Former Republican Staffer Admits GOP Would Intentionally Spread Lies

The Republican Party uses right-wing media to knowingly spread lies, according to an ex-Republican political adviser and researcher who spoke with Newsweek.

Justin Higgins was formerly a policy adviser for House Republican Tim Huelskamp, a Kansas legislator who at the time was one of the outspoken members of the Tea Party movement that gained national notoriety between 2009 and 2015.

After Huelskamp lost his primary and congressional seat in 2016, Higgins became a senior research analyst for the Republican National Committee (RNC) and created content associated with Donald Trump's presidential bid that year. That experience didn't last long and nearly immediately led to Higgins changing his political affiliation from Republican to Democrat, becoming a political appointee of then-Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello.

Higgins told progressive podcaster Aaron Rupar on Thursday that the conservative movement is predicated on selling lies to the American public for their own potential political gain.

He referred to the multiple indictments against Trump, including the former president's alleged role in spurring the January 6 Capitol riot, and how some outlets, in his words, have knowingly mischaracterized the allegations made by Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith and others as First Amendment violations.

Trump has denied all allegations against him and has pleaded guilty in all three indictments, including two criminal cases.

"You can basically make up your own reality in right-wing media," Higgins told Rupar.

Higgins reiterated similar statements in a phone conversation with Newsweek, recalling how other RNC staffers would openly admit to lying on social media websites like Reddit—and the now defunct subreddit dedicated to Trump—so outlets like Fox News or Breitbart would pick them and in turn cause the falsities or embellished reports to gain traction.

When asked whether he ever personally heard or encountered Republican politicians in Congress, Higgins said that wasn't the case. It was more so RNC staffers generally engaged in the "behind-the-scenes, dark shadow stuff," he stated.

"I think what we are seeing [now] is an extension of the Tea Party movement from 2010 to 2015, and not only is it an extension of the Tea Party movement but of the media environment we now have," he said.

He said former congressional members like Huelskamp and other Tea Party members, including current House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and others, were elected "because they were mini-Trumps" at a time when a bigger focus on cultural wars and relitigating reproductive rights at the federal level began to escalate.

Higgins said the movement became so strong so fast that former House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan couldn't push back on ideas "on steroids." Now, he said the party's loudest voices include Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

"These people went from the fringe to the mainstream," he added, saying a revamped conservative media landscape that now includes Newsmax, The Daily Wire and others "have given House Freedom Caucus candidates a new life."

Higgins also pushed back on the notion that Democrats and the liberal left engage in their own echo chambers.

"Critics would say that the liberal echo chamber is CNN, MSNBC and mainstream media," he said. "I would say in response to that, that quite frankly it's b*******. "At the RNC all we had to do was repeat talking points and it would go on Fox News as is. Democrats don't do that, the DNC [Democratic National Committee] doesn't do it."

He added: "Also, I think an important thing about what differentiates the left and right and the media—the left has no similar echo chamber as evidenced by the lack of a left-wing freedom caucus."

Newsweek reached out via email to Fox News and Breitbart for comment.