BREAKING: Human rights organization busted spreading fake Steve Bannon posts ‘linking’ him to Patriot Front

The Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights on Tuesday published a series of tweets asserting that a lookalike Telegram account, called https://t.me/steve_bannon, is somehow an official affiliate of Bannon’s War Room show.

Devin Burghart is IREHR’s Executive Director, and he called his so-called discovery a "big deal."

But they cite a phony account.

By going to the War Room official website, on the SOCIAL MEDIA column of the right hand side of the front page, there’s a logo for Telegram. The direct link for it is https://t.me/bannonwarroom and takes users to a landing page with over 80,000 subscribers.

It’s a case of mistaken identity that the group has taken advantage of since the Big Tech platforms have taken away War Room’s capacity to correct the record themselves.

Here’s a bullet point list of the misleading claims made by the IREHR account. In it you can see how their language and phrasing is unclear as to the authenticity of this doppelganger Telegram channel using Bannon’s name and likeness.

• (2:53 PM · Dec 7, 2021) "Steve Bannon’s War Room Pandemic Telegram page boosts white nationalist and fascist Patriot Front, links to "Hyphen-Report" website which calls the group’s recent Washington D.C. march "glorious" and describes its own platform as "an assault on jewish (sic) sensibilities."" (link)
• (3:05 PM · Dec 7, 2021) "Steve Bannon's War Room Pandemic Telegram page has embraced the white nationalist and fascist Patriot Front as a "patriot group worth supporting."" (link)
• (3:16 PM · Dec 7, 2021) "As it turns out, a deeper dive finds that Steve Bannon's War Room Pandemic Telegram page has been boosting the white nationalist and fascist Patriot Front for some time. This one from February." (link)
• (3:20 PM · Dec 7, 2021) "Steve Bannon’s War Room Pandemic Telegram page has posted material directly from the white nationalist and fascist Patriot Front. This one from October." (link)
• (3:42 PM · Dec 7, 2021) "Steve Bannon's War Room Pandemic Telegram page also boosts the National Justice Party, a white nationalist group whose official platform supports, "a two percent ceiling on Jewish employment in vital institutions."" ()

In addition to archived links for each of the Institute’s tweets, a direct link to the "War Room" imitation’s posts on Telegram has been added as well. For the sole purpose of establishing that Steve Bannon’s official War Room Telegram (the real one), did not make the posts that IREHR accused them of making.

It’s only after the above posts that the IREHR account begins to make the distinction.

• (5:16 PM · Dec 7, 2021) "Steve Bannon's War Room Pandemic Telegram channel is described in this thread, but is not the official channel. There is a War Room: Official Telegram Channel."
• (5:17 PM · Dec 7, 2021) "Steve Bannon's War Room Pandemic obfuscates ownership by promoting the show, using Bannon’s likeness and logo, and having Bannon’s name as the owner."
• (5:20 PM · Dec 7, 2021) "If Bannon is concerned about this channel, he could address this with Telegram or publicly denounce the other channel that promoting his show and using his name, likeness and logo."

Did people believe IREHR was talking about Steve Bannon’s War Room in an official capacity with their initial tweets, though?

Justin Baragona of The Daily Beast initially amplified the allegations made by IREHR, before retracting.

Same circumstances for a professor at Willamette University in Oregon: advertising the claims, then a modest retraction after the fact.

Steve Bannon is scheduled to appear on Tim Pool’s evening news show "TimcastIRL." There it’s anticipated the former Trump White House advisor will discuss his ongoing litigation against Nancy Pelosi’s January 6th investigation panel, chaired by Democrats (and strictly Republicans who agree with their thinking) in the US House of Representatives.