(PresidentialWire.com)- A lengthy article at The Epoch Times examines what is publicly known about the 1990s-era FBI operation known as PATCON (Patriot Conspiracy).
PATCON was launched in 1991 to investigate a growing right-wing extremist movement that began to rear its head in the 1980s. The loosely-tied movement included disaffected veterans and fringe racist groups.
And while PATCON produced few major arrests, it did allow the FBI to infiltrate a scattered network of anti-government, right-wing militia groups throughout the country — what became known as the “Patriot movement.”
While the PATCON right-wing infiltration operation of the 1990s remains largely secret to this day, its existence was first revealed in 2007 when heavily redacted records emerged.
PATCON involved three undercover FBI agents who claimed to operate a group called the Veterans Aryan Movement (VAM). These three agents posed as racist militiamen who robbed banks to fund domestic terror operations. Under this cover, the agents spied on various right-wing groups throughout the early 1990s. However, they failed to deliver any major convictions.
The Epoch Times notes that there are precious few public records on the work of PATCON. But a lot of what is available stems from sworn affidavits in a long-running FOIA lawsuit and redacted documents obtained by extremism researcher J.M. Berger.
Seen together, these documents reveal an FBI operation that was more focused on intelligence-gathering than enforcing the law. What’s more, the available documents reveal a troubling connection between the PATCON agents and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. According to the Epoch Times, that connection raises disturbing questions on how this FBI right-wing counterterrorism operation failed to prevent the deadliest domestic terror attack in the country’s history.
Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue, the plaintiff in the long-running FOIA lawsuit told the Epoch Times that given the recent discovery that FBI informants have been in leadership positions with contemporary right-wing groups like the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, PATCON should serve as a valuable history lesson for the American public.
According to Trentadue, PATCON may have been a far more sweeping operation than what is reflected in the FBI records from 1991 to 1993. In sworn declarations to a federal judge, Trentadue explained that a former FBI informant said PATCON’s purpose wasn’t to simply infiltrate and monitor right-wing groups. Instead, it was to infiltrate and incite these groups to violence.
Read the full report at the Epoch Times HERE.
