(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The leader of the white nationalist activist group Patriot Front recently gave a rare interview on entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David’s popular podcast.
Much of Bet-David’s roughly 90-minute interview with Thomas Rousseau was spent discussing whether he and his followers are white nationalists. Rousseau quibbled with that term, saying that he prefers being called an American nationalist—though he believes only white people can be Americans.
Bet-David also asked Rousseau the question that’s been a hot topic online for years: Is the Patriot Front infiltrated by the FBI? The podcast host asked specifically about agents as opposed to undercover informants. Either way, Rousseau responded by denying that the Patriot Front is infiltrated.
Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau denies that his group is infiltrated by the FBI:
"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…" pic.twitter.com/mKl5FckejC
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) June 5, 2024
“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,” he answered.
Bet-David didn’t press him much farther. He didn’t ask, for example, whether the Patriot Front might be infiltrated by Homeland Security or another agency other than the FBI.
Nor did Bet-David ask about the documented instance of an FBI informant being in the Patriot Front. That informant, Michael Alan Jones—who also allegedly stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—was given “time served” last September for a recent felony gun charge.
Bet-David and Rousseau did discuss how the latter marched at Charlottesville. But the podcast host didn’t mention how the group Rousseau marched with, Vanguard America, was part of a coalition called the Nationalist Front, which included the National Socialist Movement, or NSM—what turned out to be an FBI front group. The Nationalist Front also included the League of the South, another group infiltrated by the FBI.
Rousseau, for his part, didn’t mention that he was recently arrested under extremely dubious charges for his participation in the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally—dropping the ball on the chance to expose a major civil rights violation taking place right now in Virginia.
Additionally, the two didn’t discuss how Rousseau has defaulted in two civil lawsuits against his group.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
