On May 29, 2012, conservative filmmaker Ben Howe emailed Steve Bannon a video he was planning to debut that day on Breitbart TV. The stylized web ad featured Andrew Breitbart — the site’s piratical founder who had died unexpectedly earlier that year — delivering a speech in which he urged conservatives to rally around the Republican nominee to “fight the progressive left.”

“I will march behind whoever our candidate is, because if we don’t we lose!” Breitbart was shown preaching to an audience of activists.

Bannon, the inheritor of Breitbart’s web empire and appointed keeper of his legacy, hated Howe’s video — and he told him so in a series of heated emails that were recently obtained by BuzzFeed News.

“Couldn’t disagree more,” Bannon wrote. “Romney has gone out of his way to show complete contempt for the tea party…and u r acting like a bootlick.”