On March 23, Steve and Tracy Slepcevic hosted a fundraiser for unbiased presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. within the San Diego space. Tickets began at $575, and those that paid $2,750 had been to be handled to a “personal sundown reception” earlier than RFK Jr. would chat with the assembled and pose for pictures. It was hardly stunning that the Slepcevics had been supporting Kennedy, on condition that Tracy is a long-time anti-vaxxer distinguished throughout the autism group. However the private politics of the Slepcevics illuminate the bizarre currents propelling Kennedy’s White Home bid, for the pair have hobnobbed with QAnoners, Christian nationalists, election deniers, and different pro-Trump extremists. Steve, who has a checkered previous as a businessmen that features an arrest (however not a conviction) for allegedly defrauding victims of Hurricane Katrina, was within the crowd of Trump devotees exterior the Capitol on January 6.
Final yr, Tracy Slepcevic printed a e-book known as Warrior Mother about her years elevating a son with autism that she blames on routine childhood vaccines. The e-book was endorsed by Kennedy and championed by Michael Flynn, the disgraced former nationwide safety adviser for President Donald Trump who has develop into a QAnon-friendly Christian nationalist and a pacesetter throughout the far-right patriots motion. The Kennedy marketing campaign sells signed copies of the e-book for $150 a pop. Tracy has been an ally of Youngsters’s Well being Protection, the anti-vax nonprofit that Kennedy ran earlier than getting into the 2024 contest. In November, she spoke at CHD’s annual convention in Savannah, Georgia, the place she hawked her e-book and palled round with Kennedy, a longtime peddler of Covid and vaccine misinformation. On Fb, she declared, “Had a good time on the CHD convention in Savannah with some wonderful individuals…I’m so blessed to be on this journey with every considered one of them.” In selling her e-book and activism, she has shared platforms with Stew Peters, a far-right anti-vaxxer who has been tied to QAnon advocacy and has unfold (based on the ADL) antisemitic tropes, and with Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced scientist who wrote a discredited paper linking autism to vaccines.
Tracy is a daily on the far-right conspiracy circuit. In November 2022, she joined the ReAwaken America tour as a speaker. This was a touring highway present that fused Christian nationalism, QAnonism, and MAGAism. It was a feast of election denialism and diverse conspiracy theories that featured as headliners Flynn, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, conspiracy-theory-monger Alex Jones, and Lara and Eric Trump. At these occasions, there was a lot discuss of demons. (At one cease, Stone proclaimed “there’s a Satanic portal above the White Home” that appeared after Joe Biden grew to become president.) Final June, Tracy attended the premiere of Plandemic 3: The Nice Awakening, the third in a trilogy of conspiracy concept motion pictures produced by an unbiased filmmaker named Mikki Willis. The primary was loaded with debunked notions about Covid and vaccinations, and Fb and YouTube every eliminated the movie from its platform. The third one claimed Covid lockdowns had been “synchronized tyranny” concocted to manage the plenty, decried a “purported plot” for one-world authorities, and dubbed Black Lives Matter a pro-communist group.
In February, the Slepcevics hosted what they known as the “Autism Well being Summit” in San Antonio. The audio system included quite a few anti-vaxxers, together with Willis, Judy Mikovits, one other Covid conspiracy theorist, and Del Bigtree, a infamous anti-vaxxer who’s now the communications director for the Kennedy marketing campaign. Tracy has endorsed election denialism by selling on her Fb web page 2000 Mules, the much-debunked documentary made by Dinesh D’Souza (a felon pardoned by Trump) that falsely claimed that throughout the 2020 election hundreds of Democratic operatives had been paid to illegally collect ballots and stuff them into drop packing containers.
Steve Slepcevic, too, has traveled throughout the Trumpish far-right. Photographs and movies taken on January 6 in Washington, DC, offered to Mom Jones by Capitol Terrorists Exposers—an nameless group that has researched extremists concerned in January 6—present he attended the rally on the Ellipse the place Trump spoke that preceded the assault on the Capitol. One picture that Steve apparently posted on Fb signifies he was within the crowd exterior Capitol throughout the assault. On this submit, he claimed that the “Pretend Information Media” was fallacious to report that Trump supporters had stormed into the constructing, and he mentioned that the riot was a “staged occasion.” (No proof has emerged displaying him contained in the constructing that day.)
One other picture he apparently posted captures him within the firm of a number of members of the Three Percenters militia, together with two of the 4 Three Percenters who had been subsequently convicted of costs together with conspiracy and obstruction for his or her involvement within the January 6 riot.
In Could 2021, on his Instagram feed, Steve promoted the We the Folks Patriots Day Rally in Stuart, Florida, which featured Flynn and Stone. The announcer on the occasion was a QAnon activist named DeAnna Lorraie, who was a bunch at Alex Jones’ InfoWars website. The rally, based on the ADL, was addressed by different QAnoners and a Christian nationalist.
In 2022, Steve was billed as a visitor speaker at an occasion headlined by former Sheriff Richard Mack that provided “US Constitutional Sheriff Coaching.” Mack is the founding father of the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Affiliation, which asserts native regulation enforcement officers have the ability to dam federal officers and even to find out whether or not legal guidelines are constitutional. (Mack was one of many early leaders of the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia-style outfit.) Different individuals on the coaching, held at a Sheraton resort exterior Orlando, Florida, included Flynn and Patrick Byrne, the previous CEO of Overstock and a distinguished 2020 election denier and ardent conspiracy theorist. (Byrne has been sued for defamation by Dominion Voting Programs for spreading false claims that it rigged the 2020 election.)
Steve Slepcevic’s enterprise profession as a catastrophe administration entrepreneur has been a rocky one. In 2009, the Los Angeles Instances mounted an investigation and “discovered dozens of fraud complaints, lawsuits and authorities investigations focusing on Slepcevic and his Rancho Palos Verdes-based firm, Paramount Catastrophe Restoration, spanning six states over the past decade. In California alone, insurance coverage corporations have filed 22 fraud complaints since 2002.” The newspaper described Paramount as a part of “the world of ‘storm chasers,’ touring contractors and insurance coverage adjusters who descend on pure catastrophes, providing to assist victims maximize their claims and rebuild.”
The paper reported that California had suspended Steve’s contractor’s license and {that a} choose had tossed out his petition for private chapter: “Within the chapter case, Slepcevic had acknowledged 21 claims towards him or Paramount. However the U.S. trustee mentioned in courtroom papers that Slepcevic was ‘actively concealing’ a $200,000 positive by the California Division of Insurance coverage and 6 associated legal costs for allegedly misrepresenting himself to victims of California wildfires.” The paper additionally famous, “Regardless of his authorized and monetary troubles, Slepcevic drives a Mercedes-Benz and lives in a $1.6-million Redondo Seaside house with an ocean view. Through the years, he has earned as much as $80,000 month-to-month, divorce information present. Along with heading Paramount, Slepcevic runs the Nationwide Catastrophe Summit, a for-profit academic convention that serves as an promoting automobile for catastrophe providers. He costs different self-described catastrophe specialists $3,000 for 45 minutes on stage.”
Steve instructed the paper that he had “made errors” and that his firm had suffered from “administration points.” He insisted these issues had been behind him. Talking in regards to the Los Angeles Instances article 13 years later at a ReAwaken America occasion, Tracy known as it a “smear job” and recalled, “We misplaced every thing. My husband misplaced his enterprise of 20 years. We misplaced our home.”
Two months after the Los Angeles Instances piece appeared, Steve was arrested by the Louisiana State Police for allegedly collaborating in a “scheme that stole insurance coverage proceeds from people and companies after Hurricane Katrina.” The state charged that Steve and two associates swiped $355,461 from victims of the storm by negotiating insurance coverage claims on their behalf, forging the signatures of the victims on settlement checks, and depositing the checks into the checking account of an organization owned by Steve. The case was dismissed the next yr.
In 2014, Steve and Tracy Slepcevic included a enterprise in California known as Strategic Response Companions, which, based on its web site, helps “organizations reply rapidly, effectively, and appropriately to quickly altering disaster-related conditions.” He additionally began a Florida-based personal safety firm known as Sabre Protection Workforce. Its credo: “Survival isn’t just a talent set, however a mindset.” In response to its web site, “Sabre is an elite workforce of extremely educated and uniquely expert professionals outfitted to help with all aspects of personal safety, paramedic, and emergency rescue and restoration providers. On the subject of personal safety providers, expertise counts!” Till this week, the location mentioned the corporate has been offering “proactive safety” for “greater than 25 years.” The agency was included in 2021. After Mom Jones inquired in regards to the firm and its incorporation date, the reference to “25 years” was faraway from the location.
Talking at a current convention, Steve famous that he had labored with Turning Level USA, a conservative outfit geared toward younger individuals, and its chief Charlie Kirk (a Trump champion and election denier who has been within the information these days for making racist feedback) to provide a documentary on the US-Mexico border. He additionally described how he escorted Kennedy to the border final yr and “arrange all of the interviews for him.” (The Kennedy marketing campaign launched a brief movie about this go to through which Steve appeared as an skilled on smuggling on the border.) Throughout this discuss, he mentioned that he can be offering safety for a press convention on the finish of Could in Geneva that may function authorities officers from international locations who oppose the signing of a treaty obliging nations to share knowledge and work collectively within the occasion of one other pandemic. He famous his catastrophe administration agency was collaborating with activists who intend to journey to the Swiss metropolis to protest the accord and who’re planning the same occasion in Washington, DC, in September that may function Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, Russell Model, and others.
Neither Steve nor Tracy Slepcevic responded to a number of questions and requests for remark Mom Jones despatched them. When a reporter for Mom Jones known as Tracy, she answered the telephone. After he recognized himself, the road went lifeless. Subsequent calls went to voice mail.
Mom Jones emailed the Kennedy marketing campaign a listing of questions in regards to the Slepcevics and their associations. The queries included: How a lot cash did the Slepcevics assist increase on the current fundraiser they hosted? Does the marketing campaign plan to make use of them additional in fundraising? How does the marketing campaign really feel about their ties to pro-Trump extremists? The marketing campaign replied: “Your request for remark is into consideration and your deadline is famous. If the marketing campaign has a response, we are going to let you realize.” There was no extra response.
Political commentators have had a troublesome time characterizing Kennedy’s marketing campaign. Is it a undertaking of the left or the proper? (Kennedy just lately instructed CNN that he considers President Joe Biden a “a lot worse menace to democracy” than Trump.) The marketing campaign defies straightforward categorization. However the participation of the Slepcevics exhibits how RFK Jr.’s presidential bid can coexist with advocates tied to far-right extremists and Trump superfans. Past the fundraiser and the e-book gross sales, the Slepcevics have assisted Kennedy in different methods. In February, the marketing campaign auctioned a one-hour teaching session with Tracy. The very best of the 2 bids that got here in was $700. Final month, the marketing campaign auctioned 4 hours of personal firearms coaching with Steve. The buy-now value was $5,000. The profitable bid was $1,325.