Bishop Leon Benjamin had an ominous warning for his flock.
“We are at war and the war is very real,” Benjamin said during the meeting that his organization dubbed a “training.”
To Benjamin, a self-described “prophet to the nations,” the enemies include both political figures and more mystical forces. He told his audience that their “primary enemy is the shadowy government that is manipulating you” through “hybrid” warfare and influence operations. Benjamin suggested this dark plot was also being aided by “witchcraft, sorcery, word curses,” and “voodoo.”
“That’s some serious witchcraft. That’s some serious covert … operations right under your nose — in your face,” Benjamin said. “This is some witchcraft stuff where people can say things to you, curse you with their words or do certain things to get you to start to be confused.”
Benjamin’s disturbing sermon was conducted under the auspices of a group he is involved in called the “Coalition of Leaders United.” Audio of the event, which was apparently posted about a year ago, was featured on the group’s site. The talk was filled with grim assessments of the state of the country and intense conspiracy theories. Benjamin suggested former President Donald Trump was the answer to all of these dark scenarios. He also repeatedly pointed to another man in Trump’s circle, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, whose book “The Citizen’s Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare” was the subject of the training session.
“We must destroy the enemies, the networks of globalist power brokers who wish to destroy the individual identities of nation states to establish a new normal — a.k.a. New World Order. General Flynn says all of this is for the what? The Great Reset,” Benjamin declared, later adding, “Everything is planned by design for this Great Reset. They have this idea of utopia, which is communism.”
Flynn wasn’t just an inspiration for Benjamin. According to Federal Election Commission records, the pastor’s “Coalition of Leaders United” received at least $75,000 via four donations made between April and August of this year. The cash came from a political action committee spearheaded by Flynn. That group, “Fight Like A Flynn,” was largely backed by a company linked to entrepreneur Patrick Byrne.
Both Flynn and Byrne previously worked together to promote false claims that Trump’s loss in the 2020 election was fraudulent. The pair also tried to convince the former president — including during an infamous December 2020 meeting in the Oval Office — to have federal troops intervene in the result. TPM reviewed FEC records for “Fight Like A Flynn,” which show that — with the help of a seven-figure sum that has come from a business managed by Byrne and a longtime partner — Flynn is once again working to influence the current presidential election by backing a network that includes far-right organizations, candidates, groups with ties to Trump and the Republican National Committee, and at least one sitting member of Congress. Flynn and Byrne did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
This money trail is a clear example of how some of the most extreme election deniers have remained active and coordinated ahead of this year’s race. It also illustrates how there are extensive links between the most conspiratorial and fringe elements of the MAGA movement and more seemingly mainstream elements of the GOP.
Along with Benjamin’s effort to recruit fighters for a war against the “New World Order,” the groups backed by Flynn include QAnon activists and multiple figures who participated in the Jan. 6 protests against Trump’s last defeat. “Fight Like A Flynn” has also given money to ventures tied to local GOP candidates, a firm that has worked on Trump’s legal team, a group focused on voter registration that is a favorite of Trump’s daughter-in-law-turned-RNC Chairwoman Lara Trump, and the campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Benjamin alluded to the breadth and ambition of the groups in Flynn’s orbit as he concluded the “training” call with a pro-Trump prayer. While the audio posted on his site did not detail the other participants on the call, Benjamin implied the group included faith leaders and some of the many Trump supporters who have become involved with politics at the hyperlocal level.
“I want to pray a supernatural blessing upon each and every one of you all. Some of you all I know are running for office. Some of you all are running for your city, local leadership. Some of you all have jobs, your businesses, ministries. I want to pray this blessing over you,” Benjamin said, adding, “Bless these networks like never before. Unite them oh God with the right people, the right place, the right time, with the right resources. … Let it begin now oh God. And we pray for President Donald Trump. We pray for his team. We pray, oh God, no matter what it looks like.”
Benjamin is a direct example of the Trump faithful who have run for office. He mounted unsuccessful congressional bids in Virginia in 2020, 2022, and a special election last year. During that second race, reporters noted Benjamin posted Facebook photos on Jan. 7, 2021 indicating he attended Trump’s fiery speech in Washington D.C. the day before. During those remarks, the former president railed against his loss and urged his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol as his defeat was being certified inside. Pro-Trump crowds began to storm the building during his speech. Benjamin’s social media shots from the protest include pictures that apparently show him with Byrne and Flynn’s son, Michael Jr.
FEC records show “Fight Like A Flynn” was organized on June 25, 2023. Since then, records show it has taken in $1,261,940.76 and disbursed $1,078,575.95. Between September and December 2023, the group received three separate donations totaling $1 million from a corporation called “Haverford Valley L.L.C.” based in a UPS Store in Potomac, Maryland. The contributions represent over 79 percent of “Fight Like A Flynn’s” funding. Haverford Valley L.C., a firm which is based in Utah and which Byrne long co-managed with his associate John Pettway, used the same Maryland address. In an email to TPM, Pettway said he has stopped working with the company.
“I no longer work for the Haverford Group,” Pettway wrote.
“Fight Like A Flynn” is headquartered at a Post Office in Palm Beach, Florida, about four miles from Trump’s private club, Mar-a-Lago. The group’s treasurer, Robert Kiger, is a fixture in the tony beach town’s political scene. Kiger is a local businessman who had what reporter Zach Everson described as “extraordinary access” to the presidential motorcade and Air Force One during Trump’s administration. He also founded a pro-Trump PAC, has worked on multiple GOP campaigns, and self-published a memoir titled “From Poverty To Polo To Politics – A Life Leading To Trump.” In an interview with TPM on Monday evening, Kiger said the committee was “not affiliated” with anything militant or extreme, and referred all requests for comment to Flynn.
“I’d suggest you take it up with the office over at General Flynn, because I’m not really at liberty to comment as the treasurer,” Kiger said before hanging up.
Flynn has been a prominent part of Trumpworld for years, although his official stint in the White House was brief and consumed by scandal. As an Army Lieutenant General, Flynn was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency until 2014, when he was reportedly forced out in a leadership shakeup. Two years later, Flynn was a prominent supporter of Trump’s first presidential campaign. After Trump took office in January 2017, he made Flynn his first White House national security adviser. Flynn resigned from that post after just over three weeks when it was revealed he lied to former Vice President Mike Pence and others about his communications with the Kremlin’s ambassador to the U.S. Flynn subsequently pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with the Russian diplomat, however, after Flynn hired the conservative attorney Sidney Powell, he withdrew his guilty plea. The Justice Department under Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr then tried to drop the case, but the move was challenged by a federal judge. Trump ultimately pardoned Flynn in the final days of his administration.
After leaving the Trump administration and during his legal drama, Flynn increasingly dabbled in far-right politics and promoted slogans affiliated with the QAnon conspiracy theory. As his legal bills mounted, Flynn and his family were involved in a series of businesses that mixed fringe politics, merch sales, events, and his own defense fundraising. His attorney, Powell was involved in some of these efforts. Using his expertise in unconventional warfare, Flynn consistently promoted the idea of an ongoing conflict as he sought to build a force of “digital soldiers” for himself and Trump. The crosspartisan reform group Issue One previously examined a non-profit linked to Flynn which directed money to a constellation of right wing groups while also paying multiple members of Flynn’s family. Along with its political contributions, “Fight Like a Flynn” has also paid over $37,000 to “Resilient Patriot LLC,” a Florida corporation that Flynn is the manager of.
Byrne has had, perhaps, an even more unique path to presidential politics and election activism than Flynn. He launched the online retailer Overstock.com in 1999. While at the helm of the company, Byrne created his own website, “Deep Capture.” On that page, Byrne detailed his “theory” that Wall Street was “dominated by a group of players who first pushed the laws to their limits” including unethical short selling practices that Byrne blamed for harming his business. Byrne eventually began dabbling in crypto and, while speaking on the topic at a conservative conference in 2015, he met a young Russian woman named Maria Butina. The pair had a romantic relationship. In 2019, after Butina was arrested and charged with being a Kremlin spy, Byrne went public with his connection to her and began to claim he was embroiled in a sprawling and complex series of investigations where he was working as some kind of deep cover asset for multiple government agencies. Amid the drama, Byrne resigned from Overstock as his claims unspooled through a bizarre press release and intensely emotional cable news interviews.
Flynn and Byrne ultimately teamed up as they both promoted false claims that Trump’s 2020 loss was fraudulent and offered wild proposals to reverse the election. On December 17 2020, Flynn appeared on the conservative cable channel Newsmax where he suggested Trump could seize voting machines, or perhaps take even more drastic measures.
“It’s not unprecedented — I mean, these people out there talking about martial law like it’s something we’ve never done,” Flynn said.
The next day, Flynn and Byrne ended up meeting with Trump inside the Oval Office and White House residence. They were accompanied by Powell who, after her work with Flynn, masterminded the infamous “Kraken” lawsuits that she claimed would overturn Trump’s defeat, but that flamed out and resulted in a series of charges and sanctions against her. Axios, among the first to report on the meeting in depth, dubbed the sitdown “the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency” and said the group sought to convince Trump he should “take extreme measures to keep fighting” his election defeat. Byrne told the story of the meeting in a rambling series of posts on his website where he said they aimed to get Trump to, among other things, “direct a federal force” to go to six counties they deemed “problematic” to recount paper ballots or potentially even conduct a do-over of the election.
“We suggested US Marshall Service + National Guard,” Byrne wrote of the proposal.
This checkered conspiracy-filled history and effort to involve the military in the last election has not stopped at least one current member of Congress from accepting funding from Flynn in the current campaign. According to FEC filings, the “Fight Like A Flynn” PAC gave $2,500 to Ted Cruz’s Senate campaign on Oct. 21. The committee also gave $50,000 to back ads opposing Cruz’s Democratic Party opponent in the race, Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX). Cruz’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the support from Flynn’s PAC.
Other Republican candidates have benefited from Flynn’s largesse. “Fight Like A Flynn” made a $2,500 donation to the campaign of Dan Franzese, a Trump loyalist mounting a longshot congressional bid in Florida. Silent Majority Foundation, a group affiliated with Pete Serrano, who is running to be attorney general in Washington State, received $15,000 from “Fight Like A Flynn” on Feb. 15. Franzese and Serrano did not respond to requests for comment.
In addition to making donations, “Fight Like A Flynn” has also paid some vendors, including Binnall Law Group. FEC filings show the firm received $16,656.59 from Flynn’s group in eleven payments made between July 2023 and August of this year. The payments were identified as “LEGAL FEES,” “LEGA FEES,” and “LEGA FEESL.” Jesse Binnall, who is the firm’s name partner, is a member of the Republican National Legal Association and has worked on Trump’s legal team. Binnall did not respond to an email from TPM on Monday. Reached via phone on Tuesday morning, which was Election Day, he declined to comment.
“It’s a busy day. I’m not going to be able to talk to you about that today,” Binnall said.
When pressed, Binnall claimed to be unaware of groups the committee has funded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but good luck to you,” he said before hanging up.
Some of the organizations that have been backed by Flynn’s PAC blend more fringe activism with high-level Republican politics. FEC records show the group “Moms For America,” which is dedicated to building “a national movement of moms to promote the principles of Liberty [and] restore the Republic,” received $160,000 from “Fight Like A Flynn” in three payments made between November 2023 and August of this year. On Facebook, Kiger, the committee’s treasurer, posted a picture on March 2 showing he and Flynn handing over a large ceremonial $100,000 check to the group at one of its events. “Moms For America” participated in “Stop The Steal” demonstrations against Trump’s 2020 loss. The group, which did not respond to a request for comment, hosted a town hall with Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) last month.
“Fight Like A Flynn” also made two contributions this year for a total of $95,000 to Early Vote Action PAC, a group founded by the activist Scott Presler, which is dedicated to registering Republican voters in key swing states. Presler was billed as a speaker at the “Wild Protest,” which was one of the main demonstrations against Trump’s loss outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He also has promoted a series of conspiracy theories, including QAnon. In mid March, RNC Chairwoman Lara Trump, who is also the former president’s daughter in law, claimed she wanted to hire Presler to work with the party. The announcement received pushback due to Presler’s more fringe activism and the RNC subsequently announced he would not be employed by the party. That flap did not entirely deter Lara Trump from associating with Presler. On March 26, a week after the report that he would not work for the RNC, Lara Trump posted a picture to her personal Facebook page where she posed with Presler inside the party headquarters.
“Exciting things to come!” Lara Trump wrote.
She posted another picture posing with Presler on Facebook in June with a caption describing them as a “team.” Presler did not respond to a request for comment about the funding he received from Flynn or the other groups involved with the committee.
“Fight Like A Flynn” also gave at least $75,000 this year to “Catholics For Catholics,” a staunchly pro-Trump religious organization. Flynn is a senior adviser to that group and it has promoted the movie tour he led this year, which featured conspiracy theories and screenings at which Trump was encouraged to target political enemies after an election victory.
In May, Flynn’s committee also gave $50,000 to “Spartan Sword,” a group focused on suicide among veterans that is led by Boone Cutler, who is the co-author and publisher of Flynn’s “Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare.” Cutler did not respond to a request for comment.
Some of the organizations funded by Flynn’s pack sit firmly on the fringe. In February, the group gave $50,000 to “Operation Free Nation,” a South Carolina group led by activist Chad Caton. On Facebook, the group’s page declares, “Welcome to the resistance Patriots. Operation Free Nation is about DOING not talking.” Caton attended the protests against Trump’s loss in D.C. on Jan. 6 but has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. He did not respond to a request for comment.
In February, “Fight Like A Flynn” gave $15,000 to “Advocates For Citizens’ Rights,” a California organization affiliated with Leigh Dundas, a prominent anti-vaccination activist. On her Instagram, Dundas has promoted QAnon content. She also appeared in a photo Benjamin, the pastor who led the “training” on Flynn’s “warfare” book, posted where he posed with “Stop The Steal” activist Ali Alexander during the demonstrations against Trump’s loss in D.C. Dundas did not respond to a request for comment.
For his part, Benjamin, in an interview with TPM on Monday evening, rejected the notion Flynn or his book are extreme or militant. He suggested any talk of “war” was merely verbal and religious.
“I believe that where we are right now, spiritual warfare has been, at its height, a war of words,” Benjamin said.
When we pointed out that Flynn and his allies seemed to, at points, call for the involvement of actual armed forces in the election, Benjamin turned the tables. Before saying he had to leave and hanging up the phone, Benjamin left us with a question.
“Are you for America or are you against America?” he asked. “Which one are you for?”
This story was updated at 3:51 pm with comment from John Pettway.
This comment makes my head spin:
If Michael Flynn is you leader and spokesman, does that not confirm that you and everything you are affiliated with is militant or extreme?
Where do I have to go to learn these voodoo word curses? Is it like a University of Phoenix certificate program or something?
the only question I would have for Benjamin – or Flynn, Byrne et al – would be to ask why they stopped taking their meds.
I got as far as a couple of sentences in before someone was quoted as accusing people like me, who are not in a cult, of witchcraft. I have stopped reading it now. Perhaps I’ll get back to it, but it’s hard to understand, lat alone reason with, any group nuts enough to even think that’s a compelling accusation. Did she also turn you into a newt? Glad you got better.
Trump University or Liberty University both have certification programs.