Uncover - S13: "White Hot Hate" E4: 'It only takes a few'

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

Some members of The Base are planning deadly attacks that they hope will spark a race war. Will they be stopped, before it's too late? For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/white-hot-hate-transcripts-listen-1.6226840

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The following episode contains coarse language and descriptions of violence. Please take care when listening. Hi. Can you hear me okay? One sec. I'm getting some headphones. This is a first for us. A phone interview where we're never going to hear the guest's voice. On the other end of the line are anti-fascist activists.

We believe two of them. They're from the group Atlanta Antifa, based in Georgia. And they're extremely concerned about keeping their identities a secret. So they're using a text-to-voice program. We're just going to do some levels and see how it sounds. You can just tell me what the weather's like there today if you want. Lots of sunshine. Hot and humid, high near 95F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 miles per hour.

That was a very complete weather report. Thank you. We're also connecting over an encrypted phone app. It's a bit cumbersome and takes a long time to do an interview. But it was the only workaround we could agree upon. I know the care that you take to keep your identity concealed. Why is it so strict? Well, some neo-Nazis literally want to murder us. We have been highly disruptive to their organizing.

And when Trump was president, he threatened us regularly. President Donald Trump says the U.S. government will designate anti-fascist group Antifa as a terrorist organization. You know, they show up in the helmets and the black masks. Antifa! Antifa groups like this one are on the front lines of combating white supremacist movements. They track the online and real-world activities of neo-Nazis, try to figure out their true identities, and make those details public if they believe they pose a big enough threat. In other words, they dox them. But they make sure to insist they do not work with law enforcement. One of the guiding principles of our group is that cops and courts cannot do our work for us.

Often the people we research have deep ties to law enforcement, especially in rural Georgia. Sometimes law enforcement and non-governmental white supremacists are at odds with each other, true, but other times they will work together. This group had been monitoring the base's activity in Georgia since 2018. We noticed that there was a recruiter for the base active in the Rome and North Georgia area. was a recruiter for the base active in the Rome and North Georgia area. This is where the base members would eventually hold a so-called hate camp in late October 2019. According to Atlanta Antifa, this kind of activity wasn't new. We were sure they were doing some kind of military training, especially since that kind of accelerationist Nazi culture is prevalent among ex-military and active military.

The base were posting video and images of training camps on social media with faces obscured. After Patrick Matthews, a Canadian reservist with explosives training, went missing and his truck was found at the border, the Antifa activists weren't surprised when he showed up in Georgia. There were a limited number of places in the U.S. where he could have gone after crossing the border. Since there was a property and support structure in Georgia and Matthew's military experience would have been attractive to the cell here, we thought it likely he'd eventually pay our state a visit.

The Georgia hate camp was a popular one, and it included three prominent American members, 21-year-old Luke Austin Lane, who lived on the property, 19-year-old Jacob Catterley, and Michael Haltibrand, 25. The trio had allegedly discussed how they would murder a couple they believed were Antifa members who lived about a 30-minute drive away. There were no doubt tourists and wannabes at the camp, but it only takes a few to follow through with violence to cause huge damage. According to FBI records that have been filed in court, they had discussed multiple contingencies for the killing. And while those allegations are yet to be tested,

Ryan Thorpe from the Winnipeg Free Press says the claims are pretty shocking. That plan is disturbing. The level of detail that the trio is alleged to have plotted this out. They have done dry runs. They've identified the home. At one point, they're even talking about, well, what if they have children? What would we do then? And the consensus among the trio seems to be,

well, we'll go forward with it. We don't have a problem killing these, you know, commie kids. So they have false license plates. They've talked about putting Vaseline on their eyebrows so that they don't leave any sort of DNA behind. They're going to tape the long sleeves to their wrists, and they're going to tape their pants around their ankles so they don't leave DNA behind. Like, it is wild the extent to which they have thought through this. I'm Michelle Shepard, and this is White Hot Hate, episode four, It Only Takes a Few.

hate. Episode 4, It Only Takes a Few. In early November 2019, as base members were still allegedly planning the assassination of the Antifa couple, Patrick Matthews was packing his bags. He was leaving Georgia and heading back north. It was good timing for Matthews. He'd really fallen out of favor with the Georgia cell. That's something that's kind of unexpected because these accelerationist groups really prize people with military or law enforcement backgrounds because not only do they give sort of authenticity to what they're doing, but they have training and then they can pass that training along. This is Chris Joyner again, veteran reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. So you would think that Patrick Matthews would be a very valuable member of that group,

but at least the Georgia cell was very suspicious of him. And they did not particularly care for his, what they considered his loose talk. And there was even some discussion that they might kill him because they felt like he might, you know, be the weak link in the chain. He was not a popular member of that group. Matthews and the others may have left the camp, but they were still under surveillance. They were watched when they drove through Virginia, watched when they re-entered Maryland, They were watched when they drove through Virginia, watched when they re-entered Maryland, and law enforcement was still on their tail when Matthews and Brian Lemley Jr. moved into an apartment in Delaware. Away from the crew allegedly plotting a murder in Georgia, the two men started planning an attack of their own.

So after about a month of watching them from afar, the FBI executed what's known as a sneak and peek warrant to search their apartment. They found the base propaganda flyers, knives, and meals ready to eat, or MREs. They also found the necessary components to build an assault rifle. It looked like they had ordered the parts online, trying to build an untraceable ghost gun. And there was more. Testing, of course, the audio on this. During the search, the agents looked through Matthew's computer. They found videos where he spoke straight to the camera,

spouting off in violent, racist language about how he would further the movement. In one, Matthews is wearing a gas mask and trying to disguise his voice. The time for words has ended. The time for podcasts has ended. You think politics is the solution? You are a damned fool. Podcasts has ended. You think politics is the solution? You are a damned fool. It is the system that is fomenting violent revolution, not us.

And they shall now reap what they have sown. Your two options are as follows. Option number one. Prepare for the collapse. Option number two. Bring the collapse. Option number two. Bring the collapse. Derail some fucking trains, kill some people, and poison some water supplies. The video is disturbing. But law enforcement decided to wait to make a move, and hope that Matthews didn't act first. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs.

We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. your podcasts.

Virginia Democrats' plans to enact a sweeping series of gun measures have already fired a rebellion in dozens of counties. Now, armed gun rights supporters from across the country are planning to sweep into Richmond on Martin Luther King Day. The rally even getting the president's attention. He tweeted, quote, Your Second Amendment is under very serious attack at the great Commonwealth of Virginia. That's what happens when you vote for Democrats. They will take your guns away. Most years, the annual lobby day in Virginia,

organized by pro-gun advocates, attracts a few hundred participants. Either show up or shut up. You can take time off, you can find a way, because if you don't, then you're giving up on the Second Amendment. In January 2020, though, anticipation was building about a much larger rally. Virginia was on the cusp of passing gun control laws that, among other measures, would include mandatory background checks to purchase firearms. Buzz was building not just among gun lobbyists who planned to turn out in force, but also militia groups, conspiracy theorists, and far-right extremists. It felt like a toxic brew. But we're going to be there. We're going to be covering it all. This is the real fight for America.

This is asymmetrical warfare by the deep state against our country. We need all eyes and ears on the ground in Virginia. As the gun control debate is heating up across Virginia, so are the number of guns being walked out of stores. Police were on high alert. And those who were monitoring the base and like-minded

accelerationist groups were especially concerned. By this time, the FBI had installed a hidden CCTV camera and microphone in Matthews and Lemley's apartment. They'd recorded the men discussing the assault rifle they were making, as well as hours and hours of them spewing racist rhetoric against African Americans and Jews. Some of the law people don't know, a lot of race riots back in the day were started by whites. We would start the riots, and you best believe we finished them.

We need to go back to the days of fucking decimating Blacks and getting rid of them. We need to go back to the days of fucking decimating blacks and getting rid of them wherever they stand. And Matthews had this to say about the upcoming pro-gun rally in Richmond, Virginia. Get your asses there. The minute things escalate, get to every single thing you can take out. Power lines, everything. We need to fucking escalate this get to every single thing you can take out. Power lines, everything. We need to fucking escalate this and spread that idea and just say, fucking bring the system down.

When Virginia happens, we fucking kill the system. We stop the whole fucking thing. The plan was to create bloody mayhem. Fan the flames. Pour gasoline on the fire and just let it fucking burn. If you're wondering why neo-Nazis would target a crowd of conservative and predominantly white gun enthusiasts, well, I had the same question.

And I asked Reindthorpe. I think you have to go back and contextualize it within the framework of accelerationism. It does seem somewhat counterintuitive that these people who would be very pro-gun rights would attack a pro-gun rights rally. But it just makes me think of Matthews in the Park where he was saying, I want the liberals to get five terms in office. You know, I want Black Lives Matter active in every white neighborhood. liberals to get five terms in office. You know, I want Black Lives Matter active in every white neighborhood. They don't care who they maim or hurt or kill. It's difficult to get yourself into this mindset, but you have to understand like just the level of disregard for human life. Matthews and Lemley, who are members of the base, were now targeted for execution by the members of

the Georgia cell. So not only was this organization fine with like attacking right wing pro second amendment protesters, they were fine attacking each other. You know, it's like when you get that deep into like terroristic, you know, revolutionary ideology or activity, it's a circular firing squad, right? They want to cause chaos. They want to cause bloodshed. What they want to do is increase polarization, heighten the contradictions. Let's turn up the heat to get everyone more likely to take rash action. So actually, I think it makes sense. I don't think it was an odd target for them to identify for an attack.

I think it fits entirely in with their ideology. Discussion online among anti-government extremists started calling Monday's rally the Boogaloo. That's the name they've given to the violent event they believe will trigger the collapse of civil society and government. Accelerationists hope for the Boogaloo

too. Except for them, it's the beginning of a race war from which they'll emerge the white victors. We have received credible intelligence from our law enforcement agencies that there are groups with malicious plans for the rally that is planned for Monday. On January 15, 2020, Ralph Northam, the governor of Virginia, held this press conference just days before the pro-gun rally in Richmond, the state capital. No one wants another incident like the one we saw in Charlottesville in 2017. We will not allow that mayhem and violence to happen here.

Richmond is about an hour's drive away from Charlottesville. Memories of the chaotic Unite the Right event held there in 2017 were still fresh. It's where a 20-year-old black man was nearly beaten to death by a mob in a parking garage, and 32-year-old Heather Heyer was murdered. She died after a white supremacist plowed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, hitting her and injuring dozens of others. Governor Northam, who had been elected just months after Charlottesville, wasn't taking any chances.

He declared a state of emergency, and he banned protesters from bringing their guns into Capitol Square. Then the next day, some breaking news. For months after Patrick Matthews disappeared at the Manitoba border, he lived in the shadows until the FBI knocked down the door of the Delaware apartment he was renting. He was arrested along with two other alleged members of an aggressive neo-Nazi group called The Base. The FBI had what they needed. They moved in.

Nearly five months after he fled Canada, Patrick Matthews was finally apprehended. The FBI alleges they made a functioning assault rifle, bought 1,650 rounds of ammunition, and practiced at a local gun range. Agents say they talked about recruitment, creating a white ethnostate, and military-style training camps. He was taken into custody along with Brian Lemley Jr. and, in Maryland, police picked up William Bilbrow IV. The FBI moved in on the Georgia crew, too, the next day, arresting Luke Austin Lane, Catterly, and Haltebrand.

They were charged with plotting to kill the couple they believed were Antifa. They are charged with a conspiracy to commit murder and participation in a criminal gang. Tom Lane was at work when his son was arrested. Well, it was during the day I got a call from an FBI agent saying that they had arrested Luke and asked if I could come home, and of course I did. And when I got here, I probably had 30 FBI agents, and I think all the Floyd County police was here. And going through the house, they had my daughter and son-in-law and grandson outside

and the FBI agent told me that he had been arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. Another alleged member of the base would be arrested in Wisconsin. Seven men across four states in two days. It was a coordinated sweep and it was big news. was a coordinated sweep. And it was big news. Tensions are running high in Virginia after the arrests Friday of four more suspected neo-Nazis connected to what authorities call a white supremacist group. And tonight, the FBI crackdown continues on white supremacist groups

ahead of a pro-gun rally next Monday in Richmond, Virginia. Police say the three men arrested in Georgia had trained at a camp for the white supremacist group known as The Base in the northwest part of the state. With various plots foiled, the rally in Virginia took place peacefully. And the pair in Georgia were safe, although deeply shaken. As it turns out, The base members had sloppy intel. The couple they had targeted apparently weren't even part of Atlanta Antifa. They were not members and not even in our geographic area. So we tracked down how they got on Luke Austin Lane's radar, a sloppily constructed

hit list of people all over Georgia who had happened to attend any anti-fascist event. That list purported to expose members of Atlanta anti-fascist event. That list purported to expose members of Atlanta anti-fascists, so the base members probably thought they were targeting our group, even though they were mistaken. Were you able to have any contact with that couple? And if so, can you just tell us a little bit about them? not their IDs, but just how this impacted them. We really can't comment on that. But Chris Joyner did track them down after the arrests. When I talked to the fellow who lived there, he was very shaken and was in the process of upgrading his home security as a result.

Yeah, I can't even imagine what that was like for him. security as a result. Yeah, I can't even imagine what that was like for him. From what I can tell, the person they assumed was his wife was just a friend who was standing next to him. My understanding of this fella was he would be probably in the, you know, very progressive wing of left-wing activism, but not somebody who was like a brawler. He's the kind of person that would show up with a sign and would shout at the other side and then probably go back home and live his, you know, regular day-to-day life

until the next time he went out. He feels very strongly that, you know, racism is bad and that people who promote a white ethnostate are dangerous to the union. And he goes out and he counter protests those like a lot of people do. Tom Lane, Luke's father, says he doesn't believe any of it. He doubts the murder plot was ever going to be put in motion. Those three boys had talked about how they would get away with it and how they would do it, but they never had made a date to do it.

I think it was just a lot of talk is all it was. I just don't believe that Luke would have ever went through with that. Tom says he suspects the real instigator was the undercover FBI agent. I feel like the, you know, the FBI implant, he kind of led them in that direction. Certainly he didn't do anything to deter it. You know, these were young guys, like 19, 20 years old. And I think they, you know, they pretty much just took advantage of their youth. I don't know what caused the FBI to start watching these guys,

but they had been watching them for a while. The group they were in, the base, they're all about preserving the white heritage of the United States. You know, just the exact opposite of what, you know, a lot of the Black Lives Matter things, they're wanting to destroy anything that has to do with the white race. You know, I don't know that the base wasn't created by the FBI. You know, I don't much trust anything they do.

Remember Mubin Shaikh, the undercover operative on the Toronto 18 homegrown jihadi case? He knows this issue well. Debate inside the courthouse and out was whether Mubin was too much of a driving force in that case. Just because they're involved in discussing a plot doesn't mean they're generating the plot. Generating the plot means there is no plot. The undercover goes in, comes up with the plot, and now there's a plot. I think there have been accusations that you defied the training camp, right? Oh yes, of course. Everything became being Sheikh's fault.

Mubin definitely had his critics. But in the end, the judge who presided over those Toronto 18 trials accepted his testimony, writing, Though he feels vindicated, Mubin still gets frustrated by this strategy relied on by the defence for accused extremists. Again, I think the public doesn't have a good understanding of how undercover operations are done. We have long since accepted the fact that the only way for us to collect evidence of criminality by individuals who are acting covertly is through covert collection means. These people are not telling the world that they're terrorists. They're hiding it

from their family members, other friends. So the only way you're going to get information of wrongdoing at that level is by an undercover. Because we believe like eyes and ears evidence is better than an intercept, right? Because you need to put context to the conversation. It's no different sending an undercover into a jihadist group than sending an undercover into an outlaw motorcycle club. It's the exact same thing. There's no difference between sending then an undercover pretending that they're a terrorist. Because if somebody was not of that mindset, they would say, Whoa, I'm not down with this, or they would express some objection. So people can make the accusation. but honestly, it's very lazy to do that

because you have to look at the test of entrapment, which is making somebody do something that they would not normally do or something that they are not already predisposed to do it. But terrorism cases have been overturned, cases when undercover operators have gone too far. A 2016 New York Times investigation found that Stings accounted for two of every three prosecutions involving people suspected of supporting the Islamic State. Now, the use of this tactic when investigating the far right is becoming the norm.

And as those cases make their way to trial, the roles of informants and undercover agents will again be challenged. So what do you think, Tom, what do you think's next for your son? Hopefully he won't be in prison. You know, they'll acquit him or he won't have to spend too much time in jail. Luke Austin Lane and the hate camp attendees who were arrested have been indicted on animal cruelty charges related to the sacrifice of the ram, or goat. And Lane faces the charge of conspiracy to murder the couple, arson, and home invasion, along with his co-accused Jacob Catterley and Michael Heltebrand. They've all pleaded not guilty. And the base member apprehended in Wisconsin during the sweep of

arrests in January 2020? He was charged with vandalism after he spray-painted anti-Semitic phrases, a swastika, and the symbol for the base on a local synagogue. And in Maryland, Patrick Matthews and his co-accused awaited trial for firearm and obstruction of justice offenses. Suddenly, stories of the base were everywhere. were everywhere. In the months to follow, countries including Canada and the UK listed the group as a terrorist entity joining the ranks of Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

But still, there were so many unanswered questions. How many more members were out there? What were they planning? And just who was the leader of this group? Who was the man who started this all? Coming up on White Hot Hate. No, no. If you had asked me to make a list of the folks who would end up founding a radical right-wing organization,

nah, I got a hundred names I'd put on that list before I would have come to his. I'm a licensed firearm owner. I have a clean record with the police. I have been part of several white nationalist movements. Okay, I am 26 years old. I served several months in the German army. We call it Verdienst in Germany. Some of the applicants and members that you approved of praised the Christchurch shooter or what Breivik did in Norway.

I couldn't associate with people who praise those actions. And yet you bring them into an organization that you created. Right. Because they have a militant mindset that we need. Right. Because they have a militant mindset that we need. Mixing and sound design by Danelle Cloutier and Julia Whitman, with technical assistance from Laura Antonelli. Emily Cannell is our digital producer. Fact-checking by Emily Mathieu and Zachary Kamel. Legal advice from Sean Moorman. Original music by Quiet Type.

Additional material from Global News, WUSA 9, Gun Talk Radio, The Alex Jones Show, NBC, CBS, 11 Alut, and Sean Powers. For CBC Podcasts, our senior producer is Chris Oak, and our executive producer is Arif Noorani.