The Scoop
A startling new lawsuit alleges that a conservative media figure and notorious Twitter troll, Chuck Johnson, and a partner, “falsely present themselves as intelligence agents or assets of U.S. government agencies” to pressure companies into doing business with them.
On Wednesday, Point Bridge Capital filed a civil racketeering lawsuit in Federal district court in Texas against Johnson, alleging that after Johnson invested in one of Point Bridge’s companies, he and a business partner began pressuring Point Bridge founder Hal Lambert to take a side in a dispute between Johnson and the facial recognition company Clearview AI, which Point Bridge invests in. The lawsuit alleges that Johnson threatened government retaliation if Lambert failed to do so. Point Bridge is seeking damages for breach of contract, and restrictions around his business activities and what it described as his “criminal schemes.”
“Charles Johnson is running a fraud and extortion scheme under which he and his RICO co-conspirator, Gator Greenwill, falsely present themselves as intelligence agents or assets of U.S. government agencies. Johnson and Greenwill seek investments in upstart technology companies operating in the defense and intelligence sectors, which heavily rely on government contracts. If a company or investor doesn’t give in to their demands for equity or favorable investment terms, Johnson and Greenwill threaten to sabotage the companies’ contracts or funding under the guise of their false claims to be government agents. Johnson has wrongfully succeeded in profiting from and gaining interests in these cutting-edge technology companies using this shakedown scheme,” the filing said.
In an email on Wednesday, Johnson told Semafor that it was the “first I’m hearing of a lawsuit from Mr. Lambert,” but that he was looking forward to the legal discovery process “should it come to that.”
While far from a mainstream conservative media presence, Johnson is a well-known character in online politics circles, having made a name for himself as a belligerent online political journalist with views that ranged from conservative and libertarian to outright conspiratorial. His inflammatory and at times incorrect statements about news and historical events, including raising doubts about the Hololocaust, drew wide attention almost a decade ago. Evan after being thrown off Twitter in 2015, he remained well-connected among figures in conservative politics and the donor class. (Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, also recently seemed to regret his years-long correspondence with Johnson, which the conservative internet troll shared with the Washington Post.)
It was through these connections that Johnson met Lambert.
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The lawsuit alleges that Johnson met Lambert in 2016 when Johnson contacted him with “an unsolicited offer to help raise money for a political candidate.” In late 2020, Point Bridge accepted a cash investment from Johnson in exchange for a minority stake in a special-purpose investment vehicle for the satellite imaging company Umbra Space.
Johnson and Lambert were also connected through another company, facial recognition service Clearview AI. Lambert was a major investor in Clearview AI and a member of its board. Johnson had been involved with an early facial recognition software acquired by Clearview AI, resulting in a sales commission and a stake in the company.
But after Johnson invested in a Point Bridge company focused on Umbra Space, Johnson and Greenwill began to simultaneously pressure Point Bridge about both Umbra Space and Clearview AI’s business, the filing alleges.
A year after making the investment, Johnson demanded $100 million in Umbra shares, the lawsuit alleged. When he was rebuffed, it said, he told Umbra executive Gabe Dominicello that he was “with the Defense Department,” and would ensure Umbra secured no government contracts, destroying the company. In 2023, he asked Point Bridge for money, emailing Lambert, a link to a tweet thread about his involvement as an FBI informant. “This might also help you do the right thing,” Johnson said.
At the same time, Johnson was in a dispute with Clearview after the company revoked his access to the application, and was pressuring the company to do a deal with another company, Securiport, which would result in a commission for Johnson, the lawsuit alleged.
According to the lawsuit, Johnson suggested to Lambert and the founders of Clearview that if they did not agree to a deal with Securiport, Johnson and Greenwill would convince intelligence agencies to retaliate against them and Clearview. The lawsuit said that at various dinners since 2020, both Johnson and Greenwill presented Greenwill as having a CIA affiliation, saying he could help with raising funds and government contracting.
“My fear for you is that you’ll be crushed by the global forces arrayed against you,” the complaint alleged Johnson told Lambert and the founders of Clearview in an email, referencing a 2020 Clearview AI data breach. “In the next bit you’ll be contacted by the FBI about the Clearview hack and the role UAE played in it.”
Once it became clear that the company had reservations about Johnson, he reached out to other Clearview investors including Gary Lauder the veteran venture capitalist and Clearview advisor, gauging interest in an undisclosed takeover of the company, the filing alleged.
“There’s an offer to acquire the company and have more responsible hands on the tech,” Johnson said, suggesting that the U.S. and U.K. governments “did not trust” Clearview leadership and that “people in the Biden administration” were “unhappy” with the company. Lauder demanded proof of the allegation, and according to the lawsuit, did not find Johnson’s claims to be credible.
The lawsuit included a long list of public statements Johnson has made on Twitter that it alleges subtly and overtly hints about his ties to the US intelligence community and status as a confidential human source for the FBI.
Johnson reportedly had been a human source for FBI Special Agent Jonathan Buma, who filed a whistle-blower complaint accusing the bureau of suppressing intelligence from his sources and retaliating against him amid an FBI investigation into what his lawyer described as a documents handling investigation. (Wednesday’s lawsuit notes that Buma told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI asked him to discontinue using Johnson because his bosses were concerned about Johnson’s posts on social media). The Washington Post reported that Johnson provided information to the FBI in recent years about some of his associates, and that he had used his connections to fringe political figures to “expose wrongdoing and serve the public good.”
Wednesday’s lawsuit is the latest in a legal dispute between the various parties. Johnson sued Clearview and its founders in New York for breach of contract and unjust enrichment, but several of the claims in the lawsuit were dismissed. In July, Clearview and the founders counter-sued for breach of contract.
Notable
- Johnson managed to make a small mark on the 2024 election. Earlier this year, his leaked Signal messages with Vance revealed that Vance asked for his take on UFOs and defended his opposition to voting for some aide for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
- Johnson’s ties to Peter Thiel have been the subject of media intrigue in recent years. Business Insider reported that Johnson introduced Thiel to Buma, which reportedly led to Thiel becoming a source for the FBI.
- Johnson was banned from Twitter in 2015 for attempting to raise money to “take out” activist DeRay McKesson. After Elon Musk took over Twitter, he reinstated Johnson’s account.