Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
As right-wing troll Chuck Johnson pumped out dubious stories on his website Got News throughout 2017 and 2018, visitors to the site were bombarded with pleas for donations to keep the operation afloat.
“The lion’s share of the funds required to run this website comes from donations,” declared a caption on the right side of the page, accompanied by a PayPal link and a bitcoin donation QR code. “Please support independent journalism.”