Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov was a Soviet journalist for the Novosti Press Agency, which he called an arm of the KGB, in which capacity he served the propaganda efforts of the KGB, editing and planting propaganda materials in foreign media such as Look magazine. He also accompanied delegations of Novosti's guests from foreign countries on tours of the Soviet Union or to international conferences held in the Soviet Union. Yuri Bezmenov estimated that over half of Novosti’s employees were KGB officers.
Bezmenov defected to Canada in the 1970s and later moved to the United States. In this 13 and a half minute excerpt from a 1985 interview, he discusses the “ideological subversion” that the KGB uses to demoralize other countries, describing a process of disinformation, fake news, and other active measures that the KGB uses to destabilize target countries. In his words this ‘great brainwashing’ manifests itself so-
What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, their country… - Yuri Bezmenov
Which brings us to Orly Taitz and Ben Swann…
Orly Taitz was born to a Jewish family in Kishinev, Moldavian SSR, in the Soviet Union, present-day Moldova. In 1981, Taitz immigrated to Israel, where she attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and graduated with a degree in dentistry. In 1987, she met Yosef Taitz while living in Israel. He proposed four months later.
Orly and Latvian-born Yosef immigrated to the United States in May 1987, marrying in Las Vegas the same year. Taitz became a naturalized United States citizen in 1992. She received her law degree from Taft Law School and was admitted to practice law in California in December 2002.
Dr. Orly Taitz, D.D.S., Esq, holds a second degree black belt in Taekwondo, and speaks five languages: English, Hebrew, Romanian/Moldovan (which are two different names for the exact same language, Russian, and Spanish.
Husband Yosef Taitz is President and CEO of a company called Daylight Chemical Information Systems, Inc, a privately held company with corporate offices in Laguna Niguel, CA and research offices in Santa Fe, NM and Cambridge, England. As described by their website, Daylight provides enterprise-level cheminformatics software technologies to life science companies for state-of-the-art chemical information processing since 1987.
Although the accusations claim she was acting to scuttle the movement she was involved in, the book ObamaScare by a fellow conspiracy theorist accuses Taitz of…
“[having] been and is on someone’s…. payroll or benefit list. It takes only a quick review of all the cases Orly Taitz, Esquire, has been involved with to ascertain that she maintains only one overriding position…. case by case she has said and done many unconscionable things to the detriment of her clients.” - Andrew Shecktor
Beginning in 2008 during the campaign of Barack Obama for President, Orly Taitz began a bewildering campaign of both conspiracy theories and conspiracy theory inspired lawsuits based around claims that Obama was not a natural-born citizen of the United States and was therefore ineligible to serve as President. She claimed he was born in Kenya and that he falsified his Selective Service papers and his application to the Illinois bar.
Taitz made other claims against Obama, including that homosexuals from Obama's former church have died mysteriously, that Obama has dozens of Social Security numbers, and that his passport and selective service card were fraudulent.
Taitz has also claimed that a person who was cooperating with the FBI in connection with Obama's passport died mysteriously, "shot in the head", that a Kenyan birth certificate with the name "Barack Obama" was authentic, that Obama's first act as president was to donate money to Hamas, which she said would be used to build Qassam rockets, that Obama, or someone connected to him, made threats to Taitz's life and vandalized her car, that Obama would have the Federal Emergency Management Agency build internment camps for "Anti-Obama dissidents", that Osama bin Laden was killed years before 2011 when he actually died, with his body kept on ice, the announcement of his death was timed to divert attention from an upcoming court case she was litigating challenging Obama's citizenship.
Taitz blamed Obama for the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, writing on her website, "Was Adam Lanza drugged and hypnotised by his handlers to make him into a killing machine as an excuse as the regime is itching to take all means of self defense from the populace before the economic collapse?" She also claimed that Goldman Sachs runs the United States Treasury, that Baxter International has developed a bird flu vaccine that kills people, that Representative Alcee Hastings and the House of Representatives are planning to build at least six labor camps, that Hugo Chávez owns the software that runs American voting machines, and that FactCheck is untrustworthy because of its links to the Annenberg Foundation. Taitz has stated that 2016 Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Bobby Jindal were not natural-born citizens and therefore were ineligible for the office they sought.
The following is a list of Taitz questionable legal actions, which appear to show a pattern of abuse of process of the American legal system to benefit a foreign power;
Keyes v. Bowen - In 2008, filed a lawsuit on behalf of independent presidential candidate Alan Keyes, suing California's secretary of state, Debra Bowen, for allegedly failing to ascertain Obama's eligibility for president before placing him on the ballot. The case was dismissed on May 4, 2009. The U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment to review the case on October 3, 2011.
Lightfoot v. Bowen - filed an emergency petition in the California Supreme Court in 2008 on behalf of Libertarian vice presidential candidate Gail Lightfoot to stop the certification of California's 2008 election results because of the challenge to Obama's eligibility. The California Supreme Court denied the petition, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Barnett v. Obama - filed a lawsuit on behalf of Pamela Barnett, Alan Keyes, other candidates in the 2008 federal elections, several military personnel, and some legislators from various states alleging that Obama was ineligible to be president. On October 29, 2009, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter dismissed the lawsuit. The dismissal criticized Taitz's legal abilities, stated her behavior was "unethical", and suggested that Taitz "may have suborned perjury".On December 22, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal. On June 11, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court declined, without comment, a request by litigants not represented by Taitz to hear the case.
Cook v. Good - represented Stefan F. Cook, a major in the United States Army Reserve, who challenged orders implementing his voluntary deployment to Afghanistan because of his claim that Obama was not a legitimate president. The case was dismissed when the Army Reserve revoked his order to deploy. Taitz filed an appeal in the Eleventh Circuit, which was dismissed on November 24, 2009, due to a failure to prosecute the appeal.
Rhodes v. MacDonald - Taitz was retained in 2009 by Captain Connie Rhodes, a U.S. Army physician. Rhodes sought a restraining order to prevent her forthcoming deployment to Iraq. In the request for a restraining order, Taitz argued the deployment order was illegal since Obama was illegally serving as president.
Federal judge Clay D. Land rejected the motion and denounced it as frivolous. In his opinion, the judge noted that Rhodes had not previously raised any objections to orders she had received from Obama since he had been sworn in, and that she did not seem to object to serving under him "as long as she is permitted to remain on American soil".
Land then upbraided Taitz for using military officers as pawns to further her claims that Obama was not qualified to be president. He also expressed astonishment at Taitz's apparent misunderstanding of American judicial fundamentals, saying that she was trying to make Obama "'prove his innocence' to 'charges' that are based upon conjecture and speculation".
Within hours of Land's decision, Taitz told the news site Talking Points Memo that she felt Land's refusal to hear her case was an act of treason. Two days later, she filed a motion to stay Rhodes' deployment pending rehearing of the dismissal order. She repeated her treason allegations against Land and made several other intemperate statements, including claims that Land was aiding and abetting purported aspirations of "dictatorship" by Obama. Land rejected the motion as frivolous and ordered her to show cause why she should not be fined $10,000 for abuse of judicial process.
A few hours later, a letter bearing Rhodes's signature arrived, stating that Taitz filed the motion without her knowledge or consent, asking Land to remove Taitz as her attorney of record in the case, and stating that it was her "plan to file a complaint with the California State Bar due to [Taitz's] reprehensible and unprofessional actions". On September 26, 2009, Taitz filed a motion with the court seeking to withdraw as counsel for Rhodes, so she could divulge in court "privileged attorney-client communications" since the dismissed Rhodes case "is now a quasi-criminal prosecution of the undersigned attorney, for the purpose of punishment".
Attorney misconduct Sanctions
On October 13, 2009, Judge Clay Land ordered "Counsel Orly Taitz ... to pay $20,000 to the United States, through the Middle District of Georgia Clerk's Office, within thirty days of the date of this Order as a sanction for her misconduct in violation of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure," which requires all papers to be signed by the attorney (if party is represented). It also provides for sanctions against the attorney or client for harassment, frivolous arguments, or a lack of factual investigation.
The purpose of sanctions is deterrent, not punitive. Courts have broad discretion about the exact nature of the sanction, which can include consent to in personam jurisdiction, fines, dismissal of claims, or dismissal of the entire case. The current version of Rule 11 is much more lenient than its 1983 version. Supporters of tort reform in Congress regularly call for legislation to make Rule 11 stricter.
Land's decision stated:
The Court finds that counsel's conduct was willful and not merely negligent. It demonstrates bad faith on her part. As an attorney, she is deemed to have known better. She owed a duty to follow the rules and to respect the Court. Counsel's pattern of conduct conclusively establishes that she did not mistakenly violate a provision of law. She knowingly violated Rule 11. Her response to the Court's show cause order is breathtaking in its arrogance and borders on delusional. She expresses no contrition or regret regarding her misconduct. To the contrary, she continues her baseless attacks on the Court.
Upon learning of Land's ruling, Taitz said she would appeal the sanction, declaring that Judge Land was "scared to go against the regime" of the "oppressive" Obama administration, and that the sanction was an attempt to "intimidate" her. On March 15, 2010, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the sanctions against Taitz, ordering her to pay the $20,000 fine.
In July 2010, Taitz applied to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the enforcement of sanctions, arguing that "allowing sanctions by judge Land to stand will signify beginning of tyranny in the United States of America and end to the Constitutional Republic which is the foundation of this nation". On July 8, the application was submitted to Associate Justice Clarence Thomas; on July 15, he denied it. Doubting that Justice Thomas signed the denial order, Taitz claimed to have requested of Chief Justice John Roberts that Thomas's signature be presented to her for verification.
In the meantime, on August 9, the federal government filed an abstract of judgment, a document placing a lien in the amount of $20,000 plus interest on all her real property, prompting Taitz to say, "I will pay the money, and I will continue fighting." On August 16, after being resubmitted to Associate Justice Samuel Alito, who in turn referred it to the full court, the application for stay was again denied. On January 10, 2011, the Court declined, without comment, to hear the case.
Taitz v. Obama - January 27, 2010, Taitz, in propria persona, filed a petition for writ of quo warranto. On April 14, 2010, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth dismissed the petition, stating that "the Court is not willing to go tilting at windmills with her."
Taitz v. Astrue - February 2011, Taitz filed, in propria persona, a Freedom of Information Act suit against the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, alleging the agency improperly refused to disclose to her information about Obama's social security number. After Taitz repeatedly failed to follow the court rule regarding the redaction of social security numbers in court filings, Chief Judge Lamberth wrote that Taitz "is either toying with the Court or displaying her own stupidity... There is no logical explanation she can provide as to why she is now wasting the Court's time, as well as the staff's time, with these improper redactions."
On August 30, 2011, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the government, writing "As her numerous filings with the Court demonstrate, plaintiff will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of this alleged conspiracy. Unfortunately for plaintiff, today is not her lucky day."
Taitz v. Fuddy - In August 2011, Taitz filed, in propria persona, a suit against the director of the Hawaii Department of Health, seeking to review Obama's "long form" birth certificate. On October 12, 2011, the Hawaii Circuit Court dismissed Taitz's suit.
Taitz v. Ruemmler - Sought to compel White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler under FOIA to grant access to Obama's "long form" birth certificate. On October 17, 2011, Chief Judge Lamberth noted Taitz's "Sisyphean quest" and dismissed the suit. Here she is being kicked off of MSNBC for refusing to acknowledge the birth certificate after its eventual release by Obama to shut down her disinformation. Her body language and comportment in the interview is… interesting.
2012 New Hampshire primary challenge - November 2011, Taitz, backed by four New Hampshire state legislators, filed a complaint with the state's Ballot Law Commission challenging Obama's eligibility to compete in the primary election. As Obama had paid the filing fee and his declaration of candidacy conformed to state law, the Commission unanimously voted to keep Obama on the ballot. The Commission then denied a request for reconsideration.
In response, Taitz wrote to William L. O'Brien, the Speaker of the House of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, and demanded the removal of Bill Gardner, New Hampshire's Secretary of State, for "egregious elections fraud, aiding and abetting fraud, forgery and possibly treason." D.J. Bettencourt, House Majority Leader of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, wrote to Taitz and called her actions "unbecoming of any legitimate political dialogue, nevermind one as ridiculous as the continued obsession over President Obama's birthplace." Bettencourt added, "I have spoken to the Representatives who were present and expressed to them my strong desire that they immediately disassociate themselves from you and this folly."
2012 Georgia primary challenge - Five Georgians, including one represented by Taitz, filed challenges with the Georgia Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, regarding Obama's inclusion on the March primary ballot. Kemp referred the challenges to Deputy Chief Judge Michael Malihi, an administrative law judge, who denied Obama's motion to dismiss them and scheduled a hearing for January 26.
On January 23, Malihi denied Obama's motion to quash a subpoena issued by Taitz to compel Obama to appear, saying that Obama did not show why he should not be at the hearing or how his testimony would not be helpful. On January 25, Obama's attorney requested that Kemp halt the proceedings, and indicated that Obama would no longer participate in the litigation pending Kemp's decision. Kemp denied their request and warned that their non-participation would be "at your own peril".
Neither Obama nor his attorney appeared at the January 26 hearing. This normally would result in a default order, but the challengers requested Malihi to allow them to go ahead with the hearing and rule on "the merits of their arguments and evidence". Taitz called eight witnesses (including herself), and presented seven exhibits in support of her claims that Obama was not a natural-born citizen, has used multiple names, has multiple Social Security numbers, and used a fake birth certificate. Taitz asked Malihi to fine Obama in contempt for failing to appear.
On February 3, Malihi recommended that Obama remain on the ballot. Concerning Taitz's case Malihi wrote: "The Court finds the testimony of the witnesses, as well as the exhibits tendered, to be of little, if any, probative value, and thus wholly insufficient to support plaintiffs’ allegations". The Drudge Retort described the hearing as "Empty Table 1, Orly Taitz 0". On February 6, Kemp accepted Malihi's recommendation. On February 13, Taitz filed for review, but on February 15 her application to appear pro hac vice was denied "at this time".
2012 Alabama primary challenge - A lawsuit filed by an Alabama citizen, Albert Hendershot, in December 2011 alleged Obama's birth certificate was forged and that he was ineligible to be on the Alabama primary ballot. Taitz agreed to represent Hendershot and sought to enter the case, but it was dismissed before she could even make a court appearance.
2012 Indiana primary challenge - On February 24, Taitz appeared as a witness on the behalf of two residents of Indiana who had filed with the Indiana Election Commission a challenge to Obama's eligibility. The challengers demanded a default judgment against Obama, as neither he nor a representative appeared at the hearing; this motion was unanimously denied by the commission.
Taitz made false claims, arguing that the President's surname was not Obama, that he was not a natural-born citizen, and that he was using a stolen Social Security number. When Taitz accused the commission of a cover-up, Dan Dumezich, the Schererville Republican who is chairman of the commission, told her that if she was disrespectful one more time, "your butt is going to be gone." The challenge was denied.
2012 Mississippi primary challenge - February 2012, Taitz sued the Mississippi state Democratic Party and the Mississippi Secretary of State alleging Obama was not a natural born citizen. Taitz accused the party of aiding and abetting in forgery and fraud when it submitted to the court a copy of Obama's birth certificate. In response, the party filed with the court a certified verification from Hawaii's State Registrar attesting to the accuracy of Obama's birth certificate. Taitz accused the registrar of being complicit with the forgery.
2012 Indiana general election challenge - filed a lawsuit in Indiana, and attempted to subpoena Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and one of his assistants, Mike Zullo, to compel them to testify about the results of their investigation into Obama's birth certificate. Zullo indicated the two did not intend to attend the trial, stating, "We don't want our information tainted by a circus show".
2012 Kansas general election challenge - September 2012, Taitz attempted to address a Kansas state board that had been reviewing a challenge to Obama's placement on the ballot, but her request to speak was denied. After the hearing was over, Taitz and an Obama supporter argued, and eventually both were escorted out of the building by a police officer. Taitz claimed that during the post-hearing confrontation she was threatened by African-American men behaving like "animals" and "thugs"; two Topeka community leaders who were present labeled Taitz's remarks as "inaccurate" and "racist". On September 20, Taitz filed a lawsuit in state court seeking to stay the board's actions. On November 2, 2012, the court dismissed Taitz's suit due to her lack of standing.
2012 Mississippi general election challenge - In a lawsuit initiated by Taitz, she again falsely claimed Obama's birth certificate and Social Security Number were fake, and sought to disqualify him from the ballot.
Grinols v. Obama - On December 13, 2012, Taitz filed in Sacramento, California a lawsuit on behalf of James Grinols (a Republican elector from Minnesota), Robert Odden (a Libertarian elector from Minnesota), Keith Russell Judd (a federal prisoner who was on the West Virginia Democratic primary ballot), Edward Noonan (who won the American Independent Party presidential primary in California), and Thomas MacLeran (who filed to run as a Republican for president) seeking to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College's vote.
The lawsuit also sought to prevent California officials from certifying the election results from the 2012 presidential election. On January 3, 2013, District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. denied the plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College's vote. At the hearing, the judge told Taitz, "Your argument, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever," and at one point asked, "Why do you keep filing these lawsuits when they keep getting rejected?" In April 2013, the court dismissed the suit. In November 2015, the 9th Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal.
Taitz v. Hawaiian Memorial Park Mortuary - Taitz sued the Hawaiian Memorial Park Mortuary in Federal district court on December 20, 2013, to prevent a cremation, claiming that the death of Loretta Fuddy (the director of the Hawaii Department of Health) was not an accident,. Taitz withdrew her petition on January 9, 2014 and the suit was dismissed the following day.
Other legal actions -
In 2012, Taitz was retained by a medical marijuana activist who had been arrested while attempting to gather signatures for a ballot initiative. In 2013, in response to A&E suspending Phil Robertson, Taitz filed an administrative complaint in Colorado that accused A&E was "engaged in discrimination against heterosexuals in favor of homosexuals, engaged in discrimination of religious people, particularly Christians, in favor of godless atheists". In 2014, in response to the National Basketball Association banning Donald Sterling for making racist remarks, Taitz filed a "complaint" with the NBA, requesting that it also ban Shaquille O'Neal because he, in Taitz's opinion, "publicly bullied" a disabled person.
In 2014, Taitz filed a lawsuit challenging the transfer of undocumented immigrants from South Texas to other states, claiming they would spread communicable diseases. The U.S. government opposed Taitz's lawsuit, arguing she lacked standing and was trying to "entangle the judiciary in her political quarrels." At a hearing held on August 27, 2014, the court denied Taitz's request for a temporary restraining order, but permitted her to amend her lawsuit. In her amended complaint, in addition to her claims about communicable diseases, Taitz claimed that unknown parties pressured a border patrol agent to not testify on her behalf; she also claimed the NSA and FBI have placed agents in the federal courts to tamper with documents. In July 2015, the court dismissed almost of all Taitz's lawsuit, ruling she lacked standing to challenge the federal government's immigration practices.
In 2014, Taitz filed a second lawsuit in Texas, alleging the Centers for Disease Control failed to provide her with information she requested about Ebola and other communicable diseases in the United States. The information Taitz sought was not in Texas, and the court transferred the case to a court in Southern California, where Taitz actually resides.
In 2015, Taitz filed a third lawsuit in Texas, alleging the federal government's grant of asylum and refuge status encouraged undocumented immigrants to engage in identity theft. She also alleged Obama was using a stolen Social Security number, forged identification documents, and a false name. Taitz's attempt to join this lawsuit with the first suit that she filed in Texas failed.
In 2020, Taitz expressed interest in joining Donald Trump's legal team for the post-election lawsuits he filed challenging the 2020 U.S. presidential election. In 2021, Taitz unsuccessfully sued Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to stop the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
And then there’s Ben Swann, whom suggested on his personal YouTube channel while he was also a news anchor for Fox affiliate WXIX in Cincinnati, that Adam Lanza was accompanied by another shooter; he made similar claims about the Aurora shooting and the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting earlier in 2012.
In April 2013, Swann announced he would be leaving WXIX-TV Fox 19. From May 2013 until June 2015, Swann appeared regularly on Russian state controlled RT America in Washington, D.C.
In June 2015, he was hired by CBS-46 affiliate WGCL-TV in Atlanta, Georgia. He was suspended in January 2017 for running a story reviving the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, in which false claims were made that a Washington, D.C. pizza restaurant was hiding a child sex trafficking ring in its non-existent basement. Swann cited anonymous Internet users as his sources.
He was briefly reinstated after he took down his personal conspiracy channels, but was fired on January 29, 2018, after the station learned that he had been trying to revive the channels without the knowledge or permission of station management. Later in 2018 he returned to RT America. In filings from August 2022, Swann disclosed that he was paid $6.8 million by the Russian government to produce propaganda content for South American, Indian, and Chinese markets.
Axios and Politico reported that Swann's production company was to produce four shows for Novosti- the company Yuro Bezmenov described as an arm of the KGB, and which continues to operate as Russia Today and Russia Today America. The themes of the Russian-backed programs would be "the United States and NATO continuing to spread war", "the economic warfare waged by the United States and its allies" and "transgender issues in the United States".
Axios reported that Swann “received more than $600,000 to pay employees of [RT America production company] T&R productions who were laid off when [RT America] closed". Swann has reported on many conspiracy theories and false claims aligned with narratives pushed by his former employer, Russian state-run Russia Today and Russia Today America.
Have any American intelligence agencies investigated Swann or Taitz? Not based on any public information. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security had no comment when contacted by Murder Pop, and would neither confirm nor deny any such investigations.
We are aware of a historical parallel in one Robert Edward Edmondson, an American born 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. Edmondson was an antisemitic pamphleteer and a defendant in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944. Edmondson had roots that went back to the colonial days of Virginia and Maryland and was primarily of Scottish descent. He saw himself as a nonpartisan patriot and referred to himself as a "Native American". He was also an organizer of the Pan-Aryan Conference for white supremacists.
Edmondson had a 40-year career as a reporter, editor, author and publisher on economics. While living in in New York he became friendly with Nazi propagandist Ulrich Fleischhauer and was a participant in the latter's Welt-Dienst/World-Service anti-Jewish news service. He subsequently came to believe in an orchestrated Jewish manipulation of America's economy and started an independent financial news outlet, the Edmondson Economic Service.
Edmondson believed President Franklin D. Roosevelt was Jewish and published a flier entitled Roosevelt's Jewish Ancestry—"He Is Not One Of Us!" (now archived at Temple Universities Digital Archives here). His attacks on Roosevelt during the 1936 presidential election campaign suggested that, like Nazi caricatures suggested, the President was under the control of Jews.
In a series of newsletters called American Vigilante Bulletins published in the 1930s and 1940s, Edmondson wrote about what a Jewish conspiracy in control of American banking and media. American Vigilante Bulletins were always willing to push the Nazi line with word-for-word syndicated reproductions of propaganda items from Fleischhauer’s World-Service.
Edmonson’s writings were the immediate forerunner to Who Rules America? written and distributed decades later by Dr. William L. Pierce. Pierce was an American neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and far-right political activist. A physicist by profession, he was author of the novels The Turner Diaries and Hunter under a pseudonym as writer Andrew Macdonald. The Turner Diaries were the inspiration for the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. Pierce also founded the white nationalist National Alliance, which he headed for almost 30 years.
Getting back to Edmondson, he attributed many plots and conspiracies to communists, on such topics as the plot to put fluoride in American tap water. On June 11, 1936 Edmondson was indicted by a grand jury in New York City and charged with "libeling all persons of the Jewish Religion." On May 10, 1938 the judge dismissed all indictments, ruling that there is no group libel law. Early in 1942, President Roosevelt, supported by the rest of his Cabinet, urged Attorney General Biddle to prosecute fascist sympathizers and anti-Semites. Biddle thought the Smith Act inadequate, but Congress refused to renew the Sedition Act of 1918 as he asked. As a result of this push to prosecute fascists, Edmondson was again indicted for his anti-Semitism along with 29 others on charges of sedition.
The Great Sedition Trial of 1944, as it became known, consisted of a heterogeneous group of defendants that held either isolationist or pro-fascist views. A mistrial was declared on November 29, 1944, following the death of the trial judge, Edward C. Eicher, by heart attack, and Judge Bolitha James Laws, a Roosevelt appointee, dismissed the charges against all the defendants, including George Sylvester Viereck, Lawrence Dennis, Elizabeth Dilling, William Dudley Pelley, Joe McWilliams, Robert Edward Edmondson, James True, Gerald Winrod, William Griffin, Prescott Freese Dennett, and in absentia Ulrich Fleischhauer. Defendant Lawrence Dennis mocked the affair by subtitling his account of the trial The Great Sedition Trial of 1944. The charges were later dismissed. Edmondson was widely believed by U.S. intelligence to have been an agent for Nazi Germany.
Historian Leo P. Ribuffo coined the term "Brown Scare" to cover the events leading up to the Washington 1944 sedition trial. The pro-fascist right collapsed within a year of the attack on Pearl Harbor in the United States. At the end of World War II, the threat of Communism turned the Brown Scare into a new Red Scare, and in December 1946 the government dismissed all charges.
All of which begs the question: what might Orly Taitz and Benn Swann be forerunners to?