Swatgate: It's Brandon Darby

Mike Grimm is the Congressman from NY-13 and a former FBI undercover agent.

Grimm attempted to extort a Jewish congregation on the mafia stronghold of Staten Island, threatening to use his law enforcement contacts to “make it difficult for them”.

The congregation's rabbi approached former Congressman Anthony Weiner for assistance. This led to an extortion investigation for Grimm.

Grimm made contact with Brandon Darby and employed he and a small group of smear artists including Lee Stranahan and John Patrick Frey aka Patterico.

Anthony Weiner was pursued by a variety of real and synthetic female personas through 2010 and the spring of 2011. He was successfully smeared and forced to resign one year ago today.

Mike Stack was left holding the bag for the smear. He refused to drop out of sight, so he was swatted by Brandon Darby in order to silence him.

Ron Brynaert was investigating. They needed a bag holder for the swatting and Ron was the lucky winner, being set up via a phone call with Frey, purportedly for an interview, but in actuality it was purely to put him on the phone and engaged at a specific time.


Don't let the Weinergate rabbit hole distract from these simple facts. Follow the money and keep in mind a dangerous, complex hit job like this would only be entrusted to a few committed, hardcore operatives like Darby, Frey, and Stranahan.