Charles Carlisle Johnson (born October 22, 1988) is an American political activist who was a public figure in the years 2013 to 2019.
A self-described "investigative journalist",[1] Johnson is often described as an internet troll and has been repeatedly involved in the proliferation and spread of multiple fake news stories.
[9][10] In 2016, Johnson wrote a memo encouraging Claremont Institute alumni to help elect Donald Trump as president.
[20] The story came days after Cochran had defeated Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel in a run-off election.
[24] Further appeal attempts by Johnson to unseal the records went as far as the State Supreme Court of Missouri, which denied his request.
[25] In December 2014, Rolling Stone columnist Sabrina Erdely published an article entitled "A Rape on Campus" about the alleged gang rape of a University of Virginia (UVA) student named "Jackie" in 2012 at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at UVA.
[26] On May 24, 2015, Johnson sent a tweet asking his followers for donations to help him "take out" Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson.
[27] In 2014, Johnson met over Twitter with Jeff Giesea, Peter Thiel's former employee, who founded MAGA-X3 with Mike Cernovich who was involved in promoting the Pizzagate hoax.
"[28] In 2017, Giesea wrote an article inspired by his association with Johnson titled “It's Time to Embrace Memetic Warfare,” for the Defence Strategic Communications, an official journal of NATO's Stratcom.
[31] The Michigan man was subsequently harassed, and was advised by police to flee his home following a slew of death threats.
[31][32] Together with his father, the Michigan man filed a defamation lawsuit against 22 corporate and individual defendants, including Johnson.
Moreover, language in the forged lawsuit was copied verbatim from a real sexual-harassment complaint filed against Rep. John Conyers.
[42][43] Missouri state representative Sarah Unsicker, a Democrat, was stripped of her committee assignments in 2023 after she repeatedly posted a photo on social media of herself posing with Johnson.
[44] In October 2024 Semafor reported that Point Bridge Capital had filed a lawsuit against Johnson for civil racketeering.
[45] The lawsuit states that “Johnson is running a fraud and extortion scheme under which he [will] falsely present [himself] as intelligence agents or assets of U.S. government agencies.
Johnson and Greenwill seek investments in upstart technology companies operating in the defense and intelligence sectors, which heavily rely on government contracts.
If a company or investor doesn’t give in to their demands for equity or favorable investment terms, Johnson [will] threaten to sabotage the companies’ contracts or funding under the guise of their false claims to be government agents.”[45] Johnson has denied the validity of these claims, characterizing them as lawfare.
[46] Johnson has written two books published through Encounter Books:[47] Why Coolidge Matters, an essay collection encompassing various points in Calvin Coolidge's political career[48] with blurbs by John Yoo, Michelle Malkin, and Ted Cruz,[13] and The Truth About the IRS Scandals.
[52] On October 18, 2021, more than two years after the death of Jeffrey Epstein, Johnson discussed his Breitbart boss and mentor Steve Bannon's relationship with the pedophile and human trafficker in an interview with Rolling Stone reporter Seth Hettena.
Steve Bannon met with Epstein multiple times after exiting the White House, including in December 2017.
In addition, Johnson declared in the Rolling Stone piece that he quietly shifted his allegiance from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, likely after the presidential election or sometime in early 2021.