Jonathan Larsen Profile picture
Sep 6, 2021 25 tweets 11 min read Read on X
In case you missed it, a quick recap of our exclusive story:

The Secret Origin of Mike Lindell: How the secretive group behind the National Prayer Breakfast radicalized TV's pillow pitchman.

tyt.com/stories/5v3O8b…
As Lindell says, he went from apolitical, casual Christian...

...to leading Christian nationalist...

...after a series of otherwise-inexplicable events convinced him God had a plan for him.

Here's what really happened.
Then, in 2014, Mike Lindell met a missionary for Jesus, a man named...

...Stephen Baldwin.
Lindell and Baldwin became friends, and the next year, Baldwin nominated Lindell for an award, complete with fancy reception...

...exposing Lindell to a crowd of people who began "waking [him] up"...
In 2016, Lindell goes to the National Prayer Breakfast.

He told me Baldwin invited him, but I said I had internal Family docs showing he was officially invited by someone else, a man named Wilfred Job.

And I could prove Job was connected to Baldwin...before he even met Lindell.
In fact, all 3 directors of Baldwin's ministry in 2013 were connected to The Family.

A source told me Job and Todd Hendricks often worked together.

And Hendricks invited Baldwin to the 2016 National Prayer Breakfast.
The 3rd director of Baldwin's ministry was a massive right-wing donor...

...whose husband had been identified in Philippine media as a spokesperson for "the National Prayer Breakfast" (he actually works for McKesson, not the govt.)
Lindell told me he had "no idea" who Wilfred Job is...

...but whether Lindell knew it or not, that wasn't his only connection to Job.

(You can read more about Job's ties with Stephen Baldwin in our sidebar here: tyt.com/stories/2E4lb3…
When I told Lindell his foundation paid Wilfred Job $55K in 2017, he asked me where I get these lies, threatened me with jail, and hung up on me.

Here's where I got that:
projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/org…
Lindell told me his foundation hasn't done anything in 4 years. Maybe he doesn't know they keep filing 990s.

You can read here how, as the Family got involved, the Lindell Foundation shifted from helping addicts to funding evangelicals:
tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…
Anyway, back to Lindell.

One of the inexplicable events that turned him to Jesus was being "randomly" picked to meet Ben Carson at the 2016 National Prayer Breakfast.

Let's look at how random that was.

Baldwin was there--and we know Baldwin already knew Carson because Baldwin introduced them.

But now let's look at who was working on Carson's presidential campaign at the time...
Carson's PR guy was A. Larry Ross (we'll get back to him).

Carson's campaign manager, Bob Dees, was a Family friend, who told me NPB leadership specifically asked to have Carson meet Lindell.
Who was in NPB (National Prayer Breakfast) leadership at the time?

Carson's PR guy, A. Larry Ross, was the breakfast spokesperson and has sat on the board of the Fellowship Foundation (aka The Family) since 2011.
Although this grouping of Carson, Lindell, et al. is seemingly random...

...at an event that's allegedly nonpartisan...

...they're all on the exact same page politically...

...and bring Lindell along with them, according to his own book:
(Lindell is also blown away by the prophecy that some of the people there will be great friends -- apparently unaware that this was standard language for The Family, which even had it printed on cards for a previous breakfast.)
Ross now becomes a fast friend and companion of Lindell, as seen in these pics spanning 2017-2020.
Politically, Lindell is now on board.

Carson tells Trump about Lindell, the Trump campaign sets up a meeting for Aug. 15, 2016.

The day before their meeting, Lindell writes some checks.
Religiously, however, Lindell isn't yet the guy we know today.

So Ross urges Lindell to participate in a program for troubled military vets...that uses Jesus to help them...run by another guy Lindell met at the 2016 prayer breakfast.
(Quick side note: I notice Lindell says that before he found Jesus he still had "fits of rage."

One of my emails requesting comment had a mistake in it. Throughout our call he called me "scumbag," "pond scum" and accused me of lying. Anyway, back to Jesus...)
Lindell says he's reluctant to do the Jesus program Larry Ross recommends.

He does it anyway, but he doesn't have hope it'll work...

...until he attends the NEXT National Prayer Breakfast...

...where the current U.S. Senate chaplain sets Mike Lindell on his current path.
Lindell doesn't specify what Black said, but Black told the prayer breakfast God intervenes in the world, doing stuff, answering prayers, etc...

...giving Mike Lindell reason to believe he was part of God's plan.
It worked.
I want to add that Mike Lindell's story is just part of a bigger @TYTInvestigats series based on internal Family documents we've obtained.

I hope you'll read our high-altitude view of what we're finding, and how a handful of Democrats are enabling it:
tyt.com/stories/7K5fbf…
If you haven't already, check out the definitive books and Netflix docu-series on this subject by @JeffSharlet.

And if you're wondering whether Mike Lindell got took: salon.com/2021/09/03/mik…

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More from @jtlarsen

Apr 22
On Tuesday, Mike Johnson was praying over what to do about Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Johnson gave his news conference saying Ukraine was worth losing his speakership.

Here’s what happened in between.
thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/johnsons-com…
Image
You can read the full article, and support this and upcoming reporting, by subscribing at .

And a big hat tip to @NastyOldWomyn, who flagged the key piece of this one.

Here's what we know...thefuckingnews.substack.com
@NastyOldWomyn As I reported on April 10, the Ukrainian point man for The Family--the prayer breakfast people--had met with both Johnson (January) and Zelenskyy (April)...

...pushing a new rationale to support Ukraine: "Religious freedom."
thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/dying-for-us…
Image
Read 6 tweets
Mar 31
Speaker Mike Johnson is calling it "abhorrent" for Pres. Biden to name today "Transgender Day of Visibility Day."

Because it's Easter.

Johnson said Biden "betrayed the central tenet of Easter." Image
Trump's campaign said Christians -- but also Catholics! -- believe today is "for one celebration only"...

..."the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

But is it? Did Biden REALLY betray Easter's central tenet...? Image
"Easter" only appears in the Bible 22 times. Each time, with an 'n' at the end.

The actual WORD "Easter" appears in The Bible 0 times.

Which means that Biden is celebrating Easter today more literally and explicitly than The Bible does. And... Image
Read 6 tweets
Mar 5
The House impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is expected to go to the Senate this week.

I dug into the staffers who put together the House impeachment report. THREAD...
Image
Image
(BTW, all of my stories on this can be found at . If you need a family-friendly URL, there's .

Either way, you can make sure not to miss future reporting by becoming a subscriber. Thanks!)

Back to the thread...thefuckingnews.substack.com
jonathanlarsen.substack.com
The top staffers in the Mayorkas impeachment have had ties with, and training from…

…multiple right-wing and even theocratic groups.

Some leaders of those groups have used lies to dispatch political foes.
thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/mayorkas-imp…
Image
Read 25 tweets
Feb 1
Gonna live-tweet this morning's National Prayer Breakfast.

...starting with a reminder you can support my reporting on this event and the people behind it by subscribing: .

Okay, NOW let's start with the story I broke last night...thefuckingnews.substack.com
Last night I reported that today's prayer breakfast will be held, for the first time, INSIDE the Capitol building.

Statuary Hall, just off the rotunda...

...in the HOUSE section overseen by Speaker Johnson. Meaning he had to approve this.
thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/prayer-break…
Some organizers WANT you to think the prayer breakfast is run by Congress, and fooled media into headlining it that way.

But it's not. It's run by a new, private group called the National Prayer Breakfast Foundation.

Which is very closely allied to the OLD organizers... Image
Read 49 tweets
Jan 30
BREAKING: @RepMarkPocan, as chair of the Equality Caucus, just launched the most aggressive official inquiry ever into The Family and the National Prayer breakfast.

The NPB is Thursday in DC -- but Pocan wants answers about the entire global operation.
thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/pocan-takes-…
Image
Here's the Congressional Equality Caucus press release... with a link to Pocan's letter...

...announcing that he wrote to the board chair of the Fellowship Foundation, aka The Family...

...which started the National Prayer Breakfast in 1953.
lgbtq.house.gov/media-center/p…
Pocan's letter cites my reporting on last year's prayer breakfast co-chair, Rep. Tim Walberg...

...going to Uganda's prayer breakfast on The Family's dime to urge defiance against global pressure to repeal the so-called "Kill the Gays" Law.
tyt.com/reports/inside…
Read 8 tweets
Dec 21, 2023
On Feb. 2, Reps. Tim Walberg and Lucy McBath co-chaired the U.S. National Prayer Breakfast (NPB).

On Oct. 8, Walberg told the Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast to “stand firm” against U.S. pressure to repeal its LGBTQ+ death penalty.

Here’s the story.
Image
Image
Walberg then used his role as co-chair to justify the House Ethics Committee approving his trip to deliver Uganda's National Prayer Breakfast keynote speech…

…A trip paid for by the Fellowship Foundation, aka The Family.
tyt.com/reports/inside…
During his trip, at the Oct. 8 Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast, Walberg listened as MP Cecilia Ogwal called LGBTQ+ advocates not flesh-and-blood human beings…

…but “a force from the bottom of Hell.”
Read 12 tweets

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