“I have been attempting to contact national media and civil rights groups for over a year and been ignored,” the mysterious anonymous email read. “I’m tired of yelling into the void.”
Such pleas are common in an investigative reporter’s inbox, but they only sometimes lead to a story that we publish. “I’ve burned a lot of time sating my curiosity about emails like that,” wrote ProPublica reporter Joshua Kaplan, who received the email in late 2022. “I expected my interest to die after a quick call.”
Instead, Kaplan — not the police, not the FBI, not the emailer’s family or friends — became the sole person to know how a mole spent years undercover in two of America’s most prominent right-wing militias, insinuating himself into the highest echelons of the groups.
This mole became a key source into Kaplan’s 2024 investigation into AP3, one of the largest right-wing militias in the U.S. In January, Kaplan told the story of how a wilderness survival trainer gained the trust of the militias and gathered intelligence, and of what happened to him afterward.
