Category: Intelligence

For 2021, I have decided to be more purposeful in following conspiracy theories and narratives of sovereign citizens. I set up some searches and subscribed to a couple subreddits. The past month has been incredibly interesting. Here are a couple of stories from AmIBeingDetained:

An individual was arrested in New Hampshire for using “Private” tags. They posted their misdemeanor penalty notice online for advice.

An individual posted a recording of their traffic court hearing on Youtube.

Another individual talked about the “magical paperwork” patriots can send to debtors to discharge the debts.

A sovereign citizen filed a lawsuit against Whole Foods regarding their mask rules. The best part: They spelled preliminary as “preplimary”.

A Moorish individual posted their “Passport Travel Card” online.

A screenshot from Facebook where an individual explains “tort”.

Any interesting postings from sovereigns recently? Send them my way.

Former Maine Governor Paul LePage has been called many names in the past. Politico referred to him as the “craziest governor”. Maine paid out nearly $600,000 for attorneys to represent LePage when he was governor.

Interestingly, LePage has become news again. In addition to preparing to challenge Maine Governor Janet Mills in 2022, LePage has met with sovereign citizens and reportedly told them to “get our guns out” if they felt their First Amendment rights were being stifled.

Meeting with sovereign citizens is nothing new for LePage. In 2014, LePage held at least eight meetings with the Constitutional Coalition, a sovereign citizen-associated group. (FYI: This group is not associated with the Missouri non-profit of the same name.)

But all is right in the world. According to reporting documented by the SPLC, LePage was not endorsing the views but just listening to constituents.

The majority of sovereign citizens are not violent. They may not pay taxes or have a driver’s license, but they do not engage in threatening or violent behavior. However, some sovereign citizens are domestic terrorists. They act out in furtherance of their viewpoint.

In 2020, there were several instances in which identified sovereign citizens threatened or were violent. This list was put together from multiple sources, including Stareschi (2020).

3 January. Dayton, Ohio’s Derrick Lewis was arrested for shooting at police officers and engaging in a 13-hour standoff. He identified himself as a sovereign citizen.

30 January. Justin Higdon, a New Orleans, Louisiana, man, was arrested for making a threat on social media that he would shoot police officers at Carnival.

22 May. Caleb Zink of Oregon was arrested after attacking law enforcement. He was livid about Oregon’s Department of Human Services (DHS) involvement in the welfare of his partner’s children. Zink was a fugitive until he was picked up in Fort Smith, Arkansas. This was not until after he bit an officer’s hand.

21 July. Monica Greer Justice from Ohio shot two police officers and engaged in a standoff with police. The officers were attempting to serve a warrant that appears to have stemmed from Justice refusing to wear a mask.

(EDIT thanks to Dr. Sarteschi) 15 November. A Ocala, Florida, woman, Neely Petrie-Blanchard, shot and killed 50-year old Christopher Hallett because she accused him of keeping her from seeing her children. She espoused sovereign views.

26 November. A Boston man, Pepo Herd El a/k/a Pepo Wamchawi Herd (El), was arrested for being a felon in possession of a weapon. When arrested, he was wearing a “Security” jacket (even though he was not employed as a security guard). Law enforcement found El had a gun, body armor and chemicals to make a bomb at his home.

It is likely the list is nowhere near complete: Please comment if I overlooked something.

Even though the U.S. Congress certified the 2020 Presidential electoral college results on January 7th, individuals have continued to spread conspiracy theories on how President Trump will actual retain the presidency for another four years. Anyone with a foundational knowledge of American civics know this is not the true; however, it is interesting to parse out the arguments:

19th President

Picked up on Reddit from what appears to be a Parler post by ClericJohnPreston (play off a character from the 2002 sci-fi film Equilibrium), the post suggests that on March 4th, Trump will be sworn in as the 19th president. This builds on sovereign theory that the United States has been a corporation for a while. Some theories suggest the U.S. became a corporation between the end of the Civil War and the abandonment of the gold standard in 1933. This author believes it happened in 1871. Conditional to this belief is the suggestion that “Biden, Harris, Pence, Pelosi, etc.” must be arrested by January 20th. Then, the “corporation known as United States” will cease to exist, and Trump will become the 19th president (following, of course, Ulysses S. Grant).

Nye County, Nevada, Post

Another interesting conspiracy post is this one from Nye County Central Committee. The author discusses that Trump has not conceded to Biden, and, because of this (and other reasons), he will be sworn in on January 20th. Apparently, Trump knew of an election conspiracy and predicted that there would be a 4am dump of ballots. (This has been fact checked by Reuters.) This dump is proof that there is a conspiracy against Trump.

Among the other claims is the mention of the January 6th U.S. Capitol riot and how “95%+” of the people in the building were Antifa. Interesting since the FBI has been arresting people, including a Des Moines, Iowa, individual arrested by my former FBI team.

The author concludes with some benchmarks to look for, including a social media blackout, the use of the Emergency Broadcast System, and “high profile” arrests before January 20th.

In the past several months, we have seen a significant increase of reporting on the QAnon phenomenon or movement. Among those who participated in yesterday’s riot at the U.S. Capitol were supporters of the QAnon movement. The term “QAnon supporters” generally describes individuals who believe in a wide-range of conspiracy theories, including that a secret organization of Satanic-based, pedophiliac individuals control the government and are plotting against President Trump (see The New York Times, The Atlantic , and AlJazeera). Even before yesterday’s atrocities, this movement had become more mainstream than other similar movements.

Another anti-government collective is the sovereign citizen movement. Sovereign citizens generally believe that the government is illegitimate, and, by following a process that varies by adherent, a person can become a “freeman”. Over the past two decades, several incidents involving sovereign citizens have become violent. It is good to note that the sovereign movement, as a whole, is not a violent movement. It is just that some adherents may act aggressively when confronted by law enforcement or public officials regarding their viewpoints.

The FBI has begun investigating those involved in yesterday’s insurrection at the Capitol. Several QAnon followers have already been identified as having been part of the movement. Given the potential for sovereign citizens to want smaller government (e.g., more Republican-leaning), I pondered whether it is possible among the individuals were sovereign citizens. Let’s do a quick examination:

There are reports on individuals who are linked to both movements. In November 2020, Florida law enforcement arrested Neely Petrie-Blanchard for the Kentucky murder of Christopher Hallett. Based on social media, Petrie-Blanchard appeared to be both a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy and the sovereign movement. Additionally in Oregon, the Kinney family created a blockade in attempt to prevent them from being evicted, claiming they were an “Afro-Indigenous family” that owned the land. William Kinney aka William X. Nietzche appeared connected to both the sovereign and QAnon movements.

The movements have similar key elements. As mentioned above, QANon believes in a secret society controlling the US government. Sovereign citizens do not believe the government is legitimate. Both believe in conspiracies about the current government that compel them to not trust the current US government. Both have some supporters who believe it is OK to not follow the government’s rules or laws.

There is already an historic pattern for similar synergies to exist. In the other domestic extremist movements, animal rights extremists (the Animal Liberation Front, etc.) are known to run in the same circles as environmental rights extremists (e.g., Earth Liberation Front). Even in Islamic terrorism movements, individuals involved in the Taliban would often have associations with the Haqqani and Al-Qaida movements. The same is likely with members of Al-Qaida in Iraq (QAI) and the Islamic State. If there was a similarity in beliefs, then some of the movements’ followers would join the others. After all: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

Without being able to link individuals involved in the QAnon movement with those involved in sovereign citizen movement, it is likely that we will not know if there is harmony between these two ideological groups. It is something to ponder. What do you think?