A spokesman for Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has denied claims by extremist political strategist Steve Bannon that he was behind Palmer’s controversial $60 million advertising campaign in the 2019 federal election.
A text conversation between Bannon and an unidentified man – a convicted sex offender. Jeffrey Epstein – One of the documents released by the US Department of Justice regarding Epstein.
A version of the conversation shows Bannon is talking to a man whose identity has been redacted. A separate filecontaining the same conversation, shows that the other participant had an email account linked to Epstein’s.
Bannon, a Donald Trump loyalist and Promoter of misinformation The man who ran the US president’s 2016 election campaign said in messages sent two days after the 2019 Australian election: “I made Clive Palmer $60 million in anti-China and climate change ads.”
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Bannon’s claim has not been tested and was dismissed as “bullshit” by a Palmer spokesman on Sunday.
The 2019 federal election was marked by a significant increase Online misinformation And an unprecedented advertising blitz by the Palmers United Australia party.
On election night, Palmer said he had chosen his strategy in the final weeks of the campaign “To polarize the electorate” And damage Labor’s chances of winning.
Scott Morrison’s coalition government is back despite polls consistently pointing to a Labor victory.
In a conversation days after the election, an account linked to Epstein commented on the failure of published polls to predict the outcome and compared the Australian election to “your last go round”.
The account, which claims to be Bannon, responds by claiming that Palmer “made up” the statements about China and climate change.
in a Interview with the Sydney Morning Herald During the campaign — a week before Palmer pivoted his ad spending — Bannon described the campaign as lackluster and expressed surprise that China was not mentioned.
“There needs to be a really serious debate on this,” he said.
“They are trying to hold elections on national security and link it to China.
“Rebellious parties should produce intensity and they don’t.”
During the campaign, Palmer ran a two-minute ad attacking Labor, arguing that “Communist China” was trying to “secretly take over our country”.
Labour’s election review cited the “outrageous” claims that Palmer’s statements had a “significant negative impact [Labor leader] On Bill Shorten’s popularity and Labour’s primary vote”.
“Following a priority deal with the Coalition, Clive Palmer turned his $70 million advertising spend in the last two weeks of the campaign to ‘shifty shorten’ to Bill Shorten in the final two weeks of the campaign, and the McGowan government sold an airport to China in a strange claim in Western Australia.
“Palmer’s advertising blitz strongly extended the Coalition’s anti-Labor message to economically insecure, low-income voters. In focus groups of soft voters, Palmer was described in the most disparaging terms, helping to explain the poor votes he and his party received, but damaging Shorten’s leadership position.”
Palmer’s media spokesman, Andrew Crook, responded to claims of Bannon’s involvement via text message Sunday.
“It’s made up. Just bullshit,” he said.
Bannon has been reached for comment.
