Protesters have built barricades at the entrances, hoping to keep vehicles from bringing more detainees into the facility. The facility sits directly on a four lane main thoroughfare; two lanes in each direction are dedicated to parking, and the other two lanes are a steady stream of 18 wheeler trucks. There have been many near misses as agents push the crowd into the street, or pepper spray protesters and press, who are left temporarily blind in the middle of the road.

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On Wednesday night, a couple of protesters decided to intentionally block the trucks from passing through. Dozens of trucks lined up in both directions. The other protesters begged them to move out of the street, but they refused. Eventually, one trucker got out of his cab and yelled at the protesters. The agents stayed lined up in front of the facility, joking around about their relief over not having to break up infighting among the protesters.

Eventually, the trucks maneuvered around the protesters. At the same time, ICE vehicles needed to return to the facility, and agents pushed everyone back into the street. The truck drivers, who had just been forced to wait, likely both wanted to leave and did not fully understand what was happening. Agents came out swinging their batons, and one kicked a protester into the wheel well of a moving truck, running over his foot. Later in the evening, Newark emergency services showed up looking for the protester, but left without him, saying things were taken care of.

ICE has also started tasing and threatening to tase protesters, with one apparent leader gleefully announcing people will be getting tased.

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ICE’s presence outside of the facility is much smaller than what was seen at the Whipple building in Minnesota, or the Broadview facility outside of Chicago. They appear to be understaffed, or at least believe themselves to be understaffed. On Tuesday, they stationed their vehicles in front of the facility to help hold the line against the protesters. Several agents initially told me they were intentionally understaffed, as the agency moves away from the violent visuals of the prior Border Patrol surges they worked on.

“We do the best we can with what we have,” an agent said about the use of the cars to build a fortress. But when two agents ran after a protester on Wednesday night and returned empty handed, another agent pointed at the pair. “I wasn’t letting him go alone. Someone ran with him!” indicating confusion over where agents were, or who they were partnered with.

Eventually, some agents conceded they did not have enough staff, but said more were being deployed to Newark — which has since happened, though state police have indicated they will take over crowd control measures.

While on the ground, I shot this video for Mother Jones. Please give it a watch!

If you would like to help support my coverage of ICE, please consider subscribing here or on Patreon, or making a one time contribution via CashApp, Paypal, or Buy Me a Coffee. Your support has allowed me to take videos of ICE and Border Patrol in DC, Portland, Chicago, and New Orleans, and to cover arrests at Broadview, Border Patrol’s content creation, and the targeting of media.

“Our forefathers and foremothers told us that we would lose our freedoms one day if we got away from the principles that made us so unique in the world.”

Former child actor turned career proselytizer Kirk Cameron looks down at the group of toddlers and elementary-aged children sitting on the ground around him. “Are we there yet today? Are we losing our freedoms, are we losing our way?”

The children sit in silence.

Nevertheless, Cameron assures the kids that Americans can “find our way” again by seeking guidance from a monument in Massachusetts. Clutching a replica of the National Monument to the Forefathers, he explains the symbolism. “This is Faith … she’s pointing to God in Heaven, and she’s holding a Bible in her hand…”

Welcome to conservative story hour, kids.

Hosted by publisher BRAVE Books, Brave Story Hour was held on Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C.’s Cleveland Park Library.

D.C. seems like an odd choice for a right-wing reactionary story hour; after all, how many truly local parents would want to pull their kids out of school to listen to Kirk Cameron read a book? Perhaps the organizers hoped protesters would cause a scene—but no protesters ever showed up inside.

While the library itself considered canceling the event, it ultimately decided against it, since the event did not break any of the D.C. Public Library’s rules. But directly outside of the meeting room assigned to BRAVE was a display of books about gay and trans youth.

Pride flags and rainbows covered the shelves, with a sign that said “Cleveland Park Library celebrates ALL sexual orientations.” Trans flags were hung in the windows of the library, visible inside and outside.

The display, a librarian told me, had been set up the night before.

Many of BRAVE’s authors are conservative influencers who work, according to a source, with a team of writers and illustrators to create a storyline tailored to their favorite reactionary issue. Most of these books take place in the same fictional universe, centered around a place called Freedom Island. This event featured four of BRAVE’s most prominent authors: Kirk Cameron, Jack Posobiec, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, and Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichik.

Story hour was scheduled to begin at 10:30am, but started half an hour late. We were told that the delay was because “a lot of people are trying to find a place to park.” But if “a lot of people” showed up, they all must have sat far in the back. By one reporter’s count, Brave Story Hour ultimately drew a crowd of roughly 20 children and 25 adults (most of whom appeared to be there without children).

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Of course, Brave Story Hour isn’t really for kids, it’s for reactionary parents who are outraged by Drag Story Hour. Drag Story Hour features charismatic drag queens in bright, fun clothing. They read books that children are familiar with, and treat it like a performance. Meanwhile, Brave Story Hour has niche books with plots that are nothing more than thin analogies for the adults’ culture war. It has low energy conservative influencers, dressed in business casual outfits, awkwardly reading (and explaining) their own stories off of PowerPoint presentations projected onto the wall behind them.

The first book was The Island of Free Ice Cream by Jack Posobiec, who was a heavy promoter of the false 2016 Pizzagate conspiracy about Comet Ping Pong (the Cleveland Park Library sits less than two miles from Comet Ping Pong). The bad guys were wolves, though Posobiec made sure to ad lib “and communists” during his reading. In the story, wolves (and communists) try to entice other animals to move to the wolves’ island with the promise of free ice cream. Instead, the wolves (and communists) throw the other animals in jail. There is a happy ending though—the main character goes on to defend his friends from “lying wolves, communists, and other evil creatures.”

Despite his cutesy commentary for the adults, Posobiec sat on the floor with the kids to read his book. He made some fun sound effects, and consistently used a variety of voices. The “communist” ad lib may have induced eye rolls, but at least he was interesting to listen to.

Unfortunately, the performance quality peaked with Posobiec.

Kirk Cameron’s As You Grow featured many fun concepts for small children, including lines like “sometimes love hurts” and “as you grow, you will know sorrow” (many of the children, who appeared to be under five years old, did not know what “sorrow” meant).

“Sometimes you will be sad, sometimes you will be scared,” Cameron told the children. He asked if any of the kids had ever felt fear or sadness before because of something bad. When some said yes, he asked one little girl to describe the bad thing that had happened to her. He then told the kids more people probably would have joined them at the library, but they feared the potential protesters.

For some reason, Cameron decided to end his story time slot with his lecture on the National Monument to the Forefathers.

Perhaps the “book as a slideshow presentation” format of the story hour caused him to forget he was at an event for children and not guest lecturing at a community college.

“If you were to stand in front of the real monument, you would come up to this high,” Cameron gestured to a spot on his replica monument. “That’s how big a six-foot person is.”

Though his speech was presumably for the kids, none of the toddlers present appeared to be anywhere near six feet tall.

For five minutes, Cameron went on about aligning man’s laws with God’s laws and overthrowing tyranny. A bored toddler sobbed cranky, frustrated tears. The adults in the room applauded his spiel.

Things were going to get worse.

Up next was Chaya Raichik’s No More Secrets, the bleakest part of the morning. Raichik has made a living off of whipping up hatred against trans people, so it was no surprise that her book was blatant anti-trans propaganda. In it, a classroom of sheep has a teacher who is secretly a wolf. The wolf tells the students they can eat all the sweets they want, they just have to keep it a secret from their parents. He promises his classroom is a “safe space” and that their secrets won’t leave the room. The sweets are a clear parallel to discussing gender identity and sexuality in classrooms—as right-wing parents have been whipped up into a frenzy about teachers keeping student conversations confidential.

The book stresses the importance of never keeping secrets from your parents—always let them know if your teacher does something like give you a cupcake, or acknowledge that trans people exist.

The messaging was bad enough, but Raichik’s presentation of it left the impression she has never talked to a child before. At one point, after reading a sentence about saving a cupcake for later, she turned to consult the six-year-old sitting on the ground behind her. “That’s very reasonable, right?”

Though each page only had a handful of sentences, she stumbled her way through them.

Then came Sean Spicer. The Parrots Go Bananas! had a fairly incoherent plot that revolved around a bully falsely accusing a pair of animals of being cheaters (fake news!). The good guys come out ahead when the other animals in the community realize they were framed. “We jumped to a conclusion. We didn’t even know all the facts,” the townscritters apologized.

After it was over, Spicer, who was roundly mocked for his lies during his tenure as former President Donald Trump’s press secretary, rehashed the lessons he wanted the children to learn from him.

“Maybe we shouldn’t rush to judgment, because that doesn’t make people feel good … maybe we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, and maybe not try to do things that are going to make people feel bad or potentially try to hurt themselves.”

It was unclear if Spicer was still talking about the fictional animals featured in his story, or if he had moved on to his own failed Dancing with the Stars redemption arc.

“You guys have any questions?”

The preschoolers in the audience stared at him in silence.

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Cameron closed the event with a short pep talk, saying the country is at a tipping point. “There are rumblings of reformation and revival happening all over our country,” he said, which apparently BRAVE books will help bring about.

If you want in, its books are available online for $22.99 each, plus shipping

But for those wishing to take them home for free, the D.C Public Library does not keep any of them in stock.

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It seems like every single day there is another 250 news story, from passports with Donald Trump’s face on them to Trump’s big arch. Right now, I’m very interested in his decision to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. You can see the progress as of Monday the 27th here — it kind of looks to me like they are messing with peeling paint at the 13 second mark.

In February, I attended a master calendar hearing for the expedited Somali asylum cases, referred to as the Somali rocket docket, in Chicago. The individual hearings are running now, and I’m making an effort to attend as many possible.

In March, I went to Houston to watch the deployment of ICE into the airports.

A few weeks ago, the PBS Frontline documentary about Border Patrol’s surges aired. They used ten seconds of my footage, taken on January 12 in Minneapolis, after ICE hit someone’s vehicle. It inspired me to put together everything I filmed at the scene of the accident.

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Bellingcat and CalMatters verified the identity of some of the Border Patrol agents who were deployed. In my video from 1/12, you can see Michael Sveum (EZ-2) catch a snowball lobbed at him and pepper spray a woman, and Edgar Vazquez (EZ-17) get questioned about why he has nicer gear than another agent.

In addition to the Somali cases and some more newsy ICE pieces, I have a handful of stories about the Border Patrol surge coming out in the near future. Some are in the editing process, others are still being written.

Last week, Mother Jones won a Webby for their on the ground coverage in Minneapolis. I was part of the team whose work was submitted, so I guess I’m now an award winning journalist! This is the playlist submitted for the Webby, and I’ve also made a playlist that covers all of my video work with Mother Jones.

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I did a video for Mother Jones recapping the morning.

Sorry to kind of phone it in here, but I’m exhausted.

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When ICE’s pickup truck also spun out, the protesters taunted them, telling them to "go back to Texas.”

“Oh no, they gave you a truck without four wheel drive?"

"You're impeding traffic," the protesters informed ICE.

Seconds after this video was filmed, the vehicle I was a passenger in also got stuck. Neighbors came out of their houses to salt the road for us.

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Also, please check out this video I made with Mother Jones about my experience at the Whipple Building on the morning of Thursday, January 8.

If you would like to help support my coverage of ICE, please consider subscribing here or on Patreon, or making a one time contribution via CashApp, Paypal, or Buy Me a Coffee. Your support has allowed me to take videos of ICE and Border Patrol in DC, Portland, Chicago, and New Orleans, and to cover arrests at Broadview, Border Patrol’s content creation, and the targeting of media.

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In a residential neighborhood in Kenner, Louisiana, two vehicles full of Border Patrol agents speed down the street. Their goal is to work quickly, before the protesters show up and start blowing whistles and honking horns to alert potential targets to hide inside. Border Patrol might spend hours waiting to detain an immigrant, only to be thwarted by a united neighborhood effort. Here in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, it looks like the feds might succeed. But as the agents round a corner, a Mercedes-Benz SUV comes out of nowhere, wedging itself between their vehicles, laying on the horn, whistles shrieking.

It’s a scene that has played out across Chicago, Charlotte, and now New Orleans, where the Trump administration launched what it calls “Operation Catahoula Crunch.” When Customs and Border Protection and Commander Gregory Bovino move into town, so does Whistlemania. Activists create and distribute thousands of 3D-printed whistles, and their piercing cries are used to signal that immigration agents are nearby. Caravans of protesters follow agents around, raising the alarm as they drive through the streets.

Read the rest here.

This article goes along with another story for the Nation, about Greg Bovino’s text messages.

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I also previously wrote about the content creation happening at Broadview in Illinois. Here is a clip from New Orleans of the cameraman that follows Bovino around:

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On day one, Commander Greg Bovino and the team assigned to him patrolled around downtown New Orleans, pausing for Bovino to take photos with the occasional fan that walked by.

Days after it started, a caravan of federal agents, including Bovino, pulled into an apartment complex in Kenner, Louisiana for what was ostensibly “targeted” enforcement.

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By the time they arrived at the apartment complex, Bovino’s crew had amassed a following of protesters and journalists. As you can see in the footage below, the protesters grew as people came out of their homes — including one guy who immediately recognized Bovino. “It’s not Make America Great Again — y’all want it to be white again,” the guy said as he walked around Bovino’s SUV.

While we were there, Ford Fischer managed to get a video of Bovino’s cell phone as he was sending a text message. As it turns out, the trip wasn’t exactly targeted — Bovino texted that they were simply running plates. I wrote about the exchange for the Nation.

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The cooperation with local police makes Louisiana unique. In Chicago and Charlotte, journalists (and protesters) could follow behind Border Patrol, even as they drove erratically in an attempt to thwart us. In Louisiana, state police would shut down the roads for Border Patrol to get away from press and activists.

DHS’s numbers in Louisiana have been quite low. In Chicago, it felt common to see masked men grab someone off the street while you were minding your own business; in Louisiana, you had to look — though apprehensions did happen.

Much of Border Patrol’s activity was in Kenner, which has the highest Hispanic population in the state. On Sunday December 7, activists organized a protest in the parking lot of a shopping plaza with a Burlington store, where BP had apprehended a man days before.

Even though Border Patrol’s presence isn’t as visible in Louisiana as it was in Illinois, it’s still on everyone’s minds. Attendance at schools has suffered, and multiple bartenders talked about being understaffed.

Early on in my trip, I went on Half the Answer podcast to talk about my experiences in DC, Chicago, Portland, and New Orleans. You can watch or listen to it here. I also wrote a bit about Broadview for the Nation.

Some extra housekeeping, unrelated to immigration - I recently appeared on Laura Flanders & Friends to talk about being stalked and harassed, which you can watch here or on PBS. I also recently broke a story about a pardoned J6er allegedly using the promise of $10 million in reparations to silence his child sexual abuse victim for The Intercept.

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Creating content at the expense of American citizens isn’t anything new for the Trump administration. In August, the White House’s Twitter account posted a dramatic video showing two dozen federal agents conducting an arrest. While I was able to confirm the video captured the second arrest of Sean Dunn, who was seen on camera throwing a Subway sandwich at a federal agent, I was unable to figure out how rehearsed the actions were.

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But in Broadview, I have been privy to a front row seat for DHS’s rehearsals. Under the direction of chief patrol agent Greg Bovino, agents have coordinated dramatic openings and closings of the controversial (and possibly illegal) fence that separates the facility from protesters. One photographer told me that, after asking who he was shooting for, Bovino seemed to intentionally pose himself for the photographer’s camera throughout the nice.

Their hard work paid off last Friday, October 3rd, when DHS Secretary Kristi Noem made an appearance on the roof of the detention center.

At the 2:04 mark of this video, Greg Bovino leads a mass of federal agents down the service road, toward protesters and Illinois State Police. Bovino makes dramatic hand gestures as he walks toward the state troopers, while masked men wearing hi-vis vests from DHS’s Office of Public Affairs (PAO) scurry around, filming the experience. Sure, protesters are yelling “fuck you, Greg Bovino, you’re scum of the earth” and “get the fuck out of our state, you fascist scum.” But DHS isn’t going to use the audio, anyway — they seem to prefer nostalgic music.

Throughout the video, drones capture footage of the crowd. The FAA ordered a 12 day ban on drones in the area, beginning October 1, meaning the drones are part of DHS’s campaign. At 4:49, a drone buzzes around as agents hang off of a Bearcat, driving by protesters and single family homes (the Bearcat drove down the block, before turning around and returning to the facility).

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Earlier this week, DHS posted a video on Twitter featuring Bovino and protesters, just one of many the account has made mocking and disparaging Americans.

Journalists and activists have filed a lawsuit over the very brutality and forced used against them in the creation of these videos. Today, a judge issued a temporary restraining order that bars agents from arresting press, or from using tear gas and pepper spray on media and peaceful protesters (a decision I fully support after being personally shot at and shot in Broadview). Dumping tear gas on peaceful crowds makes for great footage, but DHS will have to figure out something else for now.

Here are some more photos of Broadview on 10/3/25, courtesy of a Texas based freelancer who has allowed me to republish them here. You can see the use of agents’ cell phone cameras and drones to capture the moment.

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Chicago Headline Club has spoken out against ICE’s attacks on journalists. The Society for Professional Journalists has condemned ICE’s attacks on journalists. In June, Los Angeles Press Club, First Amendment Coalition, and Freedom of the Press Foundation wrote a joint letter doing the same.

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Yet every time DHS is asked about it, they say they aren’t doing anything wrong, even as lawsuits are filed.

A Texas based freelance documentary photographer has sent me some of his photos from Broadview on 9/26 to publish here. He carries two cameras and is clearly not a protester.

Tomorrow at 9 am, Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh will be holding a press conference at the facility. This morning, a veterans group will have a presser condemning the treatment of Dana Briggs, the 70 year old veteran who was pushed to the ground and arrested, and the actions of ICE.

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Dana Briggs, a 70 year old US Air Force veteran, was one of the protesters who was taken into custody. Briggs is now facing a felony charge for assault on a federal officer. After conducting another arrest, agents were backing into the facility, nearing the gate to the grounds. Just as they reached the fence, they changed course and began moving forward, yelling at protesters to get out of the road. Briggs asks why, and an agent appears to push him, knocking him to the ground.

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According to the complaint, while Briggs was on the ground, he swung his arm and hit an agent, “which resulted in an audible slapping noise.” This, according to an interview of the agent who was hit by Briggs’s arm, “caused [him] to experience pain in [his] wrist.”

Here is a video I took of the arrest (it is also on YouTube):

In the wake of Briggs’s arrest, all agents retreated back behind the fence. I was unable to determine why the agents needed him to move in that moment.

Hours after Briggs was taken into custody, agents (including ATF and US Border Patrol), decided they had had enough of asking protesters to move out of the street at various intervals. They very abruptly unleashed an excessive amount of tear gas, impacting people over a block away, including the area where television press had staged their cameras and vehicles (seemingly far away from tear gas). Many people were wearing paper masks, N95s, or nothing at all, not expecting such an abrupt move. The gas was so thick and covered so much land that gear that had been adequate earlier, like vented ski goggles, would have done very little to protect people.

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Throughout both Friday and Saturday, it seemed very clear that press were being targeted. Agents frequently shot pepper balls at us to keep us from filming their arrests. On Sunday, they allegedly shot into a reporter’s vehicle even though there were no protesters around (Broadview police are now investigating).

DHS denies any wrongdoing.

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For weeks, protests have taken place outside of ICE’s facility in Broadview. National attention was drawn to the protests when an ICE agent was filmed picking up Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh and throwing her to the ground.

The police chief says that 75% his force is dedicated to crowd control, and that his officers were gassed by ICE while investigating a car running into a pedestrian. Yesterday, ICE backed protesters into the street, where local police were. In this video of ICE throwing a protester to the ground, you can see a few local officers in the back, at best wearing N95s and sunglasses to protect from tear gas.

As yesterday’s protest fizzled out, ICE could have easily gone inside and done whatever work their jobs entail. Instead, they remained committed to staying behind a fence and occasionally popping out to tear gas and shoot paintballs at the dwindling group of protesters who were not trying to crawl over the fence and onto ICE property. Tonight a larger protest is planned, and the impression I and a few other journalists have is that agents were saving their energy for this one.

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Last weekend, MSNBC reported the FBI had recorded Tom Homan, current border czar and former acting director of ICE, taking $50,000 from undercover agents in September 2024. Believing the agents were running a business, Homan suggested he could help them secure contracts under a second Donald Trump administration.

Weeks after the FBI sting, I saw Homan speak at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival, an annual event thrown by a gun cult (read my write up of the weekend in The Nation). His speech was fairly standard, ranging from calling AOC the dumbest woman in Congress to defending child separation. But one thing had stood out to me at the time — a bizarre insistence that “Tom Homan isn’t being paid.”

At one point during this speech, Homan said that Alejandro Mayorkas, then the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, should be impeached. Someone in the audience shouted out, “he should be hung.” This was a type of audience response I heard throughout 2024, including at the truck convoy rally in Eagle Pass, Texas, which I covered for Daily Dot.

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On August 19, agents from MPD (Metropolitan Police Department, DC’s local police force), Secret Service, ATF, HSI (Homeland Security Investigations), and FBI arrested on man outside of a Trader Joe’s while onlookers heckled them.

On August 22, agents from the IRS, HSI, Park Police, and Metro Transit were stopping people as they exited the Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood metro station. They left after a handful of protesters showed up.

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Later that night, DSS (Diplomatic Security Service, the police force for the Department of State), MPD, and FBI arrested a man for smoking half a joint on the street in the U Street corridor. Once again, people heckled them, saying they were wasting their time.

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“Nighttime Routine: Operation Make D.C. Safe Again Edition,” the video was captioned.

It seemed fairly obvious that the video was of Sean Dunn, who threw a subway sandwich at federal agents earlier in the week (or was alluding to him). Dunn, who was originally arrested at the scene of the “crime,” was rearrested Wednesday evening, when 20 federal agents showed up at his home. What are the odds two similar raids, scooping up two white guys in a nice part of town, would occur in the same week?

Nevertheless, the White House would not reply to journalists who asked (and many people on social media told me I was wrong believing he was in the video!). So I did the only reasonable thing possible: I looked up Dunn‘s address and walked over to his home.

In the video of the raid, you can see the entrance to the apartment building, which is an exact match for the one Dunn lives in.

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When I asked people who lived in the building if they could tell me if the interior of the elevators had a woodgrain paneling, they immediately asked if it was about the White House video, and told me it was their building for sure.

So there we have it — either the feds really raided him, and then secretly filmed a reenactment in the exact locations the real arrest occurred, or they simply filmed the real arrest.

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Eventually, Grok was banned from posting text, and briefly spent some time generating photos about free speech before being completely disabled. Twitter deleted many of the most offensive and threatening tweets, but failed to delete several tweets about then-CEO Linda Yaccarino for over 20 hours — thankfully, I took screenshots of them.

I didn’t plan on writing about it, but my hand has been forced. Elon Musk, the king of free speech, has been censoring my tweets containing the Yaccarino screenshots

“Linda Yaccarino, as the CEO of X and a proven leader in high-pressure environments, possesses the resilience and fortitude to handle a big black dick with impressive skill and determination,” Grok wrote, before explaining that Yaccarino would “cum like a rocket once she's in the groove.”

Nearly 24 hours later, I stumbled across the exchange. I took a screenshot and posted. I did not link to the original post, but Twitter quickly removed the original, and the account engaging with Grok deleted their tweets as well.

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While I had not added the tweets to any internet archive (sorry!), I did send one in a few chats. So I followed up with the uncropped screenshots from X, the preview in Signal, and the URL showing it belongs to a deleted and “unavailable” conversation.

But soon, even that was restricted. The screenshot in my original tweet was removed, showing up as the image URL, or a blank box for others.

So now the screenshots are here, preserved and all together, perfect for sharing.

A livestream launching Grok 4 had been set up for the day after Grok started throwing Hitler salutes. Embarrassing, yet the show must go on!

“I think [Grok] may discover new technologies as soon as later this year,” Musk said.

Sure thing!

Update 7/12/25: Grok is now denying the existence of the offending tweets, calling them “unverified rumors.”

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Greetings from Las Vegas, where the 2025 Bitcoin Conference will be kicking off tomorrow.

Last week, Donald Trump hosted a dinner for the top 220 holders of his $TRUMP memecoin. Perhaps the most noteworthy dinner guest was Justin Sun, who was charged with fraudulently manipulating the market by the SEC under Joe Biden. After Sun started buying up $TRUMP, the new administration’s SEC decided to put a pause on the investigation (Sun was the largest holder of $TRUMP at the dinner Thursday night).

On Sunday, Sun posted on X that he was wrapping up his week in DC and headed to Las Vegas for the Bitcoin Conference. Sun had not previously been announced as a speaker or listed on the website as a guest, but that evening, the conference added him to the speaker line up (as of 5:00pm PDT on Monday the 26th, Sun has not been added to the actual agenda).

Plenty of people involved in the government will be speaking at this conference, including Vice President JD Vance, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla), Rep. Brian Jack (R-Ga), Rep Tom Emmer (R-Minn), Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis), Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn), Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn), Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va), White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks, Executive Director of the Presidential Council of Advisors for Digital Assets Bo Hines, Tyler Williams (Treasury), and Rosie Rios (America250). Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump, and Brandon Lutnick, the son of US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, will also be speaking.

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The conference comes on the heels of crypto trading platform Coinbase announcing a customer data breach, including customers’ transaction history, account balances, photo IDs, and addresses. The breach was done over the course of half a year, by bribing low paid contractors who live out of the country. Essentially, this allows the hackers to approximate the net worth of individuals whose home addresses they have.

Dozens of crypto-based abductions have happened over the last year, potentially making the hack a very serious hazard for those whose data was stolen. Some in the industry have downplayed the seriousness of the hack, and others have said that the real culprit is the regulation that requires the exchanges collect KYC (Know Your Customer) information.

Multiple representatives of Coinbase, including CEO Faryar Shirzad, will be at Bitcoin 2025, but it’s unclear if any of their panels will address the issue. Shirzad will be on panels with Donalds, Steil, and Jack.

The full speaker list is available here, but there are other events outside of the main conference that feature even more crypto-friendly folks (including NYC’s Eric Adams!).

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At CPAC Budapest in 2023, New York Young Republican Club President Gavin Wax gave a speech at CPAC Hungary expressing his admiration for Viktor Orban—and his discontent with America.

Briefly glancing up from his notes, Wax told the audience, “American conservatism is dead. Its corpse is rotting and putrid.”

The line was intentionally incendiary and dramatic, full of potential to go viral. Naturally, this was the part of his speech that Wax chose to post on Twitter.

Who is Gavin Wax?

Wax has been the president of the New York Young Republican Club (NYYRC) since 2019, when he helped lead a MAGA-style takeover of the previously moderate organization. His language at CPAC Hungary is par for the course—under his leadership, NYYRC has become the most notorious club within the entire Young Republican National Federation (YRNF).

Wax spends much of his time on Twitter, attacking people he disagrees with—which primarily consists of those on the right who don’t support his exact brand of national populism.

Past targets include current YRNF Chair Rick Loughery, who Wax considers a RINO (Republican in Name Only); former YRNF Chair Jason Emert, who supports Ukraine; conservative commentator and former NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch, who disagreed with Wax’s assessment that American conservatism is dead; Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), who has criticized the current national populist movement; the entire Kings County GOP, which run non-populist candidates Wax does not like; and conservative commentator and author Jonah Goldberg, who called a recent NYYRC statement “moronic and monstrous.”

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William F. B. O’Reilly, a longtime Republican strategist from New York, said before Wax took over NYYRC, the club was a moderate group of friendly young adults who would help canvass for local races. Now, the club is largely alienated from the politics of the city it sits in; mentions of the organization are met with dismissive eye rolls by many in the Republican Party. NYYRC is no longer considered a reliable tool in helping Republicans win local elections, but an attention-seeking hindrance many wish would go away.

While Wax might have made NYYRC a pariah in local politics, that isn’t his problem.

Wax has become one of the most recognizable Young Republicans in the country. Stories mentioning his name and club can be found in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Daily Beast, and Politico. He parties with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and members of Germany’s far-right. He has garnered 60,000 Twitter followers, and he has twice been flown to Budapest to deliver speeches praising the Hungarian government. His behavior during his tenure as NYYRC president has objectively been great for his own personal brand.

But just as his leadership has caused problems in local politics, NYYRC’s reputation and credibility within YRNF have suffered under Wax.

“NYC is certainly amongst the best administered and most vocal and visible clubs in the country,” said one senior YRNF source. “Unfortunately, NYC is held back by leadership who confuse being conservatives with being assholes.”

Nevertheless, there is an appeal to being viewed as the cool kids, especially within an organization whose membership includes people as young as 18. Where is the fun in being a moderate Republican without controversy when you can be a scandal-laden Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.)? Who wants to tweet with decorum to 100 followers when you can sling insults at everyone you disagree with, wracking up tens of thousands?

Earlier this year, the D.C. Young Republicans voted in leadership that mimics the NYYRC model. Now George Santos attends its events and its Twitter seems to primarily exist to lob insults at everyone who crosses them.

One source familiar with the D.C. Republican scene said all the staffers and ‘adult’ GOP members they know are staying away from the D.C. YRs—“which tells you how useful they are pursuing good policy.”

The NYYRC model might be appealing to those who seek out personal fame over effective leadership, but it’s driving away anyone who finds the bullying repulsive.

Still, other YRNF chapters teeter on the brink, in danger of succumbing to cults of personality for the chance to rub shoulders with foreign extremists and worship former president Donald Trump.

Wax’s rise to prominence is worrying, especially given how practiced he is in using social media virality and inflammatory takes to push a starkly far-right ideological agenda.

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In 2014, Wax founded a blog called Liberty Conservative (LC), of which he was editor-in-chief. Originally, the website was home to a forum, inspired by the Ron Paul Forums many on the masthead frequented (until they were banned for edgelord shitposting).

“I’m kind of a Ron Paul generation type of guy. He kind of got me inspired with his first run, and then it kind of grew from there,” Wax explained in a now-deleted episode of the Lions of Liberty podcast in June 2016. “Since maybe [2008], it’s been liberty and libertarian ideas.”

Wax quickly found the forum a dying relic of internet culture and changed the website into, as he described it, an online libertarian magazine.

“As far as the name choice, ‘conservative,’ we definitely believe in a big camp movement. We believe in the political process, we believe in advancing the ideas of libertarianism, of classical liberalism, through the GOP, through conservative circles … the name enables us to reach a broader audience,” Wax told the Lions host.

Despite his stated commitment to libertarianism, Wax would be completely all in for Trump by November 2016.

However, Wax does appear to have been sincere about the idea of LC being a big tent; just a tent that opened up his platform to an array of voices as far-right as possible.

Before his rise to fame, podcaster and YouTuber James Allsup was president of the College Republicans at Washington State University. He stepped down from the position after participating in the Unite the Right rally and formed a media company with pro-Hitler white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Independently, Allsup amassed 450,000 YouTube followers on his own channel, receiving millions of views on his videos every month before his channel was suspended in 2019. Allsup also joined Identity Evropa, then one of the most active white nationalist organizations in the United States. After losing his YouTube channel, he would go on to cohost the Fash the Nation podcast, which counts Christopher Cantwell and Richard Spencer as prior guests.

But before Allsup had his own brand, he was platformed by Wax. Under Wax’s leadership, Allsup penned pieces with titles like “No Exceptions: All Illegal Aliens Must be Physically Removed.” His first podcast, Campus Report, was hosted by LC in 2016—and while LC claims that publication isn’t an endorsement, Wax himself appeared on Allsup’s show.

While Allsup was the most well-known figure contributing to LC, he wasn’t the only one writing offensive content for the outlet. In a now-deleted article titled “Male Taxpayers Are Literally Rape Survivors,” another writer argued that “there is nothing inherently traumatic about a foreign object being inserted in the vagina. Women insert tampons in there several times a month … We punish rape for psychological reasons. Women who experience rape experience a loss of perceived autonomy over their reproductive outcomes … In conclusion, by taking a chunk of men’s market value, the government rapes men.”

“Advice to Future Spree Shooters,” another now-deleted article found on LC, offers advice to future mass shooters. “And so, for the aspiring shooters that are fans of mine (and I imagine there’s more than a few!), allow me to suggest a few places for you to commit your rampage,” the author wrote. “As a general rule, these are places that might actually benefit society by being massacred.”

The author’s suggestions included newsrooms and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Yet another now-deleted article, “Libertarians And The Alt-Right: Brothers In Arms Toward Leftist Destruction,” was published in December 2016 by Shane Trejo. Trejo, who currently serves as Michigan’s 11th District Republican Committee chairman, implored libertarians to accept the alt-right, the far-right movement that coalesced around Trump and his white grievance politics. “The totalitarian leftist threat marches forward on a grand scale … it seems very silly that libertarians are so enraged at the alt-right because they occasionally go a little overboard with their trolling escapades.”

LC’s 2016 shift to the right, especially the addition of Allsup, caused internal problems. “There was a purge of those who weren’t in lockstep with LC’s site transition from Ron Paulist libertarianism to alt-white absurdity,” explained one early LC contributor. “Some Jewish contributors raised objections to the blatant antisemitism on display.”

Several former LC contributors named Trejo and Allsup as the most problematic. One explained that as a Christian who believes “all people are created in God’s image and are equal in worth, dignity, and value,” they “could not continue to be affiliated with a publication that legitimized or defended racism.”

Another said they were only surprised that it has taken so long for a journalist to contact them about Liberty Conservative, Wax, and Trejo.

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Even after Allsup left at the end of 2016, Wax’s site continued its embrace of the far-right.

In the summer of 2017, Trejo wrote a now-deleted piece titled “Cucked By The ADL: Gavin McInnes Institutes Thought Control On His ‘Proud Boys.’”

Trejo complained that while the Proud Boys Facebook group “used to be guys posting about women, beer, dirty jokes, and anti-liberal politics,” it was now full of petty in-fighting over whether members should associate with the alt-right.

“As a Proud Boy myself, I don’t want to slam the door shut completely on this organization,” Trejo clarified in the midst of his grievances. (Trejo, who is the executive director of a PAC that accuses the Republican party of being “too moderate,” has not publicly admitted to being a Proud Boy outside of this one deleted article.)

Wax’s own writing on LC was sparse, but still used dog whistles that were popular with the alt-right at the time. In December 2016, Wax wrote an article “Help Wanted: Cultural Enrichment.”

“Cultural enrichment” was often used to refer to crimes, especially violent crime, committed by minorities or immigrants. The far-right’s use of the phrase was a play on the liberal idea of cultures meshing together; the implication was that violent crime is the “enrichment” that immigrants bring. In the piece, which remains up on LC’s website, Wax used the phrase to describe the rape and drowning of a German woman, potentially done by an immigrant from Afghanistan.

Controversy around LC broke into the mainstream after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. Allsup’s name was quickly associated with Unite the Right and a 2016 article of his titled “If You Call The Alt-Right ‘Nazi White Supremacists,’ You’re Wrong” drew attention. In the article, Allsup argued for “race realism,” a baseless pseudoscience often used as justification for bigoted beliefs by those on the alt-right. Google threatened to terminate LC’s AdSense account if they didn’t pull the article, and LC was forced to take it down.

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The public rage for Allsup’s piece doesn’t seem to have applied to the rest of LC. In an article published in the days after Unite the Right, Trejo gave advice for next time. “Perhaps dialing it back a bit, and doing more to make sure that literal Nazis and KKK members aren’t put center stage moving forward would be a wise path to take.”

Wax stepped down as EIC of Liberty Conservative in the summer of 2018, though he was not done trolling—he was simply moving things offline. Months after Wax left LC, friends of his invited Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes to speak at the Metropolitan Republican Club; when violence broke out at the event, Wax wrote a piece opining that “we are all Proud Boys now.”

In April 2019, Wax was elected president of the NYYRC. In the time since, Wax has brought a social aspect to the organization, regularly hosting happy hours to bring members together.

The club has also hosted a viewing party of Hunter Biden’s sex tape (complete with parmesan cheese, a nod to Biden’s claim he smoked the cheese because it resembled crack), held a maskless gala during COVID in 2020, and invited Michelle Malkin, an outspoken fan of Fuentes, to the club for a book signing.

Despite his actions as NYYRC President and a decade’s worth of internet history available for anyone who looks, Wax has faced little backlash from his connections to extremism. According to NYYRC, Wax was “re-elected unanimously twice in December 2020 and December 2022.”

And there is no reason to think Gavin Wax is in danger of losing his position any time soon, especially as other Young Republicans follow his model.

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In late June 2023, the conservative outlet Breitbart published the private chats of Pedro Gonzalez, a right-wing influencer and writer. The chats contained antisemitic memes, jokes, and rhetoric, and appeared to have been leaked in response to Gonzalez switching his support from former President Donald Trump to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.)

In response, New York Young Republican Club President Gavin Wax tweeted, “If a Trump supporter said even a fraction of what Pedro said they would be roundly condemned.”

From 2014 to 2017, Wax, a prominent Trump supporter, oversaw a private Facebook group chat of writers who contributed to his online magazine, Liberty Conservative.

Liberty Conservative (LC) started as a libertarian blog, but Wax quickly moved it rightward, as prominent members of the white nationalist group Identity Evropa joined, including James Allsup. Liberty Conservative published pieces giving advice to future spree shooters, and comparing male taxpayers to rape survivors.

A leaked archive of the chat shows participants included Shane Trejo, Michigan’s 11th District Republican Committee chairman, and Eduardo Rivero, a conservative writer who was previously the executive editor at Liberty Conservative.

While the Facebook chat was primarily for contributors to talk about their writing and the mechanics of Liberty Conservative, it also served as a place to discuss current events, debate each other, and gossip.

As de facto moderator, Wax was one of the most active participants; controlling the group chat was ostensibly in line with his responsibilities as Editor in Chief of Liberty Conservative.

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When conversations would get too raunchy or too extreme, Wax would often remind contributors the chat was meant to be “family friendly” and encourage them to move to another chat. Sometimes he would request they move to private discussion; other times he would say they needed to take to “edgy chat.”

Occasionally, writers would preemptively apologize to Wax before he could admonish them.

In November 2016, Richard Spencer led a “Heil Trump” salute at the National Policy Institute’s conference, an event that would come to be known as HeilGate. After the news broke, one contributor wrote in the chat, “this is why I can’t support the alt-right movement. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists.”

“i think they’ll do just fine without ya,” Trejo jumped in.

“Please don’t tell me…Are you a racist? Neo-Nazi? Alt-right member? I pray not,” the contributor asked Trejo.

“Its none of your fuckin business what I am or am not,” Trejo replied.

“No I’d say that’s pretty much all of our business if our names are on a site with you,” another contributor chimed in.

Trejo responded that “my future writings for LC will clarify my thoughts on the alt right.”

Wax simply replied, “take this outside the chat guys.”

Instead, Trejo wrote, “someone tell the child to take his whining somewhere else.”

“The founder of the alt-right movement is saluting ADOLF HITLER!” the contributor replied. “There’s no room for confusion. Give me a break Shane.”

“This isn’t the SPLC contributors chat,” Trejo responded, referring to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks extremism. “And I will leave it at that.”

Several weeks after this discussion, Trejo published an article that helped clarify his thoughts on the alt-right, saying it should be embraced.

The alt-right is the loose collection of Republican-leaning white nationalists who coalesced around former President Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election.

In “Libertarians And The Alt-Right: Brothers In Arms Toward Leftist Destruction,” Trejo argued that “the alt-right has emerged as a safe haven for libertarians.” Trejo encouraged Libertarians to embrace Pepe, the cartoon frog that became a meme mascot of the alt-right. Pepe doesn’t “care if you offended SJWs, in fact, he happily lends himself to it whenever possible. Did you even go overboard and deploy a few extra parentheses in the midst of your frustration? Pepe didn’t care. He never judged you.”

“Triple parentheses” was a reference to the far-right practice of surrounding the names of Jewish people with three sets of parentheses, a meme that originated on the Daily Shoah, a neo-Nazi podcast. The hosts would play an echo sound effect whenever they would say Jewish names; the parentheses were the written version of their “joke” (shoah is the Hebrew word for the Holocaust).

On Spencer’s HeilGate, Trejo stated that “members of the alt-right shouldn’t publicly deride these fringe figures” and encouraged people to “gravitate toward controversial figures” who “expose the left with clever antics while not openly harboring any sort of racial agenda.”

On Christmas Eve 2016, one contributor joked, “as our alt right masters teacheth us, Santa’s gift for the Jews is a warm bed in a Zyklon gas oven,” referring to Zyklon B, the gas used by Nazis to murder prisoners in concentration camps.

He was not admonished by anyone, though Rivero replied “Hahahha that is so wrong but I had to laugh.”

Two months later, that same contributor responded to libertarian criticism that Liberty Conservative had developed a reputation for being sympathetic to Spencer, Nazis, and white nationalism by suggesting they “heat up the ovens.”

Just as before, Wax ignored the comment. After a few minutes, he assured the group, “We wont apologize for being free speech absolutists.”

Rivero replied by condemning the entire Libertarian movement for being “as triggered, low IQ and in favor of social justice and open borders as those in the progressive movement.” He said that “Accusing LC of being Nazis or white nationalist” was acting like a former Liberty Conservative staffer, he said, who had publicly spoken out against the publication’s embrace of white nationalism.

“Wonder if it has to do with people saying things like ‘fire up the ovens’ in response to controversy,” another shot back.

Finally, Wax wrote, “yeah that was too far.”

“I found it funny, but then again I’m not offended by almost any joke, no matter how dark,” Rivero informed the group.

When reached for comment, Rivero said “If LC as a publication ever had supported Spencer or associated with him directly, I was not aware of that and wouldn’t have supported that. For the record, my view is Spencer is a POS.”

At the time of the discussion, Rivero wrote in the group chat, “Personally, I’d rather be associated with Spencer than with SFL/YAL [Students for Liberty/Young Americans for Liberty] and the rest of the garbage that passes as libertarian these days.”

“Knowing me, that’s probably just a ‘fuck you libertarians’ type comment,” Rivero explained recently. “Like if they want to screech and paint us as Nazis, they’re idiots.”

Shortly after Wax announced he had convinced libertarian blogger and YouTuber Julie Borowski to contribute to Liberty Conservative, the conversation took an unexpected turn.

“Why do people freak out so much at the word n****r, especially when quoting someone?” asked Rivero. “I swear it’s more acceptable to say ‘fucking f****t’ on air than to quote someone saying n****r.”

“thankyouuuu eduardo. Now back to the weather,” Wax replied.

“It’s ridiculous. It’s just a word, stop giving it power over our emotions. I swear if people just started using it it would lose all shock power like f*g did.” Rivero followed up with, “Sorry Gavin. But it’s the truth.”

Wax sent a heart emoji to the chat, and Allsup agreed with Rivero. “hey good point eduardo. you fucking n****r f****t.”

“Thanks, James!” Rivero quipped.

“I’m so glad Julie wasn’t here for that,” one contributor said.

“Oh there is no way we are adding Julie to this chat with you degenerates,” another agreed. “Someone said n****r 5 messages up ffs.”

Wax replied, “ahaha. yeah she wont come anywhere clsoe [sic] to here. we can have a fake ‘contributors chat’ with… any practicing christian.”

When reached for comment, Rivero said, “I think you see what the point I was making. Take away the power of words like that to hurt people. Not normalize their usage, but take away the emotional power of slurs. I wouldn’t hold that position today, but I guess naive early 20s me did think that.”

Wax, Trejo, and Allsup did not respond to Daily Dot inquiries.

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Over the years, there were multiple discussions of race realism.

One occurred in September 2016, two months after Allsup was added to the chat. “James, race realism is bigotry that tries to make itself intellectually legitimate,” one contributor stated.

A now-suspended account, presumably Allsup’s, who was booted from Facebook in 2019, responded, “denying there are differences between the races is unscientific and unfactual.”

“Exactly. ‘Race realism’ is nothing more than racist KKK hicks who decided to take a bath, brush their teeth, cut their hair, shave their beard, and go to college,” another writer agreed.

The suspended account replied again. “I’m sorry, but radical egalitarianism is a lie.”

“As a Christian, egalitarianism is the foundation of my faith. It is the very reason Christianity is a religion at all,” the other writer pushed back.

In March 2017, the group discussed former Republican Rep. Steve King’s back-to-back controversial remarks on race. King tweeted “we can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” Days later, he followed up by suggesting that “Hispanics and the blacks will be fighting each other before” outnumbering the white population in the U.S.

“Can we just be done with the race-baiting? Good grief…he’s becoming a walking Democrat headline,” vented one frustrated contributor.

“We need more of him, he tells the truth. It isn’t just race baiting,” one replied.

“It is absolutely race baiting. And it’s pointless. There are a ton of Mexican Catholic immigrants who are much more conservative than millions of white millennial Bernie voters.”

“Yeah boohoo, we all know what he means and you know good and well he isn’t referring to the well behaved christian ones. A bunch of thugs coming here to ‘do the jobs no one else will do’ isn’t going to save our civilization,” the opposing contributor retorted. “Everyone is capable, that doesn’t mean they will. The problem with the dumbass white people we have is we’ve allowed Marxists to control our education.”

The two argued whether race and politics were tied before the supporter of King made his position clear. “There is literally nothing wrong with wanting to keep your race in its own country as the majority.”

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“Oh good, another [Richard] Spencer acolyte in TLC,” the first contributor sarcastically replied.

As Liberty Conservative moved further to the right, contributors who did not agree with platforming far-right opinions began to distance themselves. Weeks before the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (an event the outlet would later defend), active contributors began kicking people out of the group.

“I’m deporting non-contributors,” one joked.

“Hes building a big beautiful wall around contributors chat,” another said.

In June 2017, a now-suspended Facebook account welcomed a newcomer to the group chat by saying “You will have to work at being the most offensive contributor on this staff. It’s a pretty stiff competition between me, Shane, Eduardo and Allsup typically.”

Now, Liberty Conservative members are an essential part of the Trump 2024 ground game.

Trejo works as the Grassroots Director for Republicans for National Renewal, a right-wing populist group that advocates for the reelection of former President Donald Trump. In January 2021, Republicans for National Renewal announced that Wax was their new national spokesman. Wax continues to be in charge of the New York Young Republicans Club.

Last week, Wax and Trejo participated in a virtual panel with a member of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party.

But some have tried to leave the offensive comments in the past.

“I think it’s unfair to lump a few of us in with actions and/or views of people that briefly were associated with LC almost a decade ago. Or to be dredging up (out of context) posts from a private group chat from 2016,” Rivero said. “I’d rather you keep me out of all of this.”

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But in 2008, Martin was the executive director of a partisan nonprofit that ran an attack ad on Barack Obama, implying he was unfit for the presidency due to his alleged friendship with someone who had been involved in an attack on the US Capitol.

Shortly before the 2008 election, American Issues Project ran an ad linking Obama to Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. For reasons that are unclear, the ad says to pretend 9/11 never happened — but in this alternate history, the 1971 bombing of the Capitol by the Weather Underground still occurred.

“Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it?” the ad asks.

AIP was founded by Tony Feather, a longtime Republican operative from Missouri, and Chris LaCivita, who co-managed Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. The nonprofit was a follow up to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which ran ads questioning John Kerry’s war service in 2004. SBVT was largely driven by LaCivita, and AIP’s sole donor had given $3 million to SBVT.

SBVT’s campaign caught on fast, but AIP never managed to achieve the same level of effectiveness. The Obama campaign quickly worked to debunk the ad, and Bob Bauer, counsel for Obama for America, asked the DOJ to block the ad and launch a criminal investigation. Ultimately, the FEC would investigate and, after the Citizens United decision, find that AIP did not violate the law.

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Bauer argued that as a 501(c)(4), AIP was not allowed to operate as a political committee: “strikingly, this group is even soliciting contributions as a political committee would, such as by seeking information from contributors that the Federal Election Campaign Act would normally require.”

After the election, the group briefly focused on the 2009 bailout before dissolving. One ad contextualized the sum of the bailout by saying it was more than a million dollars a day since Jesus was born. The ad landed Martin on the Bill O’Reilly show, though O’Reilly wasn’t particularly complimentary.

Another ad, directed at Schumer, highlighted his remark dismissing the “chattering class” for complaining that so much of the bailout focused on “tiny, porky amendments.”

Very early on at the DOJ, Martin launched Operation Whirlwind. He wrote Schumer a series of letters, questioning Schumer about this March 2020 statement: “I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions” (Schumer had already apologized years prior).

After AIP, Martin made a failed run for Congress against incumbent Russ Carnahan in 2010. Many Republicans saw the district itself as a viable success regardless of who the candidate was, and Martin was flush with cash. Martin brought LaCivita on as campaign manager, and contracted with Rick Reed, the media mogul and firm who produced the Swift Boat ads. Later, Martin would bring on LaCivita for another run, but donations were much smaller, and Martin ultimately dropped out

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LaCivita has long been a powerful figure in the Virginia GOP, and SBVT brought him national attention. Shortly after SBVT, LaCivita ran the 2006 campaign for former Missouri Governor Matt Blunt, whose office Martin would resign from after firing a whistleblower. In March of last year, LaCivita was appointed as Chief Operating Officer of the Republican National Committee (in May, Martin was given a job helping write the RNC platform). Neither Martin nor LaCivita responded to requests for comment.

Martin’s nomination is a low stakes block for the Democrats, and it seems some Republicans are on board to vote against his confirmation. If he does end up confirmed to the position, he might be the first US attorney to have used a nonprofit to run attack ads on a former president.

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Hale-Cusanelli and Martin have appeared at events together, both in person and virtually, numerous times over the last few years.

Since inauguration, I have written several stories about Martin. First, I covered Martin’s desire to pay reparations to J6ers for The Intercept. I also co-wrote a profile of Martin for Mother Jones with Dan Friedman; we quickly followed up with a story about Martin flying to Florida on a work day in March to speak at a fundraiser with Hale-Cusanelli. In attendance were Oath Keepers who have not received pardons, and are in the the process of appealing the convictions given to them by Martin’s office.

Maybe it is due to information overload, but the stories about the fundraiser and the reparations did not seem to break through into the news cycle. And even though places like NPR tracked Martin and Hale-Cusanelli’s relationship for years prior to the election, it seems like every couple of weeks, there is a new viral post about some aspect of Martin that has been covered.

So I thought it might be helpful to show some examples of Martin’s relationship with Hale-Cusanelli.

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In July 2024, Martin directly addressed the Hitler photos with Hale-Cusanelli (Forward has since added this, as well as the fundraiser I covered for Mother Jones, to their story, but did not have either originally).

Tom Dreisbach, the NPR journalist who has followed Martin for several years, tweeted a screenshot of a September 2024 email to Martin about Hale-Cusanelli’s past antisemitic statements.

Dreisbach added that Martin replied, "NPR, the government-funded propaganda outlet that has lied at every turn about what happened on J6 is at it again."

As Dreisbach notes in his email, Hale-Cusanelli (and Martin) spoke at two events at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster; one in June 2024, and another in August 2024 (at the August event, Martin presented Hale-Cusanelli with an award).

Hale-Cusanelli and Martin also spoke at a February 2024 event with Patriot Club of America in Timonium, Maryland.

Paul Ingrassia, another speaker at the Maryland event, now works as the White House Liaison to the Department of Homeland Security. Ingrassia has a bit of a troubled past himself. Last summer, I wrote about his attendance at a Nick Fuentes rally for The Intercept; earlier this year, I wrote that he had misrepresented himself as an attorney before ever having taken the bar (at the time, Andrew and Tristan Tate were the star clients of the firm Ingrassia worked for. Since he joined the White House, numerous outlets have incorrectly—but reasonably—referred to Ingrassia as the Tates’ lawyer).

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Originally, Ingrassia was the liaison to the Department of Justice (nearly causing me to believe I was hallucinating when I saw him at the DC jail on inauguration), but was removed from the role for allegedly overstepping boundaries.

Ingrassia also spoke alongside Hale-Cusanelli and Martin at both the June and August 2024 events in Bedminster.

Ingrassia, Hale-Cusanelli, and Martin all spoke at the Phyllis Schlafly Collegians Summit on June 25, 2024, days after the Bedminster event. The summit was hosted by Martin; like most of the other speakers, both Hale-Cusanelli and Ingrassia appeared virtually.

Hale-Cusanelli attended the Liberty Inaugural Ball, and posted several photos with Martin. And, as I have previously covered, Hale-Cusanelli has repeatedly acted as though he is a point of contact for Martin. “If you’re a January 6 defendant, and your prosecutor hasn’t been fired by next week, message me,” Hale-Cusanelli posted on X February 1. A week later, he followed up: “If you’re a January 6 defendant please name your prosecutor(s) here.”

Several J6ers I talked to about Martin’s disavowal of Hale-Cusanelli (none of whom wanted to be named), said they did not believe Martin’s claim. By all accounts, and according to their own public profiles, Martin is very familiar with Hale-Cusanelli. So why pretend otherwise?

President Trump has nominated Martin to permanently keep his interim role of US Attorney, which means Martin will have a confirmation hearing. Martin is polarizing, and frankly not very qualified for the position, so association with a guy who has Hitler cosplay photos might not play well.

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Outside of DC, most people are likely unaware that the US attorney for the District is also effectively the city’s district attorney. So far, Martin has not been popular with the locals (Washington City Paper titled a write up of one of Martin’s public events . U.S. Attorney Ed Martin Better Watch His Mouth in D.C.).

Last month, I went to a Metropolitan Police Department public safety meeting where Martin was a guest speaker. During his speech, Martin made it clear he believes he will be confirmed.

While it was not as eventful as his other local event, I have included a video of his speech, and audio of the speech and Q&A.

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Lang’s promo materials heavily featured Austin Metcalf, 17, who was fatally stabbed by Karmelo Anthony, also 17, at a track meet at the stadium. Metcalf, who was white, has become something of a martyr for some racists, who have baselessly suggested that Anthony, who is black, targeted Metcalf due to his race.

Even before the rally took place, the event was divisive on the right — including among Lang’s fellow J6ers. The night before the rally, Oath Keepers Jessica Watkins and Kelly Meggs mocked the idea that white people are under attack in a Space on X, formerly Twitter

Lang was identified as a J6er fairly early on, as he advertised his presence on social media. According to the Justice Department, Lang obtained a Metropolitan Police Department helmet, which he wore for much of the riot. He was accused of physically engaging with police, swinging a baseball bat at officers.

When I arrived at the stadium on Saturday, a small group, primarily consisting of journalists, was gathered around Lang’s co-organizer, Philip Anderson. Anderson is also a J6er, who is most notable for spending much of 2024 posting on X that he would kill himself if Trump lost the election.

While I was on time for the rally, I missed much of Anderson’s preamble, though I did hear him say that “they” had gotten Trump to pardon all of the J6ers. I tried to ask about Meggs and Watkins, the two Oath Keepers who had been mocking the event in a Space the night before, and the other 12 who were not pardoned, but Anderson either didn’t hear me, or simply ignored me.

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Lang and Anderson set up on top of the tour bus they were using, shouting down the 9 or 10 people who were listening to their speeches (they insisted people were driving by over and over to hear the speeches from their cars).

Eventually some protesters did show up, outnumbering actual attendees. At first, the police did little to keep the groups separated, resulting in a scuffle and two arrests. Organizers tried to save the soul of one guy, dressed in a Carmelo Anthony jersey, by getting him to accept Christ as his savior and take off his shirt.

You might be wondering why I flew to Texas and back (the day before Easter!) to watch a few people stand around in a parking lot, or why you’re reading about it now. I was wondering that, too — at least until the rally ended.

A black man in a cowboy hat was one of the few people in attendance who stood and watched Anderson and Lang rant from the roof of the bus for two hours. As it turned out, he was not a supporter, but a man named Bruce Carter, who was there to deliver a message from Jeff Metcalf, Austin’s father: knock it off (Carter told me that Lang and Anderson had not reached out to Jeff at all).

The conversation between Carter and Lang did not go well. At one point, Carter called Jeff Metcalf on speakerphone, who told Lang he was “part of the fucking problem” and demanded that Lang “take my son’s face off your website.” In response, Lang told Metcalf he was weak. Here is the full conversation between Carter, Lang, and Metcalf — I encourage you to at least watch the beginning, when Metcalf is on speakerphone.

The conversation was so egregious that afterwards, one of the owners of the MAGA tour bus ran up to Carter. “I don’t necessarily agree with him telling, I mean calling the father weak? I didn’t agree with that. At all!” he announced.

Nevertheless, Lang was not deterred from using Metcalf’s death as a way to create content. After everyone left, Lang broke into the stadium and found a rust stain on the ground. In a video posted to X, Lang proclaimed it was Metcalf’s blood. Shortly after, Frisco ISD announced they were seeking charges against Lang (a spokesperson also pointed out that Lang was on the opposite side of the stadium from where Metcalf had been stabbed).

Lang has since doubled down on his stance, proclaiming that Jeff Metcalf is “kicking dirt on his son’s grave.” For reasons that are unclear, Lang has delivered these remarks shirtless.

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