Martin Pengelly in New York -
A week before the Capitol attack, on a video call organised by a member of a Christian nationalist group, a Pennsylvania state senator who is the Republican candidate for governor in the battleground state prayed that supporters of Donald Trump would “seize the power” on 6 January 2021.
Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP© Provided by The Guardian
Doug Mastriano attended the pro-Trump rally in Washington that day, after which supporters, told by Trump to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat, stormed Congress in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
The riot was linked to nine deaths, including suicides in the aftermath of the attack among law enforcement.
Related: ‘You have to run’: Romney urged Biden to take down Trump, book says
Mastriano denies crossing police lines at the Capitol and affiliations with Christian nationalist groups. He is now one of a number of Republican candidates for state positions with sway over elections who support Trump’s lie that his 2020 defeat was the result of voter fraud.
Two months from election day, the polling website fivethirtyeight.com puts Mastriano just shy of seven points behind his Democratic opponent.
Mastriano’s 6 January prayer, first reported by Rolling Stone on Friday, was delivered during a Zoom call, titled Global Prayer for Election Integrity, organised by what the magazine called “a prominent figure in the far-right New Apostolic Restoration movement”.
As defined by Rolling Stone, “Christian nationalism is a central tenet of … NAR [which] emerge[ed] from charismatic Christianity (think: Pentecostalism) and is anchored in the belief that we are living in an age of new apostles and prophets, who receive direct revelations from the holy spirit.
“NAR adherents hold that the end times are fast approaching and their calling is to hasten the second coming of Christ by re-fashioning the modern world in a biblical manner.”
Mastriano is a US army veteran who once dressed up as a Confederate soldier. In his prayer, he listed historical events including the battle of Gettysburg in 1863 and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93, the plane which came down in a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11, after passengers attacked their hijackers.
He said: “In 2001, while our nation was attacked by terrorists, a strong Christian man from Paramus, New Jersey, Todd Beamer, said, ‘Let’s roll.’
“God I ask you that you help us roll in these dark times, that we fear not the darkness, that we will seize our Esther and Gideon moments. That … when you say, ‘Who shall I send?’ we will say, ‘Send me and not him or her’, we will take responsibility for our republic and not waver in these days that try our souls.
“We’re surrounded by wickedness and fear and dithering and inaction. But that’s not our problem. Our problem is following your lead.”
In the weeks before the Capitol attack, Mastriano was involved in failed attempts to overturn Trump’s defeat in Pennsylvania, the announcement of which confirmed Biden’s electoral college win.
On the Zoom call, Mastriano displayed what he said were “letters that President Trump asked me this morning to send to [Senate Republican leader] Mitch McConnell and [House leader] Kevin McCarthy, outlining the fraud in Pennsylvania, and this will embolden them to stand firm and disregard what has happened in Pennsylvania until they have an investigation”.
He also said: “We think about our elected officials in Pennsylvania who’ve been weak and feckless and we’ve handed over our power to a governor” – Tom Wolf, a Democrat – “who disregards the freedoms of this republic.
“I pray that we’ll take responsibility, we’ll seize the power that we had given to us by the constitution, and as well by you providentially. I pray for the leaders and also in the federal government, God, on the sixth of January that they will rise up with boldness.”
After the Capitol riot, when Congress reconvened, McCarthy was one of 138 Republican congressmen and nine senators who voted to object to results in Pennsylvania or Arizona or both.
Mastriano touts endorsement from rabbi who promoted Qanon conspiracy, ‘reptilian’ Hitler theory
2022/09/01
2022/09/01
Doug Mastriano, Republican nominee for governor,
speaks to supporters inside Gatsby's Bar& Grill in Aston.
- HEATHER KHALIFA/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS
The headline looked promising for Doug Mastriano’s gubernatorial campaign, and the Republican state senator promptly shared it Thursday morning with his nearly 200,000 followers on Twitter and Facebook.
“Rabbi Endorses Mastriano as Shapiro Calls Him Antisemitic in Pennsylvania Gov. Race,” the far-rightEpoch Times proclaimed, referring to the Democratic nominee, Josh Shapiro.
Mastriano, a retired Army colonel from south central Pennsylvania, has been dogged by accusations of antisemitism this summer after he paid $5,000 to Gab, a social media site frequented by extremists and antisemites, in an effort to reach new voters. The site’s founder, Andrew Torba, has described Mastriano’s campaign as part of an “explicitly Christian” nationalist movement that should exclude followers of other faiths.
Jewish groups, both Democratic and Republican, reacted angrily to news reports about the GOP candidate’s strategy and Mastriano eventually cut ties with Torba and Gab. He said he “rejects antisemitism in any form.”
More recently, however, Mastriano has been repeating old tropes about George Soros on the campaign trail, claiming that Soros, who contributed to Shapiro in 2016 and 2020, had worked for the Nazis during World War II.
“Disgusting,” Mastriano said at a Delaware County bar and restaurant last week — although the crowd fell silent and seemed mostly confused.
On Thursday, Mastriano touted the endorsement of Rabbi Joseph Kolakowsi by sharing the article from the Epoch Times, a conservative publication affiliated with members of the controversial Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong.
In it, the ultraorthodox rabbi defended Mastriano.
“While the Democrats have the chutzpah to claim that those of us from the Party of Lincoln are somehow racist, they do not look at the racist tenants of their own party, including abortion and gun control, both of which cause undue and disproportionate harm to people of color, and are historically rooted in openly racist ideologies,” the rabbi said.
Kolakowski identified himself to the publication as the leader of a Hasidic Jewish ministry in northeast Pennsylvania.
What the Epoch Times story did not mention is hundreds of internet posts and videos in which the 38-year-old rabbi shares unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 election, expresses sympathy for Jan. 6 insurrectionists, and speaks favorably of the Qanon movement — a conspiracy theory that holds that President Donald Trump and his allies are engaged in a secret war with pedophilic, blood-drinking satanists.
“Whether they are right or wrong about their theories, the whole point of Qanon is to fight child abuse,” Kolakowski wrote earlier this year. “Why does the left hate a group that fights child abuse?”
On YouTube, Kolakowski has espoused more outlandish ideas, including a theory that Adolf Hitler and other malevolent world leaders are part lizard.
“There’s a reason why he never took off his boots,” the rabbi says in one video of the Nazi dictator. “(It) was to hide the fact that his feet were reptilian in nature because he came from this nonhuman race, demonic race. He was a hybrid.”
Kolakowski has previously courted controversy, appearing in a 2011 viral video filmed inside his home in which Orthodox worshipers are seen passing around an AK-47 assault rifle during prayers. Later, Kolakowski rose to the defense of conservative, far-right cartoonist Ben Garrison after the Anti-Defamation League criticized some of his cartoons as antisemitic.
“There was no reference to the Torah faith or religion in Mr. Garrison’s cartoon,” Kolakowski wrote. “I believe that George Soros is an enemy to the basic fundamental ideas of America and he is a very dangerous individual.”
Kolakowski repeatedly asserts that tropes about prominent Jews endeavoring to secretly dominate global finance, politics or the media are not antisemitic because secular Jews should not be considered Jewish — or, sometimes, even fully human. The rabbi says certain Jewish mystical texts support ideas espoused by conspiracy theorists like David Icke, who holds that the world is controlled by reptilian shape-shifters.
In a phone interview Thursday, Kolakowski said he felt Mastriano was being “unfairly maligned” as antisemitic. He said he reached out to Mastriano’s campaign, and “the campaign manager asked me to write something” — the statements that later appeared in the Epoch Times.
“I heard the slander that was made against him claiming he was antisemitic and I wanted to speak up personally,” Kolakowski said. He said he stood by his online statements about QAnon, the Jan. 6 riot, and other issues.
“I certainly don’t believe it was an insurrection,” he said. “I think a lot of people share that view.”
Mastriano’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. It has generally ignored such requests from mainstream media outlets.
Mastriano rose to prominence by railing against coronavirus safety measures in 2020, and later, promoting unfounded claims of fraud in that November’s presidential election. He was present in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 and rented buses so that others could attend.
Although Mastriano now says he rejects the Qanon movement, in 2018 he repeatedly shared tweets featuring pro-Qanon hashtags. Earlier this year, he spoke at an event promoting Qanon and 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Recently, Mastriano has sought to publicly moderate some of his beliefs. He has recently spoken less about his support for a ban on abortion, which this spring he described as his “number one issue.”
Supporters like Kolakowski, meanwhile, have shown little moderation.
This year, the rabbi asserted that the capitol insurrection was caused by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordering Capitol Police to “push innocent people into that building in order to make the President’s supporters look bad.”
On Twitter, the rabbi celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which he described as “an excuse to lynch blacks in the womb.”
The headline looked promising for Doug Mastriano’s gubernatorial campaign, and the Republican state senator promptly shared it Thursday morning with his nearly 200,000 followers on Twitter and Facebook.
“Rabbi Endorses Mastriano as Shapiro Calls Him Antisemitic in Pennsylvania Gov. Race,” the far-rightEpoch Times proclaimed, referring to the Democratic nominee, Josh Shapiro.
Mastriano, a retired Army colonel from south central Pennsylvania, has been dogged by accusations of antisemitism this summer after he paid $5,000 to Gab, a social media site frequented by extremists and antisemites, in an effort to reach new voters. The site’s founder, Andrew Torba, has described Mastriano’s campaign as part of an “explicitly Christian” nationalist movement that should exclude followers of other faiths.
Jewish groups, both Democratic and Republican, reacted angrily to news reports about the GOP candidate’s strategy and Mastriano eventually cut ties with Torba and Gab. He said he “rejects antisemitism in any form.”
More recently, however, Mastriano has been repeating old tropes about George Soros on the campaign trail, claiming that Soros, who contributed to Shapiro in 2016 and 2020, had worked for the Nazis during World War II.
“Disgusting,” Mastriano said at a Delaware County bar and restaurant last week — although the crowd fell silent and seemed mostly confused.
On Thursday, Mastriano touted the endorsement of Rabbi Joseph Kolakowsi by sharing the article from the Epoch Times, a conservative publication affiliated with members of the controversial Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong.
In it, the ultraorthodox rabbi defended Mastriano.
“While the Democrats have the chutzpah to claim that those of us from the Party of Lincoln are somehow racist, they do not look at the racist tenants of their own party, including abortion and gun control, both of which cause undue and disproportionate harm to people of color, and are historically rooted in openly racist ideologies,” the rabbi said.
Kolakowski identified himself to the publication as the leader of a Hasidic Jewish ministry in northeast Pennsylvania.
What the Epoch Times story did not mention is hundreds of internet posts and videos in which the 38-year-old rabbi shares unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 election, expresses sympathy for Jan. 6 insurrectionists, and speaks favorably of the Qanon movement — a conspiracy theory that holds that President Donald Trump and his allies are engaged in a secret war with pedophilic, blood-drinking satanists.
“Whether they are right or wrong about their theories, the whole point of Qanon is to fight child abuse,” Kolakowski wrote earlier this year. “Why does the left hate a group that fights child abuse?”
On YouTube, Kolakowski has espoused more outlandish ideas, including a theory that Adolf Hitler and other malevolent world leaders are part lizard.
“There’s a reason why he never took off his boots,” the rabbi says in one video of the Nazi dictator. “(It) was to hide the fact that his feet were reptilian in nature because he came from this nonhuman race, demonic race. He was a hybrid.”
Kolakowski has previously courted controversy, appearing in a 2011 viral video filmed inside his home in which Orthodox worshipers are seen passing around an AK-47 assault rifle during prayers. Later, Kolakowski rose to the defense of conservative, far-right cartoonist Ben Garrison after the Anti-Defamation League criticized some of his cartoons as antisemitic.
“There was no reference to the Torah faith or religion in Mr. Garrison’s cartoon,” Kolakowski wrote. “I believe that George Soros is an enemy to the basic fundamental ideas of America and he is a very dangerous individual.”
Kolakowski repeatedly asserts that tropes about prominent Jews endeavoring to secretly dominate global finance, politics or the media are not antisemitic because secular Jews should not be considered Jewish — or, sometimes, even fully human. The rabbi says certain Jewish mystical texts support ideas espoused by conspiracy theorists like David Icke, who holds that the world is controlled by reptilian shape-shifters.
In a phone interview Thursday, Kolakowski said he felt Mastriano was being “unfairly maligned” as antisemitic. He said he reached out to Mastriano’s campaign, and “the campaign manager asked me to write something” — the statements that later appeared in the Epoch Times.
“I heard the slander that was made against him claiming he was antisemitic and I wanted to speak up personally,” Kolakowski said. He said he stood by his online statements about QAnon, the Jan. 6 riot, and other issues.
“I certainly don’t believe it was an insurrection,” he said. “I think a lot of people share that view.”
Mastriano’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. It has generally ignored such requests from mainstream media outlets.
Mastriano rose to prominence by railing against coronavirus safety measures in 2020, and later, promoting unfounded claims of fraud in that November’s presidential election. He was present in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 and rented buses so that others could attend.
Although Mastriano now says he rejects the Qanon movement, in 2018 he repeatedly shared tweets featuring pro-Qanon hashtags. Earlier this year, he spoke at an event promoting Qanon and 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Recently, Mastriano has sought to publicly moderate some of his beliefs. He has recently spoken less about his support for a ban on abortion, which this spring he described as his “number one issue.”
Supporters like Kolakowski, meanwhile, have shown little moderation.
This year, the rabbi asserted that the capitol insurrection was caused by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordering Capitol Police to “push innocent people into that building in order to make the President’s supporters look bad.”
On Twitter, the rabbi celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which he described as “an excuse to lynch blacks in the womb.”
Prophets, 'Pizzagaters' and an Oath Keeper: A field guide to Doug Mastriano World
2022/09/02
2022/09/02
HEATHER KHALIFA/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS
It’s now September — that time of year when political candidates start changing their colors weeks ahead of the autumn leaves. None more so than Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who in his right-wing media hits — the Christian nationalist continues to shun mainstream outlets, with the help of his goon squad — has tried to pooh-pooh the notion that he’s a dangerous extremist. This despite the fact that new evidence of his extremism — his fetish for the Confederacy, for example — keeps popping up.
Rather than relying Mastriano’s words, maybe it’s time to judge the retired Army colonel by the company he keeps. Let’s take stock of the rogues’ gallery of self-styled prophets, election deniers and militia types that Mastriano chooses to associate with, and ask yourself if the founding state of American democracy has ever seen a campaign quite like this.
Here (in alphabetical order) is a brief field guide to a few of the key players in Mastriano World:
Abby Abildness: The state director of the Pennsylvania Congressional Prayer Caucus and director of the Global Apostolic Prayer Network, Abildness is a key state leader in the Christian nationalist movement that loosely affiliates under the banner of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) a group that seeks extremist Christian domination over government. She’s also a lobbyist in Harrisburg, where she’s forged ties with key 2020 election deniers like State Sen. Cris Dush and Mastriano. Mastriano also was filmed hugging Abildness at a July event built around a revisionist Christian history of William Penn and Pennsylvania’s founding.
Grant Clarkson: A past congressional intern and GOP legislative assistant in Harrisburg, Clarkson was identified by NBC News’ Ryan J. Reilly as part of the phalanx of campaign bodyguards that kept journalists away from Mastriano’s pre-primary rally in Bucks County in May. NBC also reported that Clarkson was photographed on the U.S. Capitol grounds at the height of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, when “he appeared to smile and laugh as rioters smashed media equipment on Capitol grounds.”
Jenna Ellis: The senior legal adviser to the Mastriano campaign and fierce defender of the candidate on Twitter, Ellis was a key attorney for Donald Trump as he sought to overturn President Biden’s 2020 election victory. A former traffic court lawyer and the author of a self-published book that claims that the U.S. Constitution can only be interpreted through the Bible, Ellis drafted two memos insisting that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to overturn Biden’s election victory. Her 2020 efforts are under scrutiny in several ongoing investigations, including a Georgia probe of election tampering where she has been ordered to testify.
James Emery: Another cog in Mastriano’s team of bodyguards from the May Bucks County rally, Emery is a member of the Elizabethtown Area School Board in central Pennsylvania and a licensed minister affiliated with that community’s LifeGate church, a congregation that has advocated for Christians to play a greater role in government. Investigative journalist Carter Walker of Lancaster’s LNP news organization has identified the LifeGate congregation as the nexus for several members of Mastriano’s security team.
Sean Feucht:The musical entertainment at Mastriano’s primary victory party in Chambersburg in May, the pro-Trump, anti-vaccine Christian rock star has emerged as the musical voice of the Ultra-MAGA movement in 2022. A growing political force who prayed in D.C. with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert upon learning the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, Feucht has become a multimillionaire in the post-COVID era, according to Rolling Stone, which reported on his glitzy mansions in Southern California and Montana.
Michael Flynn: Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser — who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI but was pardoned by the 45th president shortly before the Jan. 6 insurrection — hails from the same military intelligence world as Mastriano and has beena critical backer of his campaign. Flynn — who has been tied to the QAnon conspiracy theory movement — is slated to return to Pennsylvania next month for his controversial “ReAwaken America” tour. Like Mastriano himself, Flynn refused to answer investigators’ questions about his involvement in the run-up to Jan. 6.
Francine and Allen Fosdick: Self-described prophets and promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the Fosdicks were the organizers of the two-day far-right Christian event called “Patriots Arise for God and Country” in Gettysburg this April. Mastriano, whose state senatorial district includes the historic Civil War battlefield, was a speaker at the event, where the couple presented him with a “Sword of David.” That confab also featured 9/11 conspiracy theories and a video claiming the world is experiencing a “great awakening” that will expose “ritual child sacrifice” and a “global satanic blood cult.”
Julie Green: Another self-anointed prophet, Green — the head of Julie Green Ministries — has claimed she has “a special relationship” with Mastriano and has foreseen that a GOP victory in November will cleanse Pennsylvania of corruption. Mastriano has invited Green to give the opening prayer at a campaign event and shared her prophecies on social media. According to a report by the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters, Green has said “that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ‘loves to drink the little children’s blood’; the government is conducting ‘human sacrifices’ to stay in power; and President Joe Biden is secretly dead and an ‘actor’ is playing him.”
Vishal Jetnarayan:Mastriano’s campaign manager — utterly unknown to veterans of Pennsylvania Republican politics — describes himself as (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) a prophet, active in two Chambersburg churches. He claims that he speaks directly with God and,according to a new report by WHYY’s Katie Meyer that dropped Thursday, has self-published books advising others on how they can do the same. She reported that Jetnarayan often emcees Mastriano’s events and is a booster of Green, his fellow prophet.
Sam Lazar:A 37-year-old right-wing political agitator from Lancaster County, Lazar appeared at Mastriano rallies and was photographed with the candidate even as Justice Department investigators and online sleuths honed in on Lazar’s participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection. (He’d posted about his involvement on Facebook, writing: “There’s a time for war. Our constitution allows us to abolish our [government] and install a new one in [its] place” and bragging of clashing with police while wearing face paint.) He was arrested and jailed in 2021 on charges of assaulting officers.
Mike Lindell: The notorious “My Pillow” mogul who re-invented himself during the latter portion of the Trump era as an obsessive backer of the former president’s Big Lie about rigged voting machines and 2020 election fraud, Lindell has also been a major booster of the Mastriano campaign, offering an early endorsement of the Pennsylvanian.
Scott Nagle: Nagle has been identified by LNP’s Walker, through interviews and a photograph posted to Facebook, as a member of Mastriano’s team of bodyguards. He was also, according to Walker’s report, listed as the Lancaster County leader of the radical group the Oath Keepers until January of this year. The leaders of the Oath Keepers, including its founder Stewart Rhodes, are currently facing federal sedition charges for their role in Jan. 6. Nagle has reportedly been photographed with Mastriano on several occasions.
Jeremy Oliver: WHYY’s Meyer reports that the Mastriano campaign has paid $82,500 to Oliver’s California-based Onslaught Media Group, and that Oliver — a former producer with the far-right One America News Network — has been appearing at Mastriano campaign events as a videographer. Meyer writes that Oliver has boosted the QAnon conspiracy theory on the site Gab — under fire for its links to antisemitism — and also posts frequently on Trump’s Truth Social site about theories such as Chinese hacking of U.S. voting machines.
Ivan Raiklin:A veteran Army intelligence officer, former Green Beret, and lawyer from Virginia, Raiklin emerged in late 2020 as a leader of Trump’s election-denial effort — writing the “Operation Pence Card” memo urging the then-vice president to undo Biden’s victory — and continues to lobby for Biden’s electors to be retroactively decertified. He showed up at Mastriano’s Chambersburg victory party in May, where he filmed a congratulatory video with the candidate and blurted out “20 electoral votes,” an apparent reference to decertifying the 2020 Pennsylvania result.
Toni Shuppe: The co-founder and CEO of Audit The Vote PA — a group dedicated to overturning the 2020 election results based on Trump’s Big Lie — Shuppe has emerged as a key supporter of Mastriano, filming an early endorsement video and appearing with the candidate at rallies. There has been speculation that Mastriano is considering appointing Shuppe as secretary of state to oversee Pennsylvania’s elections. According to a report this week by Media Matters, Shuppe has claimed the Pizzagate hoax “is 100% real” and praised QAnon as “a very valuable resource.”
Andrew Torba: Mastriano’s connection with the founder of the right-wing social media platform Gab erupted in controversy this summer when it was revealed his campaign had paid $5,000 to the site to boost Mastriano’s profile there. The candidate also sat down for an interview with Torba and said, “Thank God for what you’ve done.” Torba’s history of anti-Jewish remarks on Gab were made public in 2018 after the gunman who murdered 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue posted his manifesto there.
Steve Turley: A Delaware resident, Turley produced and screened the recent documentary called “Return of the American Patriot: The Rise of Pennsylvania” that cast a positive light on the Mastriano campaign as a revolution building on the Trumpist political movement. A Christian nationalist podcaster, Turley rails for the destruction of multiculturalism and insists the future of America is “evangelical, Mormon, and Amish.”
It’s now September — that time of year when political candidates start changing their colors weeks ahead of the autumn leaves. None more so than Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who in his right-wing media hits — the Christian nationalist continues to shun mainstream outlets, with the help of his goon squad — has tried to pooh-pooh the notion that he’s a dangerous extremist. This despite the fact that new evidence of his extremism — his fetish for the Confederacy, for example — keeps popping up.
Rather than relying Mastriano’s words, maybe it’s time to judge the retired Army colonel by the company he keeps. Let’s take stock of the rogues’ gallery of self-styled prophets, election deniers and militia types that Mastriano chooses to associate with, and ask yourself if the founding state of American democracy has ever seen a campaign quite like this.
Here (in alphabetical order) is a brief field guide to a few of the key players in Mastriano World:
Abby Abildness: The state director of the Pennsylvania Congressional Prayer Caucus and director of the Global Apostolic Prayer Network, Abildness is a key state leader in the Christian nationalist movement that loosely affiliates under the banner of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) a group that seeks extremist Christian domination over government. She’s also a lobbyist in Harrisburg, where she’s forged ties with key 2020 election deniers like State Sen. Cris Dush and Mastriano. Mastriano also was filmed hugging Abildness at a July event built around a revisionist Christian history of William Penn and Pennsylvania’s founding.
Grant Clarkson: A past congressional intern and GOP legislative assistant in Harrisburg, Clarkson was identified by NBC News’ Ryan J. Reilly as part of the phalanx of campaign bodyguards that kept journalists away from Mastriano’s pre-primary rally in Bucks County in May. NBC also reported that Clarkson was photographed on the U.S. Capitol grounds at the height of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, when “he appeared to smile and laugh as rioters smashed media equipment on Capitol grounds.”
Jenna Ellis: The senior legal adviser to the Mastriano campaign and fierce defender of the candidate on Twitter, Ellis was a key attorney for Donald Trump as he sought to overturn President Biden’s 2020 election victory. A former traffic court lawyer and the author of a self-published book that claims that the U.S. Constitution can only be interpreted through the Bible, Ellis drafted two memos insisting that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to overturn Biden’s election victory. Her 2020 efforts are under scrutiny in several ongoing investigations, including a Georgia probe of election tampering where she has been ordered to testify.
James Emery: Another cog in Mastriano’s team of bodyguards from the May Bucks County rally, Emery is a member of the Elizabethtown Area School Board in central Pennsylvania and a licensed minister affiliated with that community’s LifeGate church, a congregation that has advocated for Christians to play a greater role in government. Investigative journalist Carter Walker of Lancaster’s LNP news organization has identified the LifeGate congregation as the nexus for several members of Mastriano’s security team.
Sean Feucht:The musical entertainment at Mastriano’s primary victory party in Chambersburg in May, the pro-Trump, anti-vaccine Christian rock star has emerged as the musical voice of the Ultra-MAGA movement in 2022. A growing political force who prayed in D.C. with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert upon learning the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, Feucht has become a multimillionaire in the post-COVID era, according to Rolling Stone, which reported on his glitzy mansions in Southern California and Montana.
Michael Flynn: Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser — who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI but was pardoned by the 45th president shortly before the Jan. 6 insurrection — hails from the same military intelligence world as Mastriano and has beena critical backer of his campaign. Flynn — who has been tied to the QAnon conspiracy theory movement — is slated to return to Pennsylvania next month for his controversial “ReAwaken America” tour. Like Mastriano himself, Flynn refused to answer investigators’ questions about his involvement in the run-up to Jan. 6.
Francine and Allen Fosdick: Self-described prophets and promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the Fosdicks were the organizers of the two-day far-right Christian event called “Patriots Arise for God and Country” in Gettysburg this April. Mastriano, whose state senatorial district includes the historic Civil War battlefield, was a speaker at the event, where the couple presented him with a “Sword of David.” That confab also featured 9/11 conspiracy theories and a video claiming the world is experiencing a “great awakening” that will expose “ritual child sacrifice” and a “global satanic blood cult.”
Julie Green: Another self-anointed prophet, Green — the head of Julie Green Ministries — has claimed she has “a special relationship” with Mastriano and has foreseen that a GOP victory in November will cleanse Pennsylvania of corruption. Mastriano has invited Green to give the opening prayer at a campaign event and shared her prophecies on social media. According to a report by the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters, Green has said “that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ‘loves to drink the little children’s blood’; the government is conducting ‘human sacrifices’ to stay in power; and President Joe Biden is secretly dead and an ‘actor’ is playing him.”
Vishal Jetnarayan:Mastriano’s campaign manager — utterly unknown to veterans of Pennsylvania Republican politics — describes himself as (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) a prophet, active in two Chambersburg churches. He claims that he speaks directly with God and,according to a new report by WHYY’s Katie Meyer that dropped Thursday, has self-published books advising others on how they can do the same. She reported that Jetnarayan often emcees Mastriano’s events and is a booster of Green, his fellow prophet.
Sam Lazar:A 37-year-old right-wing political agitator from Lancaster County, Lazar appeared at Mastriano rallies and was photographed with the candidate even as Justice Department investigators and online sleuths honed in on Lazar’s participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection. (He’d posted about his involvement on Facebook, writing: “There’s a time for war. Our constitution allows us to abolish our [government] and install a new one in [its] place” and bragging of clashing with police while wearing face paint.) He was arrested and jailed in 2021 on charges of assaulting officers.
Mike Lindell: The notorious “My Pillow” mogul who re-invented himself during the latter portion of the Trump era as an obsessive backer of the former president’s Big Lie about rigged voting machines and 2020 election fraud, Lindell has also been a major booster of the Mastriano campaign, offering an early endorsement of the Pennsylvanian.
Scott Nagle: Nagle has been identified by LNP’s Walker, through interviews and a photograph posted to Facebook, as a member of Mastriano’s team of bodyguards. He was also, according to Walker’s report, listed as the Lancaster County leader of the radical group the Oath Keepers until January of this year. The leaders of the Oath Keepers, including its founder Stewart Rhodes, are currently facing federal sedition charges for their role in Jan. 6. Nagle has reportedly been photographed with Mastriano on several occasions.
Jeremy Oliver: WHYY’s Meyer reports that the Mastriano campaign has paid $82,500 to Oliver’s California-based Onslaught Media Group, and that Oliver — a former producer with the far-right One America News Network — has been appearing at Mastriano campaign events as a videographer. Meyer writes that Oliver has boosted the QAnon conspiracy theory on the site Gab — under fire for its links to antisemitism — and also posts frequently on Trump’s Truth Social site about theories such as Chinese hacking of U.S. voting machines.
Ivan Raiklin:A veteran Army intelligence officer, former Green Beret, and lawyer from Virginia, Raiklin emerged in late 2020 as a leader of Trump’s election-denial effort — writing the “Operation Pence Card” memo urging the then-vice president to undo Biden’s victory — and continues to lobby for Biden’s electors to be retroactively decertified. He showed up at Mastriano’s Chambersburg victory party in May, where he filmed a congratulatory video with the candidate and blurted out “20 electoral votes,” an apparent reference to decertifying the 2020 Pennsylvania result.
Toni Shuppe: The co-founder and CEO of Audit The Vote PA — a group dedicated to overturning the 2020 election results based on Trump’s Big Lie — Shuppe has emerged as a key supporter of Mastriano, filming an early endorsement video and appearing with the candidate at rallies. There has been speculation that Mastriano is considering appointing Shuppe as secretary of state to oversee Pennsylvania’s elections. According to a report this week by Media Matters, Shuppe has claimed the Pizzagate hoax “is 100% real” and praised QAnon as “a very valuable resource.”
Andrew Torba: Mastriano’s connection with the founder of the right-wing social media platform Gab erupted in controversy this summer when it was revealed his campaign had paid $5,000 to the site to boost Mastriano’s profile there. The candidate also sat down for an interview with Torba and said, “Thank God for what you’ve done.” Torba’s history of anti-Jewish remarks on Gab were made public in 2018 after the gunman who murdered 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue posted his manifesto there.
Steve Turley: A Delaware resident, Turley produced and screened the recent documentary called “Return of the American Patriot: The Rise of Pennsylvania” that cast a positive light on the Mastriano campaign as a revolution building on the Trumpist political movement. A Christian nationalist podcaster, Turley rails for the destruction of multiculturalism and insists the future of America is “evangelical, Mormon, and Amish.”
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