How a Mole Infiltrated the Highest Ranks of American Militias - ProPublica

[Reader Rabbit]

It's a long, terrifying read, but it's worth it.

https://www.propublica.org/article/ap3-oath-keepers-militia-mole

The documents laid out a remarkable odyssey. Posing as an ideological compatriot, Williams had penetrated the top ranks of two of the most prominent right-wing militias in the country. He’d slept in the home of the man who claims to be the new head of the Oath Keepers, rifling through his files in the middle of the night. He’d devised elaborate ruses to gather evidence of militias’ ties to high-ranking law enforcement officials. He’d uncovered secret operations like the surveillance of a young journalist, then improvised ways to sabotage the militants’ schemes. In one group, his ploys were so successful that he became the militia’s top commander in the state of Utah.

...

Williams is part of a larger cold war, radical vs. radical, that’s stayed mostly in the shadows. A left-wing activist told me he personally knows about 30 people who’ve gone undercover in militias or white supremacist groups. They did not coordinate with law enforcement, instead taking the surveillance of one of the most intractable features of American politics into their own hands.

...

He took note of the job titles of leaders he met, like an Air Force reserve master sergeant (I confirmed this through military records) who recruited other airmen into the movement. Williams attended paramilitary trainings, where the group practiced ambushes with improvised explosives and semiautomatic guns. He offered his comrades free lessons in hand-to-hand combat and bonded with them in the backcountry hunting jackrabbits. When the militia joined right-wing rallies for causes like gun rights, they went in tactical gear. Williams attended as their “gray man,” he said — assigned to blend in with the crowd and call in armed reinforcements if tensions erupted.

Since his work was seasonal, Williams could spend as much as 40 hours a week on militia activities. One of his duties as intel officer was to monitor the group’s enemies on the left, which could induce vertigo. A militia leader once dispatched him to a Democratic Socialists of America meeting at a local library, he said, where he saw a Proud Boy he recognized from a joint militia training. Was this a closet right-winger keeping tabs on the socialists? Or a closet leftist who might dox him or inform the police?

[Celerity]

1. highly recommended

[DiverDave]

2. I just started

Reading it.
It's terrific.
He absolutely put himself in mortal danger.

[Rebl2]

3. Makes

me wonder if the guy that blew up the Tesla in front of that trump hotel was part of a militia.

[sop]

4. Historically the FBI routinely infiltrated and investigated radical political groups, both left and right.

Director Kash will probably call off all infiltrations and investigations of rightwing groups and focus on Trump's "radical leftwing" enemies.

[rampartd]

5. fbi traditionally ignores right wing terrorism

the kittle bit they did with the kkk pales in comparison with their infiltration of sncc, naacp, and the antiwar groups of the time.

[sop]

7. The FBI has been actively investigating and going after rightwing militia groups since the early 1990s.

Violent armed rightwing militias are a relatively recent phenomenon in this country. The FBI reported that in the 1990s right-wing extremism overtook left-wing terrorism as the most dangerous domestic terrorist threat to the country. The FBI has been investigating these groups for more than thirty years.

The FBI was investigating white supremacists in police departments nearly twenty years ago, in 2006. The FBI was investigating rightwing militias when Timothy McVeigh perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The FBI was investigating and conducted the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco in 1993. The FBI was investigating and involved in the Ruby Ridge standoff in 1992.

The bad old days of Hoover's FBI primarily persecuting leftwing anti-war and civil rights groups ended over fifty years ago.

[Firestorm49]

6. Fascinating read.

[ThoughtCriminal]

8. Not that it's easy, but...

these groups probably contain some of the most gullible people in the country.

Now if we can get them even more paranoid about each other and form circular firing squads.

[LA Blue Bengal]

9. Well that's terrifying

But I commend Williams for his work and nerve. Hopefully more of these freelance spies will out these seditious idiots and make them think twice about their actions