Fresh Air - An Informant Exposes The Inner Workings Of The Ku Klux Klan

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Joe Moore, a former Army sniper turned FBI informant, shares how he infiltrated the KKK and helped foil a plot to assassinate then Sen. Barack Obama. Moore explains how hate groups are growing. His new book is 'White Robes and Broken Badges.'Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. My guest today, Joe Moore, spent nearly 10 years of his life living a double life as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He did it as an informant for the FBI, thwarting an assassination attempt in 2007 on then-presidential candidate Barack Obama and foiling two murder plots. In his new book, White Robes and Broken Badges, Moore gives a firsthand account of his experiences infiltrating the KKK's invisible empire and the rise in white supremacy ideology, specifically within law enforcement in Florida, where he lived. During his time as an informant, Moore rose through the ranks, becoming friends with powerful members.

He wore wires to record their plans, capturing discussions of a murder plot that would lead to the convictions of three Klansmen. Moore says his experiences gave him a clear view of how the seeds of hate sown by the KKK led to Charlottesville, January 6th, and the growing threat of white supremacist extremist groups as we head towards the presidential election. Fearing for his life as

well as his wife and children, Joe Moore now lives under a new name in an undisclosed location. Joe Moore, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. You were living in rural North Florida near Gainesville in 2007, when the FBI tapped you to become what they called a confidential human source. Now, this is highly unusual because you weren't affiliated with the KKK or the FBI at the time. So how did they find you? The FBI became interested in me when I went to them with regards to my brother-in-law had gotten in trouble. And I figured out that the officer that had picked him up had conducted some unconstitutional things and was essentially targeting him for not legitimate reasons. So I brought the information to the FBI. That issue was resolved, but the FBI was interested in me.

I was someone that had gone to them and introduced myself, and they looked into me, and they realized that, hey, here's a guy with a military background. He's got some experience gathering intelligence. And they thought that I might be able to help them in some cases that their Joint Terrorism Task Force was working on at the time. And one of those was to be able to learn more information about what was happening with the KKK in that area. Correct. Before we get to how you were received by the KKK, when the FBI presented this to you and they told you they wanted you to do this task, what was your first response to it? Why did you say yes? So I had spent several years in the military and I essentially left the military a bit disgruntled. I wanted to serve longer, but I wasn't able to. I had some issues in the latter couple years of my military career,

some disciplinary issues where I had trouble with gambling. And I got in a little bit of trouble for that. And my commander felt that I just needed to start my life over and wouldn't allow me to reenlist. So I felt like I had left my country unserved. And I had worked various jobs. I was working as a welder at the time that I came into contact with the FBI. And it was an opportunity to serve honorably again. It was an opportunity to perhaps do what it was I set out to do when I first joined the Army. So your first task was to respond to an ad for a rifle being sold by this known member of the KKK named William Hawley. And when you met with him, he seemed to take to you almost

immediately. I mean, without much vetting at all, there was really no red tape. I mean, what do you think it was about you that won him over and really several other members over so quickly? It certainly wasn't ideology, because I don't espouse that mindset. For years in the military, I was a sniper. I was an infantryman. I was a sniper section leader. I had learned to train troops. I had learned to train troops I had learned to lead troops and I think that when I walked in with

my military bearing on full display that sort of sold myself as a persona to Holly as opposed to having to fill his mind and find out where I could fit in into his mind. I essentially sold him on being someone that was capable. Capable of what? Because to put this time period into perspective, this was around 2007 and Barack Obama was running for president. So what did they tell you at that time about what they were planning for, what they were interested in your military experience for?

Mr. Hawley was enormously interested in my sniper background and had me meet with other KKK members. And we had ceremonies and they got to know me. And ultimately, they disclosed to me that they had a plan that included multiple members, vehicles, two anti-material rifles, some law enforcement personnel that would be involved to some degree. And they brought me into the local leader's home, and they disclosed to me that they were going to try to assassinate then-presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama. And this was 2008, approximately August, September timeframe of 2008.

If I have this correct, the Klan was getting inside information on Obama's visit from their police sources and the DMV. That's what you write in your book. And you were also talking about it to your FBI handler. Yes. These officers were in the vicinity of where candidate Barack Obama was going to appear sometime in the late October timeframe. And this is in Kissimmee, Florida? Kissimmee, Florida, yes. So there was a department near there that would have been involved with some of the logistics,

and these officers had some access to the information. And the Klan decided that they would have a couple of vehicles that were provided by a fellow they knew that had a junkyard and they would have the DMV, their contacts at the DMV assist with fulfilling the license plate registration information in order to sort of wash over who the real drivers were who really owned the vehicles and at the conclusion of this those vehicles were to be destroyed at a junkyard and the plan was to take those two vehicles with two shooters and two drivers to two different points at where Obama was conducting his rally and deliver very powerful firepower in his direction. You started to learn information on this plot to kill then presidential candidate Barack Obama, and they wanted you to be a part of this plot because of your military and sniper experience. You also knew that you had to stop it from happening. And how did you do that? on how to do this. And there's no instruction book. There's nobody I could go to and say, hey, how do I do this? It's find a way. So you're really having to create

your avenue to attach to these people and just follow them wherever they go and be engaged in the conversations, I had to be convincing enough that they believed I wanted to be there, even though I didn't. They needed to believe that I did. So I had to find ways within myself to be interjected in the conversation and not just be monitoring that conversation, but to be asked things, to be a part of the conversation as opposed to just listening to it. How did you do that in the case of this foiled plot? How did you get them to stand down on their plot to try to kill Obama?

We had several meetings with the Klan members on the plans, the vehicles, the weapons, where they're going to position themselves. And I'm at the point where they're including me in the conversation. And then I had a light bulb go off in my head, and I said, hey, what are y'all going to do about the drones? And then they looked at me with a shocked face, and they looked at each other and looked back and said, drones? What drones? I said, well, the Secret Service, you know, now that Obama's the candidate, he has an elevated level of Secret Service protection, and at this level includes drones. I didn't know it did, but they didn't either. Right. This is something you just thought up in the conversation, I naturally came with a solution on the spot that you did very early on in order to find out about the plot against Obama and some of the other things you discovered were to spend time at barbecues and meetings and hanging out drinking beers and stuff like that. And I'm curious, what kinds of things would you do to get yourself in the right state of mind, to really embody the kind of person that you had to be? Did you listen to like music and wear kind of

different clothes or what? What kinds of things did you do? So there was a song by Guns N' Roses called Ain't It Fun? And I would listen to that, not necessarily the lyrics of the word, but just the sound of the music to sort of get me amped up and motivated because going and listening to these people on a daily basis, so it was just, it was mind-blowing how gruesome and in detail these people can get with regards to what they hate. So I have to get myself motivated to do the job and I would also from my learned days as a sniper do things to control my breathing and I would I would be able to slow my heart rate down I would be able to reverse the adrenaline dump that would be occurring. And I would do that through a series of breathing exercises that helped me to keep my composure during those moments.

And then I would just remember that song playing and I would get motivated again to do the job. You went through the process of being knighted twice. So you became a formal member of the KKK. And historically, from what we know, from what we've seen, we've read, there are these KKK ceremonies and they involve these elaborate rituals and those white robes and things like that. One of the things you had to do was sign

a blood oath. Can you tell us what is a blood oath and what did you promise as part of signing it? The blood oath is a document that the KKK puts in front of you and they've got people who are there watching you sign it to evaluate not just the information you put on there but how long it takes you to think about putting it on there that's one of the observations they're looking for so for example you put your name you put your address they have some questions do you support the white race? Do you support this? Do you support that? And it says your social security number. Really watch and see if you actually put your social security number.

And I just zipped right through it. And then you get to a point that says you understand that signing this oath means that you cannot disclose any secrets of the KKK. You cannot disclose identities or do anything against the KKK, etc., etc., unless you pay the price in blood. And then you sign it. It's very clear that it's the blood oath because if you violate the oath, you pay with your blood. Right. It's a threat. Yes. Because there's all of this bonding, but then there's like this undercurrent of fear in that bonding

because it's like other organizations, like the mob or anything like that. If you turn against them, if they got any inkling that you weren't who you say you were, you were fearful for your life. So I can tell you that these ceremonies are dangerous. There have been people killed immediately following some of these ceremonies. And I was aware of some of that. And you do get the sense that these people are serious. There's all the mystique of the robes, the black walls, the candles. And then you've got the guys with the shotgun or the handgun. And then you've got this sword. and you get a chance to feel it.

These are not costume swords. These are real swords with true edges that you could shave your arm with. And they place these swords on your shoulders, and I felt it a couple times scrape up against my ear scrape against my neck and when they go from one shoulder to the other shoulder you hear the blade cutting through the wind because it's a quiet environment that's controlled and you wonder you know that's the moment you wonder what's that sword doing is it going back uh what's that you know, that's the moment you wonder, what's that sword doing? Is it going back? What's that?

You know, you wonder what is going on behind you because it's so quiet to sort of draw out the dishonesty of anyone that's taking that oath. Of course, there is a hate and there's a want to be on top. But the driving force behind someone who would want to join a group like the KKK, what is it that they're looking for? Family. They're looking to feel safe in an environment where their mechanisms for survival are secured by the fellowship of other people like them. With that, did you in some ways feel for any of them. Feel empathy for them. To the extent that they suffered, to the extent where they might be happy for the birth of a child, I had the normal human emotions of feeling their sadness, feeling their happiness. but I never felt their hate and I had to force myself into those conversations because every time they went on one of those discussions where hate was the motivation

I was disgusted I was able to detach myself from their words by using the character, and that would insulate my true personal self from the operation. And the more and more I did it, the better I got at it, the more I felt like I, as an individual, was protected. But it just becomes a repeating cycle where you have to get better at it in order to get deeper into the information. So it was a continuously evolving process the deeper and deeper I got. Our guest today is Joe Moore, a former informant for the FBI.

He's written a new book called White Robes and Broken Badges, Infiltrating the KKK and Exposing the Evil Among Us. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees.

Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. You had to embody this other person. You had to, like, listen to Guns N' Roses. And I think you said you wore a special hat that you would put on when you would meet with these guys. But when you then went home, like, did this work take a toll on your personal life? So the first one did. The second one did also, but in different ways. The first one was so stressful. I was trying to figure out how to do this.

There was no instruction book. There was nobody I could talk to. I just had to do this. There was no instruction book. There was nobody I could talk to. I just had to do it. And after that first operation, I became immensely ill one day and a fever went through the roof. I told my wife I was going to the emergency room. They immediately admitted me into the hospital. That night, I think it was 1.30, 2 o'clock in the morning, my wife receives a phone call from the hospital that she needed to come to the hospital. I had just coded.

Stopped breathing, heart stopped, whole deal. I was under so much stress. I was so worn out that I couldn't fight a simple infection. At that point, I realized how hard the operation was on me. You were gravely ill from that. Yes. The surprise was I was carrying on with my life. I was giving some instruction to military personnel at a shooting range. I generally tried to give courses to military personnel. If they were on their own, I wouldn't charge them for it. It was

just another way of ensuring their survivability overseas with training that they might not otherwise have. And the members of the Joint Territory Task Force had been at the same range qualifying, and they saw me out giving a class. So I guess they realized I was back on my feet. It was within a week I got another phone call from the FBI. Yeah, that's how that second infiltration happened. The second time I created mechanisms that would safeguard who I was in order not to have the same outcome I had with the first operation of almost dying from it. One of the things you were able to help the FBI with during your second run as an informant is that you helped stop a murder plot against a black man named Warren Williams, who was a former inmate who had gotten into a fight with a correctional officer named Thomas Driver, who was a Klan member. And you wore a wire during most of your interactions with Klan members. And

those recordings were key evidence used to convict several people in this particular case who were found guilty of conspiracy to commit first degree murder. I actually want to play one of the clips of your recordings. It's a little bit muffled because it's on you and it sounds a little far away, but we can get a little clarity of the types of things you guys were talking about. This particular clip, which ran on the ABC documentary, Grand Nighthawk,

you, along with two members, David Moran and Charles Newcomb. You guys are in a car, and you're driving by Warren Williams' home to get a lay of the land because they want to murder him, and it's clear that they're ready to kill him if they're given a chance. Let's listen to the clip.

We go down the road, and that son of a gun is walking by himself, and there's nobody else around. the clip. That was a recording of my guest today. He captured while wearing a wire as an informant for the FBI. And this clip comes from ABC documentary Grand Nighthawk, Infiltrating the KKK. As we hear in that clip, the two guys, David Moran and Charles Newcomb, are talking about Williams. And what are they saying exactly? Yes, the first person speaking in that clip was Charles Newcomb. The second one was David Moran. David Moran was an active law enforcement officer. Newcomb, the first guy speaking, had been relieved of duty and was no longer working in law enforcement, but he had

a previous career, lengthy career as a law enforcement officer. And they were both skilled at use of force, and they were knowledgeable. And Newcomb knew that a particular drug, if injected into a person, would kill this person. And he had this particular drug already preloaded in needles. And that was something that I was not aware of when we were setting out to drive to Warren Williams' home. Is this, these are vials of insulin? I just want to be clear. Okay.

So if you use it, it's very difficult to detect in an autopsy. And Charles Newcomb knew that. So he had a plan to conduct the murder. He also had a firearm with him. And he had brought props to sort of take Warren Williams down to the river and make it look like he was fishing and push him into the river. And with the insulin in his system, nobody would have known that he didn't just fall in and drown. How did you navigate this? Because, I mean, they wanted you to be a part of this plot to kill him. In this particular instance, you all moved on, as I understand it, because there were patrol cars Klansman member sitting next to me who's armed

who wants to kill and has reportedly killed others. We didn't have any information to discount that claim and then a very dangerous law enforcement officer sitting behind me as I'm driving the vehicle. So the entire time, I'm trying to stay in the conversation. I'm trying to control my blood pressure, control my breathing, control my heart rates, avoid sweating, shaking, or stuttering. And as we drive into Warren Williams' neighborhood, there are unmarked law enforcement vehicles around, and one of them follows us. The FBI did not tell me they were going to do that. So the presence of law enforcement immediately alerted the two trained law enforcement officers in my vehicle.

And it became a situation where they might just try to shoot it out. So I tried to keep the vehicle moving as they were trying to, as Newcomb and Moran were making their observations. And one of the unmarked vehicles is following us. And that ratchets things up even further. And they're getting excited, and I'm getting even more worried. I'm having to fight my heart rate, fight my breathing. I'm having to fight everything within me to keep from looking like I'm panicking. And at this point, I'm almost ready to go for my gun and just jump out of the vehicle and run.

But I know I can't do that. So the thought did cross my mind, but I counted that one out as a non-option. So I realized I'm going to have to stick this out. And if any of those guys draw a weapon, then it's going to be a bad day. so after the second time around warren williams's home i get to point where i say okay guys have we seen enough can we go back to charles's home they said yeah let's let's go so we turned and the vehicle follows us down the road a couple of miles and i think i'm out of the wood lines when the vehicle stops falling and turns around. And I'm thinking, okay, now I've got to figure out a way to look like I'm not de-stressing in front of these guys because, you know, my heart rate's going to go back down naturally.

And then I get a phone call. I answer the phone call. I answer the phone, and it's the FBI. They say, hey, Joe, are y'all coming back? I said, hi, babe. We are on the way back to Charles Newcomb's home. And when we're done there, I will see you at home. And when we're done there, I will see you at home. And I'm just thinking, what gave you the idea that you could call me right now? Right. That's a really, what a position to be in. And what strikes me about this case and this story, because then you were ultimately able to give

law enforcement all the evidence you had. And these guys were tried and convicted in 2017. But it's really a story about law enforcement against law enforcement, because here you are with law enforcement officers who are plotting to kill a Black man, and then you have law enforcement that is there to help stop the plot. And you gathered this information about this plot against Williams and also how authorities and officers were actively recruiting in prison for KKK members. The Florida Department of Corrections denies this, but what evidence did you discover? A couple of things there. One, the KKK has always desired to take over law enforcement because that's a mechanism of power that if they can control it, they can

grow their power. I don't think people realize how dangerous it is to have a single KKK member in the organization because then recruiting takes place and it ultimately propagates and attracts other people that are perhaps persuadable. And you're right, the state came out and said that there was no evidence that the issue of the KKK went any farther than the officers that were arrested. I believe it was Attorney General Pam Bondi that made the public statement that there was no indication that there were any other officers in that department that were members of KKK. The problem with that statement is I have the list of several other members of the KKK in the same department that were later fired by the state for being members of the KKK. If you're just joining us, my guest is Joe Moore. He's written a book about infiltrating the KKK, thwarting an assassination attempt against Barack Obama when he was running for president, and the growth he says he saw firsthand of white supremacy ideology. His book is called White Robes and Broken Badges, Infiltrating the KKK and Exposing the Evil Among Us.

We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. I want to ask you a little bit more about some of the things you learned during the Obama years. One of the things you say is you describe Obama's presidency as lighting the fuse and Ferguson as the powder keg to that fuse. How did the killing of Michael Brown in 2014 further galvanize the KKK? Two things there. One is that one of the national leaders, Frank Ancona, he was from Missouri as well, and he lived not far from St. Louis, and he had been in touch with business owners in the area to sort of ask them if they wanted the Klan to come in and provide protection. And they were in discussions about that.

Yeah, during the protests, yep. Correct. And the membership during the Obama years and the Ferguson riots on top of that sort of brought out people that were had some white supremacist leanings were looking for people to become a part of a group with. So that catapulted the inquiries into the Klan recruiting process. So one of the things that you write about are these flyers that went out during the protest in Ferguson known as night flyers. And they showcase the organization as saviors who are there to bring peace. And they say, attention to the terrorists masquerading as peaceful protesters. You have awakened a sleeping giant. And what I found really interesting, the flyer goes on to say that we won't allow these protests to disrupt our daily lives. And it reads like it's an effort to turn their reputation from a racist one to a political organization, kind of galvanizing people under this shared desire for safety.

What did this tell you about kind of the intersection of white supremacy groups and the idea of Unite the Right, like this around a common purpose? They're counting on people's fear, and that is one of the mechanisms by which they grow. They cultivate fear, and then they pull people in who have that fear, and then they continue to burn that fiery hate within the organization by continuing to discuss the fears that they have. And that flyer sort of strikes the balance between you should be afraid, but we can help you. And it's a very good example of the evolution of their ability to propagandize themselves. A lot of this rhetoric around law and order is the language of Donald Trump. And I'm just wondering how much of the Klan sees Donald Trump as their man. A lot of the things that Donald Trump has said are consistent with the ideology of white supremacy and other like-minded movements. But in my investigations, I have learned it's not just what I see that I

have to be concerned about. It's often what I don't see that I have to be able to recognize. Now, given that we have these statements, whether it be the border, immigrants, whatever. Trump has made statements that a lot of these people agree with. But for me, the big red flag is that I don't hear him saying to what end his policy on immigration, to what end his policy on whether it be abortion or LGBTQ issues. None of that is given. And for me, that tells me that in their minds, their thinking, take it to whatever degree they need to take it to, whatever degree they desire. Donald Trump has not told them not to do that. If you're just joining us, my guest is Joe Moore. He's written a book about infiltrating the KKK, thwarting an assassination attempt against Barack Obama when he was running for president, and the growth he says he saw firsthand of white supremacy ideology. His book is called White Robes and Broken Badges, Infiltrating the KKK

and Exposing the Evil Among Us. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. You have at the beginning of the book, Congressman Jamie Raskin writing a foreword, and he writes about this potentially grim future. It's basically a primer on domestic terrorism and the mindsets that led to January 6th and what we could see in the future. And of course, we keep hearing about this future because we're all waiting for the outcome of this presidential election. There are fears about things like a civil war. Do you feel like we should truly be afraid of the power of the KKK now that you have been inside of it and seen part of its inner workings? What do you think that we should be looking at in this moment? And how do we potentially stop something? First of all, they actually do want to take over

the government. The second thing is many of them do want to have that civil war. Those of them that have families, are invested in their community, etc., etc. They support a civil war, but the Klan members or the white supremacists or the, I can say the alt-right in general, they are very much interested in having another civil war because they have lost faith with the process. And that sort of is the step that leads to them becoming radicalized in this nature. Once they lose faith in the process, once they have stepped away from the civility of our governmental process, then those are people that the KKK would see are ripe for the picking, as well as the other similar organizations. And civil war is, in fact, a mechanism that they discuss and, to a a large degree desire in order to take over

the country again. Joe, you've spoken out so much about this, and this book actually now is probably the most that you have ever been exposed. Do you fear for your safety? Short answer, yes. But with the fact that the Klan was able to discover a lot of information about us, even though we had identity changes, location changes, what I realized was that we can no longer hide in the dark.

They'll find us. With all the resources they have, with all the people that are willing to share favors with them, they'll find us. So I decided that I needed to come out for two reasons. One, the truth needs to get out. And two, if we're in the open and a lot of people are watching, that means they have to come out into the open where a lot of people are watching to sort of conduct some sort of violence. So my wife and I sat

down and discussed it multiple times and we came to the agreement that the best place for us to hide was out in the sun. Do you think your time being an informant for the FBI, collecting all of this information, you did thwart several murder attempts. Do you feel like it was worth it? Absolutely. There's no doubt in my mind with what I learned, what I uncovered, what I was able to do for the FBI. The truth was so hidden from the public. It wasn't a matter of the KKK necessarily becoming fewer and fewer people. I mean, there's been that to some degree. The bigger issue was the KKK had become more sneaky, more involved in tradecraft, more involved in how to be effective and less boisterous. Joe Moore, thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you, Tanya. It was my pleasure.

Writer Joe Moore. His book is called White Robes and Broken Badges, Infiltrating the KKK and Exposing the Evil Among Us. On tomorrow's show, growing up in a devout Rastafari family in Jamaica, we'll talk with poet Sophia Sinclair, author of the memoir How to Say Babylon. Her father, a reggae singer, ruled the home, and everyone who wasn't Rasta was considered heathen. A turning point in Sinclair's life was when she cut off her dreadlocks. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is

Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producers are Molly C.V. Nesper and Sabrina Seward. Roberta Shurock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley. Who's claiming power this election? What's happening in battleground states? And why do we still have the Electoral College? All this month, the ThruLine podcast is asking big questions about our democracy and going back in time to answer them. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR.