Fake news mastermind profiled Wednesday in NYT has been fired from his job as a legislative aide
Frederick County delegate fires aide who was behind website with fake news
ANNAPOLIS — A legislative aide to a Frederick County lawmaker was fired after he was revealed Wednesday in a New York Times article to be the mastermind behind a fake political news website.
Cameron Harris, an aide to Delegate David E. Vogt III, R-District 4, previously ran the website ChristianTimesNewspaper.com, according to the Times.
The website published fabricated articles about things like thousands of ballots pre-marked to vote for Hillary Clinton in an Ohio warehouse, complete with photos stolen from other sources. Harris purchased the website domain for $5 and it brought in up to $1,000 an hour — at least $22,000 altogether — during the election year, the Times reported.
The website was no longer online as of Wednesday afternoon.
In an interview through a series of text messages, Harris confirmed Wednesday that he ran the site for 11 months until November 2016, when the election concluded.
During that time, he stayed at Vogt’s home in Brunswick, which both men listed as their address on Federal Election Commission reports. Vogt said Wednesday night that he rented his basement to Harris.
Harris, whose full legal name is Michael Cameron Harris, wrote in a text message that he left the house when he was working on the site.
“I did the work on my own time and with my personal computer,” Harris texted.
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/politics_and_government/frederick-county-delegate-fires-aide-who-was-behind-website-with/article_bfa31a64-6504-538b-8f36-3c4a2d65bbba.html
Original NYT Story on Harris:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/fake-news-hillary-clinton-cameron-harris.html?_r=2
= new reply since forum marked as read
