Re: The Festering Darkness That is Steve Bannon
Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 7:21 pm
Ex-Writer: Breitbart Broke the Law
A Breitbart News writer complained to the DOJ that the media site was allegedly cutting shady deals with its landlord, a wealthy Egyptian politician.
LACHLAN MARKAY
TIM MAK
ASAWIN SUEBSAENG
03.29.17 12:13 AM ET
A former Breitbart News writer alleged the site was acting as an illegal influence operation for its Washington, D.C. landlord, an obscure Egyptian politician cited this week by a Capitol Hill media association that denied Breitbart press credentials.
Two sources with direct knowledge, including one former Breitbart writer, say a reporter for the pro-Trump news organization was behind a complaint to the Department of Justice implicating then-chairman Steve Bannon and Moustafa El-Gindy, an Egyptian businessman and former legislator and the owner of Breitbart’s Washington office.
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Concerns about that office, nicknamed the Embassy, dogged the organization Monday as it unsuccessfully sought permanent congressional press credentials. Breitbart faced conflict-of-interest questions regarding Bannon’s new role as one of President Donald Trump’s top advisers, a probe into its investors and corporate structure, and questions about El-Gindy and his property.
He bought the Embassy in 2009 for $2.35 million. Breitbart is reported to be seeking new Washington office space, but its years-long relationship with El-Gindy is at the center of allegations that a staunchly “America-first” website illicitly promoted a foreign politician.
A complaint filed with the Justice Department’s National Security Division as the 2016 presidential campaign kicked into gear alleged that Breitbart was acting as a de facto foreign agent for El-Gindy by providing him with friendly coverage. The Daily Beast obtained a copy of the complaint through a Freedom of Information Act request.
El-Gindy, who was first elected to Egypt’s parliament in 2005, has found common ground with Breitbart in his staunch opposition to the country’s Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi, the former president backed by the Islamist group who was unseated in a 2013 uprising. El-Gindy later joined a political party backed by Egypt’s current president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has received favorable Breitbart coverage since then.
El-Gindy, who did not respond to questions about his relationship with Breitbart, previously told Egyptian media that the Embassy provided a needed source of income after the collapse of his tourism business. “When [the revolution] happened, as we all know, tourism was hit hard, so I had to start renting out the property,” he said. “A real-estate agent has been taking care of its rental and I am not usually aware of who it is rented to. I am just a landlord.”
Despite pleading ignorance on his tenants, El-Gindy has given interviews to Breitbart directly. A handful of stories in the two years before the complaint with DOJ was filed refer to him in positive terms, focusing mostly on opposition to Egypt’s Islamist political elements—and ignoring more controversial positions, such as his outreach to the terrorist group Hamas and support for state censorship of blasphemy against Islam. One Breitbart story labeled him a “senior Egyptian statesman” who “has played a pivotal role in the revolutions against former President Hosni Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Even as Breitbart gave him favorable coverage, the DOJ complaint alleged that the media site was likely paying El-Gindy below-market rental rates on the site. If true, that would have amounted to an in-kind payment and, taken with friendly coverage of El-Gindy, could be seen as payments from a foreign government official in exchange for supportive media coverage.
It “appears [Breitbart] has been disseminating what FARA [the Foreign Agent Registration Act] would regard as propaganda on behalf of a foreign principal for financial benefit, and not merely as a financially unconnected news source,” alleged the complaint, which was sent to DOJ from a FedEx Office franchise in Arlington, Virginia, on July 2, 2015. It named both Breitbart generally and Bannon individually as alleged perpetrators.
The Justice Department’s National Security Division declined to comment on whether it took action on the complaint.
Other former Breitbart writers say the site’s relationship with El-Gindy wasn’t entirely clear. “Don’t know much about it unfortunately,” said Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart editor, in an email. Shapiro never met him, he said, he “just saw the Egyptian flag in the window” of the building.
Controversy surrounding Breitbart’s relationship with El-Gindy and the office space it rents from him surfaced again Monday, as the organization sought press privileges that would allow it to more deeply cover the Trump White House.
During a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Senate Press Gallery on Monday morning, the committee denied Breitbart’s earlier request for permanent press credentials for Capitol Hill, stating that it needed “more answers” before considering the right-wing website’s request again. The committee discussed a request letter sent to it by Breitbart’s Larry Solov late Thursday that was said to show White House chief strategist Steve Bannon had severed ties with Breitbart as of November.
Beyond the letter, which presented a “Word.doc” masthead of Breitbart, a committee member pointed out that beyond “us trusting Larry” there was no other evidence that Bannon had in fact completely cut himself off from the site he previously ran.
The committee also expressed frustration that Breitbart may have “misled” or “lied” to them during an earlier conversation regarding the lease and zoning of the “Breitbart Embassy” near the Capitol in Washington where the website had previously based its operations. Zoning rules for the area do not allow for commercial leases, meaning that only businesses such as those run by, say, independent piano teachers giving lessons would technically be permitted to be run out of the “Embassy.”
Washington D.C. tax records confirm the property is zoned for residential use. They also show that the Embassy has been receiving a homestead property-tax deduction, which is only available for properties used as their owners’ primary residences, not for commercial buildings.
A Breitbart spokesman did not respond to questions about the FARA complaint and the embassy more generally, including its apparent flouting of DC zoning rules.
Breitbart’s former head Bannon, a staunch nationalist and anti-immigration crusader who now serves as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist in the White House, did not respond to requests for comment, either.
Recent reports indicate that Breitbart will seek to leave behind the embassy and the controversies it has entailed as it expands its influence in President Donald Trump’s Washington. A Friday report from USA Today said the organization is seeking more traditional downtown DC office space.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... e-law.html
Steve Bannon's rise forces Breitbart News out of the shadows, and the basement
Paul Singer , USA TODAY Published 10:26 a.m. ET March 23, 2017 | Updated 5:11 a.m. ET March 27, 2017
President-elect Donald Trump's chief strategist Stephen Bannon is causing a social media firestorm with his controversial commentary and projects. Let's take a closer look at some of his past positions. USA TODAY NETWORK
WASHINGTON — Breitbart News has stepped out of the fringes of American politics and is now, quite literally, moving out of the basement as well.
The bare-knuckled conservative news organization has moved its office out of the house where former chief Steve Bannon lived, has begun to reluctantly disclose its ownership, and, in its quest for official recognition, may even go so far as to publicly declare who runs the place.
Breitbart has for the past several years operated, basically, out of Bannon’s house. Bannon was the executive chairman of Breitbart News and the ideological engine behind the site’s bareknuckled anti-immigration, anti-government ideology. He and the site both operated out of a townhouse on Capitol Hill a couple of blocks behind the Supreme Court. It became known as the "Breitbart Embassy," site of lavish parties upstairs and the typing of a staff of young reporters downstairs, whom Bannon referred to as "the Valkyries."
But then Bannon became Trump’s campaign manager last summer and is now chief strategist in the White House.
Breitbart is rising with Bannon and is now trying to become a credentialed member of the Senate Daily Press Gallery, joining The New York Times, USA TODAY and other mainstream news outlets. This would given them access to the Capitol that is on par with congressional staff. It would also allow them to participate in White House "pools," providing coverage of events to the rest of the press corps when space for reporters is limited.
But membership in that club requires a level of transparency Breitbart News has long shunned. The office location is the first hurdle. Breitbart News has declared the Breitbart Embassy as its office address, but that is not really true.
The Embassy is still the official address of Breitbart’s Washington Bureau, but “since the summer we have been transitioning people out of the house,” said spokesman Chad Wilkinson. One of the reasons for the move was security, Wilkinson said. “Some of our employees just weren't comfortable working at a Breitbart office there,” he said. It is, after all, just a townhouse, with no security desk.
Sometime this spring, Breitbart will have a regular office in downtown D.C., Wilkinson predicted. Meanwhile, most of the staff are telecommuting.
It is probably just as well: The Embassy is in a residential neighborhood where it is generally not legal to run an office.
Washington, D.C., property records show the building it is owned by Moustafa El-Gindy, a former Egyptian member of Parliament who has occasionally been quoted in Breitbart news stories. El-Gindy is receiving a homestead deduction on the property, a $72,000 tax credit that requires the owner to maintain residence in the building. He could not be located for comment on this story.
Breitbart CEO Larry Solov told the Senate press gallery that the company has a soon-to-expire lease in the building for corporate housing, offices and entertainment. But zoning rules for the block do not allow commercial leases.
“That area of Capitol Hill is zoned only for residential uses, with a very narrow set of ‘home occupation’ exceptions allowing a resident (as opposed to a rotating group of occasional visitors) to work as an in-home tailor, music tutor, doctor, or the like, or to run a small bed & breakfast,” said Mark Eckenwiler, longtime chair of the zoning committee for the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission, the city government unit for that area.
The uses Solov described to the press gallery “appear to violate the D.C. zoning regulations applicable to that location,” Eckenwiler said. Since the lease is not public, it is impossible to know whether the terms meet the neighborhoods restrictions.
Steve Bannon listens as President Trump speaks at a rally in Louisville, Ky., on March 20, 2017. (Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP)
When Breitbart does get a new office, it will presumably make the address more public than the current address, which appears nowhere on the Breitbart news site. The site also provides no phone number and no way to contact the editors or reporters.
Beyond the address, Breitbart's application for press credentials is also shining new light on the company's management and ownership structure.
The site offers no "masthead," the roster of editors and managers that news organizations traditionally publish in print editions or post on their websites. Solov told the Standing Committee of Correspondents last month that he would consider producing a masthead, but it still has not appeared on the site.
The bigger question is who owns the site, a piece of information Solov admitted he was loath to disclose.
The press gallery rules state that to qualify, a reporter "must not be engaged in any lobbying or paid advocacy, advertising, publicity or promotion work for any individual, political party, corporation, organization, or agency of the U.S. Government, or in prosecuting any claim before Congress or any federal government department, and will not do so while a member of the Daily Press Galleries. Applicants’ publications must be editorially independent of any institution, foundation or interest group that lobbies the federal government, or that is not principally a general news organization."
Solov reluctantly told the Standing Committee in February that Breitbart is partly owned by the Mercer family, one the largest sources of money behind committees supporting President Trump’s campaign last year. Solov would not say which of the Mercers was an owner. Rebekah Mercer helped persuade Trump to hire Bannon as campaign CEO last summer, and she served on the executive committee of Trump's transition team after the election.
Solov also told the committee that Bannon resigned from Breitbart last fall, shortly after the election, but was unable to provide any formal documentation to that effect. He said Bannon simply called him to say he is stepping down. The Standing Committee has asked for more details before its next meeting on Friday.
And while Solov says Bannon is no longer connected to Breitbart News, his influence clearly still lingers at the Breitbart Embassy.
Answering the door at the Breitbart Embassy on Monday was Dan Fleuette, who lists himself on LinkedIn as vice president of production of Victory Film Group, Bannon's political film enterprise. Fleuette shares screenwriting and production credits on several Bannon films, including the 2016 film Clinton Cash. Fleuette has also written for Breitbart News, largely as a sports columnist, but he said he is not on staff now
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