(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Earlier this year, the leader of the white nationalist activist group Patriot Front downplayed the notion that the FBI was working to infiltrate his group.
“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,” Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau said on Patrick Bet-David’s popular podcast, released in June.
About two months later, the FBI released on Monday nearly 1,000 records that might make Rousseau rethink his earlier statement. Though almost the entire FBI file on the Patriot Front is redacted, it includes one record confirming that the bureau had at least one spy embedded with the group.
Here are the most interesting docs I've seen in this file, starting w/ a pretty major one: Proof that a CHS was embedded in the group
🧵 https://t.co/phI4DkGcPs pic.twitter.com/GpdTPPb98B— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) July 30, 2024
That record is an electronic communication that was written by an FBI agent in Philadelphia in August 2022.
“Information contained in this document pertains to the identity of a confidential human source (CHS),” the record stated, explaining the circumstances under which an informant’s identity might be publicly revealed. “CHS” is the FBI’s term for an undercover informant.
The FBI electronic communication included details of the informant’s work. For instance, in February 2019, the informant provided information to the FBI’s office in Charlotte.
“On February 11, 2019, FBI Charlotte received Confidential Human Source (CHS) reporting from [REDACTED] Division regarding [REDACTED],” the record stated.
There doesn’t appear to be any more information in the FBI’s heavily redacted file about the CHS or his activities.
Rousseau’s attorney, Jason Lee Van Dyke, declined to comment, other than to note that he’s not a member of the group. He also said he hasn’t spoken to Rousseau about the records.
“Of course, in my capacity as a private citizen and attorney who routinely comments on First Amendment issues generally, I would be willing to comment by saying that this seems to resolve the social media debate concerning whether Patriot Front is some kind of FBI ‘PsyOp’ used to create unrest and help the Democratic Party narrative,” the attorney added.
There were several other records released Tuesday that contain information about the FBI’s investigation of Patriot Front. An August 2019 FBI memo, for instance, suggested that a grand jury investigation may have been opened against the group or some of its members.
Additionally, dozens of redacted records presumably contain information about the FBI’s surveillance of Patriot Front.
Headline USA is not aware of any federal charges being levied against the Patriot Front or any of its members.
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.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
