Thread by @SusanKBradford

#TheReidOut segment covered this article…this is disturbing. Wonder if the #Weaponization committee will cover this?

theintercept.com/2023/02/07/fbi…

2/AS RACIAL JUSTICE PROTESTS broke out nationwide in summer of 2020, a man driving a silver hearse became a reg at the demonstrations in Denver.He was a paunchy 5’7" w a ruddy complexion & wore military fatigues w patches on the sleeves. By activist standards, he was an old-timer

3/pushing 50 as he swaggered thru crowds of teens &20-smthing protesters, a cigar clamped in his lips. “I didn’t know much abt him, but he drove a hearse,” said Zebbodios “Zebb” Hall, a Black activist in Denver. “Inside this hearse was a lot of guns: AR-15s & all other kinds of💩

4/The driver of the hearse filled w guns was Michael Adam Windecker II. He went by the nickname Mickey & boasted of having been a soldier for the French Foreign Legion & the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force known most recently for battling the Islamic State in Iraq & Syria.

5/He claimed to have traveled to those battlefields & trained antifascist activists there in weapons, hand-to-hand combat, & explosives.

“He was just this badass dude talking abt how he worked in a foreign military & how he was for the Black Lives Matter mvmnt,” Hall remembered

6/Denver was a 🥵 spot during the summer of 2020, w protesters enraged not just by George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis but also by the senseless death of Elijah McClain, who was forcefully subdued by police in 2019 in Aurora, a Denver suburb, & 💉 w a lethal dose of ketamine

7/Trey Quinn, a muscular Black activist w a beard & large-framed glasses, led some Denver protests. One night, aft Quinn had addressed a grp of demonstrators, several young activists introduced him to Windecker.

8/“Hey, this guy’s really, really dope. He’s legit. He knows his shit,” Quinn remembered being told by the fresh-faced activists. “You should let him sit in, & he could probably help you out.” Windecker was “really pushy,” Quinn told me, “trying to put himself at the forefront.”

9/Bryce Shelby, another Black activist, remembered seeing Windecker walking around the protests. He had a GoPro camera strapped to his chest, which Shelby initially thought was suspicious.“He de-escalated any type of suspicion bec he wld start flashing his prison badge,”

10/“So yeah. You know what I mean? OK, he’s not a fed.”
But Shelby & many other activists in Denver were wrong abt the man behind the wheel of the silver hearse. Windecker was a fed. The FBI pd him tens of thousands of 💵 in 💰 to infiltrate & spy on racial justice grps during…

11/the summer of 2020.

For the last yr, I’ve been investigating Windecker & his work for the FBI. I tell that story in detail in a new 10-episode documentary podcast, “Alphabet Boys,” from Western Sound & iHeartPodcasts. As part of this investigation, I reviewed more than …

12/300 of FBI reports & hrs of FBI undercover recordings, as well as publicly available videos recorded by Denver demonstrators & by Windecker himself. I also examined dozens of court files related to Windecker’s past & interviewed more than 3 dozen racial justice activists…

13/who encountered Windecker during the summer of 2020.

The FBI declined to comment on Windecker & the investigation in Denver & refused to respond in writing to a list of questions I sent.

Windecker wouldn’t tell me much either.

14/After I left a note at his old apt south of Denver explaining that I wanted to interview him abt his work for the FBI, he called me. “I do not work for the FBI,” he said. “I’ve never worked for the FBI. If you get proof of me working for the FBI, then I’ll say otherwise.

15/But there’s no proof, because I didn’t work for them.”
I explained that I had FBI reports & recordings to the contrary.

“I don’t talk to the press, I don’t talk to politicians, & I don’t talk to police,” Windecker told me, before hanging up.

16/FBI payment receipt records signed by Windecker show that he was paid more than $20,000 for his work during the summer of 2020, when the FBI aggressively pursued racial justice & left-wing activists based on nothing more than First Amendment-protected activities.

17/The story of the bureau’s infiltration of racial justice activist groups is particularly relevant now, as House Republicans launch a new committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, that seems exclusively focused on the FBI’s alleged targeting of right-wing groups.

18/The FBI’s work in Denver, w Windecker as its 👀 &👂🏼on the street, demonstrates the falsity of that narrative.

While on the FBI payroll, Windecker became an organizer of Denver’s racial justice demonstrations & ultimately undermined the social movement gaining momentum …

19/there by deploying the same controversial tactics the FBI used to devastating effect against Black political groups during the civil rights movement.

Until now, little has been revealed abt the FBI’s actions in the summer of 2020.

20/The Denver undercover probe involving Windecker provides the first look behind the scenes at how the FBI viewed and investigated racial justice groups during that turbulent summer.

21/Any accurate description of Windecker sounds like a cartoon. With tattoos all over his body, a scraggly goatee, garishly large rings on his fingers, and a soggy cigar in his mouth, Windecker was hard to miss as he drove the streets of the Mile High City in his silver hearse.

22/One rainy summer afternoon aft becoming a pd informant, Windecker met w his FBI handler, Sp Agent Scott Dahlstrom. The fed agent clicked on a hidden camera device.

“It is Aug 28, 2020, at approx 4:02 p.m.,” Dahlstrom said into the FBI recorder bef handing it to Windecker.

23/The video is part of more than 12 hrs of FBI recordings I obtained documenting Windecker’s work investigating racial justice activists.Dahlstrom asked Windecker if he remembered his tasking orders—which involved enticing a Black racial justice activist into committing a felony

24/“Yep, I got it,” Windecker said. “Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.”

Windecker walked to his silver hearse, placed the camera on the passenger seat, & started the ignition. Dahlstrom and his FBI colleagues watched the live feed from their black sedan.

25/“I got a song for you guys,” Windecker said, looking into the camera lens & speaking directly to the FBI agents. He turned up the volume on the silver hearse’s stereo & played “America (Fuck Yeah!),” the theme song from the puppet comedy movie “Team 🇺🇸 : 🌎 Police”:

26/America, America
America, fuck yeah!
Comin’ again to save the motherfuckin’ day, yeah
America, fuck yeah!
Freedom is the only way, yeah
Terrorists, your game is thru
’Cause now you have to answer to
America, fuck yeah!

As the song ended, Windecker turned to the camera again

27/as if on a stage, confident that the FBI agents were watching him.

“America,” Windecker said.

The United States of America had become Windecker’s new employer, & the FBI was paying him to spy on activists that summer day as he barreled down the road.

28/According to internal FBI reports I obtained, Windecker began attending demonstrations in May 2020. He witnessed firsthand what millions of Americans saw on their screens at 🏡: protests turning violent, clashes betw left-wing & right-wing activists, demonstrators & …

29/instigators setting 🔥 & vandalizing storefronts.
Windecker offered to give the FBI info abt protesters. In an internal report, the FBI claimed that Windecker’s motivation for becoming an informant was “to fight terrorists” & …

30/that he believed “ppl who participate in violent civil unrest are terrorists.”

In their report adding him to the bureau’s more than 15,000 informants, FBI agents described Windecker as something of a good Samaritan — a kind of volunteer Captain America. #TheReidOut

31/But that notion was undercut by other bureau docs, which detailed Windecker’s history as both an informant & a criminal, w prior arrests in CO, NV, TX, & FL for crimes incl sexual assault.

[ICYDK remember FL arrested ppl w sexual assault convictions for voting]? #hypocrite

32/When Windecker was 20, he had a sexual relationship w a 14-yr-old he met at a 🛼 skating rink. Windecker, who claimed he didn’t know the girl was underage, pleaded the case down to a misdemeanor & was sentenced to 180 days in jail.

🚨 😳 the FBI had a groomer working for them

33/In another case, for felony menacing w a weapon in 2001, Windecker stuck a gun in a woman’s face & claimed to be a police officer looking for a suspect. That incident resulted in a felony conviction, & Windecker served 2 yrs.

34/While he was in prison, according to FBI internal reports, another inmate tried to hire him to murder some1; instead of committing the crime, Windecker became a cooperating witness & helped convict the ppl who’d sought to enlist him.

35/In add’t to criminal charges, Windecker has had 4 protection orders filed against him in CO, the most recent in 2021. In a petition 4 a protection order filed in 2016, a friend of Windecker’s alleged Windecker had presented a fake 👮‍♀️ badge & theatened to kill him & his fam.

36/ONLY the best huh? TFG always bragged they hired the best ppl?! #TheReidOut

Wow

37/Windecker claimed 2 have bn a fighter 4 French Foreign Legion & Peshmerga, Kurdish fighting force n 🇮🇶. He often said he had diplomatic immunity in the US due to his assoc w the Kurds. In 2015, the Daily Beast reported that he was disliked by other volunteer Peshmerga fighters

38/One American fighter was reported to have described him as “a compulsive liar.”

I spoke to several volunteers who were w Windecker in Iraq; few of them wanted to be publicly assoc’d w him. 1 of those fighters told me that Windecker claimed to be a demolitions specialist.

39/there’s tons more of this please read the article urself.

40/at any rate, the point here is FBI used a violent criminal to infiltrate mostly peaceful protests w an attempt to get more radical activists to commit felonies & compromise protesters. COINTELPRO anybody?

Betw the FBI installing violent criminals into protests to encourage…

41/protestors to escalate from peaceful protests to violent clashes w police & damaging property & DHS using mercenaries to arrest peaceful protesters I think the #Weaponization committee is looking at the wrong administration’s crimes! See article re a weaponized DHS…

42/ #TheReidOut

https://twitter.com/SusanKBradford/status/1589890570688004098

41/a) DHS launched a failed op that ensnared hundreds, if not thousands, of US protesters in what new docs show was as a sweeping, power-hungry effort bef the 2020 election to bolster TFG’s spurious claims abt a “terrorist org” he accused his Democratic rivals of supporting.