Exhibit A: His sources.
Source #1: Tony Ortega
Craig was so desperate to smear the Church of Scientology, he resorted to using the scum of the Earth as a source for his latest article. Tony Ortega is a notorious enabler of child sexual exploitation who so vociferously defended the Backpage sex trafficking empire that The New York Times dubbed him the site’s “attack dog.”
Backpage was involved in 73 percent of all child trafficking reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Ortega enabled it all. Meanwhile, in his role as propagandist for Backpage, Ortega downplayed child sex trafficking as “a mass panic,” “national fantasy” and “small problem,” to keep the cash rolling in—ultimately totaling $500 million on the backs of exploited women and girls.
Rinder will lie to support anyone who espouses his brand of bigotry—even a rapist—which is why literally no one trusts him (except The Daily Beast).
Backpage was seized by the FBI, with its executives convicted in November 2023. Ortega’s former boss is currently serving out his sentence in federal prison.
Ortega is also infamous for defending pedophiles in an effort to shield them from accountability, and for publicly mocking two girls who were abducted at gunpoint and raped.
Sean Craig and his editors at The Daily Beast like Hugh Dougherty know all of this. They nevertheless published a hate screed targeting the Scientology religion and its members, sourced to—and proudly quoting—Ortega, while failing to disclose his despicable background, because that would have caused his anti-Scientology claims to be utterly ignored (or, more likely, deemed unfit to be published at all).
If the above weren’t enough, these are Ortega’s credentials when it comes to commenting on religion: Ortega publicly joked about a hate crime that almost killed children at a Church of Scientology; wrote an article laughing at the “Christian kookocracy”; ridiculed religious people as “tithe-making suckers”; mocked scripture as the “Holey Bible”; referred to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as “fair game” for people “to make fun of”; and insulted God as “a conniving, underhanded and petty biatch” and “small-minded wanker.”
No one with an ounce of pretense to journalism could even joke about using Ortega as a source on religion—or anything else other than his experience championing child sexual abuse.
But in Sean Craig’s depraved eyes, this professional child sex trafficking supporter, victim-shamer and anti-religious bigot is a saint. (If Craig looks up to a certified creep like Ortega, one wonders how it smells down at the depths where Craig’s own morals reside.)
Source #2: Mike Rinder
Mike Rinder is a notorious abuser of women and suborner of perjury who was expelled from the Church of Scientology nearly two decades ago for actual hard-facts crime.
A self-confessed serial liar who has admitted to his habitual fabrications on national television and under oath, Rinder is an anti-Scientologist-for-hire who is paid to attack the religion, its leader and its members.
Mike Rinder’s lying is so blatant that his anti-Scientology testimony in Paul Haggis’ rape trial was instantly rejected by a jury, with Haggis found responsible for the rape of a young woman. Rinder will lie to support anyone who espouses his brand of bigotry—even a rapist—which is why literally no one trusts him (except The Daily Beast).
Rinder’s depravity goes further: He admits to abandoning his entire family, refers to his own children as “vermin,” shamed rape victims as “very suspect” and “not credible,” and violently assaulted multiple women, including the former wife he disabled for life.
The Church informed Craig of Mike Rinder’s record, including his abhorrent history of violence against women. Craig’s response? Not only did he publish Rinder’s defamatory statements targeting one of the female victims of his own abuse, Craig characterized that victim’s firsthand account of Rinder’s abuse as nothing more than “criticism” to “attack and discredit” Rinder.
Craig was clearly coveting a spot in the Deplorable Misogynists & Victim Shamers Hall of Fame—right beside Ortega and Rinder—and Freedom can now announce he has earned it, as of November 2024.
Freedom can also announce that Sean Craig, having endorsed two such degraded, disqualified sources—knowing full well their backgrounds—is, without question, not a journalist.
But there is one question Freedom still does have: If Craig is so twisted as to proudly broadcast his support for enablers of child sex trafficking, champions of rapists and violent abusers of women, what the hell does he do in his free time when he isn’t writing slimy hate pieces for The Daily Beast?
