Bohemian Grove membership leak: bohemian grove camp list from 2023 surfaced
The bohemian grove camp membership list for 2023 was published by independent journalist Daniel Boguslaw, who says he obtained the full retreat list and released it Wednesday. The list identifies roughly 2, 200 people and includes Paul Pelosi, Jimmy Buffett, Conan O’Brien, Michael and Eric Schmidt as members as recently as 2023.
How the list was obtained
Boguslaw says he obtained the list in 2024 by pestering a San Francisco club member. He described driving to the Bay Area from Massachusetts after getting his hands on a 2017 attendance list, and staying in a Tenderloin single-room-occupancy hotel while he pursued the local member. "I went to this person’s office for a week straight, " he said. Weeks later he found longer-term lodging in West Oakland. One night, while he was drinking at Eli’s Mile High Club, a courier appeared with two manila envelopes. Inside was the 2023 camp membership list.
Bohemian Grove membership details
The 2023 camp membership list, as published, contains around 2, 200 people, many of whom are not widely known. The coverage notes "many, many Bay Area pooh-bahs are on it. " Among named celebrity and public figures on the list are Paul Pelosi, Jimmy Buffett (described in the coverage as a Florida man), Conan O’Brien, Michael, Eric Schmidt, documentarian Ken Burns, actor Jim Belushi, Henry Kissinger, Mike and Charles Koch.
Club response and privacy stance
Bohemian Club spokesperson Sam Singer said the club is private and does not disclose its list of members or guests. The published membership list has been described as a camp membership list and does not necessarily represent the full membership to the club, which meets at a building in San Francisco.
History of attempts to enter
The reporting places the latest leak in a longer history of journalists trying to get inside the Bohemian Grove campground in Monte Rio in Sonoma County. Since the 1980s, journalists have reportedly tried to enter by posing as waiters, lost hikers and guests. A San Francisco-based magazine succeeded with an inside account in 1981 and described the club as a place where "men who make decisions that affect us all gather quietly. " Alex Jones managed to film a ceremony at the grove that fueled conspiracy theories for decades. A Vanity Fair reporter, Alex Shoumatoff, was arrested after posing as a member in 2008. In 1991, a People magazine story by San Francisco bureau chief Dirk Mathison was reportedly killed after Mathison hiked into the compound and was recognized by an executive from Time Warner, the magazine’s parent company, who promptly axed his story. And in 2018 an Outside magazine reporter, Chris Colin, was threatened simply for kayaking up to the high water line of the compound’s beach along the Russian River.
Aftermath and reactions
Boguslaw said his story had been slated to run in another outlet but that the outlet "got cold feet. " He said, "They spiked it in this really stupid way. They were so freaked out. " He also said he is not worried about blowback: "I’m confident in my reporting, and I’d like to see them try to fuck with me. " The other outlet did not respond to a request for comment, the reporting notes.
For now, the newly published camp membership list is the focal point of public attention on the private retreat at Monte Rio in Sonoma County and the long-running attempts by journalists to penetrate the grove’s secrecy.
