At the inaugural conference of the MAHA Institute on May 15, 2025, Dr. Sara Brenner, Principal Deputy Commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration, was asked about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her interviewer asked, “Was this driven by the national security community? The pharmaceutical industry? The World Economic Forum? Who was doing it, and what are they trying to accomplish?”
Brenner replied, “That’s the question of our whole generation, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a whole set of conversations there, right? What’s interesting to me about this moment is that we’re starting to get people together, like in this forum and in other forums, where you have a different vantage point on the whole shebang and what happened. And different people have different opinions about who was pulling, you know, the strings. Who was the master puppeteer? Was there a single entity? Were there multiple entity, entities?”[1]
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The bushy-bearded man with slicked-back hair, sitting onstage with the new FDA official and asking conspiracy questions, was the master of ceremonies for the day: the newly announced MAHA Institute executive director, Leland Lehrman.
As for the “master puppeteer” behind the conspiracy, over the years, R. Leland Lehrman has been quite explicit in his answer. In fact, Lehrman has promoted some of the most vicious antisemitism ever written.
A few in rural New York, such as Will Solomon at the River and the short-lived Vaxx Facts newsletter, tried to expose Lehrman’s promotion of antisemitism in the anti-vaccine movement.[2] However, as a local activist, Lehrman has been a relatively unknown name to those who track anti-vaccine activism.
All that changed when he became director of the MAHA Institute, a national organization with deep pockets and ties to the Trump administration.
Who is Leland Lehrman?
What a long, strange trip it’s been for R. Leland Lehrman. He was born into an influential East Coast family. He’s the great-grandson of the founder of the Rite-Aid Corporation. His father, Lewis E. Lehrman, is a big-time investment banker, economist, and historian who narrowly lost the 1982 New York gubernatorial election. Lewis Lehrman is also a well-connected conservative, serving as a trustee of groups such as the Manhattan Institute and the Heritage Foundation and having written a book with Ron Paul.[3]
Despite his conservative lineage and matching blue-blood education at Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale, Leland Lehrman drifted in a different direction from his powerful family. Leland described the relationship with his distinguished father in an interview on the Alex Jones show, “My relationship with my family politically is extremely sensitive as a result of the fact that while we share some ground in the paleo-conservative realm, my father has become, to a certain degree, aligned with the more war-like elements of the conservative party and we part ways on that subject.”[4]
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In the early 2000s, Lehrman and his family moved to New Mexico, where he opened the vegetarian-friendly Green Palace Teahouse and launched a counter-culture-esque website called Mother Media, featuring “News, Politics, and Ecology from Mother Earth’s Perspective.”[5] Site sponsors included a variety of local counter-culture groups, such as “Shaman’s Den,” “Alien Attraxtion,” “Ecoversity,” and “Santa Fe Hemp,” which published anti-war politics and 9/11 Truther conspiracies similar to those found on sites like InfoWars during the period.[6]
In 2007, Lehrman entered politics, albeit in a direction very different from his father’s. He briefly ran in the 2008 New Mexico Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. His platform included “No War,” “Repeal Patriot Act,” “Dismantle Homeland Security Department,” and “Decommission All Foreign US Military Bases.” It also included very un-MAGA stances, including a “No Wall” immigration policy, “Single Payer, Medicare for All,” “Reparations for African-American Slavery,” “Full Civil Union Rights for GLBT citizens,” and “Raise Minimum Wage.”
However, some items on his platform were signposts of future political activism. It included “9-11 Truth” and several old far-right standards around banking, including “Repeal 1913 Federal Reserve Act and Federal Income Tax Amendment,” “Prohibit Usury,” “Central Bank Under Control of US Treasury (As Constitutionally Mandated),” and “Dollar Backed by Basket of Commodities including Silver and Food(Commodity Certificates).”
It also included several anti-vaccine stances, including “Abolish or Modify Vaccination Requirement for school entry,” “Aggressive Prosecution of Pharmaceutical Company Malpractise[sic],” and “Reform FDA to Limit Corporate Manipulation of Drug and Food Policy.”
One outlet that mentioned his fringe candidacy referred to Lehrman mockingly as the “Truth Movement” candidate.[7] In the end, his “never-quite-off-the-ground” campaign flopped long before the primary.[8]
Leland Lehrman and 9/11 Truth Conspiracism
While it’s unclear where Lehrman was initially introduced to antisemitic conspiracies, he began publicly expressing support for them as he sank deeper into the 9/11 Truther conspiracy world.[9] According to his account, the journey into the 9/11 Truther world began while he was working on a campaign.
“In 2003/4, I ran Dennis Kucinich’s campaign for President in Santa Fe, NM. It was my first political effort since the long journey away from the Republican party into which I had been born. The effort had additional benefits: while planting Kucinich for President signs around Santa Fe, I met a former Captain in US Army Intelligence who was able to substantially add to my understanding of the 9/11 Inside Job. Very substantially.*:”[10]
While involved in the 9/11 Truther conspiracy community, Lehrman began prolifically promoting claims blaming Israel and the Mossad for the attacks. Take, for example, this passage from a lengthy piece Lehrman wrote on an influential 9/11 Truther conspiracy site,
“The physics911.net website has additional supporting evidence for Mossad involvement in 9/11 in its background information section. Although the Mossad has been caught perpetrating fake terrorist operations, most people still don’t know about it. It is often asserted that Israel and Zionism are in fact themselves patsies of the Anglo-American establishment, but given the fact that Talmudic Zionists like the Rothschilds have controlled international central banking and freemasonry for centuries, I am not convinced of that hypothesis, though I include it here for balance. Interestingly, at the very core of secret Freemasonry doctrine is what is known as British Israelism, an assertion that the British are in fact a lost tribe of Israel and that as such Britain is included in the proverbial covenant of the Chosen People. Who is at the top of the Pyramid? Why, Lucifer himself of course, whether you acknowledge it metaphorically or literally. All ‘identifiable groups’ are expendable within the divide and conquer methodology.”[11]
Within a few short years, Leland Lehrman would descend further into the ugly recesses of the Internet, dialoguing with antisemites and conspiracy mongers about the villainous fabrication that laid the tracks for the Holocaust.
Lehrman and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
To those unfamiliar, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is fiction spun as the authentic blueprint of the age-old Jewish world conspiracy to topple all existing institutions and governments and to install Jewish dominion over the non-Jews, thereby inaugurating the veritable messianic kingdom of ancient prophecy.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Norman Cohn’s classic work, Warrant for Genocide, describes how this fake document, claiming to be the notes of a secret 1897 conclave of Jewish leaders during the first Zionist Congress held in Basel, has been used over the years to discredit the left as Jewish-inspired movements.
As early as 1921, scholars debunked the book and exposed its blatant plagiarism, identifying the Russians who solicited the forgery and documenting its worldwide dissemination; yet, the conspiracy persisted. It is a book with a body count. The Protocols have served as inspiration for bloody attacks, assassinations, murderous pogroms, and genocide.
“It is no exaggeration to say that they cost the lives of many thousands of innocent persons and that more blood and tears cling to their pages than to those of any other mendacious document in the world’s history,” explained Swedish Historian Hugo Valentin.[12]
Judaica Bibliographer Robert Singerman added, “German anti-Semites, to be sure, were quick to capitalize on this Russian export, and it is well-known that the Nazis made the Protocols the cornerstone of their exterminatory program against the occult forces of Judeo-Masonry and Jewish-Communism.”[13]
Adolph Hitler himself was quite aware of the Protocols potential for mobilizing antisemitic violence, writing in Mein Kampf that they showed, “To what extent the whole existence of this people is based on a continuous lie” and “reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner context as well as their ultimate final aims.” The Nazi fuhrer concluded that “once this book has become the common property of people, the Jewish menace may be considered as broken.”[14]
After being immersed in 9/11 Truther conspiracies for a few years, by the summer of 2005, Lehrman was hyping the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (or, as he called it, The Protocols of Zion). His discussions of the Protocols on his Mother Media radio program on KTRC 1260AM in Santa Fe, New Mexico, caught the attention of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which, Lehrman claims, warned the progressive Jewish magazine Tikkun and other advertisers that they were sponsoring a program where antisemitism was being aired.[15]
On August 27, 2005, Lehrman published a piece entitled “ADL, Zionist Policies Causing Rise in Anti-Jewish Sentiment” on the antisemitic conspiracy website of Jeff Rense. Lehrman opened up, declaring, “I am an American citizen of Jewish heritage concerned about the methods and doctrines that the criminal leadership of the Jewish and Zionist hierarchy have promoted worldwide. I feel that Jewish Americans need to affirm loyalty to the Constitution of the United States of America as well as the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, rather than the racist attitudes of the Talmud and other Jewish scriptures.”[16]
In the article, Lehrman presented his “essential case for the authenticity of the Protocols of Zion.”[17] In it, Lehrman attempted to pull off a novel rhetorical trick by claiming that the Protocols were anathema, but they were so because they were true.
“The other reason the Protocols are so anathema is because, sadly, they are most likely authentic, and therefore represent the most thorough indictment of Jewish Supremacism known to man. The shocking assertions, eerily accurate predictions, and diabolical Machiavellian politics espoused by the Protocols is so violently cataclysmic to the man of good intent’s understanding of modern history as to virtually guarantee a political and historical awakening which will unavoidably lead to an understanding of the continuing problem of Jewish racism and supremacism. It will also demonstrate that Jewish Supremacism operates on at least an equal footing with Luciferian Freemasonry in the creation of that diabolical political nightmare euphemistically called the New World Order.”[18]
Perhaps because Lehrman’s mention of his Jewish heritage (his dad is Jewish, his mom is Episcopalian) added gravitas or was seen as a way to deflect charges of antisemitism, or just because of the unabashedly antisemitic subject matter, his writing drew the attention of online conspiracists. On August 31, 2005, Lehrman appeared on the radio program of Jeff Rense.[19]
Lehrman explained his conflict with the ADL, “As a result of getting in trouble with the Anti-Defamation League for drawing a parallel between Jewish supremacists of the era of the Protocols of Zion which is approximately the end of the nineteenth century, beginning of the twentieth century, and the current crop of Jewish supremacists represented in America by the neo-conservatives and their rightwing Israeli allies, who are responsible for bring us into war with Iraq and are now plotting a new war with Iran.”[20]
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Throughout the interview, Lehrman deployed a classic antisemitic “devil theory” conspiracy structure. IREHR founder Leonard Zeskind identified that what transforms specific conspiracies into a conspiracy theory is their inclusion in a closed system of thought, an all-powerful cosmology of diabolical evil. Zeskind added that these types of conspiracy theories “structurally correspond to an ancient (and antisemitic) version of the devil extending back into the murky depths of history. They explain the existence of evil in a world which otherwise should be God’s good earth, much as Pandora’s box explained sickness and woe to pre-Christian Greeks.”[21]
As Norman Cohn explored in Warrant for Genocide, this metaphysical devil is the mythic Jew who poisoned wells, spread plague, and subverted Christian governments for hundreds of years before Americans discovered the Illuminati or Hitler wrote Mein Kampf. This devil is the “synagogue of Satan.”[22]
In fact, Lehrman extensively discussed the concept of a Jewish Luciferian New World Order conspiracy in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
“As they finally began looking at this, I said to myself, oh my God, like you mentioned with the Lenny Brenner quote, the reality is, is that high-level Jewish Luminists, or Lucifer worshipers, have most certainly collaborated with the Lucifer worshipers in all the other sects like Nazism, like high-level Freemasonry. They have most certainly collaborated in the development of this new world order plan. And the reason why the Protocols of Zion is important is because it is a terrifically well-elucidated encapsulation of all the methods and techniques that are going–that are have, that have been used to bring about the new world order and are being used.”[23]
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Returning to the classic tropes of Luciferian “World Domination,” Lehrman argued that Jews are “extremely effective executors” of the devil’s plan and that it’s “understandable” if people see “Judaism” as the root cause of the problems caused by the devil’s plan. He later wrote,
“In effect, the Protocols are a customized World Domination plan for those who identify themselves somehow with the militant, Talmudic strains of Judaism. One can find such domination plans in other forms when they are written for other audiences. The hidden author of them all is Lucifer. He just tweaks each plan a little in order to appeal to the psychological weakness or sense of identity of the target audience. However, it must be said that Lucifer has found extremely effective executors within his ‘Jewish’ target group, and it is understandable why this should lead some to erroneously believe that somehow ‘Judaism’ is the sole root cause of the ‘troubles’ engendered by Lucifer’s plans.”[24]
When elaborating on his devil theory of the Luciferian plan to “take the place of God” in The Protocols, Lehrman turns to the last book in the Christian New Testament biblical canon, calling on the apocalyptic Book of Revelation.
“The Protocols themselves acknowledge that their plan hinges on their successful manipulation of existing power personages and that only at the absolute death of the host political organism will they reveal themselves and openly impose their absolute power. It is interesting to note in this context that Revelations hints at the same event but further up the change of command. Revelations predicts that at the moment the Jewish Supremacist Cult (Israel) declares its supreme rulership over the world from within a newly constructed Third Temple, Lucifer, the secret parasite within the Jewish Supremacist ideology, will utterly destroy ‘Israel.’ Ultimately, Lucifer is the one who wishes to take the place of God, and he will not abide any mortal Rothschild descendant in that role.”[25]
Lehrman also used the antisemitic trope of “Jewish supremacism.”
“Let’s go back and take a look at why the Protocols of Zion actually represent an unfortunately contextually accurate picture of Jewish supremacism. An extremely gigantic body of work, which is known to be the heart and soul of the so-called Jewish religion. And in particular, the Eastern European Jewish group is split into two variants. One is the Babylonian, and the other is the Jerusalem and Talmud. But these are gigantic bodies of work in these bodies of work, the Talmud and its affiliated mystical aspect, which is known as the Zohar, and which is the focus in the center of Kabbalah. We find, again and again, the repetition of the idea that the Jewish people is superior. Unfortunately, it is often stated that it is okay to steal from anybody who isn’t Jewish. Gentile or Goyim are the typical words that are used in the Talmud, and this is the official Soncino translation of the Talmud. So, this is not a transliteration problem. We can see direct evidence within the Talmud of racist doctrines being promulgated.”[26]
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Lehrman repeatedly blamed Jews for their plight and argued that Jews must “accept some degree of responsibility for the harassment that they have suffered.”[27] Here’s another example of Lehrman’s discussion of “Jewish supremacy” and his argument that Jews were instrumental in their own destruction.
“All of this will lead, of course, to some speculation regarding the authenticity of each phrase, but if you look at it as a whole, you can see that the very, very unfortunate reality of the Protocols of Zion, and this requires a little bit of context regarding Jewish supremacism over time. But Ivan Fraser, Paquita de Shishmareff, and many other writers have shown that the very unfortunate thing about this is that it does, the Protocols of Zion do fit into a Jewish supremacist wing within the very much maligned and then, of course, totally destroyed religion of Judaism. And it is, it is to the Jewish people that I appeal to look at this and recognize that we must seriously question whether or not our leaders have, in fact, been instrumental in our own destruction.”[28]
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Nine times during his Rense interview (and four in his “Absolute Best Authentications of the Protocols of Zion” article), Lehrman referenced Paquita Louise de Shishmareff (born Louise A. Chandor and writing under the pen-name Leslie Fry). She authored the 1931 book Waters Flowing Eastward, which updated the Protocols conspiracy to blame Jews for Bolshevism as well as capitalism, not to mention asserting that Jews were responsible for starting WWI. While singing her praises, Lehrman failed to mention that she was also “a paid Nazi propaganda agent who had been sent to the United States by the Third Reich to cultivate Nazism in America.”[29]
Another source Lehrman cited multiple times was Ivan Fraser, a British former registered nurse who ran an antisemitic conspiracy website called “The Truth Campaign,” which featured defenses of the Protocols alongside pieces like “ETs and Ancient Astronauts are Illuminati Propaganda,” “Microwave Mind Control,” and “Vaccination – Assault on the Species.” Fraser’s error-filled antisemitic screed, cited by Lehrman, “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion: Proof of an Ancient Conspiracy,” includes footnotes from Fry, antisemitic Christian Patriot figure Col. Jack Mohr, antisemite Eustace Mullins, and the white nationalist website Stormfront.[30]
In his writings and interviews, Lehrman referred to the “Jewish supremacist cabal” and stated that Judaism is run by parasitic, Satanic priests.[31] These are classic antisemitic tropes. Lehrman went so far as to suggest that Jews were as much to blame as Hitler and the Nazis.
“I think that as a result of the fact that the Protocols of Zion represent and demonstrate that there may, in fact, be a small group within the Jewish—the body of the Jewish people—who believes in this type of a murderous and racist doctrine that it is essential for us as Jewish people to self-examine and look and see whether or not it is in fact, a sort of parasitic leadership, which has brought upon us the problems that we rightfully as well blame on other agencies like Adolf Hitler.”[32]
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Lehrman added,
“So it’s time for us to mature, and we need to learn to take responsibility and say yes. It takes two to tango. Sure, the Nazis were terrible, but look at the fact that Warburg, our supposed leader in Germany, was making sure that he came to power. What does this mean? We need to start looking at this and distributing this via word of mouth.”
After the Rense interview, Lehrman didn’t stop promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He doubled down on promoting the most monstrous conspiracy of the 20th Century.
While his earlier article was the “essential case for the authenticity of the Protocols of Zion,” on January 6, 2006, Lehrman expanded upon his defense of the antisemitic forgery with “The Absolute Best Authentications of the Protocols of Zion,” published on the Rense website.[33]
He wrote, “In my below defense, I present the essential case for the authenticity of the Protocols of Zion.”[34] His 4,800-word defense of the most notorious antisemitic forgery in history was rife with references to notorious antisemitic figures like Fry, Makow, and Father Dennis Fahey.[35]
An extensive search by the IREHR research team failed to turn up any indication that Lehrman ever publicly retracted any of his claims regarding the “authenticity” of the Protocols.
Lehrman and Pawns in the Game
While Leland Lehrman’s backing of antisemitic conspiracy theories in recent years has been less visible, a recent interview shows he’s still at it. In an April 2025 interview from the Brownstone Institute conference in Spain, Lehrman repeatedly praised Canadian antisemite William Guy Carr’s 1955 Pawns in the Game.
According to Lehrman, “Pawns in the Game is a very, very controversial book, but it’s also an important one for understanding the history of the method.” He added,
“William Guy Carr, who wrote the book Pawns in the Game, was a commander in the Royal Navy, a submarine commander, and alive during World War I and World War II. He uncovered the thread of Free Masonic activity that was designing foreign policy for the sort of military-industrial banking complex. And he described the various ways in which politics are managed, including even in World War I time, various sorts of hotels or clubs where officers would be taken, and they would be plied with drink and women and their secrets extracted and their lives compromised. Very similar to Epstein… But the primary focus of William Guy Carr was on a strategy to develop a multiple World War situation after which the governments of the world would all consent to a one-world government, as I was just saying.”[36]
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“Controversial” is quite an undersell. Pawns in the Game was one of the most antisemitic books of its day. Written by William Guy Carr, a Canadian conspiracist who organized the National Federation of Christian Laymen to “unite the efforts of all sincere Christians” against “the men who secretly direct the World Revolutionary Movement” and to “convert people who have been deceived into believing in atheistic materialism.”[37] NFCL also sold the infamous antisemitic forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, along with literature by notorious antisemitic conspiracy theorists, including Eustace Mullins, Frank Britton, and Father Denis Fahey. [38]
William Guy Carr’s antisemitic book, Pawns in the Game.
Pawns in the Game synthesized existing antisemitic, anti-Masonic, anti-Illuminati, and anti-communist theories into one millennia-spanning plot dating as far back as Jesus for a one-world government orchestrated by the “World Revolutionary Movement”(WRM). In league with the Illuminati and the “Synagogue of Satan,” the WRM wages “an exact replica of the struggle Lucifer and his followers put up for control of the Universe” — a struggle, Carr asserted, would culminate in World War Three and global domination.[39] Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates added, “According to Carr, an age-old Jewish Illuminati banking conspiracy used radio-transmitted mind control on behalf of Lucifer to construct a one-world government. The secret nexus of the plot was supposedly the international Bilderberger meetings on banking policy. The anti-Semitic Noontide Press distributed Pawns in the Game for many years.”[40]
Lehrman and COVID Denial
After such loud cheerleading of antisemitic conspiracies and 9/11 Truther nonsense, Leland Lehrman appears to have largely dropped out of public-facing political activism, at least until he and his family moved from New Mexico to rural Columbia County, New York.
Just before the pandemic, Lehrman returned to the anti-vaccine activism he’d trumpeted in his Senate campaign. In New York, he began working with the regional anti-vaccine group Do We Need This? According to Lehrman, “At the time the genocide began in earnest, I was already actively working with a powerful community in Columbia County to overturn vaccine mandates in New York State. The religious exemption had just been removed from state law. So we were ready.”[41]
When the pandemic hit, and it hit New York hard, Lehrman dismissed it as the “COVERT-1984 plandemonic.” He wrote, “This history reveals in the starkest possible terms what may be the tried and true methods and motivations of COVERT-1984, which clearly goes back much farther than George Orwell, and unfortunately does not involve protection or health at all.”[42]
By April 2020, he was circulating conspiracy theories about COVID-19 on social media. [43] He also worked with a group called the Columbia County Alliance for Freedom.[44]
Through his work with Do We Need This? Lehrman was also a co-signatory on a letter that claimed, “Everyone would be better off if we let children and young people get COVID and develop a strong and lasting immunity.”[45]
His conspiracy-loving past resurfaced at a November 21, 2021, benefit for the Arklight Fund. Introducing Cat McGuire, Lehrman confessed that he and McGuire shared a preoccupation with “another one of those third rails of American politics” that “you can’t talk about.” McGuire later said that Lehrman was alluding to her support for “9/11 truth.”[46] At the event, he also introduced COVID Denial activist Kevin Jenkins, one of the “Disinformation Dozen” and a one-time board member of the COVID denial group America’s Frontline Doctors.[47]
Immersed in the COVID denial scene, Lehrman’s conspiracies became elaborate webs of a “plandemic” “global takeover attempt” using “mRNA nanoparticle weapons” and “chemical warfare agents” in the “ongoing genocidal war on humanity known as The Great Reset.”
“At the time, I was unsure about how to distinguish between nanotech, chemical weapons and bioweapons in the causal matrix of the global takeover attempt. I think it is now safe to say that although the virus model is false, and that terrain theory is fact, mRNA nanoparticle weapons do exist and are a leading cause of harm in the ongoing genocidal war on humanity known as The Great Reset. These nanoparticles can – and probably were aerosolized and delivered by aircraft in select locations such as China, Washington, New York and Italy. They can also, of course, be injected. The harm they cause can mimic that which is now called “viral illness,” but they can do a great deal more harm than that, as we have now seen so clearly. Therefore, I have modified my original thesis on the causal matrix of the plandemic to include chemical warfare agents in the form of poisonous proteins and/or nanoparticles. Although these substances are toxic, they are not contagious in the sense usually used. They may, however, be able to induce symptomatic resonance through “shedding,” a phenomenon sometimes associated with the induction of illness in someone exposed to a “vaccinated” individual. That said, karmic signaling among members of a community often produce synchronized catharsis for reasons which may be linked more to shared lifestyles, histories, and nutritional deficiencies than anything else.”[48]
He’s also argued that the pandemic is a “covert operation” for government to institute a “eugenics campaign.”
“The ‘corona virus pandemic’ is a covert operation designed to facilitate an increase in government control over the populations of the planet and to institute a eugenics campaign. There is little truth to public government statements, and what truth there is becomes misinterpreted disinformation in their media, using the existing ill health of civilized people and their media addiction to create the illusion of pandemic disease.”[49]
He elaborated on the elements of this alleged “covert operation.”
“The so-called “coronavirus” is a covert operation. In general, there is no more risk this year than any year during the spring fever, flu and cold season. There is additional risk if you live in a dense 5G installation zone. There is also some additional danger if you are susceptible to sickening or deadly suggestions.
The main features of the operation are
- Hypnotic suggestion feeding pseudoscience and outright lies through the mainstream media.
- A coverup of the rollout of 5G.
- A false premise for mandatory vaccinations, population control, and the technocratic state.
- Weaponized antisocial fearmongering.
- Police state tactics designed to deprive people and governments of national and personal sovereignty under false premises.
- Orwellian Newspeak.
- Obscuring the true cause of immune system and personal health, including access to nature, sunlight, fresh clean air and water, organic food, whole food vitamins and minerals, movement, self-expression opportunities, purposeful work and meaningful relationship.
- False positive testing and quarantine, terror-inducing treatment limited to the administration of fever-reducing medication which has been known to cause pneumonia, often followed by invasive medical procedures that sometimes result in what is known as iatrogenic death, or death by hospitalization, already the third leading cause of death in America prior to this event.”[50]
While he’s now the director of a powerful national “health” organization with a pipeline to the nation’s public health officials, during the pandemic, Lehrman was busy confessing that he does not believe in germ theory.
“I’m not 100 percent convinced that the germ theory, as typically described is true, which means that not only do I not believe that the so-called coronavirus is causal of the current malaise in the world, but I also don’t believe that many of the so-called disease agents are causal,” Lehrman said. “I generally consider toxic environment, poor food, lifestyle and water access to be the major causes of disease.”[51]
It turns out that for Lehrman, germ theory and vaccines are part of a much, much deeper conspiracy.
“As I read, I kept wondering who were Pasteur’s contemporary sponsors, and were they aware that he and the germ theory were fraudulent? He certainly gave them a powerful weapon in the arsenal of population management, and his refusal to make his notebooks public after his death is suspicious. Is that the reason he “became the celebrity scientist of his time, feted by kings and prime ministers, and hailed as a great scientist?” The question occurs: if Fauci and Gates are the current medical foils for the global eugenics for profit agenda, who were Pasteur’s patrons? From at least the 18th century, mandatory vaccination has been on someone’s agenda, as Jaganath Chatterjee’s excellent history of vaccination, and the studies he cites in the footnotes make painfully clear.”[52]
Lehrman even called for a “formal convention of international scientists” to review “1. The evidence that the germ theory of disease causation is demonstrably false. 2. The evidence that no vaccination can possibly be effective because vaccine effectiveness requires that the germ theory of disease be true. 3. The political implications of the above.”[53]
Germ Theory Denialism is the long-discredited pseudoscientific belief that germs do not cause infectious disease and that the germ theory of disease is wrong. It is a common thread among alternative medicine proponents who oppose vaccines.[54]
Thomas Cowan, the alternative medicine practitioner who relinquished his medical license in 2020, is a big proponent of the long-discredited “terrain” theory and critic of the germ theory. He was another speaker at the Arklight event, where Lehrman introduced the other speakers.[55] Lehrman has written glowingly of Cowan’s book, The Contagion Myth, helping to break the “Germ Spell.”[56] Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also rejected the germ theory, a cornerstone of modern health science, in his 2021 book, “The Real Anthony Fauci.”[57]
Lehrman and the RFK Jr. Campaign
Reading through his Substack posts, it appears that throughout the pandemic, Leland Lehrman looked to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) as a source of inspiration and was quick to join RFK Jr.’s campaign for president.
Leland Lehrman in Philadelphia for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s announcement.
Lehrman lists that he was a policy, communications, and research contract worker with TeamKennedy, the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presidential campaign. According to Lehrman, “Initially a volunteer advisor and County Coordinator, I was hired to do research and provide ideas for Bobby and the campaign on policy issues, news briefs, and tweets. I also organized events, worked with issue champions, and provided security bulletins.”[58]
Lehrman also claimed to have been a volunteer and a contract “Policy and Personnel” Consultant for anti-vaccine leader Del Bigtree’s new group, MAHA Action, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Explaining his consulting role with MAHA Action, Lehrman noted, “I assisted Stefanie Spear, Chief of Staff to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I engaged with Bobby’s policy correspondence and added policies to the related database. I worked with the team to advance both MAHA policies and our candidates for government positions.”[59] Four months ago, he also posted that he started a new position as a Research Assistant at MAHA Action.[60]
Lehrman and the MAHA Institute
Despite the new name, the institute that hired Leland Lehrman to be its executive director isn’t exactly new. Instead, the MAHA Institute name is merely a rebranding of the organization and SuperPAC behind RFK Jr’s brief presidential campaign.
MAHA Institute co-president Mark Gorton, chairman of trading firm Tower Research Capital LLC and former founder of the file-sharing company LimeWire, noted at the MAHA Institute inaugural conference that the group is a repackaging of American Values 2024, the 501(c)4 organization, a group is associated with the American Values SuperPAC, which raised almost $52 million to support Kennedy.[61]
The other MAHA Institute co-president is Tony Lyons, president of Skyhorse Publishing, the publisher of RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine books, along with many MAGA figures like Steve Bannon.
Back at the MAHA Institute conference, Lehrman brought onstage many of the leading figures from the MAHA and anti-vaccine movements, including Mary Holland of Children’s Health Defense, Leslie Manookian of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, Leah Hilton of Stand for Health Freedom, Marcus Thornton of Feds for Freedom, and others.[62] He also introduced several Trump administration officials, including Dr. Sarah Brenner of the FDA, Noah Sofio of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Calley Means, a special government employee at Health and Human Services (who is the brother of Casey Means, Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General).
The day before the MAHA Institute event, Lehrman was a scheduled speaker at the “Restore & Reclaim Our Jobs, Our Exemptions, Our Rights!” Rally in Albany, NY. He was a featured rally speaker at the event sponsored by Children’s Health Defense, Teachers for Choice, MAHA Action, and the Autism Action Network.[63] He also spoke at a similar event in January, which featured anti-vaccine figures, including Del Bigtree.[64]
Each of these figures should be challenged about Leland Lehrman’s prominent new role in their movement and his promotion of antisemitic conspiracies, as should the other leaders of the MAHA Institute and the other MAHA-related organizations that elevated him.
NOTES
[1] MAHA Institute. “MAHA Institute.” Twitter Video. May 15, 2025. https://x.com/MAHA_Institute/status/1922998957778858137.[2] Solomon, Will. “Anti-Vaxxers Maintain Persistent Presence in the Hudson Valley.” Chronogram Magazine. January 4, 2022. https://www.chronogram.com/river-newsroom/anti-vaxxers-maintain-persistent-presence-in-the-hudson-valley-18194693.
[3] “The Sum of it All.” Lewis E. Lehrman website. https://lewiselehrman.com/. Accessed June 1, 2025.
[4] Jones, Alex, and Lehrman, Leland. The Alex Jones Show. February 20, 20007Infowars.com. https://archive.org/details/alexjoneswkof18FEB2007.
[5] “Winners & Losers.” Santa Fe Reporter. October 1, 2008. https://sfreporter.com/archives/winners-losers/winners-losers-2008-10-01/.
[6] Mother Media Website. https://web.archive.org/web/20080303201337/http://www.mothermedia.org:80/.
[7] “Truth ‘n’ Politics.” Santa Fe Reporter. December 5, 2007. https://sfreporter.com/archives/truth-n-politics/.
[8] “Guess who’s coming to lobby: The true bearded one!” Santa Fe Reporter. January 27, 2009. https://sfreporter.com/archives/guess-coming-lobby-true-bearded-one/.
[9] Lehrman, R. Leland. “Nuclear False Flag. Israel, Iran, Mossad and a Nuclear False Flag Attack.” Progressive Convergence website. April 118, 2005. https://web.archive.org/web/20050508233357/http://www.progressiveconvergence.com/nuclearfalseflagmail.htm, Lehrman, R. Leland. “Israel, Mossad, Iran and a Nuclear False Flag Attack.” Physics911 website. July 28, 2005. https://web.archive.org/web/20081003110041/http://www.physics911.net/nuclearfalseflag.
[10] Lehrman, Leland. “Kucinich Calls For B-52 Nuke, New 911 Investigations. Rense.com. October 10, 2007. https://rense.com/general78/b52.htm.
[11] Lehrman, R. Leland. “Israel, Mossad, Iran and a Nuclear False Flag Attack.” Physics911 website. July 28, 2005. https://web.archive.org/web/20081003110041/http://www.physics911.net/nuclearfalseflag. See also, Lehrman, Leland. Mossad, Wolfowitz & The Strangely Defenseless Pentagon On 911: The Case Against The Mossad And Israeli Partisans.” Rense.com. September 21, 2006. https://rense.com/general73/smsos.htm.
[12] Singerman, Robert. “The American Career of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’” American Jewish History, vol. 71, no. 1, 1981, pp. 48–78. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23882005. Accessed June 1, 2025.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Hitler, Adolph. 1962. Mein Kampf. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 307
[15] Lehrman, Leland. “ADL, Zionist Policies Causing Rise In Anti-Jewish Sentiment.” Rense.com. August 27, 2005. https://rense.com/general67/adlpol.htm.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Rense, Jeff and Lehrman, Leland. “Protocols of Zion, Nazism, Kabbalah & Talmud.” The Jeff Rense Radio Show. August 31, 2005. Bitchute Archive. https://www.bitchute.com/video/3Bt2owkKEWao/.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Zeskind, Leonard. “Some Ideas on Conspiracy Theories for a New Historical Period.” Conspiracies: Real Grievances, Paranoia, and Mass Movements. Peanut Butter Publishing. Seattle. 1996. P.16.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Rense, Jeff and Lehrman, Leland. “Protocols of Zion, Nazism, Kabbalah & Talmud.” The Jeff Rense Radio Show. August 31, 2005. Bitchute Archive. https://www.bitchute.com/video/3Bt2owkKEWao/.
[24] Lehrman, Leland. “The Absolute Best Authentications Of The Protocols Of Zion.” Rense.com. January 6, 2006. https://rense.com/general69/prot.htm.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Rense, Jeff and Lehrman, Leland. “Protocols of Zion, Nazism, Kabbalah & Talmud.” The Jeff Rense Radio Show. August 31, 2005. Bitchute Archive. https://www.bitchute.com/video/3Bt2owkKEWao/.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Rosenzweig, Laura B. Hollywood’s Spies: The Undercover Surveillance of Nazis in Los Angeles. New York University Press. New York. 2017. p. 123.
[30] Fraser, Ivan. “THE PROTOCOLS OF THE LEARNED ELDERS OF ZION: PROOF OF AN ANCIENT CONSPIRACY.” Truth Campaign. Spring 2000. https://web.archive.org/web/20061004161739/http://reactor-core.org/protocols/fraser.html.
[31] Another example from Lehrman, “Well, it’s a very sad thing and, and it’s a very difficult thing because, uh, Judaism has unfortunately been defined by its priests and its priests unfortunately, appear to have been entirely subverted by the Babylonian and Satanic practices that have ultimately been given expression in the Talmud.” Rense, Jeff and Lehrman, Leland. “Protocols of Zion, Nazism, Kabbalah & Talmud.” The Jeff Rense Radio Show. August 31, 2005. Bitchute Archive. https://www.bitchute.com/video/3Bt2owkKEWao/.
[32] Rense, Jeff and Lehrman, Leland. “Protocols of Zion, Nazism, Kabbalah & Talmud.” The Jeff Rense Radio Show. August 31, 2005. Bitchute Archive. https://www.bitchute.com/video/3Bt2owkKEWao/.
[33] Anti-Defamation League. “Rense Web Site Promotes Anti-Semitic View.” ADL website. March 17, 2009. https://www.adl.org/resources/news/rense-web-site-promotes-anti-semitic-view, Smith, James L. “Used Canard Salesman.” Southern Poverty Law Center website. April 28, 2015. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/used-canard-salesman/.
[34] Lehrman, Leland. “ADL, Zionist Policies Causing Rise In Anti-Jewish Sentiment.” Rense.com. August 27, 2005. https://rense.com/general67/adlpol.htm.
[35] Lehrman, Leland. “The Absolute Best Authentications Of The Protocols Of Zion.” Rense.com. January 6, 2006. https://rense.com/general69/prot.htm.
[36] Cummins, Ivor and Lehrman, Leland. “Brilliant Short History of What Decides our Futures: Leland Lehrman.” YouTube. April 4, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZK0obWMzq8.
[37] Panneton, Daniel. “Meet the Ontario man whose hate-filled conspiracies went worldwide in the 20th century.” TVO Today. September 21, 2022. https://www.tvo.org/article/meet-the-ontario-man-whose-hate-filled-conspiracies-went-worldwide-in-the-20th-century.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Berlet, Chip. “Dances with Devils.” Public Eye archive. Undated. Accessed June 1,2025. http://www.publiceye.org/apocalyptic/Dances_with_Devils_1-01.html.
[41] Lehrman, Leland. “The Agony of the Zeitgeist – Challenge of the Present Moment.” Mother’s Arms Substack. June 22, 2023. https://substack.com/home/post/p-130261475.
[42] Lehrman, Leland. “Striking the Roots of COVERT-1984 Tom Cowan’s book breaks the ‘Germ Spell’.” Do We Need This website. October 29, 2021. https://www.doweneedthis.org/blog/striking-the-roots-of-covert-1984-tom-cowans-book-breaks-the-germ-spell.
[43] Lehrman, Leland. “Good News, The Sleeping Giant Stirs” | LinkedIn. April 30, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/good-news-sleeping-giant-stirs-leland-lehrman/.
[44] Solomon, Will. “Anti-Vaxxers Maintain Persistent Presence in the Hudson Valley.” Chronogram Magazine. January 4, 2022. https://www.chronogram.com/river-newsroom/anti-vaxxers-maintain-persistent-presence-in-the-hudson-valley-18194693.
[45] “The Columbia County “Anti-Vaxxers” Respond.” Do We Need This Website. January 27, 2022. https://www.doweneedthis.org/blog/the-columbia-county-anti-vaxxers-respond-446c6.
[46] Solomon, Will. “Anti-Vaxxers Maintain Persistent Presence in the Hudson Valley.” Chronogram Magazine. January 4, 2022. https://www.chronogram.com/river-newsroom/anti-vaxxers-maintain-persistent-presence-in-the-hudson-valley-18194693.
[47] Francis, Eric. “ArkLight Benefit, Nov. 21, 2021 – Naomi Wolf, Mark Crispin Miller, Cat McGuire, Kevin Jenkins and Dr. Tom Cowan, documented in audio and video by Planet Waves FM.” PlanetWavesFM website. November 22, 2021. https://planetwaves.fm/arklight-benefit-audios-and-videos/.
[48] Lehrman, Leland. “The Agony of the Zeitgeist – Challenge of the Present Moment.” Mother’s Arms Substack. June 22, 2023. https://substack.com/home/post/p-130261475.
[49] Lehrman, Leland. “Covert Dimensions of the ‘Corona Virus.” Mother’s Arms Substack. April 24, 2020. https://mothersarms.substack.com/i/130261475/covert-dimensions-of-the-corona-virus.
[50] Ibid.
[51] Higgins, Eoin. “Fresh Off Twitter Ban, Naomi Wolf To Headline Anti-Vax ‘Juneteenth’ Event.” The Flashpoint. June 8, 2021. https://eoinhiggins.substack.com/p/fresh-off-twitter-ban-naomi-wolf.
[52] Lehrman, Leland. “Striking the Roots of COVERT-1984 Tom Cowan’s book breaks the “Germ Spell’.” Do We Need This website. October 29, 2021. https://www.doweneedthis.org/blog/striking-the-roots-of-covert-1984-tom-cowans-book-breaks-the-germ-spell.
[53] Ibid.
[54] Novella, Steven. “Germ Theory Denialism.” Neurologica Blog. November 4, 2010. https://theness.com/neurologicablog/germ-theory-denial/.
[55] Francis, Eric. “ArkLight Benefit, Nov. 21, 2021 – Naomi Wolf, Mark Crispin Miller, Cat McGuire, Kevin Jenkins and Dr. Tom Cowan, documented in audio and video by Planet Waves FM.” PlanetWavesFM website. November 22, 2021. https://planetwaves.fm/arklight-benefit-audios-and-videos/.
[56] Lehrman, Leland. “Striking the Roots of COVERT-1984 Tom Cowan’s book breaks the ‘Germ Spell’.” Do We Need This? Website. October 29, 2020. https://www.doweneedthis.org/blog/striking-the-roots-of-covert-1984-tom-cowans-book-breaks-the-germ-spell.
[57] Mole, Beth. “RFK Jr. rejects cornerstone of health science: Germ theory.” Ars Technica. Aptil 30, 2025. https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/04/rfk-jr-s-anti-vaccine-stance-is-rooted-in-a-disbelief-in-germ-theory/.
[58] “Leland Lehrman.” LinkedIn Profile. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lelandlehrman/.
[59] “Leland Lehrman.” LinkedIn Profile. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lelandlehrman/.
[60] Linked in Post. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lelandlehrman_im-happy-to-share-that-im-starting-a-new-activity-7283195722772987905-XQwL. Accessed June 1, 2025.
[61] “PAC Profile: American Values 2024.” Open Secrets website. Accessed June 1, 2025. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/american-values-2024/C00821439/summary/2024.
[62] MAHA Institute. “MAHA Institute.” Twitter Video. May 15, 2025. https://x.com/MAHA_Institute/status/1922998957778858137.
[63] Teachers for Choice. Twitter. May 5, 2025. https://x.com/teacher_choice/status/1919344482710909084.
[64] Autism Action Network Website. https://www.autismactionnetwork.org/. Accessed May 30, 2025.
