Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne left behind a cloud of confusion when he resigned in 2019 from the internet retailer he’d founded after panicking investors with his bizarre claims that he had romanced a Russian agent at the behest of “Men in Black” working for the United States government.
Now he’s back, with what he has described as his own personal “army,” touting what he claims is proof that Democrats stole the election from Donald Trump.
“I’ve funded a team of hackers and cybersleuths, other people with odd skills,” Byrne said in a Tuesday interview at One America News, where OAN personality Chanel Rion praised Byrne as the head of an “elite shadow cyber security team.”
As Trump’s chances of securing a second term dwindle down to nothing, Byrne has launched a media tour to promote his mysterious hacker team, appearing from an “undisclosed location” on OAN, Newsmax, and a series of far-fringe YouTube shows associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory movement. On Friday, a guest host on the popular Rush Limbaugh talk radio show praised Byrne’s allegations about voter fraud and proposed inviting Byrne on the show.
With Trump allies on his legal team and in conservative media scrambling for any evidence that Trump didn’t legitimately lose the presidential race, Byrne has become a hero to the MAGA crowd, despite his history of making off-the-wall allegations.
Byrne claims he’s funding teams of “hackers and crackers” who realized all the way back in August that Dominion voting machines could be used to steal the election from Trump. Since the election, those voting machines have figured prominently in Trump supporters’ allegations of fraud, despite the company’s repeated denials and any actual proof the voting tallies were changed.
The actual details of Byrne’s supposed hacker super-team, however, similarly thin.
“I’m a free agent, and I’m self-funded, and I’m funding this army of various odd people,” Byrne said in a Nov. 23 appearance on a podcast with a QAnon promoter who used the name InTheMatrixxx. “It’s really going to make a great movie someday.”
Asked for more details on his hacker team, Byrne referred The Daily Beast to his blog, “DeepCapture.” But the 40,000-word explanation on Byrne’s website focuses on his long-running feud with Wall Street short-sellers, and Byrne’s conversations with a mysterious financial whistleblower called the “Easter Bunny,” rather than on any election investigations team.
Byrne stopped responding to emails from The Daily Beast when asked whether any members of his hacker team would be available for interviews.
“I’m a free agent, and I’m self-funded, and I’m funding this army of various odd people.”
— Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne
Despite his vague claims, Byrne says he’s been funneling allegations about the election to…
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