Anschutz’s name really should be familiar: His holdings include the country’s second-biggest movies chain, Regal Entertainment, and AEG Live runs a number of prominent events venues, among other things. The man’s politics have never been a secret. In 2003, OC Weekly wrote about the Anschutz Foundation—the philanthropy founded by Anschutz that is the source of the current controversy—noting that it had given money to a group whose goal was to stop “the militant gay agenda” and who claimed that “pedophilia is a basic part of the homosexual lifestyle.” Over the years, news accounts have mentioned Anschutz or his foundation supporting the likes of Focus on the Family and Rick Santorum while he bankrolled conservative-leaning movies and The Weekly Standard.

What ostensibly got it all started this time around was a (now deleted) blog post at Afropunk that praised the newly announced Coachella 2017 lineup but said that Anschutz’s “politics are icky, sticky with the slime of the swamp that folks like president-elect Trump loves to associate [with].” Uproxx aggregated the info about Anschutz’s donations to anti-LGBT groups and his ties to climate-change deniers, which then went viral to such an extent that AEG and Anschutz himself replied. The company said that “attempts to perpetuate and spread false news on a variety of topics are part of a long-running and coordinated attempt by our competitors to smear AEG” and touted “a supportive and inclusive environment that respects the rights of all employees, artists and fans, as well as promoting a philosophy of sustainability throughout the world.”

Anschuntz’s denial was more colorful, bearing some rhetorical trademarks of the current political moment:

Recent claims published in the media that I am anti-LGBTQ are nothing more than fake news—it is all garbage. I unequivocally support the rights of all people without regard to sexual orientation. We are fortunate to employ a wealth of diverse individuals throughout our family of companies, all of whom are important to us—the only criteria on which they are judged is the quality of their job performance; we do not tolerate discrimination in any form. Both The Anschutz Foundation and I contribute to numerous organizations that pursue a wide range of causes. Neither I nor the Foundation fund any organization with the purpose or expectation that it would finance anti-LGBTQ initiatives, and when it has come to my attention or the attention of The Anschutz Foundation that certain organizations either the Foundation or I have funded have been supporting such causes, we have immediately ceased all contributions to such groups.

It’s an odd reply because it can so easily be picked apart. Pitchfork quickly pulled financial disclosure documents showing that in the past five years the Anschutz Foundation has parceled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, and the National Christian Foundation. The first two organizations have clear histories of opposing gay rights; the National Christian Foundation provides significant funding for the Alliance Defending Freedom.