‘Former Turning Point USA Youth Events Coordinator Adam Hageman Sentenced to 66 Months …’

On September 28 2022, an Imgur screenshot of a contemporaneous tweet claimed that a youth coordinator for right-wing campus activist group Turning Point USA, Adam Hageman, was sentenced to 66 months in prison in connection with a “child pornography case”:

For additional context, “TPUSA” or Turning Point USA is, according to SourceWatch:

…a right-wing youth and student group, with a mission to “identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.”^[1] The group funnels money to right-wing candidates for student government at universities across the country and has faced numerous allegations of racial discrimination. Turning Point USA is funded by a variety of right-wing mega-donors with a history of flooding the political process with money, including the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, Foster Friess, Michael Leven and various Koch brothers-affiliated groups, such as the Foundation for Economic Education, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.

The group was founded by right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in 2012. It claims to be the “largest and fastest growing youth organization in America” with “a presence on over 1,300 college campuses and high schools across the country.”^[1]

In 2022, the organization leaned heavily into the disinformation narrative labeling anything to do with being gay as “grooming.”

TPUSA described Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill as “anti-groomer legislation,” and separately called Pride month “groomer month” in an alarmist blog post in July 2022:

Well, groomer month is over. This past month of June [2022] has been absolutely horrific and depraved. We saw children being brought into gay bars in Dallas, being taught to hand money to twerking drag queens by adults who clearly have no concept of reality. I myself went to Pride LA and witnessed multiple children horrified at men walking around with BDSM puppy play attire on, half-naked, as parents just watched on approval …

Screenshots in Imgur posts are sometimes cropped without visible dates; in this case, the second tweet in the first thread provided context from September 2021. It displayed graphic detail in images of court documents, and the tweet itself read:

This story is something else. Adam Hageman was working as a TPUSA events coordinator when he expressed his desire to rape 12-16 year olds to other members of a child pornography ring…

A Google News search on September 29 2022 returned a single Politico.com piece from March 5 2021, reporting on Hageman’s November 2020 arrest and validating the existence of the charges:

A Trump Commerce Department official has been jailed since November on federal charges of receiving and possession of child pornography.

Adam Hageman, 25, is accused of “sharing a child pornography video and commenting several times on sexually abusing children” as captured in graphic messages in an online chat, according to a complaint in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.

Politico.com explained the details of the complaint at length. Toward the end of the piece, the outlet explained Hageman’s connection with TPUSA via a LinkedIn profile:

The LinkedIn profile bearing Hageman’s name shows that prior to joining the Commerce Department the user was a Phoenix-based events administrator for Turning Point USA, a group for young conservatives whose events have frequently drawn top Trump administration officials — including the former president himself.

A separate September 28 2022 Imgur post covered the sentencing, also showing a tweet and court documents:

That tweet offered a link to a PDF on CourtListener.com, a seven-page document (“Judgment in a Criminal Case” in the matter of United States of America vs. Adam Hageman) which indicated that the defendant pleaded guilty to one count of “Receipt of Child Pornography,” and that he was subsequently sentenced to 66 months in prison.

A popular tweet shared to Imgur claimed that former Turning Point USA (or TPUSA) coordinator Adam Hageman was sentenced to 66 months in jail on charges related to child pornography. One of two tweets shared to Imgur linked to a legitimate document showing that Hageman entered a plea of “guilty” and remanded into federal custody in September 2022.