Liberal activists and those who are afraid of our growing grassroots movement are attempting to label me as a racist and antisemite—a tale as old as time in American politics.

This is the same tactic we’ve seen repeatedly when a conservative with a backbone chooses to run for office. President Trump, who counted black leaders like Jesse Jackson and the Jewish community as some of his closest friends and allies, was painted as an antisemite and racist the moment he decided to join the political arena in 2015.

When they are fearful of a grassroots political movement, and when they can’t challenge us on the issues, they resort to personal attacks to intimidate the candidate and to scare off potential supporters by making a candidate untenable to support in polite society. That’s exactly why they are lying about me and smearing my character today.

Let’s be clear: the effort to brand me a racist and an antisemite is not honest journalism. It’s a political and ideological hit job.

It was designed to damage my name, distort my character, and weaponize a few selectively chosen private messages to create a false public narrative. It was not done to inform the public. It was done to injure me, and to stop a grassroots movement in its tracks.

The people behind this story were never interested in the truth. If they had been, they would have done what real journalists do: investigate the full context, examine the motives of their sources, and speak to the many people in the Black and Jewish communities who have known me for years. They did none of that. Instead, they built a smear out of fragments, omission, insinuation, and malice.

The timing and context were no accident.

For years, I have been in open conflict with radical left-wing forces in DeKalb County, including Antifa-aligned trespassers and agitators who occupied my property near the area known as “Cop City.” These were not peaceful neighbors. They unlawfully occupied private land, built encampments and fighting positions, and operated in a broader campaign of intimidation and disorder directed at law enforcement, private property, and anyone who stood in their way.

When I fought back against that lawlessness and demanded my property rights be respected, I became a target. That is the backdrop the activist press had no interest in explaining, because it would have ruined the simple cartoon they wanted to draw. In their version of events, the radical left is never the aggressor, only the successful conservative standing in its way.

Here is what actually happened.

A former attorney of mine gained access to more than 30,000 highly personal texts and emails during litigation. He had a professional duty to protect privileged, irrelevant, and private material. He failed in that duty. A court later found serious wrongdoing in his conduct, rejected his claims against me, and entered a substantial judgment in my favor.

That same attorney also attempted to use an attorney’s lien he placed against my property as leverage to demand a $24 million payout. A judge rightly determined that the lien was bogus, and his extortion attempt failed. The judgment against him was roughly $3.7 million, and because he still has not paid it, the amount owed has now grown to more than $5 million. We continue to pursue collection.

That should have been the starting point for any honest reporter. Instead, it was ignored.

Why? Because the point was never to test a claim. The point was to manufacture a narrative.

Out of more than 30,000 private communications spanning years of my life, a tiny number of messages were pulled out, stripped of context, and presented in the most damaging way possible. That is not serious reporting. That is character assassination disguised as journalism.

And what did these reporters not do? They did not seriously examine the motives of the source who fed them the material. They did not meaningfully investigate the legal background showing why that source lacked credibility. They did not ask the obvious questions about why a man rebuked in court and hit with a multi-million-dollar judgment would want to damage me further. They did not seek out the many Black and Jewish friends, colleagues, and community leaders who could speak directly and credibly to who I actually am. They did not want balance. They wanted a scalp.

This is how activist media works. They decide on the villain first. Then they reverse-engineer a story to fit the conclusion.

And in this case, the ideological motive was obvious. I was already in a public fight with the radical left over my property, over Antifa trespassing, and over the refusal of local authorities to act decisively until outside pressure forced action. I had become inconvenient to the narrative, so the narrative was adjusted: do not engage the facts, do not address the extremism, do not explain the political context—just demonize the man standing in the way.

That is what makes this so corrupt.

The publication of this story was not an act of courage. It was an act of cowardice. It relied on tainted sourcing, selective context, ideological framing, and the modern media’s favorite formula: find a successful conservative, strip away nuance, attach the ugliest labels possible, and let the mob do the rest.

I have spent my life building businesses, creating jobs, supporting communities, and forming real relationships with people from every background. The people who know me best know exactly who I am. They know I am not the cartoon villain these people tried to create. They know this story was a dishonest attempt to reduce an entire life to a handful of selectively chosen lines for maximum political effect.

What happened here should alarm anyone who cares about fairness, due process, and the difference between truth and propaganda. If this can be done to me, it can be done to anyone. All it takes is one malicious source, one ideologically aligned outlet, and a willingness to ignore every fact that complicates the preferred narrative.

What is even more revealing is that the same false narrative continues to be recycled by leftists and their allies long after its defects should be obvious to anyone acting in good faith. That tells you everything. The goal was never understanding. The goal was always repetition. Say it enough, weaponize it enough, and hope the lie hardens into public memory.

And now, incredibly, my own Republican opponent has chosen to borrow the same playbook.

Instead of running on achievement, vision, leadership, or life experience, he has decided to amplify the same distorted narrative first pushed by the activist left. That is not courage. That is not principle. It is a cheap imitation of the dirtiest tactics in modern politics: take a malicious story built by ideological enemies, ignore the truth behind it, and repeat it for personal advantage.

That is not how Republicans are supposed to fight. That is how weak candidates compensate for thin records and small ideas.

A real conservative would recognize a politically motivated smear when he sees one. A serious man would reject it on principle, even if it were useful to him. But a RINO and a career political opportunist will borrow the tactics of the left, mouth the language of the right, and hope voters are too distracted to notice the fraud.

I do notice. And so should everyone else.

So let me state this plainly.

I reject these lies completely. I reject the dishonest people who manufactured them. I reject the activists and media operatives who amplified them. I reject the radical left’s effort to destroy people they cannot control. And I reject the cowardice of any Republican who thinks he can gain by repeating left-wing smears instead of standing on truth.

The truth is bigger than their smear. My life is bigger than their smear. And the people who know me—not the people who profit from distortion—are the ones whose judgment actually means something.

I will continue to stand on my record, my relationships, my fight against lawlessness and political intimidation, and the truth.