Lawfare: Funding Donations
Part II of our series on the function of legal cases for disinformation networks
As shown in Part I of the Lawfare series, disinformation networks have engaged in mass litigation, taking cases to court that are doomed to failure due to the use of non exert witnesses and unreliable evidence bases, however this is far from an expensive waste of time. Court cases in the UK are averaging £10,000 - £15,000 which is a cheap price for getting their talking points into multiple media outlets, and being able to use court room quotes in their propaganda.
The money for these legal challenges comes from donations via crowd funding sites like Crowd Justice in the UK. This proven to be an incredibly successful method for raising money with cases raising multiple times more than the final costs of the case. What happens to these excess funds, and where are these donations coming from?
Funding Stream
In the US an example of a sceptic lawyer is Thomas Renz, one of America’s Frontline Doctors “dream legal team”
From the Washington Post
Renzo and Popper have appeared at an event run by the Truth for Health Foundation which is launching a church based telesales scheme that merges religion with covid scepticism and denial. Members of Truth for Health include Peter McCullough and Rodger Hodkinson, who are both also Pandata members. Other speakers at the event included Michael Yeadon who is a member of Pandata, HART and is advising AFLD, and Reiner Fuellmich, the American-German lawyer who is holding sham court trials where healthcare workers and institutions are accused of genocide and crimes against humanity for rolling out covid vaccines.
Popper was also involved in World4Brexit that was led by former Ronald Reagan staffer Peggy Grande as a fundraiser to promote Brexit within America, Steve Bannon was named as an advisor and Matha Boneta from the Council for National Policy was on the board of governors alongside Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant who is also a President of the Royal Commonwealth Society United States.The launch was attended by Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
The founder of World4Brexit was Jon Dobinson who founded the sceptic groups the Recovery Alliance, Restore the Balance and Time4Recovery that has worked with groups including school focused group Us For Them. While the Recovery Alliance’s funding is unknown it has donated to the Covid Recovery Group of sceptic Conservative MPs. The UK’s Electoral Commission has raised concerns the Recovery Alliance may be a conduit for dark money.
Simone Gold
Simone Gold the founder of AFLD was sentenced to 60 days in prison in June 2022 for the offence of trespass during the January 6 Capitol Hill Insurrection. Prior to sentencing AFLD ran a fundraising campaign for Gold’s legal case raising $430,000, considerably more than was required for her defense.
During sentencing District Judge Cooper was scathing about the fundraising and how the money would be spent.
“I find it unseemly that your organisation is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for its operations, including your salary,” he added later, asserting that Gold was generating the money “by mischaracterising what this proceeding is all about.”
“People need to know this is not acceptable,” the judge said. “This is not what this process is all about.”
“I have heard a lot about how you are not able to fly,” Cooper said, “but I haven’t heard anything about the five people who died. The four people who committed suicide afterward. Or the staffers” and others locked down in fear for their safety.
Full details on the sentencing by the Washington Post here
The AFLD Cash Machine
In May 2021 AFLD filed a lawsuit in Alabama to try and prevent the roll out of vaccines to under sixteens. One of the plaintiffs of note on the lawsuit was Scott Jensen, a Republican politicians standing for governor of Minnesota, Jensen is also a member of Pandata and the anti-vax World Doctors Alliance which promoted the Nuremberg 2.0 narrative calling for healthcare workers to be put on trial for their role in the “covid hoax”.
In September 2021 AFLD filed a lawsuit in New York against proof of vaccination mandates.
AFLD has ignored letters from special subcommittees asking for financial information about their telehealth platform SpeakWithAnMD.com which via a leak is estimated to have made around $6.7 million in revenue between 16 July between 12 September.
AFLD have also tried to obtain 501c3 charity status which would confer tax exemptions for the organisation.
Simone Gold is now a member of the Council for National Policy
See Misinformation Kills for more on key disinformation campaigns and funding in the US
UK Legal Fundraising
In Part I of Lawfare we looked at the recently failed CCVAG case to stop 5-11 vaccination.
While costs conferred were £14,683, £51,505 was raised for the case.
The case to stop masks in schools that was also mentioned in Lawfare Part I conferred similar costs and raised a similar amount. The case was also taken by Jackson Osborne on behalf of Stephen Jackson’s Law or Fiction which is linked to Dolores Cahill’s World Freedom Alliance which acts as an organising hub for anti-vax conspiracy theorist groups who promote the Nuremberg 2.0 narrative.
Read our World Freedom Alliance Report here
What happens to excess money? This case against masks said that excess funds would go towards further cases and anti-mask campaigning
The original UK challenge against lockdown by Simon Dolan of Keep Britian Free represented by Francis Hoar raised almost half a million pounds.
Francis Hoar also represented a doctor who was suspended for claims regarding vaccine harms.
Law or Fiction challenged the language around the vaccination campaign, a common argument used is that informed consent isn’t possible unless the public have read the alternative evidence base produced by anti-vaxxers.
Law or Fiction also represented the networked Together Declaration’s challenge to mandates.
Together Declaration, the UK equivalent of the US’ Defeat The Mandates also raises funding through its special membership levels. More groups have started merchandising, AFLD among them.
Robin Tilbrook of the far-right English Democrats linked to Lawyers4Liberty who specialise in sending threatening legal letters to public sector workers raised over a £100,000 to challenge the Coronavirus Act
This isn’t a comprehensive list of sceptic legal challenges in the UK.
Dark Money and Donations
Open Democracy reported concerns raised about the Recovery Alliance which apply to many of the other UK based groups.
“The Electoral Reform Society has previously warned about unincorporated associations “potentially masking many separate donations through a single entity”, and pointed out that they have “few legal reporting requirements”.
Jess Garland, director of policy and research at the Electoral Reform Society, told OpenDemocracy: “Unincorporated associations are another giant hole in the sieve that is Britain’s party funding rules, letting ‘dark money’ flood into our political system.
“There is a glaring lack of transparency that only fosters distrust and – often justified – fears over who is secretly steering our political debate.
“Voters have a right to know who is influencing our politics. It’s time for transparency and openness, to fix the rot and restore faith in politics.”
Steve Goodrich, head of research and investigations at Transparency International UK, also criticised the role of unincorporated associations in political donations, saying there are “too many dark corners for donors to hide”.
“It is far too easy to evade the rules on donor disclosure through the use of murky unincorporated associations. Despite reforms a decade ago, it is still nearly impossible to learn who is really making political contributions through these secretive clubs.
“To bring dark money out of the shadows we should have greater sight of all political donations worth over £500.”
Full OpenDemocracy article here
The Electoral Commission’s concerns don’t go far enough, identification isn’t required for donations below £500 and these sceptic fundraisers are made up almost entirely of donations below £500. A trawl of one donors list revealed most donors have only used a first name and the same names appear multiple times, these could be perfectly legitimate supporters of the groups, the problem is we don’t know if this is the case or if a few benefactors are providing considerable funding through multiple anonymous accounts.
All these groups also have donation buttons featuring prominently on their websites.
Us For Them’s latest call for donations to fund operating costs
Covid19Assembly
The group formed initially to raise money for a deaths audit, claiming that health workers were encouraged to wrongly put down covid as the cause of death. They have also promoted articles by Michael Yeadon making plandemic claims that most infections are actually false positives. They then made claims regarding the harms of vaccinating children and have produced their own anonymous reporting form that goes directly to Francis Hoar’s law firm, suggesting they were hoping to engage in ambulance chasing.
Covid19Assembly's membership has included, David Flemming, Francis Hoar of Pandata and signatory of a letter claiming lockdowns were a Chinese conspiracy. Toby Young, Daily Sceptic, Free Speech Union etc. Clare Fox, member of the House of Lords, Academy of Ideas and former Revolutionary Communist Party Member. Clare Craig, Pandata, HART, PCRclaims etc. Patrick Fagan, Pandata, HART, and formally of Cambridge Analytica. Martin Kulldorf, Great Barrington Declaration, Brownstone Institute, Collateral Global, Pandata. Rodger Hodkinson, Pandata, Truth for Health Foundation, and Rational Ground. Robert Malone. Tess Lawrie, HART, World Council for Health, BIRD, Safer to Wait etc.
They have also crowd funded a failed challenge to child vaccination.
12 April Covid19Assembly was dissolved
However despite being disolved Covid19Assembly still had their court case heard recently.
This case has conferred much more considerable costs, however it will still have served a purpose as PR and propaganda.
Canadian Freedom Truckers
The Freedom Truckers in Canada received millions in crowdfunding. This GoFundMe page raised nearly $2.5 million in the first eleven days.
Speakers at involved in the Truckers include Paul Alexander, former Trump adviser, Pandata and Brownstone Institute. Peter McCullough, Truth for Health and Pandata, and Rodger Hodkinson of Truth for Health Foundation, Pandata and Rational Ground (US).
Several crowdfunders for the the Truckers suffered hacks and leaks, a considerable amount of funding for the Truckers appears to have been from the US.
Illustration from a post by @jzikah on Twitter
More details on Truckers funding here
Legislation Needed Urgently
There is an urgent need for governments to legislate to improve the transparency of crowdfunding and the finances of lobbying and campaign groups. The Recovery Alliance’s funding of Conservative MPs, the Freedom Truckers and Capitol Hill demonstrates how opaquely funded groups can impact government police, cause social unrest and even lead to attempted insurrection.
Part III of Lawfare will look at legal threats designed to intimidate and silence