As Election Day voters get set to head to the polls on Tuesday, attempts to influence the vote have ratcheted up to unprecedented levels with deceptive mass texts from groups like the "Christian Fathers Foundation."
According to one text, the foundation has amazingly "endorsed" the same candidates as the fake "MAGA guide," which happens to be all those working with political operative Anthony Pedicini, sans incumbent property appraiser Charlie Hackney. Hackney is
not a client of Pedicini's and confirmed to
TBT that he was never contacted by the "Christian Fathers Foundation" or given a questionnaire (the standard way that many such groups determine who to endorse. Hackney said he had no idea who was behind the text or why he was included with Pedecini's clients, as he was in the
fake MAGA endorsement guide.
In investigating the organization and its activities, I was able to determine the following:
Fact #1: According to public records, the supposed "Christian Fathers Foundation" is a registered limited liability corporation. Records kept by the Wyoming Secretary of State Dept show that the "foundation" was incorporated just two days ago, on Aug. 16, 2024 (see image above).
The "foundation" was registered by a registering agent company, which also has a Wyoming address. I won't post them here, but the filing ID documents available on the WY Secretary of State website provide the address and phone number of the registering agent firm - "Registered Agents Inc." I personally phoned the number and got an outgoing voicemail recording that, indeed, is for Registered Agents Inc. and not for the alleged "Christian Fathers Foundation."
Fact #2: There was a mass text message disseminated today that shared the Christian Fathers Foundation endorsement list, or "voter guide." This text message informed recipients that "Keep Florida Winning" wanted to "congratulate the candidates" who had been endorsed by the alleged foundation. The text message included a link to a website:
https://christianfathersfoundation.org/ (see image above).
Fact #3: The sender of the text that promoted the endorsements by the alleged "Christian Fathers Foundation" was sent by a Political Action Committee registered in the state of Florida - the Keep Florida Winning PAC.
Keep Florida Winning is chaired by Jennings Lawton DePriest, and its treasurer is Eric Robinson (see image above).
DePriest, if you don't know, is a
self-described "Professional Propagandist."
Fact #4: According to the GoDaddy "whois" database, the foundation's website domain was created on Aug. 14, 2024, just two days before the "foundation" was legally incorporated in Wyoming (see image above). The website itself contains no other information about the "foundation" or its work or board besides the local candidate endorsement list, a privacy policy, and terms and conditions.
On the terms and conditions page, you will see the following words: "christianfathersfoundation.org is a Politics Site" (see image above). On the privacy policy page, you can find the following words: "The Company’s website is a political committee site" (see image above).
Inspecting the metadata available on the "foundations" website shows that the last recorded time the website was modified was today, Aug. 18, 2024. (see image above) Additional metadata shows that the screenshot image of the "endorsement list" was uploaded to the website on Aug 17, 2024 (see image above).
I did not grab an image for this next point, but you can confirm if you know how to view inspect data. There appears to be some hint that shows that the "screenshot" of the supposed "list of endorsements" was created on Aug. 13, 2024. This is important to note because Aug. 13 is the same date that a real Christian organization, "The Christian Family Coalition of Manatee," issued its list of "highly qualified" local candidates for its "voter guide." The bonafide Christian organization's list did not include any recommendations for the local Pedicini clan in any race. Furthermore, Charles Hackney told TBT that he was contacted by the latter group's Manatee branch and participated in a questionnaire before receiving its endorsement.
Fact #5: The "foundations" website also reveals other clues. For example, its privacy policy page says, "Effective as of August 15, 2024," and the phone number provided can be called. However, it doesn't have an outgoing voicemail that includes anything like, "You've reached the Christian Fathers Foundation..." or anything remotely like that. Instead, it sounds like a Google number or some other generic go-to-nothing number.
Fact #6: Jennings Lawton DePriest, the "Professional Propagandist," also created the phony "Real Manatee County Conservatives" website/blog and Facebook page, which was used for various propaganda campaigns here locally, including muddying the waters on wetland protections, to attack former SOE Mike Bennett, State Attorney Ed Brodsky, County Clerk Angel Colonneso, and even to attack citizens. You can read more about that
here.
In summary, this is what we know: The "foundation" is newly created and has no other activities aside from the voter guide recommending a slate of political operative Anthony Pedicini's candidates. A "professional propagandist" named Jennings Lawton DePriest runs the PAC that is promoting the "foundation's" voter guide. In sum, it seems like little more than a political propaganda ad designed to deceive Republican voters in Tuesday's primary into thinking that a legitimate "Christian Foundation" has endorsed Pedecini's clients in order to offset the legitimate endorsements from an actual Christian group that did not select candidates he was working with.
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