From the editors: This is part one of a two-part essay by Dr. Mary Talley Bowden in which she investigates the bait-and-switch tactics of the Kennedy ’24 presidential campaign and tracks financial ties, corruption, and ultimately the betrayal of millions of Americans harmed by mRNA vaccine technology. Part two will be here soon—sign up now to get it straight to your inbox.
Government tyranny became a palpable reality in America during the pandemic. The fearful sought solace from Fauci, while a large sector rejected public health authorities and looked for different leadership. The chosen savior had already spent years as an environmental and vaccine activist. To the general public, however, he remained little more than a familiar name until the pandemic. Kennedy’s prior work earned him instant credibility among COVID dissidents, while his family name allowed him to break through censorship barriers that silenced most other pandemic rebels and rapidly rise in popularity.
Kennedy joined Children’s Health Defense in 2015 (then called the World Mercury Project) as board director and chief legal counsel. That same year California passed SB277, which eliminated personal-belief and religious exemptions for vaccines - the first time a state actively revoked an exemption right that citizens had already been using. The backlash energized both the vaccine safety movement and the well-organized pro-vaccine response.
Kennedy soon became the champion for families who believe vaccines caused their children’s autism, and his announcement to run for President on April 19, 2023 brought tremendous hope to these long-standing and loyal supporters. Children’s Health Defense, a niche vaccine-safety organization, went from relative obscurity to collecting over $77 million in donations during the pandemic.
Kennedy initially ran as a Democrat with former US Representative and two-time Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich as campaign manager. Common Sense PAC, registered by California health-freedom activist Sofia Karstens, was the campaign’s first major financial supporter.
Grassroots supporters were soon overshadowed by a wealthy and more powerful circle, many with questionable backgrounds, and those who challenged the new regime either left or were forced out.
After Kennedy’s announcement, Jack Dorsey was his first major endorsement; soon after, Elon Musk invited him to join him on an X space. In mid-June, Common Sense PAC worked with crypto and tech billionaire David Sacks to raise one million dollars at a private fundraiser.
Nicole Shanahan was also a large donor to the campaign, initially through Common Sense PAC, then through American Values PAC, and then as the vice presidential candidate. Once on the ticket, she was allowed to contribute unlimited funds to the campaign. Shanahan was very outspoken about the harms of the COVID shots during the campaign. In May 2024, she flew to Houston to interview me for her podcast Back to the People and aired it on May 31st.
While Kucinich and the campaign were building momentum, another faction was assembling a larger war chest. In August 2023, Skyhorse publisher Tony Lyons and businessman Mark Gorton rebranded their 2022 People’s Pharma Movement PAC to American Values PAC, with the goal of supporting Kennedy’s run. Businessman Tim Mellon helped tremendously with an initial $5 million donation. Mellon continued to donate; by April 2024, he had contributed a total of $30 million to the PAC.
Private security specialist Gavin de Becker was especially instrumental to Kennedy’s campaign. In addition to providing over $14 million in “bridge loans” to American Values PAC, de Becker’s firm earned $8.24 million from Team Kennedy for security services. Security was the campaign’s largest vendor expense, and more than $5 million was spent after Kennedy dropped out of the race. De Becker also gifted Kennedy over $250,000 in travel and lodging, with round-trip tickets to Fiji and Greece and use of his vacation home in DC.
Kennedy has also accepted approximately $4 million in book advances from Skyhorse, an extraordinarily high advance, even for a major political figure. The arrangement raises the question of whether MAHA-affiliated nonprofits and PACs will purchase large quantities of the books to help earn out the advances, effectively recycling movement funds back to the publisher and author.
As the sources of income changed, so did the people around Kennedy. Controversial associations and hires, along with questions about how donated funds were allocated, became points of contention. Grassroots supporters were soon overshadowed by a wealthy and more powerful circle, many with questionable backgrounds, and those who challenged the new regime either left or were forced out.
Messaging missteps
With changing power dynamics, messaging missteps followed. In mid-July, Kennedy caused outrage when caught on camera stating COVID was designed to ethnically target Caucasians and Blacks while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and the Chinese. In response, Kennedy sat down with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach at the World Values Network forum where they spent hours discussing Kennedy’s support for Israel. The appearance worked as an apology, and a new relationship formed. Shmuley and Kennedy have appeared together at several more pro-Israel events, and when Kennedy announced he was running as an Independent, Shmuley joined him on stage. Shmuley is rumored to be a frequent visitor at Kennedy’s HHS office.
After surviving claims of antisemitism, Kennedy stumbled again, this time surrounding the topic of abortion. At the Iowa State Fair in August, Kennedy offended pro-choice activists by stating he supported a ban on abortions after the first trimester. Hours later, the campaign issued a clarification, stating he had misunderstood the question and believed abortion was entirely a woman's right to choose. Stefanie Spear was Press Secretary at the time.
Despite these mishaps, a September 2023 poll showed Kennedy at 19%, but by June 2024, that number had fallen to 4%. Former insiders describe a series of major personnel changes and internal sabotage as contributing factors to the decline.
Mary Talley Bowden
More on the COVID-19 Pandemic
Kucinich departure and political kompromat
Facing insurmountable pushback from the Democratic Party, in October 2023 Kennedy declared he was running as an Independent. At the same time, Dennis Kucinich, citing disagreements over foreign policy, resigned as campaign manager, and Kennedy’s daughter-in-law, former CIA agent Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, took his place. Insiders claim Kucinich was forced out through an internal smear campaign.
As American Values PAC became the dominant source of funding and Amaryllis took over running the campaign, key leaders began raising concerns about distribution of campaign funds and personnel issues. Their pushback was framed as disloyalty. Too high-profile to dismiss outright, “constructive discharge” techniques - gatekeeping, mobbing, tactical sabotage, political kompromat - were used to target and push them out.
Gatekeeping, smear campaigns, and leaked press stories were still not enough to remove every target. One leader described being pressured to use funds to support an AI digital control system that would use routers and Wi-Fi for surveillance.
Initially, they were excluded from events without notice and turned away at the entrance, their names deliberately omitted from the guest list. This tactic, gatekeeping, is used to deny access to the candidate. It is intentionally embarrassing and signals to others that the person is no longer in favor.
Whisper campaigns then insinuated they were spies or DNC operatives. This tactic is especially powerful in a third-party presidential race; accusing a team member of secretly working for the enemy destroys trust, isolates the target, and creates a pretext for removal.
When gatekeeping and smear tactics failed, the campaign escalated to political kompromat, creating public scandal to force them out. Staffers were caught leaking stories to media. This is a classic proxy attack: the perpetrator uses a third party (here, a journalist) to strike externally while keeping their own hands clean. Later, this same strategy continued to be reported by many MAHA staffers as well.
Further sabotage occurred when seasoned strategists made rookie “mistakes”. Blogger Jessica Reed Kraus works closely with Israeli-American journalist Daphne Barak, cousin of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and longtime personal and professional acquaintance of Ghislaine Maxwell. Barak formed Fighting 4 One America PAC in November 2023 then planned a star-studded 70th birthday party for Kennedy the following January. After advertising celebrity attendees Martin Sheen, Dionne Warwick, Andrea Bocelli, and Mike Tyson - all of whom publicly denied any intention of attending - Kennedy, embarrassed, backed out. Then failed fete was a major public relations setback and an unexpected slip from someone with Barak’s experience. Insiders speculate the hype and subsequent collapse were intentional.
After the party failure, Tony Lyons/AV24 hosted a birthday celebration at the London Hotel in Los Angeles. Daphne Barak attended, and her PAC, Fighting 4 One America, received $75,000 from American Values.
Gatekeeping, smear campaigns, and leaked press stories were still not enough to remove every target. One leader described being pressured to use funds to support an AI digital control system that would use routers and Wi-Fi for surveillance. That individual believes their refusal was a key reason they were pushed out.
Ballot-access and staff exodus
In November 2023, campaign manager Amaryllis Fox hired outside contractor Trent Pool of Accelevate 2020 and internally hired Nick Brana to handle ballot access. Kennedy is allegedly Pool’s AA sponsor, and Pool was arrested for assault during the campaign. Nick Brana’s mother is Monica Brana, a former researcher affiliated with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a WHO regional office. In the early 2000’s she co-authored publications on vaccines, including measles surveillance and eradication and in August 2020, co-authored a paper concerning equitable management of COVID.
Amid allegations of fraud, residency challenges, and legal hurdles, Kennedy’s ballot access initiative was expensive and unsuccessful. According to insiders, there seemed to be a coordinated sabotage effort setting Kennedy and the campaign up to fail by deliberately botching the ballot access process at every level. They also appeared to sabotage to create the need for their services – engineering failure so they could be paid for the cleanup and for the second and sometimes third go-round. Allegations arose that American Values 2024 PAC illegally coordinated with the campaign to gather signatures for Arizona and ended in Kennedy withdrawing his name from the state’s ballot. The campaign paid Pool and Accelevate 2020 over $16 million in consulting fees.
In February 2024, fourteen campaign staffers quit; many of their resignation letters were leaked to the press. A central complaint concerned Amaryllis Fox Kennedy’s decision to hire her nanny Brigid Rasmussen as Chief of Staff. Staffers called Rasmussen unqualified, toxic, and amateurish. They also complained that personal friends, former associates and family connections of Amaryllis were on large monthly retainers while grassroots workers struggled to pay for basic supplies and travel. Volunteer and staff were starved of resources needed to perform their job duties; the campaign, they said, appeared centered on self-dealing rather than electing Kennedy. Many raised their concerns directly with Kennedy but were dismissed and retaliated against with smear campaigns.
Morale collapsed following the exodus. Insiders report remaining staffers were afraid to voice concerns and kept their heads down. Productivity suffered. Months of emails to the campaign - from volunteer applications to press inquires - went unchecked and unanswered.
Despite the turmoil, Kennedy’s longtime collaborator Stefanie Spear was promoted from Communications Director to Campaign Press Secretary and Director of Media Relations. Spear and Kennedy co-founded the digital news site EcoWatch in 2011 and have worked together ever since. Insiders describe them as unusually close, but since she doesn’t share Kennedy’s view on vaccines, and given her long focus on environmentalism, some question her alliances. Spear reportedly told the campaign that vaccines, autism and the COVID shots were off-limits; no one was allowed to broach those topics publicly.
Trump alliance and the Means siblings
The campaign’s decline reached a breaking point after the assassination attempt on Trump at the Butler rally on July 13, 2024. Calley Means has said Trump’s near-death experience inspired him to seek an alliance between Trump and Kennedy, and Kennedy publicly credited Calley for connecting them the day after the event (later Kennedy would pivot and credit Charlie Kirk for making the connection.) Privately, MAHA insiders report MAGA mega-donors Miriam Adelson and Tim Mellon played a significant role in Kennedy’s capitulation and told Kennedy if he joined Trump, they would make sure Trump kept his promises. On August 23, 2024, Kennedy announced he was dropping out and endorsing Donald Trump. Per Del Bigtree, Kennedy spent weeks after the Butler rally negotiating terms with Trump before agreeing to step aside.
Nicole Shanahan initially refused to endorse Trump, stating he needed to admit Operation Warp Speed was a mistake. This enraged Calley Means, who posted on X a text he sent her:
Kennedy’s base, though disappointed, did not waver. They reluctantly shifted support to the man behind Operation Warp Speed, with the expectation that Kennedy and his followers would be rewarded. Kennedy was the health freedom movement’s nuclear bomb; BigPharma was the target; the assumption was that Trump would let him act once elected.
While the world was focused on the pandemic, Calley and Casey chose to write a book about nutrition.
To outsiders, the earliest challenge to that assumption was the meteoric rise of Casey and Calley Means. Coming from relative obscurity, the siblings suddenly became the face of the movement. Both longtime pre-COVID supporters of Kennedy and his newer COVID-era loyalists wondered how they had risen so fast and why Kennedy had brought them in.
News reports indicate Calley Means caught Kennedy’s attention after appearing on Tucker Carlson’s show in February 2024 and soon began advising Kennedy on chronic-disease policy. They first met in person a month later at a wellness event in Austin. Sitting together in a sweat tent, Calley claims he had a vision where he saw Kennedy standing with Trump. Calley has repeatedly claimed he was a former lobbyist and consultant for Coca Cola. His former boss, Steve Schmidt, has stated Calley is lying and was never a lobbyist nor a consultant with Coca Cola.
David Deavel
More on the Medical Mafia
Dr. Casey Means and her brother were active on social media during the pandemic but made very few statements about COVID and were silent on the shots. Both had strong biotech ties: Casey ran the continuous blood glucose-monitoring company Levels while Calley ran TrueMed, a company that helps people use HSA funds for alternative medicine products like the Eight Sleep tech mattress. Casey attended medical school at Stanford and in 2018 dropped out of ENT residency at Oregon Health and Science University, six months before completion, claiming to have become disenchanted with mainstream medicine. When she became the surgeon general nominee, her former program directors publicly stated she left due to stress and anxiety.
Kennedy appeared on Tucker Carlson Today November 15th, 2021 and released The Real Anthony Fauci the following day. It became a bestseller and sold more than a million copies. Fauci never sued, but based on the sequences of events, it's possible he used a different strategy to fight back. I could not find direct evidence he worked with the Means, but the timing of their book launch makes me wonder.
While the world was focused on the pandemic, Calley and Casey Means chose to write a book about nutrition. In the summer of 2022, with the help of Mark Hyman, Calley and Casey signed with high-profile literary agent Richard Pine and landed a major book deal with Random House Penguin’s Avery imprint. Avery handled publicity and marketing and handled it well. There are over 4 million published books about nutrition; somehow “Good Energy” became an instant best-seller.
Kennedy wrote books about the harms of the COVID shots but is no longer discussing them.
It soon became obvious that Casey and Calley intended to shift the nation’s attention away from the pandemic and towards the politically safe topic of nutrition. The timing of their sudden prominence perfectly coincided with the 2024 presidential election, appearing together on Tucker in August followed by Rogan in October. Young, articulate and passionate, the siblings captured the public’s admiration, redirecting anger away from the trauma of the past four years and onto cereal manufacturers.
I have never spoken to Casey, but as I began posting suspicions about their motives, Calley engaged. In December 2024, following several heated phone conversations, we met face-to-face in the Danny Jones studio, along with neurosurgeon Jack Kruse. Jack and I met during an interview hosted by Nicole Shanahan, where off-camera we discussed our mutual concerns about the Means.
The interview with Danny occurred a month after Trump won the election but before Kennedy was confirmed, and during three hours of back-and-forth, Calley admitted he did not support pulling the mRNA shots off the market. After the interview, he downplayed his ambitions, telling me he had no desire or intention to join the new administration. Three months later, he became a special government employee and transitioned into a permanent senior advisor with HHS in November 2025.
Last week, Calley resigned, claiming he couldn’t handle the frustrations of working in the bureaucracy. Despite his complaints, his strategy worked. The two White House MAHA reports (Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment and Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy) make no mention of the COVID mRNA shots, instead focusing on nutrition. MAHA Action’s website also makes no mention of mRNA, and analysis of the content of their website shows only 2.3% devoted to vaccines
Kennedy wrote books about the harms of the COVID shots but is no longer discussing them. Two of his closest advisors, Calley Means and Stefanie Spear, are likely instrumental in keeping him silent on the topic. The movement largely accepted the silence as strategy, trusting that once he had power, he would act.
Post-campaign money transfers and the Libertarian party
Just before Kennedy dropped out of the race, the campaign signed a joint fundraising agreement with the Libertarian Party - odd given the Libertarians had rejected him as their nominee two months earlier. Called the Kennedy Victory Fund, the agreement allowed donors to write big checks exceeding normal campaign contribution limits. In this case, the money was unequally disbursed among the twenty committee members, with the majority of funds going to Team Kennedy.
The fund amassed $9.73 million, and the bulk of that came in after Kennedy dropped out of the race. Normally candidates stop fundraising once the campaign ends, but this fund brought in over $6 million following his departure. One of the large donors was Jerry Ross, founder of Botanic Tonics, the kratom company that narrowly escaped DOJ prosecution for selling a dietary product without sufficient safety information.
In early 2025, the Libertarian-backed Kennedy Victory Fund paid Gavin de Becker over $700,000 for Kennedy’s security services. Additional funds were spent on internet advertising, luxury hotels, and reimbursement to Kennedy’s treasurer Eleanor Cox - after Kennedy dropped out of the race. The chair of the Libertarian National Committee, Angela McArdle, allegedly set up two political consulting companies (Swing Vote Strategy and Freedom Calls) that paid themselves $80,000 from the Kennedy Victory Fund. The party objected, and McArdle was forced out.
The week of Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearings, MAHA PAC, the Libertarian National Committee, and Team Kennedy paid de Becker’s firm over $900,000 combined for security services. De Becker charged the campaign $8.24 million between July 2023 and March 2025, and more than $5 million of that occurred after Kennedy dropped out of the race.
Subscribe to The Paradox Press for part two Dr. Mary Talley Bowden's investigation: https://www.theparadoxpress.com/founders-discount
