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A private citizen infiltrated some of the most prominent right-wing extremist groups in the US without informing law enforcement of what he was doing.
The man, going by the name John Williams, contacted journalist Joshua Kaplan after going into hiding after he believed his cover was blown. Kaplan tells the story in a Jan. 4 longform essay published in ProPublica.
Williams had been active in Black Lives Matter but also came in contact with extremist groups through his job teaching outdoor survival. After the J6 attack on the Capitol, he decided to infiltrate the groups in the hopes of someday damaging the movement with the intel he gathered.
The essay is an incredible read, part frightening and part hilarious. Once, he was staying at the house of an extremist leader when the leader's dog stole Williams' wiretap out of his backpack. Both men were running around the house trying to stop the dog, but the leader didn't recognize what he retrieved from his dog's slobbery mouth.
The essay suggests that Williams struggled with mental health demons even before the infiltration, which got much worse the deeper he went. Kaplan doesn't trust everything Williams tells him, even with the recordings Williams provided, and raises questions about parts of his story. But with due diligence, Kaplan confirmed most of the main parts of the story.
One bit of news revealed is that the new leader of Oath Keepers, one of the leading extremist groups responsible for J6, is a former Vegas police detective named Bobby Kinch. This part of the story has now been confirmed by other outlets such as The Guardian. Kinch resigned from the force after being investigated for Facebook posts calling for a race war during the Obama administration.
Kaplan writes,
Kinch moved to southern Utah and found a job hawking hunting gear at a Sportsman’s Warehouse. But he “had this urge,” he later said on a right-wing podcast. “Like I wasn’t done yet.” So he joined the Oath Keepers. “When people tell me that violence doesn’t solve anything, I look back over my police career,” he once advised his followers. “And I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s interesting, because violence did solve quite a bit.’”
Williams says he has a trove of information that is yet to be released, so we may hear more from this story. I hope that he is at least working with law enforcement now.
Kaplan's essay should remind us of the danger these groups pose. They promote and use violence to achieve political goals. Describing a meeting that Williams attended, Kaplan writes,
Early in the meeting, Kinch laid out his vision for the Oath Keepers’ role in American life. “We have a two-edged sword,” he said. The “dull edge” was more traditional grassroots work, exemplified by efforts to combat alleged election fraud. He hoped to build their political apparatus so that in five or 10 years, conservative candidates would be seeking the Oath Keepers’ endorsement.
Then there was the sharp edge: paramilitary training. “You hone all these skills because when the dull edge fails, you’ve got to be able to turn that around and be sharp.”
And this is one of the groups that tried to overturn the 2020 election results on J6. Many of those who marched, and fought, alongside them had no criminal record or involvement with extremist groups. They sang worship songs. They carried crosses and signs praising Jesus while in league with something evil.
Help us to continue exposing the links between the extremist and non-extremist wings of MAGA. Hopefully, this will help the non-extremists reject the extremists when they discover understand who they’re working with.
Applications Open: J29 for 2025!
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Pastors,
Have you seen your community and congregation divided over politics? We understand the struggles you face and are here to help. In today's hyper-polarized world, guiding your congregation through the complexities of politics while keeping Jesus at the center feels like an uphill battle. J29 Coalition is here to help.
To learn more, we’re hosting a zoom call this Thursday at 11am. Register here:
We are now taking applications for next year’s J29 cohort, a 3-month program starting in February. This cohort provides encouragement, support, and a vision for your congregation’s future as you navigate the choppy waters of 2025 and beyond. You’ll gain practical tools, a community of trusted leaders, and a renewed confidence to faithfully disciple your church in kingdom-shaped politics—putting Jesus above partisanship.
Join us in Ohio (or Virtually)!
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On January 18, AVC will co-sponsor the “Summit on Immigration, Springfield, and the Church” in Columbus, OH.
Jesus was asked the question, "Who is my neighbor?" He went on to tell the story of the Good Samaritan. This summit is designed to equip Christians with the tools to care for and advocate on behalf of their immigrant neighbors. Through informative sessions, personal stories, and collaborative discussions, participants will hear from
Director of The Haitian Support Center, Vilés Dorsainvil and other Haitian leaders from Springfield Ohio
Assemblies of God Pastor Dr. Gabriel Salguero director of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition
Myal Greene President of World Relief
and more as we explore how the Church can play a transformative role in supporting immigrant communities and consider how the gospel frames how we think about our neighbor.
The in-person tickets may be sold out by now but you can still register to attend virtually.
Join Our Next Book Club!
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For our next book club, we’ll read Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor by Pastor Caleb Campbell. We’ll meet Thursday at 8pm, starting next week, January 23, until March 13. You can download the first chapter from the Intervarsity Press website. Everyone who registers and attends the first meeting will be provided a free copy. Register here:
What Else We’re Reading
The xxxxxx: “The Media Isn’t Ready for Trump’s Mass Deportation Moment”
IMAGINE THIS SCENARIO: Department of Homeland Security agents storm a meatpacking plant in the South, a show of force in the largest workplace raid in a decade. Rounding up workers, they target those who appear to be Latinos, without regard for citizenship. They don’t ask for documentation until hours later.
A worker, overcome by fear, makes a run for it and is tackled by immigration agents, with one putting a boot on the worker’s neck for over 20 seconds, as a video of the encounter shows.
You don’t have to imagine this as some far-flung dystopian scenario that could happen in Trump’s second term because it happened during his first, in Tennessee in 2018. But that raid was not the end of the story.
Ann Telnaes: “Why I'm quitting the Washington Post”
I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.
Henry Farrell: “We're getting the social media crisis wrong”
Over the last two weeks, Elon Musk has used Twitter/X to derail a Congressional budget resolution (writing “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” after he won), to reshape the political debate in the United Kingdom around a two decades old scandal so as to heighten tensions around Muslim immigration, and to elevate the German far-right AfD party as the only solution to Germany’s problems. This morning, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook is moving away from “censorship mistakes,” removing restrictions on “gender and immigration,” and allying with Trump to “push back against foreign governments” (i.e. the EU) that want “American companies to censor more.” These moves are reshaping politics so that they center around the issues that Musk cares about, and that Zuckerberg either cares about or sees as politically convenient to his interests.
The resulting problems are not primarily problems of disinformation, though disinformation plays some role. They are the problems you get when large swathes of the public sphere are exclusively owned by wannabe God-Emperors. Elon Musk owns X/Twitter outright. Mark Zuckerberg controls Meta through a system in which he is CEO, chairman and effective majority owner, all at the same time. What purports to be a collective phenomena; the ‘voice of the people;’ is actually in private hands; is, to a very great extent shaped by two extremely powerful individuals.
BBC: “Ros Atkins on... 24 hours on Elon Musk's X timeline”
Since the start of this year, Elon Musk has made or shared posts about UK politics, grooming gangs and child sexual abuse at a significant rate.
BBC Verify has examined a 24 hour snapshot of his timeline and found a wave of misinformation amplified in the posts. The BBC's Analysis editor Ros Atkins examines one day on the platform for the owner of X.
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