bergy, patrick

an raw 8 22

Patrick Bergy, a former Department of Defense contract information assurance security officer who was embedded with a group of pro-Trump conspiracy theorists in Washington, DC following the 2020 election, is publicly questioning an account by his one-time benefactor, Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com CEO.

Last week, Byrne filed a sworn declaration in the federal case for the search warrant executed at former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in south Florida. While the purpose of Byrne’s affidavit remains unclear, it included an intriguing tidbit of information relevant to :{a widely reported :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{Dec. 18, 2020 meeting:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: in which Byrne, retired Lt. General Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell visited Trump in the Oval Office. During the contentious meeting, which devolved into a shouting match with White House lawyers, Byrne, Flynn and Powell reportedly urged Trump to use the Department of Homeland Security or the National Guard to seize voting machines. At the end of the meeting, Trump reportedly appointed Powell to the position of special counsel.

In his declaration, filed in federal court in the Southern District of Florida on Aug. 18, Byrne wrote that Rudy Giuliani, who was serving as Trump’s personal attorney in the final days of the administration, disclosed to him during a lunch meeting in January 2022 that after Byrne, Flynn and Powell left the White House around 12:15 a.m. on Dec. 19, Giuliani lingered with Trump for a couple of minutes. According to Byrne’s declaration, Giuliani told him that after the others had left, “the president verbally reversed his decision and instructions” to appoint Powell special counsel, “and that is why those earlier decisions were never implemented.”

Bergy suggests in his affidavit, which was filed on Thursday, that he doubts Byrne's account about Giuliani's disclosure from the January 2022 lunch meeting. In his affidavit, Bergy describes observing Byrne leaving a meeting with Giuliani at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC around Jan. 11, 2021. Others in attendance at the meeting, according to Bergy, were Garrett Ziegler, a White House aide; conspiracy theorist Millie Weaver and her common-law husband Gavin Wince, and Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel who pushed dubious claims of voter fraud to lawmakers.

“As I walked in Patrick Byrne was just leaving and was acting visibly upset following the meeting with Rudy and Garrett,” Bergy wrote. The affidavit concludes with Bergy writing that Byrne’s claim that he only learned about Trump's decision to rescind Powell’s appointment in January 2022 “defies logic based on how upset Patrick Byrne was when I saw him leaving the Willard meeting that day.”

Asked about Bergy’s account, Byrne said in an email to Raw Story that he saw Giuliani on the night of Jan. 6 and left Washington, DC on Jan. 8. He said Ziegler was not present when he encountered Giuliani. Bergy, in turn, told Raw Story he stands by his claim that he saw Byrne leaving a meeting with Giuliani and Ziegler, but that it could have taken place on Jan. 7 or 8.

Bergy describes himself in his affidavit as a “guest of Patrick Byrne, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell and others” at Trump International Hotel, the Westin Arlington Gateway and Willard Hotel from mid-November 2020 through Jan. 17, 2021. During part of that time, he said he was also “a guest under an unsigned or dated Non-Disclosure Agreement with Rudy Giuliani, which I do not recognize.”

As previously reported by Raw Story, Bergy said he was invited to come to Washington, DC by Weaver and Wince, and joined a team housed by Byrne in the various hotels that also included conspiracy theorist Tore Maras; former military contractor Scott Bennett and Stephen Pigeon, an attorney for Washington state gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp. Bergy described thegroup’s purpose in his affidavit as “working to find evidence of election fraud, with the main focus being told to me put on the foreign influence that would allow them to use the Insurrection Act and call in National Guard.”

Bergy told Raw Story that he doubts that Giuliani actually witnessed Trump rescind his appointment of Sidney Powell after Powell, Byrne and Flynn left the White House in the early-morning hours following the Dec. 18, 2020 meeting. He said he doesn’t recall any mention of Trump revoking Powell’s authority among the network of people in Washington attempting to overturn the election after Dec. 18.

“If you want me to believe that story, sorry Charlie,” Bergy told Raw Story. “The timing on it and everything else going on, it’s just no way. Until someone shows me evidence otherwise, I would steer towards that not being the case. Even if he did tell Rudy, if you had a two-minute conversation with Rudy and no one else was around, how am I supposed to believe that?

“I can’t sit here and say Rudy lied, but I can say I don’t believe it,” Bergy added.

Neither Giuliani nor his attorneys could be reached for comment on this story.

Bergy told Raw Story that he believes the claim made by Byrne has the effect of protecting Trump.

As someone who has worked for the government on information security, Bergy said, the knowledge that the president had verbally rescinded an appointment that included a top-secret security clearance would have raised concern.

“It would have required that a full investigation for potential leaks or potential damage from that be investigated,” he said.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/rudy-giuliani-bogus-evidence-antifa/

raw story

after filming the fatal shooting of Trump supporter_{ Ashli Babbitt}_, an activist disavowed by Black Lives Matter and other leftist organizations before Jan. 6 became the public face of the right-wing hoax that “antifa" was responsible for attacking the US Capitol.

The film also reveals how the 27-year-old from Provo, John Sullivan, urged rioters to "break that shit" as they pressed towards the doors to the Speaker's Lobby, as lawmakers hurried to safety on the other side.

It now appears Sullivan learned about the planned assault on the US Capitol through his access to a far-right network that included Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Individuals in this network then turned around and fed Sullivan's information to Rudy Giuliani. Trump’s personal attorney then exploited this information in a propaganda effort to deflect blame for the attack from the former president and his supporters.

Foremost among those attempting to frame "antifa" by spotlighting John Sullivan's involvement was his brother, James Sullivan. A conservative activist with links to the Proud Boys, James Sullivan wrote in a text to an unknown recipient shortly after the attack: "I'm currently working with the FBI to expose and place total blame on John and the 226 members of antifa that instigated the Capitol' riot.'”

A screenshot of this text was obtained byMillie Weaver, part of a team of pro-Trump operatives drafted to review and analyze video of the Jan. 6 attack for Giuliani. Weaver shared the screenshot with Giuliani, her partner Gavin Wince told Raw Story, and Giuliani appears to have_{ tweeted}_ it out by accident nine days after the Jan. 6 attack. However,

To date, no "members of antifa" nor other left-wing activists have been publicly identified as taking part in the breach. The only known associate of John Sullivan who went inside the Capitol on Jan. 6 is Jade Lee Sacker, a photographer working on a documentary about the two brothers.

In a conversation recorded by Thad Cisneros, a former Proud Boy from Utah, John Sullivan explained, "Because I know we were going to storm the Capitol. I'm on chats. I'm on underground chats like — I have my resources, I have my resources. That is not me, but I have people, right?"

Cisneros told Raw Story that he "had zero knowledge" of John Sullivan's plans for Jan. 6 before the attack.

This recording was published in PsyOp the Steal, a pro-Trump documentary made by Weaver, with Cisneros' voice altered to protect his identity. Cisneros recently disclosed to Raw Story that he is the person asking questions in the recording. He also told Raw Story he provided the FBI with a copy of the recording.

Cisneros confirmed that on the night after the Jan. 6 attack, he called Sullivan and spoke to him outside the Hamilton Hotel. Shortly after Cisneros and Sullivan's meeting, Sullivan was detained by the DC Metropolitan Police and FBI for questioning about his involvement in the attack on the Capitol. Later, Cisneros said, the FBI contacted him. Agents wanted to talk to him about_{ Joe Biggs}_, a national Proud Boys leader, and_{ Stewart Rhodes}_, founder of the Oath Keepers.

"They asked me questions I knew I couldn't lie about," Cisneros told Raw Story. "They asked me: 'Do you know who this person is?' Of course. This is Joe Biggs. I called Joe Biggs and told him. I'm now regarded as a security threat by the Proud Boys. I understand."

The FBI also wanted information about Rhodes and other members of the Oath Keepers, but Cisneros told Raw Story he could not provide anything relevant to Jan. 6. He acknowledged that he and Rhodes "had been on several chats together," albeit only to discuss "organizing communities."

Cisneros said he was part of a council of national Proud Boys leaders known as the "War Boys," predating the MOSD Leaders Group, a private message group set up on Dec. 20, 2020to serve as a "national rally planning committee." Biggs, Ethan Nordean (aka Rufio Panman) and former national chairman Enrique Tarriol are all in jail awaiting trial on charges of seditious conspiracy.

"Enrique represented the strategy," Cisneros said. "Rufio represented the brawn. Biggs brought the military chutzpah. I unofficially brought a sense of reason and logic. When I hear things like, 'Storm the capitol,' it sends red flags."

Federal court documents indicate that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers privately discussed plans to assault the Capitol in separate chats.

On Jan. 4, Tarrio reportedly posted to the MOSD Leaders Group stating, "I didn't see this voice note until now, you want to storm the Capitol." Tarrio's message was in response to a voice note posted the previous evening by John Charles Stewart, a member MOSD's "upper tier leadership," recommending that the Proud Boys "plan the operations based around the front entrance to the Capitol building."

Meanwhile, on Christmas day, according to federal court documents, Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs messaged in the OKFL Hangout Chat when Congress convened for a joint session to certify the electoral vote.

"We need to make those senators very uncomfortable with us being a few hundred feet away," Meggs said.

"I think Congress will screw [President Trump] over," Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes reportedly responded. "The only chance we/he has is if we scare the s*** out of them and convince them it will be torches and pitchforks time is [sic] they don't do the right thing."

In bombshell testimony before the January 6th Committee on Tuesday, former aide_{ Cassidy Hutchinson revealed that word of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers'}_ plans reached the White House in the days before the Jan. 6 attack, even as Trump himself was planning to go to the Capitol when Congress met to certify the electoral vote.

"As Mr. Giuliani and I were walking to his vehicle that evening, he looked at me and said something to the effect of, 'Cass, are you excited for the 6th? It's going to be a great day,'" Hutchinson testified. "I remember looking at him and saying, 'Rudy, could you explain what's happening on the 6th?' He responded something to the effect of, 'We're going to the Capitol. It's going to be great. The president's going to be there. He's going to look powerful. He's going to be with the [House] members, he's going to be with the senators. Talk to the chief about it. Talk to the chief about it. He knows about it.'"

When Hutchison recounted that conversation with Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff reportedly told her, "There's a lot going on, Cass. But I don't know. Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6."

"I recall hearing the word 'Oath Keeper' and hearing the word 'Proud Boys' closer to the planning of the January 6th rally when Mr. Giuliani would be around," Hutchinson later testified.

Robert Costello, Giuliani's lawyer, did not return an email and voicemail for this story.

The Sullivan Brothers

James Sullivan, whose information about his brother John made it to Giuliani shortly after the Jan. 6 attack, was actively involved in a far-right movement that gave him direct access to the Proud Boys leadership.

Joe Biggs, a national organizer for the Proud Boys, introduced James Sullivan at a rally organized by the far-right group in Portland, Ore., in late September 2020.

"I'm part of a patriot group that came up from Utah, the Proud Boys chapter," James Sulliva at the rally. "The group that I'm part of is called Civilized Awakening I founded back when my brother, John Sullivan — he's antifa; he organized a protest where a shooting occurred in Provo — and that's when we started organizing the patriot movement in Utah.

"My brother, John Sullivan… he was a speed skater," James said later in the speech. "He started two third-party logistics companies. He was conservative. And they manipulated him when Black Lives Matter came to Utah. Now, he was at the DC capitol saying he was gonna pull the president out of office. That Black man, that was my brother. He was raised by Lt. Col. John Sullivan."

Cisneros, another Proud Boy, had also interacted with John Sullivan before Jan. 6, having spoken at a Jul. 2, 2020 rally in Provo that Sullivan organized. Pushing back against the perception that John Sullivan allowed him to speak at the rally, Cisneros recently posted a photo of himself speaking through a megaphone with Sullivan in the background on Instagram, accompanied by the text, "When I took over a #blm event in Provo, UT with #jaydenx in the background. #slutchapter #proudboy #disavowed for working with #blm. I don't take orders I give 'em."

Cisneros told Raw Story that he met the Sullivan brothers' adoptive father. He claimed his was the anonymized voice in the PsyOp the Steal documentary referencing a meeting with the father and two sons.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

On the eve of the attack on the Capitol, Rudy Giuliani and others set up what became known as a "war room" at the Willard Hotel,Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the January 6th Committee on Tuesday.

After law enforcement regained control of the Capitol and Congress reconvened with Vice President Mike Pence to complete the certification of the election on Jan. 6, Giuliani regrouped. His new task was helping to absolve Trump of responsibility for the attack, as the president faced a second impeachment trial.

Michael Trimarco, a New York businessman with a background in tech and finance, recommended Millie Weaver and Gavin Wince to Giuliani. Weaver, a former correspondent for the conspiracy theorist hub InfoWars, and her partner Wince had been staying at the Westin Arlington Gateway in rooms paid for by former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrnesince mid-November. They were part of a team that included Terpsehore "Tore" Maras and Patrick Bergy.

"When they finally met Rudy was Jan. 7," Trimarco told Raw Story. "The reason was because I felt the need to organize and collate… all the videos that were coming in from crowd sources. Millie and Gavin worked together. Tore has a lot of followers. They were sending stuff in. I said, 'These people would be good to pull all the video together."

Jason Funes, who worked on the Trump campaign in 2016 and 2020 — and worked in the US Department of the Interior from 2017 to 2019 — also contributed to the effort.

"Rudy Giuliani was being briefed by me in a group of people at the Willard Hotel on Jan. 8, and afterwards," Fune the right-wing podcast Liberty Report podcast in November 2021. "I'm an expert witness, bro. I was the one at the Capitol building on video at sunset watching all these so-called Trump supporters. Listen, if antifa puts on a Trump hate, are they a Trump supporter?"

Following the attack on the Capitol, Funes texted photos of the driver's licenses of the Sullivan brothers' adoptive parents to a New Mexico man named Shawn Bradley Witzemann. In his text to Witzemann, Funes wrote, "Found these on the sidewalk."

Witzemann told Raw Story he doesn't believe that Funes actually found the photo IDs lying on the ground. "That was bogus," Witzemann said. "That's him being a smartass."

Witzemann hosted the Proud Boys-friendly podcast, "Armenian Council for Truth in Journalism." In it, he chronicled pro-Trump events in Washington, DC, Phoenix and Atlanta as a videographer.

One of Witzemann's_{ clips}_ captures an encounter with Funes, who is seen wearing a "Team Trump" shirt, on the evening of Nov. 14, 2020 in downtown Washington, DC, where the Proud Boys and other Trump supporters clashed with left-wing counter-protesters.

Witzemann was arrested in April 2021, and currently faces misdemeanor charges of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and other charges related to the Jan. 6 attack.

Witzemann said he interviewed Sullivan, alongside their fellow Jan. 6 arrestee Jesus Rivera, for a podcast, but did not expend much effort looking into Sullivan's father.

"I thought it was interesting for a minute," Witzemann said. "A lot of times you get led into a dead-end. What are you going to do?"

Asked how he obtained images of the driver's licenses belonging to the Sullivan brothers' parents and why he sent the pictures to Witzemann, Funes did not respond directly. In a prepared statement provided to Raw Story, Funes said, "Rudy Giuliani had DC hotels full of cohorts that were withholding vital information from President Trump and the entire federal government regarding Jan. 6 (including the IDs). In fact, Rudy, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Roger Stone, Ali Alexander and others were culpable of spreading lies about foreign election interference to a sitting president and the entire world."

Flynn, Powell, Stone and Alexander could not be reached for comment about Funes' assertion.

Funes confirmed to Raw Story that he possesses a video interview with Cisneros that references the John Sullivan saga.

After helping Giuliani, Funes met with Kellye SoRelle, a former Texas prosecutor who eventually became the general counsel for the Oath Keepers. SoRelle was representing the president of Latinos for Trump, Bianca Gracia in a lawsuit when Gracia introduced her to Funes.

In an affidavit she shared on_{ Twitter}_ last November, SoRelle included a startling claim about the Cisneros video.

"I was contacted by a guy named Jason Funes," she wrote. "He came to visit me from Florida and brought me a video of a male by the name of xxxxx. Xxxxxx was explaining that he was in Utah and was associated with Jason and John Sullivan (Jayden X). John Sullivan is the individual who was with Ashli Babbitt when she was shot. Thad was being recorded stating that he flew to Washington, DC with Patrick Byrne and the Sullivan brothers, and that Patrick Byrne paid for the provocateurs to be at the capitol."

In an interview with Raw Story, Cisneros disputed SoRelle's claim, saying that Byrne "would have nothing to do with John." Cisneros added, "Patrick Byrne is someone I never had any involvement with. That guy had nothing to do with any of the flights that I took."

Funes also disputed SoRelle's account.

"Kellye SoRelle has taken a video out of context," he told Raw Story. "She didn't watch it in full, and is misrepresenting what Thad said, because that is not what Thad said in that video."

Raw Story has asked Funes to release the video. Funes indicated he was willing to consider the request but would need Cisneros' permission first.

Byrne told Raw Story he doesn't remember flying the Sullivan brothers or Cisneros to Washington, DC before Jan. 6, although he did not entirely rule it out as a possibility.

"Nope, never heard of the guys nor had anything to do with them and their projects,"Byrne wrote in an email. "If that turns out to be incorrect, then it is because they were among many dozens whom in November and December who I was bringing to DC mostly for debriefing. The names of very few of those people have reached me. But neither of them ring a bell. And I do not recall helping anyone in around the J6 time. Just a month earlier."

In a text to Patrick Bergy, who was part of the team assisting Giuliani at the Willard Hotel, SoRelle suggested Funes had walked back his statement.

"So, the weird part is Jason changes his story," SoRelle said in the Jun. 1 text, which Bergy provided to Raw Story. "Originally, there was the Byrne flight stuff, which others still say… including another on the flight. But now Jason denies he said it."

In a follow-up text to Bergy, SoRelle said that Bianca Gracia, the president of Latinos for Trump, "told me the same."

SoRelle and Gracia were both present during a Jan. 5, 2021_{ meeting}_ between Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes in an underground parking garage in Washington, DC. Tarrio and Rhodes are both in jail awaiting trial on charges of seditious conspiracy.

Byrne told Raw Story that he recalled agreeing to a request to fly 15 "pro-freedom Latinos from Texas" to DC for a rally in December 2020, although at that time, he said he did not know Gracia. He added that an unidentified reporter informed him that Tarrio and two to three other people on the flight were Proud Boys.

Byrne said he recently asked Gracia, with whom he is now acquainted, about the parking garage meeting.

"She told me that she knew Enrique for a long time, that he had worked for her before working for Proud Boys and before there even was a Proud Boys, as her state organizer and on her board of directors for Latinos for America," Byrne told Raw Story. (Since Jan. 6, Latinos for Trump has changed its name to Latinos for America First.)

In a Signal thread that includedByrne and Joe Flynn, the brother of retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, Graciasaid she hadn't communicated with Cisneros since February 2021.

"He was a Proud Boy but got kicked out of Proud Boys 'cause he tried to make peace w Black Lives Matter people," Gracia wrote. "He also got involved with the Sullivan guy mentioned somehow. And rumor has it he was an informant. At this point, everyone is either an informant or domestic terrorist. I did not pick up Thad's call. I made him text me."

Responding to Gracia's statement, Joe Flynn wrote: "Kellye is crazy, likes to make s*** up."

SoRelle could not be reached for this story.

In the conversation recorded by Cisneros, Sullivan risibly claimed that his brother, James told him "the Italian mafia paid for everybody to fly out there."Steven Kiersh, Sullivan's lawyer, told RawStory that his client "is not under any circumstances to speak with any person other than myself about the case."

Gavin Wince, who was part of the team that assisted Giuliani's effort to collect video and analyze the Jan. 6 attack, told Raw Story that he knows who flew John and James Sullivan to DC, but won't say.

"I can't comment because that is witness tampering," Wince said. "A lot of this is executive privilege. We were working with Rudy Giuliani and the White House on this stuff.

"The information was gathered under an NDA on behalf of Rudy Giuliani for the benefit of Donald Trump," he added. "That was the only reason we were doing that… for the benefit of Donald Trump, because in our mind he's the president of the United States being framed."

Daniel Goldman, the former lead counsel for the House prosecution of Trump's first impeachment, told Raw Story that there's no such protection. Goldman's comment was provided in response to an inquiry for a previous story looking into a claim by Weaver that she could not comment because her work was covered by executive privilege and an NDA.

"There is no such thing as an NDA covered by executive privilege since executive privilege is not contractual," Goldman told Raw Story. "This person would not fall under executive privilege under any circumstance, and I can't imagine what NDA a 'journalist' signed with Trump. The fact of such an NDA would lead me to believe they are trying to cover up misconduct through a sham contract."

Robert Costello, Giuliani's attorney, has previously told Raw Story that his client did not issue any non-disclosure agreements to Weaver and her team and was unaware that any had been given. After looking into the matter, he reported that Giuliani's secretary sent the NDAs to one of Giuliani's security people, who distributed them to the team. Costello said he located Weaver's NDA and observed that it was not signed by Giuliani, adding that without two signatures, a contract has no legal force.

Informed that executive privilege wouldn't cover their work for Giuliani and that the NDAs are likely not legally binding, Wince still declined to elaborate on the Sullivan brothers' flights to DC, saying that his information came from sources who, if disclosed, would face retribution.

"The last thing we want to do is compromise that information if it's evidence," Wince said.

Wince told Raw Story that he and Weaver did not receive any compensation for their work from Giuliani.

"The only gift or benefit we received was being allowed to stay in hotel rooms that had already been pre-booked," he said. "I believe it was Patrick Byrne and Mike Trimarco that had booked whole floors." Wince added that some of their meals were paid for. He also acknowledged that Byrne covered the cost of airfare so that he and Weaver could fly to California to interview a "whistleblower" for a pro-Trump media project.

After receiving information from Weaver, Wince, Funes and others, Giuliani recorded his "Common Sense"_{ podcast}_ for Jan. 13, 2021, promising, "This episode is going to concern itself with what really happened on Jan. 6, 2021."

Giuliani presented John Sullivan as the poster child for his thesis that "antifa" was responsible for the attack on the Capitol, making a case that was only loosely based on fact.

"I guess I'll repeat the word 'antifa' so we can see the organization for which Sullivan is operating," Giuliani told his audience in a video posted on the Rumble platform that has received almost half a million views to date. "Now, just a brief background on Sullivan: Sullivan is a Black Lives Matter/antifa partisan person involved with them. Involved in riots before. If not the most prominent, the most recent was in July 2020. He was arrested for rioting in Provo, Utah, where a person was killed during that riot."

In addition to omitting the critical fact that Sullivan had been shunned by Black Lives Matter organizers, Giuliani's statement included another egregious error. The SUV driver shot during the protest in Provo_{ did not die}_ and launched a bid for Provo's mayor.

"Let's start with the fact that long before Donald Trump or anyone else gave a speech on Jan. 6, this violent protest reaction was being created by other than Donald Trump or Donald Trump partisans, but by antifa and an antifa representative and a professional at creating riots, including riots that resulted in death," Giuliani said. "John Sullivan."

Speaking to Raw Story just before the January 6th Committee hearing on Tuesday, Weaver rejected the claim that Trump and Giuliani planned the attack on the Capitol.

"I've seen the J6 Committee making wild accusations that Trump and Giuliani had premeditated Jan. 6," Weaver said. "To me, that seems so foreign. You get a feel for things when you're in the middle of it. The feeling for me is there wasn't a chance in hell they pre-planned and orchestrated anything of the sort. Really, it seems like afterwards everyone is just trying to figure out what the heck happened. It's alien or way out there to say Trump and his people around him pre-planned an event such as J6, which only served to hurt him. In no way did he benefit. The opposing side benefited greatly from that."

An hour later, under questioning from Vice-Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Cassidy Hutchinson would describe three "camps of thought" in the White House, telling the committee that her former boss, Mark Meadows, straddled the moderate and extreme camps. Although Hutchinson didn't mention Weaver — an outsider working to assist Giuliani after the fact — by name, her position could easily be described as aligning with the third view inside the White House.

"And there was the last group, which was 'deflect and blame,'" Hutchinson testified. "Let's blame antifa. These aren't our people."

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/maga/

raw story

Patrick Bergyrode his Harley-Davidson to Austin, Texas, and was waiting for an interview with conspiracy-theory honcho Alex Jones in mid-August of 2020when he learned about the_{arrest}_ of Millie Weaver, who also happened to be a correspondent for Jones’ outfit InfoWars.'

The details were vague, but Weaver and her partner and producer Gavin Wince, along with her brother, had been arrested at their home in Ohio while Weaver was uploading the final cut of a documentary called ShadowGate, in which Bergy was featured as a “whistleblower” who spoke about his experience as a military contractor following his discharge from the Army in 2007. Given the urgency of the moment, Bergy looked up the address for InfoWars and walked into the studio without an appointment. Jones quickly recorded an interview for a breaking-news segment about the arrest of one of his contributors.

“I’m the pioneer of [Interactive Internet Activities], basically social media/fake news,” Bergy said,_{remarking}_ on the irony that he was sitting in the guest chair at InfoWars. “The last place that I’m going to go is an organization called ‘Information Warfare,’ right?”

Following Weaver’s arrest and while he was still in Texas, Bergy said he also spoke to a man named Robert Caron, a shadowy figure who claimed to have a background in intelligence. Bergy had met him before when Caron convened a meeting of his group Joint Task Force MAGA, or JTF MAGA — a_{self-described}_ “MAGA counterstrike supergroup of American patriots to help expose illegal government surveillance and support President Donald Trump in Making America Great Again” — at a restaurant in the Tampa, Fla. area two years earlier, according to Bergy’s recollection. Bergy turned down an offer to join JTF MAGA, concluding that it wasn’t geared to his specific interest. But he had stayed in touch with Caron.

Caron then offered Bergy a $5,000 retainer to stay in Texas and work on a project, according to Bergy. As much as Bergy could discern based on the details offered by Caron, the job entailed setting up a website to promote JTF MAGA’s content. Bergy said he declined the offer, telling Caron he needed to get to Ohio to help Weaver and Wince.

Shortly after Weaver’s arrest, according to Bergy, he was contacted by Lara Logan — a former correspondent for CBS’ "60 Minutes" who had been widely praised for her coverage of Iraq and other conflict zones in the Middle East. At the time she was working for the Fox Nation streaming service. The claim was first outlined in an affidavit that Bergy executed in early December 2020 and that he provided to attorney Sidney Powell for use in her lawsuits seeking to overturn the presidential election.

Bergy did not disclose the identity of the “person that arranged the conversation,” but has since said that it was Caron. During a conference call with Weaver, Wince, Bergy, Caron, Logan and Logan’s husband, Joseph W. Burkett, Bergy wrote in his affidavit that “we were asked if we would meet them at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to discuss further; I declined and so did Millie and Gavin.”

Upon its release, the ShadowGatedocumentary took hits from all sides, with_{legacy media}_ assailing it as being “filled with false claims and insinuations,” and others on the far right questioning Weaver’s credibility because she was charged with domestic violence. The charges_{reportedly}_ stemmed from an incident in April when Weaver, her brother and Wince attempted to wrest a phone away from Weaver’s mother, prompting her to flee to a neighbor’s house and called 911. Shortly after the documentary’s release, Alex Jones — never shy about making outlandish claims himself — fired Weaver from InfoWars.

But Logan came to Weaver’s defense,_{tweeting}_ on Aug. 22: “By now this is a familiar pattern — another tactic of information warfare that has proved so effective. I know many Americans are looking forward to getting the whole truth on this. It’s on all of our interests given the significance of what was done just to hold onto power.”

Logan’s endorsement carried some weight. On one hand, her credibility had sustained damage from a story about the 2012 Benghazi attack that “60 Minutes” was forced to_{retract}_ (and much later would be_{pushed out}_ of Fox Nation for comparing Dr. Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor Josef Mengele). On the other hand, unlike Jones who built a career around promoting conspiracy theories,Logan had worked at the highest levels in journalism and was widely admired for her courageous reporting in Iraq and decades of experience.

Later, Bergy said Wince told him that Logan had Burkett reach "out to them with information that exposed the arrest of Millie Weaver was orchestrated” by military contractors in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside of Dayton, Ohio.

Bergy noted that Burkett had previously worked as a military contractor himself_{employed}_ by the public relations firm Lincoln Group, which was hired by the Defense Department to_{plant positive stories}_ geared towards Iraqi audiences during the Iraq war. Bergy faulted Logan in his affidavit for not investigating information that she privately shared with Weaver and Wince, especially considering her track record as an investigative journalist.

“It is extremely concerning to all involved the claims made by the Logans [sic] and warrant further investigation,” Bergy wrote in his affidavit. “The arrest of a US journalist, orchestrated on a US military base, cannot be dismissed without a thorough investigation into the Logan’s [sic] claims.”

While Logan has not reported on the mysterious connection between Weaver’s arrest and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, her journalistic instincts would prove to be attuned to the behind-the-scenesefforts to overturn the election. On Jan. 5, 2021, one day before the assault on the US Capitol, Logan_{tweeted}_ out a link to a PowerPoint presentation entitled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN.” The document had been used in presentations by_{Phil Waldron}_, a retired Army colonel with a background in information warfare, as he_{briefed}_ members of Congress on Jan. 4 and 5. The PowerPoint called on Trump to order the National Guard, with support from the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, to conduct a recount of the 2020 election. On Jan. 6, the day Congress was scheduled to meet to accept the presidential elections, the PowerPoint proposed three options for Vice President Mike Pence, all of which would have either delayed or prevented Joe Biden from becoming the next president.

“This is what is being briefed on the Hill today re election fraud — for those of you who want to go to the source rather than get it second-hand,” Logan wrote.

Logan and Burkett could not be reached for comment for this story.

The charges against Weaver and Wince were eventually_{dropped}_. Whether there is any truth to the explosive claim that Weaver’s arrest was secretly orchestrated from a military base remains unclear. Regardless, it reinforced Weaver’s paranoid view of a Deep State intent on silencing Trump supporters.

“From what I hear, we’re in the jurisdiction for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” Weaver told her followers during a Periscope_{livestream}_ in late 2020. “And apparently it would have been really easy to have us at this jail here and then transferred to an espionage jail. What’s going on right now is insane, guys. It’s very creepy.”

‘They were setting all these scams up’

The ShadowGate documentary had been quickly debunked by_{USA Today}_ and_{PolitiFact}_, and although it reportedly drew millions of views, it receded from public discussion as just one more QAnon-inspired conspiracy vehicle, as violence in_{Kenosha, Wis.}_ and_{Portland, Ore.}_ set the stage for the final tumultuous months of the 2020 presidential election campaign. While the documentary might have seemed obscure even for the far-right audience to which it was geared, its four principals would find roles in the network of conspiracy theorists and operatives that sprung into action to delegitimize the 2020 election and aid Donald Trump in his quest to hold onto power.

In addition to Weaver, the producer and writer of ShadowGate, Wince, credited as its director, and thedocumentary’s two featured “whistleblowers” — Bergy and pro-Trump podcaster Terpsehore “Tore” Maras — all wound up in Washington, DC in mid-November 2020.

The ShadowGatedocumentary had a particular utility in the effort to delegitimize the 2020 election, as Bergy himself would come to recognize. More than three months before attorney Sidney Powell_{told}_ radio host Glenn Beck on Nov. 20 that “our forces” confiscated servers held by an election technology company named Scytl in Germany, Weaver had narrated a similar scenario in ShadowGate.

“Scytl is one of the most notorious outsource companies for elections, with regular electronic voting machine problems, who also tabulate our election results and cloud services in Europe, aka servers outside the United States,” Weaver said. The claim was false.

Weaver could not be reached for this story.

Spurned by Alex Jones —_{who heavily promoted the Jan. 6 rally in DC and took to a bullhorn to address rioters at the Capitol that day}_ — Weaver found a new patron in Patrick Byrne. After Jan. 6, Weaver collected and analyzed video for Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, in support of his effort to cast the attack as the work of “antifa” agent provocateurs.

Bergy told Raw Story that he also later learned that Logan was responsible for arranging for Weaver and Wince to come to Washington, DC after the 2020 election. Bergy said he was asked to come to DC by Weaver and Wince, and they were already there when he arrived around Nov. 15, 2020. Byrne, the former Overstock.com CEO and significant financier for the election denial efforts, confirmed in a text message to Raw Story that he covered the cost of hotel rooms for Weaver, Wince, Bergy and Maras at the Westin Arlington Gateway Hotel in late 2020. But Byrne said he had no knowledge of Logan encouraging Weaver and Wince to come to DC and did not make any arrangements with her.

Byrne also footed the bill for a reporting trip to California by Weaver and Wince in late November 2020, according to Bergy. In a text provided by Bergy, Wince warned that alienating Byrne “could cost us our trip to CA.” Byrne did not dispute the claim that he covered the cost of the trip.

“No, I don’t have a specific recollection of this, it sounds plausible,” Byrne told Raw Story. “I’ll go farther: vaguely rings a bell. That is to say, I’m vaguely remembering that I did pay for a trip or two for them. Along with many dozens of others, incidentally.”

The catalyst for Maras to show up in DC in November 2020 is somewhat murkier. In a conversation on the Stereo app in July 2021, Maras told Bergy that she had known Byrne “before everyone else.” Byrne gave a different account, telling Raw Story that he had “never met or heard of her until” he met her around Nov. 16, 2020. But Joshua Merritt, an IT consultant who provided a declaration to support Powell’s lawsuits attempting to overturn the election, has made statements in the past that predate the relationship between Byrne and Maras long before November 2020. In a reply to an April 30 Twitter thread, Merritt_{said}_ Maras had been “brought in with Byrne” to work on investigating alleged election fraud after the 2019 election in Kentucky.

In retrospect, Bergy said he has come to see that the claims put forward in ShadowGate performed a valuable service in preparing the ground for the broad election denial narrative that Trump’s supporters worked to build in November.

“That was two or three months before the election,” Bergy said. “That was right after ShadowGatewas released. What else was in ShadowGate? Scytl. They knew November 3rd was going to happen, let alone January 6th. They were setting all these scams up. It sure seems like they were putting these things in place at least three months ahead of time to be able to prepare for Trump’s loss.

“It was useful,” Bergy added. “If they didn’t plan it, they should have.”

Bergy said he learned later that Waldron, the retired Army colonel, praised ShadowGateto Weaver and Wince at a party at Trump International Hotel on Nov. 14, 2020.

“Phil Waldron approached Millie and Gavin, and said he was the biggest fan of ShadowGate,” Bergy told Raw Story. “He identified himself as Phil Waldron and said he believed everything in ShadowGatebecause he replaced the IIA chief after I left. He said he knew who I was, and he understood my background in ShadowGate.”

Waldron could not be reached for comment for this story, while Byrne denied that the content of ShadowGateplayed any role in shaping his initial impressions of Weaver, Wince, Maras and Bergy.

“No, never heard of them or that movie until mid-November 2020,” he told Raw Story. “They were on their own path when I met them, and they have continued so. None of them have ever taken any direction from me.”

‘Calling out too many people… will backfire’

Lara Logan’s behind-the-scenes role would prove to be a source of ongoing tension among the principals in the ShadowGatefilm during the period they were working out of the Westin hotel to aid the effort to overturn the election.

“Calling out too many people (Logan, Burns [sic]) will backfire,” Wince told Bergy in November 2020, according to a text obtained by Raw Story. “It could compromise things we have in the works.

“Pissing off Burns [sic] could cost us our trip to CA we have planned that are important, and pissing off Logan while mentioning Millie could piss off Millie and/or cost her ability to use that channel,” he added.

Wince could not be reached for this story.

In Bergy’s view, his duty as a whistleblower obligated him to tell the whole truth, no matter whose sensibilities might be offended.

“When you say we need to be putting this s*** out because nothing’s getting done,” he told Wince, “I didn’t link to Millie, and I’m posting my affidavit tomorrow online which literally includes Lara’s/Joe’s involvement.”

The central focus of Bergy’s 70-page affidavit was the development of “social media psychological warfare weapons and techniques'' that he had observed as a military contractor, and his position that they were being applied on domestic targets in the United States. The affidavit traced a history from a complaint filed by Bergy to the Department of Defense Inspector General in 2015, and then name-dropped a wide array of prominent figures with whom he interacted in his quest to bring the information to light, including Logan and her husband, Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro, InfoWars host Alex Jones, “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander and Trump confidant Roger Stone.

Bergy has said his sole objective during his time in DC was to get his information to Trump.

In August 2021, Bergy asked Byrne to explain what happened to his affidavit once he submitted it to the legal team led by Sidney Powell so that he could include his response in a book. Byrne obliged.

“Your affidavit was read and absorbed,” Byrne confirmed. “The whistleblowers were met with and debriefed. Everything they and you had to say got put into a larger picture we were forming. The information from the whistleblowers in Arizona could immediately inform what we were doing; your bigger picture information, while accepted as truthful, did not have a precise application, though it was valuable for our situational awareness.”

In contrast to Bergy’s affidavit, Powell filed a 37-page anonymized declaration submitted by his fellow ShadowGate“whistleblower”_{Terpsehore “Tore” Maras}_ in support of her lawsuits in Wisconsin and Arizona.

Maras’ declaration mentioned Scytl, the Spain-based election technology company, a total of_{23 times}_, echoing the claim made by Weaver three and a half months earlier in ShadowGate. In her declaration, Maras claimed that votes cast in the 2020 election were put through a “mixing phase” while an “algorithm redistributes votes.” Her declaration also claimed that “Scytl re-encrypts ballot data” and has the ability to access the vote through “backdoors” that could “alter the range of the algorithm deployed to satisfy the outcome sought in the case of algorithm failure.”

Maras’ claims represented a fundamental misunderstanding of Scytl’s role in US elections. The company provides election-night reporting services that offer a visual representation of votes tabulated by local election officials, but as it noted in a fact-checking_{statement}_ issued more than two weeks before Maras executed her declaration, Scytl does not tabulate votes.

“On election night, each election office tabulates the vote using their tabulation vendor’s physical machines and uploads those results to Scytl’s [election-night reporting program],” the company explained. All ENR servers being used for the US elections are physically located in the United States. Scytl does NOT tabulate, tally or count votes.” Scytl’s statement was cited by a fact-check published by_{Reuters}_, which rated as “false” a claim by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) that the US Army had seized Scytl’s servers in Germany.

Seth Keshel, a former Army military intelligence captain who assisted Powell’s team in preparing the lawsuits, cautioned another election denier in a private Telegram message in August 2021 that Maras’ claims shouldn’t be taken at face value.

“Tore is not credible,”Keshel wrote. “I was on the initial teams drafting lawsuits over the states with Sidney and Flynn. Our teams researched her heavily and found many problems.” He added that “unfortunately she wound up as a key witness in one of our cases.”

Byrne told Raw Story in an email that he “had no hand” in preparing the lawsuits, “and was not aware until much later that Tore had provided the affidavit.”

But Byrne was sufficiently concerned about Maras’ credibility that he tasked a team with interviewing her a couple of weeks after the declaration was filed in federal court.

“Tore was taken out and interviewed by some people I know in the intelligence community who are absolutely on our side,” Byrne told Bergy in his August 2021 email. “They came back telling me: ‘She knows some things and has been behind the curtain, but she also lies, exaggerates, deflects, changes subjects rapidly trying to throw people off, and we cannot rely on her for anything factual because we caught her in too many lies and exaggerations over three hours (precisely as I warned her they would do if she did not heed a little coaching from me).”

Maras defended her qualifications in an email to Raw Story.

"If you read my affidavit, you would know that I am an amateur cryptographer," she said. "Therefore, I am very familiar with cryptography, ethics and research surrounding it. I participate in attending such conferences and seminars when I can."

Robert Caron, who had initially put Bergy, Weaver and Wince in touch with Lara Logan, was in and around DC from November 2020 through January 2021, according to Bergy.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, Maras perceived him as a threat. Speaking with Bergy on the Stereo app in July 2021, Maras fumed about a host of obscure operators vying for Powell and Flynn’s attention in late 2020.

“And you have this motherf***er standing there, bidding to help you?” she said. “They’re there to destroy you. And they are seeing everything we are giving you. And they are dismantling it. Like, that other guy, f***ing, you know, Caron, right, popped out of nowhere.”

While Maras distrusted Caron, she felt differently about Lara Logan.

“You know who hooked me up to Logan?” Bergy asked. “Because I introduced Logan to Millie and Gavin. You know who hooked me up with Logan? Our friend, Robert. She’s got interesting friends. If known contractors and CIA assets are arranging your introductions to journalists that are married to military-industrial complex psy-op contractors, am I wrong in thinking possibly a lot of people that are passed along or networked through Lara are basically…?”

Maras interrupted Bergy.

“Well, you and me are going to disagree on Lara,” she said. “I like Lara…. If it came down to it, and I had to trust someone with something, I would actually trust her.”

A plan to order the National Guard to shut down Congress

Caron’s background remains murky. In one of the few publi with him that is available, Caron was identified in a March 2018 story that aired on the far-right network One America News as “the spokesman for JTF MAGA, the collection of veteran members of the intelligence, law enforcement and military communities dedicated to exposing the dark secrets of the Deep State.” The “team” page for a_{website}_ that houses reports by JTF MAGA, including one proclaiming retired Lt. General Michael Flynn’s innocence and another that disputes claims about collusion between the Trump campaign — has at various times included photos of Caron and Veterans for America First co-founders Joshua Macias and Vlad Lemets.

When Caron arrived in DC, Wince and Bergy viewed him as a replacement for Dennis Nathan Cain, a cybersecurity expert brought in to analyze the results of the 2020 election.

Cain told Raw Story that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon recommended him to White House trade advisor_{Peter Navarro}_, who published a series of reports claiming without evidence that the election had been stolen. Cain said he worked on a three-man team that included another man named Harry Haury and a third person whom he declined to identify. Cain said he primarily worked with Phill Kline, a former Kansas attorney general who_{reportedly}_ promoted a scheme to submit pro-Trump electors in the six swing states carried by Joe Biden.

Cain filed an expert report in a civil suit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona to challenge the election results. Cain opined that based on his assessment that the election error rate in Arizona during the 2020 election failed to meet the standard set under the 2002 Help America Vote Act, the election result should not have been certified.

“I was specifically looking at the certification and accreditation of the system,” Cain told Raw Story. “I had no interest in looking at any of the technical aspects from the standpoint of whether they were hacked, because you can’t do that unless you have access to the machines.”

Cain told Raw Story that he and Caron met in DC at Caron’s request, and that Caron wanted to join his team. Cain said he declined Caron’s request because he had been working without compensation in DC for two months. Cain had set up a GoFundMe page, but it only covered about half the cost of their hotel bill at the Westin. By the time Caron approached him, Cain said he considered his work to be complete. He disbanded the team, and went home after Christmas.

Cain said he came to regret his meeting with Caron.

“He went out and wrote some emails; some of the people that were associated with me didn’t like that,” Cain said. “It kind of did some damage with some people that I was working with that didn’t care for him.”

After Cain left DC, his name appeared on a document arguing, among other things, that the states were not in compliance with the Help America Vote Act and concluding bizarrely that Trump had a “mandatory duty to immediately declare the 2020 election in violation” of the Constitution and declare Congress “illegitimate” as a prelude to ordering the National Guard to shut down Congress.

“President Donald J. Trump, to preserve our sovereign form of government, has the mandatory duty to immediately declare the 2020 election in violation of our United States Constitution and declare the 117th Congress illegitimate, then access and direct the National Guard already sent by the mayor, to prevent entry into their offices and the Capitol,” the document declared.

Entitled “Invincible Argument, the document was dated Jan. 4 and featured a dozen names, beginning with Caron and also including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes,Oath Keepers general counsel Kellye SoRelle, Veterans forAmerica First co-founder Joshua Maciasand Latinos for Trump President Bianca Gracia. Eleven members of the Oath Keepers, including Rhodes, have been indicted for seditious conspiracy. Macias was_{arrested}_ on weapons charges outside the Philadelphia Convention Center, where votes were being tabulated, on Nov. 5, 2020, and was present at the US Capitol on Jan. 6.

Jerome Corsi, who heavily promoted the_{false claim}_ that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and therefore was not qualified to serve as president, was also named on the document, and Corsi_{published}_ it on his website on Jan. 5, the eve of the assault on the US Capitol.

Cain said he did not authorize his name to be used on the document.

“I am familiar with my name being on there,” he told Raw Story. “It was done without my permission. I don’t have any comment to give on what the legal ramifications of the system not being compliant with HAVA might be.”

Caron’s name also appeared at the bottom of the document’s Forward, and another section was credited to Caron and SoRelle.

On the same day Corsi published the “Invincible Argument” document, Caron was quoted in a_{story}_ published by Vision Times News headlined, “Over 400 ex-intelligence officers have started investigating election fraud.” The story quoted Caron as saying, “The fraud was so massive and so blatant, despite what the mainstream media said, that we need to get this information out to the public.”

Caron could not be reached for this story, but he has told_{CNN}_ that he was approached by two FBI agents at a hotel in Toronto last December. According to CNN, Caron said the agents told him they were investigating events that led up to the violence on Jan. 6 and that he sat down to speak with them about “key people” involved in the effort to overturn the election.

Rhodes, SoRelle, Macias and Gracia were all filmed in a meeting in a_{hotel parking garage}_ with Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio on Jan. 5, 2021. Tarrio has been_{charged}_ with conspiracy, along with five other Proud Boys leaders, for his role in the Jan. 6 attack.

The “Invincible Argument” document” would_{form the basis}_ of another lawsuit seeking to overturn the election, this one filed not by Powell and her team, but by SoRelle, the Oath Keepers’ general counsel.

A transcript of an Oath Keepers teleconference that took place on Nov. 9, 2020, shows that the militia group was working on a legal track even as they prepared to mobilize a tactical force at the US Capitol. Asked by Rhodes to update members on the “legal fight,” SoRelle_{mentioned Giuliani}_ as heading up one of several legal teams working to overturn the election.

“And then you have the Giuliani pals, I guess, previewing the Campaign pod that’s trying to solve the mystery of the ballots,” SoRelle said. “So, I’ve been in communication. I obviously work the RNC version of it, and then I’m in — I like the Q crowd, they’re kind of fun, and then I’ve been meeting with the Campaign crowd.”

The lawsuit sputtered almost immediately whenfriction arose between SoRelle and her co-counsel, Paul M. Davis, over Caron’s involvement in the litigation.

In a February 2021 filing, Davis reported that he had “expressed concern to SoRelle that Bob seemed to have some sort of undue influence over the plaintiffs and was poisoning their thinking about the case strategy with suggestions of inclusion of what the whole team had previously agreed were frivolous legal claims (this has always been a case strictly about violations of election law and NOT a case about election fraud).”

Davis went on to suggest SoRelle was disclosing confidential attorney-client communications to Caron, who was not a plaintiff.

SoRelle responded, Davis reported with incredulity, that Caron had been “listening in on our comms.”

the other has orcs

After multiple failed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and his far-right extremist associates had another idea to bring former President Donald Trump's sordid dream to fruition.

According to The Daily Beast, their ideas were detailed in a bizarre lawsuit that "went off the rails almost as soon as it hit the courts, with the lead attorney citing **The Lord of the Rings** as legal precedent." Days after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Rhodes and other paramilitary members joined forces to file a federal lawsuit in hopes of overturning the election.

The initial lawsuit was reportedly compiled by Oath Keepers' former general counsel Kellye SoRelle and Paul Davis, a Texas attorney who attended the Jan. 6 "Save America" rally to “collect evidence” on behalf of “one or more of the Plaintiffs.”

Per The Beast:

"The full scope of the Oath Keeper’s shadow legal effort, largely spearheaded by the group’s then-general counsel Kellye SoRelle, stretched back well before the riot, according to multiple people involved. In fact, it ran on a parallel track alongside the paramilitary-style buildup that has defined the militia’s role, and it roped in a number of key Jan. 6 figures along the way—including people tied to the Proud Boys and First Amendment Praetorians."

The lawsuit also highlighted aspects of "The Lord of the Rings" as an example of how government should be run.

“During the course of the epic trilogy, the rightful King of Gondor had abandoned the throne,” the lawsuit explained. “Since only the rightful king could sit on the throne of Gondor, a steward was appointed to manage Gondor until the return of the King, known as ‘Aragorn,’ occurred at the end of the story."

To make matters worse, the lawsuit continued: “This analogy is applicable since there is now in Washington, D.C., a group of individuals calling themselves the President, Vice President, and Congress who have no rightful claim to govern the American People."

Speaking to The Daily Beast, Rick Hasen, a renowned law expert with an emphasis on elections, weighed in with his take on the lawsuit describing it as "absurd."

“I don’t know the fact that he was one of many who joined this absurd lawsuit is all that significant compared to the other, more immediately dangerous things that he did,” Hasen said.