A discussion of the shelf life of COINTELPRO-type provocateurs.

Pete Langan, co-leader of the Aryan Republican Army bank robbery and terror cell. The Secret Service sprung him from jail to "find" his pal "Wild Bill" Guthrie, supposedly because Guthrie had made threats against former president G.H.W. Bush. Once reunited they formed the ARA and began robbing banks and, oh by the way, were involved in the Oklahoma City bombing. (When I was part of the private investigation of the OKC bombing I interviewed Langan in jail in Ohio when he was awaiting trial. He also corresponded with my friend the late J.D. Cash.)

Friend of Christian Kerodin J.C. Dodge is still fighting the difficult fight on behalf of the Anti-"Defamation" Society of the Commercial Three Percent in a series of responses and rejoinders to this post. A recent exchange touches upon the shelf life of COINTELPRO-type provocateurs, so it is worth giving it a more prominent place.

Beginning this exchange was one "wirecutter" who wrote:

Kerodin doesn't own any firearms. Kerodin doesn't produce any firearms, that would be Jim Miller of III Arms. Do your homework before running your mouth. But a question does beg to be answered: How does an admitted (ex) member of the communist party own a firearm? Are they not prohibited? Last time I purchased a firearm that question was specifically asked of me on the form that I had to fill out, yet your idol who is a self admitted (ex?) member owns firearms.

To which I replied:

Talk about doing your homework. You must never have filled out a 4473, or if you did, you imagined the question you claim to have seen. There is no political test, only that you have never been a felon, wife-beater, etc. I am none of those.

Mr. Miller, I am told, is actually a full-time employee of the VA in Martinsburg WV, whose complex sits next to the ATF complex at the same place. He is said to be in IT with access to the entire VA database. Of course I haven't had the time or the inclination to confirm that, but you can file it under "reliable sources say."

It is also said that Kerodin sought him out in order to build firearms. One wonders what the legality of contracting with a known felon to build firearms is.

But no, there is no political test for owning a firearm, at least there won't be until Kerodin and his neo-collectivist ilk take over the world.

Then it's the rope for me and scraps at the foot of Lord of the Citadel Kerodin's table for you.

I then added:

I wrote: "It is also said that Kerodin sought him out in order to build firearms. One wonders what the legality of contracting with a known felon to build firearms is."

One also wonders why the ATF seems totally uninterested in that fact.

J.C. then opines:

You said "Mr. Miller, I am told, is actually a full-time employee of the VA in Martinsburg WV, whose complex sits next to the ATF complex at the same place. He is said to be in IT with access to the entire VA database. Of course I haven't had the time or the inclination to confirm that, but you can file it under "reliable sources say." So you just admitted you'll print something you haven't verified, why, because it will make Kerodin look bad? Why would you put Jim's personal info out there? That's stepping over a very big line, especially when, as you've said, you haven't confirmed it. Imagine that, a federal facility is next to another federal facility on federal ground, go figure. And what does having access to the VA database have to do with the ATF? Oh, that's right, you wouldn't know, because you haven't verified it. You had better confine your "badmouthing" to Kerodin, someone you've got a history of problems with, leave Jim Miller out of it.

To which I responded:

Now, now. Mr. Miller is the FFL holder of record for III Arms and has made threats of his own to folks he disagrees with. The question is a reasonable one. Kerodin went shopping for an FFL SOT and found one. Miller agreed to do business with an ex-con and his not-so-spotless wife. This does raise legitimate questions. Of course, Mr. Miller is welcome to correct the record if he likes and tell what, if anything, is inaccurate about it. I will certainly print it. In fact, he is welcome to sue me if he likes. And it DOES come from a previously reliable source, so Sullivan vs. New York Times applies.

To which the indefatigable Dodge replied:

If you notice, my primary issue was with you putting out his personal info. Your conjecture that he's a fed because he works next to the ATF building is weak at best. That's like me sayin' your still a communist, because you used to be, possible yes, but doubtful.

The ARA not-so-safe "safe house" on the short south side of Columbus OH. The FBI ambushed Pete Langan in the alley behind this house firing hundreds of shots. When they discovered to their surprise that he was still alive, they dragged him from the riddled van and were about to execute him when they noticed neighbors on the rear balconies across the alleyway watching them. I know this because I interviewed some of the residents.  He remains alive in federal prison today only because he had the foresight to prepare a "Open in the event of my death" file.

My reply, and the larger point of this post:

The "conjecture" about ATF is not "because he works next to the ATF building" but rather because they are supremely uninterested in enforcing their laws when it comes to the connection between an FFL SOT and a convicted felon who makes violent threats of inter-state mayhem against any who disagree with him. Any COINTELPRO-type program would not be run by ATF, however, but rather by DHS and the FBI. The ATF would not be trusted to run such an operation, only with certain less-important and compartmentalized portions of it, much like Fast & Furious. There, the ATF was only given the less important tasks to 1. Make sure the dealers sold to the straw-buyers and kept diligent records of the sales and 2. Collect the statistics of which dead bodies in Mexico showed matching those serial numbers when the Mexican police entered them into the E-Trace system.

The really serious portion of the conspiracy was entrusted to the FBI and their paid informants the Miramontes brothers, who paid the straw buyers, picked up the weapons and smuggled them to the cartels. That is why Dodson and the other Group 7 agents were forbidden to follow the weapons. That would have led them to the FBI's operatives. Of course no one's seen or heard of the Miramontes brothers in a while and the speculation is that they were kacked, whether by the cartels or the FBI is the subject of serious side bets that may never be collected.

That's what happens, however, when you're a COINTELPRO type stooge. The Fibbies will either violate you on some unrelated charge and throw you back incommunicado in the durance vile that they found you -- see the case of Pete Langan of the Aryan Republican Army and the OKC bombing -- or they will kill you. They first tried the latter with Langan in front of too many witnesses and failed so he is now in federal prison so deep that not even 60 Minutes can get to see him. His fellow leader of the ARA, "Wild Bill" Guthrie, ended up at the end of a dirty bedsheet in jail in Covington KY shortly after telling an LA Times reporter that he "knew some serious shit" about the OKC bombing. (NOTE: Wild Bill did not have an "Open in the event of my death" folder.)

This is general principle with the FBI in these high-risk political operations: if a provocateur cannot be reliably controlled then they will kill him themselves or have him killed.

Food for thought in some quarters, eh?

The wages of a COINTELPRO type operation gone south.  "Will Bill" Guthrie.  He died in a jail cell of FBI-induced "suicide."