Investigative draft — version 1.0
Date: July 23, 2026
Thomas Schoenberger was not exposed by a new theory: he incriminated himself by confirming, in his own words, a structure that contemporaneous evidence had already documented.
The evidence gathered supports, with high confidence, the conclusion that Thomas Schoenberger knowingly participated with Jim Blake in a political LARP related to FBIAnon; that Victurus Libertas presented the information as coming from an authentic source they personally knew; and that the same ecosystem was used to push narratives involving Hillary Clinton, WikiLeaks, Cicada 3301, Seth Rich, and later QAnon.
Schoenberger’s later statements — “Jim Blake and I were Larping,” “I knew it was a catfish,” and “Jim Blake and I had a little fun” — do not create this hypothesis. They confirm it. The importance of the admission is precisely that it removes the alternative explanation that Jim Blake, Victurus Libertas, or Schoenberger himself had simply been fooled by a false informant.
Before the admission, the record already contained:
The prudent but forceful conclusion is:
The evidence shows that Schoenberger was not an outside observer of FBIAnon. He knowingly participated in the LARP, understood that it was false, and operated inside the same production, legitimization, and amplification chain that presented fabricated political narratives as privileged intelligence.
The available evidence still does not prove, by itself, that Schoenberger personally wrote every original FBIAnon post. That reservation does not weaken the finding: it avoids exaggerating the final inch when the rest of the road is already documented.
In a July 6, 2026 email exchange, Schoenberger wrote:
“Jim Blake and I were Larping and he was gaining an audience...”
In the same thread, he added:
“I knew it was a catfish.”
And later:
“So Jim Blake and I had a little fun.”
These statements must be read together, not separately.
The first acknowledges joint LARPing activity with Jim Blake and directly ties that activity to audience growth. The second establishes knowledge: Schoenberger knew the supposed informant was fake. The third describes the operation as entertainment or trolling, not as a journalistic error made in good faith.
He also stated that he introduced Blake to Robert David Steele and that Steele paid for interviews. This introduces an additional component: the LARP did not remain confined to an anonymous forum. It connected to audiences, video platforms, people with intelligence-community credentials, and possible financial incentives.
The importance of this admission is not semantic. It closes three escape routes:
“A real informant fooled us.”
Incompatible with “I knew it was a catfish.”
“I was only watching what Jim was doing.”
Incompatible with “Jim Blake and I were Larping.”
“There was no audience strategy.”
Incompatible with “he was gaining an audience” and with the documented amplification through Victurus Libertas.
In a public interview, Jim and Angie Blake described QAnon as a spin-off from FBIAnon. Jim stated that he received information about FBIAnon from “a certain individual” and that their “white hats” gave them information before events occurred.
The most important statement was:
“We were very, very sure and very secure with FBIAnon, and we knew that person.”
They did not say they had merely read FBIAnon. They did not say they trusted the posts based on intuition. They said they knew the person.
In the same interview, they described FBIAnon’s objective in unmistakably electoral terms:
the goal was for Donald Trump to become president or for Hillary Clinton not to become president.
They also claimed they had been warned that the information would stop once that objective was achieved. According to their own account, the disappearance of the persona was not a surprise: it was part of the anticipated cycle.
When these statements are cross-referenced with Schoenberger’s later admission, the most reasonable interpretation changes. Victurus Libertas was not simply deceived by an unknown source. One of the men who later admitted LARPing with Jim Blake says he already knew the alleged insider was a catfish.
The documented pattern is simple and repeatable:
At Victurus Libertas, the first relevant persona was presented as Pentagon Insider ANON. According to material preserved by third parties, that persona directed the channel toward another supposed source: FBI Insider ANON. Soon afterward, the same channel published material attributed to those insiders about Hillary Clinton, WikiLeaks, Pizzagate, and Seth Rich.
The crucial detail is not whether every claim came from the exact same avatar. It is the transfer of authority:
Pentagon → FBI → WikiLeaks → Cicada → alternative media outlet → audience.
Each name added another layer of prestige. The information did not need to be verifiable; it needed to appear connected to institutions the audience associated with secrets.
The Seth Rich narrative should not be treated as a secondary detour. It is one of the places where the ecosystem of fake insiders intersects with an actual reputation campaign and litigation.
The theory falsely claimed that Seth Rich had provided DNC emails to WikiLeaks and was murdered because of it. In Rich v. Fox News Network, the Second Circuit summarized allegations that Ed Butowsky and reporter Malia Zimmerman tried to move the theory “from the fringe” onto the screens and front pages of mainstream media.
The judicial opinion recounts that Butowsky and Zimmerman used investigator Rod Wheeler to create the appearance of an independent source. It also describes how Wheeler received an uncorroborated claim that an anonymous FBI investigator had seen emails between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks.
This is critical: the conspiracy needed an “anonymous FBI” source to turn an evidence-free story into one that appeared to carry institutional support.
At that stage, the court was not deciding that every allegation was proven true; it was determining whether the Rich family’s claims were sufficient to continue. Even so, it found plausible allegations of extreme conduct, contractual interference, and manipulation of the family’s relationship with Wheeler.
On August 31, 2017, Victurus Libertas published a video titled:
“FBIAnon and Ed Butowsky”
The timing matters. Fox had withdrawn its Seth Rich story in May 2017, and Butowsky was facing serious reputational damage and litigation. In that environment, a channel that had spent months presenting FBIAnon as an authentic source published material once again connecting FBIAnon with Butowsky.
The existing archive demonstrates the publication and its date. To state definitively that the video was directly commissioned by Butowsky or ShadowBox would require a specific instruction, invoice, email, or message. Without that piece, the correct formulation is:
The video objectively functioned as narrative rehabilitation content for Butowsky, inside a channel that had already legitimized FBIAnon and maintained a personal relationship with Schoenberger.
The alignment of function, relationships, and chronology is too important to ignore, even though the distinction between observable function and a still-unlocated contractual order must be preserved.
Journalistic sources and records emerging from litigation indicate that Butowsky hired ShadowBox, the company associated with Thomas Schoenberger and Manuel Chavez, to repair his online reputation after the damage caused by the Seth Rich story.
NPR reported that Butowsky acknowledged that critical attention surrounding his role in the story motivated the hiring. The Daily Beast reported that Schoenberger and Chavez presented themselves as capable of using bots, digital campaigns, and “directed chaos” to defend clients online.
This makes the Seth Rich case more serious than a collection of conspiracy videos. Two connected layers are visible:
The evidence does not yet support the claim that all FBIAnon activity was created exclusively to clean up Butowsky’s reputation. FBIAnon predates the 2017 reputation crisis. What the evidence does support is that the infrastructure and mythology of FBIAnon were reused to defend or rehabilitate Butowsky when the Seth Rich story began to publicly collapse.
Schoenberger was deposed under oath in litigation connected to the Rich family. He testified about a meeting at Butowsky’s home in Plano, Texas, where, according to his account, electronic surveillance of Seth Rich’s parents was discussed.
Butowsky denied requesting espionage. The Daily Beast reported that three attendees confirmed that surveillance or communications interception was discussed, though it found no evidence that it was carried out.
The responsible formulation is:
It is documented that surveillance of the Rich family was discussed at the meeting; there is disagreement over who proposed it, and no public evidence that it was executed.
At minimum, the episode confirms that Schoenberger was not observing the Seth Rich case from a distance. He was inside meetings, contracts, reputation campaigns, and litigation involving its principal promoters.
On December 6, 2017, the account tstger13@gmail.com, under the name “Th Stg,” sent Victurus Libertas a text titled:
“Q anon speaks! End days prophecy is coming!”
The same message was privately forwarded with the phrase:
“Private. he he he...”
The .eml file preserves transport headers and successful SPF, DKIM, and DMARC results for the Gmail transmission. This is materially stronger than an isolated screenshot: it preserves email structure and domain authentication.
The text does more than copy public posts. It presents questions and answers supposedly obtained from Q, uses phrases such as “Q Anon told us” and “Q Anon made it clear to our team,” and attributes access to information from the Department of Defense, intelligence services, and the White House.
This proves that Schoenberger participated in the fabrication or packaging of privileged-looking content attributed to QAnon for a channel that had already amplified Pentagon Anon, FBIAnon, Cicada, and Seth Rich.
It does not prove that he was the sole author of the original Q account. It proves something more concrete and verifiable: that he was creating material intended to make an audience believe Victurus had direct access to Q.
QAnon first appeared on 4chan on October 28, 2017. Sources including the ADL and CSIS identify Tracy Diaz, known as Tracy Beanz, as one of the first figures to pull Q’s posts out of the noise of 4chan and present them to a mass audience.
But the LlamaBeanz livestream from March 2017 shows that Tracy’s media function already existed months before Q.
In that conversation:
There is not enough evidence to claim that Tracy Beanz or Jimmysllama wrote Q. Jimmysllama later became a critic and chronicler of the ecosystem. The important finding is functional:
When Q appeared, Tracy already understood the format required to amplify it: take anonymous material, interpret it as possible intelligence, connect it to political events, and turn the audience into participants in the investigation.
Q did not emerge into a vacuum. It found a prepared network.
On May 19, 2018, Schoenberger introduced Arturo Tafoya to Tracy Beanz in a group conversation through an account that was later deleted.
The preserved conversation shows Tafoya writing:
“finally i get to meet you”
and:
“Thomas was just showing off your beautiful voice.”
Tracy replied by referring to “both of you” as talented individuals. The interface now shows only two participants because Schoenberger’s account no longer appears, but the content and Tafoya’s firsthand account explain the original structure of the group.
This matters because it shows that Schoenberger did not merely know people positioned at different points in the ecosystem. He personally connected them.
The available evidence maps the following network:
These are not connections reconstructed solely from Twitter follows. Several are supported by emails, videos, interviews, meetings, contracts, or direct conversations.
July 27: Victurus Libertas publishes material from a supposed “Pentagon Insider.”
July 28: the supposed Pentagon insider directs the channel toward an “FBI Insider.”
August 10: Victurus publishes insider material connected to Seth Rich.
Second half of the year: FBIAnon operates in an anti-Clinton electoral context.
Tracy Beanz and Jimmysllama conduct the LlamaBeanz livestream. Speculative links are already circulating among Anonymous Scandinavia, Vault 7, Cicada, and WikiLeaks.
Fox withdraws its discredited Seth Rich story.
August 31: Victurus Libertas publishes “FBIAnon and Ed Butowsky.”
During the same period, ShadowBox enters Butowsky’s orbit as a reputation service.
Meeting in Plano, Texas, involving Butowsky, Schoenberger, Chavez, and other participants. Conflicting testimony would later emerge regarding discussion of surveillance against the Rich family.
The first post associated with Q appears on 4chan.
Tracy Beanz publishes one of the first major Q interpretation videos.
Schoenberger sends Victurus Libertas material presented as exclusive QAnon answers and forwards it privately.
Schoenberger introduces Arturo Tafoya to Tracy Beanz in a Twitter group conversation.
Schoenberger admits by email:
| Proposition | Primary Evidence | Confidence | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schoenberger participated with Jim Blake in a LARP | Written admission from 2026 | High | Does not identify which participant wrote each post |
| Schoenberger knew the insider was false | “I knew it was a catfish” | High | The complete thread should be preserved for forensic context |
| Victurus claimed to personally know FBIAnon | Public interview with Jim and Angie | High | “Know” may refer to an intermediary or the persona’s operator |
| FBIAnon had an anti-Clinton/pro-Trump electoral objective | Victurus statement | High regarding what Victurus claimed | Does not independently prove the operation’s full scope |
| Schoenberger produced Q-branded content for Victurus | December 6, 2017 .eml email |
High | Does not prove authorship of the original Q account on 4chan |
| Victurus published content useful to Butowsky’s rehabilitation | “FBIAnon and Ed Butowsky” video, date, and context | High regarding observable function | No direct order proving contractual commissioning has been located |
| ShadowBox was hired for Butowsky reputation work | NPR, Daily Beast, and litigation records | High | Participants disagree about specific actions |
| Surveillance of the Rich family was discussed | Testimony, reporting, and multiple attendees | High regarding the discussion | Dispute over who proposed it; no evidence of execution |
| Tracy already performed a pre-Q amplification role | LlamaBeanz and public Q history | High | Does not imply authorship or knowledge of Q’s identity |
| Schoenberger introduced Arturo to Tracy | Preserved conversation and firsthand testimony | High | The deleted account no longer appears in the current interface |
Thomas Schoenberger tried to defend himself against the largest accusation — that he deliberately created QAnon — and in the process confirmed a narrower, more provable, and devastating accusation.
He admitted that he and Jim Blake were LARPing. He admitted that he knew the supposed source was a catfish. He acknowledged that Blake was gaining an audience. He acknowledged introducing Blake to Robert David Steele. Those admissions match years of contemporaneous evidence: Victurus’s fake insiders, the use of FBIAnon in narratives about Hillary Clinton and Seth Rich, the Butowsky-friendly video, ShadowBox’s reputation work, and the later fabrication of privileged-looking QAnon material.
The conclusion does not need to claim that Schoenberger wrote every FBIAnon message or that he was the sole creator of Q. It is stronger when it stays within what can be demonstrated:
Thomas Schoenberger knowingly participated in a political insider LARP with Jim Blake, understood that the source presented to the public was false, and operated inside a network that converted that fiction into political content, audience growth, reputation management, and propaganda.
In the Seth Rich case, the infrastructure served an especially serious purpose: reusing the fictional authority of an “FBI insider” to support a damaging conspiracy and later producing content that benefited Ed Butowsky’s public rehabilitation while Schoenberger and his company worked inside Butowsky’s reputation operation.
The evidence was already there.
Thomas simply did the one thing that was still missing: he admitted it.
Gmail thread containing the phrases:
File:
Fwd_ Q anon speaks ! End days prophecy is coming ! 2017-12-06T08_53_05-08_00.eml
Includes transport headers and SPF, DKIM, and DMARC validation results.
File:
VL-Interview.txt
Contains claims that QAnon was a spin-off from FBIAnon, that Victurus knew the person, and that FBIAnon’s objective was electoral.
File:
VL-Cicada-nostradamus.txt
Documents the transformation of ambiguous Cicada material into claims about Vault 7, Dark Matter, Apple, the CIA, and divine prophecy.
File:
Tracy_Beanz_-_LlamaBeanz_LiveStream-720p.txt
Documents, in March 2017, collective interpretation of Anonymous Scandinavia, Vault 7, Victurus Libertas, and the false 2017 Cicada material.
Screenshots of the May 19, 2018 group conversation, originally including Schoenberger’s later-deleted account.
File:
Victurus Libertas 20f2b3e1d79b4be68d812e693f26c95f.html
Includes archives, links, videos, screenshots, and references to “FBIAnon and Ed Butowsky.”
Rich v. Fox News Network, LLC, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, September 13, 2019.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/18-2321/18-2321-2019-09-13.html
“Seth Rich’s killing was exploited on Fox News and online. His parents are fed up”, NPR/KPBS, June 15, 2022.
https://www.kpbs.org/news/news/politics/2022/06/15/seth-richs-killing-was-exploited-on-fox-news-and-online-his-parents-are-fed-up
“Right-Wing Activists Discussed Wiretapping Seth Rich’s Family, Three People in the Room Say”, The Daily Beast, February 18, 2020.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/right-wing-activists-discussed-wiretapping-seth-richs-family-three-people-in-the-room-say/
“Examining Extremism: QAnon”, Center for Strategic and International Studies.
https://www.csis.org/blogs/examining-extremism/examining-extremism-qanon
“QAnon”, Anti-Defamation League.
https://go.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/qanon
“The Surety of Victurus Libertas for Pentagon Insider ANON’s unverified credentials”, Tracking the Leopard Meroz, May 7, 2020. Secondary source used as an archival guide; its attributions should be checked against original captures and posts.
https://trackingmeroz.wordpress.com/2020/05/07/the-surety-of-victurus-libertas-for-pentagon-insider-anons-unverified-credentials/