No Biggs Deal: Blue Alaskan conspiracy theory laid to rest, documents show

Targeted by Biggs

Along with a constant stream of misinformation to sift through and correct, the most exhausting part of writing an anonymous blog has been having a target on my back 24/7. But threats of all types are to be expected when one thoroughly covers Three Percent militia members, far-right Alaska politicians, and the social media underbelly of the Save Anchorage Facebook group.

On February 11, 2021, Russell Biggs — a civic activist, local anesthesiologist, Save Anchorage administrator, creator of the Reclaim Midtown Facebook page, and the influence behind failed attempts to recall practically every Anchorage Assembly member to the left of Jamie Allard — sent an email to The Blue Alaskan accusing the blog of “dipping toes into the defamation pool.”

Biggs pointed to no particular instance of potential libel or defamation in his email, nor have I ever received a request for retraction or correction from him — just a threat and his apparent desire for legal action.

Perhaps worth noting is that ten days prior to receiving the email he sent, Biggs appeared to suggest that he had identified The Blue Alaskan in a Twitter post hashtagged #Peekablue #iseeyou.

Bully Biggs: All bark, no bite

The Blue Alaskan has not been the only target of Biggs’ angst-driven threats.

He previously sent a cease and desist letter to at least one member of the public: Leon Jaimes, a volunteer for Anchorage Democrats. In a Parler post and in the February 2021 email to me, Biggs incorrectly asserted Jaimes was the Alaska Democratic Party’s Communications Chair. One would think that Mr. Biggs might fact-check his own social media posts and emails containing threats of legal action before sending them, but alas, conservatives aren’t much for fact-checking.

Anchorage lawyer Stacey Stone, who regularly represents Alaskan Republican politicians and campaigns, including the Bronson for Mayor Campaign, sent the cease and desist letter on Biggs’s behalf on January 8, 2021. It demanded Jaimes “immediately cease and desist further communication and accusations concerning Russell Biggs which are both false and defamatory,” claiming Biggs had suffered “significant harm” as the result of a Next Door post Jaimes had made.

Anchorage Action co-founder Yarrow Silvers has also been the recipient of a threat of legal action made by Biggs. A screenshot of a since-deleted post on the Reclaim Midtown Facebook page in January 2022 shows Biggs accusing Silvers of posting “verifiable false information” to Twitter and stating that if she continued to do so, he would not only correct the record but also hold her accountable.

"You don't get to libel people you disagree with and expect them not to fight back," Biggs wrote in his post. In a subsequent comment made in the same thread, Biggs told Silvers he was serious and informing her nicely and that he would not be informing her nicely the next time.

Both Jaimes and Silvers say Biggs' threats of legal action are indicative of an individual seeking to intimidate those who voice opposition to their political efforts and those of Reclaim Midtown and Save Anchorage.

Push pins and red thread: A Biggs and Downing co-conspiracy

In February 2022, Biggs and Must Read Alaska, the Alaska Republican propaganda website that claims to provide Alaskans with “news you can trust,” promoted a baseless theory asserting a “massive coverup” was underway. The so-called cover-up, allegedly perpetrated by the “leftist majority” of the Anchorage Assembly, was related to a public records request Biggs had filed with the Municipality of Anchorage in which emails had been redacted.

Must Read Alaska's Suzanne Downing has previously asserted without any evidence that The Blue Alaskan was a radical left blog owned by Anchorage Press, claimed that Forrest Dunbar had a deep association with The Blue Alaskan, and wrongfully asserted that both Dunbar and Christopher Constant were the “political forces” behind The Blue Alaskan.

Biggs' Reclaim Midtown Facebook page claimed in a February 1 Facebook post that he had submitted a record request for emails containing the term "Blue Alaskan." Previously Biggs claimed

other search terms were also included in the request. Upon receiving his records request, Biggs complained that the documents were so redacted that they didn't identify email addresses, which he said made it impossible to determine who was involved in the emails. Biggs called the redactions a "gross abuse of power" that ignored Alaska's laws requiring transparency. Biggs appealed the redactions to Assembly Chair LaFrance, and an executive assembly meeting for the appeal was subsequently held.

Assemblymember Christopher Constant said a majority of the Assembly agreed to keep the records redacted, asserting that the redacted information was covered by attorney-client privilege related to the crafting of legislation.

In his post, Biggs, as he has done similarly in the past, asserted there was a political machine at work in the Muni working to subvert the rights of Anchorage citizens on the wrong side of their politics. He illustrated, as an example, that the office of the Anchorage Municipal Clerk had previously engaged in "obstruction."

Biggs "blue" it: Unredacted email addresses show no trace of TBA

Well, I am happy to announce that we can put the nonsensical cover-up allegation to rest because last week, Mr. Biggs, through his lawyer, received the documents from Assembly Counsel Dean Gates, whose office made revisions to the previously released redacted records.

While some of the content included in the records released to Biggs remains redacted due to attorney-client privilege, none of the search terms in Biggs' records request yields any results related to The Blue Alaskan, although some email addresses such as non-Muni addresses remain redacted.

Given that the vast majority of the emails contained in the record request are dated long before The Blue Alaskan began blogging and since I have never been involved in the crafting of legislation, that The Blue Alaskan does not appear in the release of records is unsurprising.

Must Read Alaska, which was likely fed the latest emails released to Biggs last week, published a nothing burger blog post yesterday detailing how a smart person helped craft legislation that resulted in Anchorage banning the dangerous practice of gay conversion therapy.

Truly riveting — so much for Anchorage's alleged "political machine," and the "coverup" said to have been underway! Still, the takeaway from this whole sad affair is how misinformation irresponsibly spreads across social media and gives rise to conspiracy theories borne out of conjecture and speculation. Mixing and matching unrelated events and topics in an attempt to reach a conclusion (especially when relying on redacted documents) almost never ends well.

We would do well to remember this madness when and if Mayor Bronson releases redacted messages between himself and former Anchorage Police Chief Ken McCoy — messages I assume Bronson will claim to exonerate him from having engaged in any impropriety.