The son of Indian immigrants,convicted drug dealer, Bannon acolyte and George Santos staffer.
You have to read this whole thing because it is literally unbelievable. These excerpts alone are enough to make you grab for the tequila bottle. I pick it up in the middle:
During his college years, Burra built what he described to TPM as a drug dealing “empire.” It came crashing down in mid-2014 when he was busted with over two pounds of marijuana and a small amount of hallucinogens. Burra said he got into the business in pursuit of “respect.”
“I wanted people to realize that I was the best in the room,” he explained.
Not long after Burra’s drug bust, Trump launched his first presidential campaign. Burra found himself increasingly pulled to the world of Republican politics. Trump’s contradictory brand of hypercapitalist anti-establishment populism spoke to Burra.
“I’ve had my own red pilling experiences slowly over time, but it all clicked with Trump,” Burra said, using an online right phrase for awakening.
Criminals do tend to be attracted to him. He explains that he went against all his family and friends and lo ed the feeling and decided to go all MAGA:
Shortly after Trump took office in 2017, Burra got in deeper. He went to his first meeting of the Staten Island Young Republicans, and also checked out the New York Young Republican Club, which bills itself as the nation’s “oldest and largest” and touts its connections to presidents Lincoln and Taft. The organization was also recently in the headlines for hosting a December 2022 gala at which Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Donald Trump Jr., Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon brushed shoulders with PizzaGate promoting conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec and white nationalist couple Peter and Lydia Brimelow. Also in attendance: A just-elected member of Congress from Long Island who would soon cause a good deal of controversy. The next week, the New York Times would publish its expose that began the deluge of questions about George Santos’ resume and revelations about the shifting and largely fabricated life story he told while campaigning.
But the organization that hosted that gala was not the same organization Burra joined. Not yet. In Burra’s telling, despite its storied history, the New York Young Republican Club was “underutilized” at the start of the Trump era and suffering from stuffy, sparsely attended events.
“That’s where I started making my plans, and my moves, and started using my street smarts and my guile to like organize and get in front of people … just kind of like showing that I’ve got the verve, I know what you want, and you’ve got to roll with me to get it,” said Burra.
In that 2022 YouTube interview, Burra suggested booze was a key part of that strategy.
“One thing I do understand about New Yorkers is we love to party, and we love to get together and drink, hang out, and have fun,” Burra said. “That’s a way to organize young people that I know works personally. … I could organize 50 people around eating a Snickers bar in New York if you told them there’s a cocktail.”
Inside the club, Burra teamed up with Gavin Wax, an activist that he has called his “partner in crime.” By 2018, the pair managed to take over the club’s leadership, with Wax becoming president and Burra being named vice president. In an emailed statement to TPM, Wax brushed off criticisms of the organization’s associations with white nationalists and praised Burra.
“The New York Young Republican Club takes pride in being a forum for open and constructive dialogue. We host speakers of diverse viewpoints at our events, and we do not deny access to guests based on thoughtcrimes the media alleges them to have committed,” Wax wrote. “I have been proud to work alongside Vish to make the New York Young Republican Club the largest and most successful organization of its kind. We are proud of our objective successes, and we are undeterred by our opponents’ critiques.”
Their ascendance shocked members of the city’s more traditional GOP establishment. In an op-ed published that year, John William Schiffbauer, the former deputy communications director for the New York Republican State Committee, linked Burra and Wax with a leadership change at the Metropolitan Republican Club and said it meant the organizations that “form the backbone of the Manhattan GOP’s voter and volunteer base” were “now firmly under the control of Trumpist alt-right acolytes.”
Burra, who is currently the executive secretary of the New York Young Republican Club, has claimed the new leadership drove a surge in membership. Along with alcohol, their strategy involved leaning into militant rhetoric and aligning the organization openly with controversial far-right figures. While this may have scandalized more moderate Manhattan Republicans, it helped Burra win friends in Washington including Steve Bannon. Burra claims he first met Bannon through a “mentor” who he declined to identify saying he prefers to keep their relationship “close to the vest.” In November 2019, Bannon spoke at the Young Republicans’ annual gala where he invoked Napoleon: “When you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna,” he declared.
Bannon and Burra, who both tend to rush towards the spotlight and dramatically cast their strategies as military tactics, make a natural pair. Burra said he made an impression on the former Trump White House strategist and one month after that bash, he became a founding producer on Bannon’s podcast, “War Room.” He worked on the show for much of 2020, as it chronicled the pandemic, protests and Trump’s final year in office.
“I consider myself a man blessed with many mentors, but Steve is probably my greatest mentor, considering I was quarantined with him all through 2020,” said Burra.
Bannon declined to comment on this story.
Get a load of this:
Working on the show gave Burra a front-row seat as Bannon and Rudy Giuliani acquired a laptop that had belonged to then-candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. Burra has said he served as a “navigator” and used past experience as a software professional to make copies of the laptop as Bannon and Giuliani gave the data to reporters and others in an effort to generate stories criticizing the Biden family’s foreign business dealings and Hunter’s substance abuse. In his conversation with TPM, Burra described the episode as “one of my most proudest projects and accomplishments.”
He’s involved with Matt Gaetz too:
His time on Bannon’s “War Room” also connected Burra with leading figures on the MAGA right including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). Last April, after Gaetz placed a copy of the laptop into the congressional record, he had Burra on his own podcast to talk about the laptop affair.
“You were essentially Bannon and Giuliani’s Indian tech guy,” Gaetz quipped.
“I was their IT guy,” said Burra with a laugh.
Gaetz, according to Burra, admired his ability to “work with Steve and keep him happy.” The pair became close and Burra joined Gaetz’s congressional staff in mid-2021. A spokesperson for Gaetz did not respond to a request for comment.
There’s a whole lot more and it’s all astonishing.
This guy is now working for George Santos.
This is the Republican party.