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Snowden’s Ride, Part 14: Paul Cobb, Glenn Greenwald and the Murder of Judge Lefkow’s Family

Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

COMMENT: In our past dis­cus­sion of Eddie the Friend­ly Spook [Snowden]‘s activ­i­ties, we have not­ed that the indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions in the “drama­tis per­son­ae” track back to far right and explic­it­ly Nazi and fas­cist ele­ments. That includes Glenn Green­wald, Snow­den’s jour­nal­is­tic leak­er of choice.

(Our series on this is long, com­plex and mul­ti-lay­ered: Part IPart IIPart IIIPart IVPart VPart VIPart VII, Part VIIIPart IXPart X, Part XI, Part XIIPart XIIIPart XIVPart XVPart XVIPart XVIIPart XVIIIPart XIX, Part XXIt is impos­si­ble to do jus­tice to this analy­sis with­in the scope of this post. Please digest the rest of the mate­r­i­al, in order to come to terms with what we are pre­sent­ing.)

Recent­ly there has been sig­nif­i­cant media cov­er­age of Craig Paul Cobb (with the mid­dle and first names some­times reversed in some sources) and his attempts at buy­ing a small, North Dako­ta town that he envis­ages as a Nazi/white suprema­cist com­mu­ni­ty. (See text excerpts below.)

Cob­b’s appar­ent role in the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the mur­der of the fam­i­ly of Judge Joan Lefkow has received less cov­er­age. (See text excerpts below.)

Also receiv­ing less cov­er­age is Glenn Green­wald’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion of World Church of the Cre­ator head Matthew Hale in this case. (See text excerpts.)

(In past posts, we have not­ed Glenn Green­wald’s pro-bono rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Hale and the Nation­al Alliance, with which Cobb was also affil­i­at­ed.)

A num­ber of things come to mind as we pon­der Green­wald’s role in this:

  •  Con­vict­ed of solic­i­ta­tion of the mur­der of Judge Joan Lefkow, whose hus­band and moth­er were mur­dered in her home a few weeks after Cobb exer­cised what Green­wald would char­ac­ter­ize of his right of free speech on the inter­net, Green­wald’s client Hale char­ac­ter­ized his orga­ni­za­tion as being at war with Judge Lefkow. (See text excerpts below.)
  • Cobb post­ed Lefkow’s name and address on the inter­net. Her moth­er and hus­band were mur­dered a few weeks lat­er. Cobb was overt­ly, explic­it­ly pleased by that fact. ” . . . What was I feel­ing? Emo­tions are not yet ille­gal. I was just fine with it. I think it was well done.”[1] (See text excerpts below.) 
  • Cob­b’s actions epit­o­mize the “lead­er­less resis­tance strat­e­gy,” for which Green­wald ran legal inter­fer­ence in his law prac­tice.
  • Green­wald’s client Hale was taped by an under­cov­er FBI infor­mant who pro­vid­ed; ”  . . . . an email from Hale solic­it­ing Lefkow’s home address, and a tape record­ing of a dis­cus­sion between the two about Lefkow’s mur­der. On the tape, Evola said, “We going to exter­mi­nate the rat?” Hale replied, “Well, what­ev­er you want to do basi­cal­ly.” Evola said, “The Jew rat.” Hale then said: “You know, my posi­tion has always been that I, you know, I’m going to fight with­in the law… but that infor­ma­tion has been pro­vid­ed. [by Cobb]… If you wish to do any­thing your­self, you can.” Evola replied, “Con­sid­er it done,” and Hale respond­ed, “Good.” . . . . (See text excerpts below.)
  • Green­wald’s com­ments on the case are very, very reveal­ing. “. . . . . Attor­ney Glenn Green­wald, rep­re­sent­ing Hale, says he believes the charge against Hale stems from what he calls a mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Hale’s state­ment that “we are in a state of war with Judge Lefkow.” Green­wald says: “They are prob­a­bly try­ing to take things he said along the lines of polit­i­cal advo­ca­cy and turn it into a crime. The FBI may have inter­pret­ed this pro­tect­ed speech as a threat against a fed­er­al judge, but it’s prob­a­bly noth­ing more than some heat­ed rhetoric.” Dur­ing Hale’s incar­cer­a­tion, spe­cial admin­is­tra­tive mea­sures will be imposed to reduce his abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate with his fol­low­ers. . . .(See text excerpts below.)
  • Green­wald alleges that an attempt by Hale’s moth­er to have Green­wald give a cod­ed mes­sage to one of Hale’s fol­low­ers was unsuc­cess­ful. (See text excerpts below.)
  • Note that the U.S. Attor­ney in the case not­ed that free­dom of speech does not include solic­i­ta­tion of mur­der. Green­wald appears to have prob­lems with that inter­pre­ta­tion.
  • WE NOTE AGAIN that peo­ple who do what Glenn Green­wald has done, can­not POSSIBLY be what they claim to be!

“New Neighbor’s Agen­da: White Pow­er Takeover” by John Eligon; The New York Times; 8/29/2013.

The beard­ed man with thin­ning, gray-and-bleach-blond hair flap­ping down his neck first appeared in this tiny agri­cul­tur­al town last year, qui­et­ly and incon­spic­u­ous­ly roam­ing the crack­ly dirt roads.

Net­tie Ket­ter­ling thought noth­ing of it when he came into her bar to charge his cell­phone in an out­let beneath the mount­ed head of a mule deer. To Ken­neth Zim­mer­man, the man was just anoth­er cus­tomer, bring­ing his blue Dodge Duran­go in for repairs. Bob­by Harp­er did not blink when the man appeared in front of his house and asked him if he had any land to sell. And the may­or, Ryan Schock, was sim­ply extend­ing a civic cour­tesy when he swung by the man’s house to intro­duce him­self.

Their new neigh­bor, they thought, was just anoth­er per­son look­ing to get clos­er to the lucra­tive oil fields in west­ern North Dako­ta known as the Bakken.

But all that changed last week.

The South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter and The Bis­mar­ck Tri­bune revealed that the man, Paul Craig Cobb, 61, has been buy­ing up prop­er­ty in this town of 24 peo­ple in an effort to trans­form it into a colony for white suprema­cists.

In the past two years, Mr. Cobb, a long­time pros­e­ly­tiz­er for white suprema­cy who is want­ed in Cana­da on charges of pro­mot­ing hatred, has bought a dozen plots of land in Lei­th (pro­nounced Leeth) and has sold or trans­ferred own­er­ship of some of them to a cou­ple of like-mind­ed white nation­al­ists. . . .

“Craig Cobb”; Wikipedia

. . . . Cobb is report­ed to have grown up in a wealthy fam­i­ly and attend­ed a pri­vate school in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts where he grad­u­at­ed in 1968.[6] Cobb says he grew up a Chris­t­ian, but has since renounced Chris­tian­i­ty, say­ing “I don’t under­stand Chris­tians. They have a need to be moral­ly supe­ri­or than the next guy...They are very threat­ened by any­thing with racial cohe­sion.” [7] After serv­ing in the armed forces he moved to Edmon­ton, Cana­da for five years then relo­cat­ed to Hawaii where he lived for anoth­er 25 years and earned a liv­ing as a taxi dri­ver. In 2003 he relo­cat­ed to Frost, West Vir­ginia where he opened a gro­cery store and sub­se­quent­ly reg­is­tered a busi­ness called “Gray’s Store, Aryan Auto­graphs and 14 Words, L.L.C.” Dur­ing this time he was involved in unso­licit­ed inter-state deliv­er­ies of a neo-Nazi news­pa­per pub­lished by Alex Linder,[8] dis­tri­b­u­tion of Project School­yard CDs to local children,[9] and attend­ed an invi­ta­tion-only lead­er­ship con­fer­ence of the Nation­al Alliance. . . .

. . . . Cobb uses the online pseu­do­nyms “No 1965 Chain Immi­grants” (on Storm­front) and “Chain” (on Pod­blanc), which ref­er­ences to the abo­li­tion of the Nation­al Ori­gins For­mu­la in the Immi­gra­tion and Nation­al­i­ty Act of 1965. While his inter­net activ­i­ties cen­ter upon “tire­less propaganda”[30] for Pod­blanc he is also active in far-right dis­cus­sion boards where, after the arrest of Matt Hale in 2003 for solic­it­ing the mur­der of U.S. Dis­trict Judge Joan Lefkow, Cobb post­ed the judge’s home address, fam­i­ly pho­tographs and a map to her house. Lefkow’s hus­band and moth­er were sub­se­quent­ly mur­dered. In reply to a reporter’s ques­tion “What were you feel­ing when the dou­ble mur­der hap­pened?” Cobb stat­ed “What was I feel­ing? Emo­tions are not yet ille­gal. I was just fine with it. I think it was well done.”[1]  [This is the very essence of the “Lead­er­less Resis­tance” strat­e­gy for which Green­wald ran legal interference–D.E.] . .

“Pro­file: Matthew Hale”; His­to­ry Commons.org

. . . . Avowed white suprema­cist Craig Cobb (see Octo­ber 31, 2005) moves to Esto­nia and founds Pod­blanc, an Inter­net-based videoshar­ing Web site. It is sim­i­lar to YouTube, but Cobb and his sup­port­ers refuse to use that facil­i­ty, call­ing it “Jew Tube” because its oper­a­tors cen­sor racist and anti-Semit­ic con­tent. Pod­blanc offers over 1,000 chan­nels of video con­tent, includ­ing com­bat hand­gun train­ing, bomb-mak­ing tuto­ri­als, a descrip­tion of secu­ri­ty mea­sures at three north­ern Cal­i­for­nia syn­a­gogues, and an audio record­ing of The Turn­er Diaries, the infa­mous race-war fan­ta­sy nov­el (see 1978). The most pop­u­lar video on the site shows Russ­ian neo-Nazis behead­ing and shoot­ing Asi­at­ic immi­grants; oth­er pop­u­lar videos show skin­heads attack­ing ran­dom Jew­ish and minor­i­ty vic­tims. Cobb was a mem­ber of the vio­lent World Church of the Cre­ator (WCOTC) until its col­lapse after its leader, Matthew Hale, was arrest­ed for solic­it­ing the mur­der of a judge (see Jan­u­ary 9, 2003 and 2004–2005). Cobb post­ed the name and home address of the judge on the inter­net, which may have led to the mur­der of her hus­band and moth­er (see Feb­ru­ary 28, 2005). Cobb has also attend­ed events spon­sored by the neo-Nazi Nation­al Alliance (see 1970–1974 . . . .

. . . . Matthew Hale, the leader of the World Church of the Cre­ator (WCOTC—see May 1996 and After), shows up for a con­tempt of court hear­ing in a Chica­go court­room based on his refusal to give up his group’s name after los­ing a trade­mark infringe­ment law­suit (see Novem­ber 2002). When Hale appears, he is arrest­ed for solic­it­ing the mur­der of the judge who presided over the law­suit, Fed­er­al Dis­trict Court Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow. Hale recent­ly claimed Lefkow was prej­u­diced against him because she is mar­ried to a Jew and has chil­dren who are bira­cial. Law enforce­ment offi­cials with Chicago’s Joint Ter­ror­ism Task Force say Hale asked anoth­er per­son to “forcibly assault and mur­der” Lefkow. FBI spokesman Thomas Kneir says: “Cer­tain­ly free­dom of speech and free­dom of reli­gion are impor­tant in our soci­ety here in Amer­i­ca. But the threat of phys­i­cal vio­lence will not be tol­er­at­ed.” US Attor­ney Patrick Fitzger­ald adds, “Free­dom of speech does not include the free­dom to solic­it mur­der.” Hale is accom­pa­nied in the court­room by about a dozen fol­low­ers, many of whom raise their fists in what they call a Roman salute but that is more wide­ly known as a Nazi salute. . . . .

. . . . . Matthew Hale, the leader of the World Church of the Cre­ator (WCOTC—see May 1996 and After), is con­vict­ed of one count of solic­i­ta­tion of mur­der and three counts of obstruc­tion of jus­tice in regards to his attempt to solic­it the mur­der of a judge (see Jan­u­ary 9, 2003). Hale nev­er tes­ti­fied on his own behalf. Defense coun­sel Thomas Antho­ny Durkin called no wit­ness­es, say­ing the prosecution’s evi­dence was the weak­est he had seen in a major case, argu­ing that Hale was set up by an FBI infor­mant. Durkin says he will appeal, and will prove that pros­e­cu­tors have been “out to get Hale” because of his sus­pect­ed involve­ment in a shoot­ing spree by WCOTC mem­ber Ben­jamin Smith five years ago (see July 2–4, 1999; the jury heard audio­tapes of Hale laugh­ing about Smith’s mur­ders and mock­ing the vic­tims). [The civ­il suit against Hale by Smith’s vic­tims was the first case in which Green­wald rep­re­sent­ed Hale pro bono.–D.E.] US Attor­ney Patrick Fitzger­ald, the lead pros­e­cu­tor in the case, says the trial’s out­come proves “that we will not wait for the trig­ger to be pulled” before tak­ing action. . . .

. . . . The press will lat­er learn that Hale solicit­ed the mur­der from FBI infor­mant Antho­ny Evola, a Chica­go area piz­za deliv­ery man who was asked by Hale to dis­trib­ute racist and anti-Semit­ic pam­phlets to school­child­ren. Evola instead called the Chica­go Pub­lic Schools to warn them about the racist mate­r­i­al, and was lat­er asked to become an FBI infor­mant. In the months that fol­lowed, Evola became chief of Hale’s “White Beret” secu­ri­ty squad and fre­quent­ly trav­eled with Hale. Evola pro­vid­ed FBI offi­cials with an email from Hale solic­it­ing Lefkow’s home address, and a tape record­ing of a dis­cus­sion between the two about Lefkow’s mur­der. On the tape, Evola said, “We going to exter­mi­nate the rat?” Hale replied, “Well, what­ev­er you want to do basi­cal­ly.” Evola said, “The Jew rat.” Hale then said: “You know, my posi­tion has always been that I, you know, I’m going to fight with­in the law… but that infor­ma­tion has been pro­vid­ed.… If you wish to do any­thing your­self, you can.” Evola replied, “Con­sid­er it done,” and Hale respond­ed, “Good.” . . . .

. . . . . Attor­ney Glenn Green­wald, rep­re­sent­ing Hale, says he believes the charge against Hale stems from what he calls a mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Hale’s state­ment that “we are in a state of war with Judge Lefkow.”Green­wald says: “They are prob­a­bly try­ing to take things he said along the lines of polit­i­cal advo­ca­cy and turn it into a crime. The FBI may have inter­pret­ed this pro­tect­ed speech as a threat against a fed­er­al judge, but it’s prob­a­bly noth­ing more than some heat­ed rhetoric.” Dur­ing Hale’s incar­cer­a­tion, spe­cial admin­is­tra­tive mea­sures will be imposed to reduce his abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate with his fol­low­ers. . . .

. . . . . . Hale’s attor­ney Glenn Green­wald reveals that six to eight weeks before the mur­ders, Hale’s moth­er asked him to pass what was clear­ly a cod­ed mes­sage from Hale to a WCOTC fol­low­er. [Green­wald claims he did not for­ward the message–D.E.] . . . .

 

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