Who is Charles Johnson, the conspiracy theorist who exchanged messages with JD Vance?
For 20 months, vice presidential Republican nominee and U.S. Senator JD Vance reportedly exchanged encrypted messages on Jeffrey Epstein, UFOs, Ukraine, and more with Charles Johnson, a fringe political actor who has denied basic facts about the Holocaust.
Vance asked Johnson if Epstein – a convicted sex offender whom Johnson described as "a good personal friend" on X Wednesday – actually killed himself. New York City's chief medical examiner ruled his death in a jail cell while awaiting federal sex trafficking charges was a suicide.
Vance also asked for Johnson's "read" on UFOs and said he "won't even take calls from Ukraine." Vance has opposed giving Ukraine aid as it defends its territory against a Russian invasion.
That's all according to a report by the Washington Post, which obtained the encrypted Signal app messages from Johnson, who has been involved in several far-right websites but who now says he supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
William Martin, a Vance spokesperson, said in statement to USA TODAY that Johnson "spam texted" Vance, who "occasionally responded to push back against things he said.”
"To suggest they were ever close or shared the same politics, especially given Johnson's public support of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, is simply laughable," Martin said.
Here's what to know:
Who is Charles Johnson?
Johnson has described himself as an "investigative journalist," but critics refer to him as an "internet troll" who frequently promotes conspiracy theories.
In a since-deleted Reddit exchange documented by the Tampa Bay Times, Johnson said, "I do not and never have believed the six million figure," referring to the approximately six million Jews murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. Johnson said he thinks a "more realistic" estimate is 250,000 killed in concentration camps, and that he agreed with a Holocaust-denying film director "about Auschwitz and the gas chambers not being real."
Johnson at one point claimed the transcript was fake, but then acknowledged making the statements, according to the Tampa Bay newspaper. He said, however, he had been testing Reddit's commitment to free speech, and the statements didn't reflect his views.
After this story published, Johnson responded to an earlier request for comment stating: "Most of this is incorrect."
It's not the only time Johnson has made debunked or fringe claims.
He said in 2015 that he knew where Malaysian Airline Flight 370 was and just needed the funding to go to its location, according to Fresno, California television station ABC 30. Why the March, 2014 flight disappeared has remained a mystery, although debris that investigators determined was from the flight was recovered in subsequent years.
Johnson also refused to directly answer questions from the Daily Beast in 2017 about a forged document he was linked to that accused New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of sexual harassment, with language copied verbatim from a sexual harassment complaint that was actually against a different member of Congress. He said he looked forward to the publication's investigation. Schumer's office said the document was a forgery.
Johnson was banned from Twitter – now X – in 2015 for soliciting donations for "taking out" a Black Lives Matter activist. He argued the language was referring to journalistic sleuthing, according to the Washington Post. His account was restored after the platform was taken over by Elon Musk.
Johnson was Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz's State of the Union guest in 2018, which drew a rebuke from the Republican Jewish Coalition. Gaetz later expressed regret for that choice to the Tampa Bay Times ? while also questioning whether Johnson is actually a Holocaust denier.
Why was JD Vance messaging Johnson?
While Vance at one point told Johnson to stop sending "weird messages" that he said had a "threatening tone," he also sometimes reached out himself, according to the Washington Post. He did so to ridicule the mental state of an activist supporting Ukraine, and to ask for Johnson's take on a former official's claims of evidence on alien spacecraft.
Vance questioned Johnson's self-presentation as a "spook," a slang term for an undercover government agent or spy. But he also sarcastically suggested to Johnson having "the spooks up the doses of Xanax among the rank and file,” to imply the federal government was engineering public support for Ukraine.
It's not the first time Vance has associated with the far-right fringe, if you take the senator's word for it. Vance told Business Insider in January that he is "plugged into a lot of weird right-wing subcultures."
In 2021, Vance posted on then-Twitter that Alex Jones "is a far more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow," a liberal MSNBC television show host.
Jones has been ordered to pay about $1.5 billion to families of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre for his false conspiracy-theory claims about the event dating back years before Vance's post.
Vance also supplied an admiring blurb for a new book by right-wing conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec that argues many on the left are "unhumans" who deserve to be "crushed," and praises past fascist dictators such as Spain's Francisco Franco and Chile's Augusto Pinochet for their violent suppression of the left.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Who is Charles Johnson, the conspiracy theorist texted by JD Vance?
