Matt Mackowiak and the Austin media hydra: the bipartisan attack
How Matt Mackowiak and the Austin American Statesmen tried to extort me into being a media puppet regarding my petition to remove José Garza.
On April 21, right after I decided to go public as the filer of the petition to remove District Attorney José Garza, Matt Mackowiak, the cofounder of Save Austin Now and owner of Potomac Strategy Group, reached out to me and offered to help me with my PR strategy.
That “help” quickly devolved, into a campaign to try to threaten me into giving him final approval all of my media communications to control the narrative around my petition.
Once prosecutor Jim Nichols’ motion to dismiss the petition put the petition in jeopardy, Matt Mackowiak attempted to distance himself from the petition, only to appear on Fox7 News the very next day as the self-appointed spokesperson of the removal petition once a notice from the judge on the case restored hope.
For the same news segment, Fox7 asked me for comment then heavily editing my statement without my consent.
I first met Mackowiak when he reached out to me to thank me for filing the petition and offered to assist me with arranging my media appearances as well as offering a pro bono attorney to seek justice for my sexual assault case.
I was surprised by his offer of support – prior to filing, I had been warned filing that Mackowiak had opposed the previous attempt to remove Garza by Jason Salazar.
Mackowiak’s true colors came out when I forwarded him an interview I did without his permission (which is a term I never agreed to in the first place).
He started to threaten to discredit me if I didn’t “listen” to him and giving him editorial control over my media presence. This would later send other followers of him to threaten me as well.
Tired of these shenanigans, I finally responded to Mackowiak’s attempt to distance himself and his threats that he would expose our private messages on Twitter:
Here’s the full story.
After the petition was moved forward by Judge Waldrop and Jim Nichols was assigned as prosecutor, I soon found myself in a flurry of media attention and surround on all sides by lions, tigers, and bears. Or donkeys and elephants if you prefer.
I was hesitant to reveal my identity as the signer of the petition from the beginning, but my hand was forced by the disinformation being propagated by Garza and his supporters.
Shortly after I revealed my identity, as the filer of the petition to remove José Garza, the owner of the Save Austin Now PAC, Matt Mackowiak reached out to me on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Matt Mackowiak offer to help and obtain a pro bono lawyer.
Then he started pressuring me to use him as my PR representative and to let him arrange for me to appear in live on camera interviews – something I did not feel comfortable with. Democratic party representatives and their journalistic allies started threatening to call me MAGA if I didn’t cooperate.
Mackowiak was putting the pressure on to respond to the disinformation as well.
Threats from the Austin American Statesman
The first person to call and threaten me was Serena Lin of the Austin American Statesman.
Lin threatened that if I didn’t give her the exclusive scoop and let her and her editors modify my statement to suit their narrative, they would slander my name as a MAGA republican interloper, which is an entirely untrue statement.
When I told Lin that it sounded like she was threatening me, she accused me of “wielding power” over the media behemoth because I wanted to ensure the words that were attributed to me were not manipulated.
I mentioned the threats to Mackowiak.
I made a mistake in the above thread. I did in fact send a press release to Lin, but I could not find her email address because it did not include her first name.
She never responded even thought I had sent it weeks ago and chose not to quote that press release or the second one I released to the wider public.
Disinformation Industry and New Knowledge
I had an interview coming out soon regarding my experience working at the disinformation research AI software firm New Knowledge (later renamed Yonder) that was caught doing the one thing they were supposed to be preventing.
I explained this to Mackowiak because it was relevant concerns I mentioned in my Statement Regarding Petition to Remove José Garza.
The the story originally broke in the New York Times December 2018, about how New Knowledge had executed a Russian-style election disinformation campaign in 2017 special senate election in Alabama between Doug Jones and Roy Moore, which was during my time there and I was unknowingly working working on a project to measure the impact of said campaign.
Later reporting in the Twitter Files would raise concerns that aggressive labeling of disinformation was disinformation itself as well as censorship.
I learned about the Alabama campaign after it was completed and plans to execute more disinformation with funding from the US Department of Defense (DOD), I spoke of my disapproval and was fired shortly after.
George Soro’s Funding José Garza and to the Disinformation Industry
José Garza’s principle campaign donor, George Soros, was a key donor and influencer of multiple “dark money” organizations involved in the creation and continued funding of New Knowledge including:
The German Marshall Fund and it’s Alliance for Securing Democracy project that was directly worked on by multiple people that worked for New Knowledge either directly or indirectly
The Brookings Institute
The Democracy Integrity Project
Advance Democracy Inc.
Center for American Progress (CAP) and it’s now-defunct new outlet ThinkProgress
I worked directly on this project and only later learned that the disinformation in the Alabama project was coming from inside the company.
Jose Garza and his former employer Worker’s Defense Fund had a close relationship with CAP.
ThinkProgress provided publicity for and interviewed the then, relatively unknown Garza multiple times between 2017-2018.
Jonathon Soros donated $2,800 to Doug Jones, the then future senator that benefited from the Alabama campaign.
George Soros has co-funded Good Information Inc, with Billionaire Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman who invested $750,000 in the Alabama campaign, although he has denied knowing what the funds were being used for.
The “Help” Mackowiak Offered
Attempted introduction to Doug McConnell
Mackowiak first tried to introduce me to attorney Doug McConnell who did not respond.
Doug McConnell turned out to be the defense attorney in the Daniel Perry murder trial for which Greg Abbott issued a pardon, and José Garza is attempting to appeal to make a public spectacle. It is not possible to appeal pardon.
The evidence of Perry having committed a crime seems fairly clear in this case, but I have heard accounts of violation of due process and evidence tampering by José Garza’s office in this case.
Mackowiak tries to take control of my press release
I sent Mackowiak a copy of my press release as is standard to do when someone asks you for one, anyone can publish it at will.
Then Mackowiak told me he had created an email address to pose as me to send my press release.
It caught me off guard, because I just saw my name misspelled. Then I released Mackowiak intended to send emails on my behalf pretending to be me.
After repeated pressure to use the email address he created, he sent me a media mailing list, which admittedly was pretty helpful in sending out my press release to a broader audience.
On the a phone call I discussed my motivations for filing and PR strategy. Matt kept pressuring me to do TV interviews with media outlets of his choosing.
I was open to hearing him out despite our political differences because this at point I was winging it with my PR strategy and he seemed to have connections.
Mackowiak kept baiting me with offers introduce me to pro bono attorneys to help me take legal action against the rape perpetrator and the corrupt officials responsible.
Mackowiak then referred me to local attorney Michael Lovins.
Meeting with Michael Lovins
I met with Michael Lovins, who I told that I was doing an interview about my experience with my former employer New Knowledge.
Lovins listened to me for about an hour with an associate of his.
Lovins ended the session saying he never had any interest in representing me, which was not the impression he gave me in our text and phone conversations.
I was bewildered as to why he had me drive all the way to the other side of town, so he could essentially grift information from me.
Foundation for blackmail laid
I now know this was an information gathering session for Mackowiak to find ways to blackmail me, then he told me to my surprise that he never had any interest in representing me in my rape case.
I ended up withdrawing consent from the Twitter Files interviewer to publish due to the interviewer refusing to make corrections to the draft and threats I received from lawyer friend of his.
He published it anyways and gloated about how his embellishments made the story better.
The interview end up drawing the attention of Elon Musk, and I forwarded that post to Mackowiak.
Mackowiak is not happy about the interview
I thought Mackowiak was sympathetic to my experience with New Knowledge, but it turns out quite the opposite.
Mackowiak then started to accuse me of having a mental problems, a classic misogynistic gaslighting control tactic as well as a threat, and making up conspiracy theories in the interview.
I can easily prove I worked at New Knowledge and that I documented what I witnessed. Other parts of the story has been widely covered by trusted national media outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and well as multiple iterations of the Twitter Files. Researcher and Google whistleblower Jack Poulsen of The Intercept and TechInquiry has traced the Department of Defense contracts I mentioned.
As it turns out Mackowiak did have connections to the Department of Defense (DOD) and misled me about the fact to think he didn’t. Aaron J. Pluto, National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst worked for him from 2021-20022.
The NSA was responsible for the PRISM project, disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, that entailed the illegal mass surveillance of American citizen’s phone calls.
Two of the NSA analysts that I had worked with had worked at New Knowledge and claimed that they followed strict legal guidelines for PRISM, but NSA employees often leave to go into the private sector / corporate world because laws governing surveillance do not apply to products.
One former member of the CIA and around 10 former NSA analysts had joined New Knowledge by the time I had left.
“Do you understand?“ yes, Mackowiak, I understand that you are threatening me.
Mackowiak started telling me that I needed to do things his way by only working with “people we work with and trust” and asking “do you understand?” like he had some sort of authority over me.
Mackowiak, if you’re reading this, there was never a “we” and it is weird and controlling of you that you thought you could control me by talking to me like that.
There’s additional manipulation and implied threats that he would try to slander me as mentally unwell.
A journalist that Mackowiak had given my contact information who had betrayed my trust by publishing an article that altered my press release and tried to discredit my statement about Garza coordinating with the Austin Police Department to destroy evidence in my sexual assault case.
I had been assured that if I gave them a priority lead on my statement would not be altered and that they would do a deeper investigation on my claims before publishing.
José Garza and Democratic Party associate, Julian Riano, left me a threatening voicemail regarding my concerns about evidence tampering as well.
A history of violent threats and coercion
I spoke with a journalist that I trust, because he’s always kept his word about what he will publish, and they told me that there have been many allegations of Mackowiak frequently using bully tactics to exert influence over witnesses.
Mackowiak’s Garza Watch website appears to be his recruiting operation for finding victims that have had a bad experience with José Garza’s office.
It’s almost as if he was running a catch and kill operation against challengers to Garza based on my experience.
Other people associated with Mackowiak have threatened me, and I was kicked out a facebook group for Travis County crime victims that support ousting Garza from office for reporting that Mackowiak had threatened me.
When I posted my Twitter response to Mackowiak, a Twitter user warned me that Mackowiak had a history of making violent threats.
Not his star puppet witness
After Mackowiak started threatening to side with my rapists and label me as “[not] serious” due to an alleged breach of attorney confidentiality from Michael Lovins and mocking me for believing that I had been sexually assaulted.
Lovins denies making any statements about me to Mackowiak.
Somehow this was all a punishment for not “listening” to Mackowiak. Listing meaning do what I say. It’s funny how that echos the rapist telling me to “listen” to him and “kill [myself].”
Lovins had told me both that he had no interest in helping me with my rape case, and that I didn’t need help to talk to Jim Nichols.
Matt Mackowiak’s reality distortion field
I have already sent Mackowiak the NYT Times article, but he continued to deny reality that I had worked at a New Knowledge, and they had interfered with an federal election.
Matt Mackowiak’s meeting with Jim Nichols
What Mackowiak was meeting with Jim Nichols for? After all, he made it very clear that he was not at all involved in the “drafting, submitting, and vetting” of this petition.
Probably a good idea, because that would be illegally practicing law if he was doing that on my behalf or for anyone other than himself.
About a week prior to the motion to dismiss, I had been trying to get in touch with Bell County attorney Jim Nichols regarding additional cause of action and evidence to support my petition, but he would not return my phone calls or emails.
However, according to Mackowiak, him and Nichols were in regular communication.
The true origin of the petition
The reality of how the petition came to be is I was looking at old articles to understand how Garza had come to win the DA race and saw Martin Harry’s name hoping to find someone sympathetic to the abuses of the office under Garza. I sought out Harry’s phone number and called. I explained some of the problems I was having an asked if he could give me legal advice.
Harry pointed out how Garza was not following the law, showed me the evidence, and explained these are the most clear and convincing pieces of evidence that had the highest probability of successfully proving misconduct.
And I stand by the fundamental arguments set forth petition. As repugnant as the laws that are most clearly not being followed are and Martin Harry offered me a solution after I solicited him. I had no idea prior to calling him that such a petition existed.
Just like Garza, I’m not allowed to rewrite the law due to good intentions. The road to tyranny is paved with good intentions.
Unlike the Garza’s council’s Michael J. Satin’s attempt to put words in my mouth that, “[i have] publicly disavowed key allegations in this petition by stating ‘I believe access to abortion is a human right and that all drugs should be legalized for adults.”
I can still believe that he broke the law by having a policy of not enforcing certain laws that should have never existed in the first place while still believing those laws should be repealed.
I don’t make the law. Garza doesn’t make the law – the Texas legislature does.