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      Proud Boys leader had plans to ‘storm’ government buildings on 6 January

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      Proud Boys leader had plans to ‘storm’ government buildings on 6 JanuaryEnrique Tarrio possessed document titled ‘1776 Returns’, with details to invade and occupy seven buildings, New York Times says The former leader of the Proud Boys, a violent far-right nationalist group whose members were prominent in the January 6 riot, was found in possession of comprehensive plans to “surveil and storm” government buildings, prosecutors have said.Mug shot: Republican Josh Hawley told to stop using January 6 fist salute photoRead moreEnrique Tarrio, the group’s former chairman who was arrested last week and charged with conspiracy over the deadly attack, had a nine-page document entitled “1776 Returns”, named for the year of American independence, the New York Times reported.The document, mentioned only in general terms in Tarrio’s indictment, contained details of a complex plan for supporters of Donald Trump to invade and occupy at least seven House and Senate office buildings on the afternoon Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s election victory, according to Times sources.Trump has promoted the lie that the election was stolen and incited the attack on Congress as part of a wider effort to have the result overturned.The document features five sections, the Times reported: infiltrate, execution, distract, occupy and sit-in. The plan called for the recruiting of at least 50 Proud Boys and other Trump supporters to enter and occupy each building, “causing trouble” for security personnel who tried to stop them.Once inside, the instructions stated, the activists would be encouraged to chant slogans such as “We the People” and “No Trump, no America”. Supporters unable to gain access to the buildings would be encouraged to distract law enforcement and other authorities by “pulling fire alarms at nearby stores, hotels and museums”.In the days before 6 January, Proud Boys were to undertake reconnaissance of roads near the seven buildings, looking out for roadblocks and other obstacles.Questions remain over the origin of the document and whether Tarrio, 38, shared it with any of the individuals charged alongside him.They are Ethan Nordean, 31, of Auburn, Washington; Joseph Biggs, 38, of Ormond Beach, Florida; Zachary Rehl, 36, of Philadelphia; Charles Donohoe, 34, of Kernersville, North Carolina; and Dominic Pezzola, 44, of Rochester, New York.But its existence lends context to the US justice department’s decision to charge Tarrio with conspiracy, even though he was not in Washington on the day of the riot.According to the indictment, Tarrio “nonetheless continued to direct and encourage the Proud Boys prior to and during the events of 6 January 2021” and later “claimed credit for what had happened on social media and in an encrypted chat room during and after the attack”.Tarrio has denied involvement in planning the riot. His lawyer, Nayib Hassan, declined comment to the Times.More than 770 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol riot, at least 30 members of the Proud Boys, court records show.Tarrio, from Miami, recently stood down as chair of the group, after being sentenced last year to five months in prison for burning a Black Lives Matter banner and unlawfully bringing weapons to a Washington protest.He was also exposed last year as a long-time informant for the FBI and local law enforcement agencies.TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightUS politicsUS crimeDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Sandy Hook review: anatomy of an American tragedy – and the obscenity of social media

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      Sandy Hook review: anatomy of an American tragedy – and the obscenity of social media Elizabeth Williamson’s book on the 2012 elementary school shooting is a near-unbearable, necessary indictment of Facebook, YouTube and the conspiracy theories they spreadEven in a country now completely inured to the horrors of mass shootings, the massacre at Sandy Hook remains lodged in the minds of everyone old enough to remember it. Ten years ago, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fired 154 rounds from an AR-15-style rifle in less than five minutes. Twenty extremely young children and six adults were killed.Sandy Hook’s tragic legacy: seven years on, a loving father is the latest victimRead moreIt was the worst elementary school shooting in American history.Elizabeth Williamson’s new book is about that “American Tragedy”, but more importantly it is about “the Battle for Truth” that followed. In excruciating detail, Williamson describes the unimaginable double tragedy every Sandy Hook parent has had to endure: the murder of their child, followed by years and years of an army of online monsters accusing them of inventing this unimaginable horror.Alex Jones of Infowars is the best-known villain of this ghastly narrative. His Facebook pages and YouTube channels convinced millions of fools the massacre was either some kind of government plot to encourage a push for gun control or, even more obscenely, that it was all carried out by actors and no one was killed at all.While a single deranged shooter was responsible for the original tragedy, Williamson makes clear she believes Facebook and Google (the owner of YouTube) deserve most of the blame for the subsequent horror the relatives of victims have endured.As Congressman Ro Khanna reported in his new book, Dignity in a Digital Age, an internal Facebook document estimated that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendations”.Those recommendations are the result of the infernal algorithms which are at the heart of the business models of Facebook and YouTube and are probably more responsible for the breakdown in civil society in the US and the world than anything else invented.“We thought the internet would give us this accelerated society of science and information,” says Lenny Pozner, whose son Noah was one of the Sandy Hook victims. But “really, we’ve gone back to flat earth”.It horrified Pozner “to see the image of his son, smiling in his bomber jacket, passed round by an online mob attacking Noah as a fake, a body double, a boy who never lived”. Relentless algorithms pushed those “human lies to the top” on an internet which has become an “all-powerful booster of outrage and denial”.Noah’s mother, Veronique De la Rosa, was another victim of Jones’s persistent, outrageous lies.“It’s like you’ve entered the ninth circle of hell,” she tells Williamson. “Never even in your wildest, most fear-fueled fantasies would you have guessed you’d find yourself having to fight not only through your grief, which you know is at times paralyzing, but to even prove that your son existed.”Lenny Pozner regularly saw his dead son described as an “alleged victim”, but it took years before Facebook and YouTube and Twitter took substantial action to quiet the insane conspiracies their own algorithms had done so much to reinforce.Facebook allowed a Sandy Hook Hoax group and dozens of others to operate virtually uninterrupted for two years. Hundreds of videos on YouTube, owned by Google, wallowed in the hoax, drawing thousands who made threats against the families.“Facebook and Twitter are monsters,” says Pozner. “Out-of-control beasts run like mom-and-pop shops.”Facebook “focuses on growth, to the exclusion of most everything else”, Williamson writes. The algorithms are designed to keep all of us on the platform as long as possible, and they operate “with relentless, sometimes murderous neutrality, rewarding whatever horrible behavior and false or inflammatory content captures and retains users”.In 2018, an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg by Pozner and De La Rosa, published in the Guardian, accused the Facebook chief of “allowing your platform to continue to be used as an instrument to disseminate hate”.Two days later, Facebook finally suspended Jones’s personal page but “took no action against Infowars’ account, which had 1.7 million followers”. YouTube removed four videos from Infowars’ channel and banned Jones from live-streaming for all of 90 days.An open letter to Mark Zuckerberg from the parents of a Sandy Hook victimRead moreHarry Farid heads the school of Information at the University of California Berkeley. He describes the perfect storm which is threatening democracy and civility everywhere: “You have bad people and trolls and people trying to make money by taking advantage of horrible things … you have social media websites who are not only welcoming and permissive of it but are promoting it, and then you have us, the unsuspecting public.”Williamson makes the important and usually forgotten point that nothing in the first amendment gives anyone the right to use a social media platform. All it says on this subject is that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”As Farid points out, platforms have an absolute right to ban all forms of content “without running afoul of the constitution” – which is why Donald Trump had no judicial recourse when he was banned from Facebook and Twitter after the Capitol riot.But most of the time, Farid says, the platforms just look the other way: “Because they’re making so much goddamned money.”Last fall, the California Democrat Adam Schiff told the Guardian the blockbuster testimony of the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen would finally be enough to spur Congress to regulate the worst excesses of the big platforms. So far, their lobbyists have prevented such action. On Saturday, the Guardian asked Schiff if he still believed Congress might act in this session. “There is still a chance,” he wrote in an e-mail, adding that “the degree of Russian propaganda on social media attempting to justify their bloody invasion of Ukraine” might finally provide the “impetus” needed for change.
      Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for the Truth is published in the US by Dutton Books
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      Proud Boys leader arrested on US Capitol attack conspiracy charge

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      Proud Boys leader arrested on US Capitol attack conspiracy chargeEnrique Tarrio was not physically in Washington on 6 January but is charged with directing, mobilising and leading crowd Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys far-right nationalist group, has been arrested and charged with conspiracy over the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.Jury begins deliberations in trial of Texas man who stormed CapitolRead moreTarrio, 38, faces counts of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of an official proceeding, and two counts each of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and destruction of government property.The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said Tarrio was scheduled to make an initial appearance in federal court in Miami on Tuesday.Tarrio was not at the Capitol during the insurrection. Two days before, he was arrested in Washington and accused of vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church. Also charged with possessing two high-capacity rifle magazines, he was released the following day and ordered to stay out of the capital.According to the DoJ, Tarrio “nonetheless continued to direct and encourage the Proud Boys prior to and during the events of 6 January 2021”.He later “claimed credit for what had happened on social media and in an encrypted chat room during and after the attack,” prosecutors said.Four other individuals have been charged: Ethan Nordean, 31, of Auburn, Washington; Joseph Biggs, 38, of Ormond Beach, Florida; Zachary Rehl, 36, of Philadelphia; Charles Donohoe, 34, of Kernersville, North Carolina; and Dominic Pezzola, 44, of Rochester, New York.“They earlier pleaded not guilty to charges,” the DoJ said, referring to an indictment in December.Tarrio’s arrest followed charges of seditious conspiracy against 11 members of another far-right group, the Oath Keepers militia, which were announced in January.Tarrio and the Proud Boys rose to prominence in support of Donald Trump and through violent confrontations with leftwing protesters.On 6 January 2021, Trump supporters gathered in Washington DC to protest against Trump’s election defeat by Joe Biden. Trump told them to “fight like hell” in service of his lie about electoral fraud. The Capitol was attacked. Seven people died around the riot and more than 100 police officers were hurt.More than 770 people have been charged. The first jury trial arising from the attack, involving a Texas man who was a member of the Three Percenters rightwing group, reached jury deliberations on Tuesday.The DoJ has faced intensifying pressure to more aggressively pursue those suspected of organizing and planning the Capitol attack. In a speech earlier this year, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, vowed to hold accountable all those responsible for the riot, whether or not they were present at the Capitol.In its announcement on Tuesday, the DoJ said: “From in or around December 2020, Tarrio and his co-defendants, all of whom were leaders or members of the Ministry of Self Defense [a Proud Boys group] conspired to corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede an official proceeding, the certification of the electoral college vote.“On 6 January, the defendants directed, mobilised and led members of the crowd on to the Capitol grounds and into the Capitol, leading to dismantling of metal barricades, destruction of property, and assaults on law enforcement.Proud Boys: who are the far-right group that backs Donald Trump?Read more“Although Tarrio is not accused of physically taking part in the breach of the Capitol, the indictment alleges that he led the advance planning and remained in contact with other members of the Proud Boys during their breach of the Capitol.“The indictment alleges that Tarrio nonetheless continued to direct and encourage the Proud Boys prior to and during the events of 6 January 2021, and that he claimed credit for what had happened on social media and in an encrypted chat room during and after the attack.”In August last year, Tarrio was sentenced to five months in prison. He has also been revealed to have previously been an FBI informant.Tarrio has denied organising violence on 6 January. The Times said a lawyer for Tarrio declined comment, as he was waiting to see the indictment.TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightUS crimenewsReuse this content More

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      Trump ignores Farage – and risks midterm elections farrago – with insistence on big lie

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      Trump ignores Farage – and risks midterm elections farrago – with insistence on big lie Analysis: His British friend tried to help but the former president did not want to forget his voter fraud obsession and focus on the future. CPAC loved it but Republicans hoping to take Congress know they are courting disasterThe sagest advice given to Donald Trump all week came from a man who is neither a Republican nor an American.Donald Trump defends calling Putin ‘smart’, hints at 2024 presidential bidRead moreNigel Farage, the British politician, broadcaster and demagogue whose Brexit campaign coincided with Trump’s rise to power, warned his old pal against endlessly fixating on the 2020 election.“This message of a stolen election, if you think about it, is actually a negative backward looking message,” Farage told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida.“There is a better, more positive message the Republican party needs to embrace and it’s this: ‘We are going state by state, vote by vote to make sure that America has the best, the cleanest, the fairest election system anywhere in the western world.’”Urging an end to the “big lie” obsession is heresy at places like CPAC, the Woodstock of the red meat right. Perhaps no pro-Trump Republican would dare breathe it to the former president, lest he slap them with a demeaning nickname, endorse a primary opponent or blackball them from his luxury Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.But Farage, as foreigner and fellow traveller, may have felt liberated to speak an inconvenient truth: that endlessly re-litigating the last election with false claims of voter fraud could prove a serious liability for Republicans in November’s midterms.The former UK Independence party and Brexit party leader went on: “That negative anger must be turned into a positive. You’ve got to offer the voters of this country a shining city on the hill. You’ve got to give them a vision. People want dreams, people want hopes, and the deliverers of that message are you guys.”The audience sounded receptive enough. And while some CPAC speakers did promulgate “the big lie” – Ohio Senate hopeful Josh Mandel declared, “I want to say it very clearly and very directly: I believe this election was stolen from Donald J Trump” – they generally gave greater emphasis to winning Congress in 2022 and, of course, Trump returning to the White House in 2024.Jim Jordan, an Ohio congressman and close Trump ally, declared: “I believe President Trump is going to run again … I think if he runs, he’s going to win.”But the annual CPAC straw poll testing who should get the Republican nomination raised more questions than answers. Of course Trump won with more votes than everyone else combined. But his 59% was not quite the overwhelming show of force he might have hoped for in what is usually the capital of Trumpistan.There is now a clear alternative. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, finished second on 28%, well clear of Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, on 2%.In a separate poll where Trump was removed from the equation, DeSantis won by a landslide 61%.On the other hand, Florida is DeSantis’s home state, so he might expect to punch above his weight here. The governor gave a well received speech on Thursday that notably failed to mention Trump. But the audience for Trump’s address on Saturday was appreciably bigger and brimming with “Trump 2024” badges and caps.Even those sporting DeSantis regalia were not quite ready to back him. David Duffy, 57, a retired insurance worker sporting a giant “DeSantisLand” flag, said: “We want to keep President Trump as our president. We believe he still is our president and, with DeSantis being 42 years old, we want to give him a little bit more time.”Asked for her 2024 preference, Marnie Allen, wearing a “DeSantisLand” cap, said: “Trump, only because I owe him. I think we all owe him to make up for the disasters and because he’s going to go in with a vengeance this time and take care of our fourth level of government: career bureaucrats. He will go in this time and he will take a machete to them.”The 51-year-old from Orlando, who works in higher education, felt compelled to add: “Not a real machete, of course, but a figurative machete.”Unless something dramatic happens – a criminal indictment in New York, say – the nomination remains Trump’s to lose. On Saturday he dropped his strongest hint yet that he does intend to pursue it.The strange Republican world where the big lie lives on and Trump is fighting to save democracyRead moreHe clearly did not get Farage’s memo. Trump told the audience: “The Rinos [Republicans In Name Only] and certain weak Republican politicians want to ignore election integrity also but we cannot ignore it. We have to fix it. Make no mistake, they [Democrats] will try to do it again in ’22 and ’24, and we cannot let them do that.“And the way we [let them do that] is to come to a very powerful conclusion as to what happened in 2020. We stand down to stop talking about it, we stop making Americans aware of the cheating and corruption that went on. That’s really saying, ‘It’s OK, you can do it again.’ We can’t let that happen.”The slapping sound you heard was a hundred Republican midterm candidates planting their hands on their foreheads. Trump is coming to a district near you, with a big lie to tell. It remains Democrats’ best hope of a midterm miracle.TopicsDonald TrumpCPACUS politicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024Ron DeSantisanalysisReuse this content More

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      Romney: Marjorie Taylor Greene a ‘moron’ for speaking at white nationalist event

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      Romney: Marjorie Taylor Greene a ‘moron’ for speaking at white nationalist eventPaul Gosar also spoke at far-right conference, as calls for the censure of the two Republicans ring out again

      Trump hints at 2024 presidential bid in CPAC speech
      Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, members of Congress who spoke at a white nationalist event in Florida this week, are “morons” with no place in the Republican party, Mitt Romney said on Sunday.Calls to expel Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene after speech at white nationalist event Read more“I’m reminded of that old line from the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid movie,” the Utah senator and 2012 presidential nominee told CNN’s State of the Union.“One character says, ‘Morons. I’ve got morons on my team.’ I have to think anybody that would sit down with white nationalists and speak at their conference was certainly missing a few IQ points.”Greene, from Georgia, and Gosar, from Arizona, spoke at the America First Political Action Conference, or AFPAC, organised by the far-right activist Nick Fuentes. Greene defended her attendance, saying she did not know Fuentes or endorse his views.Calls for the censure of the two Republicans, familiar from previous instances of extreme behaviour, rang out again on Saturday.Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: “In any other world, Greene speaking at a white supremacist conference where attendees have defended Vladimir Putin and praised Adolf Hitler would warrant expulsion from the caucus, to say nothing of her advocacy for violence and consistent antisemitism is disgusting.“Quite simply, the longer [House Republican leader] Kevin McCarthy gives Marjorie Taylor Greene an unfettered platform and promises to elevate her, the more complicit he is.”The Republican party chair, Ronna McDaniel, said: “White supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican party.”But McDaniel and McCarthy lead a party in which the far right is strong, former president Donald Trump its figurehead.McDaniel is Romney’s niece, though she reportedly stopped using his name at Trump’s request. On CNN, Romney mentioned McDaniel’s statement about Greene and Gosar as well as strong words from Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican congresswoman and Trump critic.“Talking about how repugnant these white nationalists are,” Romney said, “look, there’s no place in either political party for this white nationalism or racism. it’s simply wrong.“Speaking of evil, it’s evil as well. And, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, I don’t know them.”Cheney is a stringent conservative but remains at odds with her party. She was not invited to CPAC, the larger conservative event in Florida at which Trump and Greene appeared.In video posted online, Vaughn Hillyard, a reporter for NBC, asked CPAC organiser Matt Schlapp why Greene had been invited despite her long record of extremist behaviour and her participation in the white nationalist event.The strange Republican world where the big lie lives on and Trump is fighting to save democracyRead more“I think it’s great that Marjorie Taylor Greene was on this stage because she was elected by her constituents to have a vote in Congress,” Schlapp said.“[House speaker] Nancy Pelosi decided to strip her of her rights as a congressperson to serve on these committees and Twitter has decided to shut her down.”Hillyard said: “But you’re inviting legitimacy to that white nationalist movement that was just down the road when a member of Congress from the Republican party appears at that event and you bring her here.”Schlapp said: “I’m providing legitimacy to you and your network by being allowed to be in this room. It’s called the first amendment and you are a member of the press and you have a right to be in this room. If I had said you couldn’t come into this room, how would that make America better?”Hillyard asked: “Did you extend an invite to Liz Cheney?”Schlapp said: “No.”TopicsRepublicansThe far rightUS politicsMitt RomneynewsReuse this content More

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      Belief in QAnon has strengthened in US since Trump was voted out, study finds

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      Belief in QAnon has strengthened in US since Trump was voted out, study findsSurveys by the Public Religion Research Institute reveal QAnon believers increased to 17% in September from 14% in March The QAnon conspiracy myth movement continues to thrive in the US and has even strengthened more than a year after Donald Trump left the White House, according to the largest ever study of its followers.Some 22% of Americans believe that a “storm” is coming, 18% think violence might be necessary to save the country and 16% hold that the government, media and financial worlds are controlled by Satan-worshipping pedophiles, according to four surveys carried out last year by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) think tank.‘We have a project’: QAnon followers eye swing state election official racesRead moreEach of these baseless and bizarre views is a core tenet of QAnon, an antisemitic internet conspiracy theory which held that Trump was waging a secret battle against a cabal of pedophiles and its “deep state” collaborators – a “storm” that would sweep them out of power.Yet despite his election defeat by Joe Biden, major social media platforms banning QAnon activity and the disappearance of its leader, “Q”, the movement has not gone away. If anything, it has strengthened.“The share of QAnon believers has increased slightly through 2021,” the report by the PRRI states. “In March, 14% of Americans were QAnon believers, compared to 16% in July, 17% in September, and 17% in October.“The share of QAnon doubters has remained relatively steady (46% in March, 49% in July, 48% in September, and 49% in October), while the share of QAnon rejecters has decreased slightly from 40% in March to 35% in July, 35% in September, and 34% in October.”These findings are based on 19,399 respondents from four surveys designed and conducted by the PRRI during 2021, using random samples of adults in all 50 states.Natalie Jackson, research lead, said: “People who are susceptible to believing in these conspiracy theories are found in every demographic. It’s not just restricted to Republicans or the uneducated or those who are in a specific age group. It’s distributed throughout.“Of course, there are some groups that are more prevalent than others, like there are many more Republicans than Democrats, but we do find that people in every demographic find these wild conspiracies believable.”Among the discernible patterns, about one in five QAnon believers identify as white evangelical Protestants, and QAnon believers are significantly less likely than all Americans to have college degrees.Media consumption is the strongest independent predictor of being a QAnon believer. Americans who most trust rightwing news outlets such as the One America News Network and Newsmax are nearly five times more likely than those who most trust mainstream news to be QAnon believers. Those who most trust Fox News are about twice as likely as those who trust mainstream news to be QAnon believers.They generally have positive views of the Republican party and negative views of Democrats, with 68% agreeing in the October survey that “the Democratic Party has been taken over by socialists”.Some 26% of QAnon believers have a favorable view of Biden while 69% have unfavorable views of him. About 63% have a favorable opinion of Trump but 31% have an unfavorable view of the former president who once claimed that QAnon followers “love our country” and “like me very much”.Seven in 10 QAnon believers agree with the false statement that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, including just under half who completely agree. These individuals are also most likely to blame leftwing groups such as antifa for the US Capitol insurrection on 6 January 2021 (there is no organized antifa organization).What is antifa and why is Donald Trump targeting it?Read moreJackson said: “These are people who believe that their culture is under attack, their way of life is under attack, so a lot of them do align with the Trump philosophies. According to those theories, Trump was supposed to be their leader.“One of the things that’s somewhat impressive is even with Trump out of power, and the fact that January 6 was not ‘the storm’ that they thought it might be, these beliefs have persisted.”Around eight in 10 QAnon believers agree with the statement that America is in danger of losing its culture and identity. More than seven in 10 say the values of Islam are at odds with American values and way of life, or that the American way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence.And 32% of QAnon believers agree with the statement that “the idea of America where most people are not white bothers me”.In late 2021, about one in 10 Americans (9%) agreed it might be necessary to commit an act of violence to save the country. QAnon believers (17%) and QAnon doubters (11%) were more likely than QAnon rejecters (4%) to share this view.TopicsQAnonDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsThe far rightnewsReuse this content More

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      Far-right Oath Keepers leader to stay in jail until Capitol attack trial, judge rules

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      Far-right Oath Keepers leader to stay in jail until Capitol attack trial, judge rulesStewart Rhodes ‘presents a clear and convincing danger’ after spending thousands on weapons before riot, judge says The founder of the far-right Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, will remain in jail until his seditious-conspiracy trial for allegedly helping plot the assault on the US Capitol, a US judge said, calling him a “clear and convincing danger”.The US district judge Amit Mehta said during a Friday court hearing that Rhodes spent thousands of dollars on weapons and other equipment ahead of the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters and also made “substantial purchases” of weapons afterwards.“He presents a clear and convincing danger, in my view,” Mehta said.Rhodes’s lawyers had proposed he be released into the custody of relatives in California, where he would stay in a separate residence on their property without access to the internet.Mehta said he was not satisfied with that arrangement, stating that Rhodes “has been extremely sophisticated with his ability to communicate”.Criminal defendants are often released pending trial, since they are presumed innocent until convicted, but can be held if they are deemed dangerous or likely to flee the country.How the arrest of a far-right militia leader signals a new chapter in the January 6 inquiryRead moreRhodes, 56, is the most high-profile defendant of the more than 725 people charged with playing a role in the attack. His lawyer said there was no evidence that Rhodes conspired to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election.He is one of 11 members or associates of the Oath Keepers facing a seditious conspiracy charge.Rhodes is accused of spearheading a conspiracy to block the certification of the presidential election by recruiting others and even stationing armed “quick reaction force” units outside of Washington to be ready to stop the peaceful transfer of power.A US magistrate judge in Texas last month ruled Rhodes should be detained, after hearing testimony from an FBI agent as well as Rhodes’ ex-wife, who expressed concerns for her safety. Rhodes appealed that decision to Mehta. TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightnewsReuse this content More

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      Nearly one in five applicants to white supremacist group tied to US military

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      Nearly one in five applicants to white supremacist group tied to US militaryLeaked documents show that about 18 out of 87 applicants, or 21%, to Patriot Front were currently or formerly affiliated with military Nearly one in five applicants to the white supremacist group Patriot Front claimed to hold current or former ties to the US military, according to leaked documents published and reviewed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and alternative media collective Unicorn Riot.Some 18 out of the 87 applicants, or 21%, said they were currently or previously affiliated with the military. One applicant, who claimed to be a former Marine, also said he currently worked for the Department of Homeland Security, according to the SPLC’s Hatewatch, a blog that tracks and exposes activities of American rightwing extremists.A white supremacist and neo-fascist hate group, Patriot Front emerged as a rebrand of the neo-Nazi organization Vanguard America in the aftermath of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.According to the SPLC, the Patriot Front “represents one of the most prominent white supremacist groups in the country” and is led by Thomas Rousseau, a 23-year old man based in Dallas, Texas. “A nation within a nation is our goal. Our people face complete annihilation as our culture and heritage are attacked from all sides,” Rousseau once said.In January, Unicorn Riot published over 400 gigabytes of data that included “ostensibly private, unedited videos and direct messages [that] reveal a campaign to organize acts of hatred while indoctrinating teenagers into national socialism (Nazism),” the journalist collective said.Group members and applicants expressed an open admiration for Nazi ideologies, with the latter expressing various motivations for joining the group.One applicant, who said he lived in San Diego, claimed to be a current DHS employee and told Patriot Front he was inspired to join after he “found out about the Jews while in the marines”.Another applicant used derogatory language about LGBTQ+ people and said he “first saw” them during his time in the military.Someone else from Salt Lake City said he “shifted focus and questioned things” after his second deployment and went from being a Republican to joining the far right.Applicants also touted their various skill sets, including “great land-navigation, great physical fitness, able to clear rooms” and “basic medical training”. Others said they had been “trained in firearms”. One claimed to train people in “marine corps martial arts” and said he was the leader of the Kansas Active Club, an affiliate of the Rise Above Movement, a Southern California-based SPLC-designated hate group.‘We are desperate for new people’: inside a hate group’s leaked online chatsRead moreIn addition to alleged military affiliations, the leak also revealed that the group targets minors. According to Unicorn Riot, Patriot Front recruits “members through the internet who are still legally minors, indoctrinating them with white supremacist ideology and even encouraging them to lie to their parents so the group can transport them across state lines for fascist events”.Patriot Front’s official policies require members to be at least 17 and a half years old, but it “goes by a case by case basis” with certain members being below that age.In the past year, there has been growing concern surrounding the far-right radicalization of current and former military members. More than 80 defendants charged for their affiliation with the deadly January 6 riots have been found to have ties to the military, with most being veterans.Last March, the Pentagon released a report that cited domestic extremist groups posing an increasing threat to the military by attempting to recruit service members and in certain situations join the military to gain combat experience.“Military members are highly prized by these groups as they bring legitimacy to their causes and enhance their ability to carry out attacks,” the report said. “In addition to potential violence, white supremacy and white nationalism pose a threat to the good order and discipline within the military,” it added.In October, a House panel convened to discuss ways to address veterans being increasingly targeted for recruitment by extremist groups.“They provide them with a tribe, a simplistic view of the world and its problems, actionable solutions and a sense of purpose, and then they feed these vulnerable individuals a concoction of lies and an unrelenting narrative of political and social grievance,” retired Marine Lt Col Joe Plenzler said at the panel.A study last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that in 2020, 6.4% of all domestic terror attacks and plots were committed by active-duty or reserve personnel, up from 1.5% in 2019 and none in 2018.TopicsThe far rightRaceAntisemitismUS politicsnewsReuse this content More