🧵1: Ok think I’m finally ready to update on the America’s Frontline Doctors schism. It’s been a few months since the lawsuit mishigas began (qt 🧵), so I’ll try to summarize my observations— ALL MY OPINION— including Simone Gold’s apparent firing from AFLDS at the end of Jan👇🏻 twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
2: The original Florida suit against Dr. Simone Gold was dismissed December 6, 2022 for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. But before that case had run its course, Gold had already filed suit again the Board (Gilbert, Mack, Matthesius) on November 23, 2022 in Arizona.
3: The AZ suit wasn’t all that different from the FL one, just from Simone’s perspective rather than Joey’s. Essentially, Gold claims her resignation never took effect, as the tenants of the agreement for her leave were not fulfilled, therefore she’s still AFLDS’ leader.
4: She also details Joey Gilbert’s “malfeasance and plan to take over AFLDS” — moving/paying out major sums of money, unauthorized hiring/firing (including firing John Strand & Mike Coudrey), and general lack of involvement in operations despite claims otherwise.
5: Gold further claims that many of the allegations in the original lawsuit— including her unilateral unauthorized purchase of the $3.6 million dollar Naples home— were misrepresentations and simply a way for Gilbert to “seize control of AFLDS.”
6: Gold then frames the rest of the board (Awaken’s Jurgen Matthesius & Constitutional Sheriff Richard Mack) as supporting Gilbert, therefore failing to act in AFLDS’s interests. She also says Mack pressured for improper donations, & was hired as AFLDS nonexistent CEO.
7: The defendants responded in a Dec 28, 2022 filing, stating that Gold failed to adequately support her claims— indeed this lawsuit was just another way for her to regain the power she gave up by resigning in February 2022.
8: Now before we continue with the legal, let’s see what’s been up with the America’s Frontline Doctors organization itself. As National Coordinator of the AFLDS Citizen Corps Jess Abu-Hijleh testified, there has been a lot of hullabaloo regarding who owns social media accounts…
9: …and indeed we can see that new America’s Frontline Doctors social media— AFLDS 2.0— began popping up around the end of last year, apparently much to Simone Gold’s chagrin. We can see that the new account is followed by Citizen Corps; guess Jess never gave them the login. 🤷🏼♀️
10: This separation of social media is indicative of the schism: Gold vs Gilbert, the face of the organization— member of the Council for National Policy who put them on the map Dr. Simone Gold— vs the Board of Directors and their new Oversight Committee, headed by Kevin Jenkins.
11: Kevin Jenkins is a member of @CCDHate’s #DisinformationDozen—a major source of false&misleading pandemic info—who also serves on the board of the Zelenko Freedom Foundation (still operating despite the HCQ fan’s death),& spoke at 1/6 with his own Urban Global Health Alliance.
12: Jenkins is running an audit on AFLDS with this Oversight Committee; we can apparently expect some sort of report (created with the help of lawyer Rachel Rodriguez) in the near future. Of course, he’s not the only one with big announcements on the horizon 👇🏻 twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
13: There’s more to say on audits (there’s more than one happening per Gilbert), but let’s circle back to the legal. One caveat re: paperwork—AZ charges $10 PER DOCUMENT, so I, a lupus patient with a bone to pick volunteering my time & resources, was more limited in my access.
14: This 20pg minute entry is a tad repetitive if you’ve kept up with both cases, but there’s still plenty of nuggets to mine.
What is ultimately at issue in this document and this conflict, through all minutiae— the money & questionable behavior— is Gold’s resignation.
15: The doc contains declarations from many people related to this dispute. If the statements were indeed exactly as written, it’s fascinating to see how endeared so many AFLDS employees are to Gold: like she’s got her executive director working for GoldCare (see below) for free.
16: In fact, GoldCare & its inception appears to be at the heart of the resignation issue— Simone says she *considered* resigning to pursue physical clinics, & then *agreed* to leave for seed money to start them, remaining at AFLDS only as a consultant.
17: But no such agreement was ever actually drafted let alone signed. The Court notes, “such an arrangement was completely improper and likely illegal.”
✨IN MY PERSONAL AMATEUR OPINION✨ somethin seems fishy about that beyond incompetence, because…
18: Gold claims Attorney George Wentz negotiated the deal (above). Per another attorney present to take the minutes (which were drafted in advance), Wentz attended the meeting in q, but Gold told her not to tell the others Wentz was present. Maybe it’s just me but seems weird !
19: Regardless, Gold used $100,000 in AFLDS funds as well as personnel & resources to help start GoldCare (which recently sponsored a Mom’s for Liberty event at Mar-a-Lago where she ALSO received an award). Gold says she’s prepared to repay it but the Court notes she has not.
20: Other things: A few statements repeat in various forms that Gilbert “leads only a small group of people,” which just gives some internal coup / cult leader vibes.
21: And it doesn’t seem like payroll is going well either. “Without access to funds, America’s Frontline Doctors will not be able to survive for very long.” 😱
22: If this court was r/AITA, they would’ve said “everyone sucks here.” Gold resigned without a deal, Gilbert & Gold both complain about previous agreements, and everyone at the top is being paid way too much while doing nothing, including paying employees.
23: “Both sides claim they need an injunction to maintain the status quo… a situation where both sides claims that they are in control” of America’s Frontline Doctors. But Gold isn’t on the Board, so despite the Court’s note that she’s got the acumen in the room, she was fired.
24: That’s where I’ll leave off in this saga for now, but I have plenty of unanswered questions & more to learn, especially about Jenkins. Shoutout to everyone who still cares abt America’s Frontline Doctors & the impact they continue to have profiteering on my lupus medication👇🏻
25: Hah, Gold is now trying to get her followers to *call the law firm* representing the AFLDS Board of Directors— who allegedly fired her— to “stand with” her and “urge [the firm] to reach an amicable resolution.” I’m no lawyer but seems like a… creative strategy!
26: Well folks, I just spent another $20 to get two (2) whole court documents from Arizona, so here's your
🚨 America's Frontline Drama: Schism Update 🔥
Seems Gold moved to dismiss a few claims, but didn't follow the rules before filing. The court kindly considered regardless.
27: Again, details&questionable fiscal behavior aside, Gold's position on the Board of America's Frontline Doctors is the main issue. Gold contends her resignation was conditional, but the Court found in Jan that she HAD resigned; now she's seeking relief.
28: Unfortunately for Gold, the Court rejected this derivative claim as she never returned the money she herself stated she continued to receive *as a condition of the resignation* from AFLDS after she resigned. So even if she COULD rescind the resignation, she HASN'T.
29: Meanwhile things aren't looking great for Mack & Matthesius (M&M?) either. M&M say Gold's claims "that supporting & facilitating fraudulent conduct is itself fraudulent" lack proof & should be dismissed, but the Court says it's early, there may be evidence to remove them yet.
30: Onward to the 2nd document, an objection to defendants actions from Gold, & she is not happy folks! After the hearing whose minutes I detail above, defendants are not only "not getting" it, "it gets worse"! They fired a BUNCH of people, not only Gold.
31:Let's take a look at the Exhibits~
1)a WILD letter from the AFLDS Board's lawyer, linking to an even wilder LindellTV appearance from Gold, where she shares Board phone&emails publicly in a bit of a blustery huff. They were GOING to try to resolve amicably, but not after THAT!
32: The letter goes on that the Board passed a resolution firing & removing Gold from any&all AFLDS leadership roles, therefore she & Strand must vacate the AFLDS home by Mar 2, but give up the car keys as of today, Feb 15. "Failure to comply will result in further court action."
33: Via footnote, Exhibit 2 is Gold's best guess as to who's been fired. Awful formatting; strikethru indicates fired. Here are my observations...
-Dates of hire 👀
-Gold's son Jonah had more than one role
-Coudrey
-Strand
-How many Andrzejewski's work there?
-Doc Tracey...stays?
34: With these exhibits, Dr. Gold implores the Court to reconsider its previous "everyone sucks here" ruling, which calls "arson" as Gilbert, Mack, & Matthesius are "burning down" America's Frontline Doctors.
35: Gold's objection goes on to make the point that the Minute Entry was not binding, and while the Court doesn't need that defined, the Defendants apparently do.
36: "AFLDS’s operation should be allowed to survive while this dispute pends," ok but why tho(:
~ again 🧵of my opinions of this paperwork i paid my own hard earned autoimmune American dollars for ~
Anyway, Gold further outlines how AFLDS won't survive the current Board's spite.
37: So the recommendation is a receivership (a receiver being person or company appointed by a court to manage the ailing entity) in order to preserve the existing operation, since the only worker spared the Board's firings is a decades old friend of Joey Gilbert's.
38: Alright, that's enough for now I think. Truly incredible be able to watch America's Frontline Doctors melt down through the courts as well as a patchwork of their own talking heads. Any guesses/bets on what's to come?
Glad to see @willsommer is writing about some of these schism updates, though calling hydroxychloroquine “bogus treatment” is one reason people will actively react when I say I take it for lupus. Can we please work on this wording?
this is *precisely* why i share the way i do on tiktok—folks quite like my lil “day in my life” vlogs, my showing how mitigation fits into my activities. there’s little to no official guidance, so lacking nigh any examples, how can ppl even imagine what they don’t know can exist?
@lapublichealth Wastewater shows viral loads, after a slight decline, are increasing again. @CAPublicHealth & @lapublichealth disgraceful choices to remove mitigation from masks to isolation will no doubt push that uptick even higher. Pathetic excuses for public servants; You should be ashamed.
🚨NEW: How @elonmusk Sold MAGA on HCQ — and Opened the Covid-19 Disinformation Floodgates
Ever the catalyst, Elon helped take mere embers & started a forrest fire. Let’s explore this excellent, thorough article by @karamballes in @whowhatwhy 1/?👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
2/ First: If you didn’t know, I am one of at least 825000 lupus patients who could not access my essential, daily hydroxychloroquine come March of 2020, as detailed if you click “lupus patients” in paragraph 3, actually. I personally understand the harm this piece outlines👇🏻
3/ Disclosure aside, it is the rare piece that makes clear the harm to autoimmune patients, when this reality only makes the outrageous behavior this piece details all the more costly to lives. That said…
A lil GoogleDoc began making the Silicon Valley rounds in March 2020 👇🏻
🧵: In Feb 2022, Jeremy Parker, 52, felt ill. Afraid he had covid, he stayed at a friends home & took the hydroxychloroquine he was prescribed by America’s Frontline Doctors for just such an infection. That’s where he died.
Read the article on @ThisIsReno: thisisreno.com/2023/02/vegas-…
2: Shoutout to folks who care about this like I do, who made these court documents accessible. As I said in the tiktok above, it was just a matter of time until we saw a case like this. I would put money on Mr. Parker not being the first nor the last in such a situation.
3: With this paperwork, we can see that that the estate suing America’s Frontline Doctors on Parker’s behalf is comprised of his wife & three kids, ages 17, 14, and 8. 😔 We can also see the HCQ was delivered thru Ravkoo Pharmacy, who’s filled more than $1.2 million worth of HCQ.
1/ Oh this is rich, & explains what Dr. Simone Gold was trying to get out in front of via public statements this week. Joey Gilbert is suing & America’s Frontline Doctors for misuse of funds for a $3.6 million home in Naples, 3 cars, other misuse of funds, defamation, & more👇🏻
2/ Gold apparently signed as buyer for the Naples home (where she lived rent free w John Strand) using AFLDS funds w/o authorization/approval by the Board. Originally manager, she gave that over to AFLDS employee AJ Andrzejewski Jan 22, who now lives there w/ his wife rent free.
3/ Meanwhile she continued to use Americas Frontline Doctors money to move to a second rental property, buy 3 cars, pay for personal security, housekeeping, & more while using the AFLDS employee occupied Naples home for employees of her own telehealth membership scheme, GoldCare.
2yrs ago today, extremist group America’s Frontline Doctors stood on the steps of the Supreme Court. The propaganda vid went viral, introducing the public to the now imprisoned insurrectionist Dr Simone Gold, & fueling another wave of covid disinformation. tiktok.com/t/ZTRD57Hvg/?k…
In following days, America’s Frontline Doctors met with Pence asking for access to hydroxychloroquine—a med already in shortage needed by millions of autoimmune ppl. Meanwhile, the rightwing media sphere not only repeated the same AFLDS disinformation, but framed them as martyrs.
Since the 7/20 summit, America’s Frontline Doctors has spent time creating more slick propaganda, from nigh farcical music videos (like one where Gold pulls a duckling from her white coat like we get it quack) to one that centered the stalking of @MedBoardOfCA president @kdlaw👇🏻