WA unmasks anonymous Tri-Cities blogger. He was running for office
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- PDC added identity to the case title in its PascoCorrupt probe.
- He’s an ex-council candidate and PNNL IT worker.
- Sheriff alleges unreported campaigning and libel; PDC asked blogger to update filings.
The anonymous author behind a Pasco blog that tried to sway local elections a few years ago has been identified as a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory worker and former city council candidate.
The Washington Public Disclosure Commission, the state’s campaign finance watchdog, recently added James Czebotar’s name to the case title for an ongoing investigation involving the PascoCorrupt blog.
The website spurred ire among several candidates running during the 2023 local election cycle for its brash political opinions, and sparked rumors about the author’s identity.
Czebotar challenged Mayor Pro Tem David Milne for his District 5 seat in the November 2023 election. He lost in a landslide by a margin of about 44 percentage points.
He mostly ran to give Milne a challenger. But his campaign also focused on ending anonymous code enforcement complaints he found pesky, and he hoped to address issues around mental health disparities and substance abuse issues.
While Czebotar remained friendly to his opponent in multiple public appearances, behind a veil of anonymity he was criticizing Milne’s business relationship with a Spanish language newspaper that offered him access to cover Seahawks games.
Milne said the event was not the quid pro quo that Czebotar made it out to be. He and former Mayor Pete Serrano were doing the La Voz newspaper a favor to retain its press credentials when they traveled to cover the game as contributing writers, and refused to take a payment from the Pasco news organization.
“I thought more highly of him than that,” Milne said of Czebotar. “To find out it’s him is kind of disappointing.”
Czebotar told the Tri-City Herald he doesn’t regret his decision, and that Milne was just a “small puzzle piece in a large mosaic” of alleged widespread corruption and childish behavior he was trying to highlight.
He was trying to “wake people up” to what was going on in their own backyard.
“Was it effective? Obviously not. After the presidential election where the voters elected a sex pest felon, I don’t think there is a lot of waking people up,” he said, referring to President Trump.
In his anonymous writings, he also called the Franklin County GOP a “shameful organization tied to terrorists,” and criticized the party’s process of endorsing candidates for nonpartisan offices. He also railed against Franklin County commissioners for allegedly creating an environment of “constant bullying” and enriching themselves.
The website’s domain, pascocorrupt.com, has expired.
“I’m just a random guy out here playing games,” he said. “It is what it is.”
PDC complaint
The Tri-Cities has had its fair share of anonymous writers in recent years churning out poignant political critiques. Though shrouded behind the veil of internet secrecy, these platforms can influence local civic and political discourse.
Czebotar’s blog stood out for its targeted assessments and attempted takedown of officials with ties to the Republican Party, though he’s emphasized that he’s “definitely not a Democrat.” He even erected campaign-style signs around Pasco in an attempt to advertise the site.
An online biography says he works for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as an information technology engineer in the Advanced Scientific Computing team.
Franklin County Sheriff Jim Raymond has called Czebotar’s writings “libelous.” In late October 2023, he filed a complaint with the PDC alleging several violations of laws that require political organizations to register with state agency and include sign sponsorship identification.
Though he didn’t know his identity, Raymond argued Czebotar was required to file paperwork with PDC because he was actively using the website to campaign against officials who were running for city council, specifically Milne, Leo Perales and Charles Grimm, all of whom won election.
He also argues Czebotar’s signs were political advertisements, and thus required the missing sponsorship identification on them.
“Being allowed to conduct unreported campaigns against individuals running for public office is not only against the law, but is a direct threat to democracy as it influences free and fair elections by preventing the community from being able to ‘follow the money,’” Raymond wrote in 2023.
The PascoCorrupt author shirked Raymond’s claims of libel and of electioneering in a rebuttal letter sent to PDC. He characterized the website as a “private news and analysis blog” protected under First Amendment rights, which fell outside the purview of the state agency.
“James Raymond is not running for office. He is attempting to use the Public Disclosure Commission to stifle free and protected speech and bully those he finds offensive,” Czebotar wrote. “News and analysis provided by the web blog focuses on local politicians and events in multiple local cities and the entirety of eastern Washington state.”
More than two years later, the PDC might have agreed with Raymond to a point.
Czebotar told the Herald that the PDC requested him to update his candidate filings a couple months ago to add on the $800 he spent to create the PascoCorrupt website and print out the campaign signs. But those filings do not appear to have been made public on his 2023 campaign page.
He theorizes the state agency may have found out his identity through the free web service he used to make the website, and perhaps used a subpoena to get the information.
A spokesperson for the PDC declined to comment due to the agency’s ongoing investigation into Raymond’s allegations.
Calling balls and strikes?
Czebotar argues he was just calling balls and strikes. PascoCorrupt linked to past news reports, which he would give his political take on.
“I didn’t tell anyone how to vote. This was just links to works,” he said. “This is just showing them the pattern.”
Last year, after the county commission stripped control of the jail from the sheriff, Raymond called for federal investigations into “corrupt practices” of certain officials. Czebotar said Raymond’s plea — which he is in agreement with — is a sort of vindication of the elected officials who work out of the downtown courthouse.
Czebotar said he’s not ruling out a future run at political office, though he’s critical of Tri-Cities media for never reporting on the fact that he didn’t even live in Milne’s council district and thus was ineligible to run in the first place.
He’s finishing up a degree and is getting his last kid through college. Maybe there will be more time in the future to run, or maybe to blog.
“I don’t follow sports. I follow politics,” he said.
