ABC News Covers The Kimberlin Saga

Today, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. stepped up to demand inquiry into attacks against conservative commentators  who have been targeted with “harassing and frightening actions”.

That caught the attention of @ArletteSaenz of ABC News who interviewed key players in the Kimberlin saga and posted an even-handed account of what has been going on for the past few weeks.

A number of conservative bloggers allege they have been targeted through the use of harassment tactics such as SWAT-ting (fooling 911 operators into sending emergency teams to their homes), in retaliation for posts they have written, and now Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., has stepped into the matter. He has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to investigate the SWAT-ting cases to see if federal laws have been violated.

“I am writing with concern regarding recent reports that several members of the community of online political commentators have been targeted with harassing and frightening actions. Any potentially criminal action that incites fear, seeks to silence a dissenting opinion, and collaterally wastes the resources of law enforcement should be given close scrutiny at all levels,” Chambliss wrote in the letter.

***

ABC News spoke with both Patterico, and Erick Erickson about their SWATting incidents, and reported their stories in the piece.

“It’s a phone call that could have gotten me killed,” Frey wrote on his blog about the incident.

The Bibb County District Attorney’s office in Georgia is currently investigating  Erick Erickson’s case and could not offer comment on it. Erickson declined to speculate on who might be responsible…

But several conservative bloggers have been vocal about who they believe is responsible for the SWAT-tings and other forms of harassment — Brett Kimberlin, a man who was convicted of a series of bombings in Speedway, Indiana in the 1980s and made headlines in 1988 when he claimed to have once sold marijuana to then-vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle.

The group of conservative bloggers organized “Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day” on May 25, during which they urged the blogging community to write about the actions of Kimberlin.

Kimberlin, who is now the director of a non-profit organization called Justice Through Music, told ABC News that he did not commit or ask anyone to conduct the SWAT-ting hoaxes that were perpetrated against Erickson and Frey.

“Of course not, it’s ridiculous.  It’s totally irresponsible for them to even say this,” Kimberlin told ABC News.   “There is no truth to anything about the SWAT-ting.”

No truth to ANYTHING about the SWATting? Hmmm! That’s quite a blanket statement to make.

But some conservative bloggers contend Kimberlin and his associates are responsible for other forms of harassment as well.  Robert Stacy McCain, a contributor to the American Spectator and founder of The Other McCain Blog, wrote about Kimberlin, and shortly after, his wife’s place of employment received a phone call from Kimberlin accusing McCain of harassment.  Based on Kimberlin’s ability to find his wife’s employer, McCain became concerned Kimberlin also knew the location of his home, so the McCain family relocated to an undisclosed location.

“If I was going to continue doing this story, I couldn’t do it from my home,” McCain told ABC News. ”This kind of intimidation — it’s a threat to protected first amendment expression.”

“It’s being treated as these are just bloggers playing around on Twitter, but this is serious business.  It’s much more serious I think than most people now realize,” McCain said.

Ali Akbar, the president of the National Blogger’s Club, an organization established to support bloggers, recently was targeted by an anonymous website which posted the address of his mother’s home in Forth Worth, Texas, along with a picture of the house. Akbar and other bloggers believe the website, “Breitbart Unmasked,” is linked to Kimberlin.

The Tarrant County District Attorney’s office in Texas is looking into the incident.

It looks like Kimberlin is the one being unmasked, finally.

And here the pathological liar shows how far gone he really is:

Kimberlin denied he was responsible for the post, even saying that he does not maintain any online presence and said he and his family have been victims of threats themselves and accused the bloggers of constructing a “false narrative” about him.

Note the ABC reporter’s incredulous “even” qualifier for that wildly implausible statement.

“I don’t blog, I don’t comment, I don’t tweet on any blogs at all.  This is a right-wing attack on me and my organizations and it’s a smear job. It’s a swift boat action against us,” Kimberlin said.

Oh, we’re “swift-boating” him – not exposing his vicious and nefarious tactics designed to quell speech.  I suppose that was thrown in there to excite the liberal media into an anti-conservative frenzy, or something. But as Ann Coulter famously observed, swift-boating means “telling the truth about a Democrat”.

“What they’re doing is an obstruction of justice and it’s defamatory.  We’re cooperating with the authorities in this matter.  They have engaged in a massive smear campaign against us that has resulted in death threats to me and my family and to others associated with us.”

Uh-huh. The truth is finally *getting out about Brett Kimberlin, and all the projection in the world isn’t going to make it go away.

*Outside the right-wing blogosphere, that is.

UPDATE:

Dan Riehl hat tips Jake Tapper on Twitter for the Saxby Chambliss story.

ABC’s got it goin’ on.

UPDATE II:

It didn’t take long for an internet sleuth to prove Kimberlin was lying about not having an internet presence –

Rusty of The Mental Recession points to audio of the Kimberlin/Walker hearing where we hear this statement from Kimberlin:

I’m the director of several non profits in the area I work with human rights issues and government accountability issues and so it’s part of my job to to work on the internet because it’s basically a social networking job and so I get Google alerts all the time mentioning my my organizations, my name what work we do and (inaudible).

And of course, Kimberlin’s non-profits also maintain an online presence – Justice Through Music and Velvet Revolution come to mind.

So how does someone with no online presence maintain such a high level of online presence?  ABC News and the rest of the mainstream media should be wondering the same.

See also:

Michelle Malkin: Won’t back down: Amidst threats, National Bloggers Club announces Aaron Walker appeal; blogs to crank up pressure on Congress

Michelle Malkin: GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss to DOJ: What are you doing about SWATtings?

Ali Akbar:  My mistake, Brett Kimberlin, and attacks on my mother..

That fiend…..

Linked by Michelle Malkin, thanks!