Right-wing internet troll-turned-anti-MAGA commentator Chuck Johnson may end up in prison over a fraud and extortion lawsuit in which he was found to have lied to victims by presenting himself as an intelligence asset.
Johnson, whose name has resurfaced in recent months over his false claims regarding Jeffrey Epstein, finds himself at the mercy of a court-appointed receiver who has been ordered by a federal judge to carry out a $71 million ruling against him. He was accused of lying about being an intelligence asset as part of an “extortion scheme,” in which he threatened investors with “sabotage” if they did not give him favorable investment terms.
Now, the fight over his assets appears to have extended to a criminal investigation, with the judge asking the receiver to report “any potential criminal conduct or wrongdoing” by Johnson. Johnson was thrown in jail late last year for contempt after he failed to disclose his assets to the court.
In an April 13 filing, the court says Johnson’s conduct “bears the hallmarks of conduct consistent with wire fraud … and money laundering,” adding that it “may constitute criminal perjury or false declarations.” The statements are, for now, based on a status report of the ongoing probe, and not a definitive conclusion of law.
Johnson, who was labeled a “sociopathic liar” in the initial case, has reemerged in the press due to years-old fantastical claims he made to the FBI about Jeffrey Epstein that were released in the Epstein files. Among the unsourced claims by Johnson were that President Trump was “compromised by Israel.” He also claimed that Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law, was running the presidency in his first term.
The 2020 claims from Johnson were picked up by other anti-Semitic activists such as Dave Smith and Hasan Piker, who made no mention of the fact that Johnson had no basis for any of his claims.
FBI documents show Johnson was making similar unsourced claims about others in Trump’s orbit. One FBI report from May 2020 shows that Johnson claimed to the intelligence bureau that Sergio Gor, a top Trump official who is now his ambassador to India, was a “Russian spy.” He also said that Arthur Schwartz, another close ally of Trump, was a “spy.” Neither claim was paired with any evidence.
“Chuck Johnson is a complete loser who has failed at everything in life,” Schwartz told The Daily Wire. “Like many others in Washington, I look forward to the day that he’s sentenced to a lengthy and well-deserved term of incarceration.”
Johnson, who has referred to The Daily Wire as an “Israeli propaganda rag,” is open about his Jew hatred. He regularly associates with both Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes, and is a Holocaust denier, saying that both “Auschwitz and the gas chambers” are not real.
“I love Nick Fuentes,” Johnson wrote in July 2024. “I avow him.”
Though Johnson is often represented as a far-right figure, he is now politically aligned with Democrats, and supported Kamala Harris over Trump in 2024. He liked Joe Biden, he said, but liked Harris even more because of her stance on Israel.
“I am a huge Joe Biden fan, and will remain such on domestic matters, but he has deferred to the Israelis way too much,” Johnson said during the 2024 campaign, “and I think to some extent, Kamala Harris is going to be a bit more aggressive towards them.”
Johnson’s handler at the FBI was reportedly Jonathan Buma, who became a favorite of liberal media for claims he made in 2023 that the bureau was biased in favor of Trump.
Buma was arrested in March 2025 for leaking confidential information to the press. It was actually disclosed by Johnson that he and Buma had both leaked information to the Wall Street Journal.
Buma has since been profiled for his claims that Trump and Elon Musk are entangled in a Russian conspiracy. Again, the claims came without evidence.
“Those efforts were intense and they were ongoing,” he said of Russian efforts. “I can’t go into too much more detail.”
Johnson did not respond to requests for comment.
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