https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Johnson_(columnist)
In July 2014, Johnson was suspended from BuzzFeed when an online investigation exposed plagiarism in his posts. His writings "periodically lifted text from a variety of sources", including Yahoo Answers, Wikipedia, and U.S. News & World Report, "all without credit".[7][19] The plagiarized work comprised almost 10 percent of his work; he was subsequently fired from BuzzFeed and apologized for the plagiarism.[7]
In March 2017, IJR staffers accused Johnson of plagiarizing an article about then-House Republican Conference chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers.[20] Later in the same month Johnson was suspended by the IJR after his involvement in an article which asserted that judge Derrick Watson's partial blocking of Executive Order 13780 was connected to former president Barack Obama's visit to Hawaii. Johnson had been warned that the IJR could potentially be promoting a conspiracy theory, but assigned the story anyway.[20][21]
Again in March 2017, Johnson was reported to have been verbally abusive and driven numerous staffers away from the IJR due to his management style;[21] he was subsequently demoted.[11]
In August 2017, Johnson wrote an article containing the most controversial tweets of what he thought was the Boston antifa Twitter account, but it was actually a fake account intended to lampoon antifa. Initially an editorial note was added, and the article was later removed.[22][23][24]
In April 2022, The Verge published an investigation on Arsenal Media, a conservative boutique co-founded by Johnson. Former employees and contractors described dubious corporate practices, including payments delayed for months, contracts with political campaigns rife with self-dealing, and overworked and underpaid jobs. Johnson has been described as "very abusive, very toxic, screaming at people, like using profanity, vulgarity, making women cry, like pushing them to the edge."[25]
In August 2024, two Russian state media employees were charged with secretly funding almost $10 million to a Tennessee company for the production of political videos to benefit Russia by influencing the United States. The company's description matches that of Tenet Media, which had employed Johnson and other right-wing influencers, with him responding that "myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme", with a request being made for him to produce content for a "media startup", and that he had a "standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated."[26][27]
In August 2025, Johnson responded to a Truth Social post by President Donald Trump by posting a video on X (formerly Twitter) with the caption: "Here's a mass shooting and murder in my front lawn, followed by my house being set on fire with my wife and infant child inside." The claim was later proven false. A subsequent profile in The New York Times, citing official police and fire department reports, confirmed that the incident had in fact occurred at a neighbor's residence. Johnson had sensationalized details of the episode and falsely presented it as having taken place at his own home.[28]
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