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Jonathan Larsen

15 Jan, 11 tweets, 4 min read

NEW: The annual National Prayer Breakfast is next month.

A bipartisan event, it's traditionally attended by the U.S. president.

Last year, however, the breakfast’s leaders helped Trump convince millions the election was stolen.

My story: tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…

The breakfast is run by the secretive Christian group, The Family, which has been bankrolled by GOP billionaire Ron Cameron.

After Trump's loss, Cameron gave more than $100,000 to Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) as they amplified Trump's lies.

Two days after Perdue and Loeffler called for Raffensperger to resign, Cameron gave them donations of $2800 and $5600.

But he wasn't done.

As it became more clear that Biden had won, Cameron ramped up his donations.

In late Nov. and early Dec. he gave more than $150,000 to two PACs focused on boosting Loeffler and Perdue.

Georgia United Victory was largely bankrolled by Loeffler's husband.

The Georgia Battleground Fund was a joint fundraising committee with the NRSC. Many of its ads featured Sen. Maj. Leader Mitch McConnell, who had yet to acknowledge the legitimacy of Biden's victory.

The Georgia Battleground Fund also produced this Facebook ad in which Donald Trump, Jr., tells viewers to "help save Georgia and America."

Another post-election donor was Family leader Doug Burleigh, who with his wife gave to Trump and the NRSC -- which was focusing on Loeffler and Perdue.

It was Burleigh who had helped Maria Butina get invitations for Russians to attend the 2017 breakfast:
tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the 2019 breakfast co-chair, was in the process of objecting to the counting of Arizona's Electoral College votes, when he was interrupted by the evacuation due to Trump supporters storming the Senate.

There's a lot more to this story, including the dynamic between Cameron and the breakfast's leading Democrat, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), which I've reported on before and touch on in the story.

Neither they, nor The Family, responded to my requests for comment.

I should add that Lankford yesterday released an extraordinary statement addressing how black people saw his objection to the vote.

I'd call it an apology but Lankford apologizes less for what he did than for a failure to recognize how it would be seen:

tulsaworld.com/read-the-lette…

Oh, and if anyone's got a copy of this year's National Prayer Breakfast invitation, please DM me...

Thank you!

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More from @jtlarsen

Jonathan Larsen

@jtlarsen

30 Oct 20

One year ago, a Wisconsin organic dairy farmer asked Trump USDA Secy. Sonny Perdue for help.

Perdue asked for details and said he'd get back to him.

This is the story of what happened next.

tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…

Farmer Paul Adams said he'd read about big farms that were somehow getting certified as organic -- flooding the market with organic milk, driving prices down and small farms out of business.

Their exchange was captured on video:

Paul couldn't remember the big organic dairy farm he had read about, but told me it was Natural Prairie Dairy Farms, one of a handful of big Texas farms that now produce more milk than all of Wisconsin's small dairy farms combined.

jsonline.com/story/money/20…

Read 14 tweets

Jonathan Larsen

@jtlarsen

5 Oct 20

@tihuachang

BREAKING: The EPA has stripped Oklahoma's tribes of regulatory sovereignty over environmental matters and handed it to the state's governor.

This is a huge deal.

@tihuachang has the exclusive report for @tytinvestigates:
tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…

As Ti-Hua reports, Oklahoma's tribes would be powerless to prevent wholesale dumping on tribal lands or protect them from a vast array of toxic materials and pollutants.

The EPA never appears to have made the public aware that this decision-making process was under way.

As Ti-Hua first reported, the state's tribes were first told on Aug. 25--with a response deadline of Sept. 21, less than one month:
tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…

Read 10 tweets

Jonathan Larsen

@jtlarsen

18 Sep 20

@tihuachang

BOMBSHELL: The EPA set a deadline of MONDAY for Oklahoma tribes to respond to Gov. Kevin Stitt's request for the EPA to give HIM control over environmental regulations on tribal lands.

@tihuachang has details in his exclusive report:

tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…

Ti-Hua previously reported that Stitt had quietly made the request to the EPA after the Supreme Court gave the tribes sovereignty over eastern Oklahoma.

Now, we have Stitt's letter ... and it goes farther than anyone knew.

A former EPA official told us that Stitt's request included language that would let the state permit fracking...

...and the dumping of mercury, PCBs and other hazardous waste on tribal lands...

...throughout the ENTIRE state.

Read 14 tweets

Jonathan Larsen

@jtlarsen

9 Sep 20

Fascinating to see news of Trump saying something treated as a big deal when it's recorded on audiotape, privately, to one person...

...but when it's publicly to millions we have to both-sides it.

It's the implied intent to keep it secret that renders it "interesting".

When Trump says something publicly, his good intent is assumed:

"He's playing down COVID-19 to reassure people."

He says the same thing privately and the assumption is:

"He played down COVID-19 for political reasons."

Media assumptions are bad in both cases.

Then, of course, there's the question of why Trump wanted to calm people about a coronavirus that CALLED FOR public action in response...

...but showed no interest in calming people about bogus caravans of immigrants that called for NO public action.

Read 5 tweets

Jonathan Larsen

@jtlarsen

30 Aug 20

@TiHuaChang

NEW: After the Supreme Court gave tribes sovereignty over half of Oklahoma…

…Gov. Kevin Stitt quietly moved to prevent the tribes from gaining environmental regulatory control, @TiHuaChang found out:

tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…

Publicly, Stitt and Sen. Jim Inhofe responded to the landmark ruling by pledging to work with Native American leaders to figure out the legal/regulatory implications of the Supreme Court’s seismic power shift.

Here are their press releases from July 20:

But on Aug. 3, Stitt privately told a farming industry group that he had asked Trump’s EPA to hand environmental authority over to the STATE...

…which would sidestep the Supreme Court ruling.

Ti-Hua found the audio:

Read 8 tweets

Jonathan Larsen

@jtlarsen

11 Aug 20

@tytinvestigates

NEW: SBA data suggest that mosques suffered from disparities in PPP lending.

Some of it might be benign--but some might reflect existing bias & inequities in U.S. lending.

Here's my story for @tytinvestigates on what happened, and why:

tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…

@CAIRNational

I shared some of our findings with @CAIRNational and @hijrahva, which did not relay any individual acts of bias, but said they were aware of systemic problems -- many of which predate the coronavirus.

CAIR's Robert McCaw said TYT's analysis, "certainly does raise a number of questions.”

“Without a complete picture on the PPP loan program’s data, it’s hard to know whether these numbers are a cause of concern for mosques and Islamic community centers.”

Read 7 tweets

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