Jordan Green, Investigative Reporter

In 2019, Kathy Zhu had her title of Miss Michigan beauty queen taken from her due to offensive tweets deemed by many to be racist and Islamophobic. Almost seven years later, she’s handling digital media for the Michigan House Republicans.

Zhu has been employed as digital strategist director for the Republican Central Staff at the Michigan House of Representatives under Speaker Matt Hall since August 2025. The fact that Zhu has held the job without any public outcry might be an indicator of how thoroughly the far right has infiltrated the Michigan GOP.

“It’s very feasible that she might not feel pressure to disavow the views that she had,” Ben Lorber, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, told Raw Story. “It might help her brand to be able to say to the Michigan GOP that she’s able to tap into edgy, young, right-wing culture.”

Zhu’s rehabilitation from disgraced beauty queen to Republican state legislative aide offers an example of a Generation Z conservative who responded to public censure by doubling down on extremism, while finding acceptance from the GOP establishment.

Then the president of the College Republicans at the University of Michigan, where she was studying political science, and an avid supporter of President Donald Trump, Zhu was forced to relinquish the title of Miss Michigan after the Miss World America organization deemed her anti-Black and anti-Muslim tweets to violate its rules on “good character.”

The tweets that Miss World America flagged as “offensive, insensitive and inappropriate” included one calling on Black Lives Matter activists to address crime within the Black community before protesting police violence, and another accusing Muslim students celebrating World Hijab Day of “trying to get women used to being oppressed under Islam.”

Other tweets from Zhu’s now-suspended account, which have been archived, are even more provocative.

Zhu described Adolf Hitler as “very smart and a good public speaker” in a 2017 tweet that appears to be framed as a rhetorical parry against criticism leveled at Trump for praising North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as a “tough cookie” and a “smart guy.”

In another tweet that appears to argue against equating white supremacist violence with Islamic extremism, Zhu posted: “KKK DOESN’T BLOW UP ARENAS AND SHOUT IN THE NAME OF JESUS.” The Ku Klux Klan’s history since its founding is replete with acts of terrorism, intimidation and murder, including the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, resulting in the deaths of four Black girls. Klan members have historically cloaked their violence in Christian rhetoric.

Rather than apologize in the aftermath of the Miss Michigan controversy, Zhu went on a media tour, telling CNN in one interview, “I stand behind every tweet that I post.”

Zhu’s appearance on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” got the attention of Trump, who singled her out at Turning Point USA’s Teen Student Action Summit in Washington, DC.

“What they did to this young lady was terrible,” Trump said, adding that it “was pretty cool” that she had worn a “Make America Great Again” hat on “Fox and Friends.”

With her newfound notoriety following the controversy, Zhu networked with an array of influencers to the right of the mainstream MAGA movement and Turning Point USA, the pro-Trump group led by the late Charlie Kirk.

Zhu reportedly attended a dinner in September 2019 with Nick Fuentes and other far-right luminaries described by People for the American Way as “white nationalist and anti-Semitic content creators.” Turning Point USA severed ties with one of its brand ambassadors who attended the dinner, while denouncing white nationalism as “abhorrent and un-American.”

At the time, Fuentes, a rising influencer with a history of questioning the Holocaust and praising Hitler, was dispatching his followers to Turning Point USA events to heckle speakers and pose questions intended to embarrass them over their support for Israel in a campaign known as the “Groyper wars.”

At the time of the September 2019 dinner with Zhu, Fuentes had recently attacked a conservative commentator for condemning a mass murder carried out by a white supremacist targeting Latinos at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Fuentes, during a livestream that was apparently cut from his podcast, reportedly called Matt Walsh a “shabbos goy race traitor” who worked for Jews. Walsh was employed by the Daily Caller, owned by Ben Shapiro.

Fuentes has said that he and Zhu were in contact during the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and that he later saw her in Orlando, Florida. Fuentes' comments don’t explain the circumstances of the meeting, but his group, America First Political Action Committee, hosted conferences in Orlando in February 2021 and February 2022.

It’s unclear whether Zhu and Fuentes have remained in contact.

While working as a scheduler and director of operations for Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) from 2022 to 2025, Zhu maintained a relatively low profile and stayed out of the headlines. In a 2025 LinkedIn post, Zhu said she had earned a master of arts in global security studies from Johns Hopkins University and was undergoing “spiritual transformation” as a convert to Catholicism.

Zhu could not be reached for this story. While she has not publicly renounced any of the views expressed in her past social media posts, it’s unclear whether she still holds them. It’s also unclear whether she views herself as being aligned with Fuentes and his Groyper movement.

Regardless, the views of someone like Fuentes, who dined with Trump in 2022, are no longer out of line in the Republican Party. By early 2024, Kirk, formerly the standard-bearer of youth conservatism in the Trump era and the one-time target of Fuentes’ attacks, had voiced white nationalist talking points. Conservative writer Rod Dreher reported last November that a D.C. insider estimated that "between 30 and 40 percent of of the Zoomers who work in official Washington are fans of Nick Fuentes."

“I can say since 2019 the spectrum of respectable, young, conservative opinion has gotten closer to Nick Fuentes,” Lorber said. “For someone like [Zhu], a past association with Nick Fuentes is really not much of a deal-breaker in the way it might have once been.”

The office of Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall did not respond to messages from Raw Story inquiring whether he was aware of Zhu’s history of losing her Miss Michigan title for her controversial social media posts at the time she was hired for the job of digital strategist director.

Hall, whose party took control of the Michigan House in January 2025, has not shied from controversy. In Trumpy fashion, he reportedly attacked a Democratic colleague by calling her “a very low IQ representative” and “probably one of the dumbest ones in the legislature” during a weekly press conference last year.

Hall held on to his leadership position over the objections of at least one of his Republican colleagues after the Daily Beast reported that he was accused of domestic violence against his girlfriend and interfering with a 911 call in 2019, but was never charged.

Hall has also acknowledged sending an email threatening to kill a college student in 2001, although he told the police he did not actually have any intent to harm the recipient. Hall reportedly wrote in the email, “We are going to impose our Southern ways on you! I’ve got a shotgun rifle and I just put a bullet in it with your name on it!”

Since 2019, views once considered taboo, such as the idea that America should be a Christian nation and that white people are being replaced, have become widely accepted in the Republican Party.

“She may very well be encouraging Michigan politicians to adopt some of that edgy, right-wing culture to connect with young conservatives,” Lorber said. “It might even be a benefit for her to say that she’s been an influencer. It really doesn’t matter if she’s secretly a Groyper, or has no connection to those views. There’s such a wide acceptance of the views that used to be considered beyond the pale that she can fit comfortably in the young GOP.”

MORRISVILLE, N.C. — When the Department of Homeland Security surged federal agents into North Carolina last November, they pledged to “target criminal aliens” and go after “the worst of the worst — including murderers, rapists, and pedophiles.”

But in one case reviewed by Raw Story, federal immigration authorities received a tip about a 24-year-old Guatemalan national suspected of involvement in the kidnapping and rape of a 16-year-old girl — and they repeatedly missed the opportunity to detain him, despite him being in police custody.

Federal immigration authorities appear to have learned about Maynor Godinez-Mendez when a detective with the Fuquay-Varina Police Department contacted the FBI’s Human Trafficking Division. When Godinez-Mendez was interviewed following his arrest on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a federal Homeland Security Investigations agent was present and translated.

Even after Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, received a notification from a detention officer that he was in a local jail, they still failed to take Godinez-Mendez into custody, and he was released on his own recognizance four hours later.

The day after Godinez-Mendez’s release from jail, the Department of Homeland Security announced “Operation Charlotte’s Web.” Border Patrol “stormed” North Carolina’s largest city “in unmarked SUVs and masks, sweeping up hundreds of people,” as described in the Charlotte Observer. In the midst of the five-day blitz, the operation briefly expanded into the booming area about 150 miles to the northeast surrounding the state capitol of Raleigh, which includes Fuquay-Varina.

Chafed by the agency’s fumbled response involving Godinez-Mendez, an ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations supervisor tasked a team with apprehending the suspect. But based on faulty intelligence, ICE staked out the wrong house.

During an arrest operation on Dec. 2, 2025, agents in unmarked SUVs converged on a different man and blocked him at the entrance of a shopping center in Morrisville. When the man tried to back up and drive away, an agent rammed his car through a hedgerow, spun the vehicle around, and pushed it into a parked car.

The driver was not Godinez-Mendez, but rather another Guatemalan. His name was Milton Roblero.

When the agents took Roblero into custody, they determined that he had an outstanding order for deportation. Federal prosecutors charged him with forcibly assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon and willfully damaging government property.

Roblero’s lawyer filed a motion to dismiss, while questioning whether the agent who rammed his vehicle “violated ICE’s own policy and regulations restricting offensive driving techniques.” The shopping center includes a daycare, and the motion contends that ICE policy prohibits using offensive driving techniques “in school zones where children are present or going to or from school or where the danger to the public outweighs the enforcement benefit.”

Surveillance video shows ICE ramming Milton Roblero's vehicle during his arrest in Morrisville, N.C. on Dec. 2, 2025. (federal courts) roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms

The government did not directly address the question of whether ICE violated its policies, only saying in a court filing that the agents’ use of a vehicle for an administrative arrest was “appropriate.” But a filing in federal court on Monday indicates the government agreed to plead down the charges to a misdemeanor for impeding federal immigration officers’ traffic interdiction efforts. The agreement notes that Roblero will be removed to Guatemala following resolution of federal charges.

Andreina Malki, the defense manager for the immigrant advocacy group Siembra NC, told Raw Story Roblero’s arrest fits a pattern of unsafe activity by ICE.

“They used unmarked vehicles that don’t have any indication that they might be ICE,” she said. “If you’re a person driving, and unmarked cars try to block you in, you would probably try to leave. The fact that he got rammed and then got a charge for using his vehicle as a weapon — the story doesn’t add up. It’s not clear to the people being stopped who’s stopping them.”

Lindsay Williams, an ICE spokesperson, told Raw Story he couldn’t speak to the specifics of Roblero’s arrest.

A missing person case leads to a call to the FBI’s Human Trafficking Division

The circumstances that led to Roblero’s arrest began three weeks earlier with a missing person case that developed into a kidnapping and rape investigation.

Police in Fuquay-Varina, a town on the southwestern fringe of Raleigh, received a frantic phone call from a woman who reported that her 16-year-old daughter was missing (Raw Story is withholding the girl’s name because she is a juvenile). According to the police investigative report obtained through federal court filings, the daughter had texted: “Mommy and Daddy, I’m sorry for doing this to you, and well, I’m not coming home. I love you all very much.” The mother’s calls went straight to voicemail.

After interviewing the girl’s younger cousins, the police were able to get the name of a former boyfriend, then a residential address, and ultimately a description of a vehicle registered to the address. Using a law enforcement database, the police determined that the vehicle, a 2012 Hyundai Accent, had been repeatedly observed at an apartment complex in Cary, a nearby city.

Two Fuquay-Varina police officers went to the apartment complex the day after the 16-year-old girl had disappeared. As the officers were speaking with two females, the 16-year-old girl walked out of the apartment. She told the officers that the owner of the Hyundai was “Maynor,” and that he was in the car with another man named “William” when they picked her up.

Initially, the 16-year-old girl told the police that she had run away because of problems at home, and that nothing happened to her at the apartment. She said she had only watched TV and slept.

But on Nov. 13, two days after the 16-year-old girl was returned to her family, she told Cpl. Cassaundra Sullivan that William Godinez-Ramirez had called her and told her to go to an Indian grocery store. When she got into the car, according to Sullivan’s notes, Godinez-Ramirez told the 16-year-old girl to throw her phone out the window. She refused, and Godinez-Ramirez reportedly got out of the car, opened her door, grabbed the phone and threw it away. The girl told the officer that another man, Maynor Godinez-Mendez, and his wife were also in the car. They drove to a car wash, switched cars, and drove on to the apartment in Cary.

Summarizing what Sullivan learned from her interview, Detective Salvatore Fundaro wrote that the 16-year-old girl “reported that Godinez-Ramirez raped her” and “also reported that Godinez-Ramirez told her that he was going to kill her family if she didn’t leave with him.”

Fundaro consulted with the Wake County District Attorney’s Office, and he said he was advised to keep investigating before charging with rape and kidnapping, but he swore out warrants for contributing to the delinquency of a minor for both Godinez-Ramirez and Godinez-Mendez.

The federal authorities appear to have learned about the investigation of the two men on Nov. 12. That day, Fundaro wrote, he contacted the FBI’s Human Trafficking Division for assistance with the case. What raised his suspicions was that the 16-year-old girl had told her parents that she was going to a job, but her employer told the detective she hadn’t shown up for work for the past three months.

On the same day, a federal immigration officer signed a Department of Homeland Security administrative arrest warrant for Godinez-Mendez.

Accompanied by the Homeland Security Investigations agent, Fundaro interviewed Godinez-Mendez at the Morrisville Police Department. Godinez-Mendez “could not offer a logical reason as to why they switched vehicles,” Fundaro wrote. The detective asked if the reason was “because they knew they had committed a crime and wanted to avoid apprehension,” but Godinez-Mendez denied that.

Susan Weis, a spokesperson for the town of Fuquay-Varina said she was unable to comment because the case remains under investigation. The town also cannot “comment on another agency’s procedures,” she said.

Godinez-Mendez wound up spending six hours in the Wake County Detention Center, but ICE did not respond to a detainer inquiry from the jail or take the opportunity to place him in custody.

“Immigration warrants take a back seat to criminal charges,” Williams, the ICE spokesman, told Raw Story. “If he was arrested for something serious, we would let that process play out.”

Williams’ statement appears to be at odds with the bellicose language in the DHS press release, issued the day after Godinez-Mendez’s release, that takes aim at “criminal aliens” and “sanctuary politicians.”

“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens hurting them, their families, or their neighbors,” then-Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. “We are surging law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed. There have been too many victims of criminal illegal aliens. President Trump and [former] Secretary [Kristi] Noem will step up to protect Americans when sanctuary politicians won’t.”

Only slightly more than half the people detained by federal immigration agents during “Operation Charlotte’s Web” had a criminal record, according to data recently released by the Deportation Data Project.

Asked to reconcile the seeming contradiction between the administration’s rhetoric about targeting the most serious criminals and the imperative to let charges play out in state courts, Williams said: “We’re going to deport him, whether it’s now or seven years from now. We ideally want folks to be held accountable for their crimes. The deportation order doesn’t expire. The system will take effect.”

‘I want to get hands on him’

The morning of Godinez-Mendez’s release from the Wake County Detention Center, an immigration agent identified in emails obtained by Raw Story by the initials “CD” forwarded the detainer inquiry to an ICE supervisor.

“Here is the lead you forwarded to us but not in custody,” the agent wrote.

The supervisor, identified only by the initials “SC,” forwarded the message to another agent.

“Biometrics did not hit as expected,” the supervisor wrote. “I wish we had a heads up. Magistrate bonded him out last night. He was there for 6 hours. They only charged him with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

“I want to get hands on him,” the message continued. “What can you provide to assist? His booking record has an address in Morrisville. Work location? Vehicle info?”

An email shows an ICE supervisor expressing disappointment that they did not take Maynor Godinez-Mendez into custody before he was released from the Wake County Detention Center on Nov. 14, 2025.Federal courts

On Nov 29, an ICE agent conducted surveillance on the house in Morrisville, observing through binoculars from a distance of 200 yards away. The agent watched an individual identified as “Target 1” leave the house and drive away in a red Honda Civic, and also leave the house and get into a white truck. It’s unclear who the agent actually saw.

After the ICE agent witnessed a man leave the house and drive away in a red Honda Civic on Dec. 2, he radioed the arrest team — eight agents, including three on loan from Homeland Security Investigations. Given Godinez-Mendez’s “pattern of life,” the agents anticipated that he would drive to the nearby shopping center.

But the man they arrested was not Godinez-Mendez.

ICE ageents rammed Milton Roblero's red Honda through a hedgerow and spun it around before arresting him in Morrisville, N.C. on Dec. 2, 2025.Federal courts

None of the federal court documents or local police investigative reports reviewed by Raw Story implicate Milton Roblero, the man arrested by ICE on Dec. 2, in the kidnapping and rape investigation

About three weeks later, the real suspect was arrested on state criminal charges of felony conspiracy and felonious restraint. On the same day he was booked, for the second time, in the Wake County Detention Center, a magistrate issued a 48-hour hold to allow ICE to take him into custody.

ICE did not respond. On Dec. 28, he was released on a $25,000 bond.

Following his indictment in February, Godinez-Mendez was finally deported by Homeland Security Investigations, Melanie Shekita, a Wake County prosecutor, told Raw Story.

Markwayne Mullin, the new head of Homeland Security, arranged for a group promoting a debunked claim about election software linked to Venezuela being used to manipulate U.S. votes to meet with the Trump campaign three weeks before the 2024 election, Raw Story has learned.

Martin Rodil, a Washington, D.C. area consultant, briefed Susie Wiles — then co-campaign manager and now chief of staff to President Donald Trump — at Mar-a-Lago in October 2024. Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com CEO, has said Mullin, then a U.S. senator, arranged that meeting.

Claims about election software supposedly controlled by Venezuelan leadership occupied a prominent place in failed lawsuits brought by lawyer Sidney Powell seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. Now, in the wake of the U.S. military strike against Venezuela and Republicans facing political headwinds in the upcoming midterm elections, Trump allies with the ear of the administration have begun to revive the claims.

Byrne hailed the appointment of Mullin to lead DHS “as a fantastic decision by President Trump” in an X post earlier this month. He went on to say that Mullin “got my partner into” Mar-a-Lago in October 2024, and that his associate “spent three days briefing the team there on elections, Venezuela, and what had to be done November 5.”

Byrne confirmed to Raw Story that his “partner” was Rodil.

Byrne was out of the country at the time, and did not attend the meeting, but he described himself as part of a “three-man team,” along with Rodil and Gary Berntsen, a retired CIA senior operations officer, that assembled a package of information to present to the Trump campaign and Elon Musk. Berntsen, in turn, described Rodil in an interview with far-right podcaster Lara Logan as his “business partner,” adding that Byrne “bankrolled” a group of “Venezuelan whistleblowers” that he and Rodil assembled.

An email to the White House Press Office seeking comment from Wiles for this story went unreturned.

During his interview with Logan, which was published in November 2025 before the U.S. military attacked Venezuela and seized its president, Nicolás Maduro, Berntsen claimed that the electronic election systems company Smartmatic, through the sale of a subsidiary to rival Dominion Voting Systems, gained “control” of more than 20 percent of the U.S. market, “primarily the swing states for electing president of the United States.” He went on to claim that Smartmatic has “two missions: number one, steal elections, and, number two, defeat audit.”

The group claimed Smartmatic had originally been created in Venezuela to fix elections, and was controlled by Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez.

In a separate interview with Logan in January, Rodil claimed that Cuba, China, Russia and Iran have been manipulating U.S. elections through Venezuela-controlled election software.

"And they install their own software — the Venezuelan narco-software in that company," Rodil said. "So, for many years in the U.S., the American people have been voting on a software built on a cartel of drugs."

A judge in Delaware ruled in September 2024 that those claims are false, writing that “statements regarding Smartmatic software or voting machines altering the results” of the 2020 election “are factually false” in a defamation lawsuit brought by the election technology company against the far-right network Newsmax.

It is unclear whether Berntsen was present for the meeting with Wiles and Rodil, but in his interview with Logan, he described a presentation that matches the Mar-a-Lago meeting.

“A month before the election, we showed it to the Trump people,” he said. “We went to them and gave them the brief. They looked at it in horror. And they had real concerns.”

Berntsen and Byrne have said Trump himself is aware of their claims, and their assertion is backed up by a TruthSocial post in which the president amplified Logan’s interview with Berntsen.

“We must focus all our energy and might on ELECTION FRAUD!!” Trump wrote, while sharing a link to the video of Berntsen’s interview.

Mullin opened to the doors at Mar-a-Lago to election deniers

Both Byrne and Berntsen said Mullin helped open doors for them at Mar-a-Lago.

Byrne told Raw Story that prior to the Mar-a-Lago meeting, the team approached members of the House Freedom Caucus, including Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), before the 2024 election, but those members deemed the information to be “too radioactive.” In contrast, Byrne said, Mullin was willing to help.

“That guy saved America because he was the one that got my partners into Mar-a-Lago,” Byrne said.

Berntsen similarly praised Mullin as “one politician in America” who “was not afraid.”

Mullin could not be reached for comment for this story, and an email to the Department of Homeland Security went unreturned.

But in an interview with far-right podcaster Benny Johnson in December, Mullin signaled that he was open to considering unfounded claims that Venezuela could perpetrate fraud in American elections.

“Venezuela has been a hub for this,” Mullin told Johnson. “There’s a relationship between China and Russia that’s also involved in this. And we know they have been trying to get involved in our elections…. We also allowed those investors to be part of some of the stuff we thought was unpenetrable, which had been some of our election cycles and our election machines and the way we look at to it.” [sic]

Mullin has a history of election denial. As a House representative, Mullin voted against certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election. When asked during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month who won the election, Mullin would only say, “We know that President Joe Biden was sworn into office.”

Concerns that Trump could deploy ICE to polling places

As secretary of Homeland Security, Mullin now oversees the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, which, among other roles, is responsible for working with state and local governments and the private sector “to manage risks to the nation’s election infrastructure.”

Homeland Security also includes Immigration & Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, two agencies that have undergone a transformation into paramilitary forces that have racially profiled immigrants while violently arresting and even killing immigrants and civilian bystanders during campaign in Democratic-governed cities that many residents have viewed as an “occupation.” During his confirmation hearing, Mullin said he would consider deploying federal officers to polling locations “if there was specific threat.”

Steve Bannon, former White House strategist and a close ally of the president, said on his podcast last week that the recent deployment of ICE agents to U.S. airports could serve as “a test run, a test case to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm elections.”

Meanwhile, Trump said during an appearance on the podcast of former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino last month that Republicans should “take over the voting” in at least 15 states and “nationalize” elections. Preceding his call to action, the president complained that “these people were brought to our country, and they vote illegally.” (There is no evidence of widespread systemic voter fraud by immigrants or anyone else.)

Election deniers have long embraced theories about foreign interference in U.S. elections as a trigger for justifying the president to issue emergency orders on national security grounds.

The 2024 meeting at Mar-a-Lago is not the first time Byrne has been involved in a group effort to bring extraordinary claims about election fraud to Trump’s inner circle — and call on the president to seize control of elections.

In December 2020, Byrne, Powell and retired Lt. General Michael Flynn showed up at the Oval Office and claimed that Venezuela had meddled in the 2020 election, while recommending that Trump seize voting machinery in key counties or deploy the National Guard to re-run the election.

Trump did not take the advice to seize voting machinery and re-run the election at that time. Instead, a couple hours later, the president sent out a tweet summoning his supporters to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, adding, "Be there, will be wild!"

Last week, speaking as a guest host of “InfoWars” — the show hosted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has been ordered to pay a $1.4 billion defamation judgment to the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims — Byrne again urged Trump to interfere in an election that will determine the balance of power in the country.

“He’s got to do it — he can’t do it through the legislature and the [Department of Justice],” Byrne said. “He’s got to use his war powers, national security powers, Department of War, or use the National Guard and run a simple, old-fashioned election like we teach Burma how to do it. At the end of the day, he can do everything — and he needs to — as a national emergency.”

Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex trafficker, attempted to arrange a meeting between Steve Bannon, the right-wing strategist who helped bring Donald Trump to power, and leaders of the MeToo-inspired group Time’s Up, Raw Story has learned.

Phone texts exchanged between Epstein and Bannon in March 2018 show Epstein telling Bannon that an intermediary, Joichi “Joi” Ito — then the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab — had agreed to set up the meeting.

“Joi will organize a meeting with the powers behind Time’s up,” Epstein told Bannon on March 26, 2018, according to the text, which was included in the massive trove of files released by the U.S. Justice Department in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Text from Jeffrey Epstein to Steve Bannon discussing plans for a meeting between Bannon and the leadership of Time's Up.U.S. Department of Justice

Time’s Up launched in January 2018 by 300 prominent women in the entertainment industry to raise awareness about sexual misconduct and push for gender parity in Hollywood, in the wake of revelations about movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s pattern of rape and harassment.

Bannon, who had served as chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign and as White House strategist, represented an opposing current in the shifting cultural tides of the first Trump administration.

Before joining the Trump campaign, Bannon had led Breitbart News. Under Bannon’s watch, the outlet promoted Gamergate, a digital mob that harassed women in the video-game industry while giving expression to a right-wing backlash against feminism and racial diversity that would become a potent political force. Known as the “alt-right” at the time, the movement helped propel Trump to power.

The effort to broker a meeting between Bannon and the Time’s Up leadership — two entities at seemingly opposing poles — has not been previously reported.

Epstein added in parentheses after the text to Bannon about the proposed meeting that “they prefer academic setting for cover,” suggesting that he had at least discussed the idea with someone at Time’s Up.

The texts do not identify Epstein’s contact at the organization. But two years earlier, Michelle Kydd, who would go on to become a founding member of Time’s Up, had recommended two public relations professionals to Epstein, as first reported by Page Six Hollywood.

At the time of Kydd’s 2016 email, Epstein had pleaded guilty to child prostitution and had served jail time.

Ito initially put Kydd, a member of his advisory council at MIT Media Lab, in touch with Epstein in 2014. Ito described Kydd, who is the chief innovation officer at Creative Artists Agency, to Epstein as “sort of the ‘mother’ of Hollywood,” who “famous people under the protection of CAA go to when they get in trouble.”

A request for comment left by Raw Story for Kydd at Creative Artists Agency went unreturned.

The texts exchanged between Epstein and Bannon in 2018 show that Bannon was interested in meeting with the Time’s Up leaders.

Three days after initially broaching the idea of a meeting, Epstein raised the topic again.

“We should probably figure out your first meeting with the Time’s Up powers,” Epstein texted. “Academic setting to give them cover. Probably MIT.”

“Yes,” Bannon replied.

“Joi agreed,” Epstein said.

“Wow,” Bannon responded.

Texts exchanged between Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon discussing plans for a meeting with Time's Up.U.S. Department of Justice

It is unclear whether the meeting between Bannon and Time’s Up ever took place, but emails show that Epstein and Ito had planned to meet in Cambridge, Mass. on March 25 — the day before Epstein suggested the idea to Bannon — and that Epstein and Ito had attempted to schedule a phone call two days before that.

Bannon also spent the day with Epstein in Cambridge on March 25, although it’s unclear whether Bannon and Ito met directly.

“I have all day Sunday. Harvard MIT, [former Harvard President] Larry Summers etc.,” Epstein texted Bannon on March 23. “You are always welcome to join.”

“Pulling up,” Bannon wrote to Epstein on March 25 at 12:09 p.m.

The next day Bannon texted Epstein: “Thanks for yesterday — really terrific day.”

Ito could not be reached for comment.

Ito resigned from his position at MIT following Epstein’s 2019 arrest. He later received appointment as president of the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan.

Following the latest round of revelations about Ito’s association with Epstein following the recent release of files by the U.S. Justice Department, Ito announced he was stepping away from a Japanese government technology initiative known as the Global Startup Campus Initiative.

A statement from the Chiba Institute of Technology said Ito “reaffirmed he was never aware of the existence of any illegal or improper conduct” with regard to Epstein, “and has never been involved in any illegal or improper conduct.”

Raw Story was not able to reach Bannon for comment. But the right-wing nationalist avatar’s interest in Time’s Up has been well-publicized.

At the time of the proposed meeting, Bannon had become estranged from Trump, having been fired from his position as White House strategist six months earlier. Shortly after leaving the Trump administration, Bannon backed Republican Roy Moore in the special election to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat in Alabama in the fall of 2017, even after accusations by several women that Moore had sexually assaulted them when they were girls caused his candidacy to implode.

In 2018 and 2019, Bannon embarked on a global campaign to promote a right-wing populist movement and far-right nationalist candidates, including Marine LePen in France, Mario Salvini in Italy and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.

In February 2018, Bannon publicly expressed admiration for Time’s Up, telling GQ that he had “never seen such potential power in something,” adding that he considered Time’s Up “a reaction to this populist movement, this nationalist movement.”

During an event in Zurich, Switzerland about a week later, Bannon reportedly praised Time’s Up as representing “an empowered grassroots on the left” that “focused on power dynamics in society and asks deep and searching questions that are going to have to be answered.”

Bannon contrasted Time’s Up with the nationalist movement that he had helped build in the United States and abroad, while predicting “these two forces are going to collide, and we’re going to see who wins and who loses.”

While Bannon characterized Time’s Up as “anti-patriarchy,” he had previously recognized the latent power of teenage gamers, whom he typified as “rootless white males” to biographer Joshua Green. Bannon described his appreciation for Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor who was forced to resign from Breitbart in 2017 following the revelation of comments that appeared to condone pedophilia.

“I realized Milo could connect with these [gamers] right away,” Bannon told Green. “You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned onto politics and Trump.”

Texts exchanged between Epstein and Bannon during the Senate Judiciary hearings to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in September 2018 reveal that while the two men may have publicly praised Time’s Up, their private views were far less favorable.

“Your Times Up movement strength,” Epstein texted to Bannon. “Prophetic in Kavanaugh.”

“Scary,” Bannon responded.

“Every guy can visualize himself sitting in that chair, being harangued by [Sen. Kamala] Harris, [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein] etc.,” Epstein continued. “Did you grab, grope. How many drinks. How often. Can you categorically deny it didn’t happen. Yikes.”

“The victim must be heard and must believed,” Bannon said.

A couple days later, Epstein told Bannon he believed Time’s Up was behind the scrutiny of Kavanaugh for alleged sexual misconduct, adding that “they want a woman on the court.”

Whatever benefit Bannon and Epstein may have seen in forging a relationship with Time’s Up, a scandal involving leaders of the organization maneuvering behind the scenes to protect one powerful man led to its eventual downfall.

Following revelations that Time’s Up CEO Tina Tchen discouraged public comments about sexual harassment allegations against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and that Tchen and board chair Roberta Kaplan offered advice to Cuomo, the organization ceased operations in 2023.

A neo-Nazi who embraces terrorism has been ordered held in pre-trial detention as a danger to the community by a federal magistrate judge following his arrest for illegally possessing a firearm.

Mathew David Bair, a leader of the neo-Nazi accelerationist group Injekt Division, was arrested in Pennsylvania by the FBI last week.

A former Marine who was court-martialed out of the service for larceny and sale of classified materials, Bair joined the riot at the U.S. Capitol as a member of First Capitol Proud Boys, as Trump supporters attempted to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6.

From his time as a Proud Boy, Bair increasingly gravitated to a violent brand of white supremacist extremism. He told Raw Story in 2024 that “the fascist pipeline is very real,” and that he had been “in a direct pipeline chapter.”

Bair’s radicalization led him to Injekt Division, a neo-Nazi accelerationist group whose former leader was arrested in May 2021 for allegedly plotting to carry out a mass shooting at a Texas Walmart.

“I would say they’re very much in line with the Terrorgram milieu,” Hannah Gais, a senior researcher and journalist at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Raw Story. “I think obviously given their origin, they have clear ties to violence.”

Terrorgram Collective is a global network that has encouraged mass shootings, political assassinations and infrastructure attacks through online propaganda, which inspired a deadly school shooting spree in Brazil, a fatal mass shooting at an LGBTQ+ bar in Slovakia and a mass stabbing in Turkey, as well as assassination attempts and thwarted attacks on electrical substations. Dallas Humber, one of the group’s leaders, is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to soliciting hate crimes and murder.

In 2023, Bair posted a video depicting a flyer reading, “Shoot your local judge.” Asked about the flyer by Raw Story, Bair brought up an incident in which an extremist went to the home of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas and fatally shot her son. Salas has frequently spoken out against threats directed at judges who cross President Trump over the past year.

Extremist researchers and antifascist activists have closely monitored Bair due, in part, to his provocative online presence. They include a Telegram message showing members posing in tactical gear and skull masks outside what appears to be a power plant while displaying firearms and their group flag.

Another Telegram message linked to Bair shows a ballistic vest, flags and pistols draped over a car seat accompanied by text indicating the author was traveling to Washington, DC on Jan. 24, 2025, a date that coincides with the March for Life. The annual event typically draws both far-right extremists and left-wing counterprotesters. Carrying firearms is prohibited in Washington, D.C., with a few exceptions that include law enforcement.

An indictment returned on March 4 alleges that Bair possessed an Aero Precision rifle and Ruger pistol while knowing that he had been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than a year. Bair pleaded not guilty following his arrest on March 11.

A magistrate judge in Harrisburg, Pa. ordered Bair to be held in pre-trial detention, partly on the basis that his release poses serious danger to a person or the community. The magistrate also cited Bair’s prior criminal history, prior parole violations, prior failures to appear in court, and the strength of evidence supporting the gun charge.

Dawn Clark, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, declined to comment in response to questions about why the government argued that Bair is a danger to a person or the community, or whether the government is concerned that Bair has attempted to intimidate judges.

Beatrice Diehl, an assistant federal public defender assigned to represent Bair, also declined to comment.

An undated photo of Mathew Bair from an Injekt Division Telegram chatVia Telegram

While becoming increasingly immersed in violent neo-Nazi activity, Bair remained committed to Trump. In July 2024, shortly after Trump accepted the nomination at the Republican National Convention, an Injekt Division Telegram channel linked to Bair posted video of a rally in Michigan in which neo-Nazis chanted, “We love Hitler, we love Trump.”

In late 2023, Bair joined 2119, a teenage neo-Nazi gang, after four of its members, ages 15 to 18, were arrested in Pensacola, Fla. for a hate-fueled vandalism spree that included brick attacks on two synagogues. 2-1-19 is an alphanumeric code that stands for Blood and Soil, with 2 representing B for “Blood,” 1 representing A for “And” and 19 representing “S.” for “Soil.” Blood and Soil is the English translation for Blut und Boden, a popular phrase during the Third Reich that suggests a mystical bond between a racialized ideal and the land of Germany.

The group previously went by the moniker Revolutionary White Brotherhood, or RWB.

Then 34, Bair was by far the oldest member of 2119, which was the focus of a February 2024 investigation by Raw Story. Bair posted a photo on the social media platform Telegram that showed his 4-year-old son posing next to 2119 graffiti.

In March 2024, the [2119] Sons of Pennsylvania Telegram channel, likely operated by Bair, posted a video of two men driving a pickup truck to the Pennsylvania State Police barracks in York, and depositing a brick inscribed with the letters R-W-B at the front door, declaring as they departed: “White f------ power.”

2119 went into decline following the Raw Story investigation. By mid-2014, the group had disbanded as its leader lowered his profile and members found themselves caught in the middle of intra-movement rivalries between larger white nationalist organizations. Injekt Division likely contributed to 2119’s demise by doxxing a leader of 2119’s California chapter after he admitted to “snitch[ing] on” another member.

Bair is not the only associate of 2119 who has faced arrest in recent months.

Aiden Cuevas, an Alabama neo-Nazi who enthusiastically promoted 2119, was indicted alongside Andrew Nary for conspiracy to traffic firearms after allegedly buying machine guns from an undercover FBI employee while planning to start a paramilitary and requesting training to “take out” so-called “high-value targets.

Cuevas and Nary both entered not guilty pleas before a federal magistrate judge in Huntsville, Ala. last week.

Last month, David William Fair, a probationary member of the racist skinhead group Vinlanders Social Club, was indicted in North Carolina for felony soliciting gang activity and contributing the delinquency of a minor.

Fair had administered a Telegram chat that Bair joined in 2023. That same year, following the Pensacola arrests, Fair counseled Cuevas in another Telegram chat that 2119 should exercise more discretion to avoid criminal prosecution.

The story previously stated that Bair and a second man deposited a brick outside the York Police Department. The story has been corrected to reflect that they deposited the brick outside a Pennsylvania State Police barracks in York.