Thread by @Amy_Siskind

I too have a story to share about Yashar Ali. I met him at the same 2008 event for prominent Hillary supporters as Susie Tompkins Buell. Shortly after, Susie formed WomenCount with West Coast supporters. 30 East Coast supporters formed The New Agenda.
1/ lamag.com/mag-features/y…

The New Agenda's role was to speak out against sexism. And to promote women into leadership in both parties and in all spheres. We were among the first to speak out against sexism against women of both parties.I wrote back then for Daily Beast and HuffPost as head of the org.
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I had met Yashar. We kept in touch and he knew about my orgs work. Our paths crossed more closely when Hillary ran again in 2016. We actually were pretty close. I am gay, and I was one of the first people he came out to. I have an inbox full of gushing messages on FB.

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Then we had a falling out. Ironically over the woman who accused Trump in 2016 of sexually assaulting her when she was 13. Yashar kept disparaging her on my page. I asked him to stop - once, twice, three times, then finally blocked him.

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Months later, old tweets of mine and old DB stories were cut and pasted together by Yashar to create a false story about me and my org. Although he knew full well who we were and what we did. He took writings I did as president of the org to mischaracterize me and my work.

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When I was selected for the POLITICO 50 in 2017 for my work with The Weekly List, he tweeted how I didn't deserve it and recirculated this old tweets and stories - again knowingly out of context. My org wanted more women to run in both parties. That and defend against sexism.

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Eventually people called him out on this. If you read the articles I wrote as leader of the org, they are on women's rights and representation - which party is doing more (14 years ago the GOP tried). It was separate as well from my personal viewpoints.

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It's almost impossible to fight false narratives which are cleverly crafted in 280 characters or less. So I just moved on.

But I understand why people are fearful of his wrath - he knows how to manipulate - and didn't want to go on record.

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Anyway, I wish him only the best at this point. I hope he - and we all - can find peace and happiness. I just needed to get this off my shoulders.

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P.S.: I also remember Kathy Griffin really viciously attacking me here - which I never understood at the time, because I had always defended her when she came under attack for her tweet. Now it makes sense: Yashar was living in her house at the time 🤦🏻‍♀️

Here's a receipt from Facebook messenger in 2016 before he turned on me, and spent the next years constructing a false narrative and constantly attacking me. And I have plenty more.

I did get a lovely DM from Kathy - she's such a class act. The 2018 tweets smearing me sent from her account were indeed sent when Yashar was controlling her social media. She had no idea. Glad to close the loop, and expose the truth.