re: Patriot Front: Inside the White supremacist compound hiding in plain sight

Posted on 12/15/25 at 8:08 pm to blueboy

Posted by SallysHuman

Lady Palmetto Bug

Member since Jan 2025

14974 posts

Posted on 12/15/25 at 8:08 pm to blueboy

quote:
They seem like feds to me, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that they weren't.

Probably a healthy mix... feds need someone around to rile up.

0 ...

Report Post

Posted by Toomer Deplorable

Team Bitter Clinger

Member since May 2020

23620 posts

Posted on 12/15/25 at 8:23 pm to cajunangelle

How it the leader of the PF always avoids prosecution while the rank and file face charges?

How Patriot Front’s white nationalist leader avoided prosecution…

…Nearly two years ago, police in North Idaho had the leader of America’s largest white nationalist group and 30 of his followers unmasked, zip-tied and in custody.

They'd been caught June 11, 2022, based on a tip that said a “little army” of masked men had been seen filing into the back of a U-Haul truck. Coeur d’Alene police pulled open the back door, found a squadron of men equipped with white masks, metal flag poles, homemade sheet-metal riot shields and a smoke grenade.

And on the group’s leader, Thomas Rousseau, police found a note laying out a detailed plan to establish a “confrontational dynamic” at that day’s gay pride festival.

Rousseau is the head of Patriot Front, a secretive racist organization of young men that has been running a guerrilla marketing campaign for white nationalism since the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Instead, Rousseau’s case never got to trial.

…After officers had arrested Patriot Front members, they’d hauled away a potential treasure trove of evidence: 37 Patriot Front devices, according to police records, including cellphones wrapped in signal-blocking foil, SD cards, GoPro cameras and a USB stick. In all, there were roughly 3,500 gigabytes worth of everything from Hitler pictures to swastika logos to — in one case — child pornography.

…It was like opening Pandora’s box, one judge later said. The Patriot Front cases ground to a halt as defense attorneys demanded time to sift through all the new information.

“The prosecution in Coeur d'Alene finally had an opportunity to hold them accountable for their harassment and their intimidation of the diverse community,” Tischauser said.

…Just one problem: The police had already handed all 37 devices over to the FBI, before a sealed federal warrant had been signed.

…But that analysis took more than seven months to complete, according to court records. And when they were finally done, the FBI wouldn’t give back the actual phones (The FBI declined to comment for this story).

…Finally, one judge had had enough.

…While most of Rousseau’s underlings have either been found guilty of conspiracy to riot or pleaded to a lesser infraction, Judge John Cafferty dismissed the case against the white nationalist leader in November.

“This is an important case. It should not be dismissed lightly,” Cafferty said, according to court transcripts. “I tried to do what I could to not get to this point.”

“I have never, in my 10 years, seen anything that even approaches this level of failure to properly disclose evidence,” Randles said, according to court transcripts.