Richard Luthmann and I were back talking Trump’s trade gambit- right before he caved- the AEA, and Tesla cyber trucks having weak sales.
We did the What the Hales segment at twenty-five minutes in, and after that Richard Luthmann described his run in with a Florida reporter named Bob Norman. In an article about Lee County {FL} Sheriff Carmine Marceno, Norman used Richard’s past criminal conviction to attack Marceno.
The author of the Substack posted by Guerrette, a self-styled reporter named Richard Luthmann, told the Florida Trident he envisions an opportunity for Trump – as well as his Attorney General Pam Bondi – to end the federal investigation into Marceno.
“I can see a very good scenario where the thing just fizzles out,” Luthmann said of the Marceno investigation. “They might make the political move to say the investigation has been closed to narrow down that [Congressional] field and make Carmine the candidate. We saw it before with Eric Adams.”
He said Trump ultimately could decide that Marceno is the surest bet to win the Congressional race and fight for the president in the Capitol.
“You know how popular Carmine is,” Luthmann said. “You got a guy that unless they find him with a live boy or a dead girl, Marceno will win at the ballot box.”
Luthmann said that while he’s spoken with Marceno in the past, he hasn’t discussed a potential Congressional run with him. He said he sees what he called a “lawfare” correlation between Trump – who faced four separate criminal indictments and was convicted of 34 felonies prior to his re-election – and the sheriff.
Luthmann, an associate of long-time Trump advisor (and pardoned felon) Roger Stone, has had some epic battles with the law himself. A disbarred attorney who formerly practiced in Staten Island, he was sentenced in 2019 to four years in prison after being convicted of fraud and extortion.
According to federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, Luthmann and his organized crime-associated partners sold fake scrap metal to Chinese firms through a series of shell companies (the “president” of one was a blind panhandler Luthmann allegedly found on the sidewalk outside his law firm). At one point, a business partner who owed Luthmann money was shaken down at gunpoint in his law office. While Luthmann wasn’t present for the shakedown, he admitted complicity in the crime while making a guilty plea, according to published media reports at the time.
Richard called the article a hatchet job and his site wrote an article in response. This one focusing on the non-profit status of Norman’s employer, Florida Trident, a 501 (C) 3.
“Maybe the IRS should take a hard look at the tax-exempt status of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, Norman and the Florida Trident’s publisher,” Luthmann said. “They say they are non-partisan, but their continuous spew of leftist drivel pawned off as news makes them little more than a glorified PAC,” Luthmann said.
PACs or political action committees qualify as 501(c)(4)s or social welfare organizations, but donations are not tax-deductible. However, 501(c)(3)s are prohibited from engaging in political activities.
Luthmann says the FLCGA collects tax-deductible donations but also releases overly slanted media coverage that many would call “political advocacy.”
“If Norman says I’m not a reporter, then he’s not part of a journalistic outfit. He’s a leftist hack misleading readers and cheating taxpayers through a fraudulent designation. Look at the FLCGA’s money. They are a political organization,” Luthmann said.
FLCGA is Florida-focused. However, it receives substantial monies from out-of-state donors, including the Institute for Nonprofit News, which Luthmann says is a “leftist media cooperative masquerading as a public charity.”
Richard and I then debated if political bias bars an organization from getting non-profit status- 501 (C) 3. I brought up ProPublica, which has a left stance, but also does primarily long form articles- often partnering with local news sites- which would be difficult to do in a for-profit model.
ProPublica’s Pulitzer Prize winning investigation of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was derided by conservatives as partisan hackery.
So, should ProPublica lose its non-profit status? Richard argued it was a straw man since he wasn’t calling for ProPublica’s non-profit status to be revoked but for Florida Trident.
He said that the donors were primarily liberal. I said I would look up the donors for ProPublica.
Grants largely come from newspapers and local news reporting entities. Richard argued that Florida Trident acts like a political action committee so it should register as a 501 (C)4.
A 501 (C) 3 is supposed to, “to serve the public interest by engaging in activities such as religious, educational, scientific, or charitable work.”
All contributions to a 501 (C) 3 are tax deductible, which a 501 (C) 4 does not have.
Richard said if one was to examine the Florida Trident the articles would overwhelmingly swing to favoring liberals.
“Show me one article from any of these outlets from the past year that is remotely pro-Trump or pro-DeSantis, and there’s something to discuss. You won’t find any because that’s not their political program. And that’s the point,” Luthmann said in the article on his site.
Richard also pointed out that the hit piece on him was picked up by local Public Broadcasting System, which Trump has threatened to defund.
Taking a look at the website Florida Trident, the site produces standard political articles and not that many of them.
The article which featured Richard was about how Sheriff Marceno was under investigation while considering a run for Congress. The article noted that his announcement was documented in a conservative Florida website, Florida’s Voice.
Florida’s Voice is for profit.
It’s hard to justify another news site doing articles on local sheriffs and other local politicians which already get covered by for profit local news sites and television stations.
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