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Right-wing internet troll-turned-anti-MAGA commentator Chuck Johnson may end up in prison over a fraud and extortion lawsuit in which he was found to have lied to victims by presenting himself as an intelligence asset.<\/p>\n
Johnson, whose name has resurfaced in recent months over his false claims regarding Jeffrey Epstein, finds himself at the mercy of a court-appointed receiver who has been ordered by a federal judge to carry out a $71 million ruling against him. He was accused of lying about being an intelligence asset as part of an \u201cextortion scheme,\u201d in which he threatened investors with \u201csabotage\u201d if they did not give him favorable investment terms.<\/p>\n
Now, the fight over his assets appears to have extended to a criminal investigation, with the judge asking the receiver to report \u201cany potential criminal conduct or wrongdoing\u201d by Johnson. Johnson was thrown in jail late last year for contempt after he failed to disclose his assets to the court.<\/p>\n
In an April 13 filing<\/a>, the court says Johnson\u2019s conduct \u201cbears the hallmarks of conduct consistent with wire fraud \u2026 and money laundering,\u201d adding that it \u201cmay constitute criminal perjury or false declarations.\u201d The statements are, for now, based on a status report of the ongoing probe, and not a definitive conclusion of law.<\/p>\n Johnson, who was labeled a \u201csociopathic liar\u201d in the initial case, has reemerged in the press due to years-old fantastical claims he made to the FBI about Jeffrey Epstein that were released in the Epstein files. Among the unsourced claims by Johnson were that President Trump was \u201ccompromised by Israel.\u201d He also claimed that Jared Kushner, Trump\u2019s Jewish son-in-law, was running the presidency in his first term.<\/p>\n The 2020 claims from Johnson were picked up by other anti-Semitic activists such as Dave Smith and Hasan Piker, who made no mention of the fact that Johnson had no basis for any of his claims.<\/p>\n FBI documents show Johnson was making similar unsourced claims about others in Trump\u2019s orbit. One FBI report from May 2020 shows that Johnson claimed to the intelligence bureau that Sergio Gor, a top Trump official who is now his ambassador to India, was a \u201cRussian spy.\u201d He also said that Arthur Schwartz, another close ally of Trump, was a \u201cspy.\u201d Neither claim was paired with any evidence.<\/p>\n \u201cChuck Johnson is a complete loser who has failed at everything in life,\u201d Schwartz told The Daily Wire. \u201cLike many others in Washington, I look forward to the day that he\u2019s sentenced to a lengthy and well-deserved term of incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson, who has referred to The Daily Wire as an \u201cIsraeli propaganda rag,\u201d is open about his Jew hatred. He regularly associates with both Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes, and is a Holocaust denier<\/a>, saying that both \u201cAuschwitz and the gas chambers\u201d are not real.<\/p>\n \u201cI love Nick Fuentes,\u201d Johnson wrote<\/a> in July 2024. \u201cI avow him.\u201d<\/p>\n Though Johnson is often represented as a far-right figure, he is now politically aligned with Democrats, and supported Kamala Harris over Trump in 2024. He liked Joe Biden, he said, but liked Harris even more because of her stance on Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cI am a huge Joe Biden fan, and will remain such on domestic matters, but he has deferred to the Israelis way too much,\u201d Johnson said during the 2024 campaign, \u201cand I think to some extent, Kamala Harris is going to be a bit more aggressive towards them.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson\u2019s handler at the FBI was reportedly Jonathan Buma, who became a favorite of liberal media for claims he made in 2023 that the bureau was biased in favor of Trump.<\/p>\n