Dan Bongino revealed on his show on Wednesday that he is no longer involved in the “day-to-day” management of Parler, after Rebekah Mercer exerted control over the company.
Eyebrows were first raised about Bongino’s involvement in Parler when, responding to a National File report this week on the new interim CEO of the company, Mark Meckler, and his involvement in a project that could let George Soros rewrite the Constitution, Bongino confirmed that he had “no relationship” with Meckler, and had never even met him, despite ostensibly being a co-owner.
Speaking on his show on Wednesday, Bongino revealed that as of then, he is “no longer involved really with the day-to-day” running of Parler. “I’m sorry, I’ve got a lot going on in my life,” Bongino said, but confirmed that he is still an investor in Parler, and will “remain such for as long as I want my money and assets tied up in there”:
I still think… that it is a great alternative to the tech tyrants at Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere… It’s nothing personal, it’s just, I just can’t folks. I’ve got a lot going on in my life. It’s really that simple. I’ve got too many things to do… I’m not abandoning them or anything like that, I just have to get control over my life a little bit. There’s a lot going on right now. So I am not involved in the day-to-day.
Bongino’s step back from the day-to-day running of Parler comes as Rebekah Mercer, daughter of billionaire Robert Mercer, began to exert to control over the direction of the company, following the firing of Parler’s CEO and founder John Matze. Press reports have argued that Mercer now “increasingly pulls the strings” at the social media network:
She was fairly hands-off for the first two years of the company as it slowly established itself, the people familiar with Parler said… That changed last fall as Parler rapidly gained popularity and the election approached. Mercer, who also set up the board’s governing documents through lawyers, started asserting more board accountability and playing a larger role in company leadership…
It was Mercer who ultimately pushed the founding CEO out, Matze told several media outlets. “I feel like it was a stab in the back by somebody that I thought I knew,” he told Axios… Some thought it was a play by Mercer to harness more operational control of the company. Other influential voices in the company were also sidelined, two of the people familiar with Parler said.
Bongino also made headlines after his initial response to National File’s reporting, where he insinuated that the CEO of Gab, Andrew Torba, had in fact planted the story at National File.
“Whenever Parler has even a little bit of success, getting back online, you will notice a story about Parler being owned by George Soros, operated by George Soros,” Bongino said. “It appears every time Parler has some degree of success. It’s a scam run by an unethical competitor,” he added.
In a statement, Torba responded, noting that he had “nothing to do” with the “excellent” reporting from National File, and said it was a “shame” that Bongino had resorted to “baseless” attacks rather than dealing wit the questions posed by the article. “Bizarre behavior from a grown adult man,” Torba added.
