GeezerVison

Ron Filipkowski (born October 30, 1968)^[1][2] is an American criminal defense attorney and former state and federal prosecutor who is known for sharing political clips and commentary on social media.^[2][3] He is the editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch Network, a liberal news website.^[4]

Filipkowski grew up on Cape Cod^[5] with his mother, a single parent. He worked to pay his college fees.^[2]

Filipkowski served as a Marine from 1986 to 1990.^[6] In 2008, Filipkowski ran on the Republican ticket for public defender in Florida's 12th Judicial Circuit. He was elected president of the Republican Club of South Sarasota County in 2009 and 2010.^[5][2] In December 2020, Filipkowski resigned from his judicial nominating committee appointment, citing Florida governor Ron DeSantis's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. His departure came a day after data analyst Rebekah Jones had her home raided by Florida's Department of Law Enforcement.^[3][2]

Prior to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Filipkowski started tracking far-right extremists on social media, working with two anonymous researchers to monitor livestreamed events, social media, podcasts and radio shows and post their findings on Twitter.^[7][5] In February 2022, Filipkowski said he and his team had turned over "hundreds of very obscure interviews and podcasts from the planners, leaders and participants" of the January 6 Capitol attack to the January 6 Committee.^[8]

Filipkowski is the editor-in-chief of the liberal news website MeidasTouch Network.^[2] He has written opinion pieces for The Daily Beast.^[9] In 2024, he said, "The Meidas guys, as a team, said: We are going to do this to Trump. We are going to hit every gaffe, every mispronunciation, every slurred word, every mispronounced name, every time he mixes up a name. We're going to clip that and we're going to put it out and we're going to put it in montages. No one else was doing that."^[10]

Filipkowski was a member of the Republican Party until January 2021, when he registered as a Democrat following the January 6 Capitol attack.^[7][2] He describes himself as a moderate Democrat.^[5] Filipkowski is critical of Donald Trump and DeSantis.^[11][2] During the 2020 election cycle, Filipkowski recorded a video consisting of reasons he thought the Republican Party should not re-elect Trump as part of an ad campaign by Republican Voters Against Trump, a group launched by Bill Kristol.^[2]

In December 2020, Filipkowski criticized DeSantis's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic as "reckless and irresponsible". Following a raid on Rebekah Jones's home, he suggested that she was targeted for questioning DeSantis's approach to the pandemic.^[3][2] After Jones's accusations of being fired for not manipulating COVID-19 data were determined to be unfounded, Filipkowski has since criticized her as a "fraud" and a "grifter".^[2]

Filipkowski is married. He and his wife have five children; their first son is named Ronald Reagan Filipkowski.^[2] Filipkowski has coached a Little League Baseball team, leading it to six state championships. In 2010, he was named the 13-U National Coach of the Year by the baseball publication Travel Ball Select.^[2] In 2011, he published a manual for youth baseball coaches titled Travelball: How to Start and Manage a Successful Travel Baseball Team.^[12][2] Filipkowski ran triathlons, competing in the national championship when he was 50. He later suffered nerve damage to his foot while running sprints, preventing him from running.^[2]

• Ron Filipkowski on Bluesky
• Ron Filipkowski on X