Mike Benz

Mike Benz is an American political commentator, who worked as a speechwriter for Ben Carson and Stephen Miller. He is perhaps best known for his work at the United States Agency for International Development, where he led efforts to dismantle the agency during the second presidency of Donald Trump.

Career Benz began his career as a corporate lawyer in New York City. Benz later accepted a position at USAID as a special government employee in order to scrutinize the agency's records. and scholars attributed the decline and demise of USAID to Musk's engagement with claims like Benz's.

Foundation for Freedom Online In 2022, Benz became the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO), which describes itself as a watchdog organization combatting internet censorship in the United States. According to an early version of FFO's website, it was a project of Empower Oversight, a Republican-linked whistleblower advocacy organization.

Benz released a report on August 27, 2022 alleging that the Department of Homeland Security colluded with technology companies to censor American users. The report was covered by Just the News editor-in-chief John Solomon, who shared the story with Charlie Kirk, and cited by Twitter Files writer Michael Shellenberger.

Benz filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Murthy v. Missouri, repeating allegations that the government created a "complex online censorship regime" to police the speech of American citizens. An initial injunction in that case repeated Benz's allegation that the Election Integrity Partnership flagged 22 million messages to Twitter for removal, although the actual number of messages was less than 3,000. overturning lower court rulings which Justice Amy Coney Barrett said relied on a "clearly erroneous" reading of the evidentiary record.

Controversy In 2023, The New York Times and NBC News reported that Benz had published racist content online, under the pseudonym Frame Game. A frequent guest on far-right podcasts, he has described himself as a former member of the Proud Boys and espoused support for the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Benz, despite being Jewish himself , has also been accused of antisemitism, stating that he believed "Hitler actually had some decent points" in Mein Kampf and that Jews are responsible for global white genocide.