William Bredderman

Ex-White House strategist Steve Bannon appears to have recently sought a loan against a Connecticut property linked to one of his troubled nonprofits, documents reviewed by The Daily Beast show, even though the charitable organization no longer owns the home. The materials, addressed directly to Bannon at the $1.5 million stone estate in the plush suburban town of Wilton, do not reveal the amount of money sought, nor what Bannon sought it for. They do, however, date the loan application to Dec. 2, 2021, roughly three weeks after a grand jury indicted Bannon for refusing to testify before the House committee […]

A far-right group that purports to recruit military and law enforcement veterans to provide personal bodyguards to Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and other top conspiracy theorists revamped itself last month as an “intelligence, investigations, security and support” firm—shortly before the House Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed its leader. Between Nov. 1 and Nov. 19, multiple social–media accounts associated with a California-based company calling itself “The Shepherd Group” went live, as did a website hawking its “holistic, boutique approach” to digital forensics, physical security, surveillance/counter-surveillance, and corporate intelligence. “Our clients include private individuals and corporations, law-enforcement agencies and the U.S. Government with a […]

On Tuesday, Dr. Mehmet Oz officially announced his plans to win election to the United States Senate. If successful, it would mean a return to the scene of what might have been the worst humiliation of his career as a pop health guru. That a celebrity best known for hawking dubious supplements and treatments under the cover of medical expertise would seek the Republican Party nod for a top office is little shock in the current GOP. But Oz wants to join a body where he once found himself obligated to answer for “sham” weight-loss supplements he promoted on his own […]

President Joe Biden will limit air travel from eight African nations beginning Monday, in an effort to keep the mutant Omicron variant of COVID-19 from entering the United States, senior administration officials revealed. Following advice from Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the administration will restrict flights from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi. Details on the exact policy remained sparse. However, officials proffered assurances that U.S. citizens and permanent residents will be able to return home, so long as they test negative for the novel coronavirus before arriving. In a statement, […]

Research from the nonprofit U.S. Right to Know has undergirded New York Times reporting on the food system, and outlets ranging from Vanity Fair to the National Review to the Washington Examiner to The Intercept have cited the group’s inquiries into the origins of COVID-19. But the Oakland-based “truth and transparency” organization’s own provenance has gone largely unexamined, even as public interest and political furor over the controversial lab-leak theory—and the even more broadly disputed notion that the novel coronavirus was the result of engineering—have steadily escalated. However, The Daily Beast found that public documents, including USRTK’s own disclosures, show even […]

For more than a decade, New Jersey businessman Barry Segal has lived a double life as a philanthropist, underwriting public health in sub-Saharan Africa even as he has undermined it in the United States. In recent years, largesse from the building supply and real estate magnate, who retired from his company Bradco in 2008, has run on two parallel tracks. Via the Segal Family Foundation, he has poured his fortune into hundreds of organizations providing medical care and social support to women and children in Africa, as well as into groups developing infrastructure, education, economic opportunities, and clean drinking water. Closer […]

A group of Democratic House members is demanding answers from the Small Business Administration following a The Daily Beast report that top anti-vaccine groups received more than $1 million in free cash through an initiative intended to help struggling entrepreneurs survive the pandemic. The Daily Beast received a missive that Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) sent SBA Administrator Isabel Guzman on Monday, questioning whether the half-dozen disinformation superspreaders—including supplement hawker Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who had Paycheck Protection Program loans absolved this year had fulfilled all the requirements of the program. These requirements, Sanchez noted, include refraining from political activity. […]

The American Conservative Union touts itself as “the nation’s original conservative organization” and loves to rail against “reckless spending”—but it’s hardly cautious about turning over supporters’ cash to its own top executives. The ACU, best known as the group behind the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, has enriched companies belonging to two of its directors to the tune of $4 million in the past five years, according to a review by The Daily Beast of their yearly tax forms and other required filings. This cash has poured out of the ACU’s own coffers, out of its political committees, and […]

As recently as this spring, Steve Kirsch and his COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund (CETF) were riding high. Millions in claimed donations from Silicon Valley’s elite. Promising treatment research. Management from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. A scientific advisory board staffed with medical all-stars. And plenty of attention from research universities and the press alike. But recent weeks have found the group increasingly alienated and friendless—and its founder provoking a furor with wild and bogus claims at a public Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hearing that COVID-19 vaccines “kill more people than they save.” The agency quickly slapped down the comments from Kirsch, a […]

A wild fight has erupted within the sprawling finance and propaganda apparatus former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon co-founded with a fugitive Chinese billionaire. The battle involves an organization Bannon inaugurated at the Statue of Liberty last year with Guo Wengui, a Chinese disinformation kingpin, and hostilities broke out even before the SEC this month charged companies linked to Guo with unregistered stock and cryptocurrency sales. But a federal probe into the dealings had been underway for months, and a key contention in a new lawsuit is that money intended to bankroll the duo’s vision of a vast anti-Beijing network […]

Caitlyn Jenner’s campaign for the California governorship has its fair share of seasoned political consultants—but the person who keeps her other non-political ventures on track also appears to be benefiting from Jenner’s long-shot run. As of the most recent filing, Jenner has paid $35,000 to Como Ventures LLC, an entity registered by her personal manager and roommate Sophia Hutchins, who has no apparent experience working in politics. The Olympic star-turned-tabloid sensation’s Republican campaign made five payments to Como Ventures LLC, the most recent on August 15. The filing identifies the two largest payments, of $15,000 as going to “campaign consultants.” Smaller […]

A host of longtime donors to California’s Thacher School—a rarefied $64,000-a-year institution that gifts each freshman a horse—told The Daily Beast they plan to halt their largesse after an abuse scandal earlier this summer. But it’s not the claims of systemic sexual abuse that have some of the school’s most prominent backers jumping ship. Instead, the deep-pocketed players are furious over what they view as the unfair “scapegoating” of a former administrator after a slew of cases of alleged faculty and student sexual misconduct—and attendant cover-ups—was exposed in a scathing independent report commissioned by the school. Source link

A social media network belonging to a controversial Chinese billionaire with a history of peddling disinformation says he’s hired notorious soldier of fortune Erik Prince to provide security for a sort of anti-communist shadow government. It’s a claim Prince denies—even as he admits to a brief contact with the man just weeks ago. A pair of videos posted last month to Guo Wengui’s social media platform GTV asserted that the self-styled refugee had concluded a deal with Prince, a former Navy SEAL turned international mercenary. Under the purported pact, the videos suggested, Prince would provide security for the New Federal State […]

Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who in two weeks will succeed the disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo, positioned herself in the conservative suburbs of Buffalo as a Democrat who feasted on liberal sacred cows. She obtained local government posts in her native Erie County, which encompasses the Rust Belt city and adjoining communities, by running not only on the Democratic line but that of the state’s Conservative Party. Appointed Erie County Clerk in 2007 by then-Gov Eliot Spitzer—a Democratic favorite at the time—she shot to statewide prominence by going after the Buffalo area’s undocumented immigrant population: when Spitzer that same year proposed granting […]

Between the brutality of the early COVID-19 pandemic and the unceremonious downfall of its accused sex pest governor, New York State has endured a run of bad luck lately. But thanks to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s impending departure, and the rise of Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, for one Buffalo-based casino company, everything could soon be coming up aces. Hochul, Cuomo’s soon-to-be successor in the governor’s mansion, is married to former federal prosecutor William Hochul—now general counsel and senior vice president at gambling and hospitality giant Delaware North. Once behind the executive desk, Kathy Hochul could have a major impact on the company’s […]

In one of the most dramatic political downfalls in recent memory, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that he is resigning his office amid a welter of allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct. The decision came a little more than a year after Cuomo emerged as the face of supposedly rational Democratic decision-making amid ex-President Donald Trump’s bungling response to the COVID-19 pandemic—and just one week after State Attorney General Letitia James released a devastating report that found the governor had subjected 11 women to unwanted comments and touching. The report came months after an initial cascade of allegations and […]

A federal program intended to give a hand-up to struggling business owners during the pandemic gave a hand-out to a white nationalist publisher, The Daily Beast has learned. According to nonprofit newsroom ProPublica’s Paycheck Protection Program database, the Small Business Administration earlier this year forgave a $76,106 loan to Happy Penguins LLC. Despite the innocuous name, incorporation records show this Litchfield, Connecticut entity belongs to Peter Brimelow, head of the VDARE Foundation and its eponymous website, and to his wife, who serves as the nonprofit’s advancement officer. An immigrant from the United Kingdom himself, Brimelow has long been a bitter polemicist […]

Idaho’s rogue lieutenant governor—now vying for the state’s top job—loves to say she “backs the blue.” But for several years she has funneled money to a far-right operative who uses his social media platform to advocate violence against law enforcement. The $26,785 Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin’s office has paid Parrish Miller for “professional services” and “computer services” since she assumed her position in 2019 attracted scrutiny during a legislative hearing this January. Democratic lawmakers in the solidly red state questioned her decision to allocate funds out of her small budget to Miller, given that he simultaneously serves as an analyst for […]

Talk about a sick deal. The Small Business Administration has given anti-vaccine conspiracists a million-dollar-plus shot in the arm by forgiving massive loans to top opponents of inoculations, a review by The Daily Beast revealed. Ironically, this infusion has come via the Paycheck Protection Program, intended to relieve the economic strain brought on by the pandemic—the same pandemic that rampant disinformation about anti-COVID-19 injections now threatens to prolong. The beneficiaries of the SBA’s repayment amnesty include the Children’s Health Defense Co, founded and chaired by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., perhaps the most famous anti-vaccine advocate in America. Kennedy did not respond […]

A Tennessee GOP megadonor who made his billions reselling banged-up autos will bankroll South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s latest foray onto the national stage—paying an undisclosed sum through his private foundation to send more than four dozen members of the Mt. Rushmore State’s National Guard to the nation’s southern border. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Willis Johnson confirmed that his eponymous endowment will donate an undisclosed amount to South Dakota’s Emergency and Disaster Fund to underwrite the deployment of up to 50 National Guard personnel to Texas for as long as two months. Johnson said he reached out with […]

Embattled Rep. Matt Gaetz deployed his “military adviser” Monday to deflect swirling allegations of sexual and financial misconduct—only for the former employee to admit he had no exculpatory evidence and reveal he had not even spoken to the congressman in months. Gaetz’s team convened the event at the personal residence of former Air Force Capt. Nathaniel Nelson. But rather than actually aid in clearing Gaetz’s name, Nelson seemed mainly interested in disputing rumors that he departed the Florida Republican’s office last fall because he had learned of claims of sex trafficking and misallocation of campaign funds. (Gaetz denies breaking any laws). […]

A hotel group tied to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s campaign chair pulled in millions of dollars from her COVID-19 grant program—the latest case of those close to the Republican benefiting from the federally funded initiative. Analyzing records compiled by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, The Daily Beast determined that hotel owner Regency Midwest Ventures Limited Partnership received a $500,000 award through Noem’s small-business relief effort. Regency Midwest is one of 29 companies listed in the portfolio of private equity firm Bluestem Capital, which belongs to Noem’s campaign chair, former South Dakota Lt. Gov. Steve Kirby. Kirby apparently does not put […]

He’s an international man of mystery—a reclusive billionaire who once bought a lower Manhattan skyscraper in cash. He’s cut multimillion-dollar business deals with now-sanctioned figures in Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin’s circle. And, thanks in part to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his administration, he was left in charge of the health and well-being of thousands of poor and elderly New Yorkers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Typical assessments peg Alexander Rovt’s total donations to Cuomo, and to the New York State Democratic Party organization the governor controls, at around $320,000. But The Daily Beast determined that the real figure, including the contributions from […]

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) is turning up the heat on giant meat producers that he believes let COVID-19 fester among workers at their facilities. Clyburn—the House Majority Whip, chairman of the new Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and the man widely credited with securing the Democratic nomination for Joe Biden last year—blasted a fusillade of letters to Biden’s Office of Safety and Health Administration and major meat producers alike on Monday. These messages reflect his subcommittee’s findings that some 54,000 workers contracted the novel coronavirus at 569 meatpacking plants nationwide, based on news reports, and that 270 of those have […]

One of Saturday Night Live’s most notorious former stars has turned his radio show into a regular platform for his business partner, cushion and conspiracy hawker Mike Lindell, amplifying the Trump-loving MyPillow founder and his unfounded claims about the election, Twitter “censorship,” and the deadly Capitol insurrectionist riot. Between the early 1980s and the early 2010s, Joe Piscopo went from SNL fan favorite to punchline—but resurrected his career in 2014 with Piscopo in the Morning, a four-hour block on AM 970, a talk-radio station popular with New York City commuters. Since the election of now-former President Donald Trump, Piscopo’s guests have […]

Talk about miserable timing. A self-described “private party app” urging people to “get your rebel on,” Vybe is all about hosting or attending parties in the thick of the deadliest, most brutal stretch of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Miss playing beer pong, flirting with strangers, and generally just having a blast with the crew?” Vybe’s website reads. “Vybe is here for you.” Suffice it to say the haters are out in force. To take just one example, Vybe encourages users on its website and on Instagram to enter a competition to attend the upcoming 17-day Zamna music festival in Tulum, Mexico. It’s […]

The creator of the online fundraising campaign for Sidney Powell’s “Kraken” lawsuits, aimed at overturning President Donald Trump’s November loss, has a patrician pedigree—and a social media profile rife with transphobia and flirtations with the far-right. Robert Matheson’s social media persona has grown so strident and extreme that Twitter banned him from its platform earlier this year after he tweeted at Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler that transgenderism is “a joke,” “a mental illness,” and a “sickness.” Powell claimed to The Daily Beast that Matheson is no longer involved in the Legal Defense Fund for the American Republic—but that would appear to […]

Authorities in Pennsylvania put an official seal on President-elect Joe Biden’s victory there Tuesday—and rammed a stake through President Donald Trump’s attempts to resurrect his dreams of a second term through legal challenges. Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar finalized the result while Team Trump still had an appeal of its last federal court loss pending. Legal experts told The Daily Beast the Pennsylvania certification has likely rendered that suit moot. Gov. Tom Wolf announced he has now signed off on the panel of electors, who will cast their votes for Biden at the Electoral College next month. “It’s a […]

The past week saw Team Trump piling up losses and running out of road. The campaign dropped its lawsuit to stop the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in Michigan, while the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out the campaign’s claim that COVID-19 restrictions had deprived GOP observers of their right to monitor the postal vote count. Then, on Thursday night, with just four days remaining before both Michigan and Pennsylvania certify their results, Rudolph Giuliani and local lawyer Marc Scaringi dropped a wild new brief in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Probably the most audacious of […]

Rudy Giuliani came off a bizarre, sweaty, fact-free press conference Thursday with a legal play just as wild: Instead of providing a speck of evidence for the Trump campaign’s claims of voter fraud, he’s now calling on Pennsylvania to prove the ballots it counted were legal. It’s a desperate gambit to solve the problem that has bedeviled the president and his team since before the election: a lack of concrete documentation of any wrongdoing. Despite Giuliani’s rants in federal court on Tuesday about “widespread, nationwide voter fraud,” the campaign’s lawsuits have focused on obscure technical matters or oft-recanted innuendo about allegedly […]

Rudy Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, appeared in a Pennsylvania courtroom on Tuesday to make outrageous and evidence-free voter fraud claims, invoking Mickey Mouse and JFK in a wild conspiracy rant that another attorney denounced as “disgraceful.” The one-time New York City mayor, who is President Trump’s personal lawyer, took over the federal lawsuit from Pennsylvania attorneys and got permission to represent the campaign at a hearing in Williamsport—where his first act was to ask Judge Matthew Brann if he could remove his mask. From there, he announced he’d be tossing the campaign’s previous legal strategy for its effort to block […]

President Donald Trump’s campaign filed a new lawsuit in federal court in Michigan in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s win—but experts say it won’t get much farther than a Chevy Vega. The Trump team, whose previous brief in the Rust Belt battleground got thrown out by the state Court of Claims last week, filed the new action in federal court for the Western District of Michigan on Wednesday morning. The 350-page complaint and appended affidavits rehash a litany of a grievances familiar not only from the last case, but also from legal actions the campaign has lodged […]

Chris McGrath/Getty As you were—that’s the order the Supreme Court gave to Pennsylvania Friday night amid the Trump campaign’s legal challenges to vote-counting there. Justice Samuel Alito, a leader of the highest bench’s conservative faction, issued an order in response to an afternoon request from Pennsylvania Republicans that left the situation in the Keystone State virtually unchanged: with ballots that arrived after 8 p.m. on Election Day getting set aside, but still counted so long as they are postmarked by Tuesday or have no postmark at all. This was the exact guidance that Democratic Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar had […]

Donald Trump’s last-ditch barrage of election lawsuits, which he touted again in an falsehood-laden national address Thursday, are “baseless” and “absurd,” amounting to little more than a hopeless effort to confuse voters about a contest he has already lost. Or at least that’s what veteran GOP lawyers, none of whom were Trump supporters but who have served Republican presidents or helped candidates prevail in litigation against an overmatched Democratic Party over the years, told The Daily Beast. Trump’s campaign spent Thursday battling to overrule COVID-19 restrictions that kept its official observers from getting nearer than 25 feet to ballot-talliers in Philadelphia, […]