Kirk Bangstad, the owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company who offered free beer the day President Trump dies and doxxed a Secret Service agent investigating him for it, announced a run for governor Saturday.
“I decided I’m not gonna stand for this anymore and I’m gonna run for governor of Wisconsin,” Bangstad said in a rambling, nearly hourlong speech at his taproom in Minocqua Saturday. “We need someone to stand up to Trump. People have called me the Trump of the left and I guess that’s true but I’m a million times smarter.”
Dozens of protesters gathered outside Bangstad’s taproom midday Saturday to demonstrate against a since-deleted Facebook post lamenting the fact that President Trump wasn’t assassinated a week ago and offering free beer the day Trump does die.
“Well, we almost got #freebeerday,” Bangstad wrote immediately following the incident. “Either a brother or sister in the Resistance needs to work on their marksmanship or he faked another assassination to get a positive news cycle. We’ll never know. Regardless, we stand at the ready to pour free beer the day it happens.”
Bangstad organized a counter-protest attended by a handful of supporters. He had earlier teased a major political announcement.
The FBI and Secret Service announced an investigation into Bangstad’s post and visited him at his taproom Thursday. Bangstad was so terrified of their visit that he very likely committed a serious federal crime by posting the cell phone number of the agent who contacted him and then instructed his followers to call the agent and tell him to “stand down.”
“Call this number and ask this Secret Service agent to stand down and honor his oath to his country,” Bangstad wrote.
This appears to violate the Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act (18 US Code § 119) which prohibits “knowingly mak[ing] restricted personal information about a covered person…publicly available” with the “intent to threaten, intimidate, or incite the commission of a crime of violence against that covered person.”
Conviction is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Bangstad was recently convicted of disorderly conduct following a no contest plea in a criminal harassment case tied to a longstanding dispute with the publisher of the Lakeland Times. Bangstad was charged with criminal defamation (later dropped) for comments made about the publisher and was ordered to pay a massive civil defamation judgement.
According to that lawsuit, Bangstad has likely violated federal election law and may have committed wire fraud by using his Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC to pay two shell companies, Effervescent Blue and NCPS, more than $400,000. There is no record of either of those two entities existing as legitimate businesses and it is almost certain that Bangstad is using them to illegally funnel Super PAC money to himself.
Bangstad said Saturday that he begged other radical leftists to run in his stead, but ultimately decided that what the race needed was, well, him.
“I called Chris Larson, who’s one of my best friends, and I wanted him to run,” Bangstad told the modest crowd of supporters gathered outside his taproom. “I called everybody and said we need somebody strong to run for governor.”
Bangstad chastised the nine Democrats who are already in the race for not being hysterical enough in their rhetoric about President Trump.
“What we haven’t heard is that five-alarm fire from any of the candidates running on the Democratic side,” he said before losing his focus and ranting about political consultants.
Bangstad handed out nomination papers and asked supporters to sign. Candidates for governor require 2,000 valid signatures. Nomination papers are due June 1.
