- Oct 17, 2011
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(Gift article of a very long article) The story had all the elements of a blockbuster crime saga: burner phones, semiautomatic weapons, silencers and bags of prepaid cash cards. “NOW WE HAVE PROOF!” blared the headline on the right-wing website Gateway Pundit. “Massive 2020 Voter Fraud Uncovered in Michigan.” (GP story from August 2023)
For the next 10 days, Gateway Pundit averaged a story a day on the topic, eventually publishing at least 40 pieces. During that period, an array of right-wing podcasters all discussed the story on their shows, including former Fox personality Dan Bongino, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec, a far-right blogger.
On Sept. 5, Trump posted about the story on Truth Social, without comment, and was reposted 3,300 times.
Twelve days after the initial story was published, the Michigan attorney general’s office issued a statement responding to the report, citing its “false claims of election law violations.”
The story referenced “thousands of fraudulent ballots” caught by Muskegon City Clerk Ann Meisch. Grateful readers deluged her office with hundreds of calls, hailing her as a hero.
But Meisch knew it wasn’t true.
According to police reports, the Michigan attorney general’s office and an interview with Meisch, an employee of a voter registration drive company had submitted to the Muskegon city clerk thousands of voter registration applications weeks before the 2020 election, some with faked signatures and faulty addresses.
Meisch’s staff spent hundreds of hours weeding out the bad applications.
“There were no fraudulent ballots,” Meisch said in an interview, “not a single one that anyone in my office was aware of.”
["The state attorney general’s office said that while it had not ruled out that a crime may have been committed," there's no evidence of any election fraud, since Meisch and her staff did their jobs. FBI was also alerted; they have no comment.]
The site’s founder, Jim Hoft, who started blogging as a hobby in 2004, is among “the best at creating a right-wing echo system,” right-wing podcast host and former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon said in an interview.
Once Gateway Pundit puts one of its signature all-caps headlines on a story,that provides what Bannon calls an “infrastructure” upon which his own podcast and other right-wing outlets and influencers can build.
“Check Gateway Pundit, Epoch Times and The Blaze right when you get in. … These are very helpful to find good OAN content,” read one Jan. 14, 2021, email to producers from the channel’s news director.
A former Trump administration official who denies that Joe Bidenrightfully won the 2020 election nevertheless told The Post in an interview that if you cite Gateway Pundit in an argument, “it means you’ve lost."
For the next 10 days, Gateway Pundit averaged a story a day on the topic, eventually publishing at least 40 pieces. During that period, an array of right-wing podcasters all discussed the story on their shows, including former Fox personality Dan Bongino, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec, a far-right blogger.
On Sept. 5, Trump posted about the story on Truth Social, without comment, and was reposted 3,300 times.
Twelve days after the initial story was published, the Michigan attorney general’s office issued a statement responding to the report, citing its “false claims of election law violations.”
The story referenced “thousands of fraudulent ballots” caught by Muskegon City Clerk Ann Meisch. Grateful readers deluged her office with hundreds of calls, hailing her as a hero.
But Meisch knew it wasn’t true.
According to police reports, the Michigan attorney general’s office and an interview with Meisch, an employee of a voter registration drive company had submitted to the Muskegon city clerk thousands of voter registration applications weeks before the 2020 election, some with faked signatures and faulty addresses.
Meisch’s staff spent hundreds of hours weeding out the bad applications.
“There were no fraudulent ballots,” Meisch said in an interview, “not a single one that anyone in my office was aware of.”
["The state attorney general’s office said that while it had not ruled out that a crime may have been committed," there's no evidence of any election fraud, since Meisch and her staff did their jobs. FBI was also alerted; they have no comment.]
The site’s founder, Jim Hoft, who started blogging as a hobby in 2004, is among “the best at creating a right-wing echo system,” right-wing podcast host and former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon said in an interview.
Once Gateway Pundit puts one of its signature all-caps headlines on a story,that provides what Bannon calls an “infrastructure” upon which his own podcast and other right-wing outlets and influencers can build.
“Check Gateway Pundit, Epoch Times and The Blaze right when you get in. … These are very helpful to find good OAN content,” read one Jan. 14, 2021, email to producers from the channel’s news director.
A former Trump administration official who denies that Joe Bidenrightfully won the 2020 election nevertheless told The Post in an interview that if you cite Gateway Pundit in an argument, “it means you’ve lost."
