Infamous LARPing MSNBC hack Malcolm Nance is being accused of stolen valor by The New York Times after an extensive report dropped detailing the questionable escapades of numerous American “warfighters” who went to Ukraine.
As RedState reported back in mid-2022, Nance’s claims have rarely matched reality as he’s tried to paint himself as some sort of operator.
In reality, Nance has been cos-playing in safe parts of Ukraine while attempting to exert influence and gain clout. There is no evidence he’s ever fired his rifle in anger while in the country, and his military background is in cryptology, not any form of combat.
Nance has even managed to weave one of his favorite subjects into his “service” in Ukraine. Namely, accusing anyone he doesn’t like of being a Russian agent. That’s a line he used many, many times on MSNBC to attack Donald Trump on those around him.
Malcolm Nance, a former Navy cryptologist and MSNBC commentator, arrived in Ukraine last year and made a plan to bring order and discipline to the Legion. Instead, he became enmeshed in the chaos.
Today, Mr. Nance is involved in a messy, distracting power struggle. Often, that plays out on Twitter, where Mr. Nance taunted one former ally as “fat” and an associate of “a verified con artist.”
He accused a pro-Ukraine fund-raising group of fraud, providing no evidence. After arguing with two Legion administrators, Mr. Nance wrote a “counterintelligence” report trying to get them fired. Central to that report is an accusation that one Legion official, Emese Abigail Fayk, fraudulently tried to buy a house on an Australian reality TV show with money she didn’t have. He labeled her “a potential Russian spy,” offering no evidence. Ms. Fayk denied the accusations and remains with the Legion.
Mr. Nance said that as a member of the Legion with an intelligence background, when he developed concerns, he “felt an obligation to report this to Ukrainian counterintelligence.”
You have to love that Nance is so full of himself that he wrote an “intelligence report,” something he has no authority to do, and was rebuffed by Ukrainian officials. This guy is apparently so deep in his delusion, having been affirmed so many times on social media (his announcement post about going to Ukraine currently has 175,000 likes), that he truly believed he’s not just some faker with no real combat or intelligence experience.
And while Nance is no longer in Ukraine, he’s partnered up with another LARPer to “fund-raise.” Ben Lackey, who was part of the Ukrainian International Legion, has now been exposed by the Pentagon as having lied about his previous military experience. In short, he has none and instead worked for a steakhouse as a waiter.
The dispute goes to the heart of who can be trusted to speak for and raise money for the Legion.
Mr. Nance has left Ukraine but continues fund-raising with a new group of allies. One of them, Ben Lackey, is a former Legion member. He told his fellow volunteers that he was once a Marine and wrote on LinkedIn that he had most recently been an assistant manager at LongHorn Steakhouse. In fact, the Pentagon said he had no military experience (and he worked as a server, the steakhouse said).
To recap, Nance has used the war in Ukraine as a way to bolster his media profile, misleading people and almost certainly doing more harm than good along the way. That MSNBC partially enabled this shouldn’t be forgotten either.
War is not a game. Not even in the over-exposed information age that is the 21st century. Real people are dying in Ukraine every single day, and anyone that would use that situation for online clout should be roundly condemned and banished from ever being taken seriously again. Nance fits that profile. He’s a con artist who allegedly never had any official role in Ukraine while prancing around in a clean kit pretending to fight the Russians. It’s despicable.
