Alexis Debat: One Well-Connected Faker

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Over the past month, former ABC News consultant / reporter and self-described "terrorism analyst" Alexis Debat has been exposed for "having published fake interviews with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Colin Powell and others," and having "falsely claimed credentials such as a Sorbonne PhD." Debat also had affiliations with two think tanks, the Nixon Center and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and the lobbying firm Jefferson Waterman International. In addition, Debat sought work with the PR firm the Lincoln Group, reports Laura Rozen. "Debat was introduced to a co-founder of the Lincoln Group, Paige Craig, at a Washington dinner party, and the two became friends," she writes. According to Craig, Debat had "done two hours of consulting work for Lincoln Group staff on the Horn of Africa." Lincoln CEO Ray Petty told Rozen that Debat "was supposed to get with some of my guys in Dubai ... but he was never an employee." Lincoln co-founder Christian Bailey said that "to the best of my knowledge, Debat has not worked for the Lincoln Group." Why all the job hustling? "In a practice not uncommon at think tanks," writes Rozen, "Debat's position at the Nixon Center required him to raise his own funds."