The FBI released a new batch of records on the white nationalist group Patriot Front on Tuesday, revealing that its members have been talking to the feds.
The 112 pages of FBI records are almost entirely redacted, but the reason for some of the redactions is noteworthy: The FBI cited section B7(d) of the Freedom of Information Act, which is an exemption designed to protect the identities of confidential sources—or, in other words, FBI informants.
Headline USA found at least three records citing B7(d) while skimming through the records.
One of the few unredacted records in the new batch also shows that a Patriot Front member agreed to a voluntary interview with FBI agents.
The FBI released another batch of Patriot Front records today. Interesting thing is they're littered with B7(d) FOIA redactions -- which are used to protect ... informants!
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) September 17, 2024
Also, a member agreed to a voluntary interview w/ agents. Don't those boys know not to talk to the feds? pic.twitter.com/e18BtUoUDD
According to that record, the Patriot Front member told agents that Patriot Front was a group that peacefully demonstrated, encouraged its members to get off drugs, and promoted physical activity. However, several portions of the interview are redacted, including the member’s information about his social media activity. The redactions cited in this portion of the FBI file were those designed to protect privacy.
Tuesday’s FBI document dump is the latest evidence of federal infiltration in the Patriot Front. It follows a New Yorker article from last month, which revealed that the group may have provided information to the FBI about a left-wing Antifa member who infiltrated and doxxed its members.
“The exposed Patriot Front members were furious at Vincent [after he doxed the group]. To strike back, they appear to have enlisted an unlikely ally: the F.B.I.,” the New Yorker reported.
Another batch of records released in July showed that the group was infiltrated by at least one undercover informant.
“On February 11, 2019, FBI Charlotte received Confidential Human Source (CHS) reporting from [REDACTED] Division regarding [REDACTED],” the record stated.
Patriot Front member Kai Nix was 17 when this picture was taken of him w/ FBI informant Michael Alan Jones.
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 19, 2024
The New Yorker and SPLC both reported on the now-20-year-old Nix's arrest this week, but you won't find any mention of how the FBI ran a sex-offender informant at the young… pic.twitter.com/R1KNGeG9SC
An FBI informant who was once a member of the Patriot Front was charged in 2022 with unlawfully possessing a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon—a charge stemming from a March 2022 traffic stop in upstate New York, where police officers allegedly found him in possession of an illegally modified AR-15.
That informant, Michael Alan Jones, may have been the CHS discussed in the above-mentioned FBI memo, given that he lives close to Charlotte—the office that received information from a Patriot Front CHS in 2019. If that’s the case, it would be the first public confirmation that Jones was acting as an informant while in the Patriot Front—court records only confirmed that he spied on the Proud Boys.
Jones, who reportedly stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been referred to as a “fed-ophile” by his former comrades, due to him previously being convicted of two felony sex crimes.
Despite all that evidence, Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau has downplayed the threat of federal infiltration.
“The FBI, I don’t believe, engages in the type of undercover infiltration that a lot of people attribute to it as much as people think,” he said in June.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
