Why Is a Serial Hoaxer Still Getting Airtime?

For reasons unknown, Catherine Herridge is boosting a hoax artist with a vendetta against Russiagate researchers.

Mark Lenzi is back in the headlines, this time claiming he was retaliated against by the State Department for praising Donald Trump. “The worst thing you can do at the State Department is praise President Trump and expose fraud, waste, and abuse,” Lenzi recently told Catherine Herridge, who, in an astonishing lapse of judgment, gave him a platform to air his latest round of hallucinations.

It is yet another act in what has become a familiar performance. Lenzi presents himself as a brave whistleblower, unfairly targeted by the Deep State for standing up to corruption. In reality, he’s a serial attention seeker and anti-Trump operative who’s done more to undermine truth and accountability than to uphold it. And now, thanks to Herridge, who has unfortunately chosen to amplify his delusions, Lenzi is once again getting a platform to sell his fantasies.

This is not a matter of political disagreement. Lenzi’s record of disinformation, exaggeration, and sabotage is well documented, not to mention dangerous. We know it firsthand. He personally helped get several of our friends, decent and honest researchers, banned from Twitter. These people’s only offense was to help expose the Russiagate hoax.

We now know from the Twitter Files released by Matt Taibbi in late 2022 and early 2023 that Lenzi contacted Twitter in 2020 demanding the removal of 14 accounts he claimed were Russian-controlled disinformation assets. This was a lie. We know many of these accounts and they were owned by everyday Americans with no foreign ties, just a strong commitment to uncovering the truth about Russiagate, the smear campaign concocted by the Clinton campaign and weaponized by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Even more disturbing is that Lenzi himself helped push the very Russiagate narratives he was trying to shield from criticism. He was a proud supporter of Hillary Clinton, a fact publicly promoted by her campaign in 2016. His claim of being a lifelong Republican who suddenly recognized Trump as a sinister threat was little more than a credibility play. It was a manufactured persona designed to feed his drama-queen bid for attention.

Lenzi’s self-image as a victim doesn’t stop at Russiagate. He also claims to suffer from Havana Syndrome, the mysterious set of symptoms allegedly caused by foreign attacks on U.S. diplomats. Despite never being stationed in Havana, Lenzi insisted he was targeted in Guangzhou, China, and—true to form—blamed the Russians, supposedly because he had once worked for John McCain. He even pledged to donate his brain for scientific study and sued the State Department.

But Lenzi’s most destructive move came when he used his government position to pressure Twitter into banning accounts that criticized the very conspiracy theory he’d helped sell. His email to Twitter was a stew of lies and self-flattery, painting himself as an expert on Russian influence and suggesting that grammatical errors and posts about Ukraine were signs of Russian control. He offered no evidence, and yet Twitter acted.

Many of the 14 accounts Lenzi targeted were terminated. Others suffered algorithmic suppression. One of the better-known accounts targeted by Lenzi was FOIA Fan, a Freedom of Information Act expert who has exposed countless government documents revealing lies, corruption, and cover-ups—not just in Russiagate, but in other areas like the so-called Covid vaccine.

Lenzi also played a role in the fraudulent Mueller investigation, feeding it false information about Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukrainian political consultant accused—without basis—of being a Russian intelligence agent. Kilimnik had worked with Paul Manafort and also the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. But Mueller’s team needed a villain, and Lenzi delivered, claiming it was "well known" Kilimnik had ties to Russian intel. That claim, too, was fiction.

When Twitter users like “ThunderStrzok” challenged Lenzi’s fabrications, he demanded they be banned as well. At every step, Lenzi used his position not to defend democracy, but to silence dissent and protect a narrative he helped fabricate.

He tried to keep it all under wraps. In his email to Twitter, he pleaded for his name to remain confidential, citing the "sensitive nature" of his work. That’s a telling detail. If his actions were truly righteous, there would be no need for secrecy. A government official demanding censorship, using an official account and using his position to do so should have no reason to hide. The fact that he insisted on anonymity suggests he was either fabricating his claims to avoid getting caught or that others backing him wanted the whole scheme to stay in the shadows. Whatever the case, these troubling circumstances remain unexplained.

In 2023, former Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell called Lenzi’s censorship crusade “unacceptable,” adding bluntly that “he should be disciplined.” Whether Lenzi was acting on behalf of the State Department or freelancing as a rogue operative, his actions demanded a serious investigation. Instead, it was swept under the rug—a U.S. official weaponizing his position to silence citizen journalists, manipulate social media platforms, and help bury a political scandal. No accountability followed.

Now, against all reason and despite everything that’s been known about him for years, Lenzi is back seeking attention and shockingly, Catherine Herridge has given him a platform. Whether she’s deliberately enabling a serial disinformation peddler or simply been duped, we have to question her motives. But at a minimum, Herridge has shown herself to be naive and careless enough to be hijacked by a notorious drama queen pushing falsehoods.