Editors Note: This article is not an endorsement of The Proud Boys or their philosophy or tactics. It is merely an example of how the left actively works to silence conservative voices.
In a recent podcast episode, independent journalist Tim Pool, discussed a leaked email he received that appears to show a prominent left-wing journalist coercing Chase Bank into demonetizing a political opposition group known as The Proud Boys.
“What you see on your screen right now is an email from a Slate Jounalist named April Glaser…This email, in my opinion, shows the tactics of activists in media to deplatform their political rivals through loaded questions and language meant to create maximum pressure and the cost of businesses to work with certain political groups.”
At first, Pool was hesitant to name the journalist and had originally redacted her name, but felt that it was necessary to reveal the email’s author in order to show how her articles and tweets she’s suggest her bias towards regulating conservative groups on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. He even identified one article written by Glaser that suggests her specific intention was to get The Proud Boys shut down by having their financial services terminated. Glaser has since made her Twitter account private and has allegedly been deleting tweets that depict her bias.
The email in question was sent by Glaser to three different people (emails redacted), two of whom were at JP Morgan and one at Chase. The email reads:
“Hi There,
I’m April, a journalist at Slate. Writing to ask if JP Morgan Chase is aware that the Proud Boys affiliated online store 1776.shop uses Chase Paymentech as its payment proecessor. 1776 shop is what’s redirected from FundTheWest.org which Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes cited as the legal defense fund of the Proud Boys.
The Proud Boys are designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group and members have engaged in group violence in Portland and New York City. The group has been suspended by Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Is the usage of Chase Paymentech in support of such groups against Chases’ policy? On a deadline.
Sincerely,
April”
Pool argues that rather than being a journalist, Glaser is in fact an activist whose email used framing tactics designed to coerce action from its recipients. In this case, Glaser subversively hinted that she was going to accuse Chase of supporting a “SPLC designated hate group” in an article if they didn’t disenfranchise themselves from The Proud Boys.
In a statement to DC Clothesline, Pool states:
“Following the Vox controversy with Steven Crowder, or #VoxAdpocalypse, and mass censorship hitting YouTube I found it pertinent to show how these activists in media operate and how they use framing devices to target people like conservatives and other political groups.
The reporter in question has advocated for government regulation to restrict speech and I believe this shows her to be an activist acting to target and cause harm to political rivals. The email was confirmed to me by Chase bank on two occasions and the contents of the email were referred to in my correspondence with Slate. While not directly confirming the email I believe this with Chase bank’s confirmation is sufficient to confirm the authenticity of the email.”
Slate has since provided an official statement defending Glaser’s actions:
“In the course of her reporting about banks providing financial services for 1776.shop, an e-commerce site associated with the Proud Boys, April reached out to those banks for comment about their policies of providing services to a designated hate group. In both her email and in the subsequent reporting, April provided important context and we stand by her reporting on this newsworthy topic.”
Further evidence of Glaser’s activist tendencies can be found in her own proclamation on Twitter (and reported by Information Liberation) that she wrote Google last year to complain that the top search results for abortion on YouTube were pro-life videos she deemed ‘dangerous misinformation”. She stated, “YouTube changed the results after I asked.” She went on to write a negative story on how the YouTube results were anti-abortion “gory videos rife with misinformation.” Several prominent conservative personalities wondered why Google was kowtowing to a single journalist’s request.
Enrique “Henry” Tarrio, Chairman of The Proud Boys, told Pool that their online store 1776.shop, which was a platform that allowed various groups to sell t-shirts, mugs and hats to raise money for charity, was dropped by Chase on February 1, 2019, just one day after Ms. Glaser’s email was sent to company execs. Tarrio’s personal accounts at Chase, were also closed. Paypal and Square also severed ties with the online store on the same day. It is presumed that Ms. Glaser may have emailed them as well, in doing research for her story on banks providing financial services.
Ms Glaser, did release her article about 7 days after her emails to JP Morgan Chase, suggesting that her deadline was longer than she had let on in the email. On February 7th, Slate published her article entitled The Swag Shop for the Far Right, a stunning piece on how Square, Paypal and Chase had just pulled their services on the online store. It seems pretty obvious that this was the story she was going for and not a general story about ‘banks providing their financial services’ as Slate would have us believe.
