Patriot Front: White Supremacists, Feds, or Both?

President Biden says White Supremacy is our Nation's Greatest Threat. According to the ADL Patriot Front is Responsible for 80% of White Supremacy Propaganda.

Over the weekend, videos of fit white men wearing khaki pants, blue polo shirts, gators, and baseball caps parading through Washington, D.C. began circulating on Twitter. The men carried upside-down American flags as they marched in orderly rows, flanked by an army of police officers on bicycles. The white supremacy group is called Patriot Front and has been active for more than five years. Conservative observers have noted that the group appears to be primarily made up of federal agents and informants. Democrats claim they are simply MAGA Republican Neo-Nazis. I decided to do a little research and find out for myself.

Based on multiple sources, Patriot Front has an estimated membership of 200 to 250 individuals from every state excluding Hawaii and Kansas.¹ The majority of their members are concentrated in Texas, Washington, California, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia. Shockingly, despite its relatively small size, this group is responsible for a staggering 80% of all white supremacy propaganda circulated throughout the United States according to ADL.²

This weekend President Biden told graduates of a historically black college that our nation’s greatest threat came from these 250 white supremacists. The fact that fewer than 250 people represent the vast majority of the white supremacy movement in the United States is shocking.

It is even more shocking when one realizes that almost a year ago, 20% of the group, including its leader Thomas Ryan Rousseau, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to riot.³ With the group's leader and 30 other members out on bail and unable to communicate with the group, it is unclear who organized and participated in the D.C. march this weekend.⁴ ⁵

Looking through The Southern Poverty Law Center Patriot Front timeline something curious stands out like a sore thumb. The group, active since 2017 to the present was shockingly absent from the January 6th protest at the Capitol—the literal SuperBowl of conservative protests. Patriot Front has always been very active in the D.C. area and yet they didn’t arrive at the Capitol until a month later on February 8th, 2020. Where were the nation’s largest and most active white supremacists on January 6th? No one seems to know.

When Patriot Front finally made its appearance in D.C. a month later dozens of police officers escorted them as they marched from the Washington Monument to the Capitol where they welcomed them onto the grounds and closed the area off to both media and counter-demonstrators.

Journalists like Zach Roberts and Ford Fischer that cover Patriot Front in D.C. have noted that the group is always and somewhat mysteriously protected by a massive police presence.⁶ Just a quick review of Tweets from counter-protesters and it is clear they believe the fact that the police protect Patriot Front members is evidence of a conspiracy between the group and law enforcement. In their experience, no other group receives similar treatment. For example, just this weekend when Patriot Front ended its march in D.C. the police ensured that neither media nor counter-protesters were able to follow, blocking the entryway to an underground tunnel to everyone but the group.

FOIA requests by a group calling themselves Property of the People show that the FBI has been closely monitoring the group for years.⁷⁸ If history is any guide, prior to the arrest of 31 members of the group, they likely had a large number of federal agents and/or informants embedded inside of Patriot Front.⁹ For example, of the 17 members of the Wolverine Watchmen (the group that planned the kidnapping of Michigan Governor Whitmer), at least 12 were federal informants and/or agents.¹⁰ During the Proud Boys trial the DOJ admitted that at least 8 and perhaps as many as 50 federal informants and/or agents were with the group of 5 defendants on January 6th - including the group's president and vice president.¹¹¹² In what has become a pattern, the federal government often represents the majority of members and leaders of white supremacy groups.

As a result, it is no wonder that many observers assume that Patriot Front is merely a ‘honeypot’ to entrap white supremacists in criminal activity. The group is almost NEVER involved in violence because of its close coordination with the police—instead, the group seems to be focused on spreading white supremacy propaganda. Ironically, while it is the nation’s largest source of racist propaganda it was struggling to find new members before police arrested the group’s leadership—according to hacked files from Patriot Front the arrests all but killed the group.¹³ If true who is keeping Patriot Front alive? After last year’s arrest of Patriot Front’s leadership, many assume its current leaders to be FBI informants and/or agents.

Ironically, the various groups documenting the members and activities of Patriot Front like Task Force Butler, Unicorn Riot, ADL, and several others seem a lot more dangerous than the group they are investigating.

The leader of one of the groups claimed he attempted suicide to justify missing his deployment flight to Baghdad back in 2007—he was separated from his unit, the Army, and given a less-than-honorable discharge. Covered with the same sort of tattoos you’d expect a white supremacist to have, he joined various online hate groups until he realized he could get paid to ‘dox’ members of groups like Patriot Front. The leader of another group is a white man who grew up in the juvenile justice system spending much of his early years incarcerated. Upon release, he got involved in the protest movement and now works for a BLM-style social justice organization.

From what I can tell Patriot Front and BLM are two sides of the same coin. Both are fixated on advancing social justice based on race. While BLM is primarily funded by well-intentioned corporations like AT&T and Apple I can't help but think Patriot Front is funded by federal government informants just as the Wolverine Watchmen and Proud Boys were.¹⁴ Perhaps more importantly the 'brains' behind these organizations were the informants. The FBI seeks out very intelligent people like Enrico Tarrio to become confidential human sources and it is foreseeable that without Tarrio's 'brains,' the Proud Boys wouldn't have existed much less engaged in organized criminal activity.¹⁵ Who is running Patriot Front now? How many members of the group are federal informants? Are the fit, sharp-dressed men we see marching in our nation's capital white supremacists, feds, or Best Buy employees?

I have a proposal. Why don’t we stop organizing and funding these racist white supremacists? If our nation’s greatest threat comes from the Proud Boys and Patriot Front (less than 300 people) why don’t we stop enabling them?

1. "The Guardian." The Guardian, 28 Jan. 2022, www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/leaked-online-chats-white-nationalist-patriot-front.

2. Anti-Defamation League. (2021, March 17). White Supremacist Propaganda Hits All-Time High in 2020. Retrieved May 15, 2023, from https://www.adl.org/resources/report/white-supremacist-propaganda-spikes-2020

3. CBS News. "31 Patriot Front Members Arrested near Pride Event in Idaho." CBS News, 11 June 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coeur-dalene-patriot-front-arrests-pride-u-haul/

4. Update on Patriot Front Members Heading Back to Court." KHQ Q6, 2023, https://www.khq.com/news/update-on-patriot-front-members-heading-back-to-court/article_2cf42212-b6ff-11ed-ab36-a31170db65a0.html

5. There was a video that was purportedly taken at the Washington Monument this weekend that showed Thomas Ryan Rousseau speaking to the group. It is my understanding that the conditions of his bail do NOT permit him to participate in Patriot Front events. Perhaps it is an old video, perhaps Rousseau is violating his bail agreement, or perhaps his bail agreement was modified. I don’t know.

6. "Visu.News." Visu.News, 8 Feb. 2020, visu.news/2020/02/08/fascists-march-on-washington-dc-with-help-of-police/

7. "Carless, Will. "The FBI Has a Long History of Investigating and Targeting LGBTQ People as 'Terrorists.'" Rolling Stone, 1 June 2022, www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lgbtq-fbi-patriot-front-proud-boys-1375145/.

8. FBI had been monitoring the group closely: The recent arrest of 31 fascists seemed to come out of nowhere. Newly-released documents show agents from the Bureau on the lookout for a long time. New documents show how Idaho cops and FBI agents were tracking white nationalists from Patriot Front months before the group was arrested this month for allegedly conspiring to attack a local LGBT Pride event in Coeur d’Alene. Emails obtained through records requests by Property of the People, a Washington, DC-based transparency nonprofit, demonstrate that FBI agents in the area both reported and were updated on Patriot Front-related acts of vandalism as far back as August 2021. Those agents also helped Coeur d’Alene police prepare for Patriot Front’s alleged conspiracy to riot at a June Pride event, when local law enforcement arrested 31 members of the group. For at least a year before the arrests, FBI agents in the area were aware of the Patriot Front’s activities in Coeur d’Alene, according to emails from city officials and law enforcement.  https://web.archive.org/web/20230321155938/https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lgbtq-fbi-patriot-front-proud-boys-1375145/

• Kieran P. Morris - pre-trial Mar. 17 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial Apr. 3 at 8:30 a.m.

• Dylan C. Corio - pre-trial Mar. 31 at 1:15 p.m. - jury trial Apr. 17 at 8:30 a.m.

• Thomas R. Rousseau - pre-trial May. 5 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial May. 22 at 8:30 a.m.

• Derek J. Smith - trial canceled. Bench warrant issued for $2,500. Failed to appear.  

• Dakota R. Tabler - pre-trial Apr. 6 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial - May. 1 at 8:30 a.m.

• Steven D. Tucker - pre-trial Mar. 31 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial Apr. 17 at 8:30 a.m.

• Robert B. Whitted - pre-trial Apr. 6 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial May. 1 at 8:30 a.m.

• Josiah D. Buster - pre-trial Mar. 31 at 1:15 p.m. - jury trial Apr. 17 at 8:30 a.m.

• Branden M. Haney - pre-trial Jul. 7 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial Jul. 24 at 8:30 a.m.

• James M. Johnson - pre-trial Apr. 6 at 9 a.m. - jury trial May. 1 at 8:30 a.m.

• James J. Johnson - pre-trial Feb. 28 at 1:30 p.m. - jury trial Mar. 20 at 8:30 a.m. 

• Justin M. Oleary - pre-trial Mar. 7 at 1:30 p.m. - jury trial Mar. 27 at 8:30 a.m.

• Forrest C. Rankin - pre-trial was held on Feb. 24 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial Mar. 13 at 8:30 a.m.

• Spencer T. Simpson - pre-trial Mar. 7 at 1:30 p.m. - jury trial Mar. 27 at 8:30 a.m.

• Devin W. Center - pre-trial WAS Feb. 24 at 10:30a - jury trial Mar. 13 at 8:30 a.m.

• Winston W. Durham - pre-trial Mar. 7 at 1:30 p.m. - jury trial Mar. 27 at 8:30 a.m.

• Garret J. Garland - pre-trial over Zoom on Mar. 21 at 9 a.m. - jury trial Mar. 24 at 1:30 p.m.

• Nathaniel T. Whitfield - pre-trial Apr. 21 at 1:30 p.m. -  jury trial May. 8 at 8:30 a.m.

• Nathan D. Brenner - pre-trial Apr. 21 at 1:30 p.m. - jury trial May. 8 at 8:30 a.m. 

• Mishael J. Buster - pre-trial Mar. 24 at 1:30 p.m. - no jury trial scheduled yet 

• Richard J. Jessop - pre-trial Apr. 7 at 9 a.m. - jury trial Apr. 24 at 8:30 a.m. 

• Cameron K. Pruitt - pre-trial Apr. 28 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial May. 15 at 8:30 a.m.

• Conor J. Ryan - pre-trial Apr. 6 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial May. 1 at 8:30 a.m. 

• Mitchell F. Wagner - pre-trial Apr. 21 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial May. 8 at 8:30 a.m.

• Colton M. Brown - pre-trial Mar. 7 at 1:30 p.m. - evidentiary hearing Mar. 20 at 9 a.m. - jury trial Mar. 27 at 8:30 a.m.

• Connor P. Moran - failed to appear. Jury trial canceled. Bench warrant issued. 

• Alexander N. Sisenstein - plead guilty on Nov. 17, 2022 

• Graham J. Whitson - pre-trial was held on Feb. 24 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial Mar. 13 at 8:30 a.m. 

• Lawerence A. Norman - pre-trial Mar. 24 at 1:30 p.m. - jury trial not yet scheduled. 

• Jared M. Boyce - failed to appear. Jury canceled. Bench warrant issued for $1,000 

• Wesley E. Van Horn - pre-trial Mar. 17 at 10:30 a.m. - jury trial Apr. 3 at 8:30 a.m.

9.

10. According to court documents, at least 12 FBI informants were involved in the investigation into the group that was planning to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Of the 14 men who were arrested, five were convicted and sentenced to prison. The remaining nine men were acquitted at trial.

The FBI informants were reportedly paid to infiltrate the group and gather information about their plans. Some of the informants also encouraged the group to continue with their plans, which has led to accusations that the FBI entrapped the men.

The defense lawyers for the men who were convicted have argued that the FBI's involvement in the case was a "setup" and that their clients would not have been involved in the plot if it had not been for the FBI's encouragement. The prosecution has argued that the men were planning to kidnap the governor and that the FBI's involvement was necessary to prevent them from carrying out their plans.

The case has raised questions about the role of the FBI in investigating domestic terrorism and the potential for entrapment. It is also a reminder of the dangers of extremism and the importance of vigilance in protecting our democracy.

The group that was planning to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was called the Wolverine Watchmen. The group was founded in 2019 by Pete Musico and Joseph Morrison, and it was made up of self-described militiamen who were opposed to Whitmer's COVID-19 lockdown measures.

The Wolverine Watchmen were investigated by the FBI for several months before they were arrested in October 2020. The FBI had infiltrated the group with informants, and they had recorded the men discussing their plans to kidnap Whitmer and overthrow the state government.

Five of the men who were arrested were convicted and sentenced to prison. The remaining nine men were acquitted at trial. The case has raised questions about the role of the FBI in investigating domestic terrorism and the potential for entrapment. It is also a reminder of the dangers of extremism and the importance of vigilance in protecting our democracy.

11. "Flynn, Darren. "Court Papers Reveal Proud Boys Riddled with Informants, Oath Keeper VP an FBI Informant." Revolver News, 7 Nov. 2022, www.revolver.news/2022/11/fedsurrection-court-papers-reveal-proud-boys-riddled-with-informants-oath-keeper-vice-prez-an-fbi-informant/.

12. "The Guardian." The Guardian, 27 Jan. 2021, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/27/proud-boys-leader-enrique-tarrio-fbi-informant.

13. "Unicorn Riot." A Guide to Patriot Front's Leaked Media Files, 15 Jan. 2022, unicornriot.ninja/a-guide-to-patriot-fronts-leaked-media-files/.

14. "The New York Post." The New York Post, 21 July 2021, nypost.com/2021/07/21/men-accused-in-plot-to-kidnap-whitmer-claim-fbi-set-them-up/.

15. "Ex-FBI informant." Reuters, 27 January 2021, www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-proudboys-leader-exclusive/exclusive-proud-boys-leader-was-prolific-informer-for-law-enforcement-idUSKBN29W1PE.