john brown’s buddy

searchlight institute director of product marketing

[Emma Vigeland @EmmaVigeland]

It gets more insane. This is a right-wing smear campaign. NY Post, 2018:

"Inez Stepman and Lindsey Fifield are two millennial women who co-founded the group Ladies for Kavanaugh to show their support for the nominee... Their pro-Kavanaugh group was formed on their own time."

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

It's kind of wild to find out that the Republican in the NYT story that says she had a toxic relationship with Graham Platner is Lyndsey Fifield. Having been in DC for too long, I know a decent number of people who know her quite well. For a long time she was the co-host of a podcast with her best friend Bethany Mandel, called Ladybrains, though she has also worked for multiple super PACs, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Heritage Foundation.

Some background, presented without judgment: In 2014, Fifield began work as digital director for American Action Network, a Republican Super PAC that oversees House races. The next year she became social media manager for the Heritage Foundation, where she stayed for the next seven years.

In 2022, she joined the Super PAC backing Nikki Haley for president, switching to the official campaign side the next year, and staying until the campaign flamed out. She now lists herself as a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, a prominent dark money group that is best known for helping usher Brett Kavanaugh on to the Supreme Court and giving Susan Collins the talking points she needed to make her decisive speech in his favor.

The NYT breezed past all this, saying she was "a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns."

In an interview for a news outlet called Red Alert Politics that named her to a “30 under 30” list back in 2016, she said that she wanted to “emulate the late conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart’s approach to online activism.” Breitbart, known for pushing the boundaries when it came to political combat, is perhaps best remembered for having exposed Anthony Weiner’s penchant for sending nudes to young girls, and for his work elevating James O’Keefe.

That she worked for Independent Women's Forum recently is even wilder since IWF played a critical role in Kavanaugh's confirmation and in persuading Collins to support it.

Heather Higgins, chair of IWF, laid out the group’s role in a talk several years ago. “We wrote a memo. It was used by a lot of members of the Senate and the House, Fox News, and elsewhere. Most important, Susan Collins told me that without that memo, she would not see how to support him,” Higgins said. “And if you look at the speech she gave on the Senate floor, it’s entirely the playing out and architecture of how we said to structure the argument — what to say and how to say it, which is just so gratifying. We’re watching TV and we’re like, ‘That’s ours! That’s ours!’”

Meanwhile, the timeline Fifield gives of their relationship is confusing, because during at least some of that time she was actually dating a different person, her longterm boyfriend who became her fiancee before she called off the wedding in 2018. We all know this because she and Mandel did a podcast episode on it that went mega-viral in Republican circles back then. Apparently this is the kind of thing the NYT thinks is important now, so I guess it requires more reporting. I'll report back.

Here is Heather Higgins celebrating IWF's role in getting Susan Collins to confirm Kavanaugh:

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

@corrcomm @nathanTbernard I’m a Jew. Strange thing to say.

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

@radioFreeMI @Revkin @EmmaVigeland I meant don’t believe her because she’s a Zionist.

[Jejune The Annihilator @Midnight_JJ0]

Katie Gluek, the NYT hack who wrote the smear piece on Graham Platner, has parents who are *Israeli settlers* in the West Bank. As usual, the Israel lobby is demonizing a candidate b/c he's dared to criticize Israel. Many will be duped by these reprehensible tactics as usual

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

When you’re losing:

[Spencer Pratt @spencerpratt]

God always wins.

[Emma Vigeland @EmmaVigeland]

Here's the chair of the Independent Women’s Forum, the right-wing group where Lyndsey Fifield is a fellow, bragging about helping draft Susan Collins's remarks when she voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.

Fifield is NYT's main source, and the only one alleging anything physical.

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

@AlexaShrugged Can you? He obviously never said what it was to her, which is why there’s no record of her talking about it in all the chat logs (no “omg my bf just told me he has a Totenkopf”) until it became convenient for her politically.

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

Lyndsey Fifield, the woman with the most provocative accusations in the Graham Platner piece, is an ardent Zionist.

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

How could he know something else was coming out when it was pure fiction invented in someone else’s diseased mind

[Everything Price Sufferer (but especially eggs) @agraybee]

Remember like two days ago when Platner looked Schumer, Warren and Bernie dead in the eyes and said nothing else was coming out.

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

@radioFreeMI @Revkin @EmmaVigeland She’s not Jewish.

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

@vee3and3 @sarahcbedford No, he “referred” to it, you illiterate Nazi scum.

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

@lookbryand @nathanTbernard People who lie about being victims are always happy to go on the record.

[Ashleyy @dontsippy]

when the New York Times interview Ken Paxton’s former partners?

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

@Revkin @EmmaVigeland And more importantly, the details the NYT conveniently left out:

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

Lyndsey Fifield, the woman with the most provocative accusations in the Graham Platner piece, is an ardent Zionist.

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

It’s so crazy that the only person who had anything bad to say about Platner is a Zionist far-right operative (whose employer worked on Project 2025) who wants to join the Collins campaign and whose accusations are carefully couched in terms to evade a lawsuit + discovery.

[Jack Cocchiarella @JDCocchiarella]

Platner story could’ve ended here

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

@the_matt @DouglasLFarrar It’s so funny that Fifield lied about that and we can prove it. https://t.co/fJHz9jw6uy

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

On top of that, Fifield told an obvious lie to the NYT and it went unchallenged. She claimed to not know what a Totenkopf was even while bragging to her group chat that she detected an “actual one.”

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

The NYT also undersells just how right-wing Fifield is. Her employer is literally a contributor to Project 2025.

[john brown’s buddy @_gothlorien]

On top of that, Fifield told an obvious lie to the NYT and it went unchallenged. She claimed to not know what a Totenkopf was even while bragging to her group chat that she detected an “actual one.”