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Antisemitic Telegram Channels Share GiveSendGo Fundraiser
On June 4 and 5, antisemitic Telegram channels affiliated with the Goyim Defense League (GDL) and their allies shared a fundraiser on GiveSendGo for Jeremy Brokaw of Zanesville, Ohio. Brokaw is facing $48,000 in fines for over 160 traffic violations for littering after being identified by police as having thrown antisemitic, racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-LGBTQ GDL flyers from his vehicle in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. On October 27, 2018, 11 people were murdered, and six were injured at a synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood by a heavily armed right-wing extremist.
Telegram posts made by antisemitic accounts that shared the GiveSendGo fundraiser called Brokaw a “verified member of our community.” Posts encouraged donating to help pay for his fines and legal fees as a way to fight “the antiwhite system.” As of June 9, the GiveSendGo fundraiser had received $2,805 out of a total request of $50,000. Two individuals donated large sums of over $400 to the fundraiser, including one individual who donated $1,000 and posted an antisemitic message on the GiveSendGo fundraiser and another who donated $500 and posted two acronyms used to promote violence against Jews and Black people.
Online Extreme Right Reacts to Arrest of Two Individuals in Washington State with Arsenal and Neo-Nazi Paraphernalia
On June 4 and 5, several Telegram channels and users reacted to the June 2 arrest of Levi Austin Frakes and Charles Ethan Fields by law enforcement after the two individuals were arrested in an FBI raid after allegedly stealing equipment from Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The two individuals, both veterans, were charged with robbery, assault, and theft of government property and had amassed dozens of firearms, explosives, ammunition, and protective equipment. News reports featured photos of a Nazi flag, the flag of the Nazi Schutzstaffel, also known as the SS, and other neo-Nazi items in the residence of Frakes and Fields.
A prominent neo-Nazi Telegram channel that promotes accelerationism denounced the two arrested individuals for making the mistake of allegedly stealing from a military base instead of purchasing equipment. A white supremacist Telegram channel with over 400 subscribers, in multiple posts, condemned the two individuals as having made serious blunders, noting that amassing an arsenal draws the attention of other people, including law enforcement, and that the individuals potentially committed felonies by modifying their firearms, including with 3D-printed components. The same channel noted that neo-Nazi paraphernalia, when combined with illegal activities, would become “trophies for the system to parade around and desecrate.” The channel stated that white supremacists should seek to go unnoticed and not advertise illegality for “cool points.”
Users of a chat associated with a Telegram channel belonging to a white nationalist firearms influencer claimed that the two individuals arrested had not broken any laws or claimed that the FBI raid was a false flag made in an attempt to legitimize law enforcement. A channel associated with the group Aryan Freedom Network also insinuated that the raid was somehow false or exaggerated.
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