{"id":358,"date":"2026-07-16T20:44:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T20:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=358"},"modified":"2026-07-16T20:44:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T20:44:49","slug":"the-master-of-phantom-scandals-behind-trumps-address-to-the-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=358","title":{"rendered":"The master of \u2018phantom scandals\u2019 behind Trump\u2019s address to the nation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When you look at John Solomon\u2019s background, it is clear why President Donald Trump chose him to run a \u201ctask force\u201d to declassify evidence of a conspiracy theory that\u2019s been repeatedly debunked. It is also clear that Solomon\u2019s role will likely end with a web of selectively released documents meant to support the president\u2019s preferred narrative \u2014 including election denial claims that he reportedly plans to push in his speech to the nation Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more JD Vance uses Rogan\u2019s podcast to deceive the public on Epstein scandal<\/a><\/p>\n

While Solomon spent a good portion of his career hiding under the veneer of mainstream credibility \u2014 with bylines at The Washington Post and The Associated Press, as well as roles at outlets including The Hill, Fox News and the Center for Public Integrity \u2014 there had been warning signs about his true leanings. A 2004 AP report he wrote on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was described by the Columbia Journalism Review as having \u201ca strong resemblance to an RNC press release.\u201d A 2007 story for the Post, about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, was criticized by the paper\u2019s ombudsman as \u201caccurate\u201d but misleading and \u201ccontroversial even in the Post newsroom.\u201d (The ombudsman said it was \u201clike a \u2018gotcha\u2019 without the gotcha.\u201d) A 2012 Columbia Journalism Review profile similarly noted that \u201cSolomon has a history of bending the truth to his storyline\u201d and that he \u201cwas notorious for massaging facts to conjure phantom scandals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creating \u201cphantom scandals\u201d has made Solomon a key element of the right-wing media\u2019s propaganda machine. He gained prominence for his quest to discredit Robert Mueller\u2019s Russia investigation during Trump\u2019s first administration \u2014 first while working for Sinclair Broadcast Group\u2019s Circa News, and later after becoming executive vice president of digital video at The Hill. Many of the \u201cphantom scandals\u201d Solomon pursued served to rewrite history by claiming that it was really Democrats with corrupt relationships with Russia who worked to undermine Trump in the 2016 presidential election \u2014 not the other way around.<\/p>\n

Fox News\u2019 Sean Hannity \u2014 a prominent Trump confidant and ally \u2014 worked overtime to spin a counternarrative to the charges of Russian interference in the 2016 election on Trump\u2019s behalf, and Solomon became a regular on Hannity\u2019s primetime show, with his reporting serving as part of the foundation for this alternate reality.<\/p>\n

Enter Rudy Giuliani.<\/p>\n

As the House Democrats\u2019 impeachment reports found, Solomon was one of the most critical figures in Trump and Giuliani\u2019s plot to extort the Ukrainian government into meddling in the 2020 U.S. election on Trump\u2019s behalf. As I laid out at the time, Giuliani, then Trump\u2019s personal attorney, worked with con men and Trump cronies to pursue an \u201cinvestigation\u201d into Ukraine that he said showed both Ukrainian collusion with Democrats in 2016 and evidence that then-Vice President Joe Biden acted corruptly in Ukraine to benefit his son. In March 2019, Giuliani sent the results of his investigation to the State Department \u2014 and to Solomon. The same month, Solomon began publishing dozens of columns that mirrored the sourcing and claims Giuliani made in his State Department dossier.<\/p>\n

Over the next few months, Solomon appeared on Fox News or Fox Business at least 72 times. Fifty-one of those appearances were on \u201cHannity,\u201d the host of which dutifully promoted Solomon\u2019s scoops and wove them into his ever-evolving conspiracy theory that \u201cdeep state\u201d elements in the government had been plotting to overthrow Trump.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Solomon landed a job at Fox News in addition to starting his own media firm, while Trump had his infamous \u201cperfect\u201d phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that led to his first impeachment. Solomon\u2019s work featured prominently during Trump\u2019s impeachment inquiry. The probe did not interview Solomon, but multiple witnesses testified that Solomon\u2019s reporting was inaccurate \u2014 including one witness who described it as full of \u201cnon-truths and non sequiturs.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also turned out that Solomon was working hand in hand not just with Giuliani, but also with Giuliani\u2019s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. He also worked with the husband-and-wife legal duo (and Trump allies) Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing, who\u00a0 had Parnas on their payroll, represented a key source and also happened to be Solomon\u2019s personal attorneys \u2014 a fact Solomon did not disclose until seven months into his reporting.<\/p>\n

As this scheme unfolded, Solomon left The Hill to form his own media company, ironically named Just the News. The Hill, on the other hand, launched an investigation into his work, found major flaws and added disclosures, context and editor\u2019s notes to his Ukraine columns. For his part, Solomon has long defended his work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the years since, Solomon\u2019s media footprint has expanded with a podcast, a show on Real America\u2019s Voice and regular appearances on right-wing media, in particular on Steve Bannon\u2019s \u201cWar Room.\u201d His role as a right-wing media propagandist and Trump defender has solidified, and the line between his role as a journalist and a Trump official has blurred. After the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in 2022 for classified documents Trump allegedly withheld upon leaving office, Trump curiously appointed Solomon and Kash Patel (now the FBI director) as his official representatives to the National Archives and Records Administration.<\/p>\n

Read more Election denial activists briefed at White House ahead of Trump\u2019s primetime speech<\/a><\/p>\n

Solomon has also advanced election denial conspiracy theories, which have recently fixated on China. Since March, he has repeatedly claimed that the 2020 election was not secure because China allegedly accessed voter registration data in multiple states. In Solomon\u2019s telling, the Democrats and the so-called deep state hid this information from the public, while China tried to submit fake ballots on Biden\u2019s behalf. (The United States National Intelligence Council, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, however, all concluded that there was no evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 election.)<\/p>\n

In June, Trump appointed Solomon a \u201cspecial government employee\u201d to run a \u201ctask force\u201d related to declassifying documents about the 2020 election. Around the same time, Trump nominated Bill Pulte \u2014 who Solomon has said he knows \u201cpretty well\u201d \u2014 to become acting director of national intelligence.<\/p>\n

Solomon is now in a position to potentially create a \u201cphantom scandal\u201d directly from the White House, and right-wing media figures like Bannon have suggested such a narrative could be a \u201cpredicate\u201d for Trump to declare a national emergency over election security ahead of the midterms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As my colleague John Knefel reported:<\/p>\n

\n

The details of the scheme remain publicly vague, and may not yet come to pass, but the short version looks something like this: First, the White House would declassify and release documents purporting to show foreign interference in U.S. elections, especially by the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n

Next, Trump would use that supposed \u201cproof\u201d of a stolen election to declare a national emergency, thereby \u2014 according to those pushing this idea \u2014 giving him extraordinary powers over the upcoming midterms. That move would serve as a way to advance the anti-voting rights measures in the SAVE America Act, like forcing voters to prove their citizenship, without having to actually pass the law \u2014 which Congress, so far at least, appears reluctant to do.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

New reporting from MS NOW that Trump\u2019s upcoming speech on Thursday \u201cwill focus on voting machine security and alleged efforts by foreign nations to influence U.S. elections\u201d suggests that some administration officials are sounding the alarm:<\/p>\n

\n

Access to the president has \u201cloosened\u201d in recent months, according to one administration official, as Trump has increasingly leaned on aides and senior officials willing to spread conspiracy theories about 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that network [of people] that is the real f***ing problem,\u201d said the administration official, who, like others who spoke with MS NOW for this story, was granted anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue. \u201cThey try to put bits and pieces together and then make these conclusions. Everything I have seen, it\u2019s not what\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What Trump ultimately claims in his speech Thursday night remains unclear, but one thing is certain: Intelligence being cherry-picked by a man with a background like Solomon\u2019s should never be taken at face value.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump attends NATO summit, antagonizing allies and increasingly isolating U.S.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president chose John Solomon to run a \u201ctask force\u201d to declassify evidence of a conspiracy theory that\u2019s been repeatedly debunked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\nThe master of \u2018phantom scandals\u2019 behind Trump\u2019s address to the nation - Long Distance Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=358\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The master of \u2018phantom scandals\u2019 behind Trump\u2019s address to the nation - 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