The founder of #Russia Insider promoted Stop the Steal, journeyed to the Capitol on Jan 6, and then disappeared to –– leaving the Christmas lights still dangling from his #Lancaster home.
#Hatewatch started reporting on Russia Insider’s Charles Bausman last year when we linked him to a white nationalist group through an email ID buried in the source code of a network of racist websites: splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020…
We also linked Bausman's site to a hyperpartisan blog focused on #LancasterCounty, PA.
If you have tips about Charles Bausman or the newspaper Lancaster Patriot –– which began appearing in mailboxes this year without solicitation –– please contact @MichaelEHayden.
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THREAD: The insurrection we saw in #WashingtonDC yesterday was an example of how political violence isn’t limited to the fringes of the far-right: it permeates even mainstream spaces.
Insurrectionist and right-wing accelerationist dogma that insists on the utility of political violence and terrorism that has flourished within the far-right for decades emerged in our nation’s capital yesterday. splcenter.org/20200810/when-…
For almost 2 years, while mostly ignoring the Proud Boys, federal authorities and law enforcement have focused on white power accelerationists as the predominant terror threat on the right, where insurrectionist dogma has played a role. splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018…
Days after @realDonaldTrump won the 2016 election, activists associated with the white nationalist website VDARE solicited resumes from right-wing writers, including former #Breitbart editor Katie McHugh, who leaked those emails to us.
Last fall, using 900+ emails leaked by Katie McHugh, @MichaelEHayden broke the news that White House senior adviser #StephenMiller had ties to VDARE and sought to shape media narratives about the 2016 presidential campaign and immigration. Read more: splcenter.org/stephen-miller…
Barrett has lectured at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship — a training program for lawyers that has included anti-LGBTQ tracts on its reading lists — five times, beginning in 2011. washingtonpost.com/politics/coney…
The reading list includes former ADF president Alan Sears' book "The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today," which falsely claims that LGBTQ+ rights comes at the expense of the rights of people of faith. Read more ⬇️ splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017…
We identified 940 hate groups operating throughout the US in 2019. Specifically, the numbers of anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant and white nationalist groups all increased. #YearInHate
The total number of hate groups has fallen since 2018, when we counted a record high 1,020 active in the US. This drop results from:
1️⃣ the collapse of 2 neo-Nazi factions after leadership turmoil;
2️⃣ more far-right extremists with white supremacist views congregate online.
Yet, we have witnessed significant increases in the number of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant hate groups throughout the country, some with close ties to elected and appointed government officials, including in the Trump administration.
We have determined that Matthew Q. Gebert, a U.S. State Department official since 2013, oversaw a Washington D.C.-area chapter of a white nationalist organization, hosted white nationalists in his home & published white nationalist propaganda online. splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019…
Gebert operated under the alias “Coach Finstock,” based on a character from the 1985 movie Teen Wolf. His wife, Anna Vukovic, is also active in online white nationalist forums. She uses the pseudonym “Wolfie James,” possibly a reference to the same movie.
To report this story, @MichaelEHayden studied “Coach Finstock’s” online presence & spoke with Gebert’s neighbors, wife & sources who have attended gatherings of white nationalists at Gebert’s home.
A federal court just sentenced James Alex Fields Jr. to serve 2 consecutive life sentences and 27 concurrent life sentences on 29 counts of federal hate crimes. He will be sentenced in state court on July 15. splcenter.org/news/2019/06/2…
Fields drove his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of anti-racist counterprotestors during the white nationalist Unite the Right rally in #Charlottesville in August 2017. He killed 32-year-old #HeatherHeyer and injured 28 others during the attack.
#HeatherHeyer worried that “someone might do something stupid and someone might die,” according to the sentencing memo. She attended the anti-racist counter-protest anyway. A few hours later she was dead, murdered by Fields. splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018…