s on a fools errand.

“Today, rough­ly half of born-again Chris­tians aren’t vot­ing. They’re stay­ing home,” said Mr. Cruz, a Texas Repub­li­can, in the speech announc­ing his can­di­da­cy at Lib­er­ty. “Imag­ine instead mil­lions of peo­ple of faith all across Amer­i­ca com­ing out to the polls and vot­ing our val­ues.”

Mr. Cruz detailed to the Nation­al Jour­nal this month his plan to take the White House, which con­sists of two parts. The first is moti­vat­ing Chris­tians who stayed at home in the 2012 elec­tion to vote. The sec­ond is to be so true to his evan­gel­i­cal, con­sti­tu­tion­al val­ues that he pulls in peo­ple who have nev­er vot­ed before or sways oth­ers to chose him regard­less of polit­i­cal par­ty.

...

But Philip Bump, a polit­i­cal blog­ger at the Wash­ing­ton Post, has mocked Mr. Cruz’s evan­gel­i­cal strat­e­gy.

“Sen. Ted Cruz is a demon­stra­bly smart man, hav­ing grad­u­at­ed from both Prince­ton and Har­vard. It is easy to see, how­ev­er, that his degrees were not in math­e­mat­ics or sta­tis­tics,” Mr. Bump wrote in an April col­umn, argu­ing get­ting some­one who has no vot­ing his­to­ry to vote is an uphill climb, and by Mr. Cruz not mov­ing to the cen­ter, he won’t attract the inde­pen­dent vot­ers he’s plan­ning on.

...

George Will, a con­ser­v­a­tive colum­nist wrote on April 1: “Cruz, like Shakespeare’s Glen­dow­er (’I can call spir­its from the vasty deep’), hopes his rhetor­i­cal pow­ers can sub­stan­tial­ly change the com­po­si­tion of the Repub­li­can nom­i­nat­ing elec­torate. Skep­tics of Cruz’s sum­mon­ing respond like Hot­spur: ’But will they come when you do call for them?’”

Mr. Lane found­ed the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project, the spon­sor of Thurs­day and Friday’s Las Vegas pas­tor con­fer­ence, and start­ed this evan­gel­i­cal mod­el with for­mer Texas Gov. Rick Per­ry in 2005, He has held sev­er­al events since then fea­tur­ing Mr. Cruz, his father and pas­tor Rafael Cruz, South Car­oli­na Gov. Nik­ki Haley, Louisiana Gov. Bob­by Jin­dal, 2016 poten­tial can­di­dates Mike Huck­abee and Rick San­to­rum and Sen. Rand Paul, among oth­ers.

In 2014, his group ded­i­cat­ed $2 mil­lion to a ground game in four embat­tled states with Sen­ate races with the aim of turn­ing out evan­gel­i­cals. The Amer­i­can Renew­al Project held “pas­tors and pews” events speak­ing about the need for preach­ers to engage their con­gre­ga­tions, did vot­er reg­is­tra­tion dri­ves, gave out vot­er guides and launched a dig­i­tal strat­e­gy. The group iden­ti­fied 75,000 low propen­si­ty vot­ers in each state, and tar­get­ed them with phone calls, knock­ing on doors, and mail.

Over­all, the group esti­mates it turned out 141,151 votes in North Car­oli­na, Col­orado, Iowa and Arkansas com­bined. Repub­li­can sen­a­tors won each of those con­tests, and over­all, only 324,146 votes decid­ed them.

...

The goal of the pas­tor con­fer­ences is to show preach­ers how Amer­i­can his­to­ry and the pul­pit inter­twine and the only way to get Chris­t­ian val­ues reflect­ed in nation­al pol­i­cy is to get Chris­tians to par­tic­i­pate in it, said Rafael Cruz.

“There is a lot of peo­ple who are total­ly unaware of the Chris­t­ian his­to­ry of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion,” said the elder Cruz, who gives a Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion to oth­er pas­tors dubbed “Reclaim­ing Amer­i­ca: Why Pas­tors and Chris­tians in Gen­er­al Need to be Involved in the Polit­i­cal Are­na.”

“If we look at the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence there are sev­en­teen griev­ances list­ed against King George, but what most peo­ple don’t know is that each and every one of those griev­ances were preached in the church­es of Amer­i­ca before they were com­plied in the dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence,” said the elder Cruz. “My friend David Bar­ton has said that the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence could be con­sid­ered a series of ser­mon sum­maries. So it was preach­ers from the pul­pit call­ing out King George for the atroc­i­ties the British were per­pe­trat­ing on the Amer­i­can peo­ple. That is our his­to­ry.”

Still, skep­tics are wary any­thing can be done to mobi­lize a base that his­tor­i­cal­ly hasn’t come out to vote or are even reg­is­tered.

“If Cruz wants to count those, good luck to him,” wrote Mr. Bump.

———-

“The Wash­ing­ton Times” By Kel­ly Rid­dell; The Wash­ing­ton Times; 04/22/2015

“There are about 65 to 80 mil­lion evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians in Amer­i­ca, half of those are not reg­is­tered to vote, and only about 25 per­cent of the ones who are reg­is­tered do, accord­ing to Mr. Lane.”

Only around half of the 65–80 mil­lion evan­gel­i­cals in Amer­i­ca are even reg­is­tered to vote and, only around a quar­ter of those who are reg­is­tered vote at all. In oth­er words, a clear major­i­ty of Amer­i­can evan­gel­i­cals don’t vote. Or at least that was claim David Lane was mak­ing in 2015. As we’re going to see below, it was a wild­ly exag­ger­at­ed claim that oth­ers in Lane’s orbit also like to repeat. Still, it’s a reflec­tion of the intense focus in Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry pol­i­tics on mobi­liz­ing evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers in par­tic­u­lar. As Ted Cruz was describ­ing at the time, ener­giz­ing and mobi­liz­ing the evan­gel­i­cal vote was at the core of his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign strat­e­gy. It’s not clear the strat­e­gy would have worked, as plen­ty of skep­tics point­ed out. But that was the plan:

...
David Lane, an evan­gel­i­cal polit­i­cal activist and event spon­sor, is eager to get preach­ers to tack­le gov­ern­ment poli­cies from the pul­pit and ener­gize the esti­mat­ed 30 to 40 mil­lion evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians who are not reg­is­tered to vote.

...

Repub­li­can Sen. Ted Cruz, who announced his pres­i­den­tial bid at the Chris­t­ian-found­ed Lib­er­ty Uni­ver­si­ty last month, is depend­ing on these votes. He’s also look­ing to defy some estab­lish­ment Repub­li­cans and those in the media who say he’s on a fools errand.

“Today, rough­ly half of born-again Chris­tians aren’t vot­ing. They’re stay­ing home,” said Mr. Cruz, a Texas Repub­li­can, in the speech announc­ing his can­di­da­cy at Lib­er­ty. “Imag­ine instead mil­lions of peo­ple of faith all across Amer­i­ca com­ing out to the polls and vot­ing our val­ues.”

Mr. Cruz detailed to the Nation­al Jour­nal this month his plan to take the White House, which con­sists of two parts. The first is moti­vat­ing Chris­tians who stayed at home in the 2012 elec­tion to vote. The sec­ond is to be so true to his evan­gel­i­cal, con­sti­tu­tion­al val­ues that he pulls in peo­ple who have nev­er vot­ed before or sways oth­ers to chose him regard­less of polit­i­cal par­ty.

...

But Philip Bump, a polit­i­cal blog­ger at the Wash­ing­ton Post, has mocked Mr. Cruz’s evan­gel­i­cal strat­e­gy.

“Sen. Ted Cruz is a demon­stra­bly smart man, hav­ing grad­u­at­ed from both Prince­ton and Har­vard. It is easy to see, how­ev­er, that his degrees were not in math­e­mat­ics or sta­tis­tics,” Mr. Bump wrote in an April col­umn, argu­ing get­ting some­one who has no vot­ing his­to­ry to vote is an uphill climb, and by Mr. Cruz not mov­ing to the cen­ter, he won’t attract the inde­pen­dent vot­ers he’s plan­ning on.

...

George Will, a con­ser­v­a­tive colum­nist wrote on April 1: “Cruz, like Shakespeare’s Glen­dow­er (’I can call spir­its from the vasty deep’), hopes his rhetor­i­cal pow­ers can sub­stan­tial­ly change the com­po­si­tion of the Repub­li­can nom­i­nat­ing elec­torate. Skep­tics of Cruz’s sum­mon­ing respond like Hot­spur: ’But will they come when you do call for them?’”
...

And not how these Amer­i­can Renew­al Project events at the time did­n’t just fea­ture pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls like Nik­ki Haley or Ted Cruz. Rafael Cruz him­self was fea­tured guest at some of these events, giv­ing Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion to oth­er pas­tors dubbed “Reclaim­ing Amer­i­ca: Why Pas­tors and Chris­tians in Gen­er­al Need to be Involved in the Polit­i­cal Are­na”:

...
Mr. Lane found­ed the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project, the spon­sor of Thurs­day and Friday’s Las Vegas pas­tor con­fer­ence, and start­ed this evan­gel­i­cal mod­el with for­mer Texas Gov. Rick Per­ry in 2005, He has held sev­er­al events since then fea­tur­ing Mr. Cruz, his father and pas­tor Rafael Cruz, South Car­oli­na Gov. Nik­ki Haley, Louisiana Gov. Bob­by Jin­dal, 2016 poten­tial can­di­dates Mike Huck­abee and Rick San­to­rum and Sen. Rand Paul, among oth­ers.

In 2014, his group ded­i­cat­ed $2 mil­lion to a ground game in four embat­tled states with Sen­ate races with the aim of turn­ing out evan­gel­i­cals. The Amer­i­can Renew­al Project held “pas­tors and pews” events speak­ing about the need for preach­ers to engage their con­gre­ga­tions, did vot­er reg­is­tra­tion dri­ves, gave out vot­er guides and launched a dig­i­tal strat­e­gy. The group iden­ti­fied 75,000 low propen­si­ty vot­ers in each state, and tar­get­ed them with phone calls, knock­ing on doors, and mail.

...

The goal of the pas­tor con­fer­ences is to show preach­ers how Amer­i­can his­to­ry and the pul­pit inter­twine and the only way to get Chris­t­ian val­ues reflect­ed in nation­al pol­i­cy is to get Chris­tians to par­tic­i­pate in it, said Rafael Cruz.

“There is a lot of peo­ple who are total­ly unaware of the Chris­t­ian his­to­ry of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion,” said the elder Cruz, who gives a Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion to oth­er pas­tors dubbed “Reclaim­ing Amer­i­ca: Why Pas­tors and Chris­tians in Gen­er­al Need to be Involved in the Polit­i­cal Are­na.”

“If we look at the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence there are sev­en­teen griev­ances list­ed against King George, but what most peo­ple don’t know is that each and every one of those griev­ances were preached in the church­es of Amer­i­ca before they were com­plied in the dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence,” said the elder Cruz. “My friend David Bar­ton has said that the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence could be con­sid­ered a series of ser­mon sum­maries. So it was preach­ers from the pul­pit call­ing out King George for the atroc­i­ties the British were per­pe­trat­ing on the Amer­i­can peo­ple. That is our his­to­ry.”
...

Next, let’s take a quick look at this Novem­ber 2013 piece in the Wash­ing­ton Month­ly about Lane’s Amer­i­can Renew­al Project events, fea­tur­ing David Bar­ton, that were already under­way for the 2014 elec­tion cycle. And as it notes, Ted Cruz was already attend­ing these events. Keep in mind that he was first elect­ed to the Sen­ate in 2012, so he was­n’t actu­al­ly fac­ing any elec­tions in the 2014 elec­tion cycle. In oth­er words, Ted Cruz was already start­ing the process of win­ning over evan­gel­i­cal pas­tors for his 2016 pres­i­den­tial race in 2013, with the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project as his venue of choice:

Wash­ing­ton Month­ly

Wacko Birds of a Feath­er

by Ed Kil­go­re
Novem­ber 4, 2013

Those who mar­veled at my ear­li­er post about David Barton’s belief that legal­ized abor­tion is the cause of cli­mate change should be aware that the “his­to­ri­an” is not only the chief inspi­ra­tion for the whole “Chris­t­ian Nation” meme that has large­ly been accept­ed as a tru­ism by much of the Amer­i­can Right, but swims in some of the same waters as reg­u­lar old Repub­li­can pols.

This becomes appar­ent if you look at one of ol’ David’s favorite orga­ni­za­tions, the Amer­i­can Renew­al Project, the very insid­er Chris­t­ian Right group close­ly aligned with the aggres­sive­ly homo­pho­bic Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Asso­ci­a­tion, and run by the famous­ly influ­en­tial David Lane, whose main vehi­cle is the “Pastor’s Pol­i­cy Brief­in­gs” that bring pols in on the car­pet to be instruct­ed by cler­gy in an off-the-record con­text.

Bar­ton was present at the first such event of the 2014 elec­toral cycle in Iowa back in July. So, too, were Rand Paul, and the man who stole the show, Ted Cruz (per this account from the Des Moines Reg­is­ter‘s Jen­nifer Jacobs:

This morn­ing, Cruz spoke for near­ly an hour at the Iowa Renew­al Project, a two-day, all-expens­es-paid forum orga­nized by David Lane, a polit­i­cal activist from Cal­i­for­nia who has been qui­et­ly mobi­liz­ing evan­gel­i­cals in Iowa for six years. Two top-name GOP politi­cians who are like­ly 2016 pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates – Cruz and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Ken­tucky, both born-again Chris­tians – are the stars of today’s ses­sions.

Cruz lec­tured for 30 min­utes, his voice at times ris­ing to a shout. He answered ques­tions for anoth­er 20 min­utes, then stood at the cen­ter of a cir­cle as pas­tors laid their hands on him and the whole audi­ence – a pre­dom­i­nant­ly white group with about 20 black pas­tors – bowed heads to pray for him.

Then there was this tid­bit, which is even more inter­est­ing now that David Corn has drawn atten­tion to a cer­tain rev­erend close to the junior sen­a­tor from Texas:

Cruz, who told The Des Moines Reg­is­ter he has nev­er been to Iowa before, laid out his social con­ser­v­a­tive cre­den­tials in some detail, explain­ing all the reli­gious issues he defend­ed in court cas­es he worked on as a pri­vate lawyer and as solic­i­tor gen­er­al in Texas. He intro­duced his Cuban immi­grant father, Rafael Cruz, who sat in the audi­ence.

That was then. This is now, today, per Andrew Shain of The State:

Repub­li­can U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is reach­ing out Mon­day to the same audi­ence of South Car­oli­na pas­tors that for­mer House Speak­er Newt Gin­grich vis­it­ed twice before his sur­prise vic­to­ry in the state’s 2012 pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry.

Cruz, an expect­ed White House hope­ful who was the light­ning rod dur­ing last month’s 16-day par­tial fed­er­al gov­ern­ment shut­down, will speak at a Colum­bia hotel. It is one of many events that evan­gel­i­cal polit­i­cal oper­a­tive David Lane has orga­nized in key bat­tle­ground states since 2005.

Lane’s Amer­i­can Renew­al Project is financed by the Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Asso­ci­a­tion, the Mis­sis­sip­pi-based Chris­t­ian orga­ni­za­tion that advo­cates on social issues. Lane’s goal is to get more evan­gel­i­cals to the polls via the “pas­tors’ pol­i­cy brief­in­gs’’ that he has held over the years, includ­ing a half-dozen in South Car­oli­na.

...

I could go on and on (anoth­er speak­er at the SC event, Dr. Lau­rence White, deliv­ered a blood-cur­dling speech I hap­pened to hear in Iowa last year attack­ing Chris­tians who tol­er­ate “the per­vert­ed stan­dards of the ungod­ly who live around us” and damned any­one who would in any way com­pro­mise with baby-killing pro-choicers). But you get the point. Pun­dits who casu­al­ly talk about pols in both par­ties pan­der­ing to “extrem­ists” or “inter­est groups” clear­ly don’t get it. There is no ana­log among Demo­c­ra­t­ic politicians–certainly those con­sid­ered pos­si­ble seri­ous can­di­dates for president–consorting with peo­ple as “out there” as Bar­ton and Fed­er­er and White and AFA founder Don Wild­mon (anoth­er speak­er in Colum­bia) and Lane and Lord knows who else. For Repub­li­cans, it’s not only busi­ness as usu­al, but essen­tial to good rela­tions with “the base” and an oblig­a­tory chore on the road to the pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion.

———-

“Wacko Birds of a Feath­er” by Ed Kil­go­re; Wash­ing­ton Month­ly; 11/04/2013

“Bar­ton was present at the first such event of the 2014 elec­toral cycle in Iowa back in July. So, too, were Rand Paul, and the man who stole the show, Ted Cruz”

Look who stole the show at the ‘first’ Amer­i­can Renew­al Project event of the 2014 elec­tion cycle, back in July of 2013 in Iowa. And then, in Novem­ber of that year, he attend­ed anoth­er such event, this time South Car­oli­na. That’s part of the con­text of all these reports we were get­ting 2015 and 2016 about how Cruz was rely­ing on Lane’s net­work to secure his pri­ma­ry vic­to­ry and go on to win the White House: Ted Cruz has appar­ent­ly been attend­ed a large num­ber David Lane’s events.

And note when we see the ref­er­ence to Dr. Lau­rence White deliv­ered a blood-cur­dling speech at a 2012 Amer­i­can Renew­al Project event, recall how White and his wife were two of three direc­tors on the Niemoller Foundation’s gov­ern­ing board. In oth­er words, White is an Amer­i­can Renew­al Project mega-donor. He could pre­sum­ably give as many blood-cur­dling speech­es at he want­ed at these kinds of events:

...
I could go on and on (anoth­er speak­er at the SC event, Dr. Lau­rence White, deliv­ered a blood-cur­dling speech I hap­pened to hear in Iowa last year attack­ing Chris­tians who tol­er­ate “the per­vert­ed stan­dards of the ungod­ly who live around us” and damned any­one who would in any way com­pro­mise with baby-killing pro-choicers). But you get the point. Pun­dits who casu­al­ly talk about pols in both par­ties pan­der­ing to “extrem­ists” or “inter­est groups” clear­ly don’t get it. There is no ana­log among Demo­c­ra­t­ic politicians–certainly those con­sid­ered pos­si­ble seri­ous can­di­dates for president–consorting with peo­ple as “out there” as Bar­ton and Fed­er­er and White and AFA founder Don Wild­mon (anoth­er speak­er in Colum­bia) and Lane and Lord knows who else. For Repub­li­cans, it’s not only busi­ness as usu­al, but essen­tial to good rela­tions with “the base” and an oblig­a­tory chore on the road to the pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion.
...

Final­ly, let’s take a look at the fol­low­ing March 2015 Wash­ing­ton Post piece explor­ing these claims we’ve heard from Lane about how only a quar­ter of evan­gel­i­cals vote in pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. Note the piece is by Philip Bump, who , as we saw in the above Wash­ing­ton Times piece, was active­ly mock­ing Ted Cruz’s strat­e­gy at the time of rely­ing pret­ty much exclu­sive­ly on gen­er­at­ing turnout from non-vot­ing evan­gel­i­cals to secure his path to the White House. Mock­ery based, pre­sum­ably in part, on the fol­low­ing analy­sis exam­in­ing just how accu­rate this ’25% of evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers actu­al­ly vote’ claim real­ly is. Sur­prise! It’s not a very accu­rate claim:

The Wash­ing­ton Post

Ted Cruz under­sells evan­gel­i­cal turnout. But he has a good rea­son.

In a speech at Lib­er­ty Uni­ver­si­ty in Lynch­burg, Va., Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑Tex.) out­lined his vision for the U.S. and announced his can­di­da­cy for pres­i­dent. Here’s the full speech. (Video: AP)

By Philip Bump
March 23, 2015 at 1:39 p.m. EDT

“Today,” Ted Cruz said dur­ing his pres­i­den­tial announce­ment Mon­day, “rough­ly half of born-again Chris­tians aren’t vot­ing. They’re stay­ing home.” Con­tin­u­ing his cen­tral theme — imag­ine! — Cruz offered an alter­na­tive: “Imag­ine instead mil­lions of peo­ple of faith all across Amer­i­ca com­ing out to the polls and vot­ing our val­ues.”

Get­ting votes from con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian vot­ers is crit­i­cal to Cruz’s chances of win­ning the nom­i­na­tion, as we’ve not­ed. And it’s always the case that get­ting out more of your base is crit­i­cal to suc­cess. But is it true that half of born-again Chris­tians don’t vote?

...

After the 2000 elec­tion, a sur­vey from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Akron put evan­gel­i­cal Protes­tant turnout at 50 per­cent, as Cruz stat­ed. But by 2004, evan­gel­i­cal turnout was at 63 per­cent, accord­ing to the next iter­a­tion of that same sur­vey. What’s more, that turnout isn’t abysmal­ly low rel­a­tive to oth­er groups. In the 2000 sur­vey, Catholics also turned out at 50 per­cent. In 2004, main­line Protes­tants turned out at 69 per­cent — the same as the more con­ser­v­a­tive sub­set of evan­gel­i­cal Protes­tants in the sur­vey.

In the wake of the 2012 Mitt Rom­ney loss, there were var­i­ous analy­ses of Chris­t­ian turnout that point­ed to weak con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian turnout in some states as being a cause of the loss. Our crack poll­ster team looked at data from the 2012 Amer­i­can Nation­al Elec­tion Stud­ies to esti­mate evan­gel­i­cal turnout. More peo­ple in the study report vot­ing than actu­al­ly do. Once cor­rect­ed for that over-report­ing, we esti­mate that 62 per­cent of evan­gel­i­cals went to the polls in 2012. It’s down from the 2004 esti­mate cit­ed above, but it’s also using dif­fer­ent data. And that 62 per­cent is about four points high­er than the over­all pop­u­la­tion.

The idea of low turnout in the group isn’t unique to Cruz. Last year, for­mer Arkansas gov­er­nor Mike Huck­abee — who would very much like to absorb those same reli­gious votes in next year’s pri­maries — artic­u­lat­ed a more extreme ver­sion of Cruz’s math. At the Val­ue Vot­ers Sum­mit, Huck­abee said that there are about 80 mil­lion evan­gel­i­cals, half of whom are reg­is­tered to vote — and a quar­ter of whom actu­al­ly vote in pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. And in midterms? Only half of those who vote in pres­i­den­tial races!

That’s pret­ty clear­ly not true. A sur­vey from Pew Research puts the per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion of U.S. adults that is evan­gel­i­cal at 26.3 per­cent. (This may be high, as is argued here.) The Cen­sus Bureau tracks reg­is­tra­tion and vot­ing over time, allow­ing us to see what the num­bers would look like if Huck­abee were cor­rect.

Turnout accord­ing to Mike Huck­abee

Year Adult U.S. pop­u­la­tion Total vot­ers Evan­gel­i­cal adults (per Pew) Reg­is­tered evang. Vot­ed evang. Per­cent of all vot­ers
2008 225.5 mil­lion 131.2 mil­lion 59.3 mil­lion 29.7 mil­lion 14.8 mil­lion 11.3 per­cent
2010 230 mil­lion 96 mil­lion 60.4 mil­lion 30.2 mil­lion 7.5 mil­lion 7.9 per­cent
2012 235.2 mil­lion 132.9 mil­lion 61.9 mil­lion 30.9 mil­lion 15.5 mil­lion 11.6 per­cent

Before we get any fur­ther, notice the over­all turnout rates in 2008 through 2012, accord­ing to the Cen­sus Bureau: 58.2 per­cent, 41.8 per­cent, 56.5 per­cent. Turnout of 50 per­cent, then, isn’t any­thing par­tic­u­lar­ly unusu­al, depend­ing on the elec­tion.

But we can eval­u­ate Huck­abee’s claim against exit polling. Since 2004, 25 per­cent of the elec­torate has iden­ti­fied itself as evan­gel­i­cal in exit polling, vot­ing heav­i­ly for Repub­li­cans. In 2008, the fig­ure was 26 per­cent; in 2010, 25; in 2012, 26 again. That’s much high­er than Huck­abee’s esti­mates, and it’s pret­ty con­sis­tent.

You might notice that it’s also about in line with the Pew find­ings that 26 per­cent of the coun­try is evan­gel­i­cal. That’s a dif­fer­ent thing than say­ing that a cer­tain per­cent­age of the evan­gel­i­cal pop­u­la­tion came out to vote, but it does mean that turnout is about where you’d expect.

Which was­n’t Cruz’s point, real­ly. In the same way that the 2008 and 2012 cam­paigns of Barack Oba­ma put an empha­sis on boost­ing African-Amer­i­can turnout — suc­cess­ful­ly — Cruz’s goal isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly to say that evan­gel­i­cals are under-per­form­ing; rather, that he needs them to over-per­form, and prefer­ably on his behalf. Today, rough­ly half of every­body isn’t vot­ing. But Cruz is not ter­ri­bly inter­est­ed in see­ing more turnout from mod­er­ate Repub­li­cans or Democ­rats.

———–

“Ted Cruz under­sells evan­gel­i­cal turnout. But he has a good rea­son.” By Philip Bump; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 03/23/2015

“The idea of low turnout in the group isn’t unique to Cruz. Last year, for­mer Arkansas gov­er­nor Mike Huck­abee — who would very much like to absorb those same reli­gious votes in next year’s pri­maries — artic­u­lat­ed a more extreme ver­sion of Cruz’s math. At the Val­ue Vot­ers Sum­mit, Huck­abee said that there are about 80 mil­lion evan­gel­i­cals, half of whom are reg­is­tered to vote — and a quar­ter of whom actu­al­ly vote in pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. And in midterms? Only half of those who vote in pres­i­den­tial races!”

As Bump points out, Mike Huck­abee was mak­ing the same claim we heard from David Lane: only a quar­ter of evan­gel­i­cals actu­al­ly vote in pres­i­den­tial race. And yet, as Bump’s team found, evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers appear to vote rough­ly in line with oth­er demographics...something around half vote, like every­one else in the US:

...
After the 2000 elec­tion, a sur­vey from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Akron put evan­gel­i­cal Protes­tant turnout at 50 per­cent, as Cruz stat­ed. But by 2004, evan­gel­i­cal turnout was at 63 per­cent, accord­ing to the next iter­a­tion of that same sur­vey. What’s more, that turnout isn’t abysmal­ly low rel­a­tive to oth­er groups. In the 2000 sur­vey, Catholics also turned out at 50 per­cent. In 2004, main­line Protes­tants turned out at 69 per­cent — the same as the more con­ser­v­a­tive sub­set of evan­gel­i­cal Protes­tants in the sur­vey.

In the wake of the 2012 Mitt Rom­ney loss, there were var­i­ous analy­ses of Chris­t­ian turnout that point­ed to weak con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian turnout in some states as being a cause of the loss. Our crack poll­ster team looked at data from the 2012 Amer­i­can Nation­al Elec­tion Stud­ies to esti­mate evan­gel­i­cal turnout. More peo­ple in the study report vot­ing than actu­al­ly do. Once cor­rect­ed for that over-report­ing, we esti­mate that 62 per­cent of evan­gel­i­cals went to the polls in 2012. It’s down from the 2004 esti­mate cit­ed above, but it’s also using dif­fer­ent data. And that 62 per­cent is about four points high­er than the over­all pop­u­la­tion.

...

Which was­n’t Cruz’s point, real­ly. In the same way that the 2008 and 2012 cam­paigns of Barack Oba­ma put an empha­sis on boost­ing African-Amer­i­can turnout — suc­cess­ful­ly — Cruz’s goal isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly to say that evan­gel­i­cals are under-per­form­ing; rather, that he needs them to over-per­form, and prefer­ably on his behalf. Today, rough­ly half of every­body isn’t vot­ing. But Cruz is not ter­ri­bly inter­est­ed in see­ing more turnout from mod­er­ate Repub­li­cans or Democ­rats.
...

Again, it’s not real­ly a sur­prise to find the claims of a vast evan­gel­i­cal under-vot­ing cri­sis are basi­cal­ly a fab­ri­ca­tion. It’s a very con­ve­nient fab­ri­ca­tion for fig­ures like Mike Huck­abee or David Lane. Or Rafael and Ted Cruz. Fig­ures who have built entire careers cen­tered around ener­giz­ing this vot­ing demo­graph­ic. Just as it’s not sur­pris­ing to find that a sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion is pred­i­cat­ed on pla­cat­ing this same demo­graph­ic. The path to the White House for Repub­li­cans has long been on the backs of evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers and that remains the case today.

But it’s not just that Trump is rely­ing on this same evan­gel­i­cal-heavy mod­el for vic­to­ry that Repub­li­cans have long pred­i­cat­ed their White House bids on. Trump’s ‘Make Amer­i­ca Great Again’ pol­i­tics — and his demon­strat­ed will­ing­ness to cater to the domin­ion­ist crowd when it comes to Supreme Court jus­tices — real­ly has ampli­fied the domin­ion­ist move­ment in large part because it’s so com­pat­i­ble with it. ‘Make Amer­i­ca Great Again’ is music to the ears of those argu­ing con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians should force­ful­ly seize the reigns of gov­ern­ment and use that gov­ern­ment pow­er to active­ly impose ‘god­ly’ poli­cies. As the fol­low­ing August 2022 NBC report describes, that was the sen­ti­ment dri­ving many of the groups push­ing for the domin­ion­ist cap­ture of local school boards across Texas that year. A wild­ly suc­cess­ful cap­ture, as we’ve seen. Recall how the South­lake school board takeover effort was a major focus of the CNP’s Moms for Lib­er­ty, along with the Truth and Lib­er­ty Coali­tion run by David Bar­ton and Lance Wall­nau. Also recall how Wall­nau — the co-author of a pop­u­lar 2013 book pro­mot­ing Domin­ion­ism — was push­ing the idea back in 2018 that Trump was a God-ordained change agent anal­o­gous to the Bib­li­cal fig­ure of King Cyrus. A “mod­ern-day Cyrus”, as Wall­nau described Trump.

And as we also saw with those South­lake school board efforts, anoth­er group assist­ing in that effort was Patri­ot Mobile, a con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian cell­phone com­pa­ny that spends a por­tion of its funds on con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal caus­es. Rafael Cruz was giv­ing week­ly Bible study class­es for Patri­ot Mobile’s employ­ees dur­ing this peri­od. Note that Patri­ot Mobile’s co-founder and CFO, Glenn P. Sto­ry, shows up on the CNP mem­bers list.

So let’s take a clos­er look at Rafael Cruz’s Bible study teach­ings to the Patri­ot Mobile employ­ees dur­ing this joint cap­ture of the local Texas school boards. As we’ll see, the lessons were effec­tive­ly that there should be an end to the sep­a­ra­tion of church in state. Instead, it should be a “one-way wall”, where church­es are allowed to direct­ly inter­fere with the state but not the oth­er way around.

And as the arti­cle also points out, there’s anoth­er we’ve seen before that was direct­ly involved in the school board cap­ture. The group asked its fol­low­ers to show up to pub­lic hear­ings and loud­ly sup­port the array of new pro­pos­als that soon inun­dat­ed the school boards this move­ment took over. The group hap­pens to be the True Texas Project. As we’ve seen, this is one of those groups in the direct orbit of Texas bil­lion­aire theo­crat Tim Dunn where domin­ion­ism and overt Nazis min­gle. One of many polit­i­cal enti­ties with Tim Dun­n’s Defend Texas Lib­er­ty as its pri­ma­ry donor. As we saw, not only is the group found­ed by Julie McCar­ty, who open­ly sym­pa­thized with the motives of El Paso shoot­er Patrick Cru­sius. But just three weeks before that now-infa­mous Octo­ber sev­en hour long meet­ing with Nick Fuentes at the head­quar­ters of Dun­n’s Pale Horse Strate­gies polit­i­cal group held in ear­ly Octo­ber 6 2023, the True Texas Project held a ‘pass­ing the torch’ event in Dal­las that fea­tured John Doyle and Jake Lloyd Col­glazier. Doyle has fre­quent­ly appeared along­side Nick Fuentes at events. Recall how Doyle and Fuentes co-led a Lans­ing Michi­gan “Stop the Steal” ral­ly in the lead up to the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol Insur­rec­tion. Col­glazier was one of the most promi­nent mem­bers of Fuentes’s ‘groyper army’. In 2019, Col­glazier, Fuentes, and Patrick Casey — the leader of Iden­ti­ty Evropa, since rebrand­ed as the “Amer­i­can Iden­ti­ty Move­ment” — were the head­lin­ers at a white nation­al­ist con­fer­ence where they advo­cat­ed a strat­e­gy of pulling the Repub­li­can Par­ty fur­ther to the right with a strat­e­gy of attack­ing Repub­li­cans for issues like being weak on immi­gra­tion or sup­port for Israel. In 2018, Casey was open­ly telling NBC News he was plan­ning on infil­trat­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty, with an empha­sis on befriend­ing and win­ning over young col­lege Repub­li­cans. The True Texas Project was list­ed as an affil­i­at­ed on Patri­ot Mobile’s own web­site as one of its affil­i­ate. So when we see Patri­ot Mobile coor­di­nat­ing with the True Texas Project, keep in mind that it’s one of mul­ti­ple Nazi-friend­ly groups close­ly asso­ci­at­ed both Nick Fuentes and Tim Dunn who have a youth-focused strat­e­gy of rad­i­cal­iz­ing Repub­li­cans even more. Nazis and Domin­ion­ists. And Rafael Cruz. Amped up more than ever on domin­ion­ism thanks to Don­ald Trump:

NBC News

How a far-right, Chris­t­ian cell­phone com­pa­ny ‘took over’ four Texas school boards

Patri­ot Mobile mar­kets itself as “America’s only Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tive wire­less provider.” Now the Trump-aligned com­pa­ny is on a mis­sion to win con­trol of Texas school boards.

Aug. 25, 2022, 7:00 AM CDT
By Mike Hix­en­baugh

DALLAS — A lit­tle more than a year after for­mer Trump advis­er Steve Ban­non declared that con­ser­v­a­tives need­ed to win seats on local school boards to “save the nation,” he used his con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry-fueled TV pro­gram to spot­light Patri­ot Mobile, a Texas-based cell­phone com­pa­ny that had answered his call to action.

“The school boards are the key that picks the lock,” Ban­non said dur­ing an inter­view with Patri­ot Mobile’s pres­i­dent, Glenn Sto­ry, from the floor of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence, or CPAC, in Dal­las on Aug. 6. “Tell us about what you did.”

Sto­ry turned to the cam­era and said, “We went out and found 11 can­di­dates last cycle and we sup­port­ed them, and we won every seat. We took over four school boards.”

“Eleven seats on school boards, took over four!” Ban­non shout­ed as a crowd of CPAC atten­dees erupt­ed in applause.

It was a moment of cel­e­bra­tion for an upstart com­pa­ny whose lead­ers say they are on a mis­sion from God to restore con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian val­ues at all lev­els of gov­ern­ment — espe­cial­ly in pub­lic schools. To car­ry out that call­ing, the Grapevine-based com­pa­ny this year cre­at­ed a polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee, Patri­ot Mobile Action, and gave it more than $600,000 to spend on non­par­ti­san school board races in the Fort Worth sub­urbs.

This spring, the PAC blan­ket­ed the com­mu­ni­ties of South­lake, Keller, Grapevine and Mans­field with with thou­sands of polit­i­cal mail­ers warn­ing that sit­ting school board mem­bers were endan­ger­ing stu­dents with crit­i­cal race the­o­ry and oth­er “woke” ide­olo­gies. Patri­ot Mobile pre­sent­ed its can­di­dates as patri­ots who would “keep polit­i­cal agen­das out of the class­room.”

Their can­di­dates won every race, and near­ly four months lat­er, those Patri­ot Mobile-backed school boards have begun to deliv­er results.

The Keller Inde­pen­dent School Dis­trict made nation­al head­lines this month after the school board passed a new pol­i­cy that led the dis­trict to abrupt­ly pull more than 40 pre­vi­ous­ly chal­lenged library books off shelves for fur­ther review, includ­ing a graph­ic adap­ta­tion of Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl,” as well as sev­er­al LGBTQ-themed nov­els.

In the neigh­bor­ing city of South­lake, Patri­ot Mobile donat­ed framed posters that read “In God We Trust” to the Car­roll Inde­pen­dent School Dis­trict dur­ing a spe­cial pre­sen­ta­tion before the school board. Under a new Texas law, the dis­trict is now required to dis­play the posters promi­nent­ly in each of its school build­ings. After­ward, Patri­ot Mobile cel­e­brat­ed the dona­tion in a blog post titled “Putting God Back Into Our Schools.”

And this week at a tense, eight-hour school board meet­ing, the Grapevine-Col­leyville Inde­pen­dent School District’s board of trustees vot­ed 4–3 to imple­ment a far-reach­ing set of poli­cies that restrict how teach­ers can dis­cuss race and gen­der. The new poli­cies also lim­it the rights of trans­gen­der and non­bi­na­ry stu­dents to use bath­rooms and pro­nouns that cor­re­spond with their gen­ders. And the board made it eas­i­er for par­ents to ban library books deal­ing with sex­u­al­i­ty.

...

Patri­ot Mobile offi­cials didn’t respond to mes­sages request­ing com­ment. Leigh Wamb­s­ganss, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Patri­ot Mobile Action and vice pres­i­dent of gov­ern­ment and media affairs at Patri­ot Mobile, declined to speak with a reporter at CPAC, say­ing she did not trust NBC News to accu­rate­ly report on the company’s polit­i­cal activism. In a social media post days lat­er, she called the journalist’s inter­view request harass­ment, adding, “I don’t inter­view with reporters I don’t trust.”

In recent inter­views with con­ser­v­a­tive media out­lets, Wamb­s­ganss has said that Patri­ot Mobile’s goal is to install school board mem­bers who will oppose the teach­ing of “LGBTQ ide­olo­gies,” fight to remove “porno­graph­ic books,” and stand against school anti-racism ini­tia­tives, which she and her sup­port­ers have argued indoc­tri­nate chil­dren with anti-white and anti-Amer­i­can views.

“You know, the sad thing is there is real racism, and that is real­ly a ter­ri­ble thing,” Wamb­s­ganss said in a June appear­ance on the Mark Davis Show, a con­ser­v­a­tive talk radio pro­gram that broad­casts in the Dal­las region. “But they’re water­ing down and devalu­ing that word so bad that it’s become mean­ing­less.”

In that same inter­view, Wamb­s­ganss made clear that Patri­ot Mobile views its polit­i­cal activism as a reli­gious call­ing — and that the group’s elec­toral suc­cess this spring was just the begin­ning.

“We’re not here on this earth to please man — we’re here to please God,” Wamb­s­ganss said, adding lat­er in the inter­view, “Ulti­mate­ly we want to expand to oth­er coun­ties, oth­er states and be in every state across the nation.”

‘Make Amer­i­ca Chris­t­ian Again’

Found­ed about a decade ago, Patri­ot Mobile mar­kets itself as “America’s only Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tive wire­less provider,” which includes a pledge to donate a por­tion of users’ month­ly bills to con­ser­v­a­tive caus­es.

Ini­tial­ly, Patri­ot Mobile’s founders said their goal was to sup­port groups and politi­cians who promised to oppose abor­tion, defend reli­gious free­dom, pro­tect gun rights and sup­port the mil­i­tary.

After the 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, the company’s brand­ing shift­ed fur­ther to the right and embraced Trump’s style of pol­i­tics. One of Patri­ot Mobile’s most famous adver­tise­ments includes the slo­gan “Mak­ing Wire­less Great Again,” along­side an image of Trump’s face pho­to­shopped onto a tanned, mus­cled body hold­ing a machine gun.

That approach has drawn the sup­port of some big names on the right.

“You can give your mon­ey to AT&T, the par­ent com­pa­ny of CNN, and you can pay the salary of Don Lemon, or you can sup­port some­one like a Patri­ot Mobile and give back to caus­es that they believe in,” Don­ald Trump Jr. said from the stage at a CPAC gath­er­ing in Feb­ru­ary. “That’s not can­cel cul­ture, folks. That’s using your damn brain.”

Patri­ot Mobile has also aligned itself in recent years with polit­i­cal and reli­gious lead­ers who pro­mote a once-fringe strand of Chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy that experts say has grown more pop­u­lar on the right in recent years. Domin­ion­ism, some­times referred to as the Sev­en Moun­tains Man­date, is the belief that Chris­tians are called on to dom­i­nate the sev­en key “moun­tains” of Amer­i­can life, includ­ing busi­ness, media, gov­ern­ment and edu­ca­tion.

John Fea, a pro­fes­sor of Amer­i­can his­to­ry at the pri­vate, Chris­t­ian Mes­si­ah Uni­ver­si­ty in Penn­syl­va­nia, has spent years study­ing Sev­en Moun­tains the­ol­o­gy. Fea said the idea that Chris­tians are called on to assert bib­li­cal val­ues across all aspects of Amer­i­can soci­ety has been around for decades on the right, but “large­ly on the fringe.”

Trump’s elec­tion changed that.

“It fits very well with the ‘Make Amer­i­ca Great Again’ mantra,” Fea said. “‘Make Amer­i­ca Great Again’ to them means, ‘Make Amer­i­ca Chris­t­ian Again,’ restore Amer­i­ca to its Chris­t­ian roots.”

Patri­ot Mobile appears to have embraced that shift, Fea said.

Begin­ning a year ago, one of the lead­ing pro­po­nents of the Sev­en Moun­tains world­view, Rafael Cruz, a pas­tor, began lead­ing week­ly Bible stud­ies for employ­ees at Patri­ot Mobile’s cor­po­rate office, which the com­pa­ny films and posts on YouTube.

In a recent Patri­ot Mobile ser­mon, Cruz — the father of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R‑Texas — dis­missed the con­cept of sep­a­ra­tion of church and state as a myth, argu­ing that America’s founders meant that ide­al as a “one-way wall” pre­vent­ing the gov­ern­ment from inter­fer­ing with the church, not pre­vent­ing the church from influ­enc­ing the gov­ern­ment.

He then called on peo­ple who “are root­ed in the right­eous­ness of the word of God” to run for pub­lic office.

“If those peo­ple are not run­ning for office, if they are not even vot­ing, then what’s left?” Cruz said. “The wicked elect­ing the wicked.”

...

Begin­ning last year, after oppo­si­tion to “crit­i­cal race the­o­ry” emerged as a polit­i­cal attack on the right, Fea said he began to observe anoth­er shift in the Chris­t­ian Domin­ion­ism move­ment.

Rather than focus­ing pri­mar­i­ly on win­ning fed­er­al elec­tions, these groups start­ed talk­ing about the need to take con­trol of pub­lic schools — “the ide­al bat­tle­ground,” Fea said, “if you’re look­ing to fight this bat­tle.”

“This is a spir­i­tu­al war, they believe, against demon­ic forces that under­mine a god­ly nation by teach­ing kids in school that Amer­i­ca is not great, Amer­i­ca is not a city on the hill or that Amer­i­ca has flaws,” Fea said. “If you can get in and teach the right side of his­to­ry, and social stud­ies and civics lessons about what Amer­i­ca is, you can win the next gen­er­a­tion and save Amer­i­ca for Christ.”

‘Sav­ing our pub­lic schools’

Patri­ot Mobile’s uncon­ven­tion­al busi­ness strat­e­gy appears to be pay­ing off.

With­out pro­vid­ing spe­cif­ic num­bers, the com­pa­ny said it dou­bled its sub­scriber base in 2021, and as a result, it planned to give more than $1.5 mil­lion to con­ser­v­a­tive caus­es in 2022, triple the amount from the year pri­or.

In Jan­u­ary, the com­pa­ny filed doc­u­ments to estab­lish Patri­ot Mobile Action and brought on Wamb­s­ganss to lead it — a strong sig­nal that the com­pa­ny was plan­ning to get involved in school board pol­i­tics.

Wamb­s­ganss, a long-time polit­i­cal activist, had earned nation­al acclaim among con­ser­v­a­tives in 2021 for her work as one of the co-founders of South­lake Fam­i­lies PAC, anoth­er group that pro­motes itself as “unapolo­get­i­cal­ly root­ed in Judeo-Chris­t­ian val­ues.” When the Car­roll school sys­tem in South­lake unveiled a diver­si­ty plan to crack down on racism and anti-LGBTQ bul­ly­ing in the major­i­ty white school dis­trict, South­lake Fam­i­lies, under Wamb­s­ganss’ lead­er­ship, raised hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars to sup­port a slate of school board can­di­dates who promised to kill the plan.

After win­ning every race by a land­slide, the PAC’s suc­cess was cel­e­brat­ed on Fox News and in The Wall Street Jour­nal, prompt­ing for­mer Texas GOP Chair­man Allan West to urge South­lake Fam­i­lies lead­ers to “export this to every sin­gle major sub­ur­ban area in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.”

At the helm of the new­ly estab­lished Patri­ot Mobile Action, Wamb­s­ganss got to work achiev­ing that goal this spring, start­ing first with some sub­ur­ban school sys­tems close to home.

In inter­views with con­ser­v­a­tive out­lets, Wamb­s­ganss has said she and her team zeroed in on four North Texas inde­pen­dent school dis­tricts — Keller, Grapevine-Col­leyville, Mans­field and Car­roll — that had imple­ment­ed or con­sid­ered poli­cies deal­ing with race, sex­u­al­i­ty and gen­der that she and oth­er Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tives found objec­tion­able.

After inter­view­ing can­di­dates in each dis­trict, Patri­ot Mobile Action set­tled on a slate of 11 who pledged to sup­port con­ser­v­a­tive caus­es. Fol­low­ing the play­book from South­lake, the PAC hired a pair of heavy-hit­ter GOP con­sult­ing firms that had worked on cam­paigns for Ted Cruz and Vir­ginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin — bring­ing sophis­ti­cat­ed nation­al-lev­el polit­i­cal strate­gies to local school board races.

Patri­ot Mobile paid Van­guard Field Strate­gies near­ly $150,000 to run get-out-the-vote can­vass­ing oper­a­tions across the four school dis­tricts, accord­ing to finan­cial dis­clo­sures. The PAC paid anoth­er $240,000 to Axiom Strate­gies to pro­duce and send tens of thou­sands of polit­i­cal mail­ers to homes across North Texas.

One fly­er sent to Mans­field res­i­dents base­less­ly blamed a recent class­room shoot­ing at a local high school on crit­i­cal race the­o­ry-inspired dis­ci­pli­nary poli­cies and accused the dis­trict of putting “woke” pol­i­tics ahead of the safe­ty of chil­dren.

A Patri­ot Mobile mail­er sent in Grapevine and Col­leyville endorsed two board can­di­dates who the PAC said would oppose crit­i­cal race the­o­ry, an aca­d­e­m­ic study of sys­temic racism that, accord­ing to the fly­er, “vio­lates every­thing patri­ots believe in.”

...

At CPAC in August, Ban­non asked Wamb­s­ganss and Sto­ry on his “War Room” TV show whether they had start­ed to see changes in the four school dis­tricts.

“Oh, tremen­dous,” Wamb­s­ganss said. “Those 11 seats in four ISDs means that now North Texas has over 100,000 stu­dents who, before May, had left­ist lead­er­ship. Now they have con­ser­v­a­tive lead­er­ship.”

Ban­non replied, “Amen.”

‘This is not love’

On Mon­day night, North Texas res­i­dents got a front-row seat for what it looks like when Patri­ot Mobile takes over a school board.

Just 72-hours before the meet­ing, the Grapevine-Col­leyville school dis­trict had unveiled a sweep­ing 36-page pol­i­cy touch­ing on vir­tu­al­ly every aspect of the cul­ture wars over race, gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty that have dom­i­nat­ed school pol­i­tics since last year.

Under the pol­i­cy, teach­ers are pro­hib­it­ed from dis­cussing any con­cepts relat­ed to or inspired by crit­i­cal race the­o­ry or what the pol­i­cy refers to as “sys­temic dis­crim­i­na­tion ide­olo­gies.” The pol­i­cy gives school employ­ees the right to refer to trans and non­bi­na­ry stu­dents by pro­nouns and names match­ing the ones they were assigned at birth — a prac­tice known as mis­gen­der­ing or dead­nam­ing — even if the student’s par­ents sup­port their child’s gen­der expres­sion. And the pol­i­cy pro­hibits any read­ing mate­ri­als and class­room dis­cus­sions deal­ing with “gen­der flu­id­i­ty,” which the doc­u­ment defines as any belief that “espous­es the view that bio­log­i­cal sex is mere­ly a social con­struct.”

Tam­my Naka­mu­ra, one of the board mem­bers backed by Patri­ot Mobile, said the board’s 4–3 vote to adopt the pol­i­cy ful­filled her cam­paign promise “to put an end to adults push­ing their world­views, whims and fan­tasies onto unsus­pect­ing chil­dren.”

Although some mem­bers of the board major­i­ty and their sup­port­ers argued that the pol­i­cy mere­ly brought the dis­trict in line with state and fed­er­al laws, Kate Hud­dle­ston, a staff attor­ney with the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union of Texas, said the plan goes well beyond the state’s anti-CRT law and appears to be in vio­la­tion of fed­er­al civ­il rights statutes that pro­tect stu­dents from dis­crim­i­na­tion on the basis of their gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty.

“This is the most extreme board pol­i­cy that we have seen relat­ed to class­room cen­sor­ship,” Hud­dle­ston said.

Debate over the pol­i­cy turned Monday’s school board meet­ing into a polit­i­cal cir­cus.

The Patri­ot Mobile-aligned True Texas Project, which has been labeled as an anti-gov­ern­ment extrem­ist group by the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter, called on its sup­port­ers to pack the meet­ing and turn it into a par­ty cel­e­brat­ing the new pol­i­cy. The group set up tents hours before­hand and tail­gat­ed in the park­ing lot, along with an anti-trans activist group whose leader was sus­pend­ed from Twit­ter this year after she wrote, “Let’s start round­ing up peo­ple who par­tic­i­pate in pride events,” refer­ring to LGBTQ rights cel­e­bra­tions.

Near­ly 200 peo­ple signed up to speak dur­ing pub­lic com­ments pri­or to the board vote.

One man who spoke in sup­port of the new pol­i­cy urged the board major­i­ty to “fight like hell” and “hold the ground against the LGBT mafia and their dang pedo fans” — echo­ing false claims by some Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tives in recent months that queer edu­ca­tors have been try­ing to sex­u­al­ly groom chil­dren.

“And guess what,” the man shout­ed into the micro­phone, “teach­ers shouldn’t be forced to use your freakin’ made up fan­ta­sy pro­nouns!”

Anoth­er res­i­dent who spoke in sup­port of the pol­i­cy said one of the things that made Amer­i­ca great was “schools that taught kids to read and know the Bible, and recite the Con­sti­tu­tion.” She com­mend­ed the school board for work­ing to restore those ideals.

“Our kids have to be taught our foun­da­tion,” she said. “Our foun­da­tion of God-giv­en inalien­able rights, reli­gious free­doms, indi­vid­u­al­ism, democ­ra­cy and a free mar­ket.”

Lat­er, a mom told the board she sup­port­ed ban­ning class­room dis­cus­sions of “gen­der flu­id­i­ty” because, she said, when her child start­ed iden­ti­fy­ing as a girl, Grapevine-Col­leyville teach­ers pro­vid­ed the stu­dent with infor­ma­tion affirm­ing that gen­der expres­sion. As a result, the moth­er said, chok­ing up as a beep­er sig­naled that her time had expired, “I lost my son.”

Nobody from Patri­ot Mobile spoke at the meet­ing. In a recent talk radio inter­view, Wamb­s­ganss said she and her team were busy map­ping out their plans for repli­cat­ing what they achieved in dis­tricts like Grapevine-Col­leyville in com­mu­ni­ties across Texas.

A major­i­ty of those who did com­ment dur­ing Monday’s meet­ing said they opposed the pol­i­cy changes, includ­ing one father who accused Grapevine-Col­leyville board mem­bers of being behold­en to Patri­ot Mobile. “The result,” he said, “is our kids are being forced to act as pawns in their polit­i­cal game.”

...

———-

“How a far-right, Chris­t­ian cell­phone com­pa­ny ‘took over’ four Texas school boards” By Mike Hix­en­baugh; NBC News; 08/25/2022

““We’re not here on this earth to please man — we’re here to please God,” Wamb­s­ganss said, adding lat­er in the inter­view, “Ulti­mate­ly we want to expand to oth­er coun­ties, oth­er states and be in every state across the nation.””

Patri­ot Mobile isn’t here to please the pub­lic. They are here to please God. Start­ing with get­ting domin­ion­ists elect­ed to school boards. It start­ed in Texas but they have nation ambi­tions. It’s not to see why. They won every race by a land­slide. The mod­el works fan­tas­ti­cal­ly. At least fan­tas­ti­cal­ly in these 2022 tri­al runs:

...
It was a moment of cel­e­bra­tion for an upstart com­pa­ny whose lead­ers say they are on a mis­sion from God to restore con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian val­ues at all lev­els of gov­ern­ment — espe­cial­ly in pub­lic schools. To car­ry out that call­ing, the Grapevine-based com­pa­ny this year cre­at­ed a polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee, Patri­ot Mobile Action, and gave it more than $600,000 to spend on non­par­ti­san school board races in the Fort Worth sub­urbs.

This spring, the PAC blan­ket­ed the com­mu­ni­ties of South­lake, Keller, Grapevine and Mans­field with with thou­sands of polit­i­cal mail­ers warn­ing that sit­ting school board mem­bers were endan­ger­ing stu­dents with crit­i­cal race the­o­ry and oth­er “woke” ide­olo­gies. Patri­ot Mobile pre­sent­ed its can­di­dates as patri­ots who would “keep polit­i­cal agen­das out of the class­room.”

Their can­di­dates won every race, and near­ly four months lat­er, those Patri­ot Mobile-backed school boards have begun to deliv­er results.

...

Begin­ning last year, after oppo­si­tion to “crit­i­cal race the­o­ry” emerged as a polit­i­cal attack on the right, Fea said he began to observe anoth­er shift in the Chris­t­ian Domin­ion­ism move­ment.

Rather than focus­ing pri­mar­i­ly on win­ning fed­er­al elec­tions, these groups start­ed talk­ing about the need to take con­trol of pub­lic schools — “the ide­al bat­tle­ground,” Fea said, “if you’re look­ing to fight this bat­tle.”

“This is a spir­i­tu­al war, they believe, against demon­ic forces that under­mine a god­ly nation by teach­ing kids in school that Amer­i­ca is not great, Amer­i­ca is not a city on the hill or that Amer­i­ca has flaws,” Fea said. “If you can get in and teach the right side of his­to­ry, and social stud­ies and civics lessons about what Amer­i­ca is, you can win the next gen­er­a­tion and save Amer­i­ca for Christ.”

...

After win­ning every race by a land­slide, the PAC’s suc­cess was cel­e­brat­ed on Fox News and in The Wall Street Jour­nal, prompt­ing for­mer Texas GOP Chair­man Allan West to urge South­lake Fam­i­lies lead­ers to “export this to every sin­gle major sub­ur­ban area in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.”
...

But as we’ve seen, they haven’t been win­ning these school board races on their own. First, as we’ve seen, the 2022 South­lake school board takeover effort was a major focus of the CNP’s Moms for Lib­er­ty, along with the Truth and Lib­er­ty Coali­tion run by David Bar­ton and Lance Wall­nau. Also recall how Wall­nau — the co-author of a pop­u­lar 2013 book pro­mot­ing Domin­ion­ism — was push­ing the idea back in 2018 that Trump was a God-ordained change agent anal­o­gous to the Bib­li­cal fig­ure of King Cyrus. A “mod­ern-day Cyrus”, as Wall­nau described Trump. Patri­ot Mobile Action was just one of the many CNP-con­nect­ed groups focused on Texas school boards in 2022.

And then there’s the True Texas Project, one of many polit­i­cal enti­ties with Tim Dun­n’s Defend Texas Lib­er­ty as its pri­ma­ry donor. As we saw, not only is the group found­ed by Julie McCar­ty, who open­ly sym­pa­thized with the motives of El Paso shoot­er Patrick Cru­sius. But just three weeks before that now-infa­mous Octo­ber sev­en hour long meet­ing with Nick Fuentes at the head­quar­ters of Dun­n’s Pale Horse Strate­gies polit­i­cal group held in ear­ly Octo­ber 6 2023, the True Texas Project held a ‘pass­ing the torch’ event in Dal­las that fea­tured John Doyle and Jake Lloyd Col­glazier. Doyle has fre­quent­ly appeared along­side Nick Fuentes at events. Recall how Doyle and Fuentes co-led a Lans­ing Michi­gan “Stop the Steal” ral­ly in the lead up to the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol Insur­rec­tion. Col­glazier was one of the most promi­nent mem­bers of Fuentes’s ‘groyper army’. In 2019, Col­glazier, Fuentes, and Patrick Casey — the leader of Iden­ti­ty Evropa, since rebrand­ed as the “Amer­i­can Iden­ti­ty Move­ment” — were the head­lin­ers at a white nation­al­ist con­fer­ence where they advo­cat­ed a strat­e­gy of pulling the Repub­li­can Par­ty fur­ther to the right with a strat­e­gy of attack­ing Repub­li­cans for issues like being weak on immi­gra­tion or sup­port for Israel. In 2018, Casey was open­ly telling NBC News he was plan­ning on infil­trat­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty, with an empha­sis on befriend­ing and win­ning over young col­lege Repub­li­cans. So when we see Patri­ot Mobile coor­di­nat­ing with the True Texas Project, keep in mind that it’s one of mul­ti­ple Nazi-friend­ly groups close­ly asso­ci­at­ed both Nick Fuentes and Tim Dunn who have a youth-focused strat­e­gy of rad­i­cal­iz­ing Repub­li­cans even more:

...
Debate over the pol­i­cy turned Monday’s school board meet­ing into a polit­i­cal cir­cus.

The Patri­ot Mobile-aligned True Texas Project, which has been labeled as an anti-gov­ern­ment extrem­ist group by the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter, called on its sup­port­ers to pack the meet­ing and turn it into a par­ty cel­e­brat­ing the new pol­i­cy. The group set up tents hours before­hand and tail­gat­ed in the park­ing lot, along with an anti-trans activist group whose leader was sus­pend­ed from Twit­ter this year after she wrote, “Let’s start round­ing up peo­ple who par­tic­i­pate in pride events,” refer­ring to LGBTQ rights cel­e­bra­tions.

Near­ly 200 peo­ple signed up to speak dur­ing pub­lic com­ments pri­or to the board vote.

One man who spoke in sup­port of the new pol­i­cy urged the board major­i­ty to “fight like hell” and “hold the ground against the LGBT mafia and their dang pedo fans” — echo­ing false claims by some Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tives in recent months that queer edu­ca­tors have been try­ing to sex­u­al­ly groom chil­dren.

“And guess what,” the man shout­ed into the micro­phone, “teach­ers shouldn’t be forced to use your freakin’ made up fan­ta­sy pro­nouns!”

Anoth­er res­i­dent who spoke in sup­port of the pol­i­cy said one of the things that made Amer­i­ca great was “schools that taught kids to read and know the Bible, and recite the Con­sti­tu­tion.” She com­mend­ed the school board for work­ing to restore those ideals.

“Our kids have to be taught our foun­da­tion,” she said. “Our foun­da­tion of God-giv­en inalien­able rights, reli­gious free­doms, indi­vid­u­al­ism, democ­ra­cy and a free mar­ket.”

...

Nobody from Patri­ot Mobile spoke at the meet­ing. In a recent talk radio inter­view, Wamb­s­ganss said she and her team were busy map­ping out their plans for repli­cat­ing what they achieved in dis­tricts like Grapevine-Col­leyville in com­mu­ni­ties across Texas.

A major­i­ty of those who did com­ment dur­ing Monday’s meet­ing said they opposed the pol­i­cy changes, includ­ing one father who accused Grapevine-Col­leyville board mem­bers of being behold­en to Patri­ot Mobile. “The result,” he said, “is our kids are being forced to act as pawns in their polit­i­cal game.”
...

And last, but cer­tain­ly not least, in the long list of Domin­ion­ist groups work­ing on those 2022 school board races we find Rafael Cruz, who began hold­ing week­ly Bible stud­ies for Patri­ot Mobile employ­ees where he advo­cat­ed for an end to the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state while implor­ing con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians to run for office:

...
Begin­ning a year ago, one of the lead­ing pro­po­nents of the Sev­en Moun­tains world­view, Rafael Cruz, a pas­tor, began lead­ing week­ly Bible stud­ies for employ­ees at Patri­ot Mobile’s cor­po­rate office, which the com­pa­ny films and posts on YouTube.

In a recent Patri­ot Mobile ser­mon, Cruz — the father of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R‑Texas — dis­missed the con­cept of sep­a­ra­tion of church and state as a myth, argu­ing that America’s founders meant that ide­al as a “one-way wall” pre­vent­ing the gov­ern­ment from inter­fer­ing with the church, not pre­vent­ing the church from influ­enc­ing the gov­ern­ment.

He then called on peo­ple who “are root­ed in the right­eous­ness of the word of God” to run for pub­lic office.

“If those peo­ple are not run­ning for office, if they are not even vot­ing, then what’s left?” Cruz said. “The wicked elect­ing the wicked.”
...

And as the arti­cle describes, while Patri­ot Mobile was found­ed in 2012 and polit­i­cal­ly active from the begin­ning, it was only after the elec­tion of Don­ald Trump in 2016 that the group began open­ly embrac­ing Domin­ion­ist stances. At the same time it became rapid­ly pro-Trump. “Make Amer­i­ca Great Again” was domin­ion­ist code. At least to the domin­ion­ists:

...
Found­ed about a decade ago, Patri­ot Mobile mar­kets itself as “America’s only Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tive wire­less provider,” which includes a pledge to donate a por­tion of users’ month­ly bills to con­ser­v­a­tive caus­es.

Ini­tial­ly, Patri­ot Mobile’s founders said their goal was to sup­port groups and politi­cians who promised to oppose abor­tion, defend reli­gious free­dom, pro­tect gun rights and sup­port the mil­i­tary.

After the 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, the company’s brand­ing shift­ed fur­ther to the right and embraced Trump’s style of pol­i­tics. One of Patri­ot Mobile’s most famous adver­tise­ments includes the slo­gan “Mak­ing Wire­less Great Again,” along­side an image of Trump’s face pho­to­shopped onto a tanned, mus­cled body hold­ing a machine gun.

That approach has drawn the sup­port of some big names on the right.

“You can give your mon­ey to AT&T, the par­ent com­pa­ny of CNN, and you can pay the salary of Don Lemon, or you can sup­port some­one like a Patri­ot Mobile and give back to caus­es that they believe in,” Don­ald Trump Jr. said from the stage at a CPAC gath­er­ing in Feb­ru­ary. “That’s not can­cel cul­ture, folks. That’s using your damn brain.”

Patri­ot Mobile has also aligned itself in recent years with polit­i­cal and reli­gious lead­ers who pro­mote a once-fringe strand of Chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy that experts say has grown more pop­u­lar on the right in recent years. Domin­ion­ism, some­times referred to as the Sev­en Moun­tains Man­date, is the belief that Chris­tians are called on to dom­i­nate the sev­en key “moun­tains” of Amer­i­can life, includ­ing busi­ness, media, gov­ern­ment and edu­ca­tion.

John Fea, a pro­fes­sor of Amer­i­can his­to­ry at the pri­vate, Chris­t­ian Mes­si­ah Uni­ver­si­ty in Penn­syl­va­nia, has spent years study­ing Sev­en Moun­tains the­ol­o­gy. Fea said the idea that Chris­tians are called on to assert bib­li­cal val­ues across all aspects of Amer­i­can soci­ety has been around for decades on the right, but “large­ly on the fringe.”

Trump’s elec­tion changed that.

“It fits very well with the ‘Make Amer­i­ca Great Again’ mantra,” Fea said. “‘Make Amer­i­ca Great Again’ to them means, ‘Make Amer­i­ca Chris­t­ian Again,’ restore Amer­i­ca to its Chris­t­ian roots.”

Patri­ot Mobile appears to have embraced that shift, Fea said.
...

Trump tur­bo-charged Amer­i­can domin­ion­ism. It’s one of the most under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed and like­ly con­se­quen­tial aspects of the whole Trump ‘expe­ri­ence’ for the Unit­ed States. Of course, it was­n’t just Trump’s pres­i­den­cy that tur­bo charged this agen­da. His ‘stolen elec­tion’ nar­ra­tive has been instru­men­tal in shift­ing the dis­cus­sion from how to win the next elec­tion to how to seize pow­er per­ma­nent­ly. A ‘Sec­ond Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion’, as Kevin Roberts infa­mous­ly put it. The move­ment is ready to drop the pre­tense of democ­ra­cy, and just might get an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­firm that, should Trump win or lose. Don’t for­get, the insur­rec­tion was a CNP project too. You can’t real­ly sep­a­rate the mad­ness of the Trump years from the CNP. Which is why any attempts to sep­a­rate Trump from the CNP’s Project 2025 is noth­ing more than sil­ly the­atrics. Along with any attempts to seri­ous­ly dif­fer­en­ti­ate the kind of poli­cies we’d get get a sec­ond Trump pres­i­den­cy from what we could expect from Ted Cruz’s first term. The one Rafael has been plan­ning for Ted’s whole life. Same diff. On one lev­el, Trump is a wild phe­nom­e­na that cap­ture the Repub­li­can Par­ty and is per­ma­nent­ly shap­ing it in his image. But from the per­spec­tive of the CNP’s long-stand­ing agen­da that Rafael has been work­ing on for decades, Trump just Ted with the fas­cist charis­ma nec­es­sary to pull it off. They hope.

It’s also all a reminder that, should Trump lose and not man­age to drag what’s left of US democ­ra­cy down with him in the process and there’s still elec­tions in the future, the ‘post-Trump’ GOP sort of has default leader. Ted Cruz. The same guy who was prob­a­bly going to win the nom­i­na­tion through an evan­gel­i­cal-focused pri­ma­ry strat­e­gy in 2016 before Trump came along. Which means we should prob­a­bly brace our­selves for the new and improved Trumpian ‘charis­mat­ic’ MAGA Ted, ready and eager to claim Trump’s man­tle. It can always get worse. Ted Cruz worse, in this case.

Tuck­er Carl­son still has it. “It” being the abil­i­ty to troll­ish­ly plat­form Nazis and their fel­low trav­el­ers while act­ing like he did noth­ing wrong. In this case, the Nazi hap­pened to be Dar­ryl Coop­er, who Carl­son described as “the best and most hon­est pop­u­lar his­to­ri­an” in Amer­i­ca. Coop­er hap­pens to be the kind of his­to­ri­an who has con­clud­ed the chief vil­lain of WWII was Win­ston Churchill and that the Holo­caust was just an acci­den­tal con­se­quence of poor Ger­man plan­ning.

Carl­son’s recent inter­view of Coop­er gen­er­at­ed the kind of out­cry we might expect. But adding to the out­cry is the fact that both Don­ald Trump and JD Vance have appear­ances sched­uled on Carl­son’s show lat­er this month. And so far there’s no indi­ca­tion those inter­views have been can­celed. In fact, the Trump cam­paign has already issued the state­ment declar­ing that Vance “obvi­ous­ly does not share the views of the guest inter­viewed by Tuck­er Carl­son” but that he also “does­n’t believe in guilt-by-asso­ci­a­tion can­cel cul­ture.”

It’s also worth recall­ing last year’s ‘Hitler con­tro­ver­sy’ sur­round­ing Moms for Lib­er­ty. Or rather, con­tro­ver­sies. It start­ed when the Indi­ana chap­ter of the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CNP)-backed ‘grass roots’ group decid­ed to include a Hitler quote in one of its newslet­ters. “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.” Fol­low­ing the pub­lic out­cry led by the SPLC’s report­ing on the top­ic, the group issued the defi­ant state­ment that “Moms for Lib­er­ty will not be intim­i­dat­ed by hate groups.” Weeks lat­er, Moms for Lib­er­ty held its annu­al sum­mit fea­tur­ing none oth­er than North Car­oli­na Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Mark Robin­son. As Robin­son declared, “Whether you’re talk­ing about Adolf Hitler; whether you’re talk­ing about Chair­man Mao; whether you’re talk­ing about Stal­in; whether you’re talk­ing about Pol Pot; whether you’re talk­ing about Cas­tro in Cuba; or whether you’re talk­ing about a dozen oth­er despots all around the globe; it is time for us to get back and start read­ing some of those quotes.” Robin­son then went on to imply Hitler was a left-wing dic­ta­tor by adding, “It’s time for us to start teach­ing our chil­dren about the dirty, despi­ca­ble, awful things that those com­mu­nist and social­ist despots did in our his­to­ry.” Now, obvi­ous­ly, Robin­son’s com­ments weren’t as ‘pro-Hitler’ as Coop­er’s. But the trend is clear. The idea that ‘you know, there’s a lot to be learned from Hitler’ just keeps get­ting more and more main­stream.

As we’re going to see, anoth­er part of what makes the Carl­son’s Coop­er inter­view such a polit­i­cal light­ning rod for the Trump cam­paign is the real­i­ty that JD Vance lit­er­al­ly “fol­lows” Dar­ryl Coop­er on Twit­ter. And Coop­er is far from the only white nation­al­ist account Vance is fol­low­ing. As one observ­er describes, Vance is open­ly fol­low­ing many of the lead­ing fig­ures in what is now called the ‘post-Alt-Right’. A ‘post-Alt-Right’ that has been down­right gid­dy fol­low­ing his selec­tion as Trump’s VP. From their per­spec­tive, ‘one of their own’ is about to be vice pres­i­dent. It’s not exact­ly clear what dis­tin­guish­es the ‘Alt-Right’ from the ‘post-Alt-Right’, except per­haps the mask has been dropped quite a bit more.

But as we’re also going to see, Vance’s extrem­ist appeal isn’t lim­it­ed to the ‘post-Alt-Right’. He’s the mem­ber of anoth­er impor­tant ‘post-’ move­ment: ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholi­cism, a grow­ing Catholic move­ment that could almost be seen as the Catholic ana­log to protes­tant Domin­ion­ism. Less a Catholic phi­los­o­phy and more a polit­i­cal move­ment, ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholi­cism appears to have at its foun­da­tion the con­clu­sion that mod­ern lib­er­al­ism is a scourge that must be rolled back, with Catholic doc­trines sort of tacked on as a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for what is ulti­mate­ly a polit­i­cal project. A polit­i­cal project that is very much aligned with the Sched­ule F/Project 2025 scheme to purge soci­ety’s insti­tu­tions of lib­er­als and use those insti­tu­tions to impose an extreme­ly con­ser­v­a­tive vision of soci­ety. A scheme that JD Vance has open­ly endorsed.

And guess who hap­pens to be the indi­vid­ual Vance attrib­ut­es with his con­ver­sion to ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholi­cism: Peter Thiel. Accord­ing to Vance, it was a talk Thiel gave in 2011 while Vance was a stu­dent at Yale Law School that plant­ed the seed of Vance’s con­ver­sion. At that point, Vance was an athe­ist going along with the Ivy League crowd. Vance, of course, went on to a career as a Sil­i­con Val­ley ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist with Thiel as his chief busi­ness patron. And by 2019, Vance for­mal­ly con­verts to Catholi­cism. Which also hap­pens to be right around the time when he formed his Narya Cap­i­tal ven­ture cap­i­tal fund with heavy financ­ing from Thiel. A com­pa­ny that went on to fund the ‘Alt-Right’ friend­ly social media start­up Rum­ble.

Inter­est­ing­ly, while Thiel has clear­ly played a major role in Vance’s con­ver­sion to ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholi­cism, Thiel isn’t exact­ly aligned with ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholics, who tend to view mod­ern soci­etal ills as being root­ed in West­ern pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of indi­vid­ual lib­er­ty and expec­ta­tions of con­tin­u­al eco­nom­ic growth over the ‘com­mon good’. Instead, as we’ve seen, Thiel actu­al­ly feels that the prob­lem with mod­ern soci­ety is not near­ly enough tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment, which Thiel blames on lib­er­al democ­ra­cy. Tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment in the area of tran­shu­man­ism have been espe­cial­ly. As Thiel argues, Chris­tian­i­ty is fun­da­men­tal­ly a tran­shu­man­ist phi­los­o­phy and has been a dri­ving force for tech­no­log­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic advance­ments. Until democ­ra­cy got in the way. This is a good time to recall Thiel’s many invest­ments in longevi­ty tech­nolo­gies and his quest to live for­ev­er that includes hav­ing his body cryo­geni­cal­ly frozen after he dies. He’s very seri­ous about his tran­shu­man­ism.

Anoth­er aspect to keep in mind with this ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholic net­work is the real­i­ty that today’s far right Supreme Court major­i­ty is over­whelm­ing­ly Catholic: Jus­tices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Ali­to, Neil Gor­such, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Bar­rett. As we’ve seen, Amy Coney Bar­rett hap­pens to be a mem­ber of the “Peo­ple of Praise”, the group that served as the real life inspi­ra­tion for Mar­garet Atwood’s The Hand­maid­’s Tale. And then there’s the fact that the indi­vid­ual long tasked with select­ing Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tion Supreme Court nom­i­nees, Leonard Leo, is not just Catholic but also heav­i­ly financed by the bil­lion­aire Cork­ery fam­i­ly who are Opus Dei mem­bers. In oth­er words, a sig­nif­i­cant ele­ment of the con­tem­po­rary author­i­tar­i­an-lean­ing con­ser­v­a­tive grip on insti­tu­tion­al pow­er hap­pens to be Catholic at the same time the Repub­li­can Par­ty is increas­ing­ly in the grip of an evan­gel­i­cal-dom­i­nat­ed Domin­ion­ist move­ment cul­mi­nat­ing around the Sched­ule F/Project 2025 agen­da. That’s all part of the rel­e­vance of Vance’s ‘postlib­er­al’ affil­i­a­tions. The Catholic and Protes­tant wings of this fun­da­men­tal­ly polit­i­cal move­ment need a shared agen­da. ‘Postlib­er­al’ Catholi­cism is a part of that ide­o­log­i­cal cohe­sion.

So we’ll see what kind of grotes­queries emerge from Vance’s upcom­ing inter­view with Carl­son. We can be pret­ty con­fi­dent Vance won’t make any claims about why the Nazis were actu­al­ly right. But it’s going to be worth keep­ing in mind that Vance isn’t just a fan favorite for the ‘post-Alt-Right’ and its dreams of over­throw­ing democ­ra­cy and ush­er­ing in a post-demo­c­ra­t­ic order. He’s the fan favorite for all sorts of groups that want to see the emer­gence of a post-demo­c­ra­t­ic order, includ­ing Domin­ion­ists and their Catholic ‘postlib­er­al’ fel­low trav­el­ers:

The Week

Tuck­er Carl­son’s WWII inter­view frac­tures con­ser­v­a­tives

Holo­caust revi­sion­ism forces ‘intro­spec­tion’ in right-wing media

By Joel Math­is, The Week US
pub­lished 11 Sep­tem­ber 2024

You think you know the his­to­ry of World War II: The Nazis were the bad guys and Adolf Hitler was prob­a­bly the great­est vil­lain the world has ever known — the author of a Holo­caust that killed 6 mil­lion Jews. End of sto­ry, right? Tuck­er Carl­son isn’t so sure.

The for­mer Fox News host sparked a right-wing “media melt­down” after inter­view­ing a Holo­caust-deny­ing pod­cast­er on his new online plat­form, Axios said. Carl­son called Dar­ryl Coop­er “the best and most hon­est pop­u­lar his­to­ri­an” in Amer­i­ca. Coop­er in turn called Win­ston Churchill the “chief vil­lain of the Sec­ond World War,” said CNN. Coop­er also sug­gest­ed that the Holo­caust was an inad­ver­tent con­se­quence of poor Ger­man war plan­ning, in which “mil­lions of peo­ple end­ed up dead.”

...

Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee Don­ald Trump must “dis­avow” Carl­son, con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor William Gal­ston said at The Wall Street Jour­nal. Don­ald Trump Jr. and J.D. Vance, the vice pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, are both sched­uled to join Carl­son on tour lat­er this month. That can’t hap­pen. Trump must “draw a bright line between what’s accept­able and what isn’t, Gal­ston added.” What isn’t: “Bla­tant anti­semitism.”

...

“Dubi­ous charges of Nazism are a dime a dozen in U.S. polit­i­cal rhetoric,” Sohrab Ahmari said at The Free Press. But there is no oth­er way to describe Coop­er’s ideas, nor Carl­son’s pro­mo­tion of them. The “obvi­ous fact” is that the Nazis were evil — and that Coop­er’s cast­ing of Churchill as the war’s vil­lain is a “per­verse moral inver­sion.”

‘We believe in free speech’

“Is Vance still going to hang out with Tuck­er Carl­son, even now?” the con­ser­v­a­tive Jim Ger­aghty said at The Wash­ing­ton Post. Carl­son has caused headaches for Vance before: The nom­i­nee’s infa­mous “child­less cat ladies” com­ment came on Carl­son’s Fox News show in 2021. The lat­est con­tro­ver­sy is worse. An “ordi­nary cam­paign” would avoid send­ing its vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date to hang out pub­licly with a “Putin-ador­ing nutjob con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist” ahead of the elec­tion, but Trump and Vance aren’t run­ning an ordi­nary cam­paign. “Let’s see whether Vance final­ly draws the line at hang­ing with the guy who hosts a revi­sion­ist his­to­ri­an with a blind spot for Adolf Hitler,” Ger­aghty said.

It does not look like Vance will skip out on Carl­son, said The New York Times. “We believe in free speech and debate,” Vance said dur­ing a cam­paign stop. The cam­paign lat­er issued a state­ment declar­ing that Vance “obvi­ous­ly does not share the views of the guest inter­viewed by Tuck­er Carl­son” but that he also “does­n’t believe in guilt-by-asso­ci­a­tion can­cel cul­ture.” Vance is sched­uled to appear onstage with Carl­son on Sep­tem­ber 21.

———–

“Tuck­er Carl­son’s WWII inter­view frac­tures con­ser­v­a­tives” By Joel Math­is; The Week; 09/11/2024

“The for­mer Fox News host sparked a right-wing “media melt­down” after inter­view­ing a Holo­caust-deny­ing pod­cast­er on his new online plat­form, Axios said. Carl­son called Dar­ryl Coop­er “the best and most hon­est pop­u­lar his­to­ri­an” in Amer­i­ca. Coop­er in turn called Win­ston Churchill the “chief vil­lain of the Sec­ond World War,” said CNN. Coop­er also sug­gest­ed that the Holo­caust was an inad­ver­tent con­se­quence of poor Ger­man war plan­ning, in which “mil­lions of peo­ple end­ed up dead.””

For­get Hitler. The chief vil­lain of WWII was Win­ston Churchill. It’s the kind of per­spec­tive one might expect to hear on a neo-Nazi pod­cast. And, sad­ly, it’s now also the kind of con­tent we should expect on Tuck­er Carl­son’s show. The once-lead­ing Fox News anchor is now run­ning what amounts to an inter­net neo-Nazi pod­cast. A pre­sum­ably very pop­u­lar inter­net Nazi-friend­ly pod­cast with enor­mous reach and influ­ence. So when we see how Don­ald Trump and JD Vance are both sched­uled to join Tuck­er Carl­son lat­er this month, keep in mind that they’re going to be com­mu­ni­cat­ing with an audi­ence that is, at this point, famil­iar with pro-Nazi con­tent. In oth­er words, Vance will be lucky if he does­n’t say end up say­ing some­thing a lot more inflam­ma­to­ry than his now-infa­mous “child­less cat ladies” com­ment from his 2021 Carl­son inter­view. These could be some wild inter­views:

...
Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee Don­ald Trump must “dis­avow” Carl­son, con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor William Gal­ston said at The Wall Street Jour­nal. Don­ald Trump Jr. and J.D. Vance, the vice pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, are both sched­uled to join Carl­son on tour lat­er this month. That can’t hap­pen. Trump must “draw a bright line between what’s accept­able and what isn’t, Gal­ston added.” What isn’t: “Bla­tant anti­semitism.”

...

“Is Vance still going to hang out with Tuck­er Carl­son, even now?” the con­ser­v­a­tive Jim Ger­aghty said at The Wash­ing­ton Post. Carl­son has caused headaches for Vance before: The nom­i­nee’s infa­mous “child­less cat ladies” com­ment came on Carl­son’s Fox News show in 2021. The lat­est con­tro­ver­sy is worse. An “ordi­nary cam­paign” would avoid send­ing its vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date to hang out pub­licly with a “Putin-ador­ing nutjob con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist” ahead of the elec­tion, but Trump and Vance aren’t run­ning an ordi­nary cam­paign. “Let’s see whether Vance final­ly draws the line at hang­ing with the guy who hosts a revi­sion­ist his­to­ri­an with a blind spot for Adolf Hitler,” Ger­aghty said.

It does not look like Vance will skip out on Carl­son, said The New York Times. “We believe in free speech and debate,” Vance said dur­ing a cam­paign stop. The cam­paign lat­er issued a state­ment declar­ing that Vance “obvi­ous­ly does not share the views of the guest inter­viewed by Tuck­er Carl­son” but that he also “does­n’t believe in guilt-by-asso­ci­a­tion can­cel cul­ture.” Vance is sched­uled to appear onstage with Carl­son on Sep­tem­ber 21.
...

Also note one of the con­ser­v­a­tive crit­ics of Tuck­er for the Coop­er inter­view: Sohrab Ahmari. As we’re going to see below, Ahmari hap­pens to be a lead­ing thinker in the ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholic move­ment. In oth­er words, while Ahmari might be decry­ing the invi­ta­tion of a Nazi apol­o­gist on Carl­son’s show, he also hap­pens to be part of fun­da­men­tal­ly unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic move­ment with its own predilec­tions for author­i­tar­i­an­ism:

...
“Dubi­ous charges of Nazism are a dime a dozen in U.S. polit­i­cal rhetoric,” Sohrab Ahmari said at The Free Press. But there is no oth­er way to describe Coop­er’s ideas, nor Carl­son’s pro­mo­tion of them. The “obvi­ous fact” is that the Nazis were evil — and that Coop­er’s cast­ing of Churchill as the war’s vil­lain is a “per­verse moral inver­sion.”
...

And as we’re going to see in the fol­low­ing piece in The Inde­pen­dent, the crit­i­cisms of Trump and Vance for being will­ing to appear ar Carl­son’s pro­gram short­ly after the Coop­er inter­view isn’t real­ly com­plete with­out rec­og­niz­ing that Vance actu­al­ly ‘fol­lows’ Coop­er on Twit­ter. One of many Nazi-adja­cent social media accounts Vance open­ly fol­lows. It’s why the selec­tion of Vance as Trump’s VP had so many in the ‘Alt Right’ world gid­dy with excite­ment. Or rather, the ‘post-AltRight’ world. Yes, we’ve been in the ‘Alt Right’ era for so long now, we’ve already made it to the ‘post-Alt Right’ era. And JD Vance is one of post-Alt Right’s favorite politi­cians:

The Inde­pen­dent

White nation­al­ist body­builders and lib­er­al elites: Here’s who JD Vance is fol­low­ing on X

JD Vance, who was cho­sen as the Repub­li­can vice pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee this week, fol­lows accounts on X that pro­mote white nation­al­ist views.

Richard Hall, Isaac Lozano
Sat­ur­day 20 July 2024 13:27 BST

Repub­li­can vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date JD Vance fol­lows sev­er­al accounts on X that espouse far-right and white nation­al­ist views, accord­ing to an analy­sis by The Inde­pen­dent.

...

Among them are two of the most pop­u­lar fig­ures in the Right Wing Body­builders scene — an online com­mu­ni­ty in which many share a world­view that com­bines white nation­al­ist ideas with anti-glob­al­ism, weight-lift­ing and nutri­tion.

One of them is Raw Egg Nation­al­ist, an account that has shared Adolf Hitler memes, quot­ed Mein Kampf and pro­mot­ed the ‘Great Replace­ment’ con­spir­a­cy — a the­o­ry posit­ing that West­ern elites are inten­tion­al­ly replac­ing White pop­u­la­tions with migrants — to its 200,000 plus fol­low­ers.

Vance also fol­lows Bronze Age Per­vert, believed to be run by far-right body­builder Costin Ala­mar­iu. That account has also pro­mot­ed the racist Great Replace­ment the­o­ry and eugenic breed­ing. His self-pub­lished book, Bronze Age Mind­set’ is con­sid­ered a foun­da­tion­al text for the scene, and was said to be cir­cu­lat­ing among younger mem­bers of the Trump White House.

He wrote in a 2021 essay: “I have said for a long time that I believe in rule by a mil­i­tary caste of men who would be able to guide soci­ety toward a moral­i­ty of eugen­ics.”

Joshua Far­rell-Mol­loy, an extrem­ism researcher at the Accel­er­a­tionism Research Con­sor­tium, described the two accounts as belong­ing to a “post-alt-right move­ment” that is “pret­ty much at the van­guard of white nation­al­ism.”

“They are one of the main cen­ters of grav­i­ty with­in the con­tem­po­rary far right in the US,” he told The Inde­pen­dent.

Since Vance received the nom­i­na­tion on Mon­day, Mol­loy said there has been a “buzz of excite­ment” in the com­mu­ni­ty, which is some­times referred to as “anon Twit­ter” or “Frog Twit­ter,” in ref­er­ence to the alt-right meme Pepe the Frog.

...

Vance has described anoth­er con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure, polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Richard Hana­nia, as a “friend” and a “real­ly inter­est­ing thinker.” A Huff­Post inves­ti­ga­tion revealed Hana­nia as hav­ing writ­ten for sev­er­al white nation­al­ist web­sites under a pseu­do­nym in the ear­ly 2010s — where he expressed sup­port for eugen­ics, opposed “race-mix­ing” and cit­ed neo-Nazis — although Vance con­tin­ues to fol­low him on X.

Hana­nia lat­er dis­avowed the views he expressed while writ­ing under a pseu­do­nym, writ­ing in an essay titled ‘My Jour­ney Out of Extrem­ism’ last year: “I tru­ly sucked back then.”

Just a cou­ple of months before the pub­li­ca­tion of the essay, Hana­nia used his account on X to call for “more polic­ing, incar­cer­a­tion, and sur­veil­lance of black peo­ple.”

Far-right social media influ­encer Lau­ra Loomer is also on Vance’s fol­low list. Loomer has described her­self as a “proud Islam­o­phobe.”

Vance also fol­lows pod­cast host Dar­ryl Coop­er, who said that the 2017 Char­lottesville ‘Unite The Right’ ral­ly includ­ed “a bunch of good peo­ple and wrote in a since-delet­ed tweet that “FDR chose the wrong side in WW2,” The Atlantic report­ed.

It is not clear how long Vance has fol­lowed each account, or if he has ever seen or inter­act­ed with any of their post­ed con­tent, but Coop­er con­grat­u­lat­ed his “long­time mutu­al” Vance after he was cho­sen as the Repub­li­can vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date.

Fol­low­ing a per­son on X does not imply that the per­son agrees with the views shared on the account, but a review of Vance’s fol­low­er list does pro­vide some insight into what the poten­tial future vice pres­i­dent sees online.

...

Vance notably fol­lows a rel­a­tive­ly large num­ber of jour­nal­ists from lib­er­al insti­tu­tions, despite spend­ing much of his time rail­ing against the “lib­er­al elite.”

He fol­lows nine jour­nal­ists from The Atlantic, one of America’s lead­ing estab­lish­ment lib­er­al mag­a­zines, as well as an assort­ment of New York Times reporters.

Vance addressed the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion on Wednes­day evening as he accept­ed the party’s nom­i­na­tion for vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, shar­ing the sto­ry of grow­ing up poor in Ken­tucky and Ohio.

“I will be a vice pres­i­dent who nev­er for­gets where he came from,” he told the crowd.

———-

“White nation­al­ist body­builders and lib­er­al elites: Here’s who JD Vance is fol­low­ing on X” by Richard Hall, Isaac Lozano; The Inde­pen­dent; 07/20/2024

“Since Vance received the nom­i­na­tion on Mon­day, Mol­loy said there has been a “buzz of excite­ment” in the com­mu­ni­ty, which is some­times referred to as “anon Twit­ter” or “Frog Twit­ter,” in ref­er­ence to the alt-right meme Pepe the Frog.”

As we can see, the ‘Alt-Right’ was pal­pa­bly excit­ed with the selec­tion of Vance as Trump’s vice pres­i­dent. And why would­n’t they be? Vance is an open ‘Alt-Right’ fan. Or, rather, the ‘post-Alt-Right’. The ‘Alt-Right’ is yes­ter­year, appar­ent­ly. But ‘Alt-Right’ or ‘post-Alt-Right’, the affec­tion between Vance and this move­ment appears to be mutu­al:

...
One of them is Raw Egg Nation­al­ist, an account that has shared Adolf Hitler memes, quot­ed Mein Kampf and pro­mot­ed the ‘Great Replace­ment’ con­spir­a­cy — a the­o­ry posit­ing that West­ern elites are inten­tion­al­ly replac­ing White pop­u­la­tions with migrants — to its 200,000 plus fol­low­ers.

Vance also fol­lows Bronze Age Per­vert, believed to be run by far-right body­builder Costin Ala­mar­iu. That account has also pro­mot­ed the racist Great Replace­ment the­o­ry and eugenic breed­ing. His self-pub­lished book, Bronze Age Mind­set’ is con­sid­ered a foun­da­tion­al text for the scene, and was said to be cir­cu­lat­ing among younger mem­bers of the Trump White House.

He wrote in a 2021 essay: “I have said for a long time that I believe in rule by a mil­i­tary caste of men who would be able to guide soci­ety toward a moral­i­ty of eugen­ics.”

Joshua Far­rell-Mol­loy, an extrem­ism researcher at the Accel­er­a­tionism Research Con­sor­tium, described the two accounts as belong­ing to a “post-alt-right move­ment” that is “pret­ty much at the van­guard of white nation­al­ism.”

“They are one of the main cen­ters of grav­i­ty with­in the con­tem­po­rary far right in the US,” he told The Inde­pen­dent.
...

And then there’s Vance’s descrip­tion of Richard Hana­nia as a “friend” and “real­ly inter­est­ing thinker”. As’ve we’ve seen,Hana­nia was basi­cal­ly post­ing as a Nazi pseudonony­mous­ly for years before get­ting exposed and declar­ing him­self reformed (a sto­ry with a num­ber of par­al­lels with con­ser­v­a­tive lawyer (and clos­et Nazi) Christo­pher Roach). Along with Lau­ra Loomer — who recent­ly attend­ed a 9/11 memo­r­i­al cer­e­mo­ny as one of Don­ald Trump’s guests — and Dar­ryl Coop­er. These are Vance’s fel­low trav­el­ers:

...
Vance has described anoth­er con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure, polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Richard Hana­nia, as a “friend” and a “real­ly inter­est­ing thinker.” A Huff­Post inves­ti­ga­tion revealed Hana­nia as hav­ing writ­ten for sev­er­al white nation­al­ist web­sites under a pseu­do­nym in the ear­ly 2010s — where he expressed sup­port for eugen­ics, opposed “race-mix­ing” and cit­ed neo-Nazis — although Vance con­tin­ues to fol­low him on X.

Hana­nia lat­er dis­avowed the views he expressed while writ­ing under a pseu­do­nym, writ­ing in an essay titled ‘My Jour­ney Out of Extrem­ism’ last year: “I tru­ly sucked back then.”

Just a cou­ple of months before the pub­li­ca­tion of the essay, Hana­nia used his account on X to call for “more polic­ing, incar­cer­a­tion, and sur­veil­lance of black peo­ple.”

Far-right social media influ­encer Lau­ra Loomer is also on Vance’s fol­low list. Loomer has described her­self as a “proud Islam­o­phobe.”

Vance also fol­lows pod­cast host Dar­ryl Coop­er, who said that the 2017 Char­lottesville ‘Unite The Right’ ral­ly includ­ed “a bunch of good peo­ple and wrote in a since-delet­ed tweet that “FDR chose the wrong side in WW2,” The Atlantic report­ed.

It is not clear how long Vance has fol­lowed each account, or if he has ever seen or inter­act­ed with any of their post­ed con­tent, but Coop­er con­grat­u­lat­ed his “long­time mutu­al” Vance after he was cho­sen as the Repub­li­can vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date.
...

But as we’re remind­ed of in the fol­low­ing AP piece, Vance’s extrem­ist admir­ers isn’t lim­it­ed to his many ‘post-Alt-Right’ fans. He also hap­pens to be a mem­ber of the ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholic move­ment. A move­ment that sounds more or less like the Catholic ver­sion of Domion­ism. An extreme­ly Sched­ule F/Project 2025-friend­ly move­ment with ambi­tions of tak­ing over soci­ety’s insti­tu­tions and wield­ing that pow­er for the “com­mon good”, where “com­mon good” is defined under an extreme­ly con­ser­v­a­tive lense. And as we’ve seen, this ‘postlib­er­al’ move­ment has one very promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive mega-donor fel­low trav­el­er: Peter Thiel. In fact, accord­ing to Vance, it was a 2011 talk by Thiel while Vance was a Yale Law School stu­dent that put Vance on the path towards his con­ver­sion to Catholi­cism and embrace of a ‘postlib­er­al’ world­view.

Now, as we’ve also seen, Thiel isn’t quite a ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholic. Because while most postlib­er­als raise harsh cri­tiques on mod­ern soci­ety for cre­at­ing exis­ten­tial dread by plac­ing an empha­sis on per­son­al lib­er­ties and eco­nom­ic growth, Thiel actu­al­ly feels that the prob­lem with mod­ern soci­ety is not near­ly enough tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment, which he blames on lib­er­al democ­ra­cy. Tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment in the area of tran­shu­man­ism, in par­tic­u­lar. At Thiel argues, Chris­tian­i­ty is fun­da­men­tal­ly a tran­shu­man­ist phi­los­o­phy and has been a dri­ving force for tech­no­log­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic advance­ments. Until democ­ra­cy got in the way and derailed all that advance­ment. And Thiel is, of course, JD Vance’s chief patron in both busi­ness and pol­i­tics. So when we see all of these ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholic lead­ers declar­ing Vance as one of their own, keep in mind that Peter Thiel has his own tran­shu­man­ist ver­sion of ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholi­cism that is pre­sum­ably influ­enc­ing Vance too:

Asso­ci­at­ed Press

JD Vance’s Catholi­cism helped shape his views. So did this lit­tle-known group of Catholic thinkers

By MICHELLE R. SMITH and PETER SMITH
Updat­ed 1:36 PM CDT, Sep­tem­ber 4, 2024

By his own account, Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s 2019 con­ver­sion to Catholi­cism pro­vid­ed a spir­i­tu­al ful­fill­ment he couldn’t find in his Yale edu­ca­tion or career suc­cess.

It also amount­ed to a polit­i­cal con­ver­sion.

Catholi­cism pro­vid­ed him a new way of look­ing at the addic­tions, fam­i­ly break­downs and oth­er social ills he described in his 2016 best­selling mem­oir, “Hill­bil­ly Ele­gy.”

“I felt des­per­ate for a world­view that under­stood our bad behav­ior as simul­ta­ne­ous­ly social and indi­vid­ual, struc­tur­al and moral; that rec­og­nized that we are prod­ucts of our envi­ron­ment; that we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to change that envi­ron­ment, but that we are still moral beings with indi­vid­ual duties,” he wrote in a 2020 essay.

His con­ver­sion also put Vance in close touch with a Catholic intel­lec­tu­al move­ment, viewed by some crit­ics as hav­ing reac­tionary or author­i­tar­i­an lean­ings, that has been lit­tle known to the Amer­i­can pub­lic until Vance’s rise to the nation­al stage as the Repub­li­can vice pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee.

These are not your father’s Catholic con­ser­v­a­tives.

The pro­fes­sors and media per­son­al­i­ties in this net­work don’t all agree on every­thing — even on what to call them­selves – but most go by “postlib­er­al.” Vance has used that term to describe him­self, though the Trump-Vance cam­paign did not respond to ques­tions about where Vance sees him­self in the move­ment and whether he shares some of the beliefs pro­mot­ed by many postlib­er­als.

Postlib­er­als do share some long­stand­ing Catholic con­ser­v­a­tive views, such as oppo­si­tion to abor­tion and LGBTQ+ rights.

But where Catholic con­ser­v­a­tives of the past have seen big gov­ern­ment as a prob­lem rather than a solu­tion, the postlib­er­als want a mus­cu­lar gov­ern­ment — one that they con­trol.

They envi­sion a coun­ter­rev­o­lu­tion in which they would take over gov­ern­ment bureau­cra­cy and insti­tu­tions like uni­ver­si­ties from with­in, replac­ing entrenched “elites” with their own and act­ing upon their vision of the “com­mon good.”

“What is need­ed … is regime change — the peace­ful but vig­or­ous over­throw of a cor­rupt and cor­rupt­ing lib­er­al rul­ing class and the cre­ation of a postlib­er­al order,” wrote Patrick Deneen, a promi­nent author in the move­ment, in his 2023 book, “Regime Change.”

Vance has sig­naled his align­ment with some of what Catholic postlib­er­als advo­cate. He’s said the next time his allies con­trol the pres­i­den­cy or Con­gress, “ we real­ly need to be real­ly ruth­less when it comes to the exer­cise of pow­er” and said Repub­li­cans should seize insti­tu­tions, includ­ing uni­ver­si­ties “to make them work for our peo­ple.” He’s advo­cat­ed for gov­ern­ment poli­cies to spur child­bear­ing, a notion reflect­ed in his digs at “child­less cat ladies” with alleged­ly no stake in America’s future.

...

At an Ohio con­fer­ence fea­tur­ing a who’s who of Catholic postlib­er­als in 2022, he told fel­low speak­ers he has “admired a lot of you from afar” as “some of the peo­ple who I think are most inter­est­ing about what’s going on in this coun­try.”

Vance praised Deneen’s book at a 2023 pan­el dis­cus­sion with the author, a pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame.

Vance has also met pri­vate­ly with lead­ing postlib­er­als, who have post­ed pho­tos of their gath­er­ings on social media and cheered his vice pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion.

Catholic jour­nals for years have bris­tled with debates about postlib­er­al­ism, but with lit­tle pub­lic atten­tion — in part because its adher­ents are few and its views are far from main­stream.

But now, postlib­er­als have an avid lis­ten­er in Don­ald Trump’s run­ning mate.

“You can go from peo­ple writ­ing on an unusu­al Catholic the­ol­o­gy blog to the vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date in the course of less than a decade,” said James Pat­ter­son, pro­fes­sor of pol­i­tics at Ave Maria Uni­ver­si­ty in Flori­da.

...

“Most ordi­nary Amer­i­can Catholics would not treat a child­less sin­gle woman with cats with this kind of con­tempt,” Pat­ter­son said. Even if Vance is not steeped in the phi­los­o­phy, Pat­ter­son added, “he is pick­ing up on the postlib­er­al vibe.”

Some Catholics, includ­ing con­ser­v­a­tives, have raised alarms about the com­pa­ny Vance has kept, say­ing postlib­er­al­ism has his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tions to 20th cen­tu­ry Euro­pean move­ments that are asso­ci­at­ed with author­i­tar­i­an regimes like Fran­cis­co Franco’s in Spain.

“We’re talk­ing about peo­ple that pre­fer right-wing author­i­tar­i­an regimes,” Pat­ter­son said.

In a postlib­er­al soci­ety, Pat­ter­son wrote in an August com­men­tary in the online jour­nal The Dis­patch, cit­i­zens become “sub­jects” and per­son­al lib­er­ties sub­ject­ed to “admin­is­tra­tive despo­tism.”

Vance has recent­ly tried to down­play his Catholicism’s impact on pol­i­cy-mak­ing.

Trump’s Supreme Court appointees pro­vid­ed the cru­cial major­i­ty to over­turn Roe v. Wade, which had legal­ized abor­tion nation­wide. But the issue has become a polit­i­cal lia­bil­i­ty, with vot­ers in sev­er­al states reject­ing abor­tion restric­tions.

Vance had strong­ly opposed abor­tion, in the runup to his 2022 sen­a­to­r­i­al win, say­ing at one point that “two wrongs don’t make a right” when refer­ring to excep­tions for rape and incest. The cam­paign said in an email Wednes­day that he sup­ports “rea­son­able” excep­tions for rape, incest, and life of the moth­er.

But Vance has aligned with the Repub­li­cans’ first post-Roe plat­form in 2024, in which it backed off from its long­stand­ing sup­port for nation­wide abor­tion restric­tions. He pledged he could “absolute­ly com­mit” that a Trump-Vance admin­is­tra­tion would not impose such an abor­tion ban.

Trump has spo­ken incon­sis­tent­ly about a bal­lot mea­sure repeal­ing Florida’s ban on abor­tions after six weeks of preg­nan­cy.

After fac­ing back­lash from anti-abor­tion activists for seem­ing to indi­cate he would sup­port the mea­sure, Trump said he would oppose it.

The Catholic Church’s U.S. bish­ops declared oppos­ing abor­tion “our pre-emi­nent pri­or­i­ty.”

Vance told the New York Post in August that Catholic social teach­ing “cer­tain­ly influ­ences how I think about issues.” But he acknowl­edged “there are a lot of things the Catholic Church teach­es that frankly, Amer­i­cans would just nev­er go for.”

He added that in a democ­ra­cy, “you have to give peo­ple their abil­i­ty to have their own moral views reflect­ed in pub­lic pol­i­cy. There are a lot of non-Catholics in Amer­i­ca and I accept that.”

Julian Waller, a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, said Vance has numer­ous influ­ences out­side of Catholic postlib­er­al­ism — from Trump-style pop­ulists to his men­tor, tech bil­lion­aire Peter Thiel.

It remains to be seen whether Catholic postlib­er­als would get promi­nent appoint­ments in a Trump-Vance admin­is­tra­tion — or even how often they’d get their calls returned.

...

For an exam­ple of what an admin­is­tra­tion using state pow­er for postlib­er­al ends might look like, Waller point­ed to Flori­da and Gov. Ron DeSan­tis’ efforts to rid pub­lic high­er edu­ca­tion of diver­si­ty ini­tia­tives and crit­i­cal race the­o­ry.

“If you want the mod­el for what some­one like JD Vance is real­ly inter­est­ed in, it’s prob­a­bly the Flori­da mod­el, force­ful­ly chang­ing insti­tu­tions, cap­tur­ing insti­tu­tions,” Waller said.

Postlib­er­als’ ideas vary, but there are com­mon themes, said Kevin Val­li­er, author of “ All the King­doms of the World,” a 2023 book on the mod­ern postlib­er­al and inte­gral­ist move­ments and their cen­turies-old roots.

Depend­ing on who’s talk­ing, a postlib­er­al regime change could involve encour­ag­ing child­bear­ing, eas­ing or remov­ing church-state sep­a­ra­tion, ban­ning pornog­ra­phy for adults and chil­dren alike, reim­pos­ing laws lim­it­ing busi­ness on the Sab­bath, sup­port­ing pri­vate-sec­tor unions and strength­en­ing safe­ty nets for the mid­dle class.

It’s com­mon to hear postlib­er­als prais­ing Hungary’s nation­al­ist prime min­is­ter, Vik­tor Orban, par­tic­u­lar­ly for his use of finan­cial incen­tives for fam­i­lies that have more babies. Orban has cham­pi­oned an “illib­er­al democ­ra­cy,”  which includes restric­tions on  immi­gra­tion and LGBTQ+ rights.

Vance has praised Orban for Hungary’s sub­si­dies to mar­ried cou­ples with chil­dren and for “smart deci­sions” in seiz­ing con­trol of uni­ver­si­ties.

Vance has echoed the regime-change rhetoric of using gov­ern­ment, staffed by like­mind­ed offi­cials, for postlib­er­al goals.

“You need to have a func­tion­al state that accom­plish­es some of the things that we care about. You need good peo­ple to go and work in that func­tion­al state,” Vance said a 2022 con­fer­ence at Fran­cis­can Uni­ver­si­ty of Steubenville, Ohio. It fea­tured promi­nent postlib­er­als like Deneen and Har­vard Law School pro­fes­sor Adri­an Ver­meule.

Ver­meule has advo­cat­ed for “com­mon-good con­sti­tu­tion­al­ism,” in which the gov­ern­ment enacts “strong rule in the inter­est of attain­ing the com­mon good.”

...

Vance’s choice to speak at Steubenville under­scored his affin­i­ty with postlib­er­als, Val­li­er said.

“He could have giv­en that talk any­where,” said Val­li­er, a pro­fes­sor at the Insti­tute of Amer­i­can Con­sti­tu­tion­al Thought and Lead­er­ship at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tole­do in Ohio. “Why is he appear­ing with these intel­lec­tu­als if he’s not sym­pa­thet­ic to their ideas?”

Vance’s reli­gious jour­ney began in a fam­i­ly that rarely went to church when he was young, he wrote in “Hill­bil­ly Ele­gy.” But he said his grand­moth­er — the most sta­ble adult in his tur­bu­lent house­hold — reg­u­lar­ly read the Bible and taught a Chris­tian­i­ty that demand­ed hard work, for­give­ness and hope.

For a time, the young JD embraced the strict bib­li­cal lit­er­al­ism of his father’s Pen­te­costal church, cred­it­ing it as a sta­bi­liz­ing force, he wrote.

But in col­lege, Vance embraced what he lat­er viewed as an arro­gant and fash­ion­able athe­ism.

Even­tu­al­ly, he wrote in a 2020 essay for the Catholic jour­nal The Lamp, he con­clud­ed he “need­ed grace” to pro­vide him the virtues to be a good hus­band and father.

“I need­ed, in oth­er words, to become Catholic,” he wrote.

————

“JD Vance’s Catholi­cism helped shape his views. So did this lit­tle-known group of Catholic thinkers” By MICHELLE R. SMITH and PETER SMITH; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 09/04/2024

“The pro­fes­sors and media per­son­al­i­ties in this net­work don’t all agree on every­thing — even on what to call them­selves – but most go by “postlib­er­al.” Vance has used that term to describe him­self, though the Trump-Vance cam­paign did not respond to ques­tions about where Vance sees him­self in the move­ment and whether he shares some of the beliefs pro­mot­ed by many postlib­er­als.”

JD Vance isn’t just a Catholic con­vert. He’s a ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholic con­vert. And as we can see, this ‘postlib­er­al’ move­ment just hap­pens to be high­ly ide­o­log­i­cal­ly aligned with the sen­ti­ment dri­ving the Sched­ule F/Project 2025 plot to purge all major US insti­tu­tions of the influ­ences of ‘the left’ and then using those hijacked insti­tu­tions to impose of far right vision of soci­ety on a major­i­ty that does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly agree with this agen­da. The ‘postlib­er­al’ move­ment is ulti­mate­ly post-demo­c­ra­t­ic. So when we see Vance prais­ing promi­nent ‘postlib­er­al’ author like Patrick Deneen, who open­ly calls for a Sched­ule F‑style impo­si­tion of postlib­er­al goals on soci­ety, it’s impor­tant to keep in mind that the whole Sched­ule F/Project 2025 agen­da for a sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion is effec­tive­ly the real­iza­tion of this move­men­t’s goals:

...
His con­ver­sion also put Vance in close touch with a Catholic intel­lec­tu­al move­ment, viewed by some crit­ics as hav­ing reac­tionary or author­i­tar­i­an lean­ings, that has been lit­tle known to the Amer­i­can pub­lic until Vance’s rise to the nation­al stage as the Repub­li­can vice pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee.

These are not your father’s Catholic con­ser­v­a­tives.

...

Postlib­er­als do share some long­stand­ing Catholic con­ser­v­a­tive views, such as oppo­si­tion to abor­tion and LGBTQ+ rights.

But where Catholic con­ser­v­a­tives of the past have seen big gov­ern­ment as a prob­lem rather than a solu­tion, the postlib­er­als want a mus­cu­lar gov­ern­ment — one that they con­trol.

They envi­sion a coun­ter­rev­o­lu­tion in which they would take over gov­ern­ment bureau­cra­cy and insti­tu­tions like uni­ver­si­ties from with­in, replac­ing entrenched “elites” with their own and act­ing upon their vision of the “com­mon good.”

“What is need­ed … is regime change — the peace­ful but vig­or­ous over­throw of a cor­rupt and cor­rupt­ing lib­er­al rul­ing class and the cre­ation of a postlib­er­al order,” wrote Patrick Deneen, a promi­nent author in the move­ment, in his 2023 book, “Regime Change.”

Vance has sig­naled his align­ment with some of what Catholic postlib­er­als advo­cate. He’s said the next time his allies con­trol the pres­i­den­cy or Con­gress, “ we real­ly need to be real­ly ruth­less when it comes to the exer­cise of pow­er” and said Repub­li­cans should seize insti­tu­tions, includ­ing uni­ver­si­ties “to make them work for our peo­ple.” He’s advo­cat­ed for gov­ern­ment poli­cies to spur child­bear­ing, a notion reflect­ed in his digs at “child­less cat ladies” with alleged­ly no stake in America’s future.

...

At an Ohio con­fer­ence fea­tur­ing a who’s who of Catholic postlib­er­als in 2022, he told fel­low speak­ers he has “admired a lot of you from afar” as “some of the peo­ple who I think are most inter­est­ing about what’s going on in this coun­try.”

Vance praised Deneen’s book at a 2023 pan­el dis­cus­sion with the author, a pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame.

...

“Most ordi­nary Amer­i­can Catholics would not treat a child­less sin­gle woman with cats with this kind of con­tempt,” Pat­ter­son said. Even if Vance is not steeped in the phi­los­o­phy, Pat­ter­son added, “he is pick­ing up on the postlib­er­al vibe.”

Some Catholics, includ­ing con­ser­v­a­tives, have raised alarms about the com­pa­ny Vance has kept, say­ing postlib­er­al­ism has his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tions to 20th cen­tu­ry Euro­pean move­ments that are asso­ci­at­ed with author­i­tar­i­an regimes like Fran­cis­co Franco’s in Spain.

“We’re talk­ing about peo­ple that pre­fer right-wing author­i­tar­i­an regimes,” Pat­ter­son said.

In a postlib­er­al soci­ety, Pat­ter­son wrote in an August com­men­tary in the online jour­nal The Dis­patch, cit­i­zens become “sub­jects” and per­son­al lib­er­ties sub­ject­ed to “admin­is­tra­tive despo­tism.”
...

And when we see how Vance’s path to Catholi­cism was appar­ent­ly deeply influ­enced by Peter Thiel — Vance’s chief polit­i­cal patron — at the same time Thiel is described as a Catholic who is ‘out­side of Cathol postlib­er­alis’, it’s impor­tant to keep in mind how Thiel’s world­view aligns with that of promi­nent postlib­er­al thinkers like Deneen. As we saw, Thiel large­ly agreed with Deneen’s con­clu­sion that mod­ern soci­ety’s woes are a result of lib­er­al­ism. But where Deneen saw lib­er­al­is­m’s empha­sis on per­son­al lib­er­ty and eco­nom­ic growth as the root of this malaise, Thiel saw a lack of mate­r­i­al sci­en­tif­ic progress as the under­ly­ing issue. Beyond that, Thiel seemed to embrace a kind of tran­shu­man­ist phi­los­o­phy that he argued was very much in keep­ing with the true nature of Chris­tian­i­ty. So yes, tech­ni­cal­ly, Thiel isn’t com­plete­ly aligned with the ‘postlib­er­als’, but they do share the under­ly­ing goal of over­throw­ing soci­ety and impos­ing some­thing rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent, under the ban­ner of Chris­tian­i­ty:

...
Julian Waller, a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, said Vance has numer­ous influ­ences out­side of Catholic postlib­er­al­ism — from Trump-style pop­ulists to his men­tor, tech bil­lion­aire Peter Thiel.

...

Vance’s reli­gious jour­ney began in a fam­i­ly that rarely went to church when he was young, he wrote in “Hill­bil­ly Ele­gy.” But he said his grand­moth­er — the most sta­ble adult in his tur­bu­lent house­hold — reg­u­lar­ly read the Bible and taught a Chris­tian­i­ty that demand­ed hard work, for­give­ness and hope.

For a time, the young JD embraced the strict bib­li­cal lit­er­al­ism of his father’s Pen­te­costal church, cred­it­ing it as a sta­bi­liz­ing force, he wrote.

But in col­lege, Vance embraced what he lat­er viewed as an arro­gant and fash­ion­able athe­ism.

Even­tu­al­ly, he wrote in a 2020 essay for the Catholic jour­nal The Lamp, he con­clud­ed he “need­ed grace” to pro­vide him the virtues to be a good hus­band and father.

“I need­ed, in oth­er words, to become Catholic,” he wrote.
...

Final­ly, as we’re going to see in the fol­low­ing piece in The Atlantic, the ‘postlib­er­al’ move­ment is per­haps sur­pris­ing­ly not very focused on the tra­di­tion­al of Catholic phi­los­o­phy. Instead, it appears to be a move­ment root­ed in a con­vic­tion that lib­er­al­ism is bad and must be repealed, with Catholic argu­ments then glommed on as part of the move­men­t’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. And as the arti­cle also notes, while Peter Thiel shares many of ‘postlib­er­al’ Catholi­cis­m’s crit­i­cisms of mod­ern soci­ety, Thiel does­n’t advo­cate a ‘postlib­er­al’ solu­tion. Instead, he advances a kind of hyper-tech­nol­o­gy-focused goal of tran­shu­man­ism as a kind of sacred mis­sion for human­i­ty. That’s also part of the con­text of Vance’s 2019 con­ver­sion to Catholi­cism, to appears to have hap­pened right around he formed his Narya Cap­i­tal ven­ture cap­i­tal fund with heavy financ­ing from Thiel. A com­pa­ny that went on to fund the ‘Alt-Right’ friend­ly social media start­up Rum­ble. That’s all part of the con­text of Vance’s ‘postlib­er­al’ the­ol­o­gy: it’s a the­ol­o­gy that has polit­i­cal goals as its core objec­tives and under­ly­ing motives and Vance hap­pened to have his con­ver­sion to this move­ment right around the time he start­ed a new ‘Alt-Right’-friendly ven­ture cap­i­tal fund with Thiel’s patron­age:

The Atlantic

The Post-lib­er­al Catholics Find Their Man

As vice pres­i­dent, J. D. Vance would ele­vate their dis­dain for Amer­i­can lib­er­al­ism to the high­est lev­els of gov­ern­ment.

By Damon Link­er
August 8, 2024
Updat­ed at 10:24 p.m. ET on August 8, 2024

When jour­nal­ists write about ties between Don­ald Trump and the reli­gious right, they usu­al­ly focus on evan­gel­i­cal Protes­tants. That empha­sis makes sense, giv­en that evan­gel­i­cals make up a siz­able por­tion of the GOP’s elec­toral coali­tion, and their endur­ing devo­tion to the moral­ly and reli­gious­ly louche Repub­li­can nom­i­nee remains more than a lit­tle shock­ing.

But Trump’s choice of J. D. Vance as his run­ning mate puts a spot­light on a dif­fer­ent fac­tion of the reli­gious right: the so-called post-lib­er­al Catholics, who have been Vance’s friends, allies, and inter­locu­tors since his 2019 con­ver­sion to Catholi­cism (he was raised Protes­tant) and trans­for­ma­tion into a MAGA Repub­li­can short­ly after.

This group of Catholic intellectuals—which includes Patrick Deneen of Notre Dame, Adri­an Ver­meule of Har­vard Law School, and Sohrab Ahmari, a founder and an edi­tor of the eclec­ti­cal­ly pop­ulist mag­a­zine Com­pact—is known for its sweep­ing attack on clas­si­cal lib­er­al­ism. It claims that a long list of con­tem­po­rary prob­lems (ris­ing rates of eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty, drug addic­tion, sui­cide, home­less­ness, child­less­ness) can be traced back to moral-philo­soph­i­cal errors made cen­turies ago by the Amer­i­can Founders and their ide­o­log­i­cal prog­en­i­tors. In place of our polity’s com­mit­ment to indi­vid­ual rights, auton­o­my, and plu­ral­ism, the post-lib­er­als aim to cre­ate a soci­ety uni­fied around the com­mon good, which is itself fixed on a the­o­log­i­cal vision of the High­est Good.

Hence the need for what Deneen calls “regime change” in the title of his most recent book. In con­crete terms, this means replac­ing the peo­ple and insti­tu­tions that dom­i­nate America’s cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, and polit­i­cal life with a new elite will­ing to eschew lib­er­al norms in ser­vice of sup­pos­ed­ly high­er ideals. In this respect, Vance is the man the post-lib­er­als have been wait­ing for—a self-iden­ti­fied mem­ber of the “post-lib­er­al right,” and now a con­tender for one of the country’s high­est polit­i­cal offices.

...

These ambi­tions mark a sig­nif­i­cant change in the Catholic right com­pared with its most recent moment of max­i­mal influ­ence, dur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion of George W. Bush. Then, writ­ers such as Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Novak, and Robert P. George argued that, when prop­er­ly under­stood, Catholic Chris­t­ian rev­e­la­tion, Amer­i­can his­to­ry and ideals, and the Repub­li­can Party’s plat­form were per­fect­ly har­mo­nious. These thinkers made their case by con­tend­ing that Amer­i­can lib­er­al­ism was root­ed in the­o­log­i­cal sources, that Catholic ortho­doxy was essen­tial­ly lib­er­al and that the GOP was tai­lor-made to unite the two.

Things feel very dif­fer­ent on the Catholic right today. Set­backs at home and at the Vatican—including the elec­tion (and reelec­tion) of Barack Oba­ma, Pope Francis’s efforts to push back against the con­ser­v­a­tive lega­cies of his pre­de­ces­sors, and the Oberge­fell deci­sion by the U.S. Supreme Court declar­ing same-sex mar­riage a con­sti­tu­tion­al right—discredited the idea that lib­er­al­ism and tra­di­tion­al Catholi­cism could go togeth­er. One rad­i­cal response to these devel­op­ments can be found on the fur­thest extreme of the Catholic right, among a group called the inte­gral­ists. Despite their name, they aim to sub­or­di­nate the state to the Church, not inte­grate them.

Vance hasn’t gone that far in his pub­lic state­ments. Yet his account of his con­ver­sion to the Catholic Church, pub­lished in 2020 in the mag­a­zine The Lamp, marks him as very much a man of our post-lib­er­al moment. In his essay, Vance explains the intel­lec­tu­al influ­ences on his spir­i­tu­al evo­lu­tion. Some are con­ven­tion­al, such as St. Augus­tine, the the­olo­gian and bish­op who has been an inspi­ra­tion to Chris­t­ian con­verts down through the cen­turies. But one is decid­ed­ly less ortho­dox: the bil­lion­aire ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist Peter Thiel.

Before Thiel spent rough­ly $15 mil­lion on Vance’s suc­cess­ful 2022 Sen­ate cam­paign in Ohio, Vance worked as a prin­ci­pal for Mithril Cap­i­tal, one of Thiel’s many firms. Their first encounter, how­ev­er, came back in 2011, when Thiel deliv­ered a talk at Yale Law School, where Vance was then a stu­dent. As Vance recalls in his essay, Thiel, who has described him­self as Chris­t­ian, observed that the mer­i­to­crat­ic striv­ing of smart young peo­ple (like Vance) often results in both per­son­al exis­ten­tial empti­ness and soci­etal stag­na­tion. That’s a vari­a­tion on a cri­tique of lib­er­al democ­ra­cy that Thiel has been devel­op­ing for much of his career. In his idio­syn­crat­ic read­ing of West­ern his­to­ry, the the­o­log­i­cal pre­cepts of Chris­t­ian civ­i­liza­tion are what inspired the great sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal achieve­ments of the past sev­er­al cen­turies. The ideals of lib­er­al democ­ra­cy, by con­trast, are respon­si­ble for the mean­ing­less­ness and iner­tia that sup­pos­ed­ly plague the present.

Over the decade fol­low­ing his meet­ing with Thiel, Vance remained broad­ly com­mit­ted to a Bush-era vision of con­ti­nu­ity between Chris­tian­i­ty and the moral out­look and pol­i­cy agen­da of the pre-Trump Repub­li­can Par­ty. That ear­li­er Vance favored pro-busi­ness eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy and saw democ­ra­cy pro­mo­tion as a cru­cial ele­ment of Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy. He also empha­sized the impor­tance of per­son­al char­ac­ter in pub­lic life: Pover­ty could be explained, in part, by moral deprav­i­ty, and hold­ing polit­i­cal office required integri­ty. But around the time that he decid­ed to run for the Ohio Sen­ate seat vacat­ed by the retir­ing Rob Port­man in 2021, Vance under­went a sec­ond con­ver­sion—to the ideas of the post-lib­er­al Catholics and the right-wing pop­ulism asso­ci­at­ed with Don­ald Trump.

...

Most strik­ing­ly, after more than four years of con­demn­ing Trump, Vance began defend­ing the for­mer president’s most reck­less acts and ambi­tions. He start­ed denounc­ing the Amer­i­can “regime” and, in Sep­tem­ber 2021, told a far-right pod­cast­er that “we are in a late repub­li­can peri­od” in which it would be nec­es­sary to “get pret­ty wild, pret­ty far out there, and go in direc­tions that a lot of con­ser­v­a­tives right now are uncom­fort­able with.” This includ­ed “a de-Ba’athification pro­gram” with the fol­low­ing direc­tives: “seize the admin­is­tra­tive state for our own pur­pos­es … fire every civ­il ser­vant in the admin­is­tra­tive state [and] replace them with our peo­ple.”

The post-lib­er­al Catholics, includ­ing Deneen, in his book on regime change, insist that the moral and polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion they seek can be accom­plished peace­ful­ly. But Vance appears ready to excuse some dan­ger­ous polit­i­cal brinkman­ship. In a recent inter­view with The New York Times’ Ross Douthat, Vance defend­ed the idea of states across the coun­try appoint­ing alter­na­tive slates of elec­tors after the 2020 elec­tion. He seemed to con­cede that such actions could have pre­cip­i­tat­ed a “con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis.” So be it.

What might be most strange about this unapolo­get­i­cal­ly rad­i­cal style of pol­i­tics is how ten­u­ous its ties are to the Catholic Church as an insti­tu­tion and even Chris­tian­i­ty as a his­tor­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty of faith. Where­as the Bush-era Catholics reg­u­lar­ly cit­ed the New Tes­ta­ment, Thomas Aquinas, and John Court­ney Mur­ray, today’s post-lib­er­als rarely invoke the Bible or the­olo­gians in their polit­i­cal com­men­tary. They don’t base their pol­i­cy com­mit­ments on the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church. They aren’t in the habit of refer­ring to the social teach­ings in papal encycli­cals. (As with any group, there are excep­tions. Ahmari, for exam­ple, has cit­ed Catholic teach­ing in sup­port of polit­i­cal argu­ments in some works.)

Rather, their the­o­log­i­cal con­vic­tions tend to remain in the back­ground, serv­ing as fuel for some­thing more cen­tral to their pub­lic thought: a pol­i­tics of reac­tionary nega­tion. Their faith con­firms that lib­er­al­ism is the great ene­my that must be fought and defeat­ed so that some­thing more whole­some and spir­i­tu­al­ly invig­o­rat­ing can take its place. But until lib­er­al­ism has been expunged from the world, Chris­tian­i­ty remains main­ly a civ­i­liza­tion­al sym­bol or iden­ti­ty mark­er whose pub­lic sub­stance is held in abeyance.

That’s quite a shift for the Catholic right in a sin­gle gen­er­a­tion. Not long ago, the group insist­ed on a near-per­fect iden­ti­fi­ca­tion between the Church and Amer­i­can lib­er­al­ism as expressed by the Repub­li­can Par­ty. Now it insists on the dis­con­ti­nu­ity between Chris­tian­i­ty and America’s rul­ing ide­ol­o­gy, which requires noth­ing short of polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion to over­come.

...

———–

“The Post-lib­er­al Catholics Find Their Man” By Damon Link­er; The Atlantic; 08/08/2024

” This group of Catholic intellectuals—which includes Patrick Deneen of Notre Dame, Adri­an Ver­meule of Har­vard Law School, and Sohrab Ahmari, a founder and an edi­tor of the eclec­ti­cal­ly pop­ulist mag­a­zine Com­pact—is known for its sweep­ing attack on clas­si­cal lib­er­al­ism. It claims that a long list of con­tem­po­rary prob­lems (ris­ing rates of eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty, drug addic­tion, sui­cide, home­less­ness, child­less­ness) can be traced back to moral-philo­soph­i­cal errors made cen­turies ago by the Amer­i­can Founders and their ide­o­log­i­cal prog­en­i­tors. In place of our polity’s com­mit­ment to indi­vid­ual rights, auton­o­my, and plu­ral­ism, the post-lib­er­als aim to cre­ate a soci­ety uni­fied around the com­mon good, which is itself fixed on a the­o­log­i­cal vision of the High­est Good.”

A ‘postlib­er­al’ purge pred­i­cat­ed on impos­ing their idea of the ‘com­mon good’, whether the major­i­ty likes it or not. It’s a vision that isn’t just rad­i­cal but also rel­a­tive­ly new. And not real­ly based on a tra­di­tion of Catholic phi­los­o­phy. Instead, it appears to be a branch of Catholi­cism that has, at its root, a polit­i­cal rejec­tion of mod­ern lib­er­al­ism:

...
Hence the need for what Deneen calls “regime change” in the title of his most recent book. In con­crete terms, this means replac­ing the peo­ple and insti­tu­tions that dom­i­nate America’s cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, and polit­i­cal life with a new elite will­ing to eschew lib­er­al norms in ser­vice of sup­pos­ed­ly high­er ideals. In this respect, Vance is the man the post-lib­er­als have been wait­ing for—a self-iden­ti­fied mem­ber of the “post-lib­er­al right,” and now a con­tender for one of the country’s high­est polit­i­cal offices.

...

These ambi­tions mark a sig­nif­i­cant change in the Catholic right com­pared with its most recent moment of max­i­mal influ­ence, dur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion of George W. Bush. Then, writ­ers such as Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Novak, and Robert P. George argued that, when prop­er­ly under­stood, Catholic Chris­t­ian rev­e­la­tion, Amer­i­can his­to­ry and ideals, and the Repub­li­can Party’s plat­form were per­fect­ly har­mo­nious. These thinkers made their case by con­tend­ing that Amer­i­can lib­er­al­ism was root­ed in the­o­log­i­cal sources, that Catholic ortho­doxy was essen­tial­ly lib­er­al and that the GOP was tai­lor-made to unite the two.

Things feel very dif­fer­ent on the Catholic right today. Set­backs at home and at the Vatican—including the elec­tion (and reelec­tion) of Barack Oba­ma, Pope Francis’s efforts to push back against the con­ser­v­a­tive lega­cies of his pre­de­ces­sors, and the Oberge­fell deci­sion by the U.S. Supreme Court declar­ing same-sex mar­riage a con­sti­tu­tion­al right—discredited the idea that lib­er­al­ism and tra­di­tion­al Catholi­cism could go togeth­er. One rad­i­cal response to these devel­op­ments can be found on the fur­thest extreme of the Catholic right, among a group called the inte­gral­ists. Despite their name, they aim to sub­or­di­nate the state to the Church, not inte­grate them.

...

What might be most strange about this unapolo­get­i­cal­ly rad­i­cal style of pol­i­tics is how ten­u­ous its ties are to the Catholic Church as an insti­tu­tion and even Chris­tian­i­ty as a his­tor­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty of faith. Where­as the Bush-era Catholics reg­u­lar­ly cit­ed the New Tes­ta­ment, Thomas Aquinas, and John Court­ney Mur­ray, today’s post-lib­er­als rarely invoke the Bible or the­olo­gians in their polit­i­cal com­men­tary. They don’t base their pol­i­cy com­mit­ments on the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church. They aren’t in the habit of refer­ring to the social teach­ings in papal encycli­cals. (As with any group, there are excep­tions. Ahmari, for exam­ple, has cit­ed Catholic teach­ing in sup­port of polit­i­cal argu­ments in some works.)

Rather, their the­o­log­i­cal con­vic­tions tend to remain in the back­ground, serv­ing as fuel for some­thing more cen­tral to their pub­lic thought: a pol­i­tics of reac­tionary nega­tion. Their faith con­firms that lib­er­al­ism is the great ene­my that must be fought and defeat­ed so that some­thing more whole­some and spir­i­tu­al­ly invig­o­rat­ing can take its place. But until lib­er­al­ism has been expunged from the world, Chris­tian­i­ty remains main­ly a civ­i­liza­tion­al sym­bol or iden­ti­ty mark­er whose pub­lic sub­stance is held in abeyance.

That’s quite a shift for the Catholic right in a sin­gle gen­er­a­tion. Not long ago, the group insist­ed on a near-per­fect iden­ti­fi­ca­tion between the Church and Amer­i­can lib­er­al­ism as expressed by the Repub­li­can Par­ty. Now it insists on the dis­con­ti­nu­ity between Chris­tian­i­ty and America’s rul­ing ide­ol­o­gy, which requires noth­ing short of polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion to over­come.
...

And then we get more info on the role Thiel played in Vance’s con­ver­sion away from athe­ism to Catholi­cism. As Vance tells it, a talk from Thiel dur­ing Vance’s time at Yale Law School includ­ed a cri­tique by Thiel about per­son­al empti­ness and soci­ety stag­na­tion. As Thiel appar­ent­ly argues, the the­o­log­i­cal pre­cepts of Chris­t­ian civ­i­liza­tion are what inspired great sci­en­tif­ic achieve­ments and that’s been lost under lib­er­al democ­ra­cy. Again, don’t for­get how Thiel appears to argue that Chris­tian­i­ty is inher­ent­ly a tran­shu­man­ist reli­gion and the solu­tion to soci­ety’s woes is mas­sive tech­no­log­i­cal leaps. So when we see Thiel lament­ing the lack of sci­en­tif­ic progress, keep in mind that he’s like lament­ing the lack of tran­shu­man­ist tech­no­log­i­cal leaps. Specif­i­cal­ly, the tran­shu­man­ist tech­no­log­i­cal leaps that might allow oli­garchs like Thiel to live for­ev­er:

...
Vance hasn’t gone that far in his pub­lic state­ments. Yet his account of his con­ver­sion to the Catholic Church, pub­lished in 2020 in the mag­a­zine The Lamp, marks him as very much a man of our post-lib­er­al moment. In his essay, Vance explains the intel­lec­tu­al influ­ences on his spir­i­tu­al evo­lu­tion. Some are con­ven­tion­al, such as St. Augus­tine, the the­olo­gian and bish­op who has been an inspi­ra­tion to Chris­t­ian con­verts down through the cen­turies. But one is decid­ed­ly less ortho­dox: the bil­lion­aire ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist Peter Thiel.

Before Thiel spent rough­ly $15 mil­lion on Vance’s suc­cess­ful 2022 Sen­ate cam­paign in Ohio, Vance worked as a prin­ci­pal for Mithril Cap­i­tal, one of Thiel’s many firms. Their first encounter, how­ev­er, came back in 2011, when Thiel deliv­ered a talk at Yale Law School, where Vance was then a stu­dent. As Vance recalls in his essay, Thiel, who has described him­self as Chris­t­ian, observed that the mer­i­to­crat­ic striv­ing of smart young peo­ple (like Vance) often results in both per­son­al exis­ten­tial empti­ness and soci­etal stag­na­tion. That’s a vari­a­tion on a cri­tique of lib­er­al democ­ra­cy that Thiel has been devel­op­ing for much of his career. In his idio­syn­crat­ic read­ing of West­ern his­to­ry, the the­o­log­i­cal pre­cepts of Chris­t­ian civ­i­liza­tion are what inspired the great sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal achieve­ments of the past sev­er­al cen­turies. The ideals of lib­er­al democ­ra­cy, by con­trast, are respon­si­ble for the mean­ing­less­ness and iner­tia that sup­pos­ed­ly plague the present.

Over the decade fol­low­ing his meet­ing with Thiel, Vance remained broad­ly com­mit­ted to a Bush-era vision of con­ti­nu­ity between Chris­tian­i­ty and the moral out­look and pol­i­cy agen­da of the pre-Trump Repub­li­can Par­ty. That ear­li­er Vance favored pro-busi­ness eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy and saw democ­ra­cy pro­mo­tion as a cru­cial ele­ment of Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy. He also empha­sized the impor­tance of per­son­al char­ac­ter in pub­lic life: Pover­ty could be explained, in part, by moral deprav­i­ty, and hold­ing polit­i­cal office required integri­ty. But around the time that he decid­ed to run for the Ohio Sen­ate seat vacat­ed by the retir­ing Rob Port­man in 2021, Vance under­went a sec­ond con­ver­sion—to the ideas of the post-lib­er­al Catholics and the right-wing pop­ulism asso­ci­at­ed with Don­ald Trump.
...

Final­ly, recall how we saw Sohrab Ahmari decry­ing Tuck­er Carl­son’s deci­sion to invite Dar­ryl Coop­er on for an inter­view. As we can see, Ahmari is a ‘postlib­er­al’ lead­ing intel­lec­tu­al. Sure, it’s very pos­si­ble that Ahmari real­ly is gen­uine­ly appalled by Nazi apol­o­gists like Coop­er. But it’s impor­tant to rec­og­nize that such crit­i­cisms are com­ing from the leader of a move­ment that appears to be the author­i­tar­i­an Catholic ana­log of domin­ion­ism:

...
This group of Catholic intellectuals—which includes Patrick Deneen of Notre Dame, Adri­an Ver­meule of Har­vard Law School, and Sohrab Ahmari, a founder and an edi­tor of the eclec­ti­cal­ly pop­ulist mag­a­zine Com­pact—is known for its sweep­ing attack on clas­si­cal lib­er­al­ism. It claims that a long list of con­tem­po­rary prob­lems (ris­ing rates of eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty, drug addic­tion, sui­cide, home­less­ness, child­less­ness) can be traced back to moral-philo­soph­i­cal errors made cen­turies ago by the Amer­i­can Founders and their ide­o­log­i­cal prog­en­i­tors. In place of our polity’s com­mit­ment to indi­vid­ual rights, auton­o­my, and plu­ral­ism, the post-lib­er­als aim to cre­ate a soci­ety uni­fied around the com­mon good, which is itself fixed on a the­o­log­i­cal vision of the High­est Good.
...

It’s going to be inter­est­ing to hear what Ahmari has to say fol­low­ing Vance’s upcom­ing Tuck­er Carl­son inter­view. We can be con­fi­dent Vance is pre­sum­ably going to avoid com­pli­ment­ing Hitler. But at the same time, we can also be con­fi­dent that the inter­view with be filled with Vance and Carl­son mutu­al­ly com­mis­er­at­ing over their shared cri­tique of the mod­ern world that will include a num­ber of ‘postlib­er­al’ argu­ments very much in line with not just the Domin­ion­ists lead­ing Sched­ule F/Project 2025 effort but also the kinds of cri­tiques of mod­ern soci­ety we might expect to hear from the likes of Dar­ryl Coop­er and the rest of Vance’s ‘post-Alt-Right’ fel­low trav­el­ers.

It’s also worth keep­ing in mind in all of this that there real­ly is an array of very valid extreme crit­i­cisms of the mod­ern world that absolute­ly have to be grap­pled with. A rejec­tion of the ‘postliberal’/‘post-Alt-Right’ post-demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ments should­n’t be mis­con­strued as some sort of hap­py embrace of our col­lec­tive state of affairs. Moder­ni­ty real­ly is in a state of per­il. Thanks, in part, to the endur­ing nature of human author­i­tar­i­an impuls­es. In that sense, Peter Thiel’s tran­shu­man­ist ambi­tions should­n’t be dis­count­ed entire­ly. There real­ly would be immense good that could be achieved if human­i­ty could some­how rid itself of the com­pul­sion to dom­i­nate and sub­ju­gate. For­tu­nate­ly, how­ev­er, we don’t actu­al­ly need to change human biol­o­gy to achieve that. We just need to be dili­gent­ly mind­ful and com­mit­ted to resist­ing those impuls­es. Dif­fi­cult, but pos­si­ble, with fail­ure ever loom­ing as a pos­si­bil­i­ty too. Oth­er­wise known as progress. It’s long been one of the under­ly­ing mes­sages of Chris­tian­i­ty and pret­ty much every oth­er major reli­gion once you cut through the chaff, which is why it’s worth keep­ing in mind that a col­lec­tive rejec­tion of the kinds of tox­ic world­views cham­pi­oned by JD Vance real­ly would rep­re­sent the kind of ‘tran­shu­man­ist’ advance­ment Thiel longs form. Long over­due advance­ment con­sis­tent­ly held back by these stub­born post-demo­c­ra­t­ic author­i­tar­i­an impuls­es that con­tin­ue to plague the mod­ern world.

“I’m a black Nazi!” Famous last words? We’ll see. But there’s no deny­ing Mark Robin­son’s already trou­bled guber­na­to­r­i­al cam­paign is fac­ing its biggest chal­lenge so far fol­low­ing a dev­as­tat­ing CNN report detail­ing Robin­son’s years-old anony­mous inter­net posts, most­ly made to online pornog­ra­phy forums. But it’s not the fact that these posts were made on pornog­ra­phy forums that has Robin­son’s cam­paign hem­or­rhag­ing staffers. It’s the con­tent of those posts. Con­tent like “I’m a black Nazi!”, all made by a ‘min­isol­dr’ online moniker wide­ly used by Robin­son for years.

Robin­son has already denied the report, vague­ly insist­ing that he’s the vic­tim of some sort of hack that also includ­ed arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. As we’re going to see, it would be effec­tive­ly impos­si­ble for hack­ers to have some­how cre­at­ed retroac­tive­ly cre­ate this con­tent, much of which are online posts dat­ed between 2010–2012. Because while it’s pos­si­ble for a hack­er to pos­si­bly hack into the data base of an indi­vid­ual forum’s con­tent to inject new con­tent that looks like it was post­ed by ‘min­isol­dr’ back in 2010, the CNN report isn’t based on a sin­gle web­site. It draws on a num­ber of sources, includ­ed the 2017 pub­lic leak of con­tent from the Dis­qus com­ment­ing plat­form where Robin­son’s name is asso­ci­at­ed with both the ‘min­isol­dr’ moniker and also the same email address used for those pornog­ra­phy forum posts years ear­li­er. Not that this has stopped Robin­son for insist­ing on an ‘nefar­i­ous AI’ expla­na­tion.

There’s also a very real AI angle to this sto­ry. It’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly nefar­i­ous AI, but it’s eth­i­cal­ly com­pli­cat­ed: it turns out a pro­gres­sive activist group real­ly has been using AI to gen­er­ate audio clips that seem to be Mark Robin­son’s voice say­ing absolute­ly out­ra­geous things and put those clips in ads. The thing is, while the absolute­ly out­ra­geous things may not be things Robin­son has said, they are things Robin­son has writ­ten. In oth­er words, this group is sort of putting Robin­son’s writ­ten words into his own mouth.

As we’re also going to see, while Robin­son’s cam­paign may be los­ing staffers, the North Car­oli­na GOP appears to be stick­ing with him. Along with the Trump cam­paign. And plen­ty of Trump vot­ers. As one Trump sup­port­ing North Car­oli­na vot­er put it to a reporter, “We’ve all done things in our past that we’re sor­ry for. Some of the things are crazy....I mean, if we just went on that, we wouldn’t be here for Trump, would we?”

So on one lev­el, this is just the lat­est sto­ry about Mark Robin­son mak­ing news for say­ing some­thing out­ra­geous and obscene. But on anoth­er lev­el, this is very much a mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy sto­ry, with jour­nal­ists piec­ing togeth­er online clues left by Robin­son — or by the 2017 pub­lic Dis­qus leak — to effec­tive­ly ‘out’ the guy as a clos­et Nazi. Grant­ed, Robin­son has bare­ly been in that clos­et for years, but he obvi­ous­ly did­n’t want his “I’m a black Nazi!” com­ments dis­cov­ered and out­ed.

And that brings us to anoth­er sto­ry that should also be seen as part of the con­text of this Robin­son’s out­ing as a Nazi. Because let’s not for­get that Robin­son also hap­pens to be the favorite speak­er in recent years for David Lane’s Amer­i­can Renew­al Project, a fun­da­men­tal­ly domin­ion­ist project with a goal of enforc­ing a theo­crat­ic world­view on the Amer­i­can pub­lic. At the same time, Robin­son was effec­tive­ly hand-picked by Don­ald Trump for the 2024 North Car­oli­na guber­na­to­r­i­al race. And should Trump win back the White House, we can ful­ly expect the domin­ion­ist Project 2025 scheme to not just exe­cute a deep ide­o­log­i­cal purge of the fed­er­al work­force but a purge of the pri­vate sec­tor too. And as we’re going to see, we got a kind of pre­view last year of what a theo­crat­i­cal­ly dri­ven pri­vate purge might look like: a secret Catholic non-prof­it group fig­ured out how to iden­ti­fy priests using gay ‘hookup’ dat­ing apps like Grindr, with a goals that includ­ed out­ing the priests or per­haps qui­et­ly ruin­ing their careers.

The data was pur­chased from the large­ly unreg­u­lat­ed online data bro­ker­age indus­try. Specif­i­cal­ly, it was data sold by adver­tis­ers who sold ads on gay ‘hook up’ apps like Grindr. That data includ­ed loca­tion data. As we’ve seen, immense amounts of data is avail­able for sale in the large­ly unreg­u­lat­ed data bro­ker­age space, includ­ing loca­tion data. And while the data was anonymized, rei­den­ti­fy­ing the data turns out to be fair­ly triv­ial when the loca­tions are asso­ci­at­ed with, for exam­ple, a priest’s home or office.

The Den­ver-based non­prof­it behind the effort, Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al, has three phil­an­thropist trustees: Mark Bau­man, John Mar­tin and Tim Reichert. As we’re going to see, Reichert’s polit­i­cal ‘activism’ isn’t lim­it­ed to secret­ly out­ing gay priests. Reichert ran in the GOP pri­ma­ry for a Col­orado con­gres­sion­al seat in 2022. And while he did­n’t win that pri­ma­ry, the race end­ed up expos­ing the extreme­ness of Reichert’s world­view. As Reichert sees it, not only is every abor­tion an act of child sac­ri­fice on the altar of Baal, but the great­est threat fac­ing the West is con­tra­cep­tion.

Sin­gle women using ‘hookup apps’ are also a prob­lem, in Reichert’s view. Did Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al make any attempts to iden­ti­fy oth­er peo­ple using the var­i­ous hookup apps they had data on? We have no idea, but that’s part of what makes this sto­ry about the secret out­ing of gay priests using com­mer­cial­ly avail­able inter­net data a sto­ry to watch. And that’s also why we should view the out­ing of Mark Robin­son as ‘min­isol­dr’ as a sim­i­lar ‘signs of the times’ kind of sto­ry to the out­ing of the gay priests. In both cas­es, pub­licly avail­able data was used to legal­ly expose some­one’s secrets. Except, of course, in one case we’re talk­ing about the expo­sure of clos­et­ed gay priests and in anoth­er case we’re talk­ing about a clos­et­ed Nazi run­ning to be gov­er­nor of North Car­oli­na. These are remote­ly the same when it comes to the ethics of expos­ing the tar­get­ed indi­vid­u­als, but they’re both a sign of what’s pos­si­ble with today’s oceans of ‘big data’ read­i­ly avail­able for who­ev­er wants to pay. Because we can be pret­ty con­fi­dent the folks behind Project 2025 are going to be very eager to pay for as much data on as many Amer­i­cans as pos­si­ble that could be used to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Amer­i­cans. And they aren’t going to be hunt­ing for black Nazis:

CNN

‘I’m a black NAZI!’: NC GOP nom­i­nee for gov­er­nor made dozens of dis­turb­ing com­ments on porn forum

By Andrew Kaczyn­s­ki and Em Steck, CNN
Pub­lished 3:21 PM EDT, Thu Sep­tem­ber 19, 2024

(CNN) — Mark Robin­son, the con­tro­ver­sial and social­ly con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for gov­er­nor of North Car­oli­na, made a series of inflam­ma­to­ry com­ments on a pornog­ra­phy website’s mes­sage board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to him­self as a “black NAZI!” and expressed sup­port for rein­stat­ing slav­ery, a CNN KFile inves­ti­ga­tion found.

Despite a recent his­to­ry of anti-trans­gen­der rhetoric, Robin­son said he enjoyed watch­ing trans­gen­der pornog­ra­phy, a review of archived mes­sages found in which he also referred to him­self as a “perv.”

The com­ments, which Robin­son denies mak­ing, pre­date his entry into pol­i­tics and cur­rent stint as North Carolina’s lieu­tenant gov­er­nor. They were made under a user­name that CNN was able to iden­ti­fy as Robin­son by match­ing a litany of bio­graph­i­cal details and a shared email address between the two.

Many of Robinson’s com­ments were gra­tu­itous­ly sex­u­al and lewd in nature. They were made between 2008 and 2012 on “Nude Africa,” a porno­graph­ic web­site that includes a mes­sage board. The com­ments were made under the user­name min­isol­dr, a moniker Robin­son used fre­quent­ly online.

Robin­son list­ed his full name on his pro­file for Nude Africa, as well as an email address he used on numer­ous web­sites across the inter­net for decades.

...

Many of Robinson’s com­ments on Nude Africa stand in con­trast to his pub­lic stances on issues such as abor­tion and trans­gen­der rights.

Pub­licly, Robin­son has fierce­ly argued that peo­ple should use bath­rooms only that cor­re­spond to the gen­der they were assigned at birth. He’s also said trans­gen­der women should be arrest­ed for using women’s restrooms.

“If you’re a man on Fri­day night, and all the sud­den Sat­ur­day, you feel like a woman, and you want to go in the women’s bath­room in the mall, you will be arrest­ed, or what­ev­er we got­ta do to you,” Robin­son said at a cam­paign ral­ly in Feb­ru­ary 2024. “We’re going to pro­tect our women.”

Yet pri­vate­ly under the user­name min­isol­dr on Nude Africa, Robin­son graph­i­cal­ly described his own sex­u­al arousal as an adult from the mem­o­ry of secret­ly “peep­ing” on women in pub­lic gym show­ers as a 14-year-old. Robin­son recount­ed the sto­ry as a mem­o­ry he said he still fan­ta­sized about.

“I came to a spot that was a dead end but had two big vent cov­ers over it! It just so hap­pened it over­looked the show­ers! I sat there for about an hour and watched as sev­er­al girls came in and show­ered,” Robin­son wrote on Nude Africa.

...

“I went peep­ing again the next morn­ing,” Robin­son wrote. “but after that I went back the lad­der was locked! So those two times where [sic] the only times I got to do it! Ahh­h­hh mem­o­ries!!!!”

In oth­er com­ments on Nude Africa, Robin­son dis­cussed his affin­i­ty for trans­gen­der pornog­ra­phy.

“I like watch­ing tran­ny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leav­ing the man in!” Robin­son wrote. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”

In an inter­view with CNN on Thurs­day, Robin­son repeat­ed­ly denied that he made the com­ments on Nude Africa.

“This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not any­thing that is char­ac­ter­is­tic of me,” Robin­son said. Pre­sent­ed with the litany of evi­dence con­nect­ing him with the min­isol­dr user name on Nude Africa, Robin­son said, “I’m not going to get into the minu­tia of how some­body man­u­fac­tured this, these sala­cious tabloid lies.”

CNN first reached out to Robin­son Tues­day morn­ing with evi­dence con­nect­ing him to the com­ments on Nude Africa. It took his cam­paign two days to respond and issue a denial.

...

A his­to­ry of con­tro­ver­sial state­ments

Cam­paign­ing for lieu­tenant gov­er­nor in 2020, Robin­son advo­cat­ed for a com­plete abor­tion ban with­out excep­tions. He lat­er expressed regret in 2022 for pay­ing for his now-wife to have an abor­tion in the 1980s.

Now cam­paign­ing for gov­er­nor, he says he sup­ports a so-called “heart­beat” bill that would ban abor­tion when a heart­beat is detect­ed – approx­i­mate­ly six weeks – with excep­tions for rape, incest and health of the moth­er.

But writ­ing as min­isol­dr on Nude Africa in Decem­ber 2010, Robin­son said he did not care about a celebri­ty hav­ing an abor­tion.

“I don’t care. I just wan­na see the sex tape!” Robin­son wrote.

In anoth­er thread, com­menters con­sid­ered whether to believe the sto­ry of a woman who said she was raped by her taxi dri­ver while intox­i­cat­ed. In response, Robin­son wrote, “and the moral of this sto­ry….. Don’t f**k a white b*tch!”

Robin­son, who would become North Carolina’s first Black gov­er­nor if elect­ed, also repeat­ed­ly maligned civ­il rights leader Mar­tin Luther King Jr., attack­ing him in such intense terms that a user accused him of being a white suprema­cist.

“Get that f*cking com­mie bas­tard off the Nation­al Mall!,” Robin­son wrote about the ded­i­ca­tion of the memo­r­i­al to King in Wash­ing­ton, DC, by then-Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma.

“I’m not in the KKK. They don’t let blacks join. If I was in the KKK I would have called him Mar­tin Lucifer Koon!” Robin­son respond­ed.

CNN’s report­ing on Robinson’s com­ments comes a few weeks after The Assem­bly, a North Car­oli­na dig­i­tal pub­li­ca­tion, report­ed that Robin­son fre­quent­ed local video pornog­ra­phy shops in the 1990s and 2000s. The sto­ry cit­ed six peo­ple who inter­act­ed and saw him fre­quent the stores in Greens­boro, North Car­oli­na. A spokesper­son for Robin­son called the sto­ry false and a “com­plete fic­tion.”

...

Robinson’s his­to­ry of con­tro­ver­sial remarks, includ­ing mock­ing school shoot­ing sur­vivors, his past sup­port for total abor­tion bans with­out excep­tions for rape or incest and dis­parag­ing the civ­il rights move­ment have been a con­sis­tent theme in the race. Recent pub­lic polling shows Robin­son is los­ing to Stein.

Iden­ti­fy­ing min­isol­dr as Robin­son

On the Nude Africa web­site in both com­ments and his pro­file, min­isol­dr offered numer­ous details that align pre­cise­ly with Robinson’s per­son­al his­to­ry.

In his pro­file, min­isol­dr list­ed his full name as “mark robin­son” and dis­closed a pri­vate email address Robin­son used else­where online. In 2012, a user respond­ed to a com­ment by call­ing min­isol­dr “Mark.”

Min­isol­dr men­tioned in 2008 being mar­ried for 18 years, which cor­re­sponds with Robinson’s mar­riage to Yolan­da Hill in 1990. In 2011, min­isol­dr wrote he had been mar­ried 21 years. Min­isol­dr wrote in a 2011 post that he lived in Greens­boro, North Car­oli­na, the same town where Robin­son lived at the time and cur­rent­ly lives.

In a post in 2012, min­isol­dr said he served in the Army in the 1980s, dur­ing the same time peri­od as Robin­son. In his sex­u­al­ly graph­ic com­ments detail­ing watch­ing women in the show­ers in 2011, min­isol­dr wrote that his moth­er worked at an His­tor­i­cal­ly Black Col­lege and Uni­ver­si­ty (HBCU). Robinson’s moth­er worked as a cus­to­di­an at North Car­oli­na A&T State Uni­ver­si­ty, an HBCU locat­ed in Greens­boro.

Both min­isol­dr and Robin­son often post­ed about the same top­ics online, includ­ing reviews for remote-con­trolled heli­copters, their attrac­tion to spe­cif­ic celebri­ties and their favorite “Twi­light Zone” episode.

The email address asso­ci­at­ed with min­isol­dr on Nude Africa was also used by Robin­son else­where online and social media. On the com­ment­ing plat­form Dis­qus, a user who joined in April 2011 fea­tures Mark Robinson’s pho­to under the user­name min­isol­dr.

User­names and email address­es from Dis­qus were pub­licly leaked online in 2017, accord­ing to the com­pa­ny. CNN con­firmed that Robinson’s user­name min­isol­dr on Dis­qus shared the same email address as the one used on Nude Africa.

Robinson’s Dis­qus page is also linked to the Black social net­work­ing site Black Plan­et. The Web Archive shows a user named “min­isol­dr” described them­selves as 40 years old in Feb­ru­ary 2009 – the same age as Robin­son at the time – and liv­ing in Greens­boro, North Car­oli­na – Robinson’s home­town.

A user­name often used by Robin­son

Robin­son has fre­quent­ly used the user­name “min­isol­dr” else­where on the inter­net. On X, the plat­form for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter, Robin­son once used the min­isol­dr user­name, accord­ing to a screen­shot he shared on Face­book in 2018 and data in Robinson’s old tweets.

A YouTube playlist for a user named “min­isol­dr” fea­tures exclu­sive­ly videos of Robin­son. On Pin­ter­est, a user “min­isol­dr” lists his name as “Mark Robin­son.”

The “min­isol­dr” user­name has also post­ed reviews of prod­ucts and places Robin­son has also pub­licly rec­om­mend­ed. On Ama­zon, a user named “min­isol­dr” reviewed prod­ucts fre­quent­ly shared by Robin­son on Face­book, includ­ing remote-con­trolled heli­copters. And the same email address and user­name used on Nude Africa also left reviews on Google for two local busi­ness­es Robin­son lat­er post­ed on Face­book that he used.

Robinson’s unique choice of lan­guage fur­ther links him to the “min­isol­dr” alias on the porno­graph­ic forums. Uncom­mon phras­es such as “gag a mag­got,” “dun­der head,” “I don’t give a frogs a**,” and “I don’t give two shakes of it” were used both by min­isol­dr on Nude Africa and by Robin­son on his per­son­al Face­book page.

Robin­son as min­isol­dr ‘Slav­ery is not bad’

...

Writ­ing in a forum dis­cussing Black Repub­li­cans in Octo­ber 2010, Robin­son stat­ed unpro­voked: “I’m a black NAZI!”

That same month, Robin­son wrote in anoth­er post that he sup­port­ed the return of slav­ery.

“Slav­ery is not bad. Some peo­ple need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slav­ery) back. I would cer­tain­ly buy a few,” he wrote.

In March 2012, Robin­son wrote that he pre­ferred the for­mer leader of Nazi Ger­many Adolf Hitler over the lead­er­ship in Wash­ing­ton dur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion of Barack Oba­ma.

“I’d take Hitler over any of the sh*t that’s in Wash­ing­ton right now!” he wrote.

Robinson’s com­ments on Nude Africa often fre­quent­ly con­tained deroga­to­ry and racial slurs direct­ed at Black, Jew­ish and Mus­lim peo­ple.

In a series of sev­en posts in Octo­ber 2011, Robin­son dis­par­aged Mar­tin Luther King in such intense terms, call­ing him a “com­mie bas­tard,” “worse than a mag­got,” a “ho f**king, pho­ny,” and a “huck­ster,” that a user in the thread accused him of being in the KKK. Robin­son respond­ed by direct­ing a slur at King.

In Octo­ber 2010, Robin­son used the anti­se­mit­ic slur “hebe” when dis­cussing how he liked the show “Good Times” devel­oped by Nor­man Lear, say­ing “the show itself was a bunch of heb [sic] writ­ten lib­er­al bull­shit!”

While dis­cussing the Tal­iban, he referred to Mus­lims as “lit­tle rag-head­ed bas­tards” and said that “if Mus­lims took over lib­er­als would be the 1st ones to be behead­ed!”

Robin­son also used homo­pho­bic slurs fre­quent­ly, call­ing oth­er users f*gs.

In a large­ly pos­i­tive forum dis­cus­sion fea­tur­ing a pho­to of two men kiss­ing after one returned from a mil­i­tary deploy­ment, Robin­son wrote the sole neg­a­tive com­ment.

“That’s sum ole sick a** f*ggot bullsh*t!” he wrote.

———–

“‘I’m a black NAZI!’: NC GOP nom­i­nee for gov­er­nor made dozens of dis­turb­ing com­ments on porn forum” By Andrew Kaczyn­s­ki and Em Steck; CNN; 09/19/2024

“The com­ments, which Robin­son denies mak­ing, pre­date his entry into pol­i­tics and cur­rent stint as North Carolina’s lieu­tenant gov­er­nor. They were made under a user­name that CNN was able to iden­ti­fy as Robin­son by match­ing a litany of bio­graph­i­cal details and a shared email address between the two.”

It’s a con­ver­gence of evi­dence scat­tered across the web that, tak­en togeth­er, make the iden­ti­ty of the “I’m a black NAZI!” author abun­dant­ly clear. Mark Robin­son, the “Some folks need killing!” guy, is a self-declared Nazi. Who could have seen that com­ing:

...
Writ­ing in a forum dis­cussing Black Repub­li­cans in Octo­ber 2010, Robin­son stat­ed unpro­voked: “I’m a black NAZI!”

That same month, Robin­son wrote in anoth­er post that he sup­port­ed the return of slav­ery.

“Slav­ery is not bad. Some peo­ple need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slav­ery) back. I would cer­tain­ly buy a few,” he wrote.

In March 2012, Robin­son wrote that he pre­ferred the for­mer leader of Nazi Ger­many Adolf Hitler over the lead­er­ship in Wash­ing­ton dur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion of Barack Oba­ma.

“I’d take Hitler over any of the sh*t that’s in Wash­ing­ton right now!” he wrote.
...

But it’s not just the scan­dalous nature of Robin­son’s online anony­mous com­ments that make this the kind of sto­ry that like­ly won’t just grace­ful­ly fade away amid the din of dai­ly news. There’s also the fact that the Robin­son cam­paign has arrived at a strat­e­gy of insist­ing it’s all a hoax, despite the fact that it would be effec­tive­ly impos­si­ble to arrange for the array of years-old evi­dence this sto­ry is based on:

...
Many of Robinson’s com­ments were gra­tu­itous­ly sex­u­al and lewd in nature. They were made between 2008 and 2012 on “Nude Africa,” a porno­graph­ic web­site that includes a mes­sage board. The com­ments were made under the user­name min­isol­dr, a moniker Robin­son used fre­quent­ly online.

Robin­son list­ed his full name on his pro­file for Nude Africa, as well as an email address he used on numer­ous web­sites across the inter­net for decades.

...

In an inter­view with CNN on Thurs­day, Robin­son repeat­ed­ly denied that he made the com­ments on Nude Africa.

“This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not any­thing that is char­ac­ter­is­tic of me,” Robin­son said. Pre­sent­ed with the litany of evi­dence con­nect­ing him with the min­isol­dr user name on Nude Africa, Robin­son said, “I’m not going to get into the minu­tia of how some­body man­u­fac­tured this, these sala­cious tabloid lies.”

CNN first reached out to Robin­son Tues­day morn­ing with evi­dence con­nect­ing him to the com­ments on Nude Africa. It took his cam­paign two days to respond and issue a denial.
...

Com­pound­ing the evi­dence against Robin­son is the fact that the evi­dence includes infor­ma­tion released in a 2017 leak of infor­ma­tion from the com­ment­ing plat­form Dis­qus which fur­ther con­firms the use of the “min­isol­dr” user­name with Robin­son’s email address. It’s worth recall that this isn’t the first time a Dis­qus leak was used to out a promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive as an anony­mous online Nazi. Richard Hana­ni­a’s online per­sonas were also revealed thanks to a 2012 Dis­qus leak. Was the 2017 leaked Dis­qus data­base pre­emp­tive­ly hacked to impli­cate Mark Robin­son in 2024? Because that’s what would have been required for this to have been a real hack­ing oper­a­tion:

...
The email address asso­ci­at­ed with min­isol­dr on Nude Africa was also used by Robin­son else­where online and social media. On the com­ment­ing plat­form Dis­qus, a user who joined in April 2011 fea­tures Mark Robinson’s pho­to under the user­name min­isol­dr.

User­names and email address­es from Dis­qus were pub­licly leaked online in 2017, accord­ing to the com­pa­ny. CNN con­firmed that Robinson’s user­name min­isol­dr on Dis­qus shared the same email address as the one used on Nude Africa.

Robinson’s Dis­qus page is also linked to the Black social net­work­ing site Black Plan­et. The Web Archive shows a user named “min­isol­dr” described them­selves as 40 years old in Feb­ru­ary 2009 – the same age as Robin­son at the time – and liv­ing in Greens­boro, North Car­oli­na – Robinson’s home­town.
...

The ‘I was hacked’ defense may be an absurd ali­bi for Robin­son but it’s clear­ly the ali­bi he’s going with. And giv­en the pre­pon­der­ance of the evi­dence against him, ‘I was hacked!’ might be his best defense, if only to give sup­port­ers some­thing to pre­tend to believe. But as the fol­low­ing WaPo piece by Philip Bump notes, Robin­son isn’t just claim­ing to have been hacked. That’s old school. Instead, he’s mak­ing some sort of neb­u­lous ‘AI did it’ defense. Mark Robin­son can’t explain how AI did it, but he’s con­fi­dent AI is some­how the cul­prit:

The Wash­ing­ton Post

Mark Robin­son offers up the 2024 ver­sion of the I‑was-hacked defense

“AI” is the new “hack­ers.”

Col­umn by Philip Bump
Sep­tem­ber 20, 2024 at 12:33 p.m. EDT

One of the least cred­i­ble ways in which North Car­oli­na Lt. Gov. Mark Robin­son ® attempt­ed to dis­miss Thursday’s report about wild­ly offen­sive com­ments he made on the mes­sage board of a porno­graph­ic site years ago was that it didn’t sound like him.

“This is not my voice,” he told CNN’s Andrew Kaczyn­s­ki, whose team uncov­ered the com­ments. “These are not things that we would ever say or even think.”

The com­ments, Robin­son refer­ring to him­self as a “black NAZI” fore­most among them, are very much in keep­ing with his voice — at least, his voice before he became his party’s guber­na­to­r­i­al nom­i­nee. Robinson’s anti­se­mit­ic com­ments are well doc­u­ment­ed; oth­er pri­or report­ing offered insights into his pro­cliv­i­ty for adult enter­tain­ment. The CNN report, if any­thing, was sim­ply tying threads togeth­er.

What’s more, the report was robust. CNN’s team not only uncov­ered the com­ments, pub­lished more than a decade ago on a site called “Nude Africa,” but showed how details from that and oth­er sites tied Robin­son to the account and to the user­name “min­isol­dr,” under which the com­ments were post­ed. It’s a dig­i­tal trail that would be all but impos­si­ble to cre­ate arti­fi­cial­ly.

Yet that’s exact­ly what Robin­son sug­gest­ed had hap­pened.

“I’m not going to get into the minu­ti­ae of how some­body man­u­fac­tured these sala­cious tabloid lies,” he said. “But I can tell you this: There’s been over $1 mil­lion spent on me through AI by a billionaire’s son who’s bound and deter­mined to destroy me. The things that peo­ple can do with the inter­net now is incred­i­ble. But what I can tell you is this: Again, these are not my words.”

Kaczyn­s­ki pushed back: Was he sug­gest­ing some­one had invent­ed these com­ments and pinned them to Robin­son?

“Look,” Robin­son replied, “I have no idea how this was done.”

For years, the default response from politi­cians and pub­lic fig­ures dig­i­tal­ly linked to mis­takes or scan­dals was to assert they had been hacked. For­mer New York con­gress­man Antho­ny Wein­er sent a lewd pho­to to a young woman? Hack. A sports ana­lyst posts an incor­rect his­tor­i­cal point? Hacked.

...

Now, as reflect­ed in Robinson’s com­ments, there’s a new boogey­man: arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. We have all seen the way AI can be used to gen­er­ate star­tling­ly real­is­tic images and text; we know major insti­tu­tions are invest­ing bil­lions in ampli­fy­ing the technology’s capa­bil­i­ties. Those capa­bil­i­ties are still more lim­it­ed than the public’s imag­i­na­tion, in the same way that “hack­ing” has been mis­un­der­stood, mean­ing AI is an appeal­ing new vehi­cle for claims that a pri­mar­i­ly dig­i­tal scan­dal some­how stems from devi­ous robot influ­ence.

Before Robin­son, there was Don­ald Trump, claim­ing that Democ­rats used AI in prepar­ing videos for the House hear­ing on Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s han­dling of clas­si­fied mate­r­i­al or that a years-old pho­to of him was some­how per­haps gen­er­at­ed through arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. Trump has also claimed that Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris used AI to inflate the size of her crowds in pho­tos, some­thing that only some­one strange­ly obsessed with crowd size might enter­tain.

Seek­ing to rebut the CNN report­ing, Robin­son took the same tack. It is true, as he notes, that he has been the tar­get of AI-gen­er­at­ed imagery from a wealthy oppo­nent. But the use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence in that case isn’t to man­u­fac­ture false asser­tions from Robin­son. Instead, it’s to present writ­ten state­ments from the Repub­li­can can­di­date as spo­ken ones. This can be eval­u­at­ed on its own eth­i­cal mer­its, but it isn’t real­ly what Robin­son is try­ing to sug­gest hap­pened with the Nude Africa posts.

Robin­son waves away ques­tions about how this would work for the sim­ple rea­son that it wouldn’t. It is per­haps pos­si­ble that some­one went into the Nude Africa data­base of past com­ments and insert­ed ones attrib­uted to “min­isol­dr.” It’s pos­si­ble that an AI bot could be trained on Robinson’s past com­ments, mean­ing they would use sim­i­lar phras­es as ones he used in pub­lic posts, as CNN doc­u­ment­ed. (Which, by the way, severe­ly under­cuts the idea that the posts were not in his voice.)

This isn’t as easy as it seems, giv­en that the com­ments were part of ongo­ing inter­ac­tions, includ­ing respons­es from oth­er users. You’d have to cre­ate those, too, and inject them into the data­base — but then you’re mak­ing it rel­a­tive­ly easy to val­i­date those users and their dig­i­tal trails. Oh, what a tan­gled web we weave when first we train an algo­rithm to deceive.

And all of this to what end? To put slight­ly more out­ra­geous words in Robinson’s mouth? To tie him to a slight­ly more sala­cious com­mu­ni­ty? It seems clear that one rea­son the CNN report was such a sen­sa­tion was that there had been hours of hints that it was com­ing — hints cen­tered around the North Car­oli­na Repub­li­can Party’s obvi­ous inter­est in find­ing a last-minute replace­ment for their already-trail­ing-bad­ly can­di­date. This became a big thing in part, it seems, because some Repub­li­cans want­ed it to be a big thing.

...

————

“Mark Robin­son offers up the 2024 ver­sion of the I‑was-hacked defense” by Philip Bump; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 09/20/2024

“What’s more, the report was robust. CNN’s team not only uncov­ered the com­ments, pub­lished more than a decade ago on a site called “Nude Africa,” but showed how details from that and oth­er sites tied Robin­son to the account and to the user­name “min­isol­dr,” under which the com­ments were post­ed. It’s a dig­i­tal trail that would be all but impos­si­ble to cre­ate arti­fi­cial­ly.”

As Philip Bump describes, you real­ly can’t fea­si­bly arti­fi­cial­ly cre­ate the dig­i­tal trail this sto­ry is based on. The incrim­i­nat­ing data is tri­an­gu­lat­ed across too many dif­fer­ent web­sites. But that impos­si­bil­i­ty isn’t pre­vent­ing the Robin­son cam­paign from insist­ing that ‘AI’ is some­how behind it. A claim con­sis­tent­ly with the ‘AI did it’ theme we’ve been hear­ing com­ing out of the Trump cam­paign already this year. In oth­er words, expect more ‘It was AI’ claims in the face of future sor­did sto­ries like this:

...
Yet that’s exact­ly what Robin­son sug­gest­ed had hap­pened.

“I’m not going to get into the minu­ti­ae of how some­body man­u­fac­tured these sala­cious tabloid lies,” he said. “But I can tell you this: There’s been over $1 mil­lion spent on me through AI by a billionaire’s son who’s bound and deter­mined to destroy me. The things that peo­ple can do with the inter­net now is incred­i­ble. But what I can tell you is this: Again, these are not my words.”

Kaczyn­s­ki pushed back: Was he sug­gest­ing some­one had invent­ed these com­ments and pinned them to Robin­son?

“Look,” Robin­son replied, “I have no idea how this was done.”

...

Now, as reflect­ed in Robinson’s com­ments, there’s a new boogey­man: arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. We have all seen the way AI can be used to gen­er­ate star­tling­ly real­is­tic images and text; we know major insti­tu­tions are invest­ing bil­lions in ampli­fy­ing the technology’s capa­bil­i­ties. Those capa­bil­i­ties are still more lim­it­ed than the public’s imag­i­na­tion, in the same way that “hack­ing” has been mis­un­der­stood, mean­ing AI is an appeal­ing new vehi­cle for claims that a pri­mar­i­ly dig­i­tal scan­dal some­how stems from devi­ous robot influ­ence.

Before Robin­son, there was Don­ald Trump, claim­ing that Democ­rats used AI in prepar­ing videos for the House hear­ing on Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s han­dling of clas­si­fied mate­r­i­al or that a years-old pho­to of him was some­how per­haps gen­er­at­ed through arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. Trump has also claimed that Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris used AI to inflate the size of her crowds in pho­tos, some­thing that only some­one strange­ly obsessed with crowd size might enter­tain.
...

But then there’s this unfor­tu­nate com­pli­ca­tion: it real­ly is the case that a group actu­al­ly has used AI to cre­ate qua­si-fake Mark Robin­son audio clips. Fake in the sense that these audio clips are all AI gen­er­at­ed voic­es intend­ed to sound like Mark Robin­son, but real in the sense that these are all things Robin­son has writ­ten. So this group effec­tive­ly put Robin­son’s own writ­ten words into his mouth, thanks to AI:

...
Seek­ing to rebut the CNN report­ing, Robin­son took the same tack. It is true, as he notes, that he has been the tar­get of AI-gen­er­at­ed imagery from a wealthy oppo­nent. But the use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence in that case isn’t to man­u­fac­ture false asser­tions from Robin­son. Instead, it’s to present writ­ten state­ments from the Repub­li­can can­di­date as spo­ken ones. This can be eval­u­at­ed on its own eth­i­cal mer­its, but it isn’t real­ly what Robin­son is try­ing to sug­gest hap­pened with the Nude Africa posts.
...

Will the Robin­son cam­paign suc­cess­ful­ly dis­si­pate this scan­dal through an ‘AI did it!’ deflec­tion? That’s clear­ly the strat­e­gy the cam­paign is deploy­ing. And as the fol­low­ing arti­cle notes, the group behind those AI ads had more ads in mind:

Indy­Week

Raleigh Mil­lion­aire Launch­es AI Attack Cam­paign Tar­get­ing Mark Robin­son

Todd Stiefel’s satire PAC is launch­ing a mobile and dig­i­tal cam­paign fea­tur­ing the Repub­li­can guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date speak­ing in an AI-gen­er­at­ed voice.

by Chase Pel­le­gri­ni de Paur 09/12/2024

Any­one strolling through Raleigh this week­end may hear the voice of Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Mark Robin­son blast­ing from an elec­tron­ic bill­board on the side of a truck.

“MLK was a com­mu­nist,” Robinson’s voice says, speak­ing over an image of him­self point­ing into the face of the revered leader. “And the Civ­il Rights Move­ment was CRAP!” he adds, edit­ed into the bus seat next to Rosa Parks.

On anoth­er slide, his voice calls the afford­able care act “an effort to enslave every­body” while he pos­es, tin hat perched on his bald head, in front of an Illu­mi­nati con­spir­a­cy board.

But Robin­son, Repub­li­can can­di­date for gov­er­nor, didn’t sit down to record those lines for the ads. The sounds weren’t even spliced togeth­er from past clips. Instead, his voice was dig­i­tal­ly created—to read quotes and beliefs tak­en from his old Face­book posts, ral­lies, and media appearances—with AI.

The cam­paign is the lat­est from Amer­i­cans for Prospar­o­dy (not to be con­fused with Koch broth­ers-backed con­ser­v­a­tive Amer­i­cans for Pros­per­i­ty), a satire polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee (PAC) found­ed and fund­ed by Raleigh mil­lion­aire and activist Todd Stiefel.

...

Even by the stan­dards of a polit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions world rav­aged by Don­ald Trump and the Supreme Court’s Cit­i­zens Unit­ed deci­sion, the ads run­ning in Raleigh are pret­ty wild. But the Amer­i­cans for Prospar­o­dy ads that didn’t make it onto the truck are even more jaw-drop­ping.

In one, Robin­son, in a red one­sie with dev­il horns and wings, con­fess­es that he is a mur­der­er because he paid for his now-wife’s abor­tion. In anoth­er, he holds a sev­ered head and a cross and tells the view­er to “take the head of your ene­my in God’s name!”

...

Dur­ing the spring’s pri­ma­ry, Amer­i­cans for Prospar­o­dy ran sev­er­al sim­i­lar ads focused on Robin­son before he was offi­cial­ly the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee. Those ads fea­tured the more car­toon­ish “Mark Rot­ten­son” char­ac­ter, with a vil­lain­ous mus­tache and an old-timey hat. (Accord­ing to PAC fil­ings, those mobile bill­boards cost $66,000).

“I want­ed it to be as obvi­ous as pos­si­ble that [Rot­ten­son] was par­o­dy and satire,” says Stiefel. But the PAC quick­ly ran into anoth­er problem—lieutenant gov­er­nor isn’t exact­ly a posi­tion with a lot of star pow­er, so many peo­ple didn’t know who Robin­son was, or wouldn’t have rec­og­nized his like­ness, to begin with.

That’s why the cur­rent cam­paign fea­tures Robin­son with­out any props. It also means the PAC has to be more care­ful about the script it writes for the AI voice, as the imi­ta­tion is cer­tain­ly good enough to make a passer­by stop and won­der if Robin­son real­ly said that.

For the most part, Robin­son did. But by using some real quotes along­side some satir­i­cal con­tent, all in Robinson’s AI voice, some of the ads blur the line between real­i­ty and par­o­dy.

In March, that debat­able dis­tinc­tion had both Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans speak­ing out against the Rot­ten­son cam­paign.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Josh Stein’s cam­paign told WRAL that “any use of AI to mis­lead vot­ers is unequiv­o­cal­ly wrong and has no place in this cam­paign,” while Robin­son cam­paign spokesper­son Michael Lon­er­gan told INDY that “Stiefel’s low-rent web­site is full of fake clips and out­ra­geous lies. North Car­oli­na vot­ers will see right through it.”

Lon­er­gan also called the site “a typ­i­cal Demo­c­rat smear cam­paign,” and point­ed out that Stiefel is a major Stein donor. (Stiefel is an unaf­fil­i­at­ed vot­er, but has donat­ed at least $40,000 to Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates and PACs in 2024 alone and at least $18,000 to Stein since 2016.)

For one 2023 dona­tion, Stiefel list­ed his occu­pa­tion as “provo­ca­teur.”

Stiefel says the cur­rent bill­board cam­paign cost $23,000, and will run through the month. The press release not­ed that the ads are “part of a larg­er buy to be announced in the com­ing days.”

———–

“Raleigh Mil­lion­aire Launch­es AI Attack Cam­paign Tar­get­ing Mark Robin­son” by Chase Pel­le­gri­ni de Paur; Indy­Week; 09/12/2024

“But Robin­son, Repub­li­can can­di­date for gov­er­nor, didn’t sit down to record those lines for the ads. The sounds weren’t even spliced togeth­er from past clips. Instead, his voice was dig­i­tal­ly created—to read quotes and beliefs tak­en from his old Face­book posts, ral­lies, and media appearances—with AI.”

Yes, AI was used to put words in Mark Robin­son’s mouth. Except they hap­pen to be Robin­son’s own words. Unless, of course, we assume all of the sala­cious com­ments this group attrib­uted to Robin­son were actu­al­ly the result of some sort of hack­ing oper­a­tion. A sil­ly assump­tion but one the Robin­son cam­paign is obvi­ous­ly hap­py to encour­age:

...
The cam­paign is the lat­est from Amer­i­cans for Prospar­o­dy (not to be con­fused with Koch broth­ers-backed con­ser­v­a­tive Amer­i­cans for Pros­per­i­ty), a satire polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee (PAC) found­ed and fund­ed by Raleigh mil­lion­aire and activist Todd Stiefel.

...

Dur­ing the spring’s pri­ma­ry, Amer­i­cans for Prospar­o­dy ran sev­er­al sim­i­lar ads focused on Robin­son before he was offi­cial­ly the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee. Those ads fea­tured the more car­toon­ish “Mark Rot­ten­son” char­ac­ter, with a vil­lain­ous mus­tache and an old-timey hat. (Accord­ing to PAC fil­ings, those mobile bill­boards cost $66,000).

“I want­ed it to be as obvi­ous as pos­si­ble that [Rot­ten­son] was par­o­dy and satire,” says Stiefel. But the PAC quick­ly ran into anoth­er problem—lieutenant gov­er­nor isn’t exact­ly a posi­tion with a lot of star pow­er, so many peo­ple didn’t know who Robin­son was, or wouldn’t have rec­og­nized his like­ness, to begin with.

That’s why the cur­rent cam­paign fea­tures Robin­son with­out any props. It also means the PAC has to be more care­ful about the script it writes for the AI voice, as the imi­ta­tion is cer­tain­ly good enough to make a passer­by stop and won­der if Robin­son real­ly said that.

For the most part, Robin­son did. But by using some real quotes along­side some satir­i­cal con­tent, all in Robinson’s AI voice, some of the ads blur the line between real­i­ty and par­o­dy.
...

Of course, as the fol­low­ing arti­cle notes, it’s not like Mark Robin­son’s sup­port­ers are hav­ing a hard time dis­miss­ing all of these reports as just ‘fake news’. Or even just ‘old news’ that might be true but isn’t real­ly rel­e­vant. It’s the oth­er side of this wild sto­ry: the ques­tion of whether or not the Robin­son cam­paign can defuse this issue isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly the pri­ma­ry ques­tion fac­ing the cam­paign. Instead, the big ques­tion is whether or not vot­ers will even care. This is the polit­i­cal era of Trump, after all. Do enough North Car­oli­na vot­ers even care of Mark Robin­son is a self-declared Black Nazi? It remains an open ques­tion. Either way, the North Car­oli­na GOP and Trump cam­paign are stick­ing with Robin­son:

The Wash­ing­ton Post

Mark Robinson’s porn site scan­dal greet­ed with shrugs by some Trump back­ers

The rev­e­la­tions sur­round­ing the N.C. guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date mark a test of vot­ers’ tol­er­ance for dis­turb­ing alle­ga­tions in the Trump era.

By Han­nah Knowles
Updat­ed Sep­tem­ber 22, 2024 at 6:37 p.m. EDT|Published Sep­tem­ber 22, 2024 at 1:30 p.m. EDT

WILMINGTON, N.C. — The scan­dal engulf­ing Mark Robinson’s cam­paign for North Car­oli­na gov­er­nor seems career-end­ing to many in pol­i­tics. At Don­ald Trump’s ral­ly here this week­end, how­ev­er, plen­ty of peo­ple weren’t both­ered.

So what if Robin­son, the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for gov­er­nor, is linked to the account of a porn site user who once argued for the rein­state­ment of slav­ery, detailed an affair with his wife’s sis­ter, called him­self a “black NAZI” and praised Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” as “a good read”?

“I didn’t put much cre­dence in it,” Bob Jud­son, a 70-year-old unaf­fil­i­at­ed vot­er, said of the alle­ga­tions against Robin­son. “We’ve all done things in our past that we’re sor­ry for. Some of the things are crazy.”

“I mean,” he added, “if we just went on that, we wouldn’t be here for Trump, would we?”

Robinson’s con­test has become a remark­able test case of vot­ers and GOP lead­ers’ tol­er­ance for dis­turb­ing alle­ga­tions against can­di­dates in the Trump era — when news is deeply dis­trust­ed, scan­dals car­ry less weight and no offense seems to be enough to rat­tle Trump’s base.

Still, the accu­sa­tions about Robin­son are dam­ag­ing enough that Trump steered clear of the can­di­date at his Wilm­ing­ton, N.C., ral­ly on Sat­ur­day, mak­ing no men­tion of his long­time ally days after CNN report­ed that Robin­son made shock­ing com­ments on a porn forum more than a decade ago. Some Repub­li­can offi­cials, such as Sen. Thom Tillis (R‑N.C.), have said the report­ing rais­es seri­ous con­cerns if true. Robinson’s cam­paign announced Sun­day evening that four senior staffers, includ­ing the cam­paign man­ag­er, had resigned.

...

But Robin­son, the lieu­tenant gov­er­nor of North Car­oli­na, has respond­ed with Trump-like defi­ance, deny­ing any involve­ment and rail­ing against “sala­cious tabloid lies.” The North Car­oli­na GOP fol­lowed suit, issu­ing a state­ment of sup­port and sug­gest­ing the polit­i­cal left is “try­ing to demo­nize [Robin­son] via per­son­al attacks.” Trump has not denounced Robin­son or the com­ments attrib­uted to him, and the gen­er­al strat­e­gy at Trump’s ral­ly seemed to be to ignore the issue.

On Sat­ur­day, Sen. JD Vance (R‑Ohio), Trump’s run­ning mate, dodged ques­tions from an NBC reporter on whether he believed Robinson’s claim that the offen­sive posts weren’t his.

“I don’t not believe him, I don’t believe him — I just think you have to let these things play out some­times in the court of pub­lic opin­ion,” Vance respond­ed.

Dan Bish­op, the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for North Car­oli­na attor­ney gen­er­al, was the out­lier. He spent much of his ral­ly speech denounc­ing “white suprema­cist Democ­rats” from the 1890s before blam­ing Democ­rats for the Robin­son dra­ma and sug­gest­ing, inac­cu­rate­ly, that hack­ing was required to obtain the porn site posts.

“This week in North Car­oli­na, Democ­rats sud­den­ly aban­doned their aver­sion to hack and dump, rolled out a metic­u­lous­ly timed and coor­di­nat­ed char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tion, and then moved imme­di­ate­ly to smear by asso­ci­a­tion,” Bish­op said. “Their aim, they say, is to dis­grace not just one but all Repub­li­can can­di­dates, in the name of decen­cy, they say.”

...

Trump ral­ly­go­er Con­nie Wittmer said she was will­ing to look past Robinson’s past con­tro­ver­sies — like his com­ment that women get abor­tions because they couldn’t keep their “skirt down” — but hes­i­tat­ed when a reporter described the porn site posts. “That dis­turbs me,” she said. She would have to think about her vote.

Yet the range of reac­tions to the past week’s bomb­shells reflect the dif­fi­cul­ty of pierc­ing par­ti­san loy­al­ty — and echo years of dis­mis­sive respons­es to con­tro­ver­sies around Trump, who won in 2016 despite a record­ing in which he bragged that he could grab women by their gen­i­tals.

Kirk Giles, 50, down­played the alle­ga­tions against Robin­son as nor­mal male behav­ior.

“There’s not a man alive that’s nev­er looked at porn or did some­thing stu­pid on porn because we’re men,” he said at the Wilm­ing­ton ral­ly. “That’s what men do.” Beside him, his friend Don Bussey said he was still vot­ing for Robin­son, too.

A reporter sug­gest­ed that most men on porn sites don’t praise “Mein Kampf.”

“There’s a lot of men that say some stu­pid stuff on those porn sites,” Giles said. “The thing is, you say some stu­pid stuff just to get atten­tion. Peo­ple strive for atten­tion. There’s atten­tion-seek­ers out there.”

Oth­ers cast doubt on the report­ing about Robin­son, bol­stered by years of Trump and oth­er Repub­li­cans decry­ing “fake news.” Allen Can­non, 70, said he doesn’t trust CNN and not­ed, “It was 10 years ago.” His wife, 69-year-old Rose Can­non, thought of all the alle­ga­tions against Trump they believed were unfair.

There was E. Jean Carroll’s alle­ga­tion that Trump sex­u­al­ly assault­ed her in a depart­ment store in the 1990s; Trump was found liable for sex­u­al abuse last year in civ­il court and ordered to pay more than $80 mil­lion in dam­ages. “And then all these charges,” Rose Can­non said. “It’s just, I don’t believe all that. I think all that is wrong.”

“When I hear him talk … he’s a very pos­i­tive, strong man,” she said of Robin­son. “Now that this has hap­pened, I don’t know. We’ll hear through it, and see what we think.”

....

———–

“Mark Robinson’s porn site scan­dal greet­ed with shrugs by some Trump back­ers” By Han­nah Knowles; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 09/22/2024

“Dan Bish­op, the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for North Car­oli­na attor­ney gen­er­al, was the out­lier. He spent much of his ral­ly speech denounc­ing “white suprema­cist Democ­rats” from the 1890s before blam­ing Democ­rats for the Robin­son dra­ma and sug­gest­ing, inac­cu­rate­ly, that hack­ing was required to obtain the porn site posts.”

As we can see, the North Car­oli­na GOP is ral­ly­ing around Robin­son, echo­ing the ‘hack­ing’ alle­ga­tions. And then there’s the Trump vot­ers who point out that, if they were to turn on Robin­son for say­ing out­ra­geous things, “we wouldn’t be here for Trump, would we?” It’s a pret­ty suc­cinct way to put it:

...
“I didn’t put much cre­dence in it,” Bob Jud­son, a 70-year-old unaf­fil­i­at­ed vot­er, said of the alle­ga­tions against Robin­son. “We’ve all done things in our past that we’re sor­ry for. Some of the things are crazy.”

“I mean,” he added, “if we just went on that, we wouldn’t be here for Trump, would we?”

...

But Robin­son, the lieu­tenant gov­er­nor of North Car­oli­na, has respond­ed with Trump-like defi­ance, deny­ing any involve­ment and rail­ing against “sala­cious tabloid lies.” The North Car­oli­na GOP fol­lowed suit, issu­ing a state­ment of sup­port and sug­gest­ing the polit­i­cal left is “try­ing to demo­nize [Robin­son] via per­son­al attacks.” Trump has not denounced Robin­son or the com­ments attrib­uted to him, and the gen­er­al strat­e­gy at Trump’s ral­ly seemed to be to ignore the issue.

On Sat­ur­day, Sen. JD Vance (R‑Ohio), Trump’s run­ning mate, dodged ques­tions from an NBC reporter on whether he believed Robinson’s claim that the offen­sive posts weren’t his.

“I don’t not believe him, I don’t believe him — I just think you have to let these things play out some­times in the court of pub­lic opin­ion,” Vance respond­ed.
...

And that’s all why it remains to be seen just how much dam­age this sto­ry is ulti­mate­ly going to do to Mark Robin­son’s can­di­da­cy. The guy was a rav­ing lunatic long before this sto­ry, after all.

But as we’re going to see in the fol­low­ing pair of arti­cles, part of what makes the lat­est Robin­son scan­dal so fas­ci­nat­ing is that it’s kind of an inver­sion of the kind of ‘big data’ fueled ‘analy­sis’ that we should prob­a­bly expect from the theo­crat­ic far right should Don­ald Trump return to the White House. Project 2025 is a plan for a nation­wide domin­ion­ist purge, after all. And that brings us to the fol­low­ing sto­ry from March of 2023 about a theo­crat­ic ‘big data’ project that could be seen as a kind of ‘proof of con­cept’ ini­tia­tive: a secret group armed with data pur­chased from the large­ly unreg­u­lat­ed online data bro­ker­age indus­try fig­ured out how to iden­ti­fy priests using gay ‘hookup’ dat­ing apps like Grindr. It was­n’t a par­tic­u­lar­ly tricky method. All they did was use com­mer­cial­ly avail­able infor­ma­tion from adver­tis­ers that includ­ed loca­tion data on where the ads were served (for exam­ple, the approx­i­mate loca­tion of the phones receiv­ing ads deliv­ered through Grindr) and com­bined that with pub­licly avail­able address infor­ma­tion. So if a bunch of ads on Grindr are seen in the area of, say, a priest’s home or office, you can be at least some­what con­fi­dent about the iden­ti­ty of the per­son using that Grindr app.

Then there’s the inter­est the­ol­o­gy found with the phil­an­thropist trustees: Mark Bau­man, John Mar­tin and Tim Reichert. As we’re going to see below, Reichert ran in the GOP pri­ma­ry for a Col­orado con­gres­sion­al seat in 2022. And while he did­n’t win that pri­ma­ry, the race end­ed up expos­ing the extreme­ness of Reichert’s world­view. As Reichert sees it, not only is every abor­tion an act of child sac­ri­fice on the altar of Baal, but the great­est threat fac­ing the West is con­tra­cep­tion.

Sin­gle women using ‘hookup apps’ are also a prob­lem, in Reichert’s view. Did Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al make any attempts to iden­ti­fy oth­er peo­ple using the var­i­ous hookup apps they had data on? We have no idea, but that’s part of what makes this sto­ry about the secret out­ing of gay priests using com­mer­cial­ly avail­able inter­net data a sto­ry to watch. Because if we do end up see­ing Project 2025 put into action, odds are it’s going to be a ‘big data’ project that tar­gets a lot more than just gay priests:

The Wash­ing­ton Post

Catholic group spent mil­lions on app data that tracked gay priests

A group of phil­an­thropists poured mon­ey into a Den­ver non­prof­it that obtained dat­ing and hookup app data and shared it with bish­ops around the coun­try, a Post inves­ti­ga­tion has found

By Michelle Boorstein and Heather Kel­ly
March 9, 2023 at 8:52 a.m. EST

A group of con­ser­v­a­tive Col­orado Catholics has spent mil­lions of dol­lars to buy mobile app track­ing data that iden­ti­fied priests who used gay dat­ing and hookup apps and then shared it with bish­ops around the coun­try.

The secre­tive effort was the work of a Den­ver non­prof­it called Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al, whose trustees are phil­an­thropists Mark Bau­man, John Mar­tin and Tim Reichert, accord­ing to pub­lic records, an audio record­ing of the nonprofit’s pres­i­dent dis­cussing its mis­sion and oth­er doc­u­ments. The use of data is emblem­at­ic of a new sur­veil­lance fron­tier in which pri­vate indi­vid­u­als can poten­tial­ly track oth­er Amer­i­cans’ loca­tions and activ­i­ties using com­mer­cial­ly avail­able infor­ma­tion. No U.S. data pri­va­cy laws pro­hib­it the sale of this data.

The project’s aim, accord­ing to tax records, is to “empow­er the church to car­ry out its mis­sion” by giv­ing bish­ops “evi­dence-based resources” with which to iden­ti­fy weak­ness­es in how they train priests.

In response to requests for com­ment and a detailed list of ques­tions, a spokesper­son for Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al ini­tial­ly said the group’s pres­i­dent, Jayd Hen­ricks, would agree to an inter­view at a cer­tain time, but Hen­ricks did not call or return sev­er­al mes­sages seek­ing com­ment. After The Wash­ing­ton Post reached out again, Hen­ricks on Wednes­day post­ed a first-per­son piece on the site First Things, say­ing he was proud to be part of the group, whose pur­pose was “to love the Church and to help the Church to be holy, with every tool she could be giv­en,” includ­ing data. He wrote that the group has done oth­er research, in addi­tion to the analy­sis of dat­ing and hookup apps.

The Post inter­viewed two peo­ple with first­hand knowl­edge of the project, heard an audio record­ing of Hen­ricks dis­cussing it, and reviewed doc­u­ments that were pre­pared for bish­ops as well as pub­lic records. One of the two peo­ple works for the church and spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because they were not autho­rized to talk about it. The sec­ond per­son is active in the church in Col­orado, knows some of the project’s orga­niz­ers, and spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because the project is not sup­posed to be pub­lic. Both dis­ap­prove of the project because they see it as spy­ing and coer­cive in ways that are dam­ag­ing to priest-bish­op rela­tions and to the rep­u­ta­tion of the Catholic Church and thus its abil­i­ty to evan­ge­lize. They also see the project as tak­ing a sim­plis­tic approach to moral­i­ty that they call un-Catholic.

Some of the men who are part of the Renew­al project were also involved in the July 2021 out­ing of a promi­nent priest, Mon­sign­or Jef­frey Bur­rill, accord­ing to the two peo­ple with first­hand knowl­edge of the project and com­ments by the group’s pres­i­dent on the audio record­ing. Bur­rill, who declined to com­ment for this sto­ry, resigned from his post as the top admin­is­tra­tor at the U.S. Con­fer­ence of Catholic Bish­ops (USCCB) after a Catholic news site, the Pil­lar, said it had mobile app data show­ing he was a reg­u­lar on Grindr and had gone to a gay bar and a gay bath­house and spa. The Pil­lar did not say where its data came from.

...

Until now, the peo­ple behind Burrill’s out­ing and the extent of the project were not pub­lic, nor was the fact that the effort con­tin­ued — for at least anoth­er year after that inci­dent, accord­ing to the peo­ple famil­iar with it and doc­u­ments.

“The pow­er of this sto­ry is that you don’t often see where these prac­tices are linked to a spe­cif­ic per­son or group of peo­ple. Here, you can clear­ly see the link,” said Justin Sher­man, a senior fel­low at Duke University’s pub­lic pol­i­cy school, who focus­es on data pri­va­cy issues. The num­ber of data pri­va­cy laws in the coun­try, he said, “you can count them on one or two hands.”

Accord­ing to two sep­a­rate reports pre­pared for bish­ops and reviewed by The Post, the group says it obtained data that spans 2018 through 2021 for mul­ti­ple dat­ing and hookup apps includ­ing Grindr, Scruff, Growlr and Jack’d, all used by gay men, as well as OkCu­pid, a major site for peo­ple of var­i­ous sex­u­al­i­ties. But most of the data appears to be from Grindr, and those famil­iar with the project said the orga­niz­ers’ focus was gay priests.

...

One report pre­pared for bish­ops says the group’s sources are data bro­kers who got the infor­ma­tion from ad exchanges, which are sites where ads are bought and sold in real time, like a stock mar­ket. The group cross-ref­er­enced loca­tion data from the apps and oth­er details with loca­tions of church res­i­dences, work­places and sem­i­nar­ies to find cler­gy who were alleged­ly active on the apps, accord­ing to one of the reports and also the audio­tape of the group’s pres­i­dent.

Sher­man said police depart­ments have bought data about cit­i­zens instead of seek­ing a war­rant, domes­tic abusers have accessed data about their vic­tims, and antiabor­tion activists have used data to tar­get peo­ple who vis­it clin­ics.

But Ben­nett Cyphers, a spe­cial advis­er to the Elec­tron­ic Fron­tier Foun­da­tion, a dig­i­tal rights orga­ni­za­tion, said the Bur­rill sto­ry was the first time he had heard of a pri­vate group buy­ing com­mer­cial data and using it against a spe­cif­ic indi­vid­ual.

“It was the first nee­dle-in-a-haystack case, where some­one sifts through mil­lions of loca­tions in apps and looks for one per­son and then tries to use that info to impeach them,” Cyphers said. “It was a char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tion of a pri­vate cit­i­zen for some kind of polit­i­cal rea­son based on infor­ma­tion [the cit­i­zen] didn’t know they were being tracked on.”

...

The Rev. Ger­ald Mur­ray, a New York City canon lawyer who offers church com­men­tary on the Catholic chan­nel EWTN and Fox News, said Bur­rill being a priest in a promi­nent role makes any mis­be­hav­ior “a much greater scan­dal” and essen­tial­ly elim­i­nates his right to pri­va­cy.

“The promise of celiba­cy is a pub­lic act, it’s not a pri­vate com­mit­ment. It’s of pub­lic inter­est when those are vio­lat­ed in a scan­dalous way,” he said.

The Renew­al group has spent at least $4 mil­lion, accord­ing to the record­ing of Hen­ricks, and approached more than a dozen bish­ops with the infor­ma­tion. It’s not clear what impact the project is hav­ing on cler­gy who the data sug­gests have active­ly used a dat­ing or hookup app on their phone. Except for Bur­rill, it is not known whether the data has led to the res­ig­na­tion or ter­mi­na­tion of any oth­er priests or sem­i­nar­i­ans. One of the two peo­ple famil­iar with the project said peo­ple may be kept from pro­mo­tions or wind up in ear­ly retire­ment but not know why.

The project’s exis­tence reflects a new­ly empow­ered Amer­i­can Catholic right wing that sees enforc­ing its inter­pre­ta­tion of church teach­ing on sex­u­al­i­ty and gen­der as an exis­ten­tial issue for the church and that no longer trusts bish­ops to do so. It is a flip of tra­di­tion­al church pow­er dynam­ics, with the Col­orado laypeo­ple in a posi­tion to pres­sure bish­ops.

At the most inti­mate lev­el, it shows a new gen­er­a­tion of sur­veil­lance tech­nol­o­gy mov­ing into dif­fer­ent realms, now includ­ing the reli­gious.

“Reveal­ing infor­ma­tion that harms a person’s rep­u­ta­tion with­out an objec­tive­ly valid rea­son — even if it’s true — is con­sid­ered a sin,” said a mem­ber of the USCCB who knows Bur­rill and watched the mon­sign­or expe­ri­ence “intense emo­tion­al dis­tress” when his ori­en­ta­tion and use of Grindr were made pub­lic in 2021. This per­son spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because of their work­ing rela­tion­ship with bish­ops. This per­son had heard about the data project before the Bur­rill news from anoth­er per­son who was approached by the non­prof­it who told the USCCB mem­ber the effort was main­ly focused on expos­ing gay priests.

A data project

In 2018, a man “con­cerned with reform­ing the Catholic cler­gy” approached a few Catholic orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Catholic News Agency, accord­ing to a cryp­tic arti­cle CNA pub­lished the day before the Bur­rill sto­ry broke.

That 2018 pitch, CNA report­ed, “was to pro­vide this infor­ma­tion pri­vate­ly to Church offi­cials in the hopes that they would dis­ci­pline or remove those found to be using these tech­nolo­gies to vio­late their cler­i­cal vows and pos­si­bly bring scan­dal to the Church.” CNA had declined the man’s offer, the sto­ry said, “but there are reports this week that infor­ma­tion tar­get­ing alleged­ly active homo­sex­u­al priests may become pub­lic.”

Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al opened for busi­ness in June 2019, incor­po­ra­tion records show. The non­prof­it was cre­at­ed to “sup­port the com­mit­ment of Roman Catholic cler­gy to liv­ing the teach­ings of the church,” its 2019 tax fil­ing states. Its pur­pose is “to work sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly with bish­ops, priests, reli­gious and sem­i­nar­i­ans to … pro­vide evi­dence-based resources to bish­ops that enable them to effec­tive­ly judge and sup­port qual­i­ty for­ma­tion prac­tices, and [to] iden­ti­fy weak­ness­es in cur­rent for­ma­tion prac­tices and priest­ly life.”

It’s not clear if or how the Renew­al group is con­nect­ed to the man who approached CNA.

Bau­man, Mar­tin and Reichert are list­ed as trustees on the nonprofit’s tax fil­ings for the two years they are pub­licly avail­able.

Mar­tin is a co-founder of one of the largest nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­ers in the west­ern Unit­ed States, McMur­ry Oil Co. He sup­ports many char­i­ta­ble efforts through his and his wife’s Mar­tin Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion. Those include his co-found­ing of the Amaz­ing Parish, a nation­al con­sult­ing firm to help improve parish­es, and major dona­tions to the caus­es of cam­pus evan­ge­liza­tion, antiabor­tion, anti-pover­ty and reli­gious edu­ca­tion. He con­tributed $555,000 to Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al over two years, tax records show.

Bau­man is a for­mer enter­tain­ment com­pa­ny exec­u­tive who is now pres­i­dent of the board of Christ in the City, a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that trains mis­sion­ar­ies and serves the home­less. He is a bene­fac­tor of some of the same Den­ver-area groups as Mar­tin and Reichert, includ­ing Catholic Char­i­ties and Focus cam­pus min­istry. He did not donate mon­ey to the Renew­al group in 2019 or 2020, accord­ing to tax doc­u­ments.

Reichert is the founder of Eco­nom­ics Part­ners, a con­sult­ing firm that employs dozens of econ­o­mists. He ran unsuc­cess­ful­ly for Con­gress last year in the cen­tral 7th Dis­trict as a Repub­li­can. With his wife, he gives major gifts to Catholic Char­i­ties, Moth­er Teresa’s order Mis­sion­ar­ies of Char­i­ty and col­lege evan­ge­liza­tion. The cou­ple also gave $600,000 to Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al over two years, accord­ing to the group’s tax returns.

In a speech last year giv­en to a Catholic Char­i­ties men’s break­fast, Reichert said Chris­tians need to oppose false ideas like “post-Chris­tian­i­ty” or “plu­ral­ism,” which he calls a “fool’s errand.” Instead, he said, they need to bold­ly pros­e­ly­tize and not wor­ry about being unpop­u­lar or can­celed. “To be free, one has to be will­ing to lose one’s rep­u­ta­tion. That’s the way they’ve set up the game.”

Accord­ing to two peo­ple with knowl­edge of the project, the phil­an­thropists hired Hen­ricks, the for­mer head of gov­ern­ment rela­tions for the USCCB, the orga­nized body of Catholic lead­ers in the Unit­ed States. Hen­ricks by then had moved from D.C. to Den­ver to work for the Augus­tine Insti­tute, a Catholic grad­u­ate school. Mar­tin and Bau­man have donat­ed to the school. Reichert’s wife, Martha, is list­ed as a staff mem­ber there.

Tax doc­u­ments for Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al show rev­enue of $1.5 mil­lion in 2019 and $1.8 mil­lion in 2020, the most recent year infor­ma­tion is pub­lic. Most of the mon­ey each year was spent on “data and com­put­ing,” staff salaries and attor­neys’ fees.

The law firm rep­re­sent­ing the group is D.C.-based Schaerr-Jaffe, found­ed by Gene Schaerr, a mem­ber of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints who has called fight­ing same-sex mar­riage “a reli­gious duty.” Schaerr advis­es evan­gel­i­cal col­leges on how to pro­tect their gov­ern­ment fund­ing while uphold­ing prac­tices such as bar­ring LGBTQ stu­dent clubs.

...

Oth­er donors to the non­prof­it include the Catholic Foun­da­tion of North­ern Col­orado, which works in tan­dem with the Arch­dio­cese of Den­ver to sup­port its min­istries and parish­es. The foun­da­tion gave the Renew­al group $400,000 in the two years for which tax forms are avail­able.

...

Hen­ricks knows many bish­ops from his pre­vi­ous job with the bish­ops’ con­fer­ence. Accord­ing to the per­son who works for the church and to the audio record­ing, Henricks’s role has been to take the data sets to var­i­ous bish­ops and use their knowl­edge of priests’ and sem­i­nar­i­ans’ loca­tions to match the known device loca­tions with actu­al peo­ple.

Hen­ricks wrote in First Things that he shared this infor­ma­tion with “a hand­ful of rec­tors and bish­ops” and did not make the infor­ma­tion avail­able for pub­lic use, so as to be able to “have hon­est and frank con­ver­sa­tions with Church lead­ers, and pro­tect the pri­va­cy of those affect­ed.”

How­ev­er, one of the peo­ple with knowl­edge of the project said some bish­ops felt pres­sure from the group to take action.

The Post has seen copies of two dif­fer­ent reports pre­sent­ed to bish­ops. One is from the Renew­al group to a dio­cese and the oth­er is the one that the Pil­lar pre­sent­ed to the USCCB about Bur­rill. The infor­ma­tion in both is most­ly about Grindr, although the reports also say they have used data from oth­er gay dat­ing apps Growlr, Scruff and Jack’d, as well as OkCu­pid.

These dat­ing and hookup apps let peo­ple cre­ate pro­files, search for oth­er users and send pri­vate mes­sages back and forth. The apps can use a person’s exact loca­tion to show them poten­tial match­es near­by, in real time, for in-per­son mee­tups.

The data cov­ers peri­ods from 2018 to 2021 and the reports include images of cer­tain address­es with loca­tion pings marked on top, such as parish­es, rec­to­ries and sem­i­nar­ies.

The doc­u­ments The Post reviewed do not name the ad bro­kers and exchanges where they say the data came from. It isn’t clear whether the Renew­al donors pur­chased data direct­ly from bro­kers, or from some­one else who had, or a com­bi­na­tion of the two.

...

Some want­ed to out the men, like Bur­rill, believed to have the apps on their phones, the per­son said.

Oth­ers want to use data to work behind the scenes, to mon­i­tor the men, per­haps con­fronting them with­out say­ing how their app use was known, or maybe keep­ing such men from ris­ing in their careers, the per­son said.

Vul­ner­a­ble tech

The dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing indus­try has com­piled and sold such detailed data for years, claim­ing that strip­ping away infor­ma­tion like names made it anony­mous. Researchers have long shown, how­ev­er, that it is pos­si­ble to take a large amount of data for a spe­cif­ic loca­tion and re-iden­ti­fy peo­ple using addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion such as known address­es, and the out­ing of Bur­rill showed the prac­tice in action. This buy­ing and sell­ing of data — from demo­graph­ics and polit­i­cal beliefs to health infor­ma­tion — is a multi­bil­lion-dol­lar, almost unreg­u­lat­ed indus­try, said Sher­man of Duke Uni­ver­si­ty.

Although no names were in the orig­i­nal data from bro­kers, it includ­ed enough iden­ti­fy­ing details and loca­tion pings that the group was able to ana­lyze it for spe­cif­ic loca­tions and nar­row down like­ly peo­ple using the apps. The infor­ma­tion the group told bish­ops they had includ­ed: the type of device, the loca­tion, the device ID and the inter­net ser­vice provider being used, among oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics, accord­ing to the reports.

The group also focused on devices that spent mul­ti­ple nights at a rec­to­ry, for exam­ple, or if a hookup app was used for a cer­tain num­ber of days in a row in some oth­er church build­ing, such as a sem­i­nary or an admin­is­tra­tive build­ing. They then tracked oth­er places those devices went accord­ing to loca­tion infor­ma­tion and cross-ref­er­enced address­es with pub­lic infor­ma­tion.

Hen­ricks said in his First Things piece that they were “metic­u­lous” about com­ply­ing with all applic­a­ble laws, includ­ing data and pri­va­cy ones.

The app com­pa­nies say they have changed what infor­ma­tion they share.

Grindr spokesman Patrick Leni­han told The Post that the com­pa­ny stopped shar­ing loca­tion infor­ma­tion in ear­ly 2020. The com­pa­ny says it only shares lim­it­ed infor­ma­tion with ad part­ners now. Grindr has said it asked the Pil­lar sev­er­al times to see the data to ver­i­fy it came from the app but no data was pro­vid­ed.

Growlr said it pre­vi­ous­ly shared loca­tion data with adver­tis­ers but stopped in May 2022, “in light of poten­tial vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties that could lead to unin­tend­ed mis­use,” said a spokesper­son for its own­er, the Meet Group.

...

Match Group, which owns OkCu­pid, says the app did not share that kind of loca­tion data dur­ing that time and does not cur­rent­ly. “Loca­tion data is obfus­cat­ed with­in a kilo­me­ter for safe­ty rea­sons,” said Match Group spokes­woman Jus­tine Sac­co.

Per­ry Street Soft­ware, which owns Jack’d and Scruff, said in a state­ment Thurs­day that it removed third-par­ty ad net­works from Scruff in August 2018 and did the same in Feb. 2020 after it acquired Jack’d.

...

Buy­ing and sell­ing pre­cise loca­tion data is still com­mon in the dig­i­tal ad indus­try, despite a few big­ger apps chang­ing their own poli­cies, said Matt Voda, chief exec­u­tive of mar­ket­ing ana­lyt­ics com­pa­ny Opti­Mine.

Regard­less, the data used by the Den­ver group shows only when and where dat­ing apps have been acti­vat­ed on a phone; they don’t prove con­ver­sa­tions or in-per­son meet­ings took place. That lack of infor­ma­tion was cit­ed by crit­ics of the Pillar’s 2021 report­ing, which said Bur­rill was guilty of “ser­i­al sex­u­al mis­con­duct.” The Pil­lar also described Grindr, which is used by 11 mil­lion peo­ple around the world each month, as a tool of child preda­tors. The site did note that there was no sug­ges­tion or evi­dence Bur­rill was in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with minors.

In 2021, Pil­lar edi­tor JD Fly­nn defend­ed their report­ing, say­ing a priest shouldn’t be on Grindr for the same rea­son a priest shouldn’t ride alone in a car with a child.

“It seems total­ly rea­son­able to say the Church must ask: ‘Is there a sim­i­lar tech­no­log­i­cal ana­log where no cler­ic would use such an app because of the way in which an infin­i­tes­i­mal­ly small num­ber of cler­ics have already been demon­strat­ed to use the app inap­pro­pri­ate­ly?’”

...

After the Pillar’s report­ing in 2021 on Bur­rill, it ini­tial­ly seemed as though the then-anony­mous project was about to explode in pub­lic across the coun­try.

Three days after the Pil­lar wrote about Bur­rill, it pub­lished a sto­ry say­ing its analy­sis of sig­nal data with­in the Arch­dio­cese of Newark showed “pat­terns of loca­tion-based hookup app use” at var­i­ous church res­i­dences. It said it did not de-anonymize the Newark data.

A few days lat­er, the Pil­lar report­ed that its data analy­sis showed that 32 devices in the Vat­i­can com­plex put off sig­nals in 2018 from hookup apps.

A Newark spokesper­son told The Post that the Pil­lar pro­vid­ed no actu­al data or evi­dence of mis­con­duct and that the mat­ter was being reviewed. The Vat­i­can com­plex in Rome declined to com­ment to the Pil­lar.

After that, the sto­ries stopped.

A Catholic debate

The top­ic of cler­gy sex­u­al­i­ty has vexed the U.S. Catholic Church for decades. Sev­er­al promi­nent experts on cler­gy sex­u­al­i­ty esti­mate a third of U.S. priests are gay men, who serve a church that teach­es being gay is “dis­or­dered,” in oppo­si­tion to God’s plan. Social con­ser­v­a­tives have not­ed that abuse vic­tims of Catholic cler­gy in recent decades were most­ly male and have tried to paint gay priests as the prob­lem. But pro­fes­sion­al advo­cates for abuse sur­vivors say the prob­lem isn’t gay priests, but instead a silence and sim­pli­fi­ca­tion around the top­ics of celiba­cy and cler­gy sex­u­al­i­ty that in a minor­i­ty of cas­es allows secrets to fes­ter.

The Catholic Church teach­es that priests make promis­es of “celiba­cy,” which falls under the Sixth Com­mand­ment (in Catholi­cism the Sixth Com­mand­ment calls for per­ma­nent fideli­ty to your spouse) and lit­er­al­ly means they will not mar­ry. Celiba­cy, Catholi­cism teach­es, is also con­sid­ered a spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­pline cre­at­ed for the good of the church. Church law requires priests not to have sex, but church lead­ers have long dis­agreed about what that lit­er­al­ly means, long before the com­plex dig­i­tal era. Experts dis­agree whether actions such as hav­ing a hookup app on your phone, engag­ing in sex­u­al talk on an app or watch­ing peo­ple have sex at a bath­house qual­i­fy under church law as sex.

“These aren’t new issues; the inter­net is just a new tool. There is a ten­sion between these poli­cies about sins involv­ing the Sixth Com­mand­ment, and the fact that [the Church] has nev­er defined that in law. It always shifts and is up to the opin­ions of moral the­olo­gians,” said Jen­nifer Hasel­berg­er, a canon lawyer in pri­vate prac­tice who worked for sev­er­al dio­ce­ses, includ­ing Min­neapo­lis-St. Paul, where she was head of the canon­i­cal depart­ment.

Sim­ply hav­ing Grindr on a phone, as a priest, is not against the Sixth Com­mand­ment, she said. Church law “isn’t there at all.”

Mon­sign­or Fred Eas­t­on, a canon lawyer who was top judge for the tri­bunal of the Arch­dio­cese of Indi­anapo­lis, said there is no auto­mat­ic penal­ty under the code of canon law against a priest for hav­ing a dat­ing app on his phone, but bish­ops have dis­cre­tion.

In Burrill’s case, after an extend­ed leave, his bish­op, William Calla­han of La Crosse, Wis., in June appoint­ed Bur­rill to serve as the parochial admin­is­tra­tor of a parish there.

Mur­ray, the New York City priest, not­ed that church law calls for cler­ics to “behave with due pru­dence toward per­sons whose com­pa­ny can endan­ger their oblig­a­tion to observe con­ti­nence or give rise to scan­dal among the faith­ful.”

The track­ing and out­ing of Bur­rill was “a very good thing,” he said.

Mur­ray, like many Catholic con­ser­v­a­tives, is con­cerned about increased accep­tance of LGBTQ rela­tion­ships in the church. That said, it’s “gaslight­ing” to call sto­ries focused on Grindr anti-gay, he said. “The issue is unchasti­ty and the scan­dal giv­en to the peo­ple in the pews.”

———-

“Catholic group spent mil­lions on app data that tracked gay priests” By Michelle Boorstein and Heather Kel­ly; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 03/09/2023

“The secre­tive effort was the work of a Den­ver non­prof­it called Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al, whose trustees are phil­an­thropists Mark Bau­man, John Mar­tin and Tim Reichert, accord­ing to pub­lic records, an audio record­ing of the nonprofit’s pres­i­dent dis­cussing its mis­sion and oth­er doc­u­ments. The use of data is emblem­at­ic of a new sur­veil­lance fron­tier in which pri­vate indi­vid­u­als can poten­tial­ly track oth­er Amer­i­cans’ loca­tions and activ­i­ties using com­mer­cial­ly avail­able infor­ma­tion. No U.S. data pri­va­cy laws pro­hib­it the sale of this data.”

An secret group has made it its mis­sion to out gay priests using legal­ly avail­able com­mer­cial inter­net data. A ‘big data’ approach to ‘moral­i­ty polic­ing’ con­duct­ed by the pri­vate­ly fund­ed Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al. It’s not the same as the Mark Robin­son sto­ry, but boy are there a lot of par­al­lels. A big dif­fer­ence, of course, being that these gay priests aren’t self-declared Nazis run­ning to be gov­er­nor. And as the pres­i­dent of the group, Jayd Hen­ricks, warns, they haven’t just been look­ing at dat­ing app data. Because of course they aren’t just look­ing at that data. As we’ve seen, there’s a uni­verse of data avail­able for sale in the data bro­ker­age space. In oth­er words, we should­n’t assume this 2023 report is the last time we hear about this group and don’t assume future sto­ries will nec­es­sar­i­ly just rely on dat­ing app info:

...
The project’s aim, accord­ing to tax records, is to “empow­er the church to car­ry out its mis­sion” by giv­ing bish­ops “evi­dence-based resources” with which to iden­ti­fy weak­ness­es in how they train priests.

In response to requests for com­ment and a detailed list of ques­tions, a spokesper­son for Catholic Laity and Cler­gy for Renew­al ini­tial­ly said the group’s pres­i­dent, Jayd Hen­ricks, would agree to an inter­view at a cer­tain time, but Hen­ricks did not call or return sev­er­al mes­sages seek­ing com­ment. After The Wash­ing­ton Post reached out again, Hen­ricks on Wednes­day post­ed a first-per­son piece on the site First Things, say­ing he was proud to be part of the group, whose pur­pose was “to love the Church and to help the Church to be holy, with every tool she could be giv­en,” includ­ing data. He wrote that the group has done oth­er research, in addi­tion to the analy­sis of dat­ing and hookup apps.

The Post inter­viewed two peo­ple with first­hand knowl­edge of the project, heard an audio record­ing of Hen­ricks dis­cussing it, and reviewed doc­u­ments that were pre­pared for bish­ops as well as pub­lic records. One of the two peo­ple works for the church and spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because they were not autho­rized to talk about it. The sec­ond per­son is active in the church in Col­orado, knows some of the project’s orga­niz­ers, and spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because the project is not sup­posed to be pub­lic. Both dis­ap­prove of the project because they see it as spy­ing and coer­cive in ways that are dam­ag­ing to priest-bish­op rela­tions and to the rep­u­ta­tion of the Catholic Church and thus its abil­i­ty to evan­ge­lize. They also see the project as tak­ing a sim­plis­tic approach to moral­i­ty that they call un-Catholic.
...

And note how the group was eas­i­ly rei­den­ti­fy­ing the anonymized loca­tion-based ad infor­ma­tion it was pur­chas­ing with pub­licly avail­able address data, a sim­ple tech­nique that is obvi­ous­ly avail­able to plen­ty of oth­er actors. This is a good time to recall how one of the strug­gles US spy agen­cies are now deal­ing with is the sheer vol­ume of com­mer­cial­ly avail­able infor­ma­tion. Sift­ing through it all is appar­ent­ly a chal­lenge. How many oth­er sim­ple rei­den­ti­fi­ca­tion tech­niques are there avail­able for use by any­one who gets their hands on this kind of data? And note how it’s not like the vic­tims of these spy­ing tech­niques even know it hap­pened. Maybe they just have their careers qui­et­ly thwart­ed, which may have hap­pened to some of these priests?

...
One report pre­pared for bish­ops says the group’s sources are data bro­kers who got the infor­ma­tion from ad exchanges, which are sites where ads are bought and sold in real time, like a stock mar­ket. The group cross-ref­er­enced loca­tion data from the apps and oth­er details with loca­tions of church res­i­dences, work­places and sem­i­nar­ies to find cler­gy who were alleged­ly active on the apps, accord­ing to one of the reports and also the audio­tape of the group’s pres­i­dent.

Sher­man said police depart­ments have bought data about cit­i­zens instead of seek­ing a war­rant, domes­tic abusers have accessed data about their vic­tims, and antiabor­tion activists have used data to tar­get peo­ple who vis­it clin­ics.

But Ben­nett Cyphers, a spe­cial advis­er to the Elec­tron­ic Fron­tier Foun­da­tion, a dig­i­tal rights orga­ni­za­tion, said the Bur­rill sto­ry was the first time he had heard of a pri­vate group buy­ing com­mer­cial data and using it against a spe­cif­ic indi­vid­ual.

“It was the first nee­dle-in-a-haystack case, where some­one sifts through mil­lions of loca­tions in apps and looks for one per­son and then tries to use that info to impeach them,” Cyphers said. “It was a char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tion of a pri­vate cit­i­zen for some kind of polit­i­cal rea­son based on infor­ma­tion [the cit­i­zen] didn’t know they were being tracked on.”

...

These dat­ing and hookup apps let peo­ple cre­ate pro­files, search for oth­er users and send pri­vate mes­sages back and forth. The apps can use a person’s exact loca­tion to show them poten­tial match­es near­by, in real time, for in-per­son mee­tups.

The data cov­ers peri­ods from 2018 to 2021 and the reports include images of cer­tain address­es with loca­tion pings marked on top, such as parish­es, rec­to­ries and sem­i­nar­ies.

The doc­u­ments The Post reviewed do not name the ad bro­kers and exchanges where they say the data came from. It isn’t clear whether the Renew­al donors pur­chased data direct­ly from bro­kers, or from some­one else who had, or a com­bi­na­tion of the two.

...

Some want­ed to out the men, like Bur­rill, believed to have the apps on their phones, the per­son said.

Oth­ers want to use data to work behind the scenes, to mon­i­tor the men, per­haps con­fronting them with­out say­ing how their app use was known, or maybe keep­ing such men from ris­ing in their careers, the per­son said.
...

But also note that, while this entire project is clear­ly pret­ty sleazy, it’s also legal under US law. In part because there’s so few data pri­va­cy laws to begin with:

...
The dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing indus­try has com­piled and sold such detailed data for years, claim­ing that strip­ping away infor­ma­tion like names made it anony­mous. Researchers have long shown, how­ev­er, that it is pos­si­ble to take a large amount of data for a spe­cif­ic loca­tion and re-iden­ti­fy peo­ple using addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion such as known address­es, and the out­ing of Bur­rill showed the prac­tice in action. This buy­ing and sell­ing of data — from demo­graph­ics and polit­i­cal beliefs to health infor­ma­tion — is a multi­bil­lion-dol­lar, almost unreg­u­lat­ed indus­try, said Sher­man of Duke Uni­ver­si­ty.

Although no names were in the orig­i­nal data from bro­kers, it includ­ed enough iden­ti­fy­ing details and loca­tion pings that the group was able to ana­lyze it for spe­cif­ic loca­tions and nar­row down like­ly peo­ple using the apps. The infor­ma­tion the group told bish­ops they had includ­ed: the type of device, the loca­tion, the device ID and the inter­net ser­vice provider being used, among oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics, accord­ing to the reports.

The group also focused on devices that spent mul­ti­ple nights at a rec­to­ry, for exam­ple, or if a hookup app was used for a cer­tain num­ber of days in a row in some oth­er church build­ing, such as a sem­i­nary or an admin­is­tra­tive build­ing. They then tracked oth­er places those devices went accord­ing to loca­tion infor­ma­tion and cross-ref­er­enced address­es with pub­lic infor­ma­tion.

Hen­ricks said in his First Things piece that they were “metic­u­lous” about com­ply­ing with all applic­a­ble laws, includ­ing data and pri­va­cy ones.
...

Final­ly, here’s an April 2022 piece in the Huff­in­g­ton Post that gives us a bet­ter idea of the kind of the­ol­o­gy moti­vat­ing this effort. Because it turns out one of three phil­an­thropic trustees for the group, Tim Reichert, also made a 2022 con­gres­sion­al run for office in Col­orado’s 7th Dis­trict. Reichert did­n’t end up win­ning the GOP pri­ma­ry. But the race still shined some light on Reichert’s views, which include view­ing all abor­tions as a form of child sac­ri­fice on the altar of Baal. But abor­tions aren’t the biggest threat fac­ing the US, accord­ing to Reichert. That would be con­tra­cep­tion:

The Huff­in­g­ton Post

GOP Con­gres­sion­al Can­di­date Believes ‘Abor­tion Is A Human Sac­ri­fice’ To Demons

Econ­o­mist Tim Reichert has also argued that birth con­trol con­tributes to rape.

By Alan­na Vagianos
Apr 1, 2022, 04:58 PM EDT

Tim Reichert, a busi­ness­man who has described abor­tion as “the sac­ri­fice of a child at the altar of Baal,” is run­ning for Con­gress in Colorado’s 7th Dis­trict, and is so far the only can­di­date who has qual­i­fied for the Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry bal­lot.

Reichert, an econ­o­mist from Gold­en, Col­orado, threw his name into the com­pet­i­tive pri­ma­ry in Jan­u­ary, com­mit­ting half a mil­lion dol­lars of his own mon­ey to the cam­paign. Rep. Ed Perl­mut­ter (D) cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents the dis­trict, but has said he will not seek re-elec­tion in the fall. Although Democ­rats usu­al­ly have an advan­tage in the region, the dis­trict was redrawn last year, shift­ing west, which experts believe will make it a slight­ly more com­pet­i­tive race.

Reichert, who has a doc­tor­ate in eco­nom­ics, has spent much of his career doing finan­cial con­sult­ing. He says he is run­ning to help strength­en the mid­dle class or “the lit­tle guy” — a term that appears sev­er­al times on his cam­paign web­site.

But Reichert also holds extreme views on abor­tion, birth con­trol and oth­er repro­duc­tive health care issues, argu­ing in pub­lished arti­cles and pre­sen­ta­tions that con­tra­cep­tion irrev­o­ca­bly harms women by destroy­ing the insti­tu­tion of mar­riage.

...

“Every abor­tion is a human sac­ri­fice,” Reichert said last year in an accep­tance speech for an award from Catholic Char­i­ties of Den­ver, a min­istry-based char­i­ty that oppos­es abor­tion rights. “Every abor­tion feeds the demon­ic and there­by con­tributes direct­ly to the demise of the church, the demise of Amer­i­ca and the demise of the West.”

“Every sin­gle abor­tion is not just a trag­ic loss with two vic­tims,” he went on. “It is much more than that — it’s fuel. Fuel for the demon­ic, because it is the sac­ri­fice of a child at the altar of Baal.” (Watch the video in full below.)

...

As an econ­o­mist, Reichert has giv­en pre­sen­ta­tions and writ­ten sev­er­al opin­ion arti­cles argu­ing that con­tra­cep­tion harms women eco­nom­i­cal­ly and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly because birth con­trol makes it hard­er for women to get mar­ried. In a 2010 opin­ion arti­cle titled “Bit­ter Pill,” Reichert wrote that con­tra­cep­tion is “social­ly dam­ag­ing,” “increas­es the inci­dence of infi­deli­ty” and is “deeply sex­ist in nature.”

“Arti­fi­cial con­tra­cep­tion sets up what econ­o­mists call a ‘prisoner’s‑dilemma’ game, in which each woman is induced to make deci­sions ratio­nal­ly that ulti­mate­ly make her, and all women, worse off,” he wrote in the arti­cle, which was pub­lished in a Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tive jour­nal.

Reichert lat­er turned that piece into an hour­long lec­ture, “Bit­ter Pill: Con­tra­cep­tive Tech­nol­o­gy and the Decline of Women,” which he pre­sent­ed at a con­fer­ence host­ed by the Catholic Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion in 2017 and 2018. Reichert repeat­ed­ly referred to the work of soci­ol­o­gists — or “intel­lec­tu­al giants,” as he called them — who believed that “the most fun­da­men­tal threat to the West” was con­tra­cep­tion.

In his pre­sen­ta­tion, Reichert argued that con­tra­cep­tion caus­es gen­der scarci­ty, which leads to rape and vio­lence against women. In response to a ques­tion fol­low­ing his lec­ture, Reichert point­ed to research show­ing that “women who engaged in hookup cul­ture tend to divorce more than women who are chaste.” He added: “I think that’s prob­a­bly true.”

...

Reichert and his wife donat­ed to for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s 2020 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, con­tribut­ing just over $30,000. The cou­ple also donat­ed about $20,000 to the Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee. Reichert is expect­ed to fund most of his cam­paign him­self.

Reichert is up against two oth­er Repub­li­can can­di­dates in the pri­ma­ry, which is set for June 28. If elect­ed to Con­gress, Reichert would like­ly con­tribute to the fed­er­al attacks on abor­tion care. The con­sti­tu­tion­al right to abor­tion, estab­lished in the land­mark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, is now in per­il, since a 2018 Mis­sis­sip­pi law is like­ly to gut or over­turn Roe in the com­ing months.

———–

“GOP Con­gres­sion­al Can­di­date Believes ‘Abor­tion Is A Human Sac­ri­fice’ To Demons” By Alan­na Vagianos; The Huff­in­g­ton Post; 04/01/2022

“Reichert, an econ­o­mist from Gold­en, Col­orado, threw his name into the com­pet­i­tive pri­ma­ry in Jan­u­ary, com­mit­ting half a mil­lion dol­lars of his own mon­ey to the cam­paign. Rep. Ed Perl­mut­ter (D) cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents the dis­trict, but has said he will not seek re-elec­tion in the fall. Although Democ­rats usu­al­ly have an advan­tage in the region, the dis­trict was redrawn last year, shift­ing west, which experts believe will make it a slight­ly more com­pet­i­tive race.”

Tim Reichert was­n’t just secret­ly fund­ing a project to out gay priests. He has much big­ger ambi­tions, includ­ing a con­gres­sion­al seat. And while Reichert ulti­mate­ly lost his pri­ma­ry race, it’s hard to ignore just how much his ide­ol­o­gy has won. In par­tic­u­lar his extreme anti-abor­tion ide­ol­o­gy that views every abor­tion as a child sac­ri­fice at the altar of Baal. After all, this report came just two months before the over­turn­ing of Roe v Wade. States are now free to treat abor­tions like child sac­ri­fices if they choose to do so:

...
“Every abor­tion is a human sac­ri­fice,” Reichert said last year in an accep­tance speech for an award from Catholic Char­i­ties of Den­ver, a min­istry-based char­i­ty that oppos­es abor­tion rights. “Every abor­tion feeds the demon­ic and there­by con­tributes direct­ly to the demise of the church, the demise of Amer­i­ca and the demise of the West.”

“Every sin­gle abor­tion is not just a trag­ic loss with two vic­tims,” he went on. “It is much more than that — it’s fuel. Fuel for the demon­ic, because it is the sac­ri­fice of a child at the altar of Baal.” (Watch the video in full below.)
...

But Reichert isn’t just an anti-abor­tion extrem­ist. Con­tra­cep­tion is the biggest threat soci­ety faces, in his view. A fun­da­men­tal threat to the West. Along with the ‘hookup cul­ture’ that con­tra­cep­tion enables:

...
As an econ­o­mist, Reichert has giv­en pre­sen­ta­tions and writ­ten sev­er­al opin­ion arti­cles argu­ing that con­tra­cep­tion harms women eco­nom­i­cal­ly and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly because birth con­trol makes it hard­er for women to get mar­ried. In a 2010 opin­ion arti­cle titled “Bit­ter Pill,” Reichert wrote that con­tra­cep­tion is “social­ly dam­ag­ing,” “increas­es the inci­dence of infi­deli­ty” and is “deeply sex­ist in nature.”

“Arti­fi­cial con­tra­cep­tion sets up what econ­o­mists call a ‘prisoner’s‑dilemma’ game, in which each woman is induced to make deci­sions ratio­nal­ly that ulti­mate­ly make her, and all women, worse off,” he wrote in the arti­cle, which was pub­lished in a Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tive jour­nal.

Reichert lat­er turned that piece into an hour­long lec­ture, “Bit­ter Pill: Con­tra­cep­tive Tech­nol­o­gy and the Decline of Women,” which he pre­sent­ed at a con­fer­ence host­ed by the Catholic Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion in 2017 and 2018. Reichert repeat­ed­ly referred to the work of soci­ol­o­gists — or “intel­lec­tu­al giants,” as he called them — who believed that “the most fun­da­men­tal threat to the West” was con­tra­cep­tion.

In his pre­sen­ta­tion, Reichert argued that con­tra­cep­tion caus­es gen­der scarci­ty, which leads to rape and vio­lence against women. In response to a ques­tion fol­low­ing his lec­ture, Reichert point­ed to research show­ing that “women who engaged in hookup cul­ture tend to divorce more than women who are chaste.” He added: “I think that’s prob­a­bly true.”
...

How wide­spread is Reichert’s ‘hookups are an exis­ten­tial threat’ per­spec­tive among his fel­low theocrats? What steps will they take to crack­down on ‘hookups’ giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty and what kind of big data will they use to iden­ti­fy the ‘offend­ers’? These are the kinds of ques­tions that should loom large over US vot­ers in 2024. Because whether they real­ize it or not, they are vot­ing on whether or not theocrats should assume the pow­er to engage in mass moral­i­ty polic­ing of the pub­lic. That’s ulti­mate­ly what Project 2025 is all about. The impo­si­tion of a far right theoc­ra­cy. Sure, busi­ness­es will get their tax breaks and reg­u­la­tions will get gut­ted too. But the theocrats aren’t going to be sat­is­fied with tax cuts. This is a plan for deep social con­trols, with a fix­a­tion on sex­u­al­i­ty and female sex­u­al­i­ty espe­cial­ly. The kind of deep social con­trols Mark Robin­son the can­di­date would be proud to impose in pub­lic, even if ‘min­isol­dr the Nazi’ has a dif­fer­ent pri­vate per­spec­tive.

Recent­ly there was some incrim­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion about Mike Lin­dell, the MyP­il­low guy, who was close to Trump and pro­vid­ed sug­ges­tions as to what to do next after the Insur­rec­tion failed includ­ing who to appoint as a Trump friend­ly CIA Direc­tor. He changed his pil­low price to $14.88 which is the 14 Nazi words “We must secure the exis­tence of our peo­ple and a future for white chil­dren.” Along with 88 where “H” is the 8th let­ter in the alpha­bet so 88 is HH or Heil Hitler. The ques­tion to ask is, Lin­dell a deep cov­er Nazi or Fas­cist Agent?

Trump ‘shut down talks with Mike Lin­dell with­in min­utes’ after the MyP­il­low CEO was seen at White House bran­dish­ing notes about ‘mar­tial law’ and Insur­rec­tion Act Jan­u­ary 16, 2021 Dai­ly Mail UK

• Sum­ma­ry of the key points of Arti­cle: My MyP­il­low CEO Mike Lin­dell appeared at White House on Fri­day (Jan­u­ary 15, 2021) car­ry­ing a set of notes. A Wash­ing­ton Post pho­tog­ra­ph­er obtained a close-up of papers car­ried by Lin­dell. The notes:
• ref­er­enced mar­tial law and Insur­rec­tion Act. The blacked-out part of his notes sup­pos­ed­ly ref­er­enced fir­ing Cipol­lone.
• One line said ‘mar­tial law if nec­es­sary upon the first hint of any....’
• The term does not come with­out prece­dent. For­mer Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advi­sor Mike Fly­nn spoke open­ly about it while par­rot­ing Trump’s claims of a ‘rigged’ elec­tion – and scored his own White House meet­ing after­ward.
• Anoth­er line, part­ly obscured by Lin­del­l’s hand, most like­ly ref­er­enced the ‘Insur­rec­tion Act’ – the sub­ject of dis­cus­sion before after the elec­tion about use of forces inside the coun­try. It said to ‘Act now as a result of the assault on the ...’
• Oth­er lines ref­er­ence Fort Mead and a top cyber­se­cu­ri­ty lawyer, which could iden­ti­fy Frank Colon, who accord­ing to his LinkedIn page is an attor­ney with Cyber Oper­a­tions 780th Mil­i­tary Intel­li­gence Brigade.
• There are also ref­er­ences to ‘Krak­en’ lawyer Sid­ney Pow­ell, who over­saw failed elec­tion chal­lenges in court and who has been at the White House post-elec­tion.
• Anoth­er line stat­ed ‘Move Kash Patel to CIA Act­ing,’ with an indi­ca­tion to oust CIA Direc­tor Gina Haspel, and put in her place a Trump loy­al­ist recent­ly moved to the Pen­ta­gon. Note that Patel wrote in an op-ed post­ed by Fox News Thurs­day – after the Biden tran­si­tion com­plained for weeks it was not get­ting the brief­in­gs it request­ed. that ‘I ordered the DOD to ful­ly coop­er­ate with Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden,’
• It also had some state­ment ‘For­eign Inter­fer­ence in the elec­tion Trig­ger ... pow­ers, make clear this is a China/Iran ... domes­tic actors. Instruct Frank,’
• Lin­dell also appears to have devel­oped a rela­tion­ship with Mike Fly­nn, the nation­al secu­ri­ty advi­sor who lied to the FBI, got a par­don, then went to the Oval Office and advo­cat­ed mar­tial law.
• Lin­dell, 59, was a small-time Min­neso­ta busi­ness­man who became addict­ed to crack cocaine and alco­hol, los­ing his wife with whom he had four chil­dren to divorce because of it, but — accord­ing to his often-told sto­ry — still man­aged to invent his MyP­il­low in 2004 and turn it into a suc­cess. The pil­low itself is a patent­ed foam design and from the begin­ning Lin­dell man­u­fac­tured it in his native state and put its Made in Amer­i­ca cre­den­tials in the pitch
• So dis­cred­it­ed were Lin­del­l’s fraud claims that News­max had to cut him off live on air but he was unstop­pable: on the day of the MAGA riots he was in D.C., then after they hap­pened he spout­ed claims that the whole event was staged by Antifa.

This sug­gests he was an agent involved in a con­spir­a­cy out­side of Trump’s plans. He was affil­i­at­ed with Mike Fly­nn whose broth­er Charles was a Gen­er­al in the Army who slow walked a response to the Jan­u­ary 6, 2021 insur­rec­tion. Who might this Chris­t­ian Patri­ot be work­ing for? Anoth­er arti­cle in Newsweek pub­lished on Sep­tem­ber 23, 2024 by Sophie Clark may shed some light on this titled “Mike Lin­del­l’s New MyP­il­low Price Sparks ‘Nazi’ Claims”.
MyP­il­low post­ed an adver­tise­ment that marked down the pil­lows from its sale price of $29.99 to an even low­er price of $14.88. This spe­cif­ic price of $14.88 raised eye­brows as, to keen observers, it is affil­i­at­ed with white suprema­cists and online neo-Nazi groups. Accord­ing to the Anti-Defama­tion League (ADL), the num­ber 88 is used in white suprema­cist cir­cles as short­hand for Heil Hitler. The let­ter H is the eighth let­ter of the alpha­bet, so two Hs togeth­er are “Heil Hitler”. Addi­tion­al­ly, the num­ber 14 refers to the “14-word slo­gan,” a phrase coined by white suprema­cist David Lane who was the get­away dri­ver of the peo­ple who killed Alan Berg a lib­er­al Jew­ish radio talk show host in 1984.
One neo-Nazi account by the name of Bal­k­nom­ic repost­ed the ad, say­ing: “14.88? How could you pass up such a great deal?”

Anoth­er account called Chud Post­ing that fre­quent­ly posts neo-Nazi and Alt-Right memes, repost­ed the ad say­ing: “Pil­lows at an Aryan price. Bil­lions must buy. Total­ly nice dreams.” Inci­den­tal­ly, The phrase “bil­lions must buy” is a play on words of the alt-right meme “bil­lions must die,” which is a main­stay of neo-Nazi forums.

Lin­dell is also cur­rent­ly involved in a suit led by Domin­ion Vot­ing Sys­tems for alleged­ly libel­ing their com­pa­ny. He denies any wrong­do­ing.

Lin­dell feigned igno­rance about the issue and tried to ratio­nal­ize his pric­ing scheme to the Rupert Mur­doch Owned New York Post. Mur­doch owns the right wing media out­let Fox News.

https://mol.im/a/9153263
By GEOFF EARLE, DEPUTY U.S. POLITICAL EDITOR and KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 17:41 EDT, 15 Jan­u­ary 2021 | UPDATED: 02:02 EDT, 16 Jan­u­ary 2021

Trump ‘shut down talks with Mike Lin­dell with­in min­utes’ after the MyP­il­low CEO was seen at White House bran­dish­ing notes about ‘mar­tial law’ and Insur­rec­tion Act
• MyP­il­low CEO Mike Lin­dell appeared unex­pect­ed­ly at White House on Fri­day
• He was bran­dish­ing sheaf of notes ref­er­enc­ing mar­tial law and Insur­rec­tion Act
• Lin­dell claims notes were from a lawyer work­ing to prove Trump won elec­tion
• He said Trump appeared ‘dis­in­ter­est­ed’ and quick­ly sent him away
• Lin­dell demand­ed to see White House Coun­sel Pat Cipol­lone after­wards
• The blacked-out part of his notes sup­pos­ed­ly ref­er­enced fir­ing Cipol­lone
• Mike Fly­nn pre­vi­ous­ly called for Trump to impose mar­tial law and rerun elec­tions
• It comes as 25,000 Nation­al Guards­men descend on DC for inau­gu­ra­tion
• Secu­ri­ty fears run high after a mob of Trump loy­al­ist stormed the US Capi­tol

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump report­ed­ly cut short his meet­ing with MyP­il­low CEO Mike Lin­dell with­in min­utes, after the entre­pre­neur was spot­ted at the White House bran­dish­ing notes ref­er­enc­ing mar­tial law, the Insur­rec­tion Act and a CIA lead­er­ship shake­up.
Lin­dell said that Trump appeared ‘dis­in­ter­est­ed’ in his notes, and offi­cials say Trump quick­ly dis­missed him and sent him to the White House Coun­sel’s office, accord­ing to New York Times reporter Mag­gie Haber­man.

Lin­dell, an infor­mal Trump advi­sor who enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly backed con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about mas­sive elec­tion fraud, appeared unex­pect­ed­ly at the White House Fri­day after­noon. A Marine was sta­tioned out­side the West Wing, indi­cat­ing Trump was most like­ly there.

The MyP­il­low CEO claimed to Haber­man that the notes he was car­ry­ing were on behalf of an unnamed attor­ney he’s been work­ing with to ‘prove’ that Trump real­ly won the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

Lin­dell denied that the notes ref­er­enced ‘mar­tial law,’ but an admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial said that they def­i­nite­ly con­tained the phrase, and pho­tos of his notes appear to show it.

Once Trump dis­missed him, Lin­dell insist­ed on meet­ing White House Coun­sel Pat Cipol­lone, and the meet­ing turned awk­ward in part because the blacked-out part of his notes relat­ed to call­ing for Cipol­lone to be fired, Haber­man report­ed.

Amid a huge Nation­al Guard pres­ence in D.C. after last week’s MAGA riots in the Capi­tol, close-up of Lin­del­l’s notes revealed some bizarre snip­pets about what may be on his mind.

Lin­dell, like Trump, spoke to the Jan­u­ary 6 ral­ly crowd out­side the White House before Trump sup­port­ers stormed the U.S. Capi­tol.

A Wash­ing­ton Post pho­tog­ra­ph­er obtained a close-up of papers car­ried by Lin­dell.

One omi­nous line said ‘mar­tial law if nec­es­sary upon the first hint of any....’ The term does not come with­out prece­dent. For­mer Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advi­sor Mike Fly­nn spoke open­ly about it while par­rot­ing Trump’s claims of a ‘rigged’ elec­tion – and scored his own White House meet­ing after­ward.

Anoth­er line, part­ly obscured by Lin­del­l’s hand, most like­ly ref­er­enced the ‘Insur­rec­tion Act’ – the sub­ject of dis­cus­sion before after the elec­tion about use of forces inside the coun­try. It said to ‘Act now as a result of the assault on the ...‘Oth­er lines hint­ed at rec­om­mend­ed staff moves. One reads ‘Colon NOW as Act­ing Nation­al Secu­ri­ty...’ – sug­gest­ing a staff move atop the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency or a new Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advi­sor.
The fol­low­ing lines ref­er­ence Fort Mead and a top cyber­se­cu­ri­ty lawyer, which could iden­ti­fy Frank Colon, who accord­ing to his LinkedIn page is an attor­ney with Cyber Oper­a­tions 780th Mil­i­tary Intel­li­gence Brigade.

Colon said he had nev­er met Lin­dell and was baf­fled by the pro­pos­al to install him in a high-rank­ing posi­tion, accord­ing to New York Mag­a­zine.

He described him­self as ‘just a gov­ern­ment employ­ee who does work for the Army.’

There are also ref­er­ences to ‘Krak­en’ lawyer Sid­ney Pow­ell, who over­saw failed elec­tion chal­lenges in court and who has been at the White House post-elec­tion.
‘Move Kash Patel to CIA Act­ing,’ it says, in a line which could indi­cate a pro­pos­al to oust CIA Direc­tor Gina Haspel, and put in her place a Trump loy­al­ist recent­ly moved to the Pen­ta­gon.

‘I ordered the DOD to ful­ly coop­er­ate with Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden,’ Patel wrote in an op-ed post­ed by Fox News Thurs­day – after the Biden tran­si­tion com­plained for weeks it was not get­ting the brief­in­gs it request­ed.
Oth­er lines are mere snip­pets, but they sug­gest Trump’s obses­sion with a ‘stolen’ elec­tion – although Joe Biden beat him by 7 mil­lion votes, or 306 to 232 in the Elec­toral Col­lege.

‘Been with get­ting the evi­dence of ALL the ... as the elec­tion and all infor­ma­tion regard­ing ... among peo­ple he knows who already have secu­ri­ty ... done mas­sive research on these issues,’ the notes say.
‘For­eign Inter­fer­ence in the elec­tion Trig­ger ... pow­ers, make clear this is a China/Iran ... domes­tic actors. Instruct Frank,’ it says.

The meet­ing comes days after Trump took part in a script­ed video where he final­ly said: ‘A new admin­is­tra­tion will be inau­gu­rat­ed on Jan­u­ary 20.’ But he has­n’t said out­right that Joe Biden won, even as Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence final­ly called Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Kamala Har­ris and began what appears to be a farewell tour.

Trump has been hun­kered down in office, with bizarre White House sched­ules say­ing only that: ‘Pres­i­dent Trump will work from ear­ly in the morn­ing until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meet­ings.’

A mes­sage to Lin­dell was not imme­di­ate­ly returned. The White House did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to a request for com­ment about the meet­ing.

Trump’s obses­sion with over­turn­ing the results are also reflect­ed in charts that could be seen as trade advi­sor Peter Navar­ro walked on White House grounds. It said ‘Vote Irreg­u­lar­i­ties and Ille­gal­i­ties by Cat­e­go­ry and State.’

Trump him­self is expect­ed to leave D.C. on Jan­u­ary 20th, with no plans for the tra­di­tion­al meet­ing with Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden.

The omi­nous snip­pets in Lin­del­l’s notes about the elec­tion were con­tra­dict­ed by real­i­ty on the ground at the White House Fri­day after­noon. A pro­ces­sion of aides left the build­ing with box­es, even pack­ing away large framed pho­tos that have adorned the build­ing.
HOW MIKE LINDELL WENT FROM CRACK ADDICT TO CHRISTIAN PILLOW PITCHMAN TO QANON SPOUTING TRUMP ADVISER

With his preter­nat­u­ral­ly dark hair and mus­tache, ubiq­ui­tous TV ads and tri­umph-over-tragedy per­son­al sto­ry, Mike Lin­dell should be the per­fect pitch­man for his pil­lows.

But his advo­ca­cy of Don­ald Trump appears to have tak­en him into dark­er and more dan­ger­ous ter­ri­to­ry, car­ry­ing notes about ‘mar­tial law’ to the Oval Office for a meet­ing with Trump on his last Fri­day in the White House.
Lin­dell, 59, was a small-time Min­neso­ta busi­ness­man who became addict­ed to crack cocaine and alco­hol, los­ing his wife with whom he had four chil­dren to divorce because of it, but — accord­ing to his often-told sto­ry — still man­aged to invent his MyP­il­low in 2004 and turn it into a suc­cess.

The pil­low itself is a patent­ed foam design and from the begin­ning Lin­dell man­u­fac­tured it in his native state and put its Made in Amer­i­ca cre­den­tials in the pitch.
In its first years Lin­dell sold it at mall kiosks and state fairs but his own life had a dra­mat­ic change, he says, in 2009, when he became sober, putting it down to the pow­er of prayer.

Cleaned up, he record­ed a 30-minute live-audi­ence infomer­cial at the cost of $500,000 in 2011 and watched the suc­cess take off — with Lin­dell the focal point as much as the pil­lows.

With tranch­es of TV ads Lin­dell made a for­tune — not with­out bumps on the way includ­ing set­tling a law­suit for claims the pil­lows helped with snor­ing and divorc­ing his sec­ond wife after less than two months of mar­riage — and made his evan­gel­i­cal faith and then his alle­giance to Trump as much part of his pitch as his prod­ucts.
They appear to have first met in August 2016 and he jumped on the Trump train, going to the first pres­i­den­tial debate in Octo­ber, and speak­ing at a ral­ly that Novem­ber.

Since then he has become a reg­u­lar ral­ly per­former, even pitch­ing a run for Min­neso­ta gov­er­nor in 2022 — which he has not men­tioned recent­ly — and chair­ing the state’s Trump cam­paign.

At the ral­lies he would be intro­duced as ‘the MyP­il­low guy’ to cheers and describe Trump as ‘cho­sen by God,’ tout his own faith and soak up the applause.
A fair­ly reg­u­lar White House pres­ence, he tout­ed to Trump an unproven COVID ‘cure,’ ole­an­drin, whose man­u­fac­tur­er he had a stake in.

Ben Car­son, a dis­tin­guished neu­ro­sur­geon turned Trump cab­i­net mem­ber, took it. He suc­cumbed bad­ly to the infec­tion; Car­son has not main­tained a med­ical reg­is­tra­tion for some years.

Lin­dell devot­ed him­self to Trump in the weeks before the 2020 elec­tion, appear­ing at mul­ti­ple ral­lies and con­vinc­ing the pres­i­dent he would win Min­neso­ta, which he lost hand­i­ly.

But after the elec­tion defeat Lin­dell became obsessed by Trump’s claims of vot­er fraud and has pushed them at every turn, includ­ing on the Right Side Broad­cast­ing Net­work YouTube chan­nel which he has a finan­cial stake in.

He lam­bast­ed Fox News for its cov­er­age even though he is thought to be its biggest sin­gle adver­tis­er, and he pushed the out­er fringes of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries from dis­cred­it­ed ‘Krak­en’ attor­ney Sid­ney Pow­ell.

He appears to have fund­ed the Right Side Broad­cast­ing Net­work, a YouTube chan­nel which aired ral­lies from the March for Trump bus tour whose speak­ers includ­ed Lin­dell and Lin Wood, the even more fringe attor­ney who sug­gest­ed Mike Pence should be exe­cut­ed.

Among the cast of ‘reporters’ on RSB­N’s cov­er­age were oth­er Trump ral­ly reg­u­lars includ­ing the ‘wall guy’ who wears a suit which rep­re­sents the Mex­i­can bor­der wall. The suit is designed to look like it is made of bricks, when the wall is in fact steel and rebar. The ads were inevitably for MyP­il­low.

Lin­dell also appears to have devel­oped a rela­tion­ship with Mike Fly­nn, the nation­al secu­ri­ty advi­sor who lied to the FBI, got a par­don, then went to the Oval Office and advo­cat­ed mar­tial law.

So dis­cred­it­ed were Lin­del­l’s fraud claims that News­max had to cut him off live on air but he was unstop­pable: on the day of the MAGA riots he was in D.C., then after they hap­pened he spout­ed claims that the whole event was staged by Antifa.

From a pri­vate jet a few days lat­er he record­ed a mes­sage that ‘Don­ald Trump will be our pres­i­dent for the next four years.’

On Jan­u­ary 20 his faith in Trump was not reward­ed: his claims got the same F rat­ing from real­i­ty which his com­pa­ny did from the Bet­ter Busi­ness Bureau.
A view­ing plat­form for the inau­gu­ra­tion already has print­ed sig­nage for Joe Biden and Kamala Har­ris. Biden spoke in Delaware about changes he plans to insti­tute for vac­cine roll­out, fol­low­ing reports that the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion Oper­a­tion Warp Speed name will be one of the first things jet­ti­soned.

Even low­er lev­el aides in the West Wing have already depart­ed, leav­ing a skele­ton crew – even as the nation faced a relent­less surge of coro­n­avirus infec­tions and deaths.

Lin­dell post­ed even after the riots with claims about ways to ‘sup­press the evil’ and ‘beat the evil’ with claims that Trump sup­port­ers ‘broke the algo­rithms.’
He post­ed brief com­ments, which appear to be made aboard a pri­vate jet, where he wrote that ‘Don­ald Trump is going to be your pres­i­dent for the next 4 years.’
Lin­dell retweet­ed a tweet by Right Side Broad­cast­ing Net­work Jan­u­ary 10 which bashed the idea of impeach­ment as point­less. ‘Seems like a whole lot of trou­ble to go through to impeach some­one who, if tra­di­tion has its way, will be gone from office in 10 days. What is going on here, Nan­cy? Seems a lit­tle des­per­ate. There must be...other fac­tors at play,’ it said.

https://www.newsweek.com/mike-lindell-baffled-nazi-claims-my-pillow-priing

Mike Lin­dell Baf­fled by ‘Nazi’ Claims About MyP­il­low Pric­ing — Newsweek

By Sophie Clark Pub­lished Sep 24, 2024 at 9:19 AM EDT Updat­ed Sep 24, 2024 at 2:09 PM EDT

Mike Lin­dell has hit back against the claims that his new MyP­il­low price is inad­ver­tent­ly linked to neo-Nazi pro­pa­gan­da.

Lin­dell spoke to the New York Post fol­low­ing Newsweek’s report on Lin­del­l’s MyP­il­low adver­tise­ment that prices his Stan­dard Clas­sic Pil­low at a num­ber that is affil­i­at­ed with neo-Nazi slo­gans. Lin­dell told The Post: “I have no idea what this is all about.”

On Sep­tem­ber 20, MyP­il­low post­ed an adver­tise­ment that marked down the pil­lows from its sale price of $29.99 to an even low­er price of $14.88.

This price came to the atten­tion of both his­to­ri­ans and online neo-Nazis as the num­bers 14 and 88 are dog-whis­tles in white suprema­cist cir­cles.

The num­ber 88 is used as short­hand for Heil Hitler, as “H” is the eight let­ter of the alpha­bet. The num­ber 14 refers to the “14-word-slo­gan” by David Lane, a mem­ber of white suprema­cist group The Order. Lane, who died in prison serv­ing 190 years for rack­e­teer­ing and vio­la­tion of civ­il rights, said: “We must secure the exis­tence of our peo­ple and a future for white chil­dren.”

Lin­dell told The Post that the 88 cents price point is a com­mon price used by com­pa­nies such as Wal­mart.
Mike Lin­dell speak­ing at a Trump ral­ly on July 27, 2024 in St Cloud, Min­neso­ta. He has denied his price point has any­thing to do with white suprema­cist pro­pa­gan­da. Stephen Maturen/Getty images

He added: “[The price point] had noth­ing to do with what­ev­er you guys are try­ing to make it out to be.” He then insist­ed that attacks on his price point were ret­ri­bu­tion for his elec­tion claims.

“This whole thing is anoth­er attack on Mike Lin­dell and MyP­il­low because I want to go to paper bal­lots, hand-count­ed in our coun­try.”

Mike Lin­dell has been con­tact­ed by Newsweek via email for com­ment.

Lin­dell has fre­quent­ly denied the results of the 2020 elec­tion to the point that he lost $5 mil­lion after say­ing he would pay that sum to any­one who could dis­prove his claims that the elec­tion was “rigged” in favor of Joe Biden.

Com­put­er foren­sics expert Robert Zied­man suc­cess­ful­ly proved that Lin­del­l’s account of the elec­tion being “rigged” was incor­rect and Lin­dell was forced to hand over the mon­ey in 2024.

Lin­dell is also cur­rent­ly involved in a suit led by Domin­ion Vot­ing Sys­tems for alleged­ly libel­ing their com­pa­ny. He denies any wrong­do­ing.

The num­bers 1488 tat­tooed on the hand of a far right pro­test­er at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wash­ing­ton, D.C., April 1, 2023. The exact same num­bers fea­ture in a MyP­il­low advert. Andrew Caballero-Reynold­s/Get­ty images

When the MyP­il­low price was list­ed, his­to­ry pro­fes­sor Seth Cot­lar at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty in Ore­gon wrote on his Bluesky account: “I doubt Lin­dell is behind this or would even get the ref­er­ence, but that does­n’t real­ly mat­ter.”

Despite Lin­dell insist­ing that he knew noth­ing about the price point’s links to white suprema­cy, the ad has been liked and repost­ed by a num­ber of neo- Nazi accounts online, mean­ing that even if it was a com­plete acci­dent it has been picked up by white suprema­cist cir­cles.
One neo-Nazi account by the name of Bal­k­nom­ic repost­ed the ad, say­ing: “14.88? How could you pass up such a great deal?”

Anoth­er account called Chud Post­ing that fre­quent­ly posts neo-Nazi and Alt-Right memes, repost­ed the ad say­ing: “Pil­lows at an Aryan price. Bil­lions must buy. Total­ly nice dreams.”

The phrase “bil­lions must buy” is a play on words of the alt-right meme “bil­lions must die,” which is a main­stay of neo-Nazi forums.

The sale adver­tise­ment is still list­ed on MyP­il­low’s social media accounts. It has been post­ed twice on their X and Face­book accounts.

The sec­ond ad on Face­book appeared 20 hours ago, the sec­ond ad on X appeared at 9:27 a.m. EDT on Sep­tem­ber 23, 20 min­utes after Newsweek pub­lished the ini­tial arti­cle detail­ing the price affil­i­a­tion with white suprema­cist groups.

@Socrates: That’s def­i­nite­ly one of those ‘signs of the times’ kinds of sto­ries. Our trolling times. And as you point out, Lin­del­l’s close ties to Jan­u­ary 6 and key orga­niz­ers like Michael Fly­nn make clear that he isn’t just a sim­ple Trump-lov­ing lunatic. The guy has turned him­self into a polit­i­cal oper­a­tive with sub­stan­tial finan­cial resources to throw around. He has both a pub­lic pres­ence and, now, expe­ri­ence as a back­room schemer. In one sense, Lin­dell has come a long way from his time as a crack head. But at the same time, it’s like he nev­er changed and soci­ety just got cracked out enough to catch up with him. And here we are, with $14.88 get­ting trot­ted out by far right busi­ness­es as if it was noth­ing at all. Overt Nazi trolling as a form of polit­i­cal aggres­sion is just nor­mal these days.

And that brings us to anoth­er recent sto­ry that touch­es on many of the same themes: it turns out an open Nazi who was jailed over his Jan­u­ary 6 actions has been cel­e­brat­ed repeat­ed­ly at Trump’s Bed­min­ster coun­try club over the past cou­ple of years. The Nazi, Tim­o­thy Hale-Cusanel­li, is a for­mer mem­ber of the US Navy who report­ed­ly told his cowork­ers at a naval weapons sta­tion that “Hitler should have fin­ished the job” and “babies born with any defor­mi­ties or dis­abil­i­ties should be shot in the fore­head.” He was wear­ing a Hitler mus­tache dur­ing Jan­u­ary 6, and even­tu­al­ly sen­tenced to four years in prison, although he was released back in Decem­ber.

The cel­e­bra­tions of Hale-Cusanel­li were tech­ni­cal­ly real­ly cel­e­bra­tions for the Patri­ot Free­dom Project, a group set up to cham­pi­on those jailed for their Jan­u­ary 6 activ­i­ties. But in effect the group is real­ly most­ly about Hale-Cusanel­li. In fact, the founder of the group, Cyn­thia Hugh­es, calls her­self Hale-Cusanel­li’s “adop­tive aunt”. Hugh­es has also gone on to become a reg­u­lar guest on Steve Ban­non’s “War Room” pod­cast.

Trump him­self donat­ed $10k to Patri­ot Free­dom Project back in Decem­ber of 2022, the same month Trump attend­ed and spoke at a Decem­ber 1 “open house” event held by the group. Keep in mind the tim­ing of this. It was Novem­ber 22, 2022, when Trump had his infa­mous din­ner with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West at Mar a Lago, lead­ing a peri­od of harsh crit­i­cism of fel­low Repub­li­cans. So Trump was speak­ing at events for the Hitler Mus­tache Naz­i’s free­dom fund and even mak­ing large dona­tions at the same time he was fac­ing major crit­i­cism for din­ner with a Nazi.

Fol­low­ing his release from prison back in Decem­ber of last year, Hale-Cusanel­li has also been mak­ing appear­ances at these Patri­ot Free­dom Project events, includ­ing events at Bed­min­ster. In fact, it was dur­ing an event at Bed­min­ster back in August that Hale-Cusanel­li was giv­en an award for pro­mot­ing “God, fam­i­ly and coun­try.” And it was none oth­er than Ed Mar­tin giv­ing the award. This is the same Ed Mar­tin who, like Steve Ban­non, hap­pens to be a Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CNP) mem­ber. But beyond his CNP ties, recall how Mar­tin has long been a major boost­er of the ‘Stop the Steal’ nar­ra­tive. On Jan­u­ary 5, 2021, Mar­tin gave a speech out­side the Capi­tol that involved Mar­tin start­ing the chant “stop the steal”. Mar­tin went on to implore the audi­ence to be pre­pared to fight to their last breath the next day. “No mat­ter what hap­pens tomor­row, or the next day, or the day after, we still need to be in the fight. There’s no sum­mer sol­diers and spring­time patri­ots here. There’s the die-hard true Amer­i­cans,” Mar­tin said. “We start today, go through tomor­row and every day till we have a last breath and go home to the Lord because we will stop the steal.” On Jan 6, Mar­tin attend­ed Don­ald Trump’s speech in the VIP sec­tion before march­ing off to the Capi­tol. Lat­er in 2021, Mar­tin was sub­poe­naed by the House­’s Jan­u­ary 6 com­mit­tee, which said it had evi­dence that he was “involved in the logis­ti­cal plan­ning” of the “Stop the Steal” ral­ly on Jan. 6. Mar­tin did not com­ply with the sub­poe­na. Mar­tin has since attend­ed a num­ber of events along­side Michael Fly­nn and Ali Alexan­der. This year, Mar­tin served as one of three mem­bers of the RNC’s offi­cial 2024 plat­form com­mit­tee. Yes, a CNP mem­ber of the RNC’s exec­u­tive plat­form com­mit­tee award­ed the Hitler mus­tache Jan 6 guy with a “God, fam­i­ly, and coun­try” award at a Patri­ot Free­dom Project event at Bed­min­ster this year. Oh, and it turns out Trump held an anti-anti­semitism event at Bed­min­ster the very next day. It’s like Trump’s ver­sion of “$14.88? What’s that?” Full spec­trum Nazi trolling.

But Ed Mar­tin isn’t just a big Hale-Cusanel­li fan and ‘Stop the Steal’ pro­mot­er. He’s also on the Patri­ot Free­dom Project board of trustees. It’s not clear when exact­ly Mar­tin joined the board. But as we’re going to see, hav­ing Mar­tin join the board helped the group with a legal prob­lem that arose from the fact that Patri­ot Free­dom Project claims to be a 501(c)(3) non­prof­it char­i­ty. The prob­lem being that the group’s orig­i­nal board of trustees con­sist­ed of Hugh­es, Hugh­es’ sis­ter-in-law, and Hugh­es’ 24-year-old son. An ‘all in the fam­i­ly’ board of trustees is gen­er­al­ly seen as a red flag for char­i­ties. But that was­n’t the only red flag. Some Jan­u­ary 6 defen­dants and their fam­i­lies accuse the group of be very selec­tive in which defen­dants its cham­pi­ons, and ques­tions about whether or not the Hugh­es fam­i­ly is self-enrich­ing from dona­tions con­tin­ue to linger.

Beyond that, the group oper­ates in bla­tant vio­la­tion of the non-par­ti­san­ship rules 501(c)(3) char­i­ties are sup­posed to abide by, so much so that mul­ti­ple mem­bers of Con­gress have called on the IRS to inves­ti­gate the group. But the IRS isn’t the only agency with over­sight over the char­i­ty. State reg­u­la­tors also have a role. And yet, despite all those calls for inves­ti­ga­tions into what appears to be a shady ‘char­i­ty’ that exists large­ly to raise funds and cel­e­brate a Nazi, the group still has its 501(c)(3) tax-deductible char­i­ta­ble sta­tus to this day. As of Jan­u­ary of this year, the group had raised over $2 mil­lion since its found­ing. That’s all part of the con­text of Mike Lin­del­l’s ‘$14.88’ pil­low trolling. Every­one knows what’s going on. The absurd denials are just part of the fun. The kind of Nazi ‘fun’ that can also make a lot of mon­ey. For ‘char­i­ty’.

But Hale-Cusanel­li isn’t the only fig­ure cham­pi­oned by the Patri­ot Free­dom Project. For exam­ple, at a June 2023 Patri­ot Free­dom Project event at Bed­min­ster that includ­ed a speech by Don­ald Trump, a dif­fer­ent Nazi-adja­cent fig­ured was fet­ed: Der­rick Evans, then the pri­ma­ry chal­lengers for West Vir­gini­a’s 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict. Evans also hap­pened to spent a few months in jail after livestream­ing his time storm­ing the Capi­tol on Jan­u­ary 6. And guess who hap­pened to also be at that Bed­min­ster event to give their full throat­ed endorse­ment of Evan­s’s can­di­da­cy: Mike Lin­dell! Yep. It turns out Lin­dell is no stranger to Patri­ot Free­dom Project events.

So did Evans win his pri­ma­ry race? Nope. He lost, much to the relief of Jew­ish Repub­li­cans. Yes, it turns out Evans isn’t just a pre­vi­ous­ly jailed Jan 6 riot­er. He also hap­pens to be a fan of the idea that “the Jews” stole in 2020 elec­tion and that Israel was the true cul­prit behind Jan­u­ary 6. At least those were the view Evans shared back in Feb­ru­ary dur­ing an appear­ance on the far right “Stew Peters” pod­cast. As Evans put it, ques­tions about the Jew­ish role behind Jan­u­ary 6 were “good ques­tions”.

That’s all part of the con­text of Lin­del­l’s ‘$14.88’ stunt. Lin­dell lit­er­al­ly endorsed a Nazi Jan 6 riot­er for Con­gress just last year. At Bed­min­ster. With Don­ald Trump stand­ing next to him. At an event for a group most­ly ded­i­cat­ed to the Jan 6 guy who was sport­ing a Hitler mus­tache that day.

Ok, first, here’s a look at this year’s Patri­ot Free­dom Project Bed­min­ster events. Events that includ­ed Hale-Cusanel­li in per­son since he was already out of prison, allow­ing him to receive an award back in August from Ed Mar­tin, one of the mem­bers of the RNC’s 2024 plat­form com­mit­tee:

Nation­al Pub­lic Radio

Trump’s Bed­min­ster club host­ed an alleged Nazi sym­pa­thiz­er who stormed the Capi­tol

Sep­tem­ber 12, 2024 3:00 PM ET
Heard on All Things Con­sid­ered
Tom Dreis­bach

Twice this past sum­mer, Don­ald Trump’s golf club in Bed­min­ster, N.J. has fea­tured speech­es from a riot­er con­vict­ed of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capi­tol, who has a well-doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of extreme anti­se­mit­ic and racist rants.

One of those events — a fundrais­er for a con­tro­ver­sial non­prof­it group that sup­ports Capi­tol riot defen­dants — was per­son­al­ly endorsed by Trump him­self in a video mes­sage that was played for the room.

“All of the peo­ple there, you’re amaz­ing patri­ots,” Trump said in the video. “Have a great time at Bed­min­ster.”

As part of his crim­i­nal case over Jan. 6, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors described the riot­er, Tim­o­thy Hale-Cusanel­li, as a “white suprema­cist and Nazi sym­pa­thiz­er,” who told his cowork­ers at a naval weapons sta­tion that “Hitler should have fin­ished the job” and “babies born with any defor­mi­ties or dis­abil­i­ties should be shot in the fore­head.”

Court fil­ings fea­tured mul­ti­ple pic­tures of Hale-Cusanel­li at work with a “Hitler mus­tache.” A lengthy online video he post­ed in 2020 attacked what he called a “Hasidic Jew­ish inva­sion” of New Jer­sey and com­pared ortho­dox Jews to a “plague of locusts.”

Accord­ing to report­ing in the Asbury Park Press and Gothamist, Hale-Cusanel­li antag­o­nized a Jew­ish man in Ocean Coun­ty, N.J. online pri­or to Jan. 6. Both news orga­ni­za­tions report­ed that Hale-Cusanel­li pub­lished the man’s address on social media and indi­cat­ed that he would go to his house on the Sab­bath, though no charges were filed.

In response to NPR’s report­ing, Jew­ish orga­ni­za­tions raised con­cerns about Hale-Cusanelli’s appear­ances at Trump’s golf club.

“As an orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sent­ing the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, we believe that those who pro­mote anti­semitism — or prej­u­dice or racism or big­otry in any form — should not be giv­en a plat­form and encour­aged to share their views,” said Kei­th Kriv­itzky, the man­ag­ing direc­tor of the Jew­ish Fed­er­a­tion of Ocean Coun­ty. “We also believe that it is vital that those in posi­tions of lead­er­ship stand up to hate and extrem­ist views.”

“We hope that the Trump cam­paign will dis­avow this indi­vid­ual and his anti­se­mit­ic views if in fact he was giv­en a plat­form at a Jan. 6 defen­dants fundrais­ing event,” said a spokesper­son for the Anti-Defama­tion League.

“For­mer Pres­i­dent Trump has­n’t sim­ply ignored or giv­en a pass to these anti­se­mit­ic extrem­ists,” said Amy Spi­tal­nick, CEO of the Jew­ish Coun­cil for Pub­lic Affairs, “In many ways, he’s embraced them and helped main­stream their ideas in our polit­i­cal rhetoric.”

...

A Trump cam­paign offi­cial told NPR that the for­mer pres­i­dent is “not even aware of this indi­vid­ual.”

NPR point­ed out that Trump has repeat­ed­ly endorsed the non­prof­it Patri­ot Free­dom Project, a group found­ed in direct response to Hale-Cusanelli’s arrest. The group’s founder, Cyn­thia Hugh­es, calls her­self an “adop­tive aunt” to Hale-Cusanel­li and spoke about his case at a Trump cam­paign ral­ly. In 2023, Trump spoke at anoth­er Patri­ot Free­dom Project event at Bed­min­ster along­side Hugh­es.

The Trump cam­paign offi­cial clar­i­fied that Trump has “not been made aware of the com­ments that [Hale-Cusanelli’s] made.”

Regard­ing Hale-Cusanelli’s speech­es at the for­mer president’s Bed­min­ster prop­er­ty, press sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt said, “Pres­i­dent Trump did not attend these events, and, of course, he absolute­ly con­demns big­otry and hatred of any kind.”

Hale-Cusanel­li did not respond to NPR’s requests for com­ment sent through Hugh­es and his attor­ney. In the past, Hale-Cusanel­li has referred to the Anti-Defama­tion league as “par­a­sitic oppor­tunists and Jew­ish suprema­cists.”

On Jan. 6, Hale-Cusanel­li stormed the U.S. Capi­tol, but was not accused of phys­i­cal vio­lence against police. Video evi­dence pre­sent­ed at his crim­i­nal tri­al showed him mov­ing bar­ri­ers pro­tect­ing the build­ing, wav­ing in fel­low riot­ers, inter­fer­ing with an attempt­ed police arrest and scream­ing at offi­cers, “the rev­o­lu­tion will be tele­vised, c***.”

Pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed text mes­sages he sent about the 2020 elec­tion, where he used an anti­se­mit­ic slur and accused Democ­rats of “n***** rig­ging”.

The jury found him guilty of four mis­de­meanors, as well as one felony, obstruc­tion of an offi­cial pro­ceed­ing. The Supreme Court has since lim­it­ed the use of the felony obstruc­tion charge in Jan. 6‑related cas­es, and Hale-Cusanel­li is appeal­ing his con­vic­tion. If he wins his appeal, he could regain his gun rights.

At Hale-Cusanelli’s sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, Judge Trevor McFad­den, a Trump appointee, cit­ed his his­to­ry of anti­se­mit­ic remarks.

“State­ments and actions like yours make [Jew­ish peo­ple] less safe and less con­fi­dent they can par­tic­i­pate as equal mem­bers of our soci­ety,” McFad­den said.

Hale-Cusanel­li, a for­mer U.S. Army reservist, apol­o­gized at the hear­ing to mem­bers of Con­gress and the Capi­tol Police.

“My behav­ior that day was unac­cept­able,” he told Judge McFad­den. “I dis­graced my uni­form and I dis­graced the coun­try.”

Judge McFad­den sen­tenced Hale-Cusanel­li to four years in prison. Hale-Cusanel­li was able to secure release from cus­tody in Dec. 2023, accord­ing to the Bureau of Pris­ons.

Since then, he has called him­self a polit­i­cal pris­on­er and embraced con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries that the Jan. 6 attack was a “set­up” by gov­ern­ment provo­ca­teurs. He also claimed that his extreme rants amount­ed to inter­net trolling to pro­voke a reac­tion, and said that he has Puer­to Rican and Jew­ish ances­try, telling one inter­view­er “I don’t hate Jews.” He has denied that he’s a Nazi sym­pa­thiz­er or white suprema­cist.

...

In 2022, the for­mer pres­i­dent had din­ner at his Mar-a-Lago estate with Nick Fuentes, a white nation­al­ist and Holo­caust denier, who used a bull­horn to urge Trump sup­port­ers on Jan. 6 to “break down the bar­ri­ers and dis­re­gard the police.” (Fuentes did not per­son­al­ly breach the build­ing and has not faced crim­i­nal charges.) Trump told the extrem­ist group the Proud Boys, whose founder has a his­to­ry of anti­se­mit­ic remarks, to “stand back and stand by” at a 2020 pres­i­den­tial debate. Dur­ing the 2016 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, Trump ini­tial­ly declined to dis­avow an endorse­ment from David Duke, a for­mer grand wiz­ard of the Ku Klux Klan.

...

Trump has made sup­port for the Jan. 6 defen­dants a cen­tral plank of his 2024 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. His first offi­cial cam­paign ral­ly opened with a ren­di­tion of “The Star-Span­gled Ban­ner” sung by Jan. 6 defen­dants in jail. He has referred to the defen­dants as “patri­ots” and “hostages,” and promised to issue par­dons to con­vict­ed riot­ers, includ­ing those who assault­ed police offi­cers. Approx­i­mate­ly 140 offi­cers were injured in the attack on the Capi­tol.

The two events at Trump’s Bed­min­ster prop­er­ty fea­tur­ing Hale-Cusanel­li both took place over the sum­mer.

In June, Hale-Cusanel­li spoke at a Patri­ot Free­dom Project fundrais­er.

In August, Hale-Cusanel­li received an award for pro­mot­ing “God, fam­i­ly and coun­try.” Con­ser­v­a­tive activist Ed Mar­tin, a leader of the 2024 Repub­li­can Nation­al Convention’s plat­form com­mit­tee, praised Hale-Cusanel­li as an “extra­or­di­nary man” and an “extra­or­di­nary leader.” (Among the oth­er award recip­i­ents were for­mer New York May­or Rudy Giu­liani, Trump advis­er Boris Epshteyn and sev­er­al oth­er fig­ures close­ly tied to the for­mer pres­i­dent.)

In an email to NPR, Mar­tin did not address Hale-Cusanelli’s past anti­se­mit­ic remarks.

“NPR, the gov­ern­ment-fund­ed pro­pa­gan­da out­let that has lied at every turn about what hap­pened on J6 is at it again,” he wrote.

As he received his award from Mar­tin at Bed­min­ster, Hale-Cusanel­li attacked the Biden admin­is­tra­tion.

“We’ll nev­er make Amer­i­ca great again, unless we acknowl­edge the true depth and scope of this tyran­ni­cal and despot­ic regime,” he said, “[and] the extent to which they will go to destroy this coun­try and every­thing that we hold dear.”

The fol­low­ing day, Trump held an event at Bed­min­ster ded­i­cat­ed to fight­ing anti­semitism, where he said, “we believe that this vicious out­break of mil­i­tant anti­semitism — it’s very mil­i­tant — must be giv­en no quar­ter, no safe har­bor, no place in a civ­i­lized soci­ety.”

Hale-Cusanel­li has hailed Trump as a “God Emper­or,” post­ed pho­tos from near the front of a Trump ral­ly and showed off a MAGA hat that was appar­ent­ly signed by the for­mer pres­i­dent.

After his sec­ond appear­ance at Trump’s club, he post­ed on social media, “Great time at Trump Bed­min­ster YET AGAIN!”

———–

“Trump’s Bed­min­ster club host­ed an alleged Nazi sym­pa­thiz­er who stormed the Capi­tol” by Tom Dreis­bach; Nation­al Pub­lic Radio; 09/12/2024

“Trump has made sup­port for the Jan. 6 defen­dants a cen­tral plank of his 2024 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. His first offi­cial cam­paign ral­ly opened with a ren­di­tion of “The Star-Span­gled Ban­ner” sung by Jan. 6 defen­dants in jail. He has referred to the defen­dants as “patri­ots” and “hostages,” and promised to issue par­dons to con­vict­ed riot­ers, includ­ing those who assault­ed police offi­cers. Approx­i­mate­ly 140 offi­cers were injured in the attack on the Capi­tol.”

Jus­tice for the ‘Jan 6 patri­ots’ isn’t just a Trump ral­ly ral­ly­ing cry. It’s a cen­tral plank of the Trump agen­da. Keep­ing Trump out of jail is kind of the whole point of him run­ning again, after all. Sure, it’s pos­si­ble Trump would have decid­ed to run again in 2024 had he not put him­self in so much legal per­il dur­ing in time in the White House. But there’s no ques­tion at this point regard­ing Trump’s pri­ma­ry motive today for regain­ing the pres­i­den­cy. He needs that par­don pow­er back for is own sake. Promis­ing to par­don the rest of the Jan­u­ary 6 con­victs is just part of the sales pitch to make that hap­pen.

But when we see these Patri­ot Free­dom Project gath­er­ings at Bed­min­ster, it’s impor­tant to keep in mind that the Patrio Free­dom Project isn’t a gener­ic ‘pro-jail Jan 6ers’ group. It was specif­i­cal­ly found­ed in response to Hale-Cusanel­li’s arrest and the group’s founder, Cyn­thia Hugh­es, calls her­self Hale-Cusanel­li’s “adop­tive aunt”. So when we see Trump mak­ing speech­es along­side Hugh­es at a Patri­ot Free­dom Project event held at Bed­min­ster, this is effec­tive­ly a Trump event for Hale-Cusanel­li:

...
“All of the peo­ple there, you’re amaz­ing patri­ots,” Trump said in the video. “Have a great time at Bed­min­ster.”

...

A Trump cam­paign offi­cial told NPR that the for­mer pres­i­dent is “not even aware of this indi­vid­ual.”

NPR point­ed out that Trump has repeat­ed­ly endorsed the non­prof­it Patri­ot Free­dom Project, a group found­ed in direct response to Hale-Cusanelli’s arrest. The group’s founder, Cyn­thia Hugh­es, calls her­self an “adop­tive aunt” to Hale-Cusanel­li and spoke about his case at a Trump cam­paign ral­ly. In 2023, Trump spoke at anoth­er Patri­ot Free­dom Project event at Bed­min­ster along­side Hugh­es.

The Trump cam­paign offi­cial clar­i­fied that Trump has “not been made aware of the com­ments that [Hale-Cusanelli’s] made.”

Regard­ing Hale-Cusanelli’s speech­es at the for­mer president’s Bed­min­ster prop­er­ty, press sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt said, “Pres­i­dent Trump did not attend these events, and, of course, he absolute­ly con­demns big­otry and hatred of any kind.”
...

And note that not only did Hale-Cusanel­li post a video on Twit­ter of his speech at the June Patri­ot Free­dom Project event at Bed­min­ster, but he starts off his speech (at 1:35 in in video) thank­ing Ed Mar­tin, who went on to give Hale-Cusanel­li an award for pro­mot­ing “God, fam­i­ly and coun­try” at the August Bed­min­ster event. Yes, Hale-Cusanel­li has been at two Bed­min­ster events just since his release from prison in Decem­ber, and at one of those events he was award­ed by key CNP pro-insur­rec­tion oper­a­tive Ed Mar­tin:

...
Judge McFad­den sen­tenced Hale-Cusanel­li to four years in prison. Hale-Cusanel­li was able to secure release from cus­tody in Dec. 2023, accord­ing to the Bureau of Pris­ons.

...

The two events at Trump’s Bed­min­ster prop­er­ty fea­tur­ing Hale-Cusanel­li both took place over the sum­mer.

In June, Hale-Cusanel­li spoke at a Patri­ot Free­dom Project fundrais­er.

In August, Hale-Cusanel­li received an award for pro­mot­ing “God, fam­i­ly and coun­try.” Con­ser­v­a­tive activist Ed Mar­tin, a leader of the 2024 Repub­li­can Nation­al Convention’s plat­form com­mit­tee, praised Hale-Cusanel­li as an “extra­or­di­nary man” and an “extra­or­di­nary leader.” (Among the oth­er award recip­i­ents were for­mer New York May­or Rudy Giu­liani, Trump advis­er Boris Epshteyn and sev­er­al oth­er fig­ures close­ly tied to the for­mer pres­i­dent.)

In an email to NPR, Mar­tin did not address Hale-Cusanelli’s past anti­se­mit­ic remarks.

“NPR, the gov­ern­ment-fund­ed pro­pa­gan­da out­let that has lied at every turn about what hap­pened on J6 is at it again,” he wrote.

As he received his award from Mar­tin at Bed­min­ster, Hale-Cusanel­li attacked the Biden admin­is­tra­tion.

“We’ll nev­er make Amer­i­ca great again, unless we acknowl­edge the true depth and scope of this tyran­ni­cal and despot­ic regime,” he said, “[and] the extent to which they will go to destroy this coun­try and every­thing that we hold dear.”

...

Hale-Cusanel­li has hailed Trump as a “God Emper­or,” post­ed pho­tos from near the front of a Trump ral­ly and showed off a MAGA hat that was appar­ent­ly signed by the for­mer pres­i­dent.

After his sec­ond appear­ance at Trump’s club, he post­ed on social media, “Great time at Trump Bed­min­ster YET AGAIN!”
...

And then, to top it all, fol­low­ing the August Patri­ot Free­dom Project event where Hale-Cusanel­li gets his award from Ed Mar­tin, Trump holds a Bed­min­ster event ded­i­cat­ed to fight­ing anti­semitism:

...
The fol­low­ing day, Trump held an event at Bed­min­ster ded­i­cat­ed to fight­ing anti­semitism, where he said, “we believe that this vicious out­break of mil­i­tant anti­semitism — it’s very mil­i­tant — must be giv­en no quar­ter, no safe har­bor, no place in a civ­i­lized soci­ety.”
...

Was that just a ran­dom coin­ci­dence? An anti-anti­semitism event held just one day after a Nazi was giv­en an award at the same prop­er­ty? If so, it sounds a lot like the $14.88 ‘coin­ci­dence’.

But as we’re going to see in the fol­low­ing arti­cles, the rela­tion­ship between the Patri­ot Free­dom Project and Trump White world isn’t lim­it­ed to the events at Bed­min­ster over the sum­mer and last year. For exam­ple, Cyn­thia Hugh­es has become a “War Room” reg­u­lar on Steve Ban­non’s pod­cast. Beyond that, Trump and Hugh­es have repeat­ed­ly made appear­ances at each oth­er’s events. For exam­ple, in Sep­tem­ber 2022, Hugh­es spoke at a Trump ral­ly. Video of the event was fea­tures promi­nent­ly on Patri­ot Free­dom Pro­jec­t’s home­page. On Decem­ber 1, Patri­ot Free­dom Project held an “open house” that includ­ed a talk by Trump. Lat­er that month, Trump donat­ed $10k to the group. Keep in mind that Decem­ber 2022 an espe­cial­ly tumul­tuous month for Trump after the Novem­ber 22, 2022, din­ner with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago. And he not only gave a talk at an “open house” but also donat­ed $10k.

And the entire time, Patri­ot Free­dom Project has been claim­ing non-par­ti­san 501(c)(3) tax deductible sta­tus. A bla­tant­ly false sta­tus that is nonethe­less still tol­er­at­ed by the IRS. Despite mul­ti­ple Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­bers of Con­gress open­ly call­ing on the IRS to crack down on this spe­cif­ic group. But as the fol­low­ing Feb­ru­ary 2022 NPR arti­cle describes, there’s one oth­er major area where Patri­ot Free­dom Project and MAGA world over­lap: being self-enrich­ing scams:

Nation­al Pub­lic Radio

A con­tro­ver­sial non­prof­it for Capi­tol riot defen­dants makes changes after crit­i­cism

Feb­ru­ary 10, 2022 6:01 AM ET
Tom Dreis­bach

The non­prof­it Patri­ot Free­dom Project became one of the most promi­nent groups sup­port­ing the “polit­i­cal pris­on­ers” crim­i­nal­ly charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capi­tol. Now — after fac­ing crit­i­cism from some on the pro-Trump right, fam­i­ly mem­bers of defen­dants and experts in char­i­ty law — the con­tro­ver­sial group has announced it is replac­ing mem­bers of its board of trustees and “revamp­ing” its web­site.

In Jan­u­ary, NPR first report­ed that fam­i­ly mem­bers of Capi­tol riot defen­dants felt the Patri­ot Free­dom Project was not trans­par­ent enough about how it was spend­ing the rough­ly $900,000 it had received in dona­tions. Char­i­ty experts also told NPR they saw “red flags” in the group’s prac­tices, such as the fact that the orga­ni­za­tion’s board of trustees con­sist­ed of three peo­ple: group pres­i­dent Cyn­thia Hugh­es, Hugh­es’ sis­ter-in-law, and Hugh­es’ 24-year-old son.

...

Since NPR’s sto­ry, how­ev­er, Hugh­es has said pub­licly said that her fam­i­ly mem­bers are no longer on the board.

The Patri­ot Free­dom Pro­jec­t’s web­site also now fea­tures an updat­ed doc­u­ment enti­tled “State­ment of Activ­i­ties.” The doc­u­ment was first uploaded to the group’s site in Decem­ber, but the con­tent of the doc­u­ment has changed since NPR’s sto­ry. (Despite the mod­i­fi­ca­tions, it still bears the date of Dec. 9, 2021.)

Among those changes: the doc­u­ment pre­vi­ous­ly includ­ed a sen­tence that stat­ed, “No one is going to get rich off the Foun­da­tion.”

That sen­tence no longer appears in the doc­u­ment on the group’s web­site.

The doc­u­ment cur­rent­ly on the group’s web­site also fea­tures a cau­tion to poten­tial donors that the group “can­not guar­an­tee” the IRS will grant the Patri­ot Free­dom Project tax-exempt sta­tus, so their dona­tions may not be deductible at tax time. The ear­li­er ver­sion of the doc­u­ment stat­ed the group was prepar­ing its appli­ca­tion for tax-exempt sta­tus and “con­tri­bu­tions are deductible.”

Some Capi­tol riot defen­dants and their fam­i­lies tell NPR they remain skep­ti­cal of Hugh­es and her orga­ni­za­tion. Con­cerns high­light­ed by char­i­ty experts have not all been addressed. And gov­ern­ment author­i­ties in four states told NPR they were exam­in­ing whether the Patri­ot Free­dom Project was com­ply­ing with their state’s laws on char­i­ta­ble reg­is­tra­tion.

A spokesper­son for the Patri­ot Free­dom Project did not respond to NPR’s detailed ques­tions for this sto­ry. Instead, the orga­ni­za­tion sent the same state­ment it pro­vid­ed in Jan­u­ary, which said, in part, “We will nev­er stop fight­ing for these peo­ple, their fam­i­lies and chil­dren, and if the gov­ern­ment fund­ed media does­n’t like it will do it even more.”

Chang­ing the board

After NPR’s ini­tial sto­ry on the Patri­ot Free­dom Project, Steve Ban­non invit­ed Hugh­es to respond on his pop­u­lar pro-Trump show, “War Room,” which is avail­able nation­wide as a pod­cast, online video stream, and even on satel­lite TV. Hugh­es has become a “War Room” reg­u­lar and Ban­non has pledged that a por­tion of “trans­ac­tion fees” from his lat­est cryp­tocur­ren­cy ven­ture will be donat­ed to the Patri­ot Free­dom Project.

In her inter­view, Hugh­es sug­gest­ed the deci­sion to install her fam­i­ly mem­bers on the three-mem­ber board of trustees was the result of mov­ing to set up the orga­ni­za­tion quick­ly.

“I had to come up with board mem­bers,” Hugh­es told Ban­non. “I put my son, my sis­ter-in-law — who is a Demo­c­rat, by the way — on the board.”

In gen­er­al, non­prof­it boards are sup­posed to pro­vide inde­pen­dent over­sight of the group’s activ­i­ties. Char­i­ty experts say hav­ing a board made up exclu­sive­ly of fam­i­ly mem­bers can cre­ate con­flicts of inter­est.

“They’re not on the board now,” Hugh­es told Ban­non. “We have diver­si­fied the board. We have two board mem­bers that are not relat­ed to me that will be released very soon.”

Since that inter­view on Ban­non’s show, which aired on Jan. 31, the group does not appear to have pub­licly iden­ti­fied the new board mem­bers, and did not pro­vide their names when NPR asked.

In her inter­view with Ban­non, Hugh­es also allud­ed to oth­er grow­ing pains for the group, which formed last sum­mer.

“In the begin­ning of this process, I did­n’t have good peo­ple around me,” Hugh­es said. “I had peo­ple who were not so hon­est with me. Now I have great peo­ple in my camp.”

...

The spokesper­son for the Patri­ot Free­dom Project pre­vi­ous­ly declined to com­ment to NPR regard­ing Hugh­es’ finan­cial sit­u­a­tion. On Ban­non’s show, Hugh­es said that her ear­li­er bank­rupt­cy stemmed from what she char­ac­ter­ized as an abu­sive pre­vi­ous mar­riage. “I had to file bank­rupt­cy because of the finan­cial prob­lems that this man brought to my life,” Hugh­es told Ban­non.

Now, Hugh­es said, “I don’t have finan­cial prob­lems.”

Hugh­es did not address the law­suits she has filed in recent years, in which she pub­licly dis­closed more cur­rent mon­ey trou­bles. For exam­ple, in 2018 she stat­ed in court doc­u­ments that her fam­i­ly had expe­ri­enced “seri­ous finan­cial hard­ship” in a law­suit against cred­it rat­ing agen­cies, demand­ing changes to her cred­it rat­ing and $15,000 in dam­ages. That law­suit result­ed in a set­tle­ment with one par­ty, and out­right dis­missal with the oth­ers.

Reg­is­ter­ing with state char­i­ty reg­u­la­tors

In her inter­view with Ban­non, Hugh­es also did not address the fact that the Patri­ot Free­dom Project, which is head­quar­tered in New Jer­sey and oper­ates under the legal name Hugh­es Advo­ca­cy Foun­da­tion, had not reg­is­tered with the state Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office. Under New Jer­sey law, char­i­ties are gen­er­al­ly required to reg­is­ter with the state with­in 30 days of rais­ing $10,000 in a fis­cal year.

Because the group solic­its dona­tions online and on nation­al plat­forms like Ban­non’s “War Room,” experts said the group also has to be mind­ful of char­i­ty reg­is­tra­tion require­ments in oth­er states, too.

“Most states have some require­ment of reg­is­ter­ing with­in their state,” said Philip Hack­ney, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh School of Law and an expert in non­prof­it law. “If you are solic­it­ing across radio and TV or even the inter­net, you’re pret­ty quick­ly solic­it­ing across 50 states.”

In some cas­es, those reg­is­tra­tion require­ments kick in before an orga­ni­za­tion starts rais­ing mon­ey. Reg­u­la­tors often “require advanced reg­is­tra­tion pri­or to solic­it­ing char­i­ta­ble dona­tions or hold­ing funds for char­i­ta­ble pur­pos­es in that par­tic­u­lar state,” said Erin Bradrick, an attor­ney with the NEO Law Group, who has worked in non­prof­it law for near­ly a decade.

“I think that we’re see­ing state Attor­neys Gen­er­al increas­ing­ly step into an expand­ed role in terms of data col­lec­tion and enforce­ment with respect to char­i­ties,” said Bradrick.

NPR checked with gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tors in places where the group appears to have solicit­ed or received dona­tions from local res­i­dents: Cal­i­for­nia, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, Flori­da, Illi­nois, and New York.

...

In Cal­i­for­nia, the state’s Depart­ment of Jus­tice issued a “Notice to Reg­is­ter” to the group on Feb. 1, request­ing that the orga­ni­za­tion pro­vide a set of detailed records with­in 30 days. The offices of attor­neys gen­er­al in Illi­nois and New York said they were exam­in­ing whether the group was com­ply­ing with state law. In Flori­da, the Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture and Con­sumer Ser­vices over­sees char­i­ties, and they said they were also eval­u­at­ing whether the orga­ni­za­tion need­ed to file a reg­is­tra­tion.

As for the orga­ni­za­tion’s home state of New Jer­sey, a spokesper­son for the Divi­sion of Con­sumer Affairs at the state Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office said the agency was “aware of reports regard­ing Patri­ot Free­dom Project,” but could nei­ther con­firm nor deny the exis­tence of an inves­ti­ga­tion, cit­ing gen­er­al pol­i­cy.

...

Polit­i­cal state­ments

There may be anoth­er obsta­cle to the Patri­ot Free­dom Project receiv­ing the IRS’ bless­ing as a tax-exempt enti­ty: its state­ments about pol­i­tics.

The IRS has “an absolute pro­hi­bi­tion” on 501(c)(3) tax-exempt orga­ni­za­tions inter­ven­ing in par­ti­san polit­i­cal cam­paigns, said Bradrick.

On Jan. 26, the group’s twit­ter account said “We need to...take down Chris Smith and the alleged [R]epublican Van­Drew!” Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew are both Repub­li­can mem­bers of Con­gress from New Jer­sey and are cur­rent­ly run­ning for re-elec­tion.

We need to do the same here in NJ and take down Chris Smith and the alleged repub­li­can Van­Drew! Chris Smith claims he is for vet­er­ans but yet refus­es to lift a fin­ger to help the 3 NJ men being held against their will at DC GITMO! We will nev­er achieve change with these RINOS! https://t.co/Q9SiC1T8ok— Real Cyn­thia Hugh­es (@realpfp) Jan­u­ary 26, 2022

“That’s exact­ly the type of thing that vio­lates the pro­hi­bi­tion on polit­i­cal cam­paign inter­ven­tion,” said Hack­ney.

The group has also tweet­ed state­ments sug­gest­ing Trump should run for Pres­i­dent again.

Because Trump has not offi­cial­ly declared that he is run­ning for office, Hack­ney said, it’s less clear whether those state­ments vio­late the law. Either way, the IRS may give those state­ments a close look when eval­u­at­ing whether to grant the Patri­ot Free­dom Project tax-exempt sta­tus.

“The IRS might say, ‘Sor­ry, you appear to be engaged in polit­i­cal cam­paign inter­ven­tion’ and deny your appli­ca­tion as a result,” Hack­ney said.

If the IRS does deny the group’s appli­ca­tion, the Patri­ot Free­dom Project may have to pay tax­es, and donors would not be able write off their con­tri­bu­tions to the group.

Response from Capi­tol riot defen­dants and their fam­i­lies

The Patri­ot Free­dom Project has received nation­al promi­nence and sup­port from lead­ing pro-Trump fig­ures such as Ban­non, U.S. Sen­ate can­di­date J.D. Vance, author and film­mak­er Dinesh D’Souza and radio host Clay Travis. But opin­ions of the group among actu­al Capi­tol riot defen­dants and their fam­i­lies remain divid­ed.

Some, such as Trish Priller, have pub­licly vouched for the group. Pros­e­cu­tors have said Priller’s hus­band, Christo­pher Wor­rell, is a mem­ber of far-right group the Proud Boys, and that he attacked police guard­ing the U.S. Capi­tol on Jan. 6, 2021 with a can of “pep­per spray gel.” Wor­rell has plead­ed not guilty. Priller told NPR in a mes­sage that the group “helped many wives & chil­dren pay their bills, home repairs, food, car repairs, dia­pers, Christ­mas and has also secured lawyers. If Cyn­thia did­n’t cre­ate the Patri­ot Free­dom Project many fam­i­lies would have suf­fered.”

Bon­nie Nichols, whose hus­band Ryan has plead­ed not guilty to alle­ga­tions that he used a chem­i­cal spray to assault police on Jan. 6, 2021, told the con­ser­v­a­tive web­site The Fed­er­al­ist that the group pro­vid­ed finan­cial assis­tance and emo­tion­al sup­port to her fam­i­ly. “I don’t know where we would be if we did­n’t have that sup­port,” she said.

Oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers remain high­ly crit­i­cal of the group. “I real­ly am pissed off,” said the fam­i­ly mem­ber of one defen­dant, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty due to fear of back­lash from the group. They were par­tic­u­lar­ly upset that the group said it may use a por­tion of the hun­dreds of thou­sands of donat­ed funds to hire employ­ees, rather than direct­ly sup­port defen­dants.

On its most recent “State­ment of Activ­i­ties” the group said that while, “no one has tak­en a salary” yet, “we will poten­tial­ly hire sev­er­al employ­ees, all of whom will be paid rea­son­able salaries for the work they are doing.”

...

Troy Smocks did not go to the Capi­tol on Jan. 6, but was present in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. that day. He plead­ed guilty to send­ing threats against pub­lic offi­cials on the social media plat­form Par­ler, and was recent­ly released from the D.C. jail. He said the Patri­ot Free­dom Project only seemed to sup­port a small frac­tion of all defen­dants.

“More than half of the guys [in jail] are not list­ed on their site,” he said. In fact, out of more than 700 Capi­tol riot defen­dants, only 40 are cur­rent­ly list­ed on the group’s web­site along with their indi­vid­ual fundrais­ing pages.

As of last Decem­ber, the group stat­ed that it held more than $500,000 that it had not yet spent. Though Smocks said he is deal­ing with seri­ous mon­ey trou­ble from being locked up, he said he had not received any sup­port from the Patri­ot Free­dom Project, and ques­tioned why the group had not pro­vid­ed aid to more defen­dants.

Smocks said he felt like groups like the Patri­ot Free­dom Project and oth­ers rais­ing mon­ey for these cas­es were more in it for them­selves than the defen­dants.

“They use the events of Jan. 6 and the detainees in order to pad their own resumes and enrich them­selves,” said Smocks.

...

———–

“A con­tro­ver­sial non­prof­it for Capi­tol riot defen­dants makes changes after crit­i­cism” by Tom Dreis­bach; Nation­al Pub­lic Radio; 02/10/2022

“In Jan­u­ary, NPR first report­ed that fam­i­ly mem­bers of Capi­tol riot defen­dants felt the Patri­ot Free­dom Project was not trans­par­ent enough about how it was spend­ing the rough­ly $900,000 it had received in dona­tions. Char­i­ty experts also told NPR they saw “red flags” in the group’s prac­tices, such as the fact that the orga­ni­za­tion’s board of trustees con­sist­ed of three peo­ple: group pres­i­dent Cyn­thia Hugh­es, Hugh­es’ sis­ter-in-law, and Hugh­es’ 24-year-old son.”

Yes, there’s no short­age of “red flags” when it comes to the char­i­ta­ble sta­tus of the Patri­ot Free­dom Project. Start­ing with the fact that the orig­i­nal board of trustees con­sist­ed of Cyn­thia Hugh­es, Hugh­es’ sis­ter-in-law, and Hugh­es’ 24-year-old son. But that ques­tion­able lead­er­ship com­po­si­tion is just the start of the red flags. As Jan­u­ary 6 defen­dants and their fam­i­ly mem­bers charge, the ‘char­i­ty’ is real­ly more of an exer­cise in self-enrich­ment:

...
A spokesper­son for the Patri­ot Free­dom Project pre­vi­ous­ly reject­ed any crit­i­cism of the group. The spokesper­son, who would only com­ment to NPR on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, insist­ed that the group was a mod­el of trans­paren­cy and argued that it was an asset that fam­i­ly mem­bers made up the Patri­ot Free­dom Pro­jec­t’s board, liken­ing it to a mom-and-pop oper­a­tion.

Since NPR’s sto­ry, how­ev­er, Hugh­es has said pub­licly said that her fam­i­ly mem­bers are no longer on the board.

The Patri­ot Free­dom Pro­jec­t’s web­site also now fea­tures an updat­ed doc­u­ment enti­tled “State­ment of Activ­i­ties.” The doc­u­ment was first uploaded to the group’s site in Decem­ber, but the con­tent of the doc­u­ment has changed since NPR’s sto­ry. (Despite the mod­i­fi­ca­tions, it still bears the date of Dec. 9, 2021.)

Among those changes: the doc­u­ment pre­vi­ous­ly includ­ed a sen­tence that stat­ed, “No one is going to get rich off the Foun­da­tion.”

That sen­tence no longer appears in the doc­u­ment on the group’s web­site.

The doc­u­ment cur­rent­ly on the group’s web­site also fea­tures a cau­tion to poten­tial donors that the group “can­not guar­an­tee” the IRS will grant the Patri­ot Free­dom Project tax-exempt sta­tus, so their dona­tions may not be deductible at tax time. The ear­li­er ver­sion of the doc­u­ment stat­ed the group was prepar­ing its appli­ca­tion for tax-exempt sta­tus and “con­tri­bu­tions are deductible.”

...

Bon­nie Nichols, whose hus­band Ryan has plead­ed not guilty to alle­ga­tions that he used a chem­i­cal spray to assault police on Jan. 6, 2021, told the con­ser­v­a­tive web­site The Fed­er­al­ist that the group pro­vid­ed finan­cial assis­tance and emo­tion­al sup­port to her fam­i­ly. “I don’t know where we would be if we did­n’t have that sup­port,” she said.

Oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers remain high­ly crit­i­cal of the group. “I real­ly am pissed off,” said the fam­i­ly mem­ber of one defen­dant, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty due to fear of back­lash from the group. They were par­tic­u­lar­ly upset that the group said it may use a por­tion of the hun­dreds of thou­sands of donat­ed funds to hire employ­ees, rather than direct­ly sup­port defen­dants.

On its most recent “State­ment of Activ­i­ties” the group said that while, “no one has tak­en a salary” yet, “we will poten­tial­ly hire sev­er­al employ­ees, all of whom will be paid rea­son­able salaries for the work they are doing.”
...

But the Patri­ot Free­dom Project has­n’t just been a fam­i­ly affair. Beyond the wide expo­sure giv­en to the group by Trump world icons like CNP mem­ber Steve Ban­non or Dinesh D’Souza, the group has been pro­mot­ed by JD Vance and Trump him­self. Patri­ot Free­dom Project is a Trump endorsed affair:

...
After NPR’s ini­tial sto­ry on the Patri­ot Free­dom Project, Steve Ban­non invit­ed Hugh­es to respond on his pop­u­lar pro-Trump show, “War Room,” which is avail­able nation­wide as a pod­cast, online video stream, and even on satel­lite TV. Hugh­es has become a “War Room” reg­u­lar and Ban­non has pledged that a por­tion of “trans­ac­tion fees” from his lat­est cryp­tocur­ren­cy ven­ture will be donat­ed to the Patri­ot Free­dom Project.

In her inter­view, Hugh­es sug­gest­ed the deci­sion to install her fam­i­ly mem­bers on the three-mem­ber board of trustees was the result of mov­ing to set up the orga­ni­za­tion quick­ly.

“I had to come up with board mem­bers,” Hugh­es told Ban­non. “I put my son, my sis­ter-in-law — who is a Demo­c­rat, by the way — on the board.”

In gen­er­al, non­prof­it boards are sup­posed to pro­vide inde­pen­dent over­sight of the group’s activ­i­ties. Char­i­ty experts say hav­ing a board made up exclu­sive­ly of fam­i­ly mem­bers can cre­ate con­flicts of inter­est.

“They’re not on the board now,” Hugh­es told Ban­non. “We have diver­si­fied the board. We have two board mem­bers that are not relat­ed to me that will be released very soon.”

Since that inter­view on Ban­non’s show, which aired on Jan. 31, the group does not appear to have pub­licly iden­ti­fied the new board mem­bers, and did not pro­vide their names when NPR asked.

...

The Patri­ot Free­dom Project has received nation­al promi­nence and sup­port from lead­ing pro-Trump fig­ures such as Ban­non, U.S. Sen­ate can­di­date J.D. Vance, author and film­mak­er Dinesh D’Souza and radio host Clay Travis. But opin­ions of the group among actu­al Capi­tol riot defen­dants and their fam­i­lies remain divid­ed.

Some, such as Trish Priller, have pub­licly vouched for the group. Pros­e­cu­tors have said Priller’s hus­band, Christo­pher Wor­rell, is a mem­ber of far-right group the Proud Boys, and that he attacked police guard­ing the U.S. Capi­tol on Jan. 6, 2021 with a can of “pep­per spray gel.” Wor­rell has plead­ed not guilty. Priller told NPR in a mes­sage that the group “helped many wives & chil­dren pay their bills, home repairs, food, car repairs, dia­pers, Christ­mas and has also secured lawyers. If Cyn­thia did­n’t cre­ate the Patri­ot Free­dom Project many fam­i­lies would have suf­fered.”
...

And as we should expect from all this Trump World-relat­ed, Patri­ot Free­dom Project is kind of a scam and only real­ly seems to sup­port a small frac­tion of the Jan­u­ary 6 defen­dants. That’s part of the con­text of Tim­o­thy Hale-Cusanel­li’s star­dom in this cir­cle. The Hitler looka­like was one of the few cham­pi­oned by the group. Which should make one won­der about the rest of defen­dants the group is cham­pi­oning:

...
Troy Smocks did not go to the Capi­tol on Jan. 6, but was present in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. that day. He plead­ed guilty to send­ing threats against pub­lic offi­cials on the social media plat­form Par­ler, and was recent­ly released from the D.C. jail. He said the Patri­ot Free­dom Project only seemed to sup­port a small frac­tion of all defen­dants.

Troy Smocks did not go to the Capi­tol on Jan. 6, but was present in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. that day. He plead­ed guilty to send­ing threats against pub­lic offi­cials on the social media plat­form Par­ler, and was recent­ly released from the D.C. jail. He said the Patri­ot Free­dom Project only seemed to sup­port a small frac­tion of all defen­dants.

“More than half of the guys [in jail] are not list­ed on their site,” he said. In fact, out of more than 700 Capi­tol riot defen­dants, only 40 are cur­rent­ly list­ed on the group’s web­site along with their indi­vid­ual fundrais­ing pages.

As of last Decem­ber, the group stat­ed that it held more than $500,000 that it had not yet spent. Though Smocks said he is deal­ing with seri­ous mon­ey trou­ble from being locked up, he said he had not received any sup­port from the Patri­ot Free­dom Project, and ques­tioned why the group had not pro­vid­ed aid to more defen­dants.

Smocks said he felt like groups like the Patri­ot Free­dom Project and oth­ers rais­ing mon­ey for these cas­es were more in it for them­selves than the defen­dants.

“They use the events of Jan. 6 and the detainees in order to pad their own resumes and enrich them­selves,” said Smocks.
...

Even Cyn­thia Hugh­es her­self seems to admit she “did­n’t have good peo­ple around me” when the group was first formed. Which appears to be a ref­er­ence to her ex-hus­band. But she assured the pub­lic that every­thing was cleaned up by that point:

...
In her inter­view with Ban­non, Hugh­es also allud­ed to oth­er grow­ing pains for the group, which formed last sum­mer.

“In the begin­ning of this process, I did­n’t have good peo­ple around me,” Hugh­es said. “I had peo­ple who were not so hon­est with me. Now I have great peo­ple in my camp.”

...

The spokesper­son for the Patri­ot Free­dom Project pre­vi­ous­ly declined to com­ment to NPR regard­ing Hugh­es’ finan­cial sit­u­a­tion. On Ban­non’s show, Hugh­es said that her ear­li­er bank­rupt­cy stemmed from what she char­ac­ter­ized as an abu­sive pre­vi­ous mar­riage. “I had to file bank­rupt­cy because of the finan­cial prob­lems that this man brought to my life,” Hugh­es told Ban­non.

Now, Hugh­es said, “I don’t have finan­cial prob­lems.”

Hugh­es did not address the law­suits she has filed in recent years, in which she pub­licly dis­closed more cur­rent mon­ey trou­bles. For exam­ple, in 2018 she stat­ed in court doc­u­ments that her fam­i­ly had expe­ri­enced “seri­ous finan­cial hard­ship” in a law­suit against cred­it rat­ing agen­cies, demand­ing changes to her cred­it rat­ing and $15,000 in dam­ages. That law­suit result­ed in a set­tle­ment with one par­ty, and out­right dis­missal with the oth­ers.
...

And than we get to the bla­tant­ly ille­gal part of this oper­a­tion. Typ­i­cal­ly ille­gal in the world of polit­i­cal ‘non-prof­its’: a 501(c)(3) char­i­ty like this can’t legal­ly advo­cate for can­di­dates. Some­thing Patri­ot Free­dom Project has been doing rou­tine­ly:

...
There may be anoth­er obsta­cle to the Patri­ot Free­dom Project receiv­ing the IRS’ bless­ing as a tax-exempt enti­ty: its state­ments about pol­i­tics.

The IRS has “an absolute pro­hi­bi­tion” on 501(c)(3) tax-exempt orga­ni­za­tions inter­ven­ing in par­ti­san polit­i­cal cam­paigns, said Bradrick.

On Jan. 26, the group’s twit­ter account said “We need to...take down Chris Smith and the alleged [R]epublican Van­Drew!” Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew are both Repub­li­can mem­bers of Con­gress from New Jer­sey and are cur­rent­ly run­ning for re-elec­tion.

We need to do the same here in NJ and take down Chris Smith and the alleged repub­li­can Van­Drew! Chris Smith claims he is for vet­er­ans but yet refus­es to lift a fin­ger to help the 3 NJ men being held against their will at DC GITMO! We will nev­er achieve change with these RINOS! https://t.co/Q9SiC1T8ok— Real Cyn­thia Hugh­es (@realpfp) Jan­u­ary 26, 2022

“That’s exact­ly the type of thing that vio­lates the pro­hi­bi­tion on polit­i­cal cam­paign inter­ven­tion,” said Hack­ney.

The group has also tweet­ed state­ments sug­gest­ing Trump should run for Pres­i­dent again.

Because Trump has not offi­cial­ly declared that he is run­ning for office, Hack­ney said, it’s less clear whether those state­ments vio­late the law. Either way, the IRS may give those state­ments a close look when eval­u­at­ing whether to grant the Patri­ot Free­dom Project tax-exempt sta­tus.

“The IRS might say, ‘Sor­ry, you appear to be engaged in polit­i­cal cam­paign inter­ven­tion’ and deny your appli­ca­tion as a result,” Hack­ney said.

If the IRS does deny the group’s appli­ca­tion, the Patri­ot Free­dom Project may have to pay tax­es, and donors would not be able write off their con­tri­bu­tions to the group.
...

That was the state of affairs in Feb­ru­ary of 2022. The Patri­ot Free­dom Project is anoth­er bla­tant MAGA world adja­cent scam. Per­son­al­ly endorse by Steve Ban­non and JD Vance and Trump. And that brings us to the fol­low­ing NPR piece from Jan­u­ary of 2024 updat­ing the sit­u­a­tion. Except there isn’t real­ly any­thing to update. It’s the same sit­u­a­tion. The only thing that’s new is Ed Mar­tin joined the board of trustees at some point. And mem­bers of Con­gress have been call­ing for the IRS to inves­ti­gate it:

Nation­al Pub­lic Radio

Law­mak­ers call for IRS scruti­ny of Trump-backed non­prof­it that aids Jan. 6 riot­ers

Jan­u­ary 17, 2024 12:43 PM ET
Tom Dreis­bach

Con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats are rais­ing alarms about a non­prof­it group that pro­vides finan­cial sup­port for defen­dants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capi­tol, ques­tion­ing whether the orga­ni­za­tion’s appar­ent sup­port for Don­ald Trump’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign may vio­late fed­er­al tax law.

The group, known as the Patri­ot Free­dom Project, launched in response to the arrest of a Jan. 6 riot­er known for pro­mot­ing extreme racist, anti­se­mit­ic and pro-Nazi views. The group’s lead­ers describe Jan. 6 defen­dants as “polit­i­cal pris­on­ers” and have devel­oped a close rela­tion­ship with Trump and his 2024 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. The for­mer pres­i­dent has embraced defen­dants charged in the attack on the U.S. Capi­tol, call­ing them “hostages” and promis­ing to issue par­dons to defen­dants if he wins the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

...

Because the Patri­ot Free­dom Project is orga­nized as a non­prof­it char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion under sec­tion 501(c)(3) of the tax code, it is “absolute­ly pro­hib­it­ed” by fed­er­al law from “direct­ly or indi­rect­ly” tak­ing part in par­ti­san polit­i­cal cam­paigns or endors­ing or oppos­ing can­di­dates.

As NPR pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed, the founder and pres­i­dent of the Patri­ot Free­dom Project, Cyn­thia Hugh­es, encour­aged peo­ple to vote for Trump at one of the group’s events held at Trump Nation­al Golf Club Bed­min­ster in August 2023.

“When you go to the bal­lot box, don’t wor­ry about what you hear in the media. Wor­ry about what’s right for this coun­try. And the only thing that’s right for this coun­try is this gem,” said Hugh­es as she point­ed to Trump, who was stand­ing beside her, accord­ing to video of the event post­ed online.

NPR found oth­er instances in which the group expressed sup­port for Trump’s reelec­tion, took part in par­ti­san cam­paign events and encour­aged peo­ple to vote against polit­i­cal can­di­dates.

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jer­sey over­sees the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice as the top Demo­c­rat on the House Ways and Means Sub­com­mit­tee on Over­sight. In response to NPR’s report­ing, Pascrell called on the agency to open an inves­ti­ga­tion into the Patri­ot Free­dom Project

“If this pur­port­ed non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion is using its pul­pit to pro­mote Don­ald Trump, the group is not just sup­port­ing the same author­i­tar­i­an­ism espoused by an insur­rec­tion­ist – it is also break­ing fed­er­al tax law and must be held account­able,” said Pascrell in a state­ment to NPR. “The IRS should inves­ti­gate this case imme­di­ate­ly and crack down on those poten­tial­ly abus­ing our tax code.”

Pascrel­l’s Repub­li­can coun­ter­part on the Sub­com­mit­tee on Over­sight, Rep. David Schweik­ert of Ari­zona, did not respond to NPR’s request for com­ment.

Sen. Shel­don White­house, D‑R.I., raised con­cerns about what he views as lax IRS enforce­ment of non­prof­its involved in polit­i­cal activ­i­ty.

“There are 501(c)(3) orga­ni­za­tions that open­ly flout the law and solic­it tax-deductible dona­tions to fund polit­i­cal activ­i­ties,” White­house told NPR in a state­ment. “These polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions mas­quer­ade as char­i­ties and brazen­ly ignore the law, because they don’t think the IRS will enforce it. Too often, they’re right. It’s long past time that the IRS crack down on these abus­es.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D‑Md., said in an inter­view that NPR’s report­ing had raised con­cerns for him about the Patri­ot Free­dom Pro­jec­t’s polit­i­cal activ­i­ty.

“I’m cer­tain­ly alarmed to learn that a 501(c)(3) orga­ni­za­tion is send­ing out direct polit­i­cal advo­ca­cy — mean­ing mes­sages telling peo­ple to vote for this can­di­date or vote against that can­di­date,” said Raskin, who served on the Jan. 6 select com­mit­tee in Con­gress. “That clear­ly cuts against the let­ter of the law. The resources and the pres­tige of the orga­ni­za­tion can­not be used for elec­toral pur­pos­es in any way.”

...

An IRS offi­cial declined to com­ment. Because the group is based in New Jer­sey, it is also reg­u­lat­ed by that state’s author­i­ties. A spokesper­son for the New Jer­sey Divi­sion of Con­sumer Affairs told NPR, “We can­not com­ment on hypo­thet­i­cal vio­la­tions of the law,” but not­ed that vio­la­tions of fed­er­al law could also lead to reper­cus­sions at the state lev­el.

What does the law say?

Non­prof­it char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions that are rec­og­nized by the IRS under sec­tion 501(c)(3) of the tax code are exempt from cer­tain fed­er­al, state and local tax­es. The gov­ern­ment allows donors to 501(c)(3) non­prof­its to deduct their char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions at tax time, which helps incen­tivize dona­tions. The Patri­ot Free­dom Project touts that perk on its web­site.

...

As the IRS puts it on the agen­cy’s web­site, “all sec­tion 501(c)(3) orga­ni­za­tions are absolute­ly pro­hib­it­ed from direct­ly or indi­rect­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in, or inter­ven­ing in, any polit­i­cal cam­paign on behalf of (or in oppo­si­tion to) any can­di­date for elec­tive pub­lic office.”

That means fed­er­al law pro­hibits 501(c)(3) groups from endors­ing or oppos­ing polit­i­cal can­di­dates and from mak­ing or dis­trib­ut­ing state­ments for or against polit­i­cal can­di­dates.

...

The IRS also instructs non­prof­its to tread care­ful­ly if they hold events with a polit­i­cal can­di­date. If the orga­ni­za­tion invites a can­di­date to speak, then it must take steps to ensure that it pro­vides “an equal oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate to all polit­i­cal can­di­dates seek­ing the same office,” the IRS states, and the orga­ni­za­tion must ensure that it “does not indi­cate any sup­port for or oppo­si­tion to any can­di­date (includ­ing can­di­date intro­duc­tions and in com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­cern­ing any can­di­date’s atten­dance).”

The Patri­ot Free­dom Project acknowl­edged these legal require­ments when it applied for tax-exempt sta­tus, and it declared in its IRS paper­work that it would not “sup­port or oppose can­di­dates in polit­i­cal cam­paigns in any way.”

What has the Patri­ot Free­dom Project done?

NPR found sev­er­al speech­es, events and social media posts in which the Patri­ot Free­dom Project and its lead­er­ship took actions that raise ques­tions about whether the group may have vio­lat­ed the ban on polit­i­cal cam­paign activ­i­ty by 501(c)(3) non­prof­its.

Take, for exam­ple, the Patri­ot Free­dom Pro­jec­t’s home­page, which promi­nent­ly fea­tures a video of Trump at a cam­paign ral­ly in Sep­tem­ber 2022.

Hugh­es, the Patri­ot Free­dom Pro­jec­t’s pres­i­dent and founder, spoke at that ral­ly, which was held in sup­port of Repub­li­can U.S. Sen­ate can­di­date Mehmet Oz and guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Doug Mas­tri­ano, both of Penn­syl­va­nia. (Both Oz and Mas­tri­ano sub­se­quent­ly lost in the 2022 elec­tions.) At the event, Hugh­es iden­ti­fied her­self specif­i­cal­ly as the leader of the Patri­ot Free­dom Project and encour­aged peo­ple to sup­port the group.

Hugh­es went on to hold mul­ti­ple Patri­ot Free­dom Project events either fea­tur­ing Trump or where speak­ers pro­mot­ed Trump’s polit­i­cal cam­paign:

* In Decem­ber 2022, the Patri­ot Free­dom Project held an “open house” event where a senior advis­er to Trump’s Save Amer­i­ca polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee as well as Trump him­self spoke. That same month, Trump’s PAC donat­ed $10,000 to the Patri­ot Free­dom Project.

* In June 2023, the Patri­ot Free­dom Project held an event at Trump Nation­al Golf Club Bed­min­ster. Video of the event shows that Trump gave a speech in which he said, “We’re gonna win an elec­tion in 2024,” as Hugh­es and Patri­ot Free­dom Project board mem­ber Ed Mar­tin applaud­ed. Anoth­er speak­er at the said, “We have got to reelect Pres­i­dent Trump into the White House.”

* Lat­er that sum­mer, in August 2023, the Patri­ot Free­dom Project held anoth­er event at Trump Nation­al Golf Club Bed­min­ster where Hugh­es encour­aged peo­ple to vote for Trump and the for­mer pres­i­dent also spoke.

* At a Patri­ot Free­dom Project event to mark the third anniver­sary of the attack, on Jan. 6, 2024, the group fea­tured a speech from a pro-Trump attor­ney who said, “We need to keep the momen­tum strong behind Pres­i­dent Trump” in the 2024 elec­tion. Pho­tos and video of the event show a large table fea­tur­ing a “TRUMP 2024” flag, along­side flags depict­ing Trump as Super­man and Cap­tain Amer­i­ca.

On the social media plat­form X (for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter), the group’s offi­cial account also veered into pro­mot­ing and attack­ing polit­i­cal can­di­dates:

* The group’s offi­cial account post­ed the hash­tag “#Trump2024″ three times.

* One post stat­ed, “we need to ... take down” mul­ti­ple “RINOS” (an acronym for “Repub­li­cans in name only”) in Con­gress run­ning for reelec­tion.

* The account attacked the Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nor of New York and added, “Vote these rad­i­cals out!”

* The group repost­ed mes­sages from the offi­cial cam­paign account for a con­vict­ed Jan. 6 defen­dant now run­ning for Con­gress.

...

Accord­ing to finan­cial doc­u­ments post­ed on its web­site, the Patri­ot Free­dom Project has raised more than $2 mil­lion since its found­ing.

———–

“Law­mak­ers call for IRS scruti­ny of Trump-backed non­prof­it that aids Jan. 6 riot­ers” by Tom Dreis­bach; Nation­al Pub­lic Radio; 01/17/2024

“Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jer­sey over­sees the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice as the top Demo­c­rat on the House Ways and Means Sub­com­mit­tee on Over­sight. In response to NPR’s report­ing, Pascrell called on the agency to open an inves­ti­ga­tion into the Patri­ot Free­dom Project”

As the top Demo­c­rat on the House Ways and Means Sub­com­mit­tee on Over­sight who over­sees the IRS points out, IRS isn’t doing its job when it comes to the Patri­ot Free­dom Project. And Rep Pascrell isn’t the only mem­ber of Con­gress ask­ing the IRS to do its job. That’s part of the sto­ry here. This isn’t just a sto­ry about a sleazy MAGA non-prof­it. It’s also about the blank check effec­tive­ly issued to these orga­ni­za­tions by the IRS with its refusal to enforce the laws:

...
“If this pur­port­ed non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion is using its pul­pit to pro­mote Don­ald Trump, the group is not just sup­port­ing the same author­i­tar­i­an­ism espoused by an insur­rec­tion­ist – it is also break­ing fed­er­al tax law and must be held account­able,” said Pascrell in a state­ment to NPR. “The IRS should inves­ti­gate this case imme­di­ate­ly and crack down on those poten­tial­ly abus­ing our tax code.”

Pascrel­l’s Repub­li­can coun­ter­part on the Sub­com­mit­tee on Over­sight, Rep. David Schweik­ert of Ari­zona, did not respond to NPR’s request for com­ment.

Sen. Shel­don White­house, D‑R.I., raised con­cerns about what he views as lax IRS enforce­ment of non­prof­its involved in polit­i­cal activ­i­ty.

“There are 501(c)(3) orga­ni­za­tions that open­ly flout the law and solic­it tax-deductible dona­tions to fund polit­i­cal activ­i­ties,” White­house told NPR in a state­ment. “These polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions mas­quer­ade as char­i­ties and brazen­ly ignore the law, because they don’t think the IRS will enforce it. Too often, they’re right. It’s long past time that the IRS crack down on these abus­es.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D‑Md., said in an inter­view that NPR’s report­ing had raised con­cerns for him about the Patri­ot Free­dom Pro­jec­t’s polit­i­cal activ­i­ty.

“I’m cer­tain­ly alarmed to learn that a 501(c)(3) orga­ni­za­tion is send­ing out direct polit­i­cal advo­ca­cy — mean­ing mes­sages telling peo­ple to vote for this can­di­date or vote against that can­di­date,” said Raskin, who served on the Jan. 6 select com­mit­tee in Con­gress. “That clear­ly cuts against the let­ter of the law. The resources and the pres­tige of the orga­ni­za­tion can­not be used for elec­toral pur­pos­es in any way.”

...

An IRS offi­cial declined to com­ment. Because the group is based in New Jer­sey, it is also reg­u­lat­ed by that state’s author­i­ties. A spokesper­son for the New Jer­sey Divi­sion of Con­sumer Affairs told NPR, “We can­not com­ment on hypo­thet­i­cal vio­la­tions of the law,” but not­ed that vio­la­tions of fed­er­al law could also lead to reper­cus­sions at the state lev­el.
...

And note just how many events there have been on the last cou­ple of years, includ­ing a Decem­ber 1, 2022 “open house” Trump spoke along with a senior advis­er to Trump’s Save Amer­i­ca polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee. And lat­er that month Trump donat­ed $10k to the group. This is, of course, right when Trump was fac­ing scathing crit­i­cism even from Repub­li­cans over his deci­sion to have din­ner Nick Fuentes and Kanya West at Mar-a-Lago on Novem­ber 22 (the 59th anniver­sary of the JFK assas­si­na­tion). This was also short­ly after Trump announced his 2024 White House bid. So Trump was cud­dly up to the Patri­ot Free­dom Project while he was fac­ing the out­cry over Nick Fuentes:

...
NPR found sev­er­al speech­es, events and social media posts in which the Patri­ot Free­dom Project and its lead­er­ship took actions that raise ques­tions about whether the group may have vio­lat­ed the ban on polit­i­cal cam­paign activ­i­ty by 501(c)(3) non­prof­its.

Take, for exam­ple, the Patri­ot Free­dom Pro­jec­t’s home­page, which promi­nent­ly fea­tures a video of Trump at a cam­paign ral­ly in Sep­tem­ber 2022.

Hugh­es, the Patri­ot Free­dom Pro­jec­t’s pres­i­dent and founder, spoke at that ral­ly, which was held in sup­port of Repub­li­can U.S. Sen­ate can­di­date Mehmet Oz and guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Doug Mas­tri­ano, both of Penn­syl­va­nia. (Both Oz and Mas­tri­ano sub­se­quent­ly lost in the 2022 elec­tions.) At the event, Hugh­es iden­ti­fied her­self specif­i­cal­ly as the leader of the Patri­ot Free­dom Project and encour­aged peo­ple to sup­port the group.

Hugh­es went on to hold mul­ti­ple Patri­ot Free­dom Project events either fea­tur­ing Trump or where speak­ers pro­mot­ed Trump’s polit­i­cal cam­paign:

* In Decem­ber 2022, the Patri­ot Free­dom Project held an “open house” event where a senior advis­er to Trump’s Save Amer­i­ca polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee as well as Trump him­self spoke. That same month, Trump’s PAC donat­ed $10,000 to the Patri­ot Free­dom Project.

* In June 2023, the Patri­ot Free­dom Project held an event at Trump Nation­al Golf Club Bed­min­ster. Video of the event shows that Trump gave a speech in which he said, “We’re gonna win an elec­tion in 2024,” as Hugh­es and Patri­ot Free­dom Project board mem­ber Ed Mar­tin applaud­ed. Anoth­er speak­er at the said, “We have got to reelect Pres­i­dent Trump into the White House.”

* Lat­er that sum­mer, in August 2023, the Patri­ot Free­dom Project held anoth­er event at Trump Nation­al Golf Club Bed­min­ster where Hugh­es encour­aged peo­ple to vote for Trump and the for­mer pres­i­dent also spoke.

* At a Patri­ot Free­dom Project event to mark the third anniver­sary of the attack, on Jan. 6, 2024, the group fea­tured a speech from a pro-Trump attor­ney who said, “We need to keep the momen­tum strong behind Pres­i­dent Trump” in the 2024 elec­tion. Pho­tos and video of the event show a large table fea­tur­ing a “TRUMP 2024” flag, along­side flags depict­ing Trump as Super­man and Cap­tain Amer­i­ca.

...

Accord­ing to finan­cial doc­u­ments post­ed on its web­site, the Patri­ot Free­dom Project has raised more than $2 mil­lion since its found­ing.
...

$2 mil­lion raised since the group’s found­ing. And that was Jan­u­ary of this year. How much more mon­ey has Patri­ot Free­dom Project raised in this pres­i­den­tial elec­tion year? It’s pre­sum­ably been a ban­ner year of fundrais­ing for the group. All tax deductible. For char­i­ty, of course. Char­i­ty most­ly for the Hitler mus­tache guy, although his “adop­tive aunt” and her fam­i­ly has pre­sum­ably man­aged to eek out a bit of char­i­ty for them­selves. Cer­tain­ly enough to afford a few pil­lows on a spe­cial sale.

And that brings us to anoth­er Nazi-friend­ly indi­vid­ual who was also cel­e­brat­ed at the June 2023 Patri­ot Free­dom Project event at Bed­min­ster where Trump spoke: Der­rick Evans, a Repub­li­can can­di­date for West Virginia’s 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict who also spent sev­er­al months in prison after livestream­ing him­self storm­ing the Capi­tol on Jan­u­ary 6. Guess who else attend­ed the event: Mike Lin­dell:

WV Statewide News

Der­rick Evans & Trump Speak at Patri­ot Free­dom Project Event

on June 29, 2023
By Staff Writer

Last week Der­rick Evans, can­di­date for West Virginia’s 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict trav­eled to Bed­min­ster, NJ to speak along­side the for­mer Pres­i­dent. Pres­i­dent Trump spoke at an event for the Patri­ot Free­dom Project which was being held at his Trump Nation­al Golf Club.

Also attend­ing the event was Mike Lin­dell, CEO of My Pil­low. Lin­dell has been a long ally and friend of Don­ald Trump and an out­spo­ken cham­pi­on of elec­tion integri­ty and crit­ic of the 2020 elec­tion. After the event, Lin­dell issued a pub­lic endorse­ment of Evans’ can­di­da­cy for Con­gress.

“I’m hon­ored to have Mike Lindell’s sup­port in this fight,” Evans said. “He’s a true war­rior who under­stands that we’re going to have to stand and fight on our front foot rather than back on our heels like the RINO who cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent this dis­trict in D.C.”

...

———–

“Der­rick Evans & Trump Speak at Patri­ot Free­dom Project Event” By Staff Writer; WV Statewide News; 06/29/2023

As we should expect, Lin­dell is a big Patri­ot Free­dom Project fan. Imag­ine that.

So did Evans end up win­ning his pri­ma­ry race? Nope. He was defeat­ed by the incum­bent, Car­ol Miller, much to the plea­sure of Jew­ish Repub­li­cans. Why were Jews hap­py to see Evans lose? Well, it turns out Evans is kind of a Nazi. Or at least he’s the type of per­son who thinks it’s “good ques­tion” to ask “whether the Jews stole” the 2020 elec­tion and were actu­al­ly behind the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion:

The Times of Israel

GOP Jews hap­py as Capi­tol riot­er accused of anti­semitism defeat­ed in WV pri­ma­ry

15 May 2024, 5:00 am

The Repub­li­can Jew­ish Coali­tion is cel­e­brat­ing after a can­di­date it endorsed in West Virginia’s con­gres­sion­al pri­ma­ry beat out a chal­lenger accused of anti­semitism.

Car­ol Miller, who has rep­re­sent­ed West Virginia’s first dis­trict since 2019, man­aged to stave off a chal­lenge from Der­rick Evans, who served a three-month jail sen­tence after livestream­ing him­self par­tic­i­pat­ing in the storm­ing of the US Capi­tol.

“Repub­li­can vot­ers in West Vir­ginia and Nebras­ka sound­ly reject­ed extrem­ist can­di­dates,” the RJC says in a state­ment.

While the state­ment does not men­tion Evans by name, it appears to allude to past com­ments he has made ques­tion­ing if Jews were behind the Jan­u­ary 6 insur­rec­tion.

In Feb­ru­ary, Evans appeared on the show of far-right stream­er Stew Peters and appeared to endorse the idea that Israel may have “been behind Jan­u­ary 6.” He added that “whether the Jews stole the elec­tion” was a good ques­tion to ask.

...

———-

“GOP Jews hap­py as Capi­tol riot­er accused of anti­semitism defeat­ed in WV pri­ma­ry”; The Times of Israel; 05/15/2024

“In Feb­ru­ary, Evans appeared on the show of far-right stream­er Stew Peters and appeared to endorse the idea that Israel may have “been behind Jan­u­ary 6.” He added that “whether the Jews stole the elec­tion” was a good ques­tion to ask.”

That’s Mike Lin­del­l’s endorsed can­di­date for West Vir­gini­a’s 1st dis­trict. The “Israel was behind Jan­u­ary 6” guy. He did­n’t win his pri­ma­ry, but not for lack
help. Der­rik Evans has influ­en­tial fans with deep pock­ets. Pock­ets that are going to be a lit­tle bit deep­er by the end of the $14.88 pil­lows sale.

Not all Bibles are equal, at least when it comes to their edu­ca­tion­al val­ue. That’s the appar­ent log­ic under­ly­ing a new edu­ca­tion pol­i­cy out of the state of Okla­homa as part of the state’s new man­date to put a Bible in every pub­lic class­room in the state. In fact, just two Bibles make the cut based on the weird cri­te­ria set out by the state: Lee Greenwood’s ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’ Bible and the ‘We The Peo­ple’ Bible. Both Bibles sell for much more than a typ­i­cal Bible, $60 and $90, respec­tive­ly. Oh, and it turns out both Bibles hap­pen to be endorsed by Don­ald Trump. Trump even received $300,000 in roy­al­ties from the God Bless the U.S.A. Bible already. Imag­ine that.

The bid­ding for the con­tract to sup­ply the Bibles also appears to have been rigged. Instead of a stan­dard min­i­mum four week win­dow to sub­mit bids, the state left it open for just two weeks, cit­ing an urgency to get the Bibles into the class­room.

So is Okla­homa plan­ning on pay­ing those pre­mi­um prices for these Trump-endorsed Bibles? Appar­ent­ly so. At least that’s what we can con­clude from the fact that Okla­homa’s super­in­ten­dent of schools, Ryan Wal­ters, has already request $3 mil­lion to pur­chase 55,000 Bibles, which trans­lates to about $55 allo­cat­ed per Bible.

Beyond that, we’re told that Wal­ters has been pro­mot­ing the ‘Bible in every class­room’ ini­tia­tive with nation­al groups. And that brings us to the fact that Wal­ters just hap­pens to have major nation­al aspi­ra­tions includ­ing the goal of get­ting tapped to join Don­ald Trump’s cab­i­net in the next Trump admin­is­tra­tion. Keep in mind this isn’t the first sto­ry we’ve seen involv­ing Wal­ter­s’s loy­al­ty to the MAGA agen­da. Recall how it was Wal­ters who ruled that stu­dents in Okla­homa could­n’t be taught about the 1921 Tul­sa race mas­sacre unless they were taught that it was­n’t about race. This was part of the ‘anti-CRT’ hys­te­ria that has gripped the GOP in recent years.

Nor is the Trump Bible sto­ry the only exam­ple of Wal­ters cozy­ing up to the Trump cam­paign in antic­i­pa­tion of his nation­al ambi­tions. Wal­ter­s’s state agency has also been issu­ing some rather ques­tion­able con­tracts to two groups asso­ci­at­ed with none oth­er than Russ and Mary Vought. As we’ve seen, the Voughts are key play­ers in the CNP’s Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist agen­da, espe­cial­ly the ongo­ing Sched­ule F/Project 2025 scheme. Or as Her­itage’s Kevin Roberts put it, the “sec­ond Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion”: Recall how Russ Vought was the only depart­ment head­er under the first Trump term to actu­al­ly attempt to imple­ment the Sched­ule F ini­tia­tive Trump enact­ed two weeks before the 2020 elec­tion day. Months lat­er, in March of 2021, Vought penned a piece of Newsweek where he defend­ed the con­cept of Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ism and decried how it was being smeared by detrac­tors. Flash for­ward to Feb­ru­ary of this year, and we got Politi­co reports about how the Cen­ter for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca (CRA) — head­ed by Vought — was active­ly plan­ning on imple­ment­ing Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist poli­cies under the next Trump admin­is­tra­tion. As we’ve seen, the CRA is one of the many think tanks active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Project 2025 schem­ing. Also this year, Russ Vought was one of three peo­ple tapped to craft the offi­cial RNC plat­form. Russ Vought is a key play­er in the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy’s (CNP) theo­crat­ic ambi­tions. And, of course, Mary Vought is an assumed CNP mem­ber.

Mary Vought’s con­sult­ing firm, Vought Strate­gies, was hired this by Wal­ter­s’s state agency, osten­si­bly for the pur­pose of recruit­ing teach­ers. In real­i­ty, the firm appears to have focused on secur­ing nation­al media appear­ances for Wal­ters, espe­cial­ly in con­ser­v­a­tive media. And like the trun­cat­ed bid­ding win­dow for the Bible ven­dors, the bid­ding for this media con­sult­ing con­tract was also short­er than the state’s guide­lines (3 weeks instead of a min­i­mum of 4 weeks), with Vought Strate­gies sub­mit­ting the sole bid. The con­tract has unsur­pris­ing­ly received crit­i­cism. What’s more sur­pris­ing is that much of that crit­i­cism has come from Wal­ter­s’s fel­low elect­ed Repub­li­cans, includ­ing the Speak­er of the Okla­homa House Charles McCall. As McCall put it, “you should not be spend­ing state funds, tax­pay­er dol­lars, for per­son­al pro­mo­tion.”

Anoth­er Vought-con­nect­ed ques­tion con­tract involves the com­pa­ny Pre­ci­sion Out­reach, which also received a con­tract from Wal­ter­s’s agency around the same time Vought Strate­gies won its con­tract. Pre­ci­sion Out­reach had pre­vi­ous­ly worked for the agency prod­uct con­tent includ­ing an anti-teacher-union that was shown at a State Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing this year. The video infu­ri­at­ed teach­ers and par­ents. Anoth­er video pro­duced by the com­pa­ny implied trans­gen­der stu­dents are a threat to school safe­ty. The head of Pre­ci­sion Out­reach, Jess Fields, actu­al­ly ran for office in 2016, using the same cam­paign man­ag­er who man­ages Wal­ter­s’s cam­paigns: Matt Langston. Both Langston and Mary Vought have been polit­i­cal pals since the two worked in Sen­a­tor Ron John­son’s office back in 2011. Langston also cur­rent­ly serves as the chief pol­i­cy advi­sor for Wal­ter­s’s state edu­ca­tion agency.

That’s all part of the con­text of the ‘Trump Bible’ sto­ry. This isn’t just a sto­ry about a rogue state super­in­ten­dent try­ing to cozy up to Trump. This is a sto­ry about one of the lead­ing can­di­dates for Trump’s Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion who has appar­ent­ly teamed up/bought off the Voughts, them­selves key play­ers in the ongo­ing CNP theo­crat­ic agen­da on the cusp of get­ting put into action under the Sched­ule F/Project 2025 scheme:

The Okla­homan

‘Trump Bible’ one of few that meet Wal­ters’ cri­te­ria for Okla­homa class­rooms

Jen­nifer Palmer, Paul Monies, Heather War­lick
Okla­homa Watch
Pub­lished 6:33 am CT Octo­ber 4, 2024 | Updat­ed 12:51 pm CT Oct 4, 2024

Super­in­ten­dent Ryan Wal­ters isn’t just talk­ing about buy­ing Bibles for schools.

Bids opened Mon­day for a con­tract to sup­ply the state Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion with 55,000 Bibles. Accord­ing to the bid doc­u­ments, ven­dors must meet cer­tain spec­i­fi­ca­tions: Bibles must be the King James Ver­sion; must con­tain the Old and New Tes­ta­ments; must include copies of the Pledge of Alle­giance, Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion and the Bill of Rights; and must be bound in leather or leather-like mate­r­i­al.

A sales­per­son at Mardel Chris­t­ian & Edu­ca­tion searched, and though they car­ry 2,900 Bibles, none fit the para­me­ters.

But one Bible fits per­fect­ly: Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A. Bible, endorsed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and com­mon­ly referred to as the Trump Bible. They cost $60 each online, with Trump receiv­ing fees for his endorse­ment.

Mardel doesn’t car­ry the God Bless the U.S.A. Bible or anoth­er Bible that could meet the spec­i­fi­ca­tions, the We The Peo­ple Bible, which was also endorsed by Don­ald Trump Jr. It sells for $90.

“The RFP on its face seems fair, but with addi­tion­al scruti­ny, we can see there are very few Bibles on the mar­ket that would meet these cri­te­ria, and all of them have been endorsed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump,” Okla­homa Apple­seed Cen­ter for Law and Jus­tice Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Colleen McCar­ty said.

For­mer Okla­homa Attor­ney Gen­er­al Drew Edmond­son said the request for pro­pos­als might vio­late state law.

“It appears to me that this bid is any­thing but com­pet­i­tive,” Edmond­son said. “It adds to the basic spec­i­fi­ca­tion oth­er require­ments that have noth­ing to do with the text. The spe­cial bind­ing and inclu­sion of gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments will exclude almost all bid­ders. If the bid specs exclude most bid­ders unnec­es­sar­i­ly, I could con­sid­er that a vio­la­tion.”

Sep­a­ra­tion of church and state con­cerns aside, much less expen­sive Bibles are read­i­ly avail­able. +, less than 5% of what the Trump-endorsed Bible would cost. There are many free Bible apps, too.

Though Wal­ters has fre­quent­ly said he wants Bibles in every class­room, he has also clar­i­fied pub­licly that he wants them in class­es where the Bible might apply to aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards, such as his­to­ry or lit­er­a­ture. The request for 55,000 copies doesn’t fit either sce­nario; there are only 43,000 class­room teach­ers in the state, and many few­er teach­ing just his­to­ry or lit­er­a­ture.

If the Bibles cost $60 each, and the state buys 55,000, that’s $3.3 mil­lion.

Wal­ters: No ‘extra things’

On Sept. 26, Wal­ters asked for $3 mil­lion to pur­chase Bibles for Okla­homa class­rooms as part of his agency’s fis­cal year 2026 bud­get request to the Okla­homa Leg­is­la­ture.

“We have talked about ensur­ing that our his­to­ry cours­es include the role the Bible played through­out Amer­i­can his­to­ry,” Wal­ters said. “We’ve talked about the efforts of left-wing groups and the teach­ers’ unions to dri­ve the Bible out of school. I believe it’s impor­tant for his­tor­i­cal con­text for our kids to under­stand the role the Bible played.”

...

“We don’t want extra things in there; his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments are fine,” Wal­ters said. “If it’s the King James ver­sion and the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Magna Car­ta, things like that, that are also in statute that can be used in the class­room, that’s fine. But we don’t want com­men­tary around the Bible because this is to serve as a his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ence doc­u­ment.”

Bid­ding opened to fast-track Okla­homa class­room Bibles

Wal­ters said find­ing a Bible ven­dor should go through the com­pet­i­tive bid­ding process because that would be the clean­est, eas­i­est way to choose.

The board did not dis­cuss pur­chas­ing Bibles with the cur­rent bud­get year appro­pri­a­tion. How­ev­er, the state issued the solic­i­ta­tion Mon­day, and it’s open for just two weeks. The Office of Man­age­ment and Enter­prise Ser­vices typ­i­cal­ly rec­om­mends at least four weeks.

Dan Isett, Wal­ters’ spokesman, said their inten­tion with the RFP is to get Bibles dis­trib­uted to class­rooms as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

...

At least 130 peo­ple have resigned or been fired since Wal­ters took office in 2023, accord­ing to The Okla­homan.

‘Trump has praised our efforts’

In June, Wal­ters announced a man­date that a Bible should be in every Okla­homa class­room, though it’s unlike­ly he would have the author­i­ty to enforce that. The Okla­homa Supreme Court affirmed that school dis­tricts main­tain local con­trol over cur­ric­u­la. Some super­in­ten­dents across the state have said they do not intend to add the Bible to their cur­ricu­lum.

“We will not be forc­ing our teach­ers to do this,” Bix­by Super­in­ten­dent Rob Miller said on News Nation on Aug. 12. “As a Chris­t­ian myself, the idea of dimin­ish­ing the word of God to a mere class­room prop is a lit­tle repul­sive to me, so we will not be com­ply­ing with that direc­tive of hav­ing a phys­i­cal Bible in every class­room.”

Wal­ters has been tout­ing his Bible plan to local and nation­al groups. In these inter­views, he talks more about Chris­tian­i­ty than his­to­ry.

In one inter­view this week, Wal­ters claimed Democ­rats plan to teach kids to hate their coun­try as well as Chris­tian­i­ty and Judaism and said his Bible ini­tia­tive is an anti­dote to that.

“We are going to be so proud here in Okla­homa to be the first state in the coun­try to bring the Bible back to every sin­gle class­room and every state should be doing this.… Pres­i­dent Trump praised our efforts. Pres­i­dent Trump has been the leader on this issue.”

Wal­ters is a fre­quent guest on con­ser­v­a­tive pod­casts, radio shows and TV sta­tions. His agency has a $60,000 per year con­tract with D.C.-based Vought Strate­gies to book him for nation­al inter­views week­ly.

Wal­ters endorsed Trump, and many onlook­ers sur­mise he’s angling for a cab­i­net posi­tion if Trump wins in Novem­ber.

Trump licens­es his name, image and like­ness to be used in the Green­wood Bible’s mar­ket­ing. The company’s web­site says it has no con­nec­tion to the Trump cam­paign.

Finan­cial dis­clo­sure forms filed by Trump at the Office of Gov­ern­men­tal Ethics show he does ben­e­fit from Green­wood Bible sales through a Trump com­pa­ny, CIC Ven­tures LLC. His lat­est dis­clo­sure, obtained by Cit­i­zens for Respon­si­bil­i­ty and Ethics in Wash­ing­ton, shows Trump received $300,000 in roy­al­ties from the God Bless the U.S.A. Bible.

...

———–

“ ‘Trump Bible’ one of few that meet Wal­ters’ cri­te­ria for Okla­homa class­rooms” by Jen­nifer Palmer, Paul Monies, Heather War­lick; The Okla­homan; 10/04/2024

“In June, Wal­ters announced a man­date that a Bible should be in every Okla­homa class­room, though it’s unlike­ly he would have the author­i­ty to enforce that. The Okla­homa Supreme Court affirmed that school dis­tricts main­tain local con­trol over cur­ric­u­la. Some super­in­ten­dents across the state have said they do not intend to add the Bible to their cur­ricu­lum. ”

A ‘Bible in every class­room’ man­date by Okla­homa’s super­in­ten­dent. That alone is con­tro­ver­sial enough. But it’s the details of the man­date to expose just how cor­rupt this deci­sion real­ly was: the only Bibles that fit the stat­ed require­ments are Trump-endorsed Bibles. It’s a peek into the Trumpi­fied Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist theoc­ra­cy in store for the US. Deep bla­tant cor­rup­tion under the guise of pub­lic pious­ness:

...
A sales­per­son at Mardel Chris­t­ian & Edu­ca­tion searched, and though they car­ry 2,900 Bibles, none fit the para­me­ters.

But one Bible fits per­fect­ly: Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A. Bible, endorsed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and com­mon­ly referred to as the Trump Bible. They cost $60 each online, with Trump receiv­ing fees for his endorse­ment.

Mardel doesn’t car­ry the God Bless the U.S.A. Bible or anoth­er Bible that could meet the spec­i­fi­ca­tions, the We The Peo­ple Bible, which was also endorsed by Don­ald Trump Jr. It sells for $90.

“The RFP on its face seems fair, but with addi­tion­al scruti­ny, we can see there are very few Bibles on the mar­ket that would meet these cri­te­ria, and all of them have been endorsed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump,” Okla­homa Apple­seed Cen­ter for Law and Jus­tice Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Colleen McCar­ty said.

For­mer Okla­homa Attor­ney Gen­er­al Drew Edmond­son said the request for pro­pos­als might vio­late state law.

“It appears to me that this bid is any­thing but com­pet­i­tive,” Edmond­son said. “It adds to the basic spec­i­fi­ca­tion oth­er require­ments that have noth­ing to do with the text. The spe­cial bind­ing and inclu­sion of gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments will exclude almost all bid­ders. If the bid specs exclude most bid­ders unnec­es­sar­i­ly, I could con­sid­er that a vio­la­tion.”
...

And note how it’s not just that the only Bibles that meet in man­date hap­pen to be Trump endorsed Bibles. They’re also wild­ly over­priced Bibles that cost $60 each. A price Wal­ters appears to be plan­ning on hav­ing the state pay based on the $3 mil­lion request he made a cou­ple of weeks ago:

...
Sep­a­ra­tion of church and state con­cerns aside, much less expen­sive Bibles are read­i­ly avail­able. +, less than 5% of what the Trump-endorsed Bible would cost. There are many free Bible apps, too.

Though Wal­ters has fre­quent­ly said he wants Bibles in every class­room, he has also clar­i­fied pub­licly that he wants them in class­es where the Bible might apply to aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards, such as his­to­ry or lit­er­a­ture. The request for 55,000 copies doesn’t fit either sce­nario; there are only 43,000 class­room teach­ers in the state, and many few­er teach­ing just his­to­ry or lit­er­a­ture.

If the Bibles cost $60 each, and the state buys 55,000, that’s $3.3 mil­lion.

Wal­ters: No ‘extra things’

On Sept. 26, Wal­ters asked for $3 mil­lion to pur­chase Bibles for Okla­homa class­rooms as part of his agency’s fis­cal year 2026 bud­get request to the Okla­homa Leg­is­la­ture.

“We have talked about ensur­ing that our his­to­ry cours­es include the role the Bible played through­out Amer­i­can his­to­ry,” Wal­ters said. “We’ve talked about the efforts of left-wing groups and the teach­ers’ unions to dri­ve the Bible out of school. I believe it’s impor­tant for his­tor­i­cal con­text for our kids to under­stand the role the Bible played.”

...

Trump licens­es his name, image and like­ness to be used in the Green­wood Bible’s mar­ket­ing. The company’s web­site says it has no con­nec­tion to the Trump cam­paign.

Finan­cial dis­clo­sure forms filed by Trump at the Office of Gov­ern­men­tal Ethics show he does ben­e­fit from Green­wood Bible sales through a Trump com­pa­ny, CIC Ven­tures LLC. His lat­est dis­clo­sure, obtained by Cit­i­zens for Respon­si­bil­i­ty and Ethics in Wash­ing­ton, shows Trump received $300,000 in roy­al­ties from the God Bless the U.S.A. Bible.
...

And then there’s the cor­rupt nature of the bid­ding process. A fast-tracked bid­ding process that only went for a cou­ple of weeks under the pre­tense that the state was in a huge rush:

...
“We don’t want extra things in there; his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments are fine,” Wal­ters said. “If it’s the King James ver­sion and the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Magna Car­ta, things like that, that are also in statute that can be used in the class­room, that’s fine. But we don’t want com­men­tary around the Bible because this is to serve as a his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ence doc­u­ment.”

Bid­ding opened to fast-track Okla­homa class­room Bibles

Wal­ters said find­ing a Bible ven­dor should go through the com­pet­i­tive bid­ding process because that would be the clean­est, eas­i­est way to choose.

The board did not dis­cuss pur­chas­ing Bibles with the cur­rent bud­get year appro­pri­a­tion. How­ev­er, the state issued the solic­i­ta­tion Mon­day, and it’s open for just two weeks. The Office of Man­age­ment and Enter­prise Ser­vices typ­i­cal­ly rec­om­mends at least four weeks.

Dan Isett, Wal­ters’ spokesman, said their inten­tion with the RFP is to get Bibles dis­trib­uted to class­rooms as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.
...

But then we get to the gross nation­al angle to the this sto­ry: Ryan Wal­ters is wide­ly seen as angling for a Trump cab­i­net posi­tion. Along those lines, he’s not only pitch­ing his Bible plan to nation­al groups but his agency has hired Vought Strate­gies to man­age his nation­al media expo­sure. This is, of course, the con­sult­ing firm of CNP mem­ber Mary Vought, wife of Russ Vought, a key play­er in the Sched­ule F/Project 2025 plot. In March of 2021, Vought penned a piece of Newsweek where he defend­ed the con­cept of Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ism and decried how it was being smeared by detrac­tors. This year, Politi­co report­ed on how the Cen­ter for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca (CRA) — head­ed by Vought — was active­ly plan­ning on imple­ment­ing Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist poli­cies under the next Trump admin­is­tra­tion. As we’ve seen, the CRA is one of the many think tanks active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Project 2025 schem­ing. Also this year, Vought was one of three peo­ple tapped to craft the offi­cial RNC plat­form. So Wal­ter­s’s office hired Vought Strate­gies for con­sult­ing work at the same time Wal­ters is rig­ging the ‘Bibles in the class­room’ process to ensure only Trump Bibles can be used. Wal­ters real­ly wants that Trump cab­i­net position...presumably Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary, at which point we’ll pre­sum­ably seen plans for Trump Bibles in every class­room in the US:

...
“We will not be forc­ing our teach­ers to do this,” Bix­by Super­in­ten­dent Rob Miller said on News Nation on Aug. 12. “As a Chris­t­ian myself, the idea of dimin­ish­ing the word of God to a mere class­room prop is a lit­tle repul­sive to me, so we will not be com­ply­ing with that direc­tive of hav­ing a phys­i­cal Bible in every class­room.”

Wal­ters has been tout­ing his Bible plan to local and nation­al groups. In these inter­views, he talks more about Chris­tian­i­ty than his­to­ry.

In one inter­view this week, Wal­ters claimed Democ­rats plan to teach kids to hate their coun­try as well as Chris­tian­i­ty and Judaism and said his Bible ini­tia­tive is an anti­dote to that.

“We are going to be so proud here in Okla­homa to be the first state in the coun­try to bring the Bible back to every sin­gle class­room and every state should be doing this.… Pres­i­dent Trump praised our efforts. Pres­i­dent Trump has been the lead