An account in exchange for a shareholding in the company. This is the agreement that Parler would have offered to the then president, Donald Trump, to make the online refuge for right-wing extremists and extremists his main social network.
The Trump organization, which negotiated on behalf of the president, was offered a 40% stake in Parler if Trump made an account on the platform, although nothing was ever finalized, according to documents examined by Buzzfeed news and four sources familiar with the deliberations who spoke to the press. Talks began sometime last summer and then erupted again in November, after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, apparently to have another box of soap online to blare.and profit from) his conspiracy theories on electoral fraud. According to Buzzfeed News, it is unclear how much Trump personally participated in these negotiations.
But even if nothing finally came out of the deal, just by entertaining these discussions, the Trump organization could have some serious legal headaches. The whole mess is almost certainly facing anti-bribery laws. It also triggers flashbacks when Trump tried to strongly arm Microsoft to give the US Treasury a discount on any TikTok agreement it has made.
It seems that when you put a corrupt businessman in charge of a country, he abuses his power to try to make money. Who would he have thrown himself at?
According to the press, Trump’s representatives conspired with Parler to help the platform compete with major social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. The logic is that if Trump first posted his nonsense on Parler before sharing it on other platforms, Parler served to take advantage of this exclusivity, while giving him a direct line to some of the strongest supporters of Parler. his, which had already been started everywhere else online.
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Parler considers himself “the largest platform for free expression in the world”, without being countered by the so-called policies of censorship and oppressive moderation of other platforms. Or at least, that claimed to come back when the platform was still running. It has declined since early January, when Parler was launched from Amazon’s web services, as well as from Google and Apple app stores, because it did not adopt significant moderation policies that would prevent users from posting the kind of violent content that would be contributed to fueling the attack on the Chapter. Hill last month. While Parler has since found a new web host—Epik, the domain name registrar behind other extremist repositories, such as Gab and Daily Stormer – the site remained little more than a billboard for a handful of defiant messages from Parler’s administrators and a few their right-wing elected experts.
During a White House meeting last year, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale was the first to suggest Trump get a stake in the deal with Parler, according to a source familiar with the talks who spoke to Buzzfeed News . Four sources told the press that he met with the lawyer of the Parscale and Trump campaign, Alex Cannon John Matze, CEO of Parler since then and shareholders Dan Bongino and Jeffrey Wernick at the Trump club in Mar-a-Lago, Florida to discuss a potential deal. According to Parscale, Trump was never in the picture.
“The president has never been in talks,” he told BuzzFeed News. “Discussions have never been so important. And that was just one of the many things the campaign looked at to deal with Silicon Valley’s cancellation culture. ”
After the election, Trump’s team reconsidered the idea, according to two people familiar with the matter, but talks with Parler worsened after pro-Trump insurgents launched a deadly raid on the Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the election results. Before the business collapsed, Parler offered Trump a 40 percent stake in the company, according to a December document revised by Buzzfeed News and two sources with direct knowledge of the talks. Half of the action would be taken immediately after the conclusion of the transaction, while the other half would be “divided into installments during the 24-month period of the agreement”. Instead, Trump would agree to post all of his content online on Parler at least four hours before posting it elsewhere. Parler also demanded that Trump shout at Parler whenever he posted on other social media platforms or emailed his supporters to give Parler access to his email lists. for promotional purposes and to present the company to potential investors or advertisers.
Wernick confirmed to the media that Parler was in talks with the Trump organization about installing Trump on the platform, but said that the former president was not involved in these discussions. He also challenged Buzzfeed News reports, although he did not go into details about the information he claimed to be inaccurate.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people about potential stakes in the company for producing certain things,” Wernick said.
Scott Amey, general counsel for the Nonpartisan Government Oversight Project, told reporters that the news warranted further scrutiny and “immediate criminal investigation.”
“While then-President Trump has boasted that his rules of ethics do not apply to him, the laws of bribery apply, and the courts have held that posts on Trump’s social media were official business while he was in office.” he said. “His posts were a favorite way for the White House to communicate with the public. If the offer included anything of value, and Trump planned to post on a social media platform while he was still in office, this would almost certainly be illegal and he would have to be held accountable. “
Parler did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
You certainly didn’t expect Trump’s drama to end now that he left the White House, did you? These will probably not be the last underground relations that emerge from his term and all we can do is hope that everyone will see their day in court.
[Buzzfeed News]