Parler offered a stake to the Trump Organization if he joined

The Trump Organization negotiated on behalf of then President Donald Trump to make Parler his main social network, but it had one condition: shareholding in exchange for membership, according to documents and four people familiar with the talks. The deal was never finalized, but legal experts said that only the discussions, which took place while Trump was still in office, raise legal concerns over anti-bribery laws.

Talks between Trump and Parler campaign members about Trump’s potential involvement began last summer and were revisited in November by the Trump Organization after Trump lost the 2020 election to Democratic candidate and current president, Joe Biden. Documents seen by BuzzFeed News show that Parler offered Trump Organization a 40% stake in the company. It is not clear to what extent the former president was involved in the discussions.

The never-before-reported conversations between Trump’s business organization and Parler, a social media network that promises less moderation than conventional websites and is embraced by the far right, provide more information about the past frantic 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 these internet platforms to sell unfounded conspiracy theories. In doing so, his representatives actively negotiated to bring him to Parler, who sought to make the president a business partner who would help him compete with Twitter and Facebook by getting him to post his content first on his platform.

Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale raised the idea for Trump to take an equity stake in Parler during a meeting at the White House last year, according to a source familiar with the talks. Parscale soon became interested in Parler and reportedly considered creating an account for Trump on the site in 2019 as a bulwark against Twitter and Facebook.

Four sources told BuzzFeed News that Parscale and Trump’s campaign attorney Alex Cannon met with Parler CEO John Matze and shareholders Dan Bongino and Jeffrey Wernick at the Trump club in Florida, Mar-a-Lago in June 2020 to discuss the idea. But the White House council office soon halted negotiations, said a person with knowledge of the discussions, ruling 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 have never been more substantive. And that was just one of the many things the campaign was looking at to deal with the culture of Silicon Valley cancellation. ”

Parscale was replaced as Trump’s campaign manager in July.

Discussions resumed in the weeks after the election, according to two people involved, but the deal collapsed after the Capitol invasion. After that event, Apple and Google removed Parler from their app stores and Amazon expelled the company from its cloud hosting service, forcing the site to go offline. The tech giants have determined that Parler has not done enough to moderate the hate speech and calls for violence on his platform before, during and after the January 6 uprising.

When contacted by phone on Friday, Wernick, who called himself an adviser to the company, said there had been discussions with the Trump Organization about bringing Trump to the platform, but that the former president was not involved in those conversations. He also said there were inaccuracies in what BuzzFeed News was reporting, but he did not provide details on what, if anything, was inaccurate.

“We talked to several people about the company’s potential stakes in producing certain things,” said Wernick. He declined to go into the details of the talks citing secrecy deals he said were in place between Parler and the Trump Organization.

Cannon and Matze declined to comment. Bongino and a spokesman for Parler did not respond to requests for comment via email.

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

Founded in 2018 by former college roommates John Matze and Jared Thomson, and Rebekah Mercer, the right-wing political donor and daughter of hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer, Parler focused on building a social network that would serve as an alternative to Facebook and Twitter for taking a looser approach to content moderation. He called himself a website that allowed “free speech”.

Although it struggled to gain strength in the first few months, it soon became a home for conservative and far-right personalities who were suspended or banned from mainstream social media. In late 2020, it became an online meeting place for hate groups, conspiracy theorists and believers in the mass illusion QAnon, as well as prominent Republican lawmakers, including Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Devin Nunes.

On Wednesday, Matze told the Wall Street Journal that the site had 15 million users, including the sons of the former president, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as several current and former members of the Trump team.

Donald Trump, however, never maintained a verified account on that platform and preferred to keep his daily missives 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. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, intervened to keep him away from Parler during his last days in office, according to Bloomberg News.

However, in negotiations with the Trump Organization, Parler offered 40% of the company’s capital, according to a December document seen by BuzzFeed News and two people with direct knowledge of the business proposal. After the conclusion of this agreement, half of that participation would have been given immediately to the Trump Organization, while the other half would have been distributed in installments during the 24-month period of the agreement.

The Trump Organization, which oversees Trump’s brand and real estate interests, is a collection of hundreds of companies that are owned or controlled by Donald Trump.

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

As part of the deal, Parler also asked Trump to link up with Parler by posting on other social media sites or emailing his supporters and allowing the company to use its email lists to promote its platform. In addition, Parler wanted Trump to make presentations to any potential investors or advertisers.

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

Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said that if the deal had been closed while Trump was still in office, Parler and the president could have violated anti-bribery laws. Since the former president used to use his Twitter and Facebook accounts to make official communications – for example, announcing the dismissal of government officials – trying to earn something in return for making exclusive posts to another platform may be illegal.

“I think he would have really violated the bribery statute because he would have been offered something of value – a stake in this company – in exchange for influencing an official act – the act from which to publish his official comments,” said Clark.

Scott Amey, general counsel for Project on Government Oversight, a non-partisan watchdog group, said the news justified “an immediate criminal investigation”. The mere act of a company offering a bet for the president’s participation seems unethical and deserves closer examination, he noted.

“While then President Trump was bragging that the ethical rules did not apply to him, bribery laws do apply and the courts considered that Trump’s social media posts constituted official business while he was in office,” said Amey . “His posts were the preferred method for the White House to communicate with the public. If the offer included something of value and Trump planned to post on a social media platform while still in office, it would almost certainly be illegal and he should be held responsible. “

Discussions to bring Trump to Parler were hampered by the January 6 events. After months of casting doubts about the election results and calling for violence on social media platforms, the president’s supporters stormed the United States Capitol. Some posted photos or videos of their exploits in Parler, which became a breeding ground for organizing hatred and threats before the turmoil.

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

Matze, who said he was fired from Parler’s CEO role last week by Mercer, told the Journal that before he was fired he tried to implement more content moderation so that Apple and Google would allow the app to return to their app stores . He said his suggestion to ban groups based on affiliations with designated domestic terrorist organizations was eventually rejected by the council.

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

“The company’s owners and managers have worked tirelessly to build a resilient and non-partisan platform dedicated to freedom of expression, civil speech and user privacy,” she said in the statement.

With Parler’s management constantly changing, it is unclear when the app will go back online. With Matze gone, Mercer – who remains in control of the majority – assigned 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 also recently tried to raise funds, including from Narya Capital, the venture capital firm of JD Vance, author of the popular memoir Country chic. Two sources told BuzzFeed News that Vance also advised Mercer on issues related to Parler.

Vance did not comment on this story.

With no major media outlets, Trump, who has been impeached for his role in inciting insurrection and will face a Senate trial next week, has been communicating with the public largely through his office’s email list. post-president. Parler remains asleep, with a note that says: “We will resolve any challenge we have to face and we plan to welcome you all soon”.

On Friday, Wernick said he believed Parler would be up next week and that the company had an executive team that “stepped up”.

For the time being, the most recent post on the site is a January 26 meme by Matze. It features a masked and gloved photo of Bernie Sanders from Biden’s opening with overlay text that says, “I wish the guy John would hurry up already.” ●