In 2010, conspiracy theorists around the country were convinced that Barack Obama was not the rightful president. Some of them filed lawsuits. Some of them tried to have the President indicted. And when none of that worked, some of them took matters into their own hands and tried to arrest the county court employees they thought were standing in their way. In the first half of this story, Walter Fitzpatrick unsuccessfully storms the courtroom in Madisonville, Tennessee. The outcry over his arrest would motivate Oath Keeper Darren Huff to rally supporters for a second attempt.

Sources:

Jardina A, Traugott M. The Genesis of the Birther Rumor: Partisanship, Racial Attitudes, and Political Knowledge. The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. 2019;4(1):60-80. doi:10.1017/rep.2018.25

Josh Pasek, Tobias H. Stark, Jon A. Krosnick, Trevor Tompson, What motivates a conspiracy theory? Birther beliefs, partisanship, liberal-conservative ideology, and anti-Black attitudes, Electoral Studies, Volume 40, 2015

Hughey, M.W. Show Me Your Papers! Obama’s Birth and the Whiteness of Belonging. Qual Sociol 35, 163–181 (2012).

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/birther-movement-founder-trump-clinton-228304

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33388485

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/us/12alabama.html

https://www.newsherald.com/story/news/crime/2018/10/19/vigilante-group-oath-keepers-arrested-in-mexico-beach-following-hurricane-michael/9509280007/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oath-keepers-poll-watching_n_58122566e4b0990edc2f8178

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/1998/hate-group-expert-daniel-levitas-discusses-posse-comitatus-christian-identity-movement-and

https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/district-of-columbia/dcdce/1:2009mc00346/137380/2/0.pdf

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/25/judge-lamberth-jan-6-trump-00137960

https://www.tncourts.gov/rules/rules-criminal-procedure/6

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2022, Ethan Melzer pleaded guilty to plotting to help al Qaeda ambush and kill his entire unit while on a sensitive mission in Turkey. But Melzer's co-conspirators turned out to be a Canadian teenager and a government informant, not members of al Qaeda. And the satanic cult that drew him down this nazi rabbit hole turned out to have been run by a man on the FBI payroll.

Sources

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17286246/united-states-v-melzer

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69307006/united-states-of-america-v-melzer/

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-satanist-neo-nazi-plot-to-murder-u-s-soldiers-1352629/

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/neo-nazi-1378280

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/jack-teixiera-case-military-extremism-1234724461

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dangerous-exploits-of-an-extremist-fbi-informant/

https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/ona-fascism-nazis-folk-horror-underground-occult/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In June of 2020, US Army Private Ethan Melzer was arrested for leaking information about his unit's deployment to Turkey with the intention of causing a mass casualty incident. The plot was hatched in a Telegram chat room for a group calling itself Rapewaffen, an Atomwaffen splinter cell that was committed to the beliefs of a neonazi satanic cult called the Order of Nine Angles. This episode follows the rise of satanism within Atomwaffen and the chaos that influence caused.

Sources:

https://unicornriot.ninja/2020/national-guard-soldier-who-deployed-to-dc-identified-as-neo-nazi/

https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/post/ohio-national-guard-member-sent-home-for-white-supremacist-views-is-likely-a-fascist-youtuber

https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/post/ohio-national-guard-soldier-pulled-from-mission-in-d-c-appears-on-neo-fascist-podcast-says-hes-being-discharged

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/05/fbi-national-guardsman-expressed-white-supremacist-ideology-303924

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-satanist-neo-nazi-plot-to-murder-u-s-soldiers-1352629/

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/neo-nazi-1378280

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-06-02/military-begins-staging-around-washington-to-quell-george-floyd-protests

https://hopenothate.org.uk/2020/06/23/the-rapewaffen-telegram-channel/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/soldiers-cases-highlight-reach-of-white-extremism-into-us-military/2020/06/25/0203532e-b582-11ea-9b0f-c797548c1154_story.html

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.