The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Aaron Walker Court Hearing Confirms Kimberlin-Rauhauser Collaboration

Posted on | May 31, 2012 | 63 Comments

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Democrat campaign consultant Neal Rauhauser accompanied convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin to a Tuesday court hearing in Maryland, confirming their continued collaboration in an apparent effort to harass and intimidate conservative bloggers.

Kimberlin appeared in Montgomery County (Md.) District Court for a final hearing Tuesday on his “peace order” against blogger Aaron Walker, who was arrested at the conclusion of the hearing on charges that he had violated terms of a previous peace order through “incitement.” Judge C.J. Vaughey ruled that Walker’s blog was responsible for encouraging death threats to Kimberlin, who was convicted in 1981 for a series of bombings in Indiana.

Investor’s Business Daily reporter David Hogberg attended the Maryland hearing and reported that he spoke to “Kimberlin and his associate Neal Rauhauser” at the courthouse in Rockville. Kimberlin was spotted earlier this month at a New Jersey courthouse where Rauhauser faced charges of harassing Mike Stack, an Internet activist who played a prominent role in exposing the Anthony Weiner sex scandal.

The partnership of Kimberlin and Rauhauser is one of the elements of a lawsuit Walker filed in January against them and former Raw Story editor Ron Brynaert, which alleges:

“Defendant Kimberlin had on some date prior to November 14 [2011] formed a conspiracy with Defendants Brynaert and Rauhauser to stalk, harass, defame, intentionally inflict emotional distress and commit other illegal and/or immoral acts against any person perceived as an ‘enemy,’ particularly anyone who dared to accurately describe Defendant Kimberlin’s criminal past and any person seen as helping any target of this conspiracy.”

Walker, a Virginia attorney, was apparently targeted for harassment after he provided legal assistance to Seth Allen, a liberal who had blogged about Brett Kimberlin’s criminal history. Like Walker, Allen was also arrested on charges of harassing Kimberlin. Patterico writes of Kimberlin’s “abuse of process” in such proceedings:

Kimberlin learned a technique that he later used against Walker: namely, having your critics arrested in civil court.
Namely, this serial litigant [i.e., Kimberlin] forces his critics into his jurisdiction with a frivolous civil action. If Kimberlin’s critics complain that the action is frivolous, he calls that criticism “harassment,” and through a process of seeking frivolous peace orders and/or filing frivolous criminal complaints, obtains an arrest warrant for the critic. When the critic shows up to court as required, he or she is arrested on the trumped-up charges.
Success! The story becomes about the critic’s arrest. The critics look worse because authorities seem to take Kimberlin’s side; and he gets the satisfaction of putting his critics behind bars, even if for a short time.
Alternatively, Kimberlin and his supporters can use the threat of arrest to try to frighten civil litigants into staying out of court.

Patterico — the blog name of Los Angeles deputy district attorney Patrick Frey — has accused Kimberlin, Rauhauser and Brynaert of engaging in a “campaign of political terrorism.”

Frey was the target of “SWATting,” wherein hoax phone calls are used to deceive police into believing the target has committed a violent crime in his home, resulting in police raiding the location in anticipation of a confrontation with an armed suspect. The late Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, who was identified as an enemy by Kimberlin, discussed “SWATting” in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt shortly before Breitbart died in March. Frey and Walker discussed their experiences with Kimberlin in an interview last week on the Glenn Beck radio program.

Rauhauser is a Democrat social-media consultant who has described himself as a “hacker.” Rauhauser is a founder of the consulting firm Progressive PST and was a speaker at the 2010 “NetRoots Nation” conference sponsored by Daily Kos, a popular liberal blog. Using the blog pseudonym “Stranded Wind,” Rauhauser in September 2010 urged DailyKos readers to “put an end to [Glenn] Beck’s career.” (Rauhauser’s Daily Kos blogging privileges were revoked in July 2011.)

In September 2010, blogger Patrick Read described how Rauhauser “organized a squalid group of anonymous twitter-users as a means to attack the tea party and conservatives alike.” Rauhauser’s so-called “beandogs” used Twitter messages with what Read described as “extremely graphic language including masturbation, pedophilia, violent threats, racism, sexism, religious bigotry.” Read observed that Rauhauser’s “beandogs” showed “a penchant for exposing personal information about their targets and misrepresenting factual information.” Rauhauser’s activities, exposed by Read and Tea Party activist Michelle Lessick (@ZapEm on Twitter), became known as “TwitterGate,” which I wrote about in October 2010:

Rauhauser has claimed that the TwitterGate accusations were a “smear” and a “paranoid delusion.” Claiming that Allen’s writings about Kimberlin were a “smear,” Rauhauser falsely asserted that Kimberlin “was cleared of” his criminal convictions “almost 20 years ago.”

The collaboration between Rauhauser and Kimberlin apparently began, sources say, because of Kimberlin’s use of his tax-exempt non-profit group Velvet Revolution (of which liberal blogger Brad Friedman is director) to attack the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the cybersecurity firm HBGary, alleging among other things that “Gary was hired . . . by the Chamber to infiltrate and destroy [Velvet Revolution] and its staff.”

HBGary’s Internet accounts were hacked by members of the “Anonymous” criminal conspiracy last year, and several members of the group (the so-called “LulzSec” hackers) have been indicted on felony charges. As I reported last week, federal officials are continuing to investigate the “Anonymous” conspiracy, and those sympathetic to “Anonymous” say they suspect that the group’s former public spokesman Barrett Brown may be one of the unindicted co-conspirators identified in court documents as providing evidence against the accused hackers. Since publishing my May 24 post about the “Anonymous” probe, I have been told that investigators have been working for “six to nine months” to “build evidence” against additional suspects in the hacking conspiracy.

Rauhauser is suspected of using the “@AnonyOps” Twitter account. On Tuesday, after the Maryland hearing where Walker was arrested — a hearing that Rauhauser reportedly attended — “@AnonyOps” posted a link to an image of Judge Vaughey’s ruling in the Kimberlin-Walker case:

The “@AnonyOps” Tweet was sent at 11:31 a.m. Tuesday, just half an hour after Judge Vaughey’s ruling was issued, and was re-Tweeted 12 minutes later by “@OccupyRebellion,” another Twitter account believed to be associated with Rauhauser and/or Kimberlin.

In February, Rauhauser posted an eight-page PDF document entitled “Andrew Breitbart’s ISR Cell?” The acronym “ISR” apparently refers to the military term “Intelligence, Security and Reconnaisance.” In that document, Rauhauser suggests that Breitbart was doing the bidding of HBGary, with Thomas Ryan of Berrico Technologies acting as a “cut out” between Breitbart and HBGary CEO Aaron Barr. This suspicion on Rauhauser’s part was apparently based on a single e-mail from Barr to Ryan — one of the thousands of e-mails that the “Anonymous” hackers stole from HBGary — in which Barr cited an October 2010 article about Brett Kimberlin by Breitbart.com contributor Mandy Nagy, written under her Internet pseudonym “Liberty Chick.”

In October 2011, Rauhauser described himself as doing “protective service work” for a client who is “the head of a Washington D.C. NGO” — a description that might fit Kimberlin, whose 501(c)3 Justice Through Music Project has collected about $1.8 million in contributions since its founding in 2005.

If indeed Kimberlin is now a “client” of Rauhauser, this would explain their evident collaboration in targeting Aaron Walker, Patrick Frey, Seth Allen, Mandy and other critics of Kimberlin for harassment and intimidation. Whether fees paid to Rauhauser involved the use of tax-exempt funds obtained by Kimberlin’s non-profit organizations, and whether such “protective service work” — which looks very much like an orchestrated effort to stifle First Amendment rights — would be legal under IRS regulations, remains to be determined.

It was Aaron Walker’s 28,000-word account of his ordeal with Kimberlin on May 17 that drew my attention to the case of Brett Kimberlin, the infamous “Speedway Bomber” terrorist who briefly gained notoriety in 1988 by claiming to have sold drugs to Republican Dan Quayle. While I had never heard of Kimberlin before May 17, the mention of Rauhauser in Walker’s account caught my eye because of Rauhauser’s previous involvement in the “TwitterGate” controversy and the fact that Rauhauser has worked for a number of Democrat candidates.

Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown

 


UPDATE: Linked by The Rhetorican, Dan Collins at the Conservatory, Bill Quick at Daily Pundit, Perpetually Aggreived, Damn Dirty RINO and Hogewashthanks!

UPDATE II (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers!

THE KIMBERLIN FILES:

Comments

63 Responses to “Aaron Walker Court Hearing Confirms Kimberlin-Rauhauser Collaboration”

  1. Another investigative report from R.S. McCain on Kimberlin identifies a close associate. « The Rhetorican
    May 31st, 2012 @ 11:00 am

    […] identifies a close associate.Another investigative report from R.S. McCain on Kimberlin identifies a close associate. Share this:FacebookTwitterLinkedIn […]

  2. RosalindJ
    May 31st, 2012 @ 11:04 am

    Thank you for confirming the collaboration.

    Sunlight..more sunlight.

     

  3. Stacy’s Latest Dispatch About the Kimberlin-Rauhauser-Brynaert Axis
    May 31st, 2012 @ 11:25 am

    […] emerging info on convicted domestic terrorist and perjurer Brett Kimberlin for the rest of the day. Stacy, from an undisclosed location, on Rauhauser’s appearance at the Kimberlin v. Walker hearing in Rockville, MD, on […]

  4. Tim Wells
    May 31st, 2012 @ 11:27 am

    Excellent work. Thank you for your continued vigilance and courage.

  5. And the Hits Just Keep On Coming | Daily Pundit
    May 31st, 2012 @ 11:30 am

    […] Aaron Walker Court Hearing Confirms Kimberlin-Rauhauser Collaboration : The Other McCain […]

  6. Belle Roberts
    May 31st, 2012 @ 11:36 am

    Follow the money.

  7. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    May 31st, 2012 @ 11:44 am

    Agreed.  Sunlight is the best disinfectant.  And there is apparently a massive mold and mildew outbreak in Maryland right now.  

  8. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    May 31st, 2012 @ 11:45 am

    RSM may be more effective from undisclosed locations.  

  9. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    May 31st, 2012 @ 11:47 am

    Agreed.  You rock Stacy.  Even if you have to hide under one!   

  10. A Tale of Two Tales | The Fellowship of the Perpetually Aggrieved
    May 31st, 2012 @ 12:06 pm

    […] an update about the collaboration between terrorist Brett Kimberlin and far-left agitator Neal Rauhauser, who are using the courts to […]

  11. Dustin
    May 31st, 2012 @ 12:39 pm

    So much detail.  You have done a great job presenting a complicated story in an understandable way.

  12. Taxpayer1234
    May 31st, 2012 @ 12:41 pm

    I want to know what Kimberlin is doing to the guy who wrote a book about him. And the author’s agent. And the publishing company. And the bookstores. And….

  13. Genny
    May 31st, 2012 @ 1:08 pm

    Amazing. More sunshine!

  14. g b
    May 31st, 2012 @ 1:26 pm

    If you haven’t seen them these two posts, now taken down, from 2010 are informative.

  15. PaulLemmen
    May 31st, 2012 @ 2:01 pm

    Not just Maryland …

  16. tmtisss
    May 31st, 2012 @ 2:05 pm

    Maryland Statute on Competency of Witness
    Subtitle 1 – Competence, Compellability, and Privilege Section 9-104 – Convicted perjurer.

    § 9-104. Convicted perjurer.
     

    A person convicted of perjury may not testify.   

  17. Tmitsss
    May 31st, 2012 @ 2:08 pm

     Maryland has a Anti SLAPP statute
    2010 Maryland Code COURTS AND JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS TITLE 5 – LIMITATIONS, PROHIBITED ACTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES Subtitle 8 – Immunities and Prohibited Actions – Miscellaneous Section 5-807 – SLAPP suits.

    More Sharing ServicesShare
    |

    § 5-807. SLAPP suits.

  18. The Damn Dirty RINO
    May 31st, 2012 @ 2:19 pm

    For the latest on Brett Kimberlin . . ….

    . . . and his toadies Neal Rauhauser and Ron Brynaert, be sure to check in on Dan Collins’s post over at The Conservatory, where he links to Stacy McCain’s latest piece on the slowly-but-steadily evolving story. An interesting tidbit from S…

  19. Stogie Chomper
    May 31st, 2012 @ 2:23 pm

    If I remember my Business Law course, what Kimberlin is doing is worse than “abusive process.”  It is more accurately described as “malicious prosecution.”  The judge in this case has his head way up his ass.  

    Kimberlin appears to be a “vexatious litigant,” in that he files numerous, frivolous lawsuits in order to punish or harrass people he doesn’t like.  Why this airhead judge ruled in his favor is truly incredible.

  20. Lisa Truelove
    May 31st, 2012 @ 2:35 pm

    Keep up the good work.. missed you yesterday!.  If you have any contact with Aaron, please encourage him to post to  his blog… he can write about anything at all but he needs to post something.  

  21. Tmitsss
    May 31st, 2012 @ 2:35 pm

     Colkley v. State (Md. App.,
    2012)

    As of the retrial of this case, it is indisputable that William Courts was
    unavailable as a witness. In the Circuit Court for Baltimore City in September of 2009,
    Courts was found guilty, upon his plea of guilty, of perjury. Pursuant to
    Maryland Code, Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, § 9-104, he was
    thenceforth incompetent as a witness. Section 9-104 provides, simply but
    absolutely:

    “A person convicted of perjury
    may not testify.”

    See Myer v. State, 303
    Md. 639, 643, 496
    A.2d 312 (1985); Howell v. State, 62
    Md. App. 278, 285, 489
    A.2d 55 (1985).

  22. Meet Neal Rauhauser | hogewash
    May 31st, 2012 @ 2:35 pm

    […] Neal Rauhauser Posted on 31 May, 2012 by wjjhoge Stacy McCain handles the introduction. Share this:TwitterFacebookLinkedInEmailPrintLike this:LikeBe the first to […]

  23. Ian Vaughan
    May 31st, 2012 @ 2:47 pm

    Why do I keep hearing Alice’s Restaurant in my head?

  24. Finrod Felagund
    May 31st, 2012 @ 3:20 pm
  25. Adjoran
    May 31st, 2012 @ 3:55 pm

    Ali should invest the first harvest of donations to find a good Maryland attorney to instigate proceeding to designate Kimberlin as a “vexatious litigant,” which will require him to post a bond equal to an estimate of his target’s legal fees and costs in defending any action he files, and to get prior approval from an administrative judge for every single pleading, motion, subpoena, etc. before it is filed.

    Nearly every state which has such a designation also recognizes those from other states, so his ability to file these suits would be immediately curtailed.  After that, pursuing him under SLAPP would nail it shut.

    Now, this would not stop him from seeking people’s real identities or calling them or their spouses at work, but the solution to that could come out of the legal fund as well:  sue him.  Discovery can be a real bitch.

    I suggest that legal defense funds are more efficiently used to stop the abuse rather than passively to pay lawyers of defendants as they are abused. 

    It is a good thing to have compassion for people who have been targeted, but as a practical matter the donations will slow and stop at some point.  You just can’t raise enough money to correct every situation after the fact; you need to cut off the head of the snake.

  26. g b
    May 31st, 2012 @ 4:07 pm

    Thank you.

  27. That Mr. G Guy's Blog
    May 31st, 2012 @ 4:32 pm

    #BrettKimberlin And #NealRauhauser, A Match Made In Hell…

    ……

  28. Mm
    May 31st, 2012 @ 4:46 pm

     MD has a vexation litigant statute, but I believe it does not require the posting of a bond.

  29. Guest
    May 31st, 2012 @ 4:48 pm

    I saw one of Stacy’s tweets in response to another one that claimed this whole thing is not a big story.  Stacy  disagreed, suggesting that a famous break in story wasn’t big at first.  I agree – I think this is big, and it is going to grow.

  30. Mike G.
    May 31st, 2012 @ 5:07 pm

    WordPress screwed me. I linked this post and did some other research and when I tried to publish it, it just flew off into cyberhell.

  31. RightCoastGirl
    May 31st, 2012 @ 5:40 pm

    I wrote about my experience here…. http://theothermccain.com/2012/05/31/aaron-walker-court-hearing-confirms-kimberlin-rauhauser-collaboration/#disqus_thread

  32. RightCoastGirl
    May 31st, 2012 @ 5:42 pm

    Sorry, I had pasted the wrong link. 
    I wrote about my experience here….
    http://rightcoastconservative.blogspot.com/2012/05/first-amendment-you-know-you-just-cant.html 

  33. The #BrettKimberlin Report [D+6]: Odds And Sods « The Camp Of The Saints
    May 31st, 2012 @ 6:01 pm

    […] -Stacy McCain has filed another must-read report, entitled: Aaron Walker Court Hearing Confirms Kimberlin-Rauhauser Collaboration. […]

  34. SPQR9
    May 31st, 2012 @ 7:05 pm

    This post is the outline of why Brett Kimberlin is an issue today as part of the discussion of contemporary politics in our nation.   He is not a pathetic private figure instead he is someone who has inserted themselves into contemporary politics continuously since his fraudulent claims to have sold marijuana to Quayle.  And he is someone within the web of the sordid dirty tricks corps of the left.

  35. Mulder
    May 31st, 2012 @ 7:06 pm

    RE: 
    The judge in this case has his head way up his ass.  
    I think it’s more honest to say that the judge was out of his league, esp. in understanding the blogosphere. I think I read somewhere that he’s retired and had been pulled in to help with the court’s caseload. 

  36. Mulder
    May 31st, 2012 @ 7:06 pm

    And the all moved away from him on the Group W bench.

  37. teezieldors
    May 31st, 2012 @ 7:12 pm

    Freaky Neal (as Andrew B used to call him) is also responsible for trolling, lying and making a fool of Tomy Christopher in the Weinergate investigation http://badjournalist.blogspot.com/2012/05/happy-weinerversary.html PS Fake IDs are involved– that’s a crime, ain’t it?

  38. Adjoran
    May 31st, 2012 @ 7:15 pm

     Then what is the point of having it?  How does it restrain the vexatious?

  39. Adjoran
    May 31st, 2012 @ 7:27 pm

     Making a fool of Tommy Christopher?  I thought that was Tommy’s job, he seems to work at it full time.

  40. teezieldors
    May 31st, 2012 @ 7:28 pm

    Good point. A bigger fool, then

  41. Quartermaster
    May 31st, 2012 @ 7:49 pm

    If it weren’t for Mrs. Other McCain, that’s where he would live. She has done so much to elevate him.

    Now he’s back in his native habitat. 🙂

  42. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    May 31st, 2012 @ 8:21 pm

    Stacy is like one of those beneficial bacteria who can thrive and make us healthier for it by being in the fetid colonic gutter we know as American politics.  

    Thank you RSM for keeping us regular!  

  43. Olympia Press
    May 31st, 2012 @ 8:27 pm

    I think there’s also Ron Brynaert to be considered.  He’s probably the IT muscle in the group, but otherwise faceless.  Might live in Queens, and is now one of my newest twitter followers.  Unfortunately for him, I don’t talk politics much, but he’s welcome to go looking for me in the bars along Roosevelt Ave. next week.

    For personal reasons, I’m not as concerned about civil suits, but Brynaert’s existence made me be damn sure I had backups on all my sites before I made my not-as-edited-as-it-could-have-been post.  Olympia’s where I make money, uses off-the-shelf-software with the latest security patches, and can be restored in 20 minutes from a bar via my iPhone; Munsey’s, unfortunately, is a hodge-podge CMS worked on by a trio of third-party coders–there was no good json document database like MongoDB 5 years ago–so there’s just gonna be some vulnerabilities.  And while you’d think nobody would ever take down a site that offers 30k ebooks gratis and ad-free, specializing in DAISY XML for the blind and learning-disabled, you’d… be wrong, and it’s taken at least a week for me to recover each time.  I’ve got it all backed up now, but not every ebook format is in the cloud yet.

    Did mention on my twitter to followers old and new that my ISP is now watching every single transaction, and any attempt to manage the site save from a handful of trusted MAC addresses will result in the authorities being notified, but… who knows.    

    In any event Mr. McCain, best of luck to you when you decide to return to the Maryland “Free” State.

  44. Quick Hits | The Lonely Conservative
    May 31st, 2012 @ 9:04 pm

    […] Here are some of the things I’ve read but I haven’t had the chance to get to.***The Other McCain has the latest in the Brett Kimberlin saga. A Democrat consultant named Neal Rauhauser accompanied […]

  45. werewife
    May 31st, 2012 @ 10:05 pm

    Just back from listening to the Hewitt interview of Breitbart, and am wondering: Is it going to take a tragic shooting, with an innocent person dead and a well-meaning police officer bearing the guilt for it, before “SWATting” is taken seriously as something other than a cute prank to play on right-wingers? It certainly is in keeping with the cowardice and brutality of a man who would set bombs at random targets…

    This whole Kimberlin vortex of malice and cruelty has convinced me that Stacy McCain and those like him are heroes equal to the legendary war correspondents, when the occasion has demanded it.

  46. What have we come to? or Points to Ponder | Rockport Conservatives
    May 31st, 2012 @ 10:11 pm

    […] Last  Friday was deemed   “Everyone Blog About Bret Kimberlin Day.”  I’m late to the game and am playing catch up .If you have not heard of these incidents you should have. I hope I don’t get harassed for reporting on it. Aaron Walker Court Hearing Confirms Kimberlin-Rauhauser Collaboration, […]

  47. Georg Felis
    May 31st, 2012 @ 10:49 pm

    So what is the best way to fight this creep?  If he files a suit against you, immediately file a peace action against him (after all, he is a convicted bomber and perjurer), hire a lawyer to represent yourself, and listen to his advice (you are paying for it).  Right?

  48. Terry in GA
    May 31st, 2012 @ 10:55 pm

    Damn, Stacy — NICE WORK — I’ve always admired your work, but you’ve knocked yourself out on this project.  Somebody must have gotten on your last nerve or something.

    Especially good job on this one.  Betcha the boss man is watching this on the live feed, and I’m pretty sure he’s smiling.

  49. Linda
    June 1st, 2012 @ 12:40 am

    thank you, thank you, thank you, for continuing to connect the dots.  especially, the way you picked up on the “anonyops” tweet put out just minutes after Walker’s hearing.

    this is only a technical critique, but a little bird tells me that “ISR” stands for “Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaisance.”  Surveillance, not Security.

    cheers, my friend!

  50. Dustin
    June 1st, 2012 @ 1:07 am

    Unfortunately this is a very weak SLAPP defense. They tried to fix it recently and fell short, and my hope is that this fiasco helps Maryland’s better thinking legislators have an example showing why they must have a better SLAPP defense.