by James A. Bacon

Remember those three white supremacists the FBI arrested four days before the big gun-rights rally? They referred to themselves as “The Base,” peddled their vile ideology online, discussed committing acts of violence, engaged in para-military training, and assembled a “functioning assault rifle.” The FBI, which had been closely monitoring the group, scooped up the three men when they were holed up in Delaware before they could descend upon the Richmond rally and afflict violence.

The Washington Post, New York Times, and other publications ran articles highlighting fears that the Richmond rally might turn into another Charlottesville, and Governor Ralph Northam imposed a state of emergency, stating, “I took this action to protect Virginians from credible threats of violence. These threats are real — as evidenced by reports of neo-Nazis arrested this morning after discussing plans to head to Richmond with firearms.”

Fortunately, most neo-Nazis and white supremacists are not only losers, they’re morons. (I hope I’m not offending anyone with my “ablist” nomenclature.) Federal documents relating to Brian Mark Lemley J., Patrik Jordan Mathews, and William Garfield Bilbrough IV, detail not only their odious views and evolving plans but their malign stupidity.

According to motion for detention pending trial:

On December 23, 2019, Lemley and Mathews again discussed Virginia and committing targeted acts of violence. Lemley discussed using a thermal imaging scope affixed to his rifle to conduct ambush attacks, including attacks against unsuspecting civilians and police offers. Lemley stated, “I literally need, I need to claim my first victim.” … Mathews stated, “we could essentially like be literally hunting people. Um. You could provide overwatch while I get close to do what needs to be done to certain things.” … Mathews soon after stated, “you know we got this situation in Virginia where this is going to be, that opportunity is boundless and thing is you’ve got tons of guys who are just in theory should be radicalized enough to know that all you gotta do is start making things go wrong and if Virginia can spiral out to fucking full blown civil war.”

Three days later they discussed derailing trains and sabotaging power lines to trigger economic collapse. Two days after that, Lemley and Mathews compared to the upcoming event to the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

When speaking about Virginia, Mathews stated, “we can’t let Virginia go to waste, we just can’t.” Mathews also stated, “you know what, Virginia will be our day.” Lemley replied, “put this as another feather in my cap, he look how active we are. We are actually in fucking Virginia, you know what I mean.”

And on December 30, Mathews stated, “now the end goal is this, is to incite leftist violence prior to January 20th in Virginia. We want the left in America to become violent. We have three weeks to do it.” The next day, they discussed how the next Civil War would be in Virginia, and how they could ignite violence and civil disorder by throwing or sling-shotting fireworks into the crowd to “cause shooting to go off.”

On Jan. 3, the FBI recorded a lengthy statement by Lemley in their Delaware residence:

So this, so like, this plan of mine. It was like, this is like an Adderall idea…. it really didn’t click until I took an Adderall, and then I was like, “Oh, shit, I gotta plan.” Uh, so this is what I’m thinking… instead of going to Richmond. Why don’t we like, take a look a the map and we’ll find like a gun range that’s in like one of the outer counties and a campground, and we will spend the weekend training and campaign, while we uh, pay close attention to the news and live streams and uh that way, if it’s go time, you know we’re already in position and we can then link up with our whatever MS (National Socialist) forces happen to be in the area. Because there will be some. Like there is… they probably will not be like, premier groups that we would like to be with but it would be little hodgepodge, you know, three or four guys there, you know, maybe another ten guys from the [different white supremacist organization], I don’t know. We’ll be able to fund them, um, and we can, kind of link up and then, kind of get in the tent and start talking about what we want to do. And if there’s a um, you know if there’s like, if there are like rolling skirmished through the countryside, it’ll be pretty easy to get in and get some action you know and then retreat a little bit, come back and get a little more like hit and run you know. We’re bound to run into some of our guys … Anyways, so between now and then, I’d like to finish the truck, finish our loadout, and make sure that everything is basically good to go.

In response to a question from Mathews, Lemley added:

Yeah, we’re loading the truck for the war …. essentially … but we’re not going into a place where we’re going to get arrested. We’re gonna stay on the outskirts, we’re gonna go to the campground and the gun range  that’s gonna be, it might be a few counties outside, where we’re withing a reasonable distance, we’re not in the fuckin’ quarantine zone where they’re lookin to arrest people like us you know, but we would be in a Second Amendment sanctuary, so we shouldn’t have any trouble from local police, especially given the nature of the environment, where there is just angry gun owners just streaming in from all over the country.

And this the following day:

Imagine this scenario, right? There’s a running skirmish of MAGAtards, liberty militias, and libertarians, like basically like trying, they’re like shooting their way out of the city essentially, alright. We happen upon this scene, and we find a woodline, get in the woodline, and take cover. I pop the fucking record button on the thermal, and I drop like, I drop like, I drop like ten nasty girls on video.

Over the next couple of days, they loaded up with food and supplies, and acquired 1,500 more rounds of ammunition. They also practiced shooting in a Maryland gun range. Early in the morning, federal agents executed federal arrest warrants in the Delaware residence.

Bacon’s bottom line: A number of observations.

• It’s scary that these idiots saw Second Amendment sanctuaries as havens for their terrorist activities. Sanctuary advocates might want to think about that one.
• These guys are nitwits. Their thinking is incoherent, their plans shift by the day. They are ill disciplined and show no security savvy beyond buying burner phones. If these pinheads are typical, white supremacists are easily easily infiltrated by the FBI, and their movements easily tracked.
• Reassuringly, these retards had no contacts with white supremacist elements in Virginia — hopefully an indication that no such “organized” elements exist here. Their “plan,” such as it was, was to hook up with other neo-Nazi/white supremacist groups who had descended upon the state.
• It does not appear that these idiots were a clear-and-present danger on the day they were arrested. They had decided to sit on the fringes, observe from afar, and fantasize about the glorious deeds they would perform should real trouble break out. The FBI was amply justified in arresting them, though, because their thinking was so disordered that there was no assurance that they wouldn’t change their minds and actually decide to act out their fantasies. Better safe than sorry.