Anna Wilding's Racist Ramblings
The Kiwi's quest for US Congress goes feral.
If you want to contact me in confidence about this story, I am: davidfarrier@protonmail.com
Hi,
Webworm is off to court this week, facing off against James Sved, the man who filed a lawsuit against me a few weeks ago – the day after I published this story about him on Webworm.
In case you’re new to this or just catching up – Sved is the American husband of Anna Wilding, the New Zealander currently running for US Congress.
I’ve been covering Wilding’s various adventures since this newsletter started, beginning with a piece in 2020 called “The Pretender”, which detailed her own proclivity for suing people.
With my own court case looming, now is a good time to say “thank you” for your Webworm subscription. I always put a percentage of your monthly or yearly subscription aside for legal costs. Lawyers are expensive here – between $600 and $900 an hour – so without you, this newsletter could very easily fold when someone takes legal action.
I will keep you up to date with how the case goes - including what the hell it’s actually about - but in the meantime, it’s fair to say that things in the world of James Sved and Anna Wilding (“Sved-ing?” “Wild-Sved?”) continue to spin out in strange, unhinged and unpredictable directions.
Anna Wilding: "Chinese Spies"
Anna Wilding appears to be doubling down in her approach of attacking other candidates running for Congress in California’s 32nd Congressional District, by making increasingly racist comments.
Last month I reported that the New Zealander had begun a town hall meeting by trying to one-up fellow candidate Marena Lin’s immigration status, and ended by alleging Lin was a liar:
“We have an academic who's lying on her ballot about being a climate scientist. She's not. She's a data IT person at public health. She has a PhD in climate science, but has never actually done the job of climate science.”
Webworm can now report that Wilding has been focussed on Lin for a while. Back on March 5, Wilding began texting the campaign manager for another candidate, Jake Levine, with confused, trope-ridden ramblings:
“I am wary of the girl [Lin] who has just entered the race late. The data scientist [...] She secretly follows pro palestine accounts when I looked but talked ‘jewish’.”
Anna Wilding then references her husband James Sved in the texts (echoing Sved’s own, yet to be verified, claims):
“As my husband was in navy [SIC] and a top secret nuclear program we were both witness to the discovery and ousting of chinese spies”.
It’s worth pointing out at this point that Lin is Asian-American, her parents immigrating to the US from Taiwan. Wilding goes on, noting that Lin has all the hallmarks of your classic Chinese spy:
“The pattern of “presentation” is similair [SIC]. Harvard grad, no work history, a lot of money out of nowhere for the most expensive campaign tool etc. [...] Very wary. Not adding up [...] Only spouting data which I’ve seen other chinese candidates do.”
Webworm has spoken to the recipient of the texts – Jake Levine's campaign manager, Janine Gregory – and confirmed their authenticity.
![Screenshots of texts transcribed above: "The pattern of “presentation” is similair [SIC]. Harvard grad, no work history, a lot of money out of nowhere for the most expensive campaign tool etc. [...] Very wary. Not adding up [...] Only spouting data which I’ve seen other chinese candidates do.”](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3a/ef/3aef830f-a32f-496b-9f76-9a58bfb99816/content/images/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-11-at-11.37.50---AM.png)
Webworm reached out to Lin for comment. She replied, apologising in advance: “Sorry for being a bit of a science/immigration history nerd!”:
“The accusation that I’m a spy because I’m an Asian American and have a science doctorate is not new rhetoric. It’s the same logic that has put people who look like me behind barbed wire on two continents. In 1942, the United States interned 120,000 Japanese Americans: not one was ever convicted of espionage. In 1962, India interned 3,000 Chinese Indians at a desert camp in Deoli, Rajasthan, families who had lived there for generations, children who marched in Indian Independence Day parades.
Every one of them was accused of being a spy. Not a single charge was ever proven.
And just two years ago, the DOJ shut down the China Initiative after it was shown to have racially profiled Chinese-American scientists and researchers, securing one conviction out of 77 cases while an FBI agent admitted in court to fabricating evidence.
When a candidate looks at a Taiwanese-American woman with a doctorate and a data science background and sees a Chinese spy — without bothering to distinguish between Taiwan and China, between citizen and foreigner, between evidence and assumption — she’s not doing national security analysis. She’s repeating the exact thinking that has historically ended with Asian Americans in camps.
The only thing that’s changed is the decade.”
Wilding’s texts to Janine Gregory continued, each one doubling down on the last:
Wilding then hints they should take some kind of legal action, urging Gregory to make sure her boss gets the message. She ends by saying James Sved, “Found two newspaper articles about Chinese spies infiltrating California’s congressional elections.”
Not content with texting racist, false allegations to a running-mate’s campaign manager, last week Wilding decided to email a host of other candidates, alleging Lin had been involved in an “anti semitic” flyer drop.
There is zero evidence Lin was involved in any kind of flyer drop, and the creator behind the fliers (which weren’t actually antisemitic) has released a statement saying the same. When approached by Webworm, Lin said:
“To be very clear, I had nothing to do with the flyers she’s accusing me of putting on cars.”
James Sved
As for Wilding’s husband James Sved, I assume he’s preparing to see me in court this week.
Meanwhile, I’ve been slowly working my way through the list of colourful claims Sved has made about his life and career, because so far he’s refused to answer any of Webworm’s questions, or provide any kind of proof.
Webworm has spoken to someone involved in the Main Street Station restoration project, a project Sved indicated he had been instrumental in and won an award for (he hadn't won an award).
After my contact detailed their decades-long history with the project and all the players involved, I asked them whether – in their opinion – Sved’s claims of being so vital to the project were accurate. Their reply was blunt:
“It's ridiculous. I've never heard of such a thing.”
They went on to clarify that while Sved was involved in the project for a short time, he was not a key component:
“Jim Sved was hired by URS, a construction management firm. He was not the one that assembled the drawings. He is not the architect of record. He was not the chief preservationist. He picked out some paint and some furniture we had to change out because it wasn't historic.”
My contact at the Main Street Station restoration project summed things up like this:
"He capitalizes on opportunities to make himself look good. It was more about Jim Sved than it was about the restoration of Main Street Station.”
What Does It All Mean?
Webworm has reached out to James Sved and Anna Wilding for comment. As of the time of publication, both are yet to respond to any of Webworm's questions.
As is the case with a lot of Webworm stories, this is all just so objectively weird. I never had any great interest in Sved until Wilding started name-dropping him at every opportunity. For the last six years I’ve thought Wilding’s various claims were quite out-there – then I found her husband somehow managed to match her. Now he's taken legal action to try and shut me up.
I can see how they work as a couple. Each day for them must be an exciting new adventure filled with nuclear secrets, Chinese spies, and devious Kiwi journalists.
I think it’s fair to say that Wilding’s campaign isn’t going great. Yes, Donald Trump is president of the United States, a victory for fantasists and narcissists the world over. But Wilding is running in an incredibly liberal state. Her approach is not a particularly logical one.
As for Sved taking me to court – it’s frustrating. On one hand, it’s the kind of crazy I find fascinating and intriguing. On the other hand, lawyers are expensive and it’s money I’d rather put nearly anywhere else.
You could argue that none of this matters: Wilding and Sved are just two people living in a fantasy world that we can largely ignore. But people like Marena Lin can't ignore it. In her run for Congress, she has to deal with a woman going out of her way to spread racist allegations about her. She has to sit next to her in public meetings. And here I am, wiring thousands of dollars to a lawyer to make sure I don't end up with a criminal record in the US.
I also think that these types of people are far more common than we assume. We brush up against them all the time, we just don't notice. Until we do.
David.
The Saga So Far:
Part 1: The Beginning
Part 2: Wilding vs The World
Part 3: Wilding v Wikipedia
Part 4: The Mysterious Matt Obolensky
Part 5: The End of the Saga?
Part 6: 25 Years of Making Shit Up
Part 7: The Kiwi Running for US Congress
Part 8: "Strictly Need To Know"
Part 9: Webworm Is Being Taken To Court (Again)
Part 10: Anna Wilding's Racist Ramblings
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