VCA Targets MAGA
The People Who Built This Doctrine Diagnosed the Republican Party as a Cult — Then Used the Same Tool to Prosecute One.
The people who promote the use of the Victim-Centered Approach for “cult” prosecutions publicly diagnosed the Republican Party as a cult — and briefed members of Congress on how to use it against their political opponents.
The Rehabilitation
A Tool Built by a Man Who Wants to Prosecute Trump
In 2019, Steven Hassan published The Cult of Trump (Simon & Schuster), in which he applied his own BITE Model to President Trump, his 74 million supporters, and the Republican Party. Raskin’s own characterization of the Republican Party as “almost like a religious cult surrounding an organized crime family” is quoted in the book’s Introduction — and Raskin later featured Hassan at his Democracy Summer program. The same Hassan — same BITE Model, same analytical framework — supplied the analytical framework of the OneTaste forced labor prosecution, though he never testified in it.
Beginning in 2017, Steven Hassan — author of the BITE Model checklist used to identify “cult” organizations — was brought into Harvard’s forensic psychiatry network PIPATL under Research Director Michael Commons.
Hassan documented the goal in his own 2020 dissertation acknowledgments:
“He convinced me that the best way to influence the legal system was for me to do quantitative research on my BITE model and publish it. He urged me to go to Fielding to do a doctoral program as a steppingstone to becoming an established and more credentialed expert witness. He told me that doing solid scientific research and participating in precedent-setting cases were the ways the legal system changes.”
And on page 108 of that dissertation:
“The authoritarian control construct can be utilized on a case-by-case basis and hopefully can help establish a new legal precedent.”
His stated position on the President is not analytical. On November 17, 2020, he posted: “Trump is the head of a death cult.” On January 6, 2021: “Many people need to be held accountable and need to be tried and sent to jail. Trump too!” In August 2025, he thanked Trump “for modeling to the world the stereotypical profile of all authoritarian cult leaders: malignant narcissism.”
This was not academic research. It was a deployment plan. The doctoral program was a legal strategy instrument.
Federal Adoption
The Government’s Own Coordinator Confirmed It
Paul Chang, DOL Regional Anti-Human Trafficking Coordinator, on Hassan’s podcast (April 2023):
“The best way to explain this is through the BITE model… this has been very useful for understanding the grooming process of human trafficking victims as well.”
“For labor trafficking, you have force, restraint, threat of harm, abuse, threatened abuse of the legal system — any scheme or plan or pattern intended to cause somebody to believe that if they don’t do that work, they’re gonna suffer serious harm or restraint. So as you can see the similarities between behavioral, informational, thought, and emotional control, this process almost mirrors what you’ve listed in your BITE model.”
Chang also confirmed he personally attended Hassan’s doctoral dissertation defense. A sitting federal coordinator used the framework operationally, and personally attended its academic credentialing event.
Political Deployment
Before It Was a Criminal Weapon, It Was a Political One
The same framework — same author, same checklist — was deployed systematically against a political movement. These are documented statements from the congressional record, official government proceedings, and on-camera appearances.
| Date | Actor | Quote / Action |
|---|---|---|
| March 6, 2019 |  Rep. Jamie Raskin | “The whole Republican Party now is almost like a religious cult surrounding an organized crime family.” — The Hill/Rising |
| October 2019 | Steven Hassan | The Cult of Trump published (Simon & Schuster), quoting Raskin’s characterization in the Introduction. |
| August 3, 2020 | Rep. Jamie Raskin | “The Republican Party has become a ‘religious cult’ of President Donald Trump.” — MSNBC |
| February 14, 2021 | Rep. Jamie Raskin | “There’s no reasoning with people who basically are acting like members of a religious cult and when they leave office should be selling flowers at Dulles Airport.” — after Senate acquittal (Newsweek) |
| January 11, 2022 | Rep. Jamie Raskin | Replies to Hassan directly on X: “Dr. Hassan, that’s a great offer. Thank you. We need your expertise and wisdom. Following up.” |
| April 13, 2022 | Steven Hassan | Attends a Raskin fundraiser in Brookline, MA: “I am grateful Rep. Jamie Raskin came to Brookline last night for a fundraiser!” — on X |
| April 21, 2022 | Rep. Jamie Raskin | “I have literally been consulting deprogrammers to try to figure out how to talk to them and how to pull them away…” — Georgetown University |
| September 2022 | Rep. Jamie Raskin | Calls Trump a “cult leader” in a House floor speech; Hassan amplifies it the same week. |
| March 23, 2023 | Rep. Jamie Raskin | “The GOP has turned into a messianic cult of personality around one guy…” — MSNBC |
| August 17, 2023 | Rep. Jamie Raskin | “Trump has transformed Lincoln’s party; he runs it like a religious cult.” — MSNBC |
| September 27, 2023 | Rep. Jamie Raskin | Confirms at American University that his Democracy Summer program featured Hassan: “we have Cult Deprogrammers come and talk about… There’s a guy who’s written a book called The Cult of Trump.” |
| October 6, 2023 |  Hillary Clinton | “Maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members.” — CNN |
| January 12, 2024 | Rep. Jamie Raskin | “They’re going to be fit only for selling flowers and incense at Dulles Airport.” — MSNBC |
| March 20, 2024 | Rep. Jamie Raskin | “my GOP colleagues continue to cry ‘Russia hoax’ like cult members selling flowers at the airport” — House Oversight Committee (official record) |
| August 20, 2024 |  Barack Obama | “the other party had turned into a cult of personality” — Democratic National Convention |
“Selling flowers at the airport” is Unification Church imagery — Hassan’s own origin community. Raskin deployed it twice in the congressional record.
“I met with Jamie Raskin in person a few years ago, and we sat for two hours as he picked my brain. He later read three of my books and my doctoral dissertation on applying trafficking law to update the law about undue influence.”
The Defector Pipeline
The Defector Pipeline
The framework’s witnesses are manufactured from disaffected insiders. Former associates of the President have appeared on Hassan’s program and adopted his vocabulary:
- Michael Cohen, the President’s personal attorney for twelve years, appeared on the podcast in January 2023 and again in July 2024 — confessing he had been in “The Cult of Trump” and describing becoming “mesmerized.”
- Lev Parnas described himself in January 2020 as “waking up from a cult” and the President as a “cult leader” (MSNBC), then appeared on the podcast.
- Omarosa Manigault Newman closed her 2018 book: “I’ve escaped from the cult of Trumpworld. I’m free.”
- Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director (August 23, 2019): “It’s like a hostage crisis inside the @WhiteHouse and the hostages have Stockholm Syndrome. @realDonaldTrump as rev Jim Jones.”
- George Conway, the Republican attorney, said his own wife — the President’s senior counselor — was “in a cult” (December 2019), then wrote the foreword to the September 2024 re-release of The Cult of Trump.
- Alva Johnson, the Trump campaign’s 2016 Director of Outreach and Coalitions, appeared on the podcast in January 2024 to describe “cult-building tactics” inside the campaign itself.
- Multiple January 6 defendants have appeared on the podcast attributing their conduct to psychological coercion.
Hassan has described the pattern himself: “My book, The Cult of Trump, continues to be validated by people who are exiting: Michael Cohen, Joe Walsh, Lev Parnas, Denver Riggleman, David Weissman, and Pam Hemphill, to name just a few.”
Proof of Concept
OneTaste Was the Test. It Worked.
In April 2023 — weeks after the DOJ filed a brief arguing that religious institutional authority is not a defense to forced labor charges — the Eastern District of New York indicted Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz.
The prosecution told the jury: “It’s not about whether these victims actually suffered serious harm… That is absolutely not the question of this trial.” In the government’s own words on rebuttal: “They’re being whittled down into the various things that they identified it as brainwashing, loss of identity, loss of self esteem, exhaustion. That is serious harm that left them feeling like they had no choice.” — AUSA Kayla Bensing, rebuttal closing, United States v. Cherwitz, June 5, 2025, Trial Tr. 5216.
A framework rejected as junk science in 1990 produced a federal conviction in 2025. The mechanism is proven.
The Next Targets
Hassan Named the Next Targets on Record
1. The Cult of Trump
Hassan, October 2019. Applied the BITE Model to President Trump, his 74 million supporters, and the Republican Party.
2. MAHA: America’s New Wellness Cult
Hassan, August 21, 2025. Applied the BITE Model to the Make America Healthy Again movement and RFK Jr. Published after the OneTaste conviction proved the mechanism produces prison sentences.
3. Religious organizations
DOJ COPS Office, 2023: “Among the most notable labor trafficking trends in recent years is forced labor perpetrated by religious organizations.” DOJ amicus brief, Sherman v. Trinity Teen Solutions (Diocese of Cheyenne), March 2023: psychological coercion without physical force satisfies §1589; religious institutional authority is not a defense; parental consent is not a defense. Seven weeks later, the OneTaste indictment.
The conviction is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a template.
The Communities, Documented
MAGA & The Republican Party
The designation record: the book, the briefings, the defector roster →
MAHA & Health Freedom
The same framework, aimed at the movement’s next designated target →
Sources
Source Documents
- United States v. Fishman, 743 F. Supp. 713 (N.D. Cal. 1990)
- Hassan dissertation, Fielding Graduate University (2020), p. 108 and acknowledgments
- Paul Chang, DOL Regional Anti-Human Trafficking Coordinator, Hassan podcast (April 2023)
- Rep. Jamie Raskin, The Hill (March 2019); CNN (February 2021); House Oversight Committee (March 2024); Georgetown University (April 2022)
- Hillary Clinton, CNN (October 6, 2023)
- Barack Obama, DNC address (August 20, 2024)
- DOJ COPS Office, “Recent Labor Trafficking Cases and Trends” (2023)
- DOJ Civil Rights Division amicus brief, Sherman v. Trinity Teen Solutions, No. 22-8080 (10th Cir., March 7, 2023)
- Hassan, “MAHA: America’s New Wellness Cult” (August 21, 2025)