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This broadcast was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
I
ntroduction: This broadcast is something of a “prequel” to the next two programs, both dealing with Charlottesville.
What the media have termed “Alt-Right” and the author calls “the radical right” were present at Charlottesville and participants in the assassination of JFK.
Numerous programs and articles on this website have dealt with Nazi involvement with the assassination of JFK, from paramilitary American Nazi elements to individuals and institutions overlapping the Reinhard Gehlen spy milieu.
In this program, we excerpt a recent, massive volume General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy by Jeffrey H. Caufield M.D. NB: For a seasoned researcher, this is a useful and important book, however it MUST be handicapped–the author is dismissive of the [by now recorded fact] that elements of the intelligence community were involved in the killing. Of course, they were.
Notwithstanding that significant flaw, the book features a treasure trove of information about Nazi and fascist connections to the assassination of JFK. A veteran researcher can–and should–easily take the information from Caufield’s book and collate it with the intelligence community elements with which the “radical right” individuals and institutions are affiliated.
Although not coterminous by any means, what Caufield terms “the radical right” and U.S. intelligence are profoundly connected.
We suspect that overlapping groups comprising what Caufield terms “the radical right” constitute an “American Gladio.”
This hypothetical relationship suggests the possibility of a domestic version of “Operation Stay Behind” and its Italian component, “Operation Gladio”. The above were NATO operations that utilized extreme right and fascist elements as potential guerilla forces to fight against communists in the event of either a successful Soviet takeover of Western Europe (an extreme improbability), or the greater likelihood of a popular Communist takeover of a major Western European country. In practice, Gladio resulted in a program of terrorist acts (bombings, kidnappings and assassinations) directed against the left. (Many of those acts were actually blamed on the left, in order to discredit it in the eyes of the public.)
Disturbed by the alleged lack of “backbone” demonstrated by American military personnel during the Korean War, American strategic thinkers undertook to indoctrinate the American public with a practically militant, anti-Communist perspective. These leaders feared that, in the event of a protracted nuclear face-off with the Soviets, lack of American political resolve could result in the United States “blinking” and backing down in such a confrontation.
In 1958, the Eisenhower administration issued a National Security Council directive authorizing the military to engage in a program of political indoctrination of military personnel and (more importantly) the civilian population as well. The goal of this directive was to alter the political views of the American people. The constitutional implications of this directive could not be exaggerated. The bulk of the broadcast examines evidence that suggests that, as a result of this NSC directive, the national security establishment began utilizing far-right and fascist groups in order to realize the desired ideological transformation. Mr. Emory suggests that these networks may very well have been utilized in the American political assassinations of the 1960s and early 1970s, as well as domestic intelligence operations against the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements.
We begin our analysis with New Orleans DA Jim Garrison’s 1967 letter to Lord Bertrand Russell, in which he noted the Nazi associations of many of the people involved with the JFK assassination.
Next, we excerpt text discussing David Ferrie’s Nazi musings and associations.
In future programs, we will take up the issue of what Fort Sill Operations Command Officer Glenn Pinchback referred to as a “Neo-Nazi plot to enslave America in the name of anti-Communism” and “a neo-Nazi plot gargantuan in scope.”
In FTR #188, we detailed the “Hate Bus,” a gambit by American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell to protest the Freedom Riders and the Civil Rights movement. It bears some structural similarity to the Charlottesville incident, with fascists staging a counter-event to a progressive demonstration, in this case the “freedom riders” bus ridden by white college students and black civil rights activists in support of integration and voting rights in the South.
Note that apparent Oswald associate Ray Leahart was the best man at the wedding of David Duke, a major participant in the Charlottesville event.
Highlighting aspects of the career of “Hate Bus” participant Ray Leahart, a New Orleans ANP [American Nazi Party] member, we note that:
- Leahart was alleged to have been an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald. ” . . . . On December 16, 1963, after the Kennedy assassination, the New Orleans FBI investigated a tip that Lee Harvey Oswald had been seen with Ray Leahart during the previous summer. Leahart was a New Orleans Nazi whom [Guy] Banister had bailed out of jail in the Hate Bus incident. . . .”
- The FBI had no documents on Leahart, raising the question of what happened to a document about Leahart’s arrest in the “Hate Bus” incident. (For more about the Hate Bus, see FTR #188.) Author Caufield speculates that Oswald handler Guy Banister’s close relationship with FBI SAC Regis Kennedy may have had something to do with the disappearance of Leahart’s arrest record. ” . . . . No FBI documents, other than the New Orleans police mug shots from the Hate Bus arrest, were in the FBI record, which raises the question of what happened to FBI reference 841767D (Leahart’s arrest record in the Hate Bus incident) and why it did not accompany the allegation and substantial likelihood of an Oswald-Leahart association when sent to the Warren Commission. Banister’s close friendship with New Orleans FBI SAC Regis Kennedy may have had something to do with the critical omission. . . .”
- Leahart was close to Dallas, Texas, ANP members, including Robert Surrey, who printed a notorious poster of JFK: ” . . . . . . . The Dallas FBI office was aware of correspondence linking Leahart to ANP [American Nazi Party] activities in Texas. One Dallas ANP member, Robert Surrey, was a close associate of General [Edwin] Walker. Surrey’s wife Mary was Walker’s personal secretary. Wealthy oilmen reportedly funded Surrey’s Nazi outfit. Surrey printed the infamous ‘Wanted for Treason’ poster which had circulated in Dallas before the association. The poster pictured mug-shot-styled photos of President Kennedy and accused him of treason. Surrey and Walker were Warren Commission witnesses, and, of course, Walker was close to both Guy Banister and Kent Courtney. . . .”
- Leahart was an associate of David Duke, and was best man at Duke’s wedding. ” . . . . On September 9, 1972, Leahart became the best man at Duke’s wedding. . . .”
The program then reviews Daniel Burros, one of the American Nazi Party members whose contact information was in Lee Harvey Oswald’s address book.
Burros viewed with favor veteran Nazi Edward Hunter, a Guy Banister’s associate, who had been a member of the pre-war Nazi Fifth Column in the U.S.
Burros allegedly committed suicide at the home of Pennsylvania Klan leader Roy Frankhouser, who–as seen in AFA #13–had operational links with elements of U.S. intelligence, CIA in particular.
Frankhouser also infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party, an organization so infiltrated by spooks and fascists that it was little more than a right-wing front organization. (The SWP was the ideological petri dish in which Lyndn LaRouche and Bernie Sanders were cultured.)
Note that Frankhouser was apparently in possession of correspondence from Michael and Ruth Paine, two “liberal” babysitters of Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife. Both Michael and Ruth Paine had strong links to the national security establishment.
Fleshing out the continuity between the Nazi Fifth Column of the pre-World War II period and what author Caufield termed the “radical right” and by contemporary observers as “the alt-right,” we excerpt John Roy Carlson’s Under Cover. Note that Edward Hunter was an associate of Guy Banister’s. (Banister was one of Oswald’s apparent intelligence handlers.)
Gerhard Frey was the editor of the Deutsche National Zeitung und Soldaten Zeitung, which had veterans of the SS and Goebbels’ propaganda bureau on its editorial staff. The publication received financial support from the CIA.
A financier of contemporary Russian fascist Vladimir Zhironovsky, Frey was associated with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations.
Formed by Adolf Hitler in 1943, that organization is a consortium of Eastern European Third Reich subsidiaries such as the Ukrainian OUN/B, the Romanian Iron Guard, the Bulgarian National Front, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Croatian Ustachi, the Slovakian Hlinka Party and others. The unifying element in these fascist organizations was the SS. The ABN became a key element of the Gehlen organization and the GOP.
Both Frey and General Charles Willoughby were associated with the ABN.
General Charles Willoughby was also tight with the ABN, and its founder Jaroslav Stetzko, the head of Ukraine’s Nazi collaborationist government. (The spelling of Stetzko’s name varies with the transliteration from the Cyrillic alphabet.) In numerous programs, we have discussed Stetzko, his wartime genocidal operations, his and the ABN’s links to the Gehlen organization, the GOP, the CIA and the Underground Reich.
An element of continuity between the wartime regime of Jaroslav Stetzko and the present OUN/B successor organizations in Ukraine is Roman Svarych.
Roman Svarych was Stezko’s personal secretary in the early 1980’s. He became Ukraine’s minister of justice (the equivalent of Attorney General) under Yuschenko, and held the same post under both Timoshenko governments. Svarych then became an adviser to Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko and is the chief spokesman for the Azov Battalion. (We highlight Stetzko/Stetsko in numerous programs–use the search function with the alternate spellings to flesh out your understanding.)
1. We begin our analysis with New Orleans DA Jim Garrison’s 1967 letter to Lord Bertrand Russell, in which he noted the Nazi associations of many of the people involved with the JFK assassination.
. . . . Above the operational level, insulated and removed to the point of being very nearly invisible, appeared to have been individuals whose political orientation can only be described as Neo-Nazi. Even as I have described this Neo-Nazi aspect, I am sure that it sounds somewhat fanciful. Because of the unbelievability of this part of the picture, I have found it necessary to refrain from mentioning it . . . . . Nevertheless, the essentially Fascist origin of the assassination is inescaple.–D.A. Jim Garrison’s Letter to Lord Bertrand Russell, August 27, 1967. . . .
2. Next, we excerpt text discussing David Ferrie’s Nazi musings and associations.
In future programs, we will take up the issue of what Fort Sill Operations Command Officer Glenn Pinchback referred to as a “Neo-Nazi plot to enslave America in the name of anti-Communism” and “a neo-Nazi plot gargantuan in scope.”
. . . . Garrison did not provide an explanation for all of the [David Ferrie] note’s subject matter. However, he did know the meaning of “flying Baragona in the Beech.” “Beech” refers to the model of Ferrie’s airplane, a Beechcraft. Baragona was a Nazi from Fort Sill. . . .
. . . . Garrison also obtained a transcript of a letter written by Ferrie to Baragona. Next to Baragona’s name, Garrison wrote: “Note Baragona is important.” The letter had been sent to Garrison by Glenn Pinchback, and a carbon copy was sent to Mendel Rivers, a congressman from Georgia. (Pinchback worked in the Operations Command at Fort Sill, where he intercepted mail.) In the letter, Ferrie shared his dream of the re-unification of Germany and living in a world where all the currency was in Deutschmarks. Pinchback’s summation of the letter described a “Neo-Nazi plot to enslave America in the name of anti-Communism,” and “a neo-Nazi plot gargantuan in scope.” The Ferrie letter spoke of the need to kill all the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr. . . . Pinchback also reportedly obtained a letter from David Ferrie to Baragona confessing his role in the assassination of Robert Gehrig, who was a Nazi and Fort Sill soldier. . . .”
3. In FTR #188, we detailed the “Hate Bus,” a gambit by American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell to protest the Freedom Riders and the Civil Rights movement. It bears some structural similarity to the Charlottesville incident, with fascists staging a counter-event to a progressive demonstration, in this case the “freedom riders” bus ridden by white college students and black civil rights activists in support of integration and voting rights in the South.
Note that apparent Oswald associate Ray Leahart was the best man at the wedding of David Duke, a major participant in the Charlottesville event.
Highlighting aspects of the career of “Hate Bus” participant Ray Leahart, a New Orleans ANP [American Nazi Party] member, we note that:
- Leahart was alleged to have been an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald. ” . . . . On December 16, 1963, after the Kennedy assassination, the New Orleans FBI investigated a tip that Lee Harvey Oswald had been seen with Ray Leahart during the previous summer. Leahart was a New Orleans Nazi whom [Guy] Banister had bailed out of jail in the Hate Bus incident. . . .”
- The FBI had no documents on Leahart, raising the question of what happened to a document about Leahart’s arrest in the “Hate Bus” incident. (For more about the Hate Bus, see FTR #188.) Author Caufield speculates that Oswald handler Guy Banister’s close relationship with FBI SAC Regis Kennedy may have had something to do with the disappearance of Leahart’s arrest record. ” . . . . No FBI documents, other than the New Orleans police mug shots from the Hate Bus arrest, were in the FBI record, which raises the question of what happened to FBI reference 841767D (Leahart’s arrest record in the Hate Bus incident) and why it did not accompany the allegation and substantial likelihood of an Oswald-Leahart association when sent to the Warren Commission. Banister’s close friendship with New Orleans FBI SAC Regis Kennedy may have had something to do with the critical omission. . . .”
- Leahart was close to Dallas, Texas, ANP members, including Robert Surrey, who printed a notorious poster of JFK: ” . . . . . . . The Dallas FBI office was aware of correspondence linking Leahart to ANP [American Nazi Party] activities in Texas. One Dallas ANP member, Robert Surrey, was a close associate of General [Edwin] Walker. Surrey’s wife Mary was Walker’s personal secretary. Wealthy oilmen reportedly funded Surrey’s Nazi outfit. Surrey printed the infamous ‘Wanted for Treason’ poster which had circulated in Dallas before the association. The poster pictured mug-shot-styled photos of President Kennedy and accused him of treason. Surrey and Walker were Warren Commission witnesses, and, of course, Walker was close to both Guy Banister and Kent Courtney. . . .”
- Leahart was an associate of David Duke, and was best man at Duke’s wedding. ” . . . . On September 9, 1972, Leahart became the best man at Duke’s wedding. . . .”
General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy by Jeffrey H. Caufield, M.D.; Moreland Press [HC]; Copyright 2015 Jeffrey H. Caufield; ISBN-13: 978–0‑9915637–0‑8; pp. 73–82.
. . . . The Hate Bus rolled in to New Orleans after earlier stops in strife-torn Montgomery, Alabama, and Mobile, Alabama, the next day, on an avowed campaign against integration and Communism. According to the Nazi Party, the Hate Bus was sent, “to symbolize the fact that decent Americans do hate and should hate Communism and race mixing.” The Nazis followed the itinerary of the Freedom Riders–equal numbers of black and white civil rights workers–who began their journey south from Washington D.C. . . . .
. . . . On December 16, 1963, after the Kennedy assassination, the New Orleans FBI investigated a tip that Lee Harvey Oswald had been seen with Ray Leahart during the previous summer. Leahart was a New Orleans Nazi whom [Guy] Banister had bailed out of jail in the Hate Bus incident. The report is presented here for the first time:
MUNCY PERKINS: Clerk Carrolton Avenue Station, New Orleans Public Service, Inc., residence address 5320 Camp Street, New Orleans advised that occasionally individuals have been observed by him at the Carrolton Avenue Station in the early morning hours waiting for RAY JAMES LEAHART, one of the bus drivers. MR. PERKINS thought that possibly LEE HARVEY OSWALD may have been among those persons waiting for LEAHART. . . .
. . . . No FBI documents, other than the New Orleans police mug shots from the Hate Bus arrest, were in the FBI record, which raises the question of what happened to FBI reference 841767D (Leahart’s arrest record in the Hate Bus incident) and why it did not accompany the allegation and substantial likelihood of an Oswald-Leahart association when sent to the Warren Commission. Banister’s close friendship with New Orleans FBI SAC Regis Kennedy may have had something to do with the critical omission.
Garrison’s investigators were aware of Leahart, but not of the allegation that he was seen with Lee Harvey Oswald. They had information that Ray Leahart, a city streetcar or bus driver, pasted ANP [American Nazi Party] slogans and posters on the walls of the Magazine Street bus depot where he worked. Investigators were aware that Leahart had been to the training cap across Lake Pontchartrain with Derek Frier who was a courier for the Nazi Party (several allegations that Oswald had been to the camp were noted in Chapters One and Two), and that Frier’s friend Loren Butler was a high-ranking official in the Nazi Party.
According to FBI documents, Ray Leahart and Bluford Balter were organizers of the New Orleans American Nazi Party. Leahart personally knew George Lincoln Rockwell and had at least twelve personal discussions with Rockwell—and even visited him on one occasion in Virginia. Rockwell also met with Leahart, the head of the New Orleans National States’ Rights Party, in New Orleans, in New Orleans in September 1964. In 1961, a “Special New Orleans Edition” of the NSRP newspaper The Thunderbolt was issued with the front page headline, “[LEANDER] PEREZ TURNS SPOTLIGHT ON THE ENEMY,” and appeared with a story written by Ray James Leahart above a large photograph of Leander Perez, Banister’s close friend. . . . Guy Banister subscribed to The Thunderbolt. . . .
. . . . The Dallas FBI office was aware of correspondence linking Leahart to ANP [American Nazi Party] activities in Texas. One Dallas ANP member, Robert Surrey, was a close associate of General [Edwin] Walker. Surrey’s wife Mary was Walker’s personal secretary. Wealthy oilmen reportedly funded Surrey’s Nazi outfit. Surrey printed the infamous “Wanted for Treason” poster which had circulated in Dallas before the association. The poster pictured mug-shot-styled photos of President Kennedy and accused him of treason. Surrey and Walker were Warren Commission witnesses, and, of course, Walker was close to both Guy Banister and Kent Courtney. . . .
. . . . In the 1970s, Leahart became a leading member in the National Socialist White People’s Party—a reconfigured ANP and Ku Klux Klan outfit—along with David Duke, perhaps the best-known white supremacist in America in the 21st century, Leahart peddled his propaganda along with Duke in what was known as a “Free Speech Rally” at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. On September 9, 1972, Leahart became the best man at Duke’s wedding. . . .
5. The program then reviews Daniel Burros, one of the American Nazi Party members whose contact information was in Lee Harvey Oswald’s address book.
Burros viewed with favor veteran Nazi Edward Hunter, a Guy Banister’s associate, who had been a member of the pre-war Nazi Fifth Column in the U.S.
Burros allegedly committed suicide at the home of Pennsylvania Klan leader Roy Frankhouser, who–as seen in AFA #13–had operational links with elements of U.S. intelligence, CIA in particular.
Frankhouser also infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party, an organization so infiltrated by spooks and fascists that it was little more than a right-wing front organization. (The SWP was the ideological petri dish in which Lyndn LaRouche and Bernie Sanders were cultured.)
Note that Frankhouser was apparently in possession of correspondence from Michael and Ruth Paine, two “liberal” babysitters of Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife. Both Michael and Ruth Paine had strong links to the national security establishment.
General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy by Jeffrey H. Caufield, M.D.; Moreland Press [HC]; Copyright 2015 Jeffrey H. Caufield; ISBN-13: 978–0‑9915637–0‑8; p. 78.
. . . . One of his [Daniel Burros’] favorite books was Under Cover, which exposed many well-known right wingers as Nazis, like Banister’s friend Edward Hunter, who was an admitted Nazi before WWII. It also exposed a Kent Courtney and Edwin Walker associate, Harold Lord Varney–the publisher of The American Mercury–as a Nazi.
After the Kennedy assasination, Burros wore a button he designed that read, “Lee Harvey Oswald Fan Club.” He became interested in the Ku Klux Klan at a Klan rally in Bear, Delaware. Roy Frankhouser introduced Burros to the Imperial Wizard (National leader) of the United Klans of America, Robert Shelton, who cherished Klan members from the north. Frankhouser was the Grand Dragon of the State of Pennsylvania. Shelton swore in Burros as Kleagle (organizer) and, later, as provisional Grand Dragon of the State of New York. Frankhouser, whose first ties to the Klan were in 1958, reportedly assaulted a police captain during a segregationist rally in October of 1961 in Atlanta. Attorneys and prominent leaders in the Klan and NSRP, J.B. Stoner and James Venable respectively, defended Frankhouser. Interestingly, Venable intimated–not long before he died in the 1990’s–that Lee Harvey Oswald had visited his Stone Mountain, Georgia, home in 1963. It is also worth noting that Stoner served as the attorney for the convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. James Earl Ray.
. . . . Burros retreated to Frankhouser’s home in Reading, Pennsylvania, where upon reading the article exposing his Jewish background–shot himself in the head. After Burros’ death, Frankhouser told The New York Times that Burros had offered the FBI Photostats that connected Lee Harvey Oswald to the Socialist Workers Party. In a May 18, 1967, FBI memo, an informant told the FBI that Frankhouser had, in a secure place, letters concerning the assassination of President Kennedy from a person known as “Payne.” The letters were apparently were intended to be given by the informant to Garrison during his investigation, but they never materialized. The information was, however, passed along from the FBI to the Secret Service. “Payne” was determined to be a reference to Michael Paine, whose wife shared their home with the Oswalds before the assassination. Frankhouser, in a 1975 interview, claimed that Ruth and Michael Paine had infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party when he had infiltrated the party in 1960, and that he had met Oswald when the Paines took him to New York for an international science meeting. . . .
6. Fleshing out the continuity between the Nazi Fifth Column of the pre-World War II period and what author Caufield termed the “radical right” and by contemporary observers as “the alt-right,” we excerpt John Roy Carlson’s Under Cover. Note that Edward Hunter was an associate of Guy Banister’s. (Banister was one of Oswald’s apparent intelligence handlers.)
. . . . Hunter set up shop in 1932 “to inculcate the principles of Americanism in industrial, religious, fraternal, and educational circles” under the high-sounding name, Industrial Defense Association, Inc. That same year he was contacted by Kurt G. W. Luedecke, a Nazi agent with whom Hunter became friendly and introduced at the Exchange Trust Company. Here Luedecke opened a bank account then tried to induce Hunter to found a chapter of the Swastika League of America. The League actually functioned for a while, but was denied a state charter. When Hitler came to power a year later, Hunter mysteriously began to receive $300 a month which he devoted to the publication of an extensive line of pro-Nazi tracts.
Even though the Boston Better Business Bureau branded him an anti-Semite, it did not hamper Hunter. But when his role of a Nazi party-line follower took an ominous course, the Massachusetts Legislature investigated him in 1937. Hunter proved to be an evasive witness. Senator Thomas M. Burke finally asked:
Q: Isn’t it true you attempted to create a corporation of the Nazi League in Massachusetts? A. Yes. Q. Then I say, is it true you are a Nazi . . . ? A. Yes, I am.
Even though the Committee concluded that he carried on “the most vicious activity clearly intended to incite racial and religious hatred,” Hunter was released to take up from where he had left off. I dug out a letter he wrote in 1938 to a correspondent: I am acquainted with Bund members . . . and do not want to know any finer or cleaner Americans than they are. I can assure you 99.9% of the propaganda against the Bund originated in Communistic circles. . . . I would advise you to send a couple of dollars to World Service and George Deatherage [the addresses of both were given], asking them to place you name on their mailing list.
He wrote again: I cannot understand how any student of Radicalism can be misled by the Jewish cry of Fascism and Nazism. . . . Fascism is made out of whole cloth by the fathers of liars (St. John’s 8–44). There is no such animal in America. . . .
8. Gerhard Frey was the editor of the Deutsche National Zeitung und Soldaten Zeitung, which had veterans of the SS and Goebbels’ propaganda bureau on its editorial staff. The publication received financial support from the CIA.
A financier of contemporary Russian fascist Vladimir Zhironovsky, Frey was associated with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations.
Formed by Adolf Hitler in 1943, that organization is a consortium of Eastern European Third Reich subsidiaries such as the Ukrainian OUN/B, the Romanian Iron Guard, the Bulgarian National Front, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Croatian Ustachi, the Slovakian Hlinka Party and others. The unifying element in these fascist organizations was the SS. The ABN became a key element of the Gehlen organization and the GOP.
Both Frey and General Charles Willoughby were associated with the ABN.
General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy by Jeffrey H. Caufield, M.D.; Moreland Press [HC]; Copyright 2015 Jeffrey H. Caufield; ISBN-13: 978–0‑9915637–0‑8; pp. 403–404.
. . . . The interview ended with Walker saying, “Give my regards to my German friends, especially Gerhard Frey,” . . . . Gerhard Frey was editor of the paper and not only was he a friend of Walker but—unknown to the Warren Commission, he was also a friend of General Charles Willoughby, as we shall see later. Frey and Willoughby were members of the far-right Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. . . .
9. General Charles Willoughby was also tight with the ABN, and its founder Jaroslav Stetzko, the head of Ukraine’s Nazi collaborationist government. (The spelling of Stetzko’s name varies with the transliteration from the Cyrillic alphabet.)
In numerous programs, we have discussed Stetzko, his wartime genocidal operations, his and the ABN’s links to the Gehlen organization, the GOP, the CIA and the Underground Reich.
An element of continuity between the wartime regime of Jaroslav Stetzko and the present OUN/B successor organizations in Ukraine is Roman Svarych.
Roman Svarych was Stezko’s personal secretary in the early 1980’s. He became Ukraine’s minister of justice (the equivalent of Attorney General) under Yuschenko, and held the same post under both Timoshenko governments. Svarych then became an adviser to Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko and is the chief spokesman for the Azov Battalion.
General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy by Jeffrey H. Caufield, M.D.; Moreland Press [HC]; Copyright 2015 Jeffrey H. Caufield; ISBN-13: 978–0‑9915637–0‑8; p. 189.
. . . . Willoughby was a supporter of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and its founder pro-Nazi Jaroslaw Stetzko, was listed on the letterhead of Willoughby’s Foreign Intelligence Digest. . . .
Even MORE Fun With Science: Earthquake Weaponry
Peter. Dale Scott on International Para-Fascism http://8bitmode.com/rogerdog/lobster/lobster12.pdf
Is that a rat we’re smelling? A different large rodent? Because something sure stinks in this story about the disappearing Secret Service text messages. As we’re already seen, a large number of agents texts on Jan 5–6 requested by Congressional investigators appear to have been deleted. Adding to the scandal is that we first learned about these deleted texts from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) publicly decrying how these text appear to have been deleted after the OIG made its requests. The Secret Service had countering that the delete texts were lost due to a pre-planned ‘device migration’ and that the OIG’s requests weren’t made until Feb 26, a month after the device migration.
So we had a kind of ‘He said/She said’ situation going on between the DHS OIG an the Secret service. And now we’re getting more information on when those requests were made and what resulted in the deleted texts. Information that is making the whole situation small a lot like a rat. That was the language used by congressman Jamie Raskin in response to these latest revelations.
For starters, we’re now learning that the Secret Service handed over a single text message from Jan 5–6. Yep. Just one. Specifically, a text from the then-Chief of the Capitol Police request help from the Secret Service during the insurrection. That was it. Recall what we were told by the Secret Service in earlier reports on this matter:
Yes, the Secret Service was telling the public that they turned over a “a substantial number of emails and chat messages”, including “text messages from the Capitol Police requesting assistance on Jan. 6.” And while that certainly sounds good, it’s the kind of statement that is cast in a new light when we learn that a text message from then-Capitol Police officer Steven Sund asking the Secret Service for help was the only text sent by the Secret Service to investigators. The fact that it was a text desperately requesting help during the insurrection just adds insult to injury.
We’re also learning that congressional investigators made four requests to the Secret Service for texts from Jan 5–6 on January 16, 2021, 9 days before the Jan 25 planned start of the device migration. So whether or not the DHS OIG made its request for these texts on Feb 26 as the Secret Service claims, it appears Congress made four requests a week and a half before the migration started.
But it gets worse: it turns out the Secret Service’s methods for archiving texts during this device migration involved a rather curious feature that could be in violation of the Federal Records Act. Because it was the agents themselves who decided which text to archive. So the agents involved the insurrection investigation got to choose which messages to keep and the only one kept was the plea from the Capitol Police for help.
It’s worth recall at this point how Alex Jones claimed he was asked by the Trump White House three days before the rally to lead the march. The Secret Service even escorted him out of the rally crowd thirty minutes before the end of Trump’s Speech so he could lead the march to the Capitol. Did any of those delete texts come from or go to Alex Jones? We’ll probably never know, but these are the kinds of embarrassing texts that these agents were tasked with archiving. Archiving or deleting.
Oh, and we’re also going to see, the Secret Service initially stated that the 24 agents in questions were not actually impacted by that device migration, which should raise even more questions about the disappearing texts. But now we’re told that the agency is investigating whether or not those agents’ devices were indeed part of that device migration. A device migration that didn’t just involve the Secret Service but also include government staffers working on Capitol Hill. So this ‘device migration data losses’ issue could actually be much larger than the just the Secret Service.
But then we get to an absolutely fascinating history echo in this whole story: as we’re going to see tucked away near the bottom of a WaPo piece on this story from last week, this isn’t the first time the Secret Service was caught deleting information about possible foreknowledge of a major assault on the US democracy involving white supremacists:
Yep, the Secret Service happened to ‘accidentally’ destroy the records showing foreknowledge of a white supremacist plot against JFK. After the records were destroyed. Sound familiar? So while the current mystery of the lost Secret Service records is certainly something that absolutely must be investigated furiously, could we maybe took another look into that white supremacist JFK angle? No? Is that just old news now? It’s the kind of story that should add some additional context to the current Secret Service mystery. Context that should serve as a remind that these kinds of cover up don’t just resolve themselves. They will go on indefinitely if the people engaged in the cover up are allowed to do so. And the bigger the scandal, the more effort that will go into that coverup:
““They received four requests from congressional committees on Jan. 16 to preserve records, and they had this planned migration for the 25th, I believe, of January, and nobody along the way stopped and thought, ‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t do the migration of data and of the devices until we are able to fulfill these four requests from Congress,’” she said during an interview on MSNBC. ”
Just one text. It’s like public investigative gaslighting. But that’s the Secret Service’s story: there was just one text left undeleted following the ‘device migration’ snafu. And this was despite the fact that there four requests from Congress for these records made on Jan 16, over a week before the planned Jan 25 migration. The Secret Service’s story just doesn’t add up.l Or as congressman Jamie Raskin put it, “I smell a rat”:
But it gets worse. Because we’re now learning that the lost text messages were due to a single individual involved with retaining the agency’s records. Instead, it appears that the individual agents themselves were tasked with preserving texts. So the loss of nearly all of the text message from that day required the group effort of ALL of the agents in question. In other words, if this is a cover up, it’s a highly coordinated one that may have involved a violation of the Federal Records Act:
““Additionally, the procedure for preserving content prior to this purge appears to have been contrary to federal records retention requirements and may represent a possible violation of the Federal Records Act.””
Was the destruction of all these text messages a violation of the Federal Records Act? Let’s hope so. Because otherwise that act would appear to allow for the blatant destruction of records.
But it’s not just the loss of these texts that was potentially a violation of the act. There’s also the fact that the agents themselves were the ones tasked with decided which records were preserved:
Keep in mind the obvious implications of this revelation: if the agents themselves were the ones deciding which messages got turned over to the OIG, and only one text message was turned over, that implies a widespread cover up inside the agency involving a large number of agents. It wasn’t just an individual higher up in agency taking these actions that result in a cover up. And that brings us to one of the other highly suspicious changes in the Secret Service’s story: The agency previously claimed that none of the 24 agents whose information was requested by DHS OIG had phones impacted by the migration. And now we learn that the agency is investigating whether or not any of those 24 agents had their messages lost due to the phone migration:
So at this point the Secret Service’s story makes no sense: we’re first told that the agency turn over a substantial number of emails and chats, only to learn that a single text was turned over. Then we’re told that this was all a misunderstanding due to a previously scheduled device migration, only to learn that Congress made four requests for those texts over a week before the planned migration. Then we’re told that none of the 24 agents whose records were requested were impacted by this device migration issue, which then raises obvious questions about why just a single text was turned over. Then we’re told that the agency is actually now looking into whether or not those 24 agents’ texts were indeed lost in the device migration, at the same time we’re learning that the agents themselves were the ones who got to decide which text messages to preserve. That rat is starting to stink to high heaven.
And as the following WaPo article from last week that first reported on these deleted text reminds us, this ‘device migration’ plan didn’t just involve Secret Service agents. Most of the replacement program began with staff members in Washington offices, and if they did not back up their old text messages that information is last too. It’s the kind of fun fact that should raise all sorts of additional question regarding the still-mysterious sets of burner phones purchased by Kylie and Amy Kremer to communicate with figures that included White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
But there’s another remarkable historic fun fact found at the end of this article. A fun fact about the chilling historic echos in this story: when congressional investigators looking into the JFK assassination sought records that reportedly showed the Secret Service received ample advance warnings and threats before President John F. Kennedy’s death that white supremacists and other organizations were plotting to kill Kennedy using high-powered rifles from tall buildings. The Secret Service told investigators the records had been destroyed as part of a normal culling of old archives — days after investigators had requested them. Yep. In other words, this isn’t the first time the Secret Service has destroyed records involving a white supremacist plot to undermine the US’s democratic institutions:
“Most of the replacement program began with staff members in Washington offices, and if they did not back up their old text messages, the people said, the information from Jan. 6 and the days before that is lost. That could conceivably include the texts sent and received by former White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato and former Trump security detail leader Bobby Engel and other senior leaders in the Secret Service.”
It’s not just the Secret Service who was potentially playing these games. This device migration began with staff members in Washington offices. It’s a reminder that the Secret Service’s coverup might be coordinated with a number of other actors outside the agency.
But then we get to this remarkable fun fact near the end of the article: this whole chapter is eerily reminiscent of one of the unexplored chapters of the JFK assassination: the boxes of records that reportedly showed the Secret Service received ample advance warnings and threats before President John F. Kennedy’s death that white supremacists and other organizations were plotting to kill Kennedy using high-powered rifles from tall buildings. Records that were also destroyed after investigators requested them:
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Like the erosion of what’s left of the US’s democratic institutions. It just keeps happening. At least until there aren’t any democratic institutions left to erode. We’ll presumably just move on to eroding what’s left of human dignity at that point. While never looking back and seriously asking how we got here.
It’s already abundantly clear that the Oath Keepers were deeply involved in a plot to overturn the 2020 election and keep then-President Trump in office. It’s never really been a mystery. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes hasn’t hidden his plans.
But one major aspect of this story that remains unclear is just how extensive was direct coordination between the Oath Keepers and the Trump White House. Not that we haven’t received extensive evidence pointing in that direction. For example, there are the reports on how the Oath Keepers’ “Quick Reaction Force” (QRF) of heavy arms ready to be transported to the Capitol upon Trump’s orders. Then there was the story of Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins and how she initially claimed she had been coordinating with the Secret Service in providing security for VIPs at that ‘Stop the Steal’ rally that then-President Trump spoke at before the rally. Watkins later recanted after the Secret Service denied working with her, but by all accounts she was allowed into the VIP area of the rally before she was later filmed storming the Capitol. That’s pretty direct evidence of some degree of coordination.
And then there’s the indirect evidence in the form of the ongoing scandal at the Secret Service over the missing text messages for the entire month leading up to Jan 6. A scandal that appears to have a Trump appointed DHS OIG at the center of the coverup. This more we learn, the worse it looks for both the Trump White House and the Secret Service.
And that brings us to the following report about claims made by a former Oath Keeper member, John Zimmerman, about a phone call he witnessed between Stewart Rhodes and a Secret Service agent. A phone call that apparently took place in September of 2020 and focused on the ‘parameters’ for how the group could operate at a Trump rally in North Carolina. Recall how September 2020 was the same month Roger Stone started going on Alex Jone’s Info Wars show to call for Trump to declare martial law and cancel the 2020 election. That’s the context of this apparent early outreach between the Oath Keepers and the Secret Service: it happened right around the time talk of blocking the election and declarations of martial law were first really starting to boil over.
And as we’re going to see in the following articles below, these questions about the relationship between the Oath Keepers and the Secret Service are really just one part of a much large question about the the relationship between the myriad of far right groups there on Jan 6 and the Secret Service. For example, as we learned last month, it turns out one seemingly random rioter, Anton Lunyk, received a 9 second phone call from the White House switchboard at 4:34 pm on Jan 6, 15 minutes after the video of Trump calling for the rioters to go home was released. Lunyk had been at the Capitol earlier but was already heading home by the time he received that phone call. Why was this call made? We have no idea, but another interesting detail in this story is that Lunyk was apparently allowed into the ‘special cordoned area’ of the Ellipse rally earlier that day. What was his role in this larger plot? Was he part of some sort of covert special operations teams? We still don’t know. But as we also learned, it turns out Stewart Rhodes called the White House on the evening of Jan 6 and repeatedly implored whoever he was talking to to tell Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and call in groups like the Oath Keepers to still block the transfer of power. So the insurrection plans were still at least partially ongoing going into the evening of Jan 6. That’s part of the context of this mystery call to Anton Lunyk.
Similarly, why did the Secret Service dismiss the threats posed by groups like Storm Front and Atomwaffen? We don’t know, but it turns out the Secret Service was indeed aware that such groups were planning on attending the rallies on Jan 6, and yet, as as recent reports have revealed, the Secret Service determined these groups didn’t pose a threat. Why is that? Did the Secret Service already get indications that these groups were going to be coordinating with the groups like Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Three Percenters? Again, we don’t know. But all those open questions are part of what make the alleged September 2020 phone call between Stewart Rhodes and the Secret Service all the more interesting:
“In the early days of the trial, prosecutors have detailed how the Oath Keepers stored a cache of weapons in a hotel outside Washington, DC, for a so-called “quick reaction force” that would rush into the nation’s capitol if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act. The trial has also featured encrypted messages members of the Oath Keepers exchanged in the months leading up to the Capitol siege, including one sent just days after the 2020 election in which Rhodes wrote, “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war.””
The evidence of plans for violence by various Trump-supporting groups on Jan 6 isn’t really in question at this point. The evidence is overwhelming, including the existence of the “Quick Reaction Force” (QRF) stationed in DC. The big investigative questions are now focused on the coordination between the Trump White House and these outside groups. That’s what makes the claims by Oath Keepers member John Zimmerman during this trial so significant: he apparently witnessed a call between Stewart Rhodes and a Secret Service agent back in September of 2020, months before the election to discuss the “parameters” around which the group could operate at a Fayetteville, NC, rally. It’s an anecdote that echoes the claims made by Oath Keepers member Jessica Watkins who initially claimed she had been coordinating with the Secret Service in providing security for VIPs at that ‘Stop the Steal’ Ellipse rally that then-President Trump spoke at before the rally. Watkins later recanted after the Secret Service denied working with her, but by all accounts she was allowed into the VIP area of the rally before she was later filmed storming the Capitol.
But learning that this phone call took place in September 2020 relates to another salient fact in this investigation: Recall how September 2020 was the same month Roger Stone started going on Alex Jone’s Info Wars show to call for Trump to declare martial law and cancel the 2020 election. So the Oath Keepers and a Secret Service agent were allegedly in phone contact right around the same time plotting for canceling the election was spilling out into the public:
But that alleged phone call is just one of the instances of contact between the Trump White House and Oath Keepers. Contact that was presumably actively going on up through the events of Jan 6, including the evening of Jan 6 after the rioters left the Capitol. For example, there was the alleged calls Rhodes made to an unnamed individual imploring him to tell President Trump “to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power”. In other words, as far as Rhodes was concerned the insurrection was still viable on the evening of Jan 6 and during the period leading up to Jan 20. Rhodes wanted Trump to just refuse to transfer power and was ready to have the Oath Keepers operate as Trump’s private militia. A formally-declared insurrection triggered by Trump’s declaration of the Insurrection Act and imposition of martial-law using groups like the Oath Keepers to carry it out. Rhodes was apparently directly reaching out to people in Trump’s immediate orbit to push this plan on the evening of Jan 6. And while it doesn’t sound like Rhodes ultimately got his message through to Trump, it’s the kind of story that suggests a close working relationship between these groups. A working relationship that went at last as far back as September 2020:
And note Zimmerman’s story from his “Million MAGA March” trip to DC in November 2020: Rhodes was talking about staging violent events intended to give Trump the pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act. It’s the kind of detail that raises the question of how those plans for staging fake events evolved over the following weeks and whether or not the staging of fake violence would have been part of the plans Rhodes wanted to put in place on the evening of Jan 6 to give Trump the excuse to call in the Oath Keepers as a militia force to ‘keep the peace’:
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the White House and the Oath Keepers were in direct coordination both in the lead up to Jan 6 and on that day. But as the following TPM except reminds us, there were a lot of other groups there beyond the Oath Keepers, which raises the obvious question of what kind of contact did the White House, or the Oath Keepers, have with these other groups.
And that brings us to the fascinating story from a couple of weeks ago about a Jan 6 rioter who actually got a phone call from the White House switchboard on Jan 6. intriguingly, the rioter, Anton Lunyk, received the 9 second phone call at 4:34 pm, 15 minutes after the video of Trump asking the rioters to leave the Capitol has already been released. Lunyk, who was videoed inside the Capitol during the riot, was apparently already heading back to New York by then. Why was this random figure called by the White House as the rioters were leaving the Capitol?
But there’s one more interesting detail in this story: it sounds like Lunyk attended the rally at the Ellipse and was allowed into the special cordoned-off area. Was he allowed into that area by the Secret Service? Or perhaps by the Oath Keepers who were reportedly playing a ‘VIP protection’ role in coordination with the Secret Service? We don’t know, but Anton Lunyk clearly wasn’t just a random rioter:
“Denver Riggleman, a former Republican member of Congress from Virginia who advised the Committee, told CBS this weekend that a White House switchboard had made an outgoing call to a rioter.”
Just how many different groups was the White House in direct contact with during Jan 6? It’s one of the many disturbing questions raised by this report. But perhaps the biggest question is about the timing. Why make this call at 4:34 pm, 15 minutes after the White House released the video asking the rioters to leave. Why did a seemingly random New Yorker named Anton Lunyk get a call from the White House switchboard as Lunyk was heading back to New York? We this a call to confirm that an operation was called off? Or a call to see if an operation could be continued? It’s part of the context of learning about Stewart Rhodes’s attempts on the evening of Jan 6 to keep the insurrection going:
And then we get this other interesting detail: Lunyk and two others were allowed into the “cordoned off area on the Ellipse”. Again, recall how Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins initially claimed she had been coordinating with the Secret Service in providing security for VIPs at that ‘Stop the Steal’ Ellipse rally that then-President Trump spoke at before the rally. Watkins later recanted after the Secret Service denied working with her, but by all accounts she was allowed into the VIP area of the rally before she was later filmed storming the Capitol. In other words, the Oath Keepers were apparently in a position to facilitate the entry of special cordoned off areas of the Ellipse. Was Lunyk part of an ‘unofficial’ Oath Keepers hit squad?
Finally, there’s this important detail that publicly came out on Jan 6: Jim Acosta at CNN was reported told by a Trump official that the “goal” was the occupy to the Capitol building throughout the night. That sure sounds like a goal that would be in keeping with Rhodes’s calls to the White House imploring Trump to call up the militias:
And that brings us to the following report by CREW from back in August about the numerous other violent groups that the Secret Service knew were planning on attending the rallies on Jan 6. And as the CREW report makes clear, the Secret Service simply did not see these groups as a real threat. Groups like Storm Front and Atomwaffen:
“The National Capital Region Threat Intelligence Consortium (NTIC) disseminated these threats in messages and a conference call on the morning of January 4, providing a clear and prescient warning of the violence to come. NTIC alerted the Secret Service, FBI, Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department among other law enforcement groups of “on-line communications citing violence in DC on 1–6‑21,” which included objectives such as “Occupying the Capitol to influence lawmakers to change election results,” “Call to come with guns,” “Be prepared to battle” and “Exercise 2nd Amendment rights.””
It wasn’t just the Oath Keepers and 3 Percenters. Or seemingly unaffiliated groups of people like Anton Lunyk’s crew. The Secret Service had intelligence warning that groups like Atomwaffen and Storm Front were also planning on being there on Jan 6. And yet, somehow, the Secret Service concluded that “There is no indication of civil disobedience.” It’s negligence, at best:
And if it seems like maybe the Secret Service simply didn’t have any direct intelligence indicating that these neo-Nazis were planning on violence, here’s another CREW report from a couple weeks ago about how members of Vorherrschaft Division were actively calling for “boots on the ground and voices loud enough to be heard for miles” on social media sites like Telegram in the weeks and days leading up to Jan 6. We know the Secret Service was aware of these rallying cries because the Capitol Police were forwarded warnings about them by the Secret Service. And yet, for whatever reason, the Secret Service didn’t see these groups as a threat:
“A member of Vorherrschaft Division posted on Telegram—a messaging site in part associated with far-right extremists and white supremacists—saying, “We need boots on the ground and voices loud enough to be heard for miles. That’s the only way things are going to change…” In other posts, the same member encouraged users to “push for more nationalist policies and attitudes.””
Calls by the Vorherrschaft Division for “boots on the ground” on Jan 6. Those were the kinds of warnings passed on to the Capitol Police by the Secret Service a week before Jan 6. And yet, somehow, the Secret Service still apparently concluded that there was no risk:
Were these groups deemed to be non-threats because they were seen as supporters of President Trump? Or were they deemed non-threats because they these groups were known by the Secret Service to be active collaborators in a plot to block the certification of the election? A plot that the Secret Service already knew was being coordinated by the White House?
Why were Nazis deemed such non-threats? It’s increasingly becoming one of the central outstanding questions in this investigation. And is kind of the meta-question for our era.
It looks like the missing Secret Service Jan 6 text messages are likely lost forever. But that doesn’t mean all of the Secret Service’s communications from the period were lost. Quite the contrary, over 1 million emails and other communications turned over to the January 6 Congressional investigators back in August. As as we learned during the final public hearing of the January 6 Congressional investigation, those emails included some pretty damning evidence of Secret Service foreknowledge about violent plots. Including one email sent to the Secret Service on December 26, 10 days before the insurrection, warning that the Proud Boys “think that they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed and will outnumber the police so they can’t be stopped...Their plan is to literally kill people. Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further.” That’s pretty explicit.
And as we’ve seen, the Secret Service appeared to have some sort of working relationship with groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers going back to the months leading up to the 2020. For example, there was the testimony by Oath Keeper member John Zimmerman that he overheard Stewart Rhodes speaking with a Secret Service agent back in September of 2020 in order to coordinate about the “parameters” under which the Oath Keepers could operate during an upcoming Trump rally. That’s on top of reports that the Secret Secret got explicit warnings about violent threats from groups that included not just the Proud Boys but also AtomWaffen and Storm Front. That warning was received on Jan 4, and yet the Secret Service reportedly dismissed these threats in internal memos that stated “There is no indication of civil disobedience” from these groups. So the warning about the Proud Boys 10 days before Jan 6 was actually followed up with another more alarming warning about the Proud Boys and a bunch of neo-Nazi groups 8 days later, just two days before the insurrection. And yet the Secret Service didn’t seem alarmed in the least.
So it’s important to keep in mind two details here:
1. Mike Pence wasn’t really a direct target of this violent plot until the evening of Jan 5, when Pence issued his final refusal to go along with the plan to reject the vote. It was that day that Pence’s Chief of Staff, Marc Short, informed the head of Pence’s Secret Service detail that he feared for Pence’s safety.
2. The Secret Service is NOT the agency tasked with protecting members of Congress. That’s the domain of the Capitol Police.
So until that evening of Jan 5, all of that violent plotting that the Secret Service was clearly aware of was violent plotting on behalf of the people the Secret Service was tasked with protecting. It was only when Pence made himself a target on the evening of Jan 5 that Pence himself became a potential target. So when we’re scratching our heads trying to understand what the Secret Service was thinking in the face of these threats, it’s important to keep in mind that it was only on the evening of Jan 5 — hours before the insurrection — when the threats began to directly target someone under Secret Service protection:
“The threats included “calls to occupy federal buildings,” “intimidating Congress and invading [the] Capitol Building,” and people claiming they want to “arm themselves and to engage in political violence at the event,” according to documents presented by the committee.”
It would be hard to come up with more explicit threats than the threats revealed at Thursday’s final public hearing of the January 6 Congressional investigation. Threats found in the trove of over 1 million emails and other communications that, as we’re going to see, still doesn’t include the month of text messages from Dec 7, 2020 to Jan 8, 2021 that were allegedly accidentally deleted and permanently lost. There would presumably be a lot more examples of dire warnings about plans for violence in those deleted texts. But the ‘lost’ texts aren’t needed to establish whether or not the Secret Service had ample warning about violent plots. Not all of the warnings or communications about the potential for violence were going to be sent over text, after all:
And in the case of the Proud Boys, the Secret Service apparently got explicit tips about Proud Boy plans to swarm the Capitol and overwhelm the police with superior numbers and then literally kill people. This tip was sent on Dec 26, 10 days before the insurrection:
A plan to literally kill people. That sure sounds like the kind of plan that should have set off alarm bells inside the Secret Service. And yet those alarm bells didn’t go off as one report after another in this investigation has demonstrated. Or at least they weren’t acted upon.
And that brings us to an important detail in this broader story about the what the Secret Service knew and when it knew it: The Secret Service isn’t tasked with protecting members of Congress. That’s exclusively the responsibility of the Capitol Police. In other words, the Secret Service isn’t tasked with protecting the people threatened by the violent plots against Congress on Jan 6.
The one notable exception was Mike Pence. Recall how Pence’s Chief of Staff, Marc Short, informed the head of Pence’s Secret Service detail about his concerns for Pence’s safety. That alert came one day after the Jan 4 meeting at the White House where John Eastman argued that Pence had the power to send the vote back to the states for a 10 day review. Trump tweeted out on the morning of Jan 5 that Pence could reject electors and again pressed Pence later in the day to reject the votes. That was the day Marc Short told Pence’s Secret Service detail chief about security concerns. It’s another important detail in this story, because the ‘plan’ up until that point had been for Pence to go along with ‘the plan’ and therefore not be a target of violence by the armed mob they were planning on unleashing on the Capitol. It was only on the evening of Jan 5, when Pence made what was his final refusal to go along with the plan, that Pence became a major target. Up until that point it was really just Congress that was being put at risk by any of the violent plotting.
It’s important context for trying to understand how and why the Secret Service may have been so casual about the Trumpian army being assembled in preparation for Jan 6. No one under Secret Service protection was directly threatened by the plots until the evening of Jan 5. The Capitol Police, as the agency tasked with protecting Congress, had a lot more to be worried about:
“The Secret Service is often thought of — and sometimes confused — as the only agency within the federal government that protects people. While the Secret Service does protect a large array of individuals, the scope of that protection can be dwarfed by other federal agencies.”
The Secret Service may have the biggest responsibilities in terms of the individuals its protecting. But in terms of volume and number of people under its protection, the Secret Service only covers around 40 people full time. The vast majority of people under some sort of federal protection are protected by another agency. And for members of Congress, that agency is the Capitol Police:
So we have to ask: if Secret Service agents are made aware of violent plots that are being planned on behalf of the people these agents are tasked with protecting and the plot doesn’t seem to pose a direct threat to any of these people, what responsibilities do these agents have regarding the plots? What does the Secret Service training instruct these agents to do in a situation like that? Because that appears to have been the situation for these agents up until the evening of Jan 5 when Mike Pence finally made clear that he wasn’t going along with the plan. It was only then, hours before the insurrection, that the plot suddenly threatened someone under Secret Service protection.
But while the lack of any direct threats to people under Secret Service protection may have been a factor in the agency’s casual attitude toward the pre-insurrection threats, we can’t ignore the other obvious factor that could be at work here: personal sympathies for Trump and the insurrectionists. And while we haven’t received reports about rampant pro-Trump sympathies across the Secret Service, we did just get such a report about the FBI. Yes, “a sizable percentage of the employee population that felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol” according to an email released under a FOIA request sent to the FBI by former agent a week after the insurrection. According to anonymous sources who spoke with NBC news about this email, these sympathies have, some cases, translated into lackluster investigations. So if that was the sentiment getting expressed a week after the insurrection, you have to wonder how extensive that support was the Trump’s resistance to the electoral loss during the months leading up to the insurrection when all these red flags were getting waved and ignored:
““There’s no good way to say it, so I’ll just be direct: from my first-hand and second-hand information from conversations since January 6th there is, at best, a sizable percentage of the employee population that felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol,” and that it was no different than the Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, the person wrote in an email to Paul Abbate, who is now the No. 2 official at the bureau. “Several also lamented that the only reason this violent activity is getting more attention is because of ‘political correctness.’””
A “sizable percentage of the employee population” at the FBI was highly sympathetic towards the insurrectionists. Imagine that. And don’t forget that this anonymous assessment of the FBI staff’s sympathies was made after the insurrection. This was an internal poll of the responses to the insurrection, not pre-insurrection support for Trump’s ‘stolen election’ claims. That’s how strong the support for Trump was inside the FBI: they still loved him even after the insurrection.
And while the FBI has clearly made a large number of arrests of the rioters, it’s hard to accept the idea that these enduring sympathies haven’t compromised at least some of those investigations. Especially investigations that actually threaten Trump directly and not just random rioters:
A ‘sizable’ is the percentage of employees working in the national security state who still to this day wish the insurrection had worked? Who knows, but it’s hard to imagine many of the FBI agents who were pro-insurrection a week after the Jan 6 have really changed their views today. They’re still there presumably, at least in most cases. It’s something to keep in mind as 2024 approaches and the prospects for some sort of insurrection sequel grows. The insurrection was obviously ‘practice’ for groups intent on overthrowing the government. But it was also practice for anyone inside the government who wants to help that effort along. Practice at both ignoring the warnings and then covering it up.