• In October, Nick Fuentes met Jonathan Stickland from Pale Horse Strategies, a think tank funded by Texan billionaires Farris and Dan Wilks, who fund Zionist neoconservatives such as the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager
• The Wilks brothers’ long-running devotion to Israel and ties to the permanent war lobby in Washington are at stark odds with Fuentes’ antisemitic nationalism
• The meeting was thought by his allies to be his last hope of securing major backing, but instead of pitching himself as a media personality, Fuentes asked how much Wilks would pay for America First’s data
• Six hours later, terms were agreed—but the deal fell apart dramatically when it was discovered that Fuentes secretly tipped off local newspapers in the hopes of a photo op
• There are no plans to revive the scuttled talks

IS NICHOLAS J. FUENTES SECRETLY A NEOCON? I ask because documents came into my possession this week which appear to show that Nicholas J. Fuentes tried and failed to raise money last year from oil billionaire Farris Wilks. The deal would have included access to the identities, credit cards and home addresses of his fans and subscribers–effectively, the entire America First movement.

It is hard to imagine a more dramatic betrayal of his fan base: the Wilks network includes most, if not all, of the people Fuentes accuses of ruining the country. Farris and his brother Dan Wilks are investors in the Daily Wire, Prager U, and Ben Shapiro, and donors to Ted Cruz. To say Fuentes would have made an awkward bedfellow with their existing properties is putting it mildly, and demonstrates the desperation, and possibly the cash crunch, Fuentes is in.

Think of the Wilks portfolio as rival force, commercially and politically, to the populist, nationalist Mercer-funded ecosystem, which over the years has included Breitbart, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, President Trump, and your humble correspondent. Wilks-funded personalities are distinguished by inexplicable overnight fame, rabid and unconditional support for Israel, and warmongering considered emphatic even by Republican standards.

“The fact that Fuentes opposed both Joe Kent and J.D. Vance tells you pretty conclusively that he’s taking money from someone in the permanent war lobby,” observed a leading conservative talk show host upon hearing the news. “I know he’s taken money from someone in Texas.”

That might not be all Nick has taken in Texas. Ali Alexander Akbar, a close associate of Fuentes currently under active criminal investigation in three separate states for sexual contact with male minors, remains Fuentes’ closest confidante and professional ally. Nick’s career-wrecking allegiance to Akbar can only be satisfactorily explained by major financial or romantic ties.

Akbar is a mentor to Nick and the man behind the curtain of the America First movement, drafting statements for Nick, deciding on policy and strategy, and directing the dunderheaded, dead-on-arrival anti-Trump tantrum known as “Groyper War II.”

Fuentes secured the October meeting thanks to Akbar and a political operative called Caroline Wren, a notoriously prickly fundraiser on the Kari Lake campaign. Fuentes was photographed by the Texas Tribune entering an office building that houses Pale Horse Strategies, a political consulting firm headed by Jonathan Strickland, previous President of a Wilks-funded PAC, Defend Texas Liberty. The building also houses the offices of Kyle Rittenhouse and Wilks family lawyer Matt Rinaldi.

Fuentes is notorious to the terminally online, but not nearly famous enough that his movements are tracked in real time by journalists. So how did the Tribune know when and where to send their man? Why was there a photographer anywhere near the building?

Because Fuentes, unable to resist gloating before a deal was even signed, had secretly set it up, pressuring junior Pale Horse staffers to make calls to local newspapers, and supposedly making a few himself. Pale Horse staff didn’t tell their boss, hoping collectively that the Tribune wouldn’t be interested. But the paper turned out to be very interested.

The photos they published showed Fuentes and Stickland deep in conversation–a catastrophic misjudgment by Fuentes that triggered a state-wide crisis in the Republican Party. The Texas GOP was paralyzed by moral panic about white supremacist infiltrators. The drama lasted for weeks, and led to several high-level resignations. Kyle Rittenhouse quickly disavowed Fuentes.

Fuentes couldn’t resist gloating, even before a deal was reached

Bronze Age Pervert, an internet personality with ties to Tucker Carlson and Peter Thiel, tweeted in February: “I’m told by someone I trust and have known a long time, and who is in position to know, that he was told in clear terms that if he criticized Fuentes, Wilks money and network would come after him.” Nick’s latest media ally is Candace Owens, whose résumé includes Prager U, The Blaze, and the Daily Wire, all three of which were seeded financially by Farris Wilks.

Shapiro and Owens heavily rely, or at least relied at the start of their careers, on bots and other forms of follower and engagement inflation, in the “fake it til you make it” digital strategy that has become a hallmark of Wilks protégés. Fuentes is pursuing precisely the same cripplingly expensive strategy today–but without an investor, which may explain the curious cancellation of his conference this year, and the subsequent reluctance to issue refunds to ticket-holders.

Owens and Shapiro are also understood to share customer data with their investors in exchange for the funding that drives their astroturfed–some would say outright counterfeit–popularity. A source close to the Wilks brothers told me that accounts vary as to whether Fuentes raised the subject of data first, or Stickland did, but added: “There is no version of the deal that would not include full access to Fuentes’ customer data. It would be non-negotiable, just as it is for all their other investments.”

If this all sounds far-fetched, recall that Fuentes was a Cruz supporter, alongside Shapiro, in 2015. He came late to Trumpism, and has fallen in and out of love with the President many times—always at the worst possible time for Trump. What could the Wilks brothers possibly be getting out of bankrolling his increasingly deluded rants to a dwindling fan base? They hate Trump, say insiders, and want him out by any means necessary.

No one has done more to give antisemitism a bad name, if you’ll forgive the expression, than Nick Fuentes—with the possible exception of the imbecilic Candace Owens, although Owens’s recent forays into Protocols of the Elders of Zion-tier medieval exotica are more likely the result of black female ungovernability than cunning strategy.

Nick Fuentes is repugnant to, and reviled by, women—just the demo Trump has the most trouble with. And although that may sound like a weak case for him being a diabolical double agent, dispatched to damage 45 at all costs, there are reasons to wonder about Nick Fuentes’s connections to, and co-operation with, various federal intelligence agencies.

Despite urging his followers with a bullhorn to ignore police instructions and enter the Capitol building—an incitement caught on tape—Fuentes has never been arrested nor charged in relation to January 6. Elderly grandmothers and other first-time offenders were given long prison sentences for far less. After encouraging his fans to storm the Capitol, Fuentes later callously dismissed them as “losers” he wouldn’t associate with.

Even Ray Epps got charged eventually. But not Nick. According to the New York Times, the Department of Justice prepared, but, for reasons no one can figure out, never filed, a conspiracy indictment against Fuentes. Why? If you believe the Washington, D.C. rumor mill, it’s because Nick cut a deal, handing over the identities and IP addresses of his subscribers, super-chatters, customers and ticket holders to the federal government.

Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita is said to have received proof of Fuentes’ confidential informant status last week. Confidential informant status would certainly explain Fuentes’ brazen carelessness about his own professional advancement and reputation. Even Judas had the sense not to tip off Gethsemane paparazzi before his act of betrayal.

Fuentes was added to the no-fly list, not for his politics, as he likes to claim, but for threatening to strangle an air hostess. Miraculously, the ban was lifted after the airline supposedly accepted Fuentes’s heartfelt apology and advocated on his behalf for him to be taken off the list. Stranger things have happened, I’m sure. I just can’t think of any right this second.

Then there’s the matter of his frozen funds: $500,000 in foreign money that arrived via crypto and which Fuentes used to fund Ali Alexander’s “Stop the Steal” rallies, a cut and dry case of foreign interference in American elections. The Department of Justice froze the money in January 2021, but, a few short months later, simply changed their minds.

When the feds freeze or confiscate money, you can be sure of one thing: Innocent or guilty, you never, ever get it back. Fuentes released a documentary in August 2022 claiming the feds still had his money. He’d been fundraising relentlessly off this supposed injustice. But according to a letter from the Department of Justice, his money had been unfrozen in July 2021. He’d been lying to his followers in his never-ending appeals for donations for over a year.

Every relationship in Nick’s life ends swiftly and bloodily, followed by slander and recriminations. This one didn’t even get off the ground. But the fact that a meeting happened at all is, well, fucking amazing. Because this story is about more than just where Nick Fuentes gets his money.

Nick Fuentes and Ben Shapiro came within an inch of being supported by the same person. The implications are vast. For one thing, it shows that all of American politics is entirely fake, fraudulent, deceptive and outright Satanic. It means we need a whole new set of assumptions to navigate the future.

It also represents a cataclysmic professional event for Fuentes from which there can be no recovery. Fuentes’s solicitation of funds–unsuccessful, as we now know–from the Israel fanatics of the military-industrial complex is bad enough. It obliterates his credibility to speak on the only consistent component of his political orthodoxy, slamming the door shut on his dream of becoming a political heavyweight. It shatters every assumption and norm in right-wing politics.

But even deadlier to Nick’s aspirations will be the fact that he has now served up his fans’ identities on a silver salver twice, both times to powerful and dangerous organizations: the Wilks network and the federal government, the latter in exchange for his half a mil, a reprieve from the TSA naughty list, and immunity from prosecution over January.

What’s more, he’s probably still doing it. Confidential informant agreements tend to be ongoing. Every viewer, past, present and future, of Fuentes’ America First show may be at risk. Even die-hard Fuentes cultists won’t stick around if it means an existential risk to their jobs, families and futures. That is the reality they now face.

Allegations that Fuentes is a confidential informant may be unprovable, but there’s no longer any doubt about his willingness to sell out his fans, his principles, and the country. The mere fact of his eagerness to meet and strike a deal with the Wilks network shows that he tells viewers one thing and potential investors something entirely different.

Equally illuminating is how and why Nick’s last hope of cracking the mainstream collapsed. The farcical end to his relationship with the Wilks universe reveals publicly for the first time an impulsive, deceitful, narcissistic and self-sabotaging personality, one the 5’6″ commentator has worked hard to keep off-screen, but which is familiar to anyone who has had private dealings with him.

Fuentes fans like to say they are ready to “rape, kill and die” for the pint-sized provocateur. The way Nick behaves with their identities and other sensitive private data, that pledge of allegiance may soon be tested.