Ex-Trump Official Accused of Spreading Racist Theories Under a Pseudonym

Ex-Trump Official Accused of Spreading Racist Theories Under a Pseudonym.
Michael Benz, a former Trump State Department official whose work has been cited in congressional hearings and promoted by Elon Musk, has become a go-to voice for Republican criticism of government and social media censorship in the past year.

But before his stints in government and as a pundit, Benz appears to have been a pseudonymous alt-right content creator who courted and interacted with white nationalists and posted videos espousing racist conspiracy theories, according to recordings, livestreams and blog posts reviewed by NBC News.

The pseudonym, Frame Game, posted videos and participated in podcasts and livestreams during the rise of the alt-right following Donald Trump’s election. Frame Game avoided showing his face in his videos or appearances, during which he pushed a variety of far-right narratives including the “Great Replacement Theory” that posits the white race is being eradicated in America for politics and profits. In others, Frame Game said he was a white identitarian, railed against the idea of diversity and made montages urging white viewers to unite under the banner of race.

In interviews with white nationalists, Frame Game blamed Jews for “controlling the media” and for the decline of the white race. “If you were to remove the Jewish influence on the West,” he said in one video, “white people would not face the threat of white genocide that they currently do.”

Frame Game stopped posting in 2018. A review of his content revealed various details that match Benz’s appearance and life story. Benz, in his public posts and appearances, has not espoused the same racist views as Frame Game.

Frame Game went to some lengths to conceal his identity but inadvertent slips during several livestreams — in which he would often visit webpages and toggle between browser tabs — betrayed his anonymity. In one video, Frame Game brought up a website that automatically pulled a Facebook profile picture into its comments section. The picture appeared to be Benz with his then wife.

Benz’s voice is also similar to Frame Game’s. The clip below is taken from the above video:

And this clip is taken from a video Benz posted to X.

In other videos, as Frame Game toggled windows, he displayed a web browser that showed the username “Mike.” In another instance, a profile page showed him signed into a browser as “Michael.” In one instance, “Mike” can be seen in the browser alongside a separate browser window that’s logged into Twitter displaying Frame Game’s avatar of a person in a green hoodie.

In podcasts and on social media, Frame Game divulged other biographical information that mirrors details found in Benz’s public records and archived social media accounts. Frame Game often shared his background as a Jewish attorney living in New York City and told interviewers he had studied psychology at an Ivy League college, graduati