Mulieris Dignitatem: Somebody Tell Nina Totenberg Her Buddy Brett Kimberlin Is Making News Again

29 May 2012

Somebody Tell Nina Totenberg Her Buddy Brett Kimberlin Is Making News Again

Posted on | May 28, 2012 | 49 Comments and 92 Reactions

“The tale-teller was a short fellow who needed to be looked up to, who consistently sought relationships with females much younger than himself, who could boast to an eighteen-year-old woman he’d just met on a bus that he was ‘one of the strongest men in the world.’”
– Mark Singer, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin (1996), Page 312

“In e-mails and Web postings from Kimberlin’s two organizations, Justice Through Music and Velvet Revolution, he intersperses occasionally useful pieces of information . . . with a hefty portion of bunk, repeatedly asserting as fact things that are not true. . . . Kimberlin has found a home in the blogosphere . . .”
– Massimo Calabresi, Time magazine, “The Wizard of Odd,” Jan. 5, 2007

“Using two popular leftist blogs, the 56-year-old from Bethesda, Md., has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from the public and left-leaning foundations by promising to put conservatives he disagrees with in jail, often with offers of large rewards. So far — without success — he has called for the arrest of Karl Rove, Andrew Breitbart, Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, Massey Energy Chairman Don Blankenship and other high-profile public figures.
“A review of tax filings for Kimberlin’s blogs, ‘Velvet Revolution’ and ‘Justice Through Music,’ raises troubling questions about whether his ‘nonprofit’ operations are dedicated to public activism – or are just a new facade for a longtime con artist.”
– Ed Barnes, Fox News, “Leftist Blogger’s Criminal Past Raises Questions About His Real Intent,” Oct. 19, 2010

“In sworn testimony in a court proceeding involving Seth Allen, Kimberlin falsely claimed to have been ‘secretly exonerated’ (???) of the heinous crimes for which he was convicted in 1981.”
– Robert Stacy McCain, “Lying Felon Can’t Stop Lying,” May 24

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

In the fall of 1988, when convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin was still locked up in federal prison and claiming to have sold dope to GOP vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle, every political reporter in the country wanted to write about Kimberlin. In his 1996 book, Mark Singer recounts how National Public Radio reporter Nina Totenberg spoke to Kimberlin two or three times every day in late October and early November 1988.
So why, 24 years later, are Nina Totenberg and the rest of the elite media ignoring what their old friend’s been up to lately? Tom Blumer of Newsbusters asks, “Where Is the Establishment Press?”

Leading blogger Robert Stacy McCain has decided that he and his family must leave their home and that they can’t go back; he officially describes his location as “whereabouts unknown.” On Friday, Patterico, an assistant DA by day, revealed a campaign of harassment involving “workplace complaints, publication of personal information such as home addresses and pictures of residences, bogus allegations of criminal activity, whisper campaigns, frivolous legal actions, and frivolous State Bar complaints.” Oh, and he was “SWATted” — he had his home stormed by a SWAT team, complete with a police helicopter and a spotlight. Someone pretending to be him “called the police to say I had shot my wife.” An audio expert Patterico hired concluded that “it is probable” that the hoax call was placed by a Kimberlin associate known to have tweeted a public threat against himself and his family.
Erick Erickson of RedState got “SWATted” Sunday evening; this time, “Someone called 911 (pretending to be) from my address claiming there had been an accidental shooting.”

This is a complicated story and difficult to tell. So far as I know, it started in October 2010 when Mandy Nagy of Breitbart.com published her 3,600-word article about Kimberlin. Also in 2010, Kimberlin’s associate Neal Rauhauser, a Democrat campaign consultant, was accused in the “TwitterGate” episode of targeting Tea Party activists for obscene harassment online. (Also see, “Democrat Cyber Stealth Revealed: Neal Rauhauser & Radical E-Thugs,” Patrick Read, Oct. 13, 2010.) In 2011, one of the online activists who helped push the Anthony Weiner scandal into the news, Mike Stack got “SWATted” and has subsequently pressed charges of harassment against Rauhauser.
Liberal blogger Seth Allen (@prepostericity) was critical of Kimberlin and Brad Friedman, partners in the tax-exempt non-profit Velvet Revolution. Allen was sued by Kimberlin. Allen got legal assistance from attorney Aaron Walker, who blogged under the pseudonym Aaron Worthing. Walker then became a target of Kimberlin’s harassment, with the result that both Walker and his wife lost their jobs.
Such is the story that I learned on May 17, when Walker published his 28,000-word account of his entanglement with Kimberlin. Immediately recognizing this as a newsworthy story, I began reporting about it on my blog. Four days later, on May 21, Kimberlin contacted my wife’s employer, raising security concerns for the employer and causing me to leave my home in order to be able to continue reporting the story without potentially endangering others.
Reacting to Kimberlin’s harassment of Allen, Walker, myself and others, Lee Stranahan declared that Friday, May 25, would be “Everybody Blog Brett Kimberlin Day” — with remarkable results. As a journalistic fugitive, I continued reporting the story:

Friday, I reported that the National Bloggers Club had enlisted to help support and defend the First Amendment rights of bloggers targeted by Kimberlin and his associates.
Saturday, I reported that Brett Kimberlin is scheduled to be in an 8:30 a.m. Tuesday hearing against Aaron Walker in Montgomery County District Court (191 E. Jefferson St., Rockville, Md. 20850).
Sunday, I reported that Kimberlin’s aunt Harriet Crosby is one of the wealthy benefactors of his tax-exempt activities.

The story continues gaining momentum. The Sunday “SWATting” of Erickson, a CNN contributor, guarantees that this story won’t go away soon. Michelle Malkin has published a “to-do list” for those who want to put a stop to the intimidation and harassment:

The massive blogburst about convicted bomber and online terrorist ringleader Brett Kimberlin ended on Friday, but this is an ongoing legal, financial, and emotional morass for the targets. And it has now entangled new victims. It is precisely because each and every blogger, Twitter users, activist, talk show host, and podcaster is potential new prey for sicko Kimberlin and his cabal that we must all stand together.

“Online terrorist ringleader” is a rather strong term. I prefer Jimmie Bise Jr.’s neutral objective phrase, “Lying Felon Brett Kimberlin,” but why quibble over semantics at this point?
What we have here is a remarkable news story, and the story is not about me. It’s not about Aaron Walker or Mike Stack or Seth Allen or Patrick Frey or Erick Erickson or Mandy Nagy.
This is a story about Brett Kimberlin. What is truly dumbfounding is that Kimberlin’s old media buddies like Nina Totenberg think we’re too stupid to notice them ignoring it.

Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown

THE KIMBERLIN FILES: