by Kate Shunney
Citing legal pressure from the New York Attorney General related to her investigation into the charitable status of VDARE Foundation, the head of the Foundation and editor of VDARE.com, Peter Brimelow, announced last week that he was stepping down from both roles with the organization.
The site publishes online articles related to the organization’s mission to push for very limited immigration into the U.S. and suggest steps like mass deportation to protect the cultural identity of the U.S. The opinions published on the site have led to the group being described widely as a white nationalist organization.
In a video message released on the social media platform X, Brimelow said the functioning of VDARE has been severely impaired as New York Attorney General Letitia James has continued to investigate the group’s financial records, pay practices and charitable board operations.
“VDARE.com was a highly successful operation – particularly after Lydia solved the problem of us getting our conferences cancelled by buying the Castle,” Brimelow said, referencing his wife, Lydia Brimelow. “But it has been murdered by New York State Attorney General Letitia James,” he stated.
Peter Brimelow claims that James has used her role as Attorney General and has “battered us to death by a massive and intrusive ‘investigation’ that bears no rational relationship to any conceivable offense.”
He argued in his video message that James wants to suppress the free speech of VDARE.com.
“We estimate we’ve spent upwards of a million dollars on compliance, let alone hundreds of hours of work. All of these resources should have gone to our mission: advancing the cause of Patriotic Immigration Reform,” said Brimelow.
He goes on to reference ongoing litigation in New York courts related to the investigation into the VDARE Foundation and its financial and charitable relationship to the Berkeley Springs Castle.
At the center of the Attorney General’s inquiries is the relationship between VDARE Foundation and the Berkeley Castle, which the foundation purchased to use as an organizational headquarters.
Court records about the inquiry note that the Brimelow’s “used and continue[d] to use a $1.4 million charitable asset as their personal residence.”
“The State Supreme Court noted that VDARE argued that ‘the Brimelows paid rent to live in the cottage beginning in April 2021, however the lease [was] between Lydia Brimelow and BBB, LLC, a West Virginia for-profit corporation that she manage[d], and Lydia Brimelow [had] signed that document as both landlord and tenant,” wrote U.S. District Judge Frederick Scullin, Jr. in a September 2023 order.
Online court records show a long series of legal motions and court orders stemming from a request by the New York Attorney General for records related to VDARE donors, paid writers for its website and board members for its foundation.
VDARE objected to sharing these documents with the Attorney General, saying they want to protect the First Amendment rights of their writers, supporters and associates by not revealing their identities.
In a February 20, 2024 Memorandum of Law, the Supreme Court of the State of New York ordered that the Attorney General’s request for documents and records include a “redaction protocol,” already proposed by the AG, that would allow VDARE lawyers to remove the identities and personal information of authors who write anonymously for the organization’s website.
That order required VDARE to track those edits in a redaction log, which the Attorney General could then refer to if more information was requested.
In a review of online court records, this was just one of many legal issues that became points of contention in James’ investigation of the charitable status and financial operations of VDARE.
According to an article shared by Lydia Brimelow late last month, the couple has experienced sustained difficulty in getting technical and financial services because of political backlash against VDARE’s positions.
“It is my sense that our little organization has been targeted more harshly than almost any other,” she wrote. “We are genuinely puzzled as to why.”
Brimelow said her family’s organization has “just been advocating what President Trump endorsed in his epochal Immigration Statement.”
The Brimelow’s statements go on to list a number of firms that have rejected doing business with them or ended contracts with the group for what they believe to be political reasons.
Lydia Brimelow writes that the lawsuits and difficulties doing business as a foundation led to the decision to suspend the site.
“Suspending VDARE.com is an agonizing decision and we are full of bitterness,” she wrote.
On May 2, 2024, the courts upheld the Supreme Court’s order making the organization comply with the Attorney General’s investigative requests for documents.
The Brimelow’s have said publicly their organization will continue to supply those records to the Attorney General’s office as VDARE winds down.
