The founder of the controversial Operation Underground Railroad, also known as OUR, has resigned. According to a Vice News investigation, Tim Ballard quietly stepped down from the group, which claims to fight child sex trafficking, weeks ago after multiple allegations (at least seven, but potentially more) from women saying he made unwanted sexual advances in a variety of unsavory ways.
Ballard, a former adviser to the Trump administration on child sex trafficking, was the subject of the surprisingly successful “Sound of Freedom” film, starring QAnon believer Jim Caviezel. Vice News has been investigating Ballard’s Utah-based organization for some time. Their newest report says that Ballard allegedly asked women to act as his “wife” during undercover missions abroad, in service of saving supposed kidnapped children. According to multiple sources, Ballard’s M.O. included trying to “coerce those women into sharing a bed or showering together, claiming that it was necessary to fool traffickers.”
A spokesperson for Operation Underground Railroad acknowledged that Ballard resigned his position “on June 22, 2023. He has permanently separated from O.U.R.” After reaffirming the organization’s dedication to “combatting sexual abuse,” OUR says it “retained an independent law firm to conduct a comprehensive investigation of all relevant allegations, and O.U.R. continues to assess and improve the governance of the organization and protocols for its operations.”
However, citing “the integrity of its investigation,” the organization would not “make any further public comment at this time.”
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Ballard founded OUR in 2013, and the group gained traction online with the growing conspiracy movement on the right. Groups like QAnon seem to excel at fabricating and connecting conspiracy theories involving sex and children (see: Pizzagate) and sell it as a moral panic, which creates fertile ground for fundraising. Ballard’s OUR promised a paramilitary approach to rescuing children being trafficked around the world and in the United States that was reminiscent of Vietnam POW-rescue fantasies from B-movies like Chuck Norris’ “Missing in Action.”
The fact that the “pandemic” of child sex trafficking, as OUR proponents describe it, doesn’t exist has not stopped people like Ballard from promoting the outdated misinformation that 800,000 American children are kidnapped every year. According to The Atlantic, the Justice Department’s actual estimate for “nonfamily abductions” reported was 12,100, and “Later in the report, the authors noted that ‘only a fraction of 1 percent of the children who were reported missing had not been recovered’ by the time they were counted for the study.”
Ballard has a very dubious history when it comes to the veracity of claims regarding OUR’s actual success in their purported mission. His resignation was first suspected back in July, after an anonymous letter circulated among donors and employees of OUR. At the time, the organization would only say Ballard had “stepped away.”
This news comes just days after Deseret News reported that Ballard is considering a Senate run in Utah after Mitt Romney announced he will not seek reelection. But the run has already encountered a formidable speed bump: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose president happens to share Ballard’s last name. The LDS released a statement disavowing Ballard in no uncertain terms:
[Emphasis added:]
President Ballard and Tim Ballard (no relation) established a friendship a number of years ago. That friendship was built on a shared interest in looking after God’s children wherever they are and without regard to their circumstance. However, that relationship is in the past. For many months, President Ballard has had no contact with the founder of Operation Underground Railroad (OUR). The nature of that relationship was always in support of vulnerable children being abused, trafficked, and otherwise neglected. Once it became clear Tim Ballard had betrayed their friendship, through the unauthorized use of President Ballard’s name for Tim Ballard’s personal advantage and activity regarded as morally unacceptable, President Ballard withdrew his association. President Ballard never authorized his name, or the name of the Church, to be used for Tim’s personal or financial interests.
In addition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints never endorsed, supported or represented OUR, Tim Ballard or any projects associated with them.
President Ballard loves children, all over the world. It has been his mission and life’s work to look after them, care for them, and point them to their Savior.
Sounds a lot like a dirtbag con man. It’s no wonder the Trump White House welcomed him with open arms.
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