Parler offered Trump organization a stake in joining

The Trump organization negotiated on behalf of then-President Donald Trump to make Parler his primary social network, but it had one condition: an ownership in return, according to documents, and four people familiar with the talks. The deal was never finalized, but legal experts said the discussions alone, which took place while Trump was still in office, raised legal concerns about anti-bribery laws.

Talks between members of Trump’s campaign and Parler about Trump’s potential involvement began last summer and were revisited by the Trump Organization in November after Trump lost the 2020 election to Democratic nominee and current president Joe Biden. Documents seen by BuzzFeed News show that Parler offered the Trump organization a 40% stake in the company. It is unclear to what extent the former president was involved in the discussions.

The never-before-reported talks between Trump’s business organization and Parler, a social media network that promises less moderation than mainstream websites and is embraced by the far right, provide more insight into the hectic final weeks of Trump’s presidency. Until the January 6 uprising, after which Facebook and Twitter suspended or banned him for continuing to sow discord over the election, Trump used Internet platforms to spread unfounded conspiracy theories. While doing so, his representatives actively negotiated to bring him to Parler, who tried to make the president a business partner who would help him compete with Twitter and Facebook by first posting his content on his platform. farm.

Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale came up with the idea of ​​taking an interest in Parler during a White House meeting last year, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. Parscale became interested in Parler early on and apparently considered creating an account for Trump on the website in 2019 as a bulwark against Twitter and Facebook.

Four sources told BuzzFeed News that Alex Cannon, a lawyer for the Parscale and Trump campaigns, met in June 2020 with Parler CEO John Matze and shareholders Dan Bongino and Jeffrey Wernick at Moroccan club Mar-a -Lago of Trump met to discuss the idea. But the White House attorney’s office quickly halted the talks, said one person with knowledge of the discussions, and ruled that such an agreement, while Trump was president, would violate ethical rules.

“The president was never part of the discussions,” Parscale told BuzzFeed News. ‘The discussions were never so substantive. And that was just one of the many things the campaign explored to address Silicon Valley’s cancellation culture. ”

Parscale was replaced in July as the Trump campaign manager.

According to two people involved, the talks were revived in the weeks after the election, but the agreement fell apart after the Capitol invasion. Following the incident, Apple and Google removed Parler from their app stores, and Amazon kicked the company off its cloud hosting service and forced the website offline. The technology giants determined that Parler had not done enough to moderate hate speech and on his platform called for violence before, during and after the January 6 uprising.

Wernick, who called himself an adviser to the company, reached by telephone on Friday that talks had been held with the Trump organization about how to bring Trump to the platform, but that the former president was not involved in the talks. He also said there were inaccuracies in what BuzzFeed News reported, but did not give details on what, if anything, was inaccurate.

“We talked to several people about the potential importance in the business of producing certain things,” Wernick said. He refused to address the details of negotiations, citing non-disclosure agreements that he said existed between Parler and the Trump organization.

Cannon and Matze declined to comment. Bongino and a Parler spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesman for the Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.

Parler was founded in 2018 by former roommates John Matze and Jared Thomson, and Rebekah Mercer, the right-wing political donor and daughter of hedge fund tycoon Robert Mercer, and focused on building a social network that serves as an alternative to Facebook and Twitter would serve by a laxer approach to moderating the content. It describes itself as a website that allows ‘free expression’.

While struggling to get traction in the early months, it soon became a home for conservative and far-right personalities who were suspended or banned from mainstream social media. By the end of 2020, it had become an online gathering place for hate groups, conspiracy theorists, and believers in the QAnon mass delusion, as well as prominent Republican lawmakers, including Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Devin Nunes.

Matze told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the site has 15 million users, including the sons of former President Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as various current and former Trump staff members.

However, Donald Trump never maintained a verified account on the platform, preferring to hold his daily missions on Twitter and Facebook, where his audience was much larger. He had 88 million followers on Twitter and more than 35 million followers on Facebook before his Twitter ban and indefinite Facebook suspension last month. According to Bloomberg News, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, intervened to keep him away from Parler.

However, in negotiations with the Trump organization, Parler offered a 40% stake in the company, according to a December document seen by BuzzFeed News and two people with direct knowledge of the proposed deal. Upon completion of the agreement, half of the interest would be given immediately to the Trump organization, while the other half would be distributed in portions during the 24-month period of the agreement.

The Trump Organization, which oversees Trump’s trademark and real estate interests, is a collection of hundreds of businesses owned or controlled by Donald Trump.

As part of the deal, Parler wanted Trump to make it his primary social network. According to the documents, Trump would have to post all of his social content – including daily posts, video and live streams – on Parler for at least four hours before posting it on any other platform.

As part of the deal, Parler also asked that Trump link to Parler again when sending to other social media sites or sending an email to his supporters, and that the company use its email lists to access the platform. promote. In addition, Parler wanted Trump to make introductions to potential investors or advertisers.

People familiar with the discussions said they were unclear whether Trump was involved in negotiations, led by Parler’s side, led by two shareholders, Wernick and Bongino, a popular right-wing personality with close ties to Trump.

Kathleen Clark, a law professor at the University of Washington Louis, said that if the agreement was implemented while Trump was still in office, he could violate anti-bribery laws. Because the former president often used his Twitter and Facebook accounts to make official communications – for example, to announce the dismissal of government officials – to gain something in exchange for making posts exclusively on another platform, it may be illegal .

“I think it would have violated the bribery law by offering him something of value – an interest in this company – in exchange for influencing an official act – where he would publish his official comments,” Clark said.

Scott Amey, chief executive at Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said the news warranted an immediate criminal investigation. “A mere act of a company to offer an interest in the president’s participation seems unethical and deserves further investigation,” he noted.

“While President Trump at the time boasted that ethical rules did not apply to him, bribery laws did apply, and courts ruled that Trump’s posts on social media were official matters while he was in office,” Amey said. ‘His posts were a preferred method for the White House to communicate with the public. If the offer includes anything of value, and Trump plans to post it on a social media platform while still in office, it will be illegally illegal, and he must be held accountable. ”

Talks to bring Trump to Parler were finally derailed by the events of January 6th. After months of doubt over election results and calls for violence on social media platforms, the president’s supporters stormed the US Capitol. Some posted photos or videos of their benefits to Parler, which became a breeding ground for organizing hate and threats before the riot.

The setback for the company came quickly, culminating in the removal of Parler from Apple and Google’s app stores and Amazon Web Services.

Matze, who said he was fired by Merler as CEO of Parler last week, told the Journal that before he was fired, he was trying to implement more content moderation so that Apple and Google could put the app back in their app. stores can allow. He said his proposal to ban groups on the basis of affiliations with designated domestic terrorist organizations was eventually rejected by the board.

In a press release on Thursday, Amy Peikoff, Parler’s chief policy officer, called Matze’s characterization of his termination “misleading”, but did not say exactly what was inaccurate.

“The owners and managers of the business have worked tirelessly to build a resilient, non-partisan platform dedicated to freedom of expression, civil discourse and privacy of users,” she said in the statement.

With Parler’s management in check, it’s unclear when the app will appear online again. With Matze gone, Mercer, who retains majority control, allegedly indicated responsibilities to Matthew Richardson, a British lawyer, and Mark Meckler, a former Tea Party activist, according to a source.

Mercer, Richardson and Meckler did not respond to requests for comment.

The company has also recently tried to raise funding, including from Narya Capital, the venture capital firm of JD Vance, the author of the popular memoir Hillbilly Elegy. Two sources told BuzzFeed News that Vance Mercer also advised on matters concerning Parler.

Vance did not comment for this story.

Trump, who has been charged with his role in inciting the uprising and is due to stand trial next week in the Senate, did not communicate any major social media issue. Parler remains calm, with a note that reads: “We will solve any challenge before us and plan to welcome you all again soon.”

On Friday, Wernick said he believes Parler will be next week and that the company has an executive team in place that has “taken up”.

For now, the latest post on the site is a January 26 mom from Matze. It contains a photo of a masked and gloved Bernie Sanders from Biden’s inauguration with a text on top of each other: ‘I wish John’s guy had to shake things up.’ ●