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Welcome back to False Flag! I write a lot here about how much influence right-wing media has over the White House. But even I couldn’t imagine where the administration’s push to staff TSA checkpoints with ICE agents actually came from: A random caller to conservative sports commentator Clay Travis’s radio show proposed the idea last week. By today, it was official policy. And the results are already . . . well, just watch.
Given that power, it’s more important than ever to know whether conservative influencers are secretly getting paid off to dupe their audiences—and, in the process, setting the tone for the president. That’s where today’s issue comes in. We’re looking at yet another payola scandal, this one involving popular MAGA blogs. Support this work by signing up for a Bulwark+ membership—which you can do today at 20 percent off the normal annual price:
One final note before we dive in: It was a wild weekend in MAGA media, with James O’Keefe defending the Turning Point USA parties he’s thrown featuring gyrating dancers in oversized martini glasses, new conspiracy theories sparked by Erika Kirk’s leaked purchase history at yoga clothing company Alo, and a very sad Dan Bongino getting heckled over Jeffrey Epstein. Sam Stein and I broke it down on our weekly MAGA Monday livestream this morning at 10 a.m. EDT—check it out, and join us next week for more.
–Will
Folks, We’ve Got Yet Another Right-Wing Media Payola Scandal
This one involves Jack Abramoff’s crypto venture!
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HOW MUCH WOULD IT COST to bribe a Daily Caller writer for positive coverage? It could be cheaper than you think.
According to a newly unearthed ledger kept by a Washington lobbyist who tracked his payments to conservative bloggers, it took only $500 to buy a story in the publication, which was one of a handful caught in the latest payola scandal. And though the story appeared under the byline of the Caller’s managing editor, prosecutors who unearthed the ledger say it was actually ghostwritten by the company that effectively bought the coverage.
The spreadsheet listing these transactions was seized by the FBI as part of a 2020 investigation into a fraudulent cryptocurrency promoted by infamous Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It offers a glimpse into how money circulates in conservative media, where it’s not that unusual for celebrity commentators to suddenly champion causes they haven’t seemed interested in before, creating suspicion that they’re on the dole.
In July 2017 Abramoff and his business partner Marcus Andrade began raising money to launch a cryptocurrency called “AML BitCoin,” which, ironically, stood for “Anti-Money Laundering.” To drum up investor interest, the duo effectively purchased free positive press by making undisclosed payments to journalists in conservative and financial media. Many of the payments were organized by Brian Darling, a former staffer for Sen. Rand Paul who now works as a lobbyist at a firm he founded called Liberty Government Affairs.
To keep track of the money, Darling created a spreadsheet that listed the names of writers, the payoffs they received, and the articles that resulted from those payoffs.
In June 2020, Andrade and Abramoff were indicted by the Department of Justice for making “false and misleading statements to potential purchasers” of their AML cryptocurrency. Darling’s spreadsheet was introduced as evidence in Andrade’s criminal trial. It was made public in a court filing last July, but hasn’t been reported on until now.
In all, Darling spent $12,800 through his lobbying shop to buy positive press for the coin, according to the spreadsheet. Among the recipients were financial publications like Forbes and TheStreet and conservative outlets like RedState and the American Spectator.
But among those publications that received the cash, the Daily Caller stood out. That’s because ...
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