Indiana Deepfake: Lawmaker whose wife targeted launching Congressional bid
Hoosier circus atmosphere shrouds investigations of deepfake video, former Beckwith supporter: 'Feels like that office is being run by an 8th-grader'
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The Indiana lawmaker whose wife was targeted by a deepfake viewed in the lieutenant governor’s office is set to launch his bid for an Indiana congressional seat Tuesday, according to a press announcement.
State Rep. Craig Haggard, who has blasted his Republican colleagues for allegedly hiding news of the deepfake from him, will be running against longtime Indiana lawmaker Jim Baird in the Republican primary for Indiana’s 4th District.
News of the deepfake of Haggard’s wife — which took a real performance by her at an Indiana talent show and fundraiser for mental health, and altered it to appear as though she was performing topless and bare-chested — has flipped Indiana’s tight-knit political world on end.
Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith has regularly defended his office in media appearances around the state, a failed mayoral candidate close to Beckwith began texting political operatives saying he would accuse them of creating the deepfake porn, and even Haggard’s opponents pushed a baseless story alleging that he made the deepfake porn himself as part of an effort to boost attention for his Congressional bid.
On the state’s weekly politics show, “IN Focus” on Fox 59, Sunday one of Beckwith’s former supporters called the debacle “horrendous”.
“It feels like that office is being run by an 8th-grader, and I don’t want to disparage 8th-graders,” said Tony Samuel, a longtime Indiana Republican, and regular on the weekly politics show. “If this accusation is true, it is a horrendous thing, and heads need to roll.”
24sight News reported that two of Beckwith’s top staff, deputy chief of staff Gregg Puls and contract lawyer Devin Norrick, watched a deepfake video of Haggard’s wife making it look as though she were topless. Beckwith has repeatedly said Puls denied this happen and he is sure there was no deepfake video.
Beckwith has repeatedly said that if he discovers anyone watched pornography in his office, they would be fired. Last year, Indiana lawmakers made it a misdemeanor to make or share a nonconsensual deepfake, following a national bipartisan trend of cracking down on the practice. President Donald Trump signed a federal anti-deepfake measure into law in May.
Since then tension has mounted as the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office has begun interviewing people in a probe of Beckwith’s office and political operatives of all stripes race to chase down possible leads (and rumors) around the story.
“To the best of our knowledge, no one in the office has been contacted by the Marion County Prosecutor’s office,” a spokesperson for the lieutenant governor’s office said in a statement.
Beckwith’s former communications director, James Kehoe, resigned last Thursday.
The Daily Mail reported Saturday that the scandal has become the “talk of the town”.
Beckwith said he completed an internal investigation into the deepfake porn in one day and found no evidence. 24sight News filed a public records request seeking the results of the internal investigation, as well as copies of any deepfake nude videos or pictures discovered on office equipment, including cellphones and laptops.
The husband of Beckwith’s chief of staff has been arguing regularly on Facebook that the deepfake video isn’t real and is part of an elaborate scheme to target Beckwith.
Meanwhile Beckwith himself has continued drawing more national attention with unfounded claims regarding immigrant detentions, the latest came at the same Terre Haute town hall meeting where he answered questions about the deepfake, and social media post made in support of a violently anti-LGBTQ+ church, which his office quickly removed.
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