RFK Jr. Acolyte Would Like To Free Elizabeth Holmes Now, Please (Also, The Tiger King)
Jessica Reed Kraus claims Holmes would be a MAHA hero if she were out today. Of course she would.
For the most part, I am on Team Prison Abolition — particularly in the United States, where we regularly and proudly violate pretty much every one of the Mandela Rules, the international law meant to govern prison conditions, as a matter of course. However, I’m also aware that this is not really something that is on the table at this point, and as long as we do have prisons, I’m a whole lot more concerned about the wrongly convicted, juveniles convicted as adults, the death penalty, and those serving unjustly long sentences than I am about the tragic plights of rich fraudsters. In fact, they’re pretty much last on the list.
Not so for mommyblogger turned anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist Jessica Reed Kraus! Oh no. She is on a mission to rehabilitate the image of Elizabeth Holmes, the woman who ruined black turtlenecks for blonde women everywhere … and also made millions with a bullshit “technology” her company falsely claimed could provide quick blood test results on the cheap.
It’s not surprising when you consider that the Make America Healthy Again movement with which Kraus is associated is notably enamored with snake oil bullshit. If they’re all comfortable with promoting bad science as it pertains to vaccines, why not also promote a company making millions off of devices that tell women that they are miscarrying when they are doing no such thing, or that they are not pregnant when in fact they have an ectopic pregnancy that could kill them if not treated immediately.
Last month, I invited my trusted MAHA crew to my office for a lunch briefing on the latest HHS news. Most had been part of the movement long before it evolved into a national cause. Over Greek food in compostable containers, we dissected RFK’s latest pressers, including new Tylenol and autism data, delayed shot schedules, and the growing push for wearables (none of them are fans). This circle is always ahead on the latest fringe health trends. It’s where I first learned about salmon sperm facials and holistic doctors encouraging us to drink our urine for its natural antioxidants.
Just to interject here — salmon sperm facials are fine and actually based in science (Medicube has a great serum and moisturizer), but definitely do not do that other thing.
Eventually, our conversation circled back to Elizabeth Holmes—after all, they were the ones who had prompted me to revisit her case, to understand why her sentencing upset them so much. They pointed out two facts I hadn’t known: first, that Holmes never sold her stock, and second, that she had been cleared of charges related to harming patients. Her conviction, they explained, was for wire fraud—specifically, for misleading wealthy investors. In other words, the jury had to determine whether her failures stemmed from genuine misjudgment or deliberate deceit. They chose the latter. Holmes was sentenced to eleven years in prison—three more than the eight-year term given to the trans person who attempted to assassinate a Supreme Court Justice.
Quick break here to note how outrageous this is — that Sophie Roske was sentenced to eight years at all. She did not “attempt” to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, although she pleaded guilty to it; she did nothing to him at all, and turned herself in for even thinking about it. She will also be on supervised release for the rest of her life. This is far more prison time than nine of those who plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer got.
It is true that Holmes was convicted on charges of defrauding rich people who had invested money into Theranos, and acquitted on the charges of defrauding patients directly. This does not mean that she did not defraud patients or that her company did not. They absolutely, unquestioningly did, which is why her former partner Sunny Balwani was convicted of both of those things. The reason Holmes wasn’t convicted was because they couldn’t definitively prove that she set out to intentionally defraud patients, and a juror who spoke to the podcast The Dropout said that they thought she was too far removed from patients to have defrauded them.
She probably should have been charged with reckless endangerment instead. But the judge recognized the harm she caused to patients, which is why she was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
At our lunch date, one woman had just returned from a biohacking conference and shared insights from blood industry experts. Excessive vials were rarely necessary, and the finger-prick method, now standard for targeted testing, is exactly what Holmes championed years before it became widely recognized. Her point was clear: she was ahead of her time.
Except for how her machines did not work and told people they had diseases they didn’t actually have?
Many still think of Theranos, in which a faulty machine dramatically spews blood as a defunct prop, as the source of her downfall. Digging deeper, I found another (more practical angle) that framed Holmes as a catastrophic threat to a trillion-dollar industry controlled by conglomerates, with masked Pfizer interests looming.
Yeah, no, I’m pretty certain that she went to prison for defrauding people with that machine.
There is something darkly hilarious about Republicans who oppose single payer healthcare claiming to be the ones who are a big threat to the pharmaceutical companies. Especially when talking about a person who marketed a machine that falsely told people they were sick when they were not, which could have led them to seek medication or failed to tell people they were sick when they were not, requiring them to need more serious medications down the road.
My crew joked that if Holmes emerged today, she would be counted among the innovators MAHA endorses.
Well, that is one thing we can agree on.
One might think that this would be the point at which Kraus makes a case for Holmes’s innocence. It is not! In fact, we do not ever come to such a point. Instead of making that case, she instead talks about how Holmes is working out and eating healthy in prison, how she misses her kids and is starting a book club on Xitter, where she appears to be very active.
She offers entrepreneurial advice and reflections on health, faith, and balance, and she praises cultural figures such as Elon Musk, RFK Jr., and Charlie Kirk while following a wildly eclectic mix that includes J.K. Rowling, Rick Rubin, Tucker Carlson, Kai Trump, and President Trump, whom she credits for policy reforms that have positively impacted her and others in prison.
Oh my, that is wildly eclectic. What a good reason to give someone a pardon so that they can go back into the world and come up with more ways to scam people
Sadly, Kraus did not bother to even mention Holmes’s reported BFFship with fellow fraudster Jen Shah of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, who is helping her tone her abs. The two also reportedly put on an RHOSLC play for the prison in which Holmes played cast member Whitney Rose.
Kraus may want to start watching the show, however, should she be seeking more insights into salmon sperm.
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Holmes is not, however, the only felon Kraus is stanning for. Kraus is also deeply concerned with the plight of noted animal abuser Joe Exotic, whom she would also like to see get a pardon. Mr. Exotic, as you may remember, is currently serving a sentence of four years for 17 counts of wildlife-related crimes, including violating the Lacey Act and the Endangered Species Act and 17 years on two counts of murder-for-hire, over that time he tried to have his rival Carole Baskin killed.
Mr. Exotic insists that the real reason he was imprisoned was because he was opposed to the Big Cat Safety Act, which barred the private ownership of lions and tigers and other big cats and was obviously a very good idea given that one of his pals was just mauled to death by one of the tigers at his own private zoo back in September (those who owned big cats prior to the bill being signed into law were grandfathered in, and unluckily enough for Ryan Easley, he was one of them). He claims that he, just like Trump, was the victim of a weaponized DOJ that was clearly in the palm of Carole Baskin’s hand.
The more likely explanation remains that he, like Holmes, was convicted because he did some illegal things.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Being a celebrity and a criminal is now the highest attainment in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs . . .
"MAHA" is the stupidest fucking acronym since...MAGA.