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The Head of a New RFK-Backing Group Promoted 9/11 Conspiracy Theories and
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Leland Lehrman is a key figure in the MAHA world, despite decades of
pushing extremist ideas.

Anna Merlan
Senior ReporterBio

A photo collage that centers a middle-aged, bearded Leland Lehrman in black
and white. On the left, behind Lehrman is a color photo of Robert Kennedy
Jr. On the right is a color photo of the burning towers of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Lehrman's image is set against a red background with
rows of type that read "Make America Healthy Again" in a wavy warp.
Mother Jones illustration
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Before May, most people in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. s so-called Make America Healthy Again movement likely werent familiar with Leland Lehrman, a self-styled media entrepreneur, anti-
vaccine activist, and former teahouse owner who once unsuccessfully ran for
the US Senate in New Mexico.

Lehrman claimed Israel is a leading candidate for architect of the 9/11 attacks.

Last month, however, Lehrman was named executive director of the MAHA Institute, a new advocacy organization that aims to amplify MAHA wins for President Trump, Secretary Kennedy, and the Cabinet, advise elected
officials on the movements agenda, and find and attract allies to work in government. The group shares key leaders with MAHA PAC, the new name of American Values 2024, a fundraising vehicle that raised $50 million in
support of Kennedys presidential candidacy. While the MAHA Institute only launched in May, its ties to RFK Jr. are close enough that at its founding conference Lehrman was the first to reveal that the secretary would
announce the government would stop recommending COVID vaccines for pregnant people and children.
But even less well-known is Lehrmans long history of promoting antisemitic
and extreme conspiracy theories, as detailed in a new report from the
Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, an organization which studies extremism and the far right. The IREHR found that in the mid 2000s, Lehrman spread conspiracies about the September 11 attacks and extensively touted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an outrageous antisemitic
forgery that purports to document a secret meeting where Jews plotted world domination and which has been debunked for over 100 years.
Lehrman wrote multiple articles outlining his belief in the Protocols on
the website of Jeff Rense, a far-right radio host whos often given airtime
to Nazis, racists, and assorted antisemites. In 2005, Lehrman sat down for
a long interview with Rense in which he described high-level Jewish Illuminists, or Lucifer worshipers who 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.
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 have been used to bring about the New World Order, Lehrman added.
According to the IREHRs report, Lehrman is the great-grandson of the
founder of the Rite-Aid corporation. His father, the investment banker
Lewis E. Lehrman, is from a Jewish family, although he publicly converted
to Catholicism four decades ago. His mother is Episcopalian. In his first
piece for Renses site in 2005, Lehrman described himself as 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.
Lehrman acknowledged receiving a request for comment from Mother Jones, but
he did not answer questions about his past writings and statements before publication. He did not say whether he still holds such views.
Mark Gorton (the millionaire creator of LimeWire) and Tony Lyons (the
founder of Skyhorse Publishing, which releases conspiratorial and anti-
vaccine books, including some written by Kennedy) are the cofounders of
MAHA PAC, and are also the co-presidents of the MAHA Institute.

Lehrman has claimed high-level Jewish... Lucifer worshipers helped develop
a New World Order plan.

When asked about Lehrmans past statements, Lyons replied with a brief statement. Were being asked to comment on an accusation of anti-semitism,
he wrote. Five of the six most senior people at The MAHA Institute are
Jewish, but that shouldnt get in the way of a good hit piece. Lyons did not respond to followup questions about whether hed read Lehrmans writings on
the Protocols, or whether he was counting Lehrman among the institutes
senior Jewish staff.
HHS did not respond to requests for comment, but on his LinkedIn page,
Lehrman details a series of roles that have drawn him nearer to Kennedy and
his inner circle. He says he began volunteering for RFKs presidential run
in 2023, before being hired to do research and provide ideas for Bobby and
the campaign on policy issues, news briefs, and tweets.
For the last eight months, according to his LinkedIn, hes worked as a
volunteer and then as a consultant for MAHA Action, a separate group led
until recently by anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree, the former
communications director of RFKs 2024 campaign. I assisted Stefanie Spear,
Chief of Staff to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I engaged with Bobbys policy correspondence... I worked with the team to advance both MAHA policies and
our candidates for government positions, Lehrman wrote. The page also says
he began a position in March as the executive director of the obscure
Freedom for America Fund, whose website claims it will source healthy, high-integrity Americans to work in the Trump administration to promote
health and freedom. The organization lists no contact information, and it
is unclear if Lehrman still holds that position.
In Lehrmans first article on Renses site, he argued that the Protocols were legitimatea notion debunked not long after they first appeared around 1903.
In the article, Lehrman claimed he was not denigrating all Jews, explaining that those Jews who play the world domination game are in effect no longer Jewish by religion in that their strategy is in direct contradiction with
the Ten Commandments, the real pillar of the Hebrew religion.
Lehrman also promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories, writing that during Dennis Kucinichs 2004 Democratic presidential campaignwhich Lehrman said he ran in Santa Fehe 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. He also baselessly tied the assault to Israel, writing in
July 2005 for a defunct site called Progressive Convergence that Mossad,
the countrys intelligence service, was a leading candidate for architect of
the 9/11 attacks.

Lehrman has praised extremist texts as recently as April.

During his unsuccessful attempt to become New Mexico Democrats 2008 Senate nominee, Lehrman made reopening a commission on September 11 a major
priority, as he continued to promote conspiracy theories about the attacks,
now claiming that then-vice president Dick Cheney was responsible.
Its only because Americans are so terrified and so easily propagandized
that this unbelievably bad conspiracy theory that the government has put forward about 19 hijackers and the guy in a cave in Afghanistan even
warrants mention, he told the Santa Fe Reporter in December 2007.
After leaving New Mexico, Lehrman settled with his family in upstate New
York, where he participated in anti-vaccine activism before, with the
emergence of Covid, becoming intensely suspicious of lockdown measures and vaccines that target the virus. In his Substack bio, Lehrman presents
himself as having decided to stay out of politics and writing until, as he
put it in a nod to Orwell, the COVERT-1984 Plandemonium started, and he
knew it was time to begin again in earnest.
As the IREHR report points out, Lehrman has praised extremist texts within
the last several months. In April, he attended a conference hosted by the Brownstone Institute, which was founded to promote anti-Covid lockdown
ideas. In an interview during the event, he hailed the 1955 book Pawns in
the Game by Canadian antisemite and conspiracy theorist William Guy Carr as
a very, very controversial book, but its also an important one, praising it
for how it uncovered the thread of Free Masonic activity. According to extremist researcher Chip Berlet, Carr claimed an age-old Jewish Illuminati banking conspiracy used radio-transmitted mind control on behalf of Lucifer
to construct a one world government.
So far, the MAHA Institute has done little public-facing work besides its
May 15 launch event, which was meant to preview the MAHA Commission Report,
a Trump administration document which turned out to cite nonexistent
studies. The speakers that day included Calley Means, a special government employee and Kennedy advisor who previously worked on his presidential campaign, and Sara Brenner, an FDA official who recently served as the
agencys acting commissioner. Shortly after the event, the organization,
which says it is collecting resumes for MAHA-friendly candidates to work in
the Trump administration, posted to X about battling unnamed enemies within
the government.
Right now, tens of thousands of D. C. bureaucrats are working to subvert
the MAHA Agenda, a May 22 post declared. That ends now.
Lyons statement gave no indication that Lehrmans writings and claims will affect his standing at the MAHA Institute, but antisemitism has not been a barrier to serving within the Trump administration itself. And while
Kennedys HHS is part of a joint federal task force which claims to
investigate antisemitism in universities, Kennedy himself once claimed that COVID was a bioweapon designed to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people,
and multiple Trump cabinet members have ties to antisemitic and far-right extremists.

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