Charisma, an influential Pentecostal-oriented media outlet that has become an unofficial arm of Trump’s reelection campaign, is spreading dubious lurid and inflammatory claims about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
In addition to spreading spurious claims about a laptop that supposedly contains “evil and revolting” images of Biden’s son Hunter with Chinese children, a post published by Charisma Wednesday amplified the claim that right-wing propaganda site National File has obtained “a copy of the complete diary of Ashley Blazer Biden, 39-year-old daughter of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.”
National File, founded last year, is edited by Tom Pappert, whose credits include InfoWars and Breitbart. The Media Bias Fact Check site describes National File as “an extreme right Tin-Foil Hat Conspiracy website.”
The Charisma column targeting Biden’s daughter is by Amir George—not the acclaimed filmmaker by that name but an associate of former Breitbart editor and White House aide Steve Bannon and contributor to right-wing disinformation site WND. George wrote that Ashley Biden was depicted in the diary as explaining a struggle with drugs and referring to “probably not appropriate showers” with her father when she was a young girl and suggesting that she may have been molested.
National File has been publishing pages from the alleged diary, which they say “was started while the author was in a drug rehabilitation facility in Florida.” According to the site, “National File obtained this document from a whistleblower who was concerned the media organization that employs him would not publish this potential critical story in the final 10 days before the 2020 presidential election.”
In an August column in Katy Christian Magazine, George decried the “attack” on Bannon by the “anti-Christian and completely out of control Southern District of New York.” George wrote, “The 2016 election was truly a miracle led by Steve Bannon and other believers who fasted, prayed, and watched God work.”
In September, George authored a column for Charisma that was ostensibly an inquiry into whether the conspiracy-promoting QAnon was a “freedom movement or hoax”—but which promoted QAnon’s credibility by noting that Charisma CEO Stephen Strang has portrayed Trump as being under siege by the “deep state.” In that column, George promoted “a collaborative book written by 12 author/contributors and citizen journalists who have YouTube channels, blogs, Twitter followings or sub-Reddits that feature Q decodes, news and commentary,” calling it “a good guide to QAnon.”
Charisma is a multimedia company with a magazine, a network of podcasts, and a publishing house that publishes End Times author Jonathan Cahn’s bestselling books. Strang portrays Trump as anointed by God and has authored several pro-Trump books.
National File hosted right-wing events that took place around this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Pappert has run God Emperor Trump, which National File calls an “irreverent pro-Trump meme page,” which was removed by Facebook last week. He is apparently back on Facebook with a page entitled God Emperor Trump II: The Emperor Strikes Back.
