The creator of the online fundraising campaign for Sidney Powell’s ‘Kraken’ trial, aimed at reversing the loss of President Donald Trump in November, has a patrician pedigree and a social media profile teeming with transphobia and flirtation with the extreme right.
Robert Matheson’s social media personality has become so strident and extreme that Twitter banned him from his platform earlier this year after he tweeted Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler that transgender was “a joke,” “a mental illness” and a “disease.”
Powell told the Daily Beast that Matheson was no longer involved with the Republic of the United States Legal Defense Fund – but that would sound like news to him.
His website boasts that the ‘brand architect’ from the boarding school “is working with Sidney Powell and the Legal Defense Fund for the American Republic to defend against electoral fraud.” And his page is linked to DefendingtheRepublic.org, where Powell urged his supporters to donate to his conspiracy-related legal effort during an appearance on Lou Dobbs tonight last month.
A pop-up message on RRMatheson.com and a greeting to the phone number listed on the site seem to indicate Matheson’s continued involvement.
“If you’re calling because you see a charge on your credit card receipt from RRMatheson or LDFFTAR.org, it’s because we are handling donations for Sidney Legal Defense Fund, called Defending the Republic,” the voicemail reads.
Reached by email, Powell said Matheson had volunteered to “start it all for me,” before saying there was no current connection. Powell – a former federal prosecutor who now claims an elaborate conspiracy involving Venezuela, China and Iran transferred millions of votes from Trump to President-elect Joe Biden – did not answer further questions regarding his relationship with Matheson or if he had personally paid money into ???? the legal fund.
Matheson is a longtime Republican Party donor who hosted Vice President Mike Pence for a fundraiser at his family’s residence in Newport, Rhode Island in 2016. But his roots in the DC area run deep. in one of America’s greatest industrial dynasties – and in the White House itself.
An obituary published in The New York Times in June identifies Matheson as the grandson of legendary socialite Ruth Buchanan, herself granddaughter of Herbert Henry Dow, the founder of Dow Chemical. A sprawling multinational corporation, Dow has always produced everything from breast implants and Agent Orange to polysterene, pesticides and nuclear bombs.
Wiley T. Buchanan, Matheson’s grandfather, was a relative of James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States. The Buchanan of the latter days served as the State Department’s ambassador and chief of protocol during the Eisenhower administration.
Matheson’s career has been a little less illustrious. A self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur,” Matheson has worked in Senate lobbying, real estate, clothing design, a co-working start-up, creative writing and contributing to Forbes.com, as well as many other companies.
In recent years, he seems to have become increasingly politically engaged – and increasingly drawn to the outer edges of the conservative movement. A supporter of now-Sen. Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations in 2012, he has channeled thousands of people into Trump’s election efforts since 2016. He operates Calamo Press, a small imprint that publishes headlines such as “How to Bag a RINO,” a guide on the defeat of the former parliamentary majority leader Eric Cantor in 2014; “The Memo” by Richard Higgins, the head of the National Security Council sacked in 2017 for promulgating conspiracy theories on a “globalist” plot to undermine Trump; and “Architects of Disaster” by ex-Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, who claims to be “the real story behind the tragic events in Benghazi and the Obama administration’s dire foreign policy catastrophe in Libya.”
Archived tweets Starting in 2017, Matheson amplified marginal numbers such as serial fraudster Jacob Wohl, columnist Ann Coulter and alt-right personality Mike Cernovich. He also retweeted a message of support for French far-right politician Marine Le Pe from the now-defunct ‘Pamela Moore’ account – now known to be a sock puppet from a Russian government troll farm. In July of this year, Matheson launched the Foundation for the American Republic, which describes itself as “working on 501 (c) 3 status” to raise funds for right-wing influencers and journalists.
Matheson’s active social media accounts have a flavor similar to his old Twitter. One of his first posts on Gab – a platform popular among white supremacists – in 2016 called for a follow-up to the notoriously racist and anti-Semitic troll account @ Ricky_Vaughn99, since exposed as Manhattan-based economist Douglass Mackey.
Matheson also shared posts from other Gab users calling for a burqa ban and promoting a far-right Big League Politics blog post with the headline, “In 2019, the United States was the country # 1 in an attempt to turn into a third world Hellscape Through Refugee Settlement. “
Meanwhile, on Speak – another site beloved by right-wing figures for its lack of standards – an account using Matheson’s name and photo heavily promoted the failure of Muslim activist Laura Loomer’s congressional candidacy. and echoed posts attacking Islamic religious law and candidates belonging to the world’s second largest religion. On November 7, he claimed to “work with the Trump team here in Philadelphia.”
A day earlier, he had registered the “Election Integrity Funds for the American Republic” website. A landing page controlled by Matheson claims that this entity is “not directly related to the Sidney Powell legal defense fund,” but the site itself claims that donations made through it go to the Legal Defense Fund for the American Republic, the original name of the entity funding Powell’s purported Kraken costumes. EIFFTAR.org also allows potential contributors to allocate gifts to Pennsylvania, Georgia, or “voter cyber fraud.”
Matheson did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
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