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Oh, and it also came after Falwell had long made an international mockery of the educational institution by turning it into a fascist propaganda center for Donald Trump, whose lawyer may or may not have been in possession of photos confirming the poolboy’s story, but the devoted evangelical leaders of the university never had any particular problems with that. The money-funneling and the scandals were the problem, not Falwell hitching the university to the world’s current best approximation of the Antichrist.
More information about just what Falwell was up to during his last years at Liberty continues to trickle out, and Politico has a new story detailing Falwell’s creation of a virulently pro-Trump (and, evidently, only pro-Trump) “think tank” at the university that engaged in no apparent academic work at all, much less thinking, but was instead a seven-figure-funded advertising and propaganda production house devoted to promoting Donald Trump.
The bit about Liberty University turning into a fascist propaganda center? Not an exaggeration. The supposed “think tank” is a nest for Trump conspiracy promoters and Trump-devoted hacks, both promoting Trump-polishing ads during the election and, now that the election is over, promoting new segments repeating Team Trump’s election conspiracy claims and urging conservative legislators to overturn the election and reinstall Trump as Dear Leader.
The “think tank” he created was the Falkirk Center, named for Falwell and cofounder Charlie Kirk, the glibly fascist and unfathomably dimwitted propagandist behind “Students for Trump.” It has acted almost exclusively as pro-Trump misinformation network featuring some of the weirdest and most dishonest of his allies, ranging from Sebastian Gorka to Jenna Ellis. But honestly, you can imagine the rest from just knowing that Kirk and Falwell were the brains behind the operation.
Not that anyone cares anymore, but all of this would appear to be a rather blatant violation of the university’s tax-exempt nonprofit status. It is not allowed to meddle in partisan political campaigns, much less run a partisan political campaign from university offices, but Politico’s scan of the think tank’s products makes a good case that Falwell and Kirk’s pet project was partisan and political as central focus. It’s hard to make a nonpartisan case that the November presidential election should be nullified and Dear Leader proclaimed Dearest Leader, after all. If United States laws actually applied to any of these people (tip: they don’t) the university would be in very hot water right now. It would be lawyerin’ up time.
That said, and despite the departure of kingpin Falwell, it doesn’t look like the supposedly non-crooked Liberty University board is eager to close down Falwell’s pro-Trump group. If this sounds odd to you, remember that this is the group that defended Falwell’s myriad scandals and business ventures for a very long time after it first became clear that they were sketchy, and is generally packed with the sort of people who struggle to suss out the difference between Donald Trump and Jesus. The institution is likely to remain a vehicle for the indoctrination of politically active conservatives with the religious component stapled on to serve the approximate role of school mascot for its indefinite and ever-humiliating future.
There’s one particular tidbit of the Politico story worth highlighting, however: The appearance of disgraced evangelical charlatan Ralph Reed, who is not described as “disgraced” despite his role in the Jack Abramoff scandal, in which Reed’s “Christian Coalition” was revealed to have been used as the vehicle by which Reed made himself in excess of $5 million in laundered lobbyist money. Reed’s status as supposed evangelical leader was decimated by the revelation that he was using his evangelical nonprofit to protect gambling interests as an illegal lobbyist, after which he sulked off and …
… quickly reestablished himself in the conservative evangelical money networks because the whole thing is crooked from top to bottom, and it’s not like being caught dead to rights being Evil As Crap is going to put anyone out of favor with their equally scheming peers for very long. Just wait—Jerry Falwell Jr. will “redeem” himself about five drunken benders and three more sex scandals from now, or whenever his current funds run out and he is in danger of losing the lifestyle he has become accustomed to.
So yeah. Jerry Falwell Jr. partnered with Charlie Kirk and threw millions in university cash at a Trump-promoting campus “think tank” that violated nonprofit rules, and it only stands to reason that Ralph freaking Reed would be one of the hacks brought in to explain why Donald Trump was the best thing to happen to white evangelicalism since OxyContin. It all makes perfect sense. It’s all a grift, from top to bottom, and maybe if the Falwell family could have good Christian sex without getting the poolboy involved, it could have gone on forever.
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