All posts tagged "antisemitism"

Kirk's killing unleashed 'dark forces' in MAGA movement as conservatives spiral: analysis

President Donald Trump's MAGA coalition has fractured in the months following the assassination of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk and turned on itself over its internal battle over anti-Semitism.

Following Kirk's death, his Turning Point USA organization had anticipated bringing together MAGA loyalists to continue Kirk's attempt to unify the group during its AmericaFest in December — but that backfired when "one by one, MAGA’s leading lights took the stage and began shivving one another in public," according to an analysis from Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic published Wednesday.

"When Kirk was killed, conservatives believed that his death would galvanize his cause," Rosenberg wrote. “'Millions of Charlie Kirks were created today,' declared Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado. But as it turned out, Kirk’s assassin didn’t kill just one man; he destabilized the entire Trump coalition by removing a pivotal person who had been holding it together. In doing so, the killer helped unshackle dark forces—chief among them anti-Semitism—that now threaten to overtake the conservative movement."

Kirk had viewed the rise of anti-Semitism as a threat to the MAGA movement and was actively fighting against it both on college campuses and within his own coalition.

"Before his life was ended by an assassin’s bullet, Charlie Kirk was trying to save the conservative coalition from turning on itself. To liberals, the late activist was known for debating left-wing students on college campuses. But on the right, Kirk was waging another battle, against people on his own side," Rosenberg wrote.

Despite Kirk's attempts, the rise of hate speech hasn't stopped.

“'In the last six months, I’ve seen more anti-Semitism on the right than I have at any time in my life,' Senator Ted Cruz told the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in November," Rosenberg wrote. “'It is growing. It is metastasizing. There are about a half-dozen vocal apostles, and it is in particular finding purchase with the young.' Soon after, the Princeton professor Robert George, once dubbed 'the reigning brain of the Christian right,' resigned from the Heritage Foundation’s board. Dozens of staffers reportedly left the organization. One month later, Turning Point’s flagship conference descended into recriminations over the very controversies and conspiracies that its founder had endeavored so assiduously to suppress."

And although Trump appears to have kept his hold on his MAGA base, what Kirk had hoped to avoid has appeared to have only grown.

"On one level, this conflict is about Jews and Israel. But on another, this debate is downstream from something much bigger: a power struggle over who will define and control the MAGA movement once Trump is gone. By painting rivals as tools of the Jews, hard-right influencers such as [Tucker] Carlson and [Steven] Bannon hope to delegitimize the competition not by besting their ideas, but by slurring their loyalties and identity."

Election denier indicted for Trump aide death threat as MAGA turns on itself

Three years ago, Jonathan Cagle was a MAGA loyalist, part of a messaging machine that sowed doubts about the outcome of elections and helped build an air of inevitability around Donald Trump’s return to power.

Last week in Alabama, a federal magistrate judge ordered Cagle held without bond, for allegedly cyberstalking U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, the top civil rights official in Trump’s Department of Justice.

As Trump enters the second year of his tempestuous second term, Cagle’s story offers a signpost to growing disillusionment and division on the U.S. far right.

‘Data guy’

In December 2022, following midterm elections that saw Trump-endorsed candidates defeated, Cagle appeared on the Charlie Kirk Show.

The lineup for the three-hour podcast also included Richard Grenell and David Sacks, who would serve in Trump’s second administration: Grenell as presidential envoy for special missions, Sacks as chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Kirk — the conservative influencer who was killed in Utah last September — introduced Cagle as a “financial analyst” and “data guy” who “has had some very interesting tweets and data analysis about what happened in Arizona.”

Kirk’s questions concerned Cagle’s theory that insufficient election infrastructure in Maricopa, Arizona’s most populous county, cost Kari Lake the gubernatorial race by discouraging voters.

“So, Jonathan, is it fair to say that Maricopa County intentionally did not have the infrastructure to be able to facilitate what Kari Lake needed on Election Day?” Kirk asked.

“It would be 100 percent accurate to say that,” Cagle said.

Lake promoted Cagle’s Twitter account, writing that “Jonathan is worth following,” and linking to his account under the username @DecentFiJC.

Later that month, Lake made a personal appeal to Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter (now X), linking to Cagle’s account and posting, “The most Shadow-banned profile on Twitter?? … why is Jonathan being censored? / It is because he is exposing corruption in our Elections and in the ranks of those who run them?”

Now, the @DecentFiJC account is listed as a Cagle alias in an indictment alleging that from Dec. 28, 2025 to Jan. 3, 2026, “with the intent to kill, injure, harass and intimidate Individual-1,” Cagle used the internet “to engage in a course of conduct through which he caused “substantial emotional distress” to the victim — Harmeet Dhillon.

Lake now runs Voice of America for the Trump administration. She could not be reached for comment.

‘My country matters more to me’

During Cagle’s Jan. 28 bond hearing, federal prosecutors identified the victim, “Individual-1,” as Dhillon.

A month prior, on Dec. 28, Cagle directly named Dhillon in an angry, expletive-laced rant on an X space, insinuating without evidence that she was promoting immigration while acting as an agent for Israel.

“Harmeet Dhillon — all of you can get f---ed,” Cagle said, according to a recording reviewed by Raw Story. “My country matters more to me than you do. Promise. Don’t make me prove it to you.

“If you press back on me pressing back on the H-1B issue, your front door, your families and their addresses and contact info are gonna end up on this f---ing platform.”

That was a reference to a visa program that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers to fill specialized jobs that cannot be filled by domestic workers.

“Then you’re gonna have to run your little subversion operation… with everybody f---ing knowing where you live,” Cagle said.

An Indian-American immigrant, Dhillon grew up in rural North Carolina, the daughter of an orthopedic surgeon.

‘Hanky-panky in the urban districts’

Dhillon has cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.

In an October 2024 interview with Nicole Shanahan, running-mate to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his unsuccessful independent presidential run, Dhillon promoted a debunked claim that in 2020, Republican observers were prevented from monitoring vote-counting in critical counties.

“The hanky-panky occurs in the urban districts — the urban counties of these swing states,” Dhillon said. “It occurs in Maricopa County. It occurs in Detroit. It occurs in the Wisconsin cities. It occurs in the Pennsylvania cities.

“That’s where the distortion occurs. That’s where you see people in the 2020 election putting up physical barriers and not allowing statutory observation of the ballot counting.”

Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told Raw Story the problem with such conspiracy theories is that they rarely remain contained.

“It’s more than ironic that the election denying conspiracies Dhillon unleashed have resulted in unhinged cyberstalking by an election denier motivated by the same ideas,” Beirich said.

“Once conspiracies are unleashed, which many in the current administration have done, it can lead to more and more extremism. In this case, Cagle appears to have wedded antisemitism that is found on the far right with these conspiracies.

“Dhillon and others in the administration should stop spreading conspiracies that can lead to incidents like this and further violence.”

Dhillon could not be reached for comment. But the assistant attorney general did respond to an email from an anonymous researcher who archived Cagle’s social-media comments and brought them to her attention.

“Thank you for flagging this,” Dhillon wrote, in a message seen by Raw Story. “We are following up.”

‘They need to be terrified’

Cagle’s antisemitic tirades have also targeted Secretary of State Marco Rubio, other Trump officials, and pro-Israel activists.

“Jews are taught from a young age to never admit to what the Jews teach about non-Jews, because we would kill them openly,” Cagle wrote in one post reviewed by Raw Story.

“Instead of ‘impeaching’ Jew judges who aid and abet Jewish blackmail/extortionist pedophile rings and think they have the right to ‘refuse to testify,’ you could always just kill them,” another post reads. “It’s basically how Jews got a ‘homeland,’ except this is 100% righteous.”

“Shut the f--- up, and get back in the oven, Jew,” another post said.

Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Raw Story that as social movements gain power, as is the case with the far right, “fissures and fractures begin to emerge.”

Antisemitism is a notable point of disagreement in the coalition that brought Trump to power.

“It’s underpinned so much of the right,” Carroll Rivas said. “But some of that is highly coded, and some is very explicit.”

In his X tirade on Dec. 28, Cagle raged that the federal government needs “to be f---ing terrified of the American people. And every time they log in, they need to have second f---ing thoughts before every time they post some subversive horses---, some lies, and work for foreign interests against Americans.

“They need to be terrified to come into the office. The whole day of wake up in the morning, kiss your spouse, you know, and kids, and have a nice breakfast, and then put on the f---ing ‘subvert America’ uniform you wear to f---ing drive on to the security clearance lot and go subvert the United States for Israel, or for the UK, or for any other f---ing country, including China, or Ukraine, or France — those days are over.

“I guarantee that I’m ten times smarter than you on your best day, and a hundred times more dangerous,” Cagle added. “Like, you need to realize that being a f---ing traitor to the United States has f---ing consequences, badge or no f---ing badge.”

Inmate booking photo of Jonathan CagleMorgan County (Ala.) Detention Center

‘I get to ask for that information’

While Cagle faces prosecution, Dhillon has used her authority as the top civil rights official to demand that states turn over voter rolls — moves some critics say sets the stage for the administration to question the results of elections Trump allies do not win.

The FBI’s recent seizure of 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, despite investigations finding no evidence of wrongdoing, only heightened the fear that Trump intends to use the federal government to undermine the forthcoming midterm elections.

“The attorney general doesn’t have to show her homework as to what she’s going to do with [the voter rolls],” Dhillon told the Independent Institute in December, referring to AG Pam Bondi.

“And I’m her designee, so I get to ask for that information, and they have to give it.”

‘The white man’s coming back’: Eight held over links to resurgent violent skinhead group

Eight men linked to a violent racist skinhead group are in jail in the U.S. South on felony conspiracy charges or awaiting extradition for hate crimes against Jewish and LGBTQ+ targets, Raw Story has learned.

Five North Carolina men, ranging in age from 18 to 22 and described in court filings as “supporters of the Vinlanders Social Club/Firm 22 and members of the Southern Sons, all known white supremacist/nazi groups,” were arrested on Jan. 21 and booked into the Mecklenburg County Detention Center in Charlotte, N.C.

Court documents suggest charges may follow for three others detained outside North Carolina.

Founded in 2003, Vinlanders Social Club earned a reputation as one of the most violent racist skinhead groups in the U.S., linked to at least four murders. It declined in the early 2010s but extremism researchers were alarmed last fall when the group began to show signs of resurgence.

Southern Sons emerged in late 2021 as a neo-Nazi group seeking to recruit members in the Carolinas and Georgia. The group was co-founded by David William Fair, who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 as a juvenile, alongside his mother. Previously known as Southern Sons Active Club, Fair’s group has worked with other far-right groups including Patriot Front and Aryan Freedom Network.

Now, Southern Sons has become increasingly aligned with Vinlanders Social Club. A review of Southern Sons’s Telegram channel indicates the group has been largely absorbed.

For example, a message posted by Vinlanders and forwarded by Southern Sons last May shows 11 men with Vinlanders and swastika flags giving Hitler salutes outside a Confederate memorabilia shop in South Carolina. The caption reads: “Vinlanders Social Club Supporters and Probates Firm 22-Southern Sons at Dixie Fest 2025.”

A propaganda video posted last September on the Southern Sons channel, highlighting the murder in August of Iryna Zarutska by a mentally disturbed man on the Charlotte light rail, directs prospective members to the Vinlanders website.

Southern Sons members and Vinland Social Club probates at the Dixie Republic store in South Carolina in May 2025, including Ryan Gower (standing, second from left), Tristan Somerson (standing, center), Martin Harvey (standing, fourth from right), David Fair (kneeling, right) and Joseph Webb (second from right). Flag altered with superimposed smiley face.Facebook

‘The point is desecration’

Fair was booked in jail in Columbia, S.C. on the same day this month that the five North Carolina men were arrested in Charlotte. The jail record indicated that as of Sunday, Fair was being held on a $2,500 bond for breach of peace.

The sprawling investigation into a hate-crime spree allegedly committed by the Southern Sons members — with 27 charges against five defendants ranging from felony conspiracy and soliciting gang activity to disturbing a casket/grave marker — started in October.

Then, three members showed up at a peaceful Pro-Palestine protest in Charlotte. Charges filed last fall indicate that David Pagava, a 19-year-old student at UNC-Charlotte; Ethan Purcell, 18; and an unnamed juvenile were armed with knives and brass knuckles at a “Rise Up For Gaza” protest at First Ward Park in Charlotte on Oct. 4. The police seized phones from the three as evidence.

A detective with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Unit obtained a search warrant to review the phones, according to court documents, and discovered footage showing members desecrated a Jewish veteran’s grave at a cemetery in Huntersville, N.C., then traveled to a church in Charlotte, stole an LGBTQ+ pride flag, and burned it at the home of one of the members’ parents on Sept. 13.

Video allegedly shot by Alexander Hare, 21, shows Pagava squatting beside a grave decorated with the star of David and the U.S. Army logo, stating: “Jew right here. Now, I’m not a fan of Jews, so …”

Then, according to the affidavit, Pagava kicked “flags and other decorative/spiritual items” on the grave, and yelled, “White f---ing power!” while giving a Nazi salute.

Later, Pagava, described as a “member leader” of Southern Sons, traveled in a truck owned by Joseph Keaton Webb, 22, with Purcell and the juvenile, to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Charlotte, according to the affidavit.

“Don’t f--- up, don’t get cold feet, don’t [unintelligible], okay?” Pagava said, according to the affidavit. “Tear that s--- down, okay? The point is desecration. Stealing it … may be a sign of it. Alright get ready. Go go go!”

The video then shows Purcell and the juvenile running behind the church and returning to the truck with the pride flag.

According to the affidavit, members of the hate group burned the flag later. The videos also show a book burning said to have taken place on Sept. 14. A compilation video posted on the Southern Sons Telegram channel shows a man — alleged in court documents to be Tristan Somerson, a 19-year-old student at Mount Mitchell Community College — wearing a Vinlanders probate patch and holding up The Straight Man, a novel by Richard Russo.

“What he doesn’t realize is the white man’s coming back, and we’re going to kill every last single n-----,” Somerson allegedly says, before throwing the book into the fire. “White power.”

L-R: Ethan Purcell, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Detention Center, Alexander Hare and Joseph Webb

The investigation by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police identified Fair, the Southern Sons co-founder, along with Martin Blaine Harvey, 22, and Ryan Anthony Gower, 21, as “additional gang members.”

An affidavit filed in support of criminal charges against Somerson alleges that Harvey “gave a hate speech towards the LGBTQ community and Jewish people” before Somerson and Purcell burned the stolen pride flag.

Harvey was booked into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Columbia, S.C. on Jan. 21, and was being held as of Sunday on a criminal conspiracy charge.

Gower, 21, of Bradenton, Fla., was arrested on Jan. 21, and also faces a felony conspiracy charge in North Carolina. Gower signed an extradition order on Jan. 22 agreeing to be transported to North Carolina.

and is subject to extradition on an out-of-state warrant, according to Manatee County court records.

The felony conspiracy charges allege that Pagava, Somerson, Purcell, Webb, Fair, Harvey, Hare, Gower and the juvenile conspired in various combinations to desecrate the Jewish veteran’s grave, steal the pride flag, and burn it “in furtherance of the gang’s mission and ideology.”

An email to Southern Sons requesting comment for this story went unreturned.

Somerson, Pagava, Purcell, Hare and Webb were released on bond, despite an attestation by the police detective that at least four planned “organized criminal activities in the furtherance of the gang’s motives” and are “willing to use violence to advance the group’s objectives.”

Magistrate Robert Gardner added a finding of fact to Somerson’s release order that the defendant holds a “high likelihood of involvement in ongoing violence and organized crime across state lines.”

Of Pagava, Garder noted that he has “pending weapons-related charges” and is subject to “allegations of ongoing violent activity and organized crime.”

Murder and racial intimidation

The Southern Sons’ drift from the active club network — a global white nationalist formation that generally avoids overt neo-Nazi symbolism — to Vinlanders tracks an apparent escalation in violence.

The pinned message on Southern Sons’ Telegram channel still references the group as “Southern Sons Active Club,” and as recently as July 2025, the channel forwarded a message from the Great Plains Active Club, indicating a continued affiliation.

But more than half of the posts last year were forwarded messages from Vinlanders, showing how the groups have meshed.

For the active club network in the U.S., the Southern Sons arrests appear to be an “escalation,” Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told Raw Story, adding that “there have been arrests abroad of AC members for terrorism.”

Last August, a 24-year-old Dutch man who was a member of Guezenbond — described by the investigative news outlet Bellingcat as “a Dutch affiliate of the white supremacist Active Club movement — was arrested in the Netherlands and accused of planning a terrorist attack and possessing illegal firearms.

“When it comes to the Vinlanders, of which Firm 22 is their feeder group, that’s a different matter,” Beirich said. “That group has always openly praised violence and has been around for years.”

Beirich added that active clubs typically allow members to join other groups, a position confirmed by Fair in a January 2022 interview with a white nationalist podcaster.

While active club ideology is typically cloaked behind an emphasis on fitness and brotherhood — for young, white men — there is no such ambiguity in the Vinlanders’ well-documented history of racial violence.

In 2007, three Vinlanders brutally beat a Black man in Indianapolis in broad daylight while threatening horrified onlookers with violence if they called 911, according to a profile by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

One assailant, Eric Fairburn, later confessed to the 2004 murder of a man allegedly responsible for the drunken-driving death of one of his friends.

In 2009, a Pennsylvania prison guard who was secretly a probate member of Vinlanders reportedly murdered his girlfriend and their 18-month-old child.

The same year, a Vinlanders probate named Travis Ricci yelled racial slurs at a Black man walking with a white woman in a park in Phoenix. Ricci returned in a car driven by another neo-Nazi and fired two shotgun blasts, killing the woman, a 40-year-old mother of two. Ricci was sentenced to life in prison in 2019.

Fair has long expressed admiration for racist skinhead culture, demonstrating comfort with violence and racism and a tolerance for risk.

“Honestly, at the current state of our scene it almost takes a criminal mind to keep going sometimes,” Fair said on the 2022 podcast, when he was 17. “I don’t say ‘criminal mind’ to say we are dangerous lads. But it takes a certain mindset — an ability to be ready to do anything.”

This story has been updated to reflect that Ryan Gower faces a felony conspiracy charge in North Carolina, and signed a waiver of extradition following his arrest in Florida.

GOP Senate contender throws Nazi salute at anti-Israel protest: video

Pardoned January 6 rioter and GOP Senate contender Jake Lang reportedly threw a Nazi salute during an anti-Israel protest this week in Washington, D.C.

Lang, who was previously punched in the face for leading a march against Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, was outside pro-Israel lobby AIPAC on Jan. 4 when he started throwing gold coins and gave a Nazi salute, The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.

Video from journalist Ford Fischer captured multiple moments where Lang was shouting antisemitic tropes and spoke of the Grand Replacement Theory, which wrongly claims "that Jews are orchestrating mass immigration."

“White people in America, you will be replaced, and your children will be Black Muslims if you don’t stand up now,” Lang said, according to the video footage. “AIPAC is one of the main components to the people at the head of Hollywood that are brainwashing your children to vote Democrat, to take your guns and to take your freedom. It’s time we fight back.”

Lang has planned to run as a Republican in Florida — and not expected to be a top contender.

Watchdog groups have warned of a rise of antisemitism among far-right influencers, including Nick Fuentes, involving live streamed videos where MAGA loyalists make unfounded, racist and antisemitic attacks.

Republican leaders, including Vice President JD Vance, have been urged to respond to the rise of antisemitism among its party, showing fractures among the MAGA movement over how to address the concerns.

"But Vice President JD Vance has indicated that while he opposes antisemitism, he is not inclined to draw a line against rising antisemitism in his party. At the same time, AIPAC, which Lang targeted, has become anathema in both parties as support for Israel has plummeted in recent years," according to The Sun Sentinel.

7) As counter-protester Patricia Eugenio called Lang a "Nazi b****" he responded by throwing a stiff arm salute, which Black Black MAGA activist Andre Williams copied.

"If you're whatever naziism isn't, then I'm a nazi," Lang explained before throwing another Sieg Heil salute. pic.twitter.com/yJQPMvqqUJ
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) January 4, 2026

Black Sun Rising: How a Nazi terror plot led to an American being held in Brazil

“Terrorism for accelerationism, then we get the military supplies to everyone and start war,” a group chat leader wrote on the encrypted platform Signal in October 2024, to almost 150 members spread across Europe, the United States and Australia.

“People need to see lone wolves acting to become empowered,” he continued.

Using a slur, the chat leader added that the conspirators needed to set an example by carrying out acts of violence against Jews.

He also suggested “attacking mosques” to “make Muslims more angry.” If Muslims were agitated, he reasoned, it would only serve to radicalize more white people.

The screed also included a list of chemicals, with the advice that lye would work well for burning the faces of Jewish people.

“Need to spray them with some water to dissolve the powder, but not too much to dilute it (so we want maximum flesh eating),” the post read.

Promoting a longstanding white supremacist conspiracy theory that Jews control the governments of Western democracies, the chat leader wrote: “We must weaken them, spread them out, create chaos for them, destroy their infrastructure, their media, raid their military depots, bomb their banks, we must be smart and destroy them using the edges that we have.”

The Signal group was named Black Sun Rising Militia. “Black Sun” refers to the sonnenrad, an ancient European symbol used by the Nazis during World War II.

Written on Oct. 12, 2024, the Signal messages were meant to rally group members for what was described as a planned coordinated strike against targets across Western Europe and the United States, to take place four days later.

A target list posted in the group shows that the leader was preoccupied with terrorizing Jewish people, while seeking to strike at institutions that underpin Western democracies.

Target categories included “all synagogues”; “all Jewish centers and schools”; “all Israeli embassies and consulates”; “all mosques”; “all migrant centers/camps/housing”; “all big banks/finance companies”; “all big pharma companies”; “all big tech companies”; “all big media/news companies” and “all Western government buildings.”

But on Oct. 14, after advising one group member that he would “basically be slicing necks,” the leader suddenly went quiet.

With the planned attack only two days away, chat members grew nervous.

“Surprising to see members here don’t know much about the owner and leader of this group,” one wrote on Oct. 15. “Meaning if he’s arrested or dead, black sun militia dies.”

Another member waved off such concerns.

“Why would it die?” they wrote. “The members keep it alive.”

“No worries,” they added. “Tomorrow in the US will be some fun, but not for Jews. You can be sure you will hear from him tomorrow. That will be nice.”

As it turned out, the leader — a man named Vincent Weidlich, in his mid-thirties, raised in America — had gone quiet for a reason. He had been arrested in Brazil.

A double life

Weidlich appeared to have led a double life. While assembling a network of violent Nazis preparing for a global race war, he was also pursuing a career as an academic researcher focused on artificial intelligence and neuroscience.

Raised in California by parents from Germany and Brazil, Weidlich obtained a bachelor’s degree in business management from Kingston University in London in 2020, according to his Academia profile.

Beginning around 2023, he began to intensify his work on artificial intelligence by enlisting contributors for an academic paper, forming a company and sharing ideas with global counterparts through the gaming platform Discord.

Few if any of his research associates appeared to have known of his other life, which culminated in his arrest in Brazil.

Michele Prado, a special advisor at the NUPVE-MPRS (Extreme Violence Prevention Unit) in the public prosecutor's office for the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, confirmed to Raw Story that Weidlich was charged with terrorism following an investigation by Brazil’s Federal Police Cyber Hate Crimes Repression Unit, as first reported by the Swedish public broadcaster SVT Nyheter.

Weidlich had previously been identified by freelance journalist My Vingren in a 2023 story for Expo, a Swedish organization that combats racism, after Vingren infiltrated an online group called the Nordic Federation that Weidlich organized while living in Norway.

SVT Nyheter reported that Weidlich was convicted in São Paulo of “planning and preparation for acts of terrorism and for publicly inciting genocide.”

Weidlich’s lawyer, according to the report, argued that he could not be held criminally liable on the basis of insanity. The outlet reported that Weidlich was sentenced to “forensic psychiatric care indefinitely.”

Weidlich's legal proceedings are subject to a judicial secrecy order issued by the Brazilian courts, said Flávio Rolim, head of the Brazilian Federal Police Cyber Hate Crimes Unit, which handled the initial phase of the investigation.

As a result of the secrecy order, Rolim told Raw Story he was unable to "provide information regarding the investigation or the status of the judicial proceedings."

Raw Story reached out to Weidlich’s lawyer in Brazil, but did not receive a response.

Reached by phone, Georg Weidlich, Vincent’s father, denied that his son was convicted on terrorism charges.

“All slander,” he told Raw Story, before warning of “legal action” and cutting off the conversation.

A thwarted attack

Vingren, the journalist, alerted the Swedish Security Service about the planned terrorist attacks before Vincent Weidlich was arrested in Brazil, SVT Nyheter reported.

Raw Story also reviewed the Signal chats. Shortly before Oct. 16, 2024, Raw Story passed the information on to an intermediary believed to have contact with federal law enforcement and global security personnel.

After Oct. 16 saw no reports of significant terrorist attacks, the Black Sun Militia chat descended into squabbling.

One member suggested the leader’s disappearance showed the project had been nothing more than a charade. Others insisted everyone should feel empowered to carry out strikes on their own.

“It’s true that he hasn’t been online for a while,” another member wrote, “but I don’t think we should go crazy over it. We just need to do our thing. And today is the day!”

At least one splinter cell appears to have continued to plan. Three members set up a separate Hungarian “branch” with its own Signal group.

“You don’t have to worry about Hungarians bro,” one member posted in the general group. “We are doing what we want. Relax.”

Black Sun Rising Militia members discuss plans for a coordinated attack on Oct. 16, 2024, in Signal posts obtained by Raw Story

One week after Oct. 16, six Hungarian “young people” armed with “airsoft and deactivated weapons” were detained by authorities, suspected of planning an attack targeting “protected persons,” according to Index, a Hungarian news outlet.

It’s not clear that the planned Budapest attack was linked to the neo-Nazi terror plot, but at least one member of the Black Sun Rising Militia seemed to think so.

“It seems that the Hungarian group is quiet for a reason,” a member posted on Oct. 23, adding a link to a story about the arrests.

Index reported that Hungarian authorities had received a notice from the U.S. Secret Service about two weeks earlier, warning of an attack on Oct. 23, the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union.

Russia links

At the time he launched a neo-Nazi Signal group rife with talk about radicalizing white people and driving people of color out of Europe and the U.S., Weidlich was also cultivating a community of scientific researchers that included individuals from India and at least two Asian students studying at American universities.

In both the Black Sun Rising Militia Signal group and a Discord channel where he convened researchers, Weidlich posted cryptic messages about plans for operations in Russia.

According to Vingren’s report, police who searched Weidlich’s phone at the time of his Oct. 14, 2024 arrest found “a Russian-language land agreement.” In his home, they discovered a stash of chemical precursors for explosives.

Prior to Weidlich’s arrest, Vingren reported, Weidlich had written in the Black Sun Rising Militia Signal group: “We have bought a large piece of land in Russia, and we are building our village now.”

Raw Story found evidence of Weidlich’s interest in Russia in his efforts to build a professional network around AI and neuroscience research.

In September 2023, after Weidlich relocated to Brazil from Norway, the Unlimited Research Cooperative Discord server launched. At least two members — a college student in the U.S. and a high school student in India — would be listed as co-authors with Weidlich and his father on an academic paper. There is no suggestion any of the other co-authors were aware of or endorsed Vincent Weidlich’s neo-Nazi activities.

Entitled “AI-Driven Physics-Informed Bio-Silicon Intelligence System,” the paper describes a project that matches the mission of Synthetic Intelligence Labs, a company Vincent Weidlich incorporated in summer 2024 in Sheffield, U.K. and Palo Alto, California.

On the paper and on the articles of incorporation, Weidlich used a pseudonym: Vincent Jorgsson.

“Envision connecting a rat’s brain to a computer to form an integrated system capable of playing a complex game like Doom,” an AI-generated narrator says in a video on the company’s TikTok channel. “It’s not science-fiction. It’s the reality we’re building.”

A screengrab from the Unlimited Research Cooperative Discord server obtained by Raw Story indicates that in the same month Weidlich incorporated Synthetic Intelligence Labs, he discussed a project in Russia.

“For legal purposes, the off-grid lab community will be under another company that we don’t do business with, due to Russian-western political stuff,” the post reads. “There will be open communication between Synthetic Intelligence Labs and the other company in Russia.”

Vincent Weidlich. Picture: Academia.edu

On Sept. 11, 2024, though, Weidlich said he was leaving the Unlimited Research Cooperative Discord server.

“Things are progressing very well, but the workload is increasing for me,” he wrote. “I will no longer be able to be regularly using Discord, so I am passing the server ownership and running to our assistant.

“Farewell to all, and if you need to contact me for collaboration and research, feel free to send an email. It was great to meet everyone!”

Only two days earlier, a Telegram channel appeared with an invitation to the Black Sun Rising Militia Signal group.

The goal of the militia, an introductory message explained, was to “kill every single Jew in the world” and to send all Black people and people of color “back to where they came from (or kill them if they refuse).

“Attacks start on October 16, and will not stop until we destroy the Jewish infrastructure and every [Jew] that exists on earth.”

'Disgraceful': GOP candidate urged to denounce aide's comments about Jews and gay marriage

An ally in a New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate's "inner circle" is under fire for antisemitic and homophobic comments.

Jack Ciattarelli's ally and Muslim relations advisor, Ibrar Nadeem, apparently held an event Saturday where he made comments about banning gay marriage and Jewish people, Politico reports Wednesday.

The unpaid adviser allegedly said "that people in his community accuse him of 'taking money from Jews,'" and he replied, "I check my bank account every day, brother, it is not there."

Ciattarelli, who was attending the event and spoke later, said that he is the “first gubernatorial candidate in history that has a Muslim as part of his inner circle of advisers.” He also praised Nadeem for his work.

Ciattarelli's opponent for the governor position, Democrat Rep. Mikie Sherrill, said that Ciattarelli should “denounce these comments, fire the individual responsible, and apologize for praising him right after he made these antisemitic and homophobic statements.”

“It’s 2025 and The Jack Campaign opposes same-sex marriage,” Sherrill wrote, responding to the incident on social media.

"This blatant antisemitism is coming from a member of Jack’s inner circle,” she added.

“Jack could have condemned it but instead sang his praises,” she said. “Absolutely disgraceful.”

Ciattarelli denied that he opposes same-sex marriage and apparently tried to tie Sherrill to Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim Democratic Socialist candidate running to be New York City mayor.

Trump is going to need a cellmate. I've got just the man

Israel has become a global pariah — “increasingly isolated,” the New York Times recently reported. Polls in the U.S. and around the world reveal growing opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza, particularly since Israel has no obvious plan to end its war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has himself, and his right-wing government partners, to blame. He doesn't give a damn about Palestinian lives or the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. He primarily cares about expanding his power and staying out of prison on corruption charges. He thinks that extending the war in Gaza will help him do that. Sound familiar?

I'm proud to be Jewish. I'm proud of the fact that Jews have disproportionately been involved in all the major American progressive movements since the 1800s. I believe in the core Jewish value of tikkun olam — repairing the world and ending human suffering.

I support Israel's right to exist. I've been to Israel three times — the first time in 1965 and most recently in 2015. I have family members there. But I am 100% opposed to Netanyahu's government, its war crimes in Gaza, its support for Jewish settlements on the West Bank, its racism, its attacks on the country’s progressive organizations (which I wrote about in 2016), and its efforts to undermine what’s left of Israeli democracy.

I support Palestinians' right to a sovereign homeland, but not one run by Hamas, a theocratic, fascist, anti-woman, anti-gay terrorist organization.

I'm pleased that most American Jews, and a small but growing number of American Jewish organizations — including, most recently, the Union of Reform Judaism, the largest and most liberal of all Jewish religious movements — oppose Israel's atrocities in Gaza, including thwarting food, water, medical, and other aid from reaching those who need it. (Yes, Hamas stole some of the aid that was sent there, but not much of it. That's Netanyahu's lame excuse for blocking all humanitarian aid. That's an outrage).

I believe, along with a majority of Democrats in the Senate, that the U.S. should end military aid to Israel until there is a ceasefire and ultimately a peace agreement.

I know there's been an upsurge of antisemitism and hate crimes against Jews in the United States. And yes, some of those incidents have occurred on a handful of college campuses. But the overall number is quite small — not close to the level that the Anti-Defamation League wants you to believe, which they falsely quantify by equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

A few anti-Israel protesters use rhetoric that can be described antisemitic and that understandably makes some Jews feel uncomfortable. But college campuses are not hotbeds of Jew hatred. That's a big lie that Trump and the ADL and groups like Mothers Against College Anti-Semitism use for their own overlapping purposes.

In fact, most people protesting Israel's actions are not antisemites. They just want the killing and suffering in Gaza to end. I've protested Israel's atrocities and I'm not an antisemite.

If colleges want to address antisemitism, limiting protest and free speech (and caving in to Trump's demands over curriculum, admissions, and DEI programs) is not the way to do it. Instead, colleges should do more to educate students, faculty and staff about the history and current reality of antisemitism — and how it is similar to and different from other kinds of bigotry, including racism, sexism, nativism, Islamophobia, and homophobia.

More courses, more speakers, more dialogue, and more opportunities for Jewish, Muslim, and Christian students to work together on regular academic, extracurricular, community-oriented, and social justice projects to build and foster connections and trust.

The biggest threat to American Jews are not on college campus. They are the right-wing hate groups who Trump has encouraged, emboldened, and pardoned.

These are the "Jews will not replace us" Nazis who marched in Charlottesville.
These are the insurrectionists who wore "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirts on January 6, as they invaded the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. to try to overturn the 2020 election.
These are the Trump supporters who shoot Jews in synagogues (in Pittsburgh and elsewhere), at public parades (like the one in Highland Park, Illinois), and at the Jewish museum in D.C.
These are the conspiracy theorists who spout antisemitic stereotypes about an alleged international Jewish cabal run by George Soros and others.

It is no accident that the upsurge of right-wing antisemitism began soon after Trump announced his first campaign for president in 2015. That Trump is himself a long time anti-semite is well-documented. He traffics in antisemitic stereotypes and he cultivates and encourages hate groups, including neo-Nazi groups. He has long admired Hitler.

Trump mainly cares about appealing to his base. Only 26% of Jews voted for Trump last year and few Jews support his policies or actions. A huge part of his base, however, are white evangelical Christians. About 80% of them voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024, accounting for almost half of his total vote.

The extreme wing of the evangelical movement are the Christian nationalists (like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several other high-level Trump appointees), who now account for almost 30% of all Americans.

They advocate authoritarianism. They are white supremacists and anti-semites. They believe that the United States is and should be a Christian nation, governed by Biblical doctrine and not by the Constitution. In that scenario, Jews are, at best, second-class citizens.

Trump doesn't give a damn about protecting Jews from antisemitism. His attacks, and those of the Republicans in Congress (led by Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York), on universities for allegedly fostering antisemitism are really about intimidating a major bastion of liberalism and free speech. Trump is on a crusade against institutions he considers his enemies — unions, artists and performers (and institutions like the Kennedy Center), the courts, the media, and universities and colleges. He wants to intimidate and silence them. He is weaponizing antisemitism to gain more power and stifle his opponents.

And so is Netanyahu. But it is backfiring on both of them.

Israel has become a global pariah. And Trump is a laughing stock among world leaders for his authoritarian policies, his ignorance, his megalomania, and his pathological lies.

Trump’s declining support in the U.S. is likely to help the Democrats win a major of House seats next year, which would allow them to neutralize many of Trump’s policies, hold investigations and hearings to expose his corruption, and even put pressure on Israel by limiting or ending U.S. arms sales.

In my fantasy world of the not-too-distance future, Trump and Netanyahu share a prison cell. That would be equal justice under the law.

Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp distinguished professor of politics at Occidental College. He is the author of "The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame" (2012), an editor (with Kate Aronoff and Michael Kazin) of "We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism, American Style", and co-author of "Baseball Rebels: The Players, People and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America" (2022).

Donald Trump concedes 'automatic loss' in Harvard case before judge even rules

President Donald Trump conceded an "automatic loss" in the Harvard federal funding case before Judge Allison D. Burroughs even ruled on Monday.

Trump posted to social media, "The Harvard case was just tried in Massachusetts before an Obama appointed Judge. She is a TOTAL DISASTER, which I say even before hearing her Ruling. She has systematically taken over the various Harvard cases, and is an automatic 'loss' for the People of our Country!"

Harvard sued the Trump administration for withholding $2.6 billion in federal funds as punishment for allegedly allowing antisemitism to run rampant on campus.

NBC News reported Monday afternoon that the judge did, in fact, appear to "lean in favor of Harvard University" during oral arguments.

Trump's post continued, "Harvard has $52 Billion Dollars sitting in the Bank, and yet they are anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and anti-America. Much of this money comes from the U.S.A., all to the detriment of other Schools, Colleges, and Institutions, and we are not going to allow this unfair situation to happen any longer.

"How did this Trump-hating Judge get these cases? When she rules against us, we will IMMEDIATELY appeal, and WIN. Also, the Government will stop the practice of giving many Billions of Dollars to Harvard, much of which had been given without explanation. It is a longtime commitment to Fairness in Funding Education, and the Trump Administration will not stop until there is VICTORY. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

‘Imaginations go wild’: MAGA Epstein fury fuels antisemitic rants

The MAGA base may be tearing itself apart over the Trump administration’s attempt to close the book on the Jeffrey Epstein case, but some of the president’s conspiracy-minded supporters are still pouring gasoline on an ugly antisemitic trope long associated with the deceased financier and sex offender.

Following Epstein’s death in a Manhattan jail in 2019, Trump and his allies fed supporters’ beliefs that the case would unlock secrets about a cabal of global elites who would finally be brought to justice. The power of the saga over the collective imagination is that there are unanswered questions about how Epstein made his money and who else might be implicated in his crimes.

“It’s provided a launchpad for people’s imaginations to go wild,” Jared Holt, an extremism researcher and co-host of the Posting Through It podcast, told Raw Story.

“I think a lot of the antisemitic stuff is based on pure speculation. Someone came up with this idea, and people have taken it to the extreme.”

The undercurrent of antisemitism in the case rests on the unfounded assertion that Epstein was connected to Israeli intelligence and running a blackmail operation against world leaders.

Those who make the claim cite the facts that Epstein met with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak dozens of times, and Robert Maxwell, the late media baron father of jailed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, forged close ties with Israeli leaders.

“I think for a lot of people who are mad at Trump for abandoning the Epstein case, it plays into a larger conspiracy theory about Jews running the world,” Will Sommer, a reporter at The Bulwark, told Raw Story.

The evidence that Epstein was involved with intelligence in Israel or anywhere else is circumstantial at best.

Naftali Bennett, another former Israeli prime minister, refuted the claim on X on Monday, writing: “The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false.”

Of course, for those who are inclined to believe antisemitic conspiracy theories, the word of a former Israeli prime minister is unlikely to move the needle.

Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys leader whose seditious conspiracy sentence for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was commuted by President Donald Trump, mocked Bennett, posting: “Hey everybody! This guy says they didn’t have anything to do with it. Guess we can just stop talking about it now and relax. It wasn’t the joos [sic] this time ok!!”

Holt told Raw Story the “subsection of the Trump base” that is hostile towards Israel “is a lot larger than people give credit for.”

The Epstein controversy dominated last weekend’s Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, where speakers included administration officials and Trump allies.

Tucker Carlson, the influential former Fox News host who helped mainstream the white supremacist Great Replacement theory and campaigned for Trump last year, was among those who took direct aim at Israel.

“It’s extremely obvious to anyone who watches that this guy had direct access to a foreign government,” Carlson said.

“Now, no one’s allowed to say that that foreign government’s Israel, because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that that’s naughty,” he added, to cheers from the MAGA crowd.

On social media, Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier who attended the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, and who dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, hailed the response to Carlson’s message as “directionally positive,” while asserting that Carlson was not a full ally.

“They are feeding something that they don’t yet understand,” Fuentes wrote on Telegram, a social media platform that serves as a haven for Nazis and other extremists.

“And it’s short sighted, which is why many are urging people like Tucker to pump the brakes. It’s like when those crime bosses hired the Joker to kill Batman.

“So, we can strategically accept that Tucker’s advocacy is good for us, but he isn’t us,” Fuentes added. “We have to take and take and keep coming back for more. Always audacity.”

'Palpable hostility'

The uproar among Trump’s supporters over Epstein comes at a particularly fragile time for American Jews, following the shooting deaths of two Israeli embassy workers outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. in May, and the lethal firebombing attack on peaceful Jewish marchers calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Colorado in June.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has deployed an “antisemitism task force” against universities while moving to deport foreign students for speaking out against Israel and in support of Palestinian autonomy.

“There’s a palpable hostility towards Israel as the war against Hamas has dragged on and as civilian casualties continue to mount,” Holt said.

“It is the perfect window for influencers who hold not just criticism against Israel but genuinely antisemitic views such as questioning the loyalty of dual citizens and equating the state of Israel with the Jewish people — it’s an opportunity for them to drop in and wedge their own views into the discussion.”

On July 11, Stew Peters, an openly antisemitic podcaster, made an argument that echoed a white power talking point dating back to the 1980s: asserting that the U.S. government is controlled by an external Jewish foe.

“Whether you want to admit it or not, if you’re being bare-naked honest, you know why this is being covered up, and it’s because the pedophiles that are on the Epstein client list and the Epstein tapes and on the Epstein flight logs are active members of this fake occupied government, including active members of this White House,” Peters said.

White supremacists often talk of the “Zionist Occupied Government,” or “ZOG,” a body through which Jewish elites supposedly control U.S. life and use puppets to destroy the white race.

Peters also called members of the Trump administration “liars” while deploying an anti-Hindu slur against FBI Director Kash Patel, who appeared as on Peters’ podcast eight times to assail former President Joe Biden but has now found himself on difficult ground, seeking to quash Epstein conspiracy theories he previously eagerly promoted.

Holt said it was reasonable to ask questions about Epstein’s finances and associations. But he said that anyone who went to court and promised to prove that Epstein was linked to Israeli intelligence would likely find themselves sanctioned.

“Sure, there’s enough there to wonder, but that’s all we can do,” Holt said.

“These people making these bold assertions and digging their heels in, I think they’re in a different category because they’ve assumed the evidence and are using it to agitate in a completely different direction.”

'No idea who he is': Groups cited by Trump admin deny backing dubious nominee

Prominent Jewish groups are denying the Trump administration's claims they support an inexperienced government lawyer with "ties to a Holocaust denier" to lead the Office of Special Counsel, according to CNN.

The administration's pick to head the government's "top watchdog group," 30-year-old Paul Ingrassia, has just six months of government experience, and a "history of racist invective and conspiratorial rants." Ingrassia has also made claims "that straight White men were the most intelligent demographic group," the report said.

"His nomination has drawn scrutiny over his past promotion of conspiracy theories and tweets from his podcast that included calls for martial law following Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss and harsh anti-Israel rhetoric aimed at the GOP," wrote Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck with CNN's Kfile.

"Ingrassia has also been scrutinized for his ties to Nick Fuentes, a noted White nationalist and Holocaust denier, as well as his defense of Fuentes’ ability to post on social media."

When CNN asked the administration to defend their nominee, "an unnamed senior administration official" said in a statement:

"[Ingrassia] has the support of many Jewish groups and has been a steadfast advocate for Jewish causes and personnel during his time working for the Trump administration."

When asked to name the groups, "the administration initially named just two: the Zionist Organization of America, and a group they called 'The Holocaust Council' — of which no group by that name could be found."

A spokesperson for Morton Klein, "the president of the first group listed," told CNN "that he had never heard of Ingrassia and had not endorsed his nomination."

The administration added the Israel Heritage Foundation to its list of endorsements, but executive director Rabbi David Katz told CNN that wasn't true.

“It doesn’t make sense, I have no idea who he is," Katz told CNN.

Read the CNN article here.