Downtown neo-Nazis who said the Pittsburgh victims were "deserved" were arrested; Has deep links with "Alt-Right"

WASHINGTON – Jeffrey Clark – Federal Agents of the 30-year-old Man stopped on Friday after stating that the gunshot victims of the Pittsburgh Synagogue "deserved exactly what had happened to them and much worse"His parents feared he was trying to trigger a racial war – was not shy as a neo-Nazi.

In April 2017, when someone asked Clark at a rally at the White House organized by "right-handed" smuggler Richard Spencer, whether he considered himself a fascist or not, he said no, he considered himself a Nazi. Antifa activists photographed him at the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., In August 2017. He posed for photos in front of Nazi symbols and memorable Nazi memorabilia.

On Gab, the social network favored racists and anti-SemitesClark was called @PureWhiteEvil and called himself "DC Bowl Gang", in reference to Dylann Roof, the racist carved into a bowl that murdered nine church worshipers. Black in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

Many white supremacists from right to right worship Roof, and Clark used an image of the killer and gunmen as a cover page for his Gab page. His pinned image was an altered excerpt from the video game "Doom" that portrayed Roof running black people in a church.

Last April, Clark threatened a HuffPost reporter, warning that HuffPost would go "into a lumberjack". The reporter spoke of the threat to the police in August. They did nothing at the time. At the end of October, Israeli police went to Clark's home in Bloomingdale after the suicide of his brother, Edward, but did not arrest him.

On October 26, Clark defended Cesar Sayoc, Florida Trump's supporter, for sending incandescent bombs to prominent Democrats. "No, he was based! Get used to that. It was just a dry track for things to come, "writes Clark on Gab in response to another user critical of Sayoc. Clark's Gab profile is no longer online, but HuffPost has consulted the publications archive, which has been compiled by scientist Jason Baumgartner.

In his affidavit, the FBI had wrongly suggested that Clark's post "white background article" referred to Robert Bowers, accused of murdering 11 people at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue on October 27th. NBC first reported the disagreement. The FBI refused to comment.

After the shooting in Pittsburgh, Clark told family members that he thought he had been "friend." on Gab by Bowers. Clark wrote to Gab that "the fucking kikes that were pulled by the #RobertBowers hero were all active supporters of pedophilia … and that each of them deserved exactly what had happened to them and much worse, "according to court documents. Theories of conspiracy centered on pedophilia are popular among the members of the far right; in 2016, a North Carolina man armed with a rifle made a drive to a pizzeria in Washington, DC he falsely believed to be the center of a vast pedophile network. Nobody was injured in the shooting.

It was only in November, after Clark's family contacted the police, that the FBI finally found the allegedly illegal weapons that threatened him with prosecution. Court documents, as well as photos and videos obtained by HuffPost, suggest that Clark's late brother, Edward Clark, shared a similar ideology. The fact that the two men are able to spread neo-Nazi rhetoric, build an arsenal of weapons and openly threaten journalists and critics for months without consequences shows how extreme extremists Right have the freedom to act, and up to how much their behavior has to escalate before the forces of order take it seriously.

Clark lived in a townhouse in Bloomingdale with his father, sister and younger brother Edward William "Teddy" Clark, who had killed himself on Theodore Roosevelt Island, Washington, on October 27, the day of the shooting. the tree of Life.

Tuesday night, no one opened the door at Bloomingdale's house, which was completely dark, except for a flashing TV in a room on the upper floor.

"I was expecting these boys to get along," HuffPost told a neighbor who asked for anonymity for security reasons. This neighbor, aware of Clark's neo-Nazi tendencies and monitoring his Twitter account, said the Clarks, a few years ago, were one of the only white families in the neighborhood, located in a historically dark neighborhood near from Howard University. who has dramatically whiter and richer in recent years.

The neighbor said that last year, several white men dressed the same way had gathered at the Clark at the time of a rally for freedom of speech perfectly right in the city. The neighbor heard the band sing what sounded like "Sieg Heil". white supremacist flyers appeared in the neighborhood and a gay pride flag was ripped out of the window of the nearby Showtime bar, the neighbor suspected that the Clark boys were involved.

The Clark brothers seem to have tried to anchor themselves in the far-right political scene in recent years, showing up at "Build the Wall" rallies outside the White House or during events with Spencer. One of them attempted to join Identity Evropa, a prominent white nationalist organization, but was rejected, according to one source of the organization.

In May 2017, the Clark brothers teamed up with the far right "Pizzagate" The propagandist Jack Posobiec, who was at the time head of the bureau of the far-right group Rebel Media, was to shoot a film for which Posobiec was working on Seth Rich, a member of the National Democratic Committee whose murder took place near the Clarks home in Bloomingdale. many conspiracy theories of the far right.

Laura Sennett, an anti-fascist researcher who works for One People's Project, spoke to Jeffrey Clark a few weeks after he and his brother had been spotted in Bloomingdale with Posobiec, who had been fired from Rebel under mysterious circumstances after plagiarized Jason Kessler, the white nationalist who organized the Unite the Right rally.

"[Clark] "I said Jack Posobiec had hired him and his brother to follow him with a camera to film his investigation of Seth Rich," Sennett told HuffPost. "I do not know if it was a documentary or a report, but [Posobiec] was doing some kind of reporting for Rebel Media. I asked him if Posobiec was aware of his Nazi beliefs. He told me that Posobiec was absolutely and had told Jeff that he was supportive of these beliefs. "

Posobiec, which now hosts the curator, One America News Network, denies it. "I have never heard of a Jeffrey Clark," he said. "I've never hired anyone for Rebel Media, and certainly not that person, and I've never made a documentary Seth Rich for Rebel Media."

But there was Posobiec last year, who was walking in Bloomingdale with the Clarks:

Knocking on the doors, a microphone in the hand:

Jeffrey Clark also found a common cause with violent white supremacists on Gab, where he published neo-Nazi propaganda and promoted prominent white nationalist voices such as Patrick Little, Brad Griffin, Jared Wyand and "Jack Corbin." Tree of Life shooter Robert Bowers has also committed to the social media platform. He has amplified older white nationalists such as Billy Roper and Peter Brimelow, and voiced support for Republican House white nationalist candidate Paul Nehlen.

Clark's profile picture, Gab, was a photo of him and his brother wearing masks and holding rifles in front of a flag with a skull and crossbones, according to court documents. The skull has a haircut, another reference to Roof. Edward Clark went through "DC_Stormer" on Gab, according to the FBI. A Twitter account with the same username is currently suspended. Earlier, this story, which antifa militants allegedly linked to one or both of the Clark brothers, was published. barely veiled threats intended for local antifa activists.

Several ISPs who worked with Gab abandoned the social media platform after the shooting in Pittsburgh, drew public attention to the ease with which leading extremists can connect with people of Gab who could carry out the violent ideology of white nationalism.

The story of extremism at Clarks ended with the death of one brother and the arrest of another in the past two weeks. According to court documents, Edward Clark was killed with a Beretta pistol on October 27, shortly before 12:45 pm. The responding officers found eight remaining cartridges in their gun magazine, as well as two additional ammunition magazines with 20 additional cartridges. Family members told the FBI agents that they were surprised by Edward's suicide and did not know why he had so many bullets on him.

The court documents imply that Jeffrey knew that his brother was preparing something unusual on the day of his death. Jeffrey woke up around noon that day. When he realized that Edward was not at home, he called his mother to tell him that he was going to report his absence to the police, even though he was not at home. He was 23 years old and had not left for a long time.

Jeffrey is the registered owner of a Remington Arms 1911 R1 handgun and a Mossberg Maverick 88 rifle. His brother was the registered owner of a Ruger Mini 14 Ranch Rifle rifle and a weapon Beretta 92FS, which he used to kill. The officers then found a Colt38. Jeffrey gave a family member who was not registered with his brother Clark. Competition law requires the registration of all firearms with the local police.

A homicide police inspector went to the Clarks' home after Edward's death. Jeffrey told him that Edward's rifle was still at home, but the detective did not ask Jeffrey any questions about his weapons, according to court documents.

On November 2, two family members called the FBI to voice their concerns about Jeffrey, who they said had become more outspoken about his white nationalist views after his brother's death. Jeffrey and Edward "had both dreamed of killing" Jews and Blacks "and admiring the mass murderers Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski and Charles Manson, according to court documents. Family members told the FBI that Jeffrey was "really pissed off" and "restless", and they feared he was hurting or hurting other people. The brothers thought that there would be a race revolution and they wanted to speed it up.

Family members showed FBI agents four rounds of weaponry pieces they had taken from Jeffrey, including parts used to modify AR-15 assault rifles. The agents also discovered four large-capacity AR-15 magazines that can hold up to 30 rounds of ammunition. The possession of such magazines is prohibited by the law in force.

Jeffrey and Edward's parents confirmed that they were both attending the 2017 White Nationalist Rally in Charlottesville. They thought that there were pictures of the brothers online next to James Alex Fields, the white supremacist who drove a car to the protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring several others. They showed the FBI agents a photo of the brothers holding a flag of the white supremacist group Vanguard America – the same group appearing on the leaflets posted around Bloomingdale.

The brothers traveled to the Charlottesville rally behind this flag, which was worn by William Fears, a white supremacist arrested for attempted homicide after a Spencer speech in Gainesville, Florida, last year. Prosecutors finally dropped the case against Fears, who was arrested again in April for allegedly hitting and strangling his girlfriend.

FBI agents again spoke to a member of Clarks' family on November 8. He told them that Jeffrey smoked and sold marijuana. They also observed propane torches in the house "consistent with those used to smoke methamphetamine," according to court documents.

Jeffrey described himself as Gab "Aka DC Stormer (RIP)", "Meth-Smoking, bomb pipes, mailman-murding, #For, # DemoKKKrat, Che Guevara of the right, Glenn Beck, not a NEET – just a privilege white bath, Bowlcut nationalism is the only way to go. . . "

Jeffrey was arrested on Friday and charged with the federal crime of illegally possessing a firearm while using or relying on a controlled substance, and the crime of holding a large magazine.

David Bos, the federal public defender in charge of the Jeffrey affair, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the court documents here:

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story indicated that Jeffrey Clark called the Pittsburgh shootout "dry race for things to come" on the Gab social media platform. Although this relationship was established in a sworn affidavit issued by the FBI on Tuesday, media reports archived and reviewed by HuffPost on Wednesday said the remarks referred to a series of homemade bombs being sent to prominent Democrats. This story had already been mentioned. Clark was accused of owning a "high speed magazine" instead of a "high capacity magazine". In addition, he misrepresented the seat of Congress for which Paul Nehlen was a candidate; it was in the House, not in the Senate.