The first ICE detainees deported to Iran since sweeping anti-government protests triggered a deadly government crackdown spent time on the tarmac at Portsmouth International Airport at Pease last month.

Fourteen Iranians, including three former members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were among the shackled passengers on a Boeing 763 that refueled at Pease on its way to Tehran just days after the Iranian government crushed mass protests by reportedly killing at least 3,000 demonstrators.

After two hours on the ground following its arrival from Phoenix, the Omni Air International flight continued to Cairo. There, according to ICE Flight Monitor, Russian nationals were transferred to an Egyptian charter bound for Moscow, while the Iranian passengers continued to Kuwait, where they boarded a Kuwaiti charter that delivered them to Tehran.

The 14 men were part of a larger group of at least 40 Iranian nationals who were originally scheduled to be on the flight before many were moved into quarantine due to a measles outbreak at the ICE Florence Detention Facility in Central Arizona.

Two gay men were among those receiving a last-minute reprieve. Their lawyer, Bekah Wolf, told MS NOW the men fled Iran after they were arrested by the country’s morality police. She said they have no criminal convictions and have active appeals for stays of removal.

According to Wolf, the men face “an extremely high chance” of being executed on their return to Iran, where same-sex sexual activity is illegal and punishable by death. “If they were to be sent back right now, they’re facing death sentences by hanging,” she told CNN. The medical reprieve for the two men is likely only temporary.

‘Increasingly inhumane’

The January 25 flight was one of four ICE deportation flights routed through Pease last month. There were no reports of any detainee transfers while the planes were on the ground in Portsmouth.

Omni Air International was the operator for all of the flights. The Oklahoma-based air charter company is the dominant provider for ICE “special high-risk charter” (SHRC) flights. These are flights to repatriate immigrants subject to final orders of removal to locations worldwide and may include those who have “failed to comply with final orders of removal, security risks, or other risk factors.”

Omni was the subject of a recent Mother Jones profile, which reported the company’s flights “are becoming increasingly inhumane.” Since an ownership change in April 2025, it noted, 40% of its deportation flights have lasted more than 24 hours before reaching the final stop.

“Migrants onboard until then would have spent all that time, and likely more, shackled,” author Gillian Brockell wrote. A man on a deportation flight to Laos told her he was shackled for 73 hours. An immigration lawyer told her about a Vietnamese detainee who was shackled for more than 80 hours on a flight out of El Paso.

Shackling detainees for long periods, explained forensic pathologist Judy Melinek, puts them at risk of developing dangerous blood clots and permanent nerve damage, as well as swelling, bruising, and cuts.

The University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights has accused Omni of committing numerous abuses tied to its ICE operations. “One notorious example is a 2017 removal flight to Somalia which was rerouted to Senegal, where it remained on the tarmac for hours before eventually returning to the United States,” the report noted. “The passengers reported that during their 40-hour odyssey aboard the plane, they suffered beatings, threats, forced straitjacketing, and the denial of access to working bathrooms, forcing some to soil themselves in their seats.”

Portsmouth Int’l Airport at Pease — January 2026

Jan. 6: Omni flight OAE3923 from Phoenix landed at Pease at 2:02 a.m. After refueling, the flight departed at 6:15 a.m. for New Delhi, India, with stops in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Doha, Qatar.

Jan. 20: Omni flight OAE3919 arrived from El Paso at 12:30 p.m. After refueling, the flight departed for Bucharest, Romania. ICE Flight Monitor reported the flight continued to Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan.

Jan. 25: Omni flight OAE3919 arrived from Phoenix at 1:53 p.m. After two hours on the ground, the Boeing 763 departed for Egypt and continued to Kuwait. It returned to Phoenix on Jan. 27 with refueling stops in Sofia, Bulgaria, and at Pease.

Jan. 27: Omni flight OAE3982 landed at Pease at 5:12 a.m. from Harlingen, Texas. It departed Portsmouth at 8:55 a.m., stopping to refuel in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Doha, Qatar, on its way to New Delhi, India, where it landed after a 28-hour journey.

It may not be the most romantic dating profile, but it is clear and concise: “Id like to find a like minded partner to help save the White race.” That opening line from a 38-year-old New Hampshire man is just one of more than 6,000 dating profiles leaked from a white supremacist dating site that acclaimed writer and academic Eva Hoffman labeled “Tinder for Nazis.”

The profile data from the WhiteDate dating site was leaked by a German hacktivist who goes by the name Martha Root. Late last year, Root gathered intelligence from would-be paramours after surreptitiously installing an AI chatbot on the dating site and eventually downloaded over 100 GB of data from. As a final insult, Root dressed as the Pink Ranger from Power Rangers in December and concluded a Chaos Communications Congress (CCC) presentation by appearing to take down the site in real time.

WhiteDate, operated by a far-right extremist based in Germany, is part of a white supremacist ecosystem that includes WhiteChild, a service connecting white sperm and egg donors with intended white parents, and WhiteDeal, a racist marketplace for freelancers and service providers. “White people are almost gone,” a WhiteDate social media post claimed, “but if we unite globally, we can repair our demography, heal our communities, and start to defend White interests globally.”

Granite Staters’ profiles leaked

Root published 6,639 WhiteDate dating profiles with biographical information, including the member’s pseudonym, age, gender, and location, as well as personal details including educational attainment, income, religious and political views, and IQ.

With the WhiteDate data provided by Root and an unofficial WhiteDate search engine built by a security researcher known as Zeacer, I uncovered 31 profiles that list New Hampshire as home. The Granite Staters include business owners and professionals, a biologist and a tattoo artist, even a convicted January 6 insurrectionist and former member of a neo-Nazi hate group.

Members of this pro-white lonely hearts club range in age from 21 to 56, with a median age of 36. The majority are college-educated; 20 claim to be college graduates, including two with master’s degrees.

They hail from every region of the state, checking-in from the North Country (Berlin), the White Mountains (Conway and Lincoln), Dartmouth–Lake Sunapee (Danbury, Georges Mills, Lebanon, and Lempster), the Lakes Region (Alton, Holderness, and Tilton), the Monadnock Region (Keene), Merrimack Valley (Amherst, Concord, Goffstown, Manchester, Nashua, Salem, and Windham), and the Seacoast (Hampton).

The group is made up of 26 men and five women. That split mirrors the site overall, where 86% of the profiles are submitted by men. The imbalance is so pronounced that the site includes a page encouraging men to recruit more women. “Men are vanguards, and it is reflected in the ratio between men and women on WhiteDate,” it states. “So gentlemen, don’t be shy and invite white ladies in real life who display trad potential.”

‘We should never kneel to this Zulu criminal class’

Many of the Granite Staters’ profiles combine a 1950s-style ideology of domesticity with casual racism. “I want my husband to come home to a warm, comforting home filled with love and kindness,” wrote CharMackenzie, a 21-year-old Manchester resident. “Only a White woman can do that for her White children and husband.”

“I want to find a trad wife. Feminism is RAMPANT even within the Church unfortunately,” wrote NTAKevin. “I want a wife. I also want white children instead of mixed,” the 36-year-old Concord man added.

The 56-year-old owner of a Grafton County woodworking and design business wrote that he joined the site “to possibly connect with a woman who is a lover of tradition, one who is faithful and true.” He added, “As to race awareness, never, in my lifetime have I been more aware. White Christians have been superior at building civilizations and we should never kneel to this Zulu criminal class.”

Two of the profiles include explicit neo-Nazi references.WindmillSpic, a 35-year-old “Delta Male” from Lebanon who claims to be the “whitest spic you’ll meet,” listed National Socialism as his political orientation. DesertGhost, a 40-year-old college graduate from Manchester, ended his profile by writing, “1488 stay strong men! (1488 is widely recognized as white supremacist code: “14” refers to the 14-word slogan, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” while “88” stands for “Heil Hitler,” H being the eighth letter of the alphabet.)

An insurrectionist ‘committed to our race’

The most prominent profile is from a man who now introduces himself as “your local January 6th capitol rioter.” Four days before he stormed the U.S. Capitol, Richard Zachary Ackerman appears to have submitted a dating profile on WhiteDate using the same Zach Parker pseudonym referenced by the FBI in his criminal complaint.

His WhiteDate profile described the Salem home he apparently inherited from his grandmother, alluded to the deaths of his mother and half-brother, and echoed his previously-stated interest in mortuary science. Ackerman noted that his Salem home — “the perfect place to start a family with a few repairs” — is located in a “99% white area.” He added, “We all have some kind of reason to be committed to our race when so many have forgotten or simply dont care.”

Ackerman previously posted a photo from Paris in which he flashed a card promoting the Nationalist Social Club (NSC-131), a New England-based, neo-Nazi hate group. In it, he appears to be wearing the same black leather jacket he wore in his WhiteDate profile photo.

At the Capitol, Ackerman threw a water bottle at officers engaged in intense fighting with rioters on the Lower West Terrace and stole a U.S. Capitol Police Officer’s helmet. He called the helmet his “war trophy” and attached an NSC-131 sticker to it. Ackerman was arrested in 2023 and eventually pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to 24 months of supervised release with ten months of home detention.

‘Extremist propaganda embedded within a dating app’

“This isn’t about white people dating white people,” Root insisted in a video detailing her exploits. “It’s about how that narrative is used as a cover to spread hate, racism, and conspiracy.”

“Users are casually introduced to ideas such as white genocide, the notion that white people are being systematically replaced,” she said. “They are also introduced to antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control over the media, politics, and finance. The language used spiraled straight from extremist forums and has been softened just enough to be considered discussion.”

“This is extremist propaganda embedded within a dating app,” Root explained. “What appears to be a niche alternative to Tinder is actually a global far-right ecosystem with thousands of users across the U.S. and Europe. Loneliness is being monetized. Hate speech is normalized. Criminal ideas are shared behind profile pictures and heart emojis.”

Following his arrest for the nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images, state Rep. Bryan Morse claimed—with Trumpian bravado—that he had been targeted because of his political clout: “What Better way to shut up one of the most active reps in the state, speaking out against pedophiles grooming children then to make false accusations and tarnish my character…”

The prosecutor in the case effectively answered Morse in an affidavit that supports the charges with a detailed timeline of Morse’s interactions with his accuser and corroborating physical evidence linking Morse to the woman and to the posting of her private nude photos. (A redacted version of the prosecutor’s affidavit is publicly available on an NPR-affiliated website.)

In addition, I uncovered copies of 23 archived messages sent from the Reddit user account that the prosecutor claims was used to post the private nude photos. The messages, dating from June 5, 2024, to May 16, 2025, shed light on the Reddit user’s activities leading up to and including the postings of the photos.

The victim’s story

According to the affidavit, the alleged victim, identified by her initials, L.S., said she first met Morse on Facebook in early April 2025. After conversing via text messages and Snapchat and exchanging nude photos, she said they met in person in Nashua between May 5 and May 11, an encounter that culminated with L.S. giving Morse oral sex in his vehicle.

In a May 12 text message exchange between Morse and L.S., retrieved from L.S.'s phone by the Nashua Police Department’s Computer Forensics Unit, Morse appeared to reference the sex act and suggested meeting again. However, after subsequently discovering that Morse was married, L.S. said she did not want to be involved with him, and she attempted to contact Morse’s wife via Facebook Messenger between May 12 and May 15 to disclose his infidelity.

On the morning of May 16, L.S. said Morse sent her two of the nude photos that she had originally sent him. He then called her, “yelling and swearing,” furious that she had contacted his wife and threatening to “tell the world.” The forensic analysis of L.S.’s phone confirmed that Morse placed three calls to L.S. that morning at 6:34 a.m. and that she answered the third call. Detectives observed a text on L.S.’s phone from Morse with the two nude photos of L.S.

Private nude photos posted on Reddit

At approximately 6:47 a.m. that morning, nude photos of L.S. were posted in two Reddit subreddits, NHSwingers and BustyNaturals, along with her first name and location, by a Reddit user named BusinessMurky9719.

L.S.’s account and the forensic evidence differ slightly over the details of her interactions with Morse later that afternoon when she became aware of the Reddit posts. She said she called Morse to confront him; he eventually answered and denied posting the photos. The forensic analysis indicated that she called him six times between 3:05 and 3:06 p.m., but all the calls went unanswered.

L.S. said that she was so angry that she then posted a public message on her Facebook page naming Morse: “Shout out to Bryan Morse - NH State Representative, Franklin, for posting naked photos of someone online when he gets caught cheating on his wife. Quite the catch to have in office.” (The Facebook timestamp indicates the message was posted at 3:24 p.m.)

After tagging Morse in the public Facebook post, L.S. said she received four phone calls from a blocked number, which went unanswered, and an expletive-filled voicemail from Morse threatening to have her arrested if she did not delete the Facebook message. “Interfering with an elected official . . . is a Class A felony,” Morse claimed. “I can pursue legal action that will put you behind bars for years . . . Last chance to take it down, part our god damn ways, or you will be arrested by the end of next week. Goodbye.”

‘Feels like revenge porn’

Reddit confirmed that BusinessMurky9719 deleted the user account and associated posts on May 16, the day L.S. reported the incident to the Nashua police, but the original message threads associated with the posts in the NHSwingers and BustyNaturals subreddits remain online.

The photo posted by BusinessMurky9719 on the NHSwingers subreddit, which received at least 65 upvotes, was immediately flagged as suspicious by members of the group. “Feels like revenge porn,” one member wrote. “I’m with you on that,” another agreed. When asked why, the first commenter pointed out that those in the “swinging community” typically do not post “their partner’s name, location and nude pics with face.”

(BusinessMurky9719 appears to have posted a third photo to the nhgooners subreddit around the same time as the other two, but without identifying the subject by name or location. That group has since been banned from Reddit; the original thread is no longer accessible.)

‘Business Murky’ linked to ‘Bryan Morse’

The Nashua police completed a preservation request for the BusinessMurky9719 Reddit account and then obtained a search warrant. According to the affidavit, police determined that an IP address identified by Reddit as one used by BusinessMurky9719 is registered to Breezeline Internet, an Internet service provider based in Quincy, Massachusetts. After receiving a separate search warrant, Breezeline identified the account holder as “Bryan Morse” with an address matching Morse’s home address in Franklin.

Results from the Reddit search warrant also identified the Google email address that was used to create the Reddit account. After receiving another search warrant, Google identified the account holder for the email address as “Bryan Morse” at the same Franklin address. The Google Subscriber Information for the account included a recovery email address and phone number that are also both linked to Morse.

Archived copies of an additional 20 posts submitted by BusinessMurky9719 between June 5, 2024, and May 13, 2025, can be accessed online. The posts, sent to a variety of NSFW subreddits, all sought sexual encounters with new partners. In a June 5, 2024, post, BusinessMurky9719 described himself as a 30-year-old man with a 27-year-old wife, the same ages as Morse and his wife at the time.

Morse’s evolving story

Following his arrest, Morse issued a public statement saying he would plead not guilty and “fight vigorously” to clear his name. In a series of social media posts, he claimed the charges were retaliation for “speaking out against pedophiles grooming children” and that he had become “public enemy #1,” facing what he described as “bogus criminal charges meant to silence me.”

Morse has acknowledged knowing the alleged victim but denied that she is a “former romantic partner.” He told a reporter for the Laconia Daily Sun that she is someone he has spoken to once about legislation aimed at prohibiting “obscene or harmful sexual material” from being disseminated at public schools, legislation Morse supported.

The prosecutor’s affidavit described an interview with detectives in which Morse acknowledged meeting L.S. on Facebook. He told the detectives that she had sent him “well over twenty nude photographs,” but that “he could not remember” if he had sent her any. Morse denied that he had any “physical contact” with L.S. and denied posting her nude photos online.

At a December 18 court hearing, Morse waived arraignment and pleaded not guilty to the nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images, a Class B felony. The case is scheduled to go to trial in April. If convicted, the one-term Republican state representative from Franklin could face up to seven years in prison.

When I first saw the message promoting an anti-abortion protest outside an event at The Music Hall in Portsmouth, I had no idea I was about to trigger a chain of events that would leave the historic arts venue and cultural icon facing a major backlash over its actions related to the demonstration. Here’s the story.

While reviewing political activity around the state, I came across an update from a statewide anti-abortion organization, which included a list of upcoming events. Among them was a “sidewalk chalking” protest scheduled to take place outside The Music Hall in six days, during a fundraiser for Lovering Health Center, a nonprofit that provides sexual and reproductive healthcare.

Small gatherings of anti-abortion protesters have become part of the political landscape, particularly at healthcare facilities that provide abortion care, so this particular protest would likely not have warranted a second glance had the event not been taking place at The Music Hall, where I’ve been a regular patron for nearly three decades.

While this protest did not appear to be a confrontational one, anti-abortion demonstrations have at times attracted members of supportive hate groups, increasing the potential for conflict. Three years ago, a counter-protest at a pro-choice rally in Manchester marking Women’s Equality Day drew a group of masked individuals in Proud Boys garb, though no incidents were reported.

Protests and counter-protests that threaten public safety do not happen spontaneously. Weeks before the event, supporters typically promote attendance through social media posts and group chats, and the rhetoric around the event is confrontational and threatening.

None of that was apparent in the run-up to the Music Hall protest. The only online mention I found was a listing on the allied organization’s event calendar, which noted the protesters planned “to hold signs, pray, fill the sidewalks with chalk messages of hope and truth, and enjoy each other’s fellowship.”

There did not appear to be a risk of the protest becoming confrontational or disrupting the event—an assessment ultimately confirmed when only two protesters showed up at the relocated event venue. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution, I shared the information with an ad hoc group I collaborate with on matters like this, and one of its members passed the information along to Lovering.

Lovering has extensive experience dealing with protesters, and I was told that they had initiated their standard protocols, notifying the Portsmouth Police Department, a volunteer de-escalation team, and the event company, which shared this information with The Music Hall.

In an interview with the Portsmouth Herald, Portsmouth Deputy Police Chief Michael Maloney confirmed that the department coordinated with Lovering and was aware of the possibility of a small peaceful demonstration, but had no public safety concerns about a large-scale protest. He noted that he had not been contacted by anyone from The Music Hall.

It was only later that I learned The Music Hall, citing security concerns, had backed out of its contract with Lovering and canceled the event without discussion. Such a decision would have been troubling coming from any business or organization. Coming from the region’s most prominent institution devoted to the arts, it felt like a stunning betrayal.

On its website, The Music Hall acknowledges the unique role art plays in challenging norms and inspiring collective action. “Art provides a non-linguistic common language to express complex emotions, challenge the status quo, and advocate for change,” it notes.

And while The Music Hall claimed “the decision not to host Lovering Health’s event was based solely on safety considerations and should not be interpreted as a political statement,” it also asserted a need to remain “neutral” and reportedly cited the issue of abortion as a “lightning rod” issue that is “too polarizing.”

“Should we expect additional censorship or selective partnerships in the future from The Music Hall?” asked New Hampshire Women’s Foundation CEO Tanna Clews in a statement. “What about events supporting LGBTQ+ youth? Or BIPOC programming? Or hosting historical films about women’s suffrage? Just how far will The Music Hall go to be ‘neutral’?”

When high-profile institutions yield to coercive pressure, it sends a message of acquiescence and establishes a precedent that encourages future threats. The morning after the Lovering fundraiser, the anti-abortion group highlighted the Portsmouth protest in its weekly update and noted its impact: “Due to the controversy, the venue cancelled the event, forcing it to be moved.”

As residents of 24 New Hampshire towns prepared to vote last spring on a warrant article that would have eliminated the use of voting machines in their communities, the leader of the grassroots group responsible for the initiative issued a call to members. “We need help making calls and texts to our 24 towns!!!” Marylyn Todd wrote in a message to supporters. “We have the most amazing [app] that makes this so easy,” she gushed.

Todd, leader of the New Hampshire Voter Integrity Group, was referring to a mobile app developed by Turning Point USA, the conservative advocacy organization founded by Charlie Kirk. Re-branded as the Courage App by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an outspoken election denier and conspiracy theorist, the app promised to provide activists with the ability to contact the towns’ voters via door knocks, phone calls, and text messages.

The push for one-to-one voter contact was the culmination of a months-long campaign by the local activists. It began in January 2024, when the group identified towns that were still accepting citizen petitioned warrant articles for their upcoming town meetings. (To track their progress, the group used a Google account that was eventually shut down for violating Google’s Terms of Service.)

After successfully collecting the required signatures on petitions that would have banned the use of voting machines in 24 towns, the group launched a campaign that included a crowd-sourced fundraising appeal, a website, direct mail, and mobile billboard advertising. (Ironically, the group’s website included a link to an MIT/CalTech study of New Hampshire election data that concluded “machine counts improve on hand counts.”)

Lindell promoted the initiative to his national audience and provided the bulk of the funding for the campaign. According to a social media post by Todd, the MyPillow CEO donated $25,000 for LED billboard trucks and loaned the group more than $8,000 to help with the direct mail costs.

Lindell also provided the group with access to the Mike Lindell Courage App, which included targeted voter lists and customized campaign scripts for door-to-door canvassing, phone calls, text messaging, and mailings. The local activists prepared a training guide and video for their members, and encouraged them to use it to contact voters.

It didn’t go as planned, according to the 2024 annual report produced by Lindell’s Election Crime Bureau initiative. “The default version of Courage App was deployed as a pilot project in support of NH advocacy effort to remove the machines,” the report noted. “Text messages were blocked by phone service providers. The Courage App was subsequently dropped from the list of solutions available to activists.”

Overall, the campaign by Todd and the New Hampshire Voter Integrity Group to eliminate voting machines was a spectacular failure. The initiative failed to pass in a single town as voters rejected the measures by overwhelming margins.

In a social media post, Democratic state Rep. Lucy Weber reported that her town, Walpole, had defeated the warrant article by a vote of 171-5. She pointed out that even though 25 residents signed the petition, only five voted for it. “Residents [were] overwhelmingly offended by postcards, texts, and obnoxious trucks invading town to claim, falsely, that elections are compromised,” she wrote.

(The town of Danville did vote to require a hand count just for presidential elections, but the measure was not enforced in 2024 after the town was advised that it was unlawful.)

Meanwhile, Mike Lindell’s election-denying chickens are coming home to roost. In June, a federal jury found that Lindell had defamed Eric Coomer, a former Dominion Voting Systems employee, by falsely accusing him of helping to rig the 2020 presidential election. Coomer was awarded $2.3 million in damages.

Last week, a judge in Minnesota ruled that Lindell defamed Smartmatic with false statements that the election technology company’s voting machines helped rig the 2020 election. A jury will decide the damage award if it determines that Lindell acted in reckless disregard of the truth.

And if that’s not enough, a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion in 2021 seeking more than $1.3 billion in damages from Lindell and MyPillow is now making its way through the court system. “Mr. Lindell’s lies have undermined trust in American democracy and tarnished the hard work of local election officials,” said Dominion CEO John Poulos.

ICE does not disclose flight data, and the carriers have taken steps to conceal the flights. I will be documenting the Pease flights based on information gathered through ADB-S Exchange—a crowd-sourced platform that collects and displays flight data from volunteer-hosted receivers—and social media reports from observers, notably JJ in DC.

To date, the recorded flights at Pease are all domestic “shuffle flights” with final destinations of Alexandria, La., or Harlingen, Texas—locations that house large detention centers and also serve as deportation hubs.

While it appears that the primary objective is to move detainees to those southern states, a small number of detainees have been removed from some of the incoming flights and taken from the airport as larger groups are loaded onto the planes for the departing flights.

Update: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) paused detainee flights at Pease in Portsmouth in September 2025. The flights were shifted back to Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts after being discontinued earlier in the summer. “ICE has resumed using Hanscom Field to support Operation Patriot 2.0,” an ICE Boston spokesperson confirmed. “Flying aliens out of Hanscom allows ICE to move detainees quickly from the intake center at Burlington to a detention center once they have been processed.”

This list will be updated daily. It can be accessed from the Miscellany Blue navigation bar or by visiting miscellanyblue.com/ice.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro has defended January 6 defendants as “hostages” and even suggested Justice Department prosecutors should face criminal charges. But she apparently draws the line when a convicted J6er targets a juror.

In a court document filed “by and through” the former Fox News host, prosecutors argued against a motion by New Hampshire J6er Cindy Young to have her conviction overturned and suggested, “at the very least,” that she be “admonished” for identifying a juror by name on social media and in a bar complaint.

“This type of personal attack on a juror cannot be permitted,” the filing argued. “Not only does it threaten the individual juror, but it threatens the integrity of our entire judicial system. It can have a chilling effect on future jurors who may wish to serve or the candor with which they answer the Court's questions during voir dire.”

The government was responding to Young’s actions in late July, when she claimed the jury foreperson in her trial, whom she identified by name, had been a Democratic National Committee staffer at the center of the 2016 DNC email breach.

The Bristol, N.H., grandmother revived debunked conspiracy theories involving Hillary Clinton, Russiagate, and the 2016 murder of a DNC staffer, to accuse him of failing to disclose an “extensive political past, clear ideological bias, and active participation in anti-Trump, pro-Clinton operations.”

Young spread this story through appearances on at least three January 6-related podcasts and in an essay she distributed online.

Young filed a motion in federal court to have her conviction overturned due to this alleged juror misconduct that she claimed violated her Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. On Monday, prosecutors countered with their blistering response, asking the court to deny Young’s motion and to sanction Young for her actions in the case.

Young responded to the government’s filing with a quip on social media disparaging “auto-pen Jeanine Pirro.”

The Bristol, N.H., grandmother, who was convicted—and later pardoned—for her role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, made the rounds on the J6er podcast circuit last month with an explosive allegation: that the jury foreperson in her case violated her Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury, failing to disclose an “extensive political past, clear ideological bias, and active participation in anti-Trump, pro-Clinton operations.”

Cindy Young documented her allegations in an essay she shared on social media titled “The Juror Who Should Never Have Been: [name redacted] and the Hidden Hand Behind the DNC Email Scandal.” In it, she alluded to being targeted by shadowy forces, writing, “What I’ve uncovered since my conviction is shocking—not just for what it says about [name redacted], but for what it reveals about a justice system manipulated by hidden hands.”

Young claims the jury foreperson is a former Democratic National Committee staffer who was at the center of the 2016 DNC cyber attack. She accuses the juror of having “ties to spreading disinformation on Russiagate” and other conspiracy theories stemming from the breach.

In her telling of the DNC email hack, Young advances a novel theory that conflates two separate conspiracy theories: the murder of Seth Rich, a DNC staffer whose death in an unsolved robbery was falsely linked by conspiracy theorists to Hillary Clinton, and Guccifer 2.0, the hacker persona created by Russian intelligence to divert blame from Moscow.

(I can personally debunk that theory, having exchanged messages with Guccifer 2.0 weeks after Seth Rich died, for a story about a New Hampshire congressional race.)

Convicted and sentenced

On August 9, 2024, Young was convicted of four misdemeanors for breaching the Capitol and was subsequently sentenced to serve four months in federal prison. Unrepentant, she then wrote, “I have been found guilty on all 4 counts for not confessing my sins to the Biden Regime.”

At the end of her trial, Young’s attorney filed a motion for a new trial based, in part, on a claim that the juror she now accuses of misconduct answered questions dishonestly in the Court’s voir dire, that the juror “failed to acknowledge any strong feelings about former President Trump, his followers, election deniers, or January 6 that would interfere with judging Defendant fairly and impartially.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey denied the motion, noting the Court “did not find any suggestion” that the juror was “anything but truthful and straightforward.”

The day before she was scheduled to report to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving her sentence, Young received a full pardon from Donald Trump, one of the nearly 1600 pardons he issued for those involved in the attack on the Capitol.

Seeking to have her conviction overturned

Young complained that the pardon did not erase her conviction, nor the stigma associated with it. She returned to court at the end of July, now representing herself, and asked permission to file motions seeking to unseal the name of the jury foreperson and to vacate her conviction due to juror misconduct, a violation of the Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury.

In response, Judge Harvey apparently reviewed Young’s podcast and Twitter feed and then reminded Young that the court’s Local Criminal Rules and Judicial Council of the United States policy require parties to maintain jurors’ confidentiality. He ordered Young to keep the juror’s identity confidential and to have no communication with that individual, except in the presence of the Court.

Young appears to have deleted her social media posts naming the juror, although her podcast interviews and a copy of her essay—which do identify the individual—remain publicly accessible.

Young countered the judge’s order by filing a motion for reconsideration, now noting that she understands and respects the need to protect juror-identifying information, but challenging orders that she described as “attempts to retroactively block my speech and shield juror misconduct from scrutiny.”

The pro se defendant has filed a slew of motions in the last three weeks, and Judge Harvey is moving through them quickly. The government's response to her motion asking the Court to overturn her conviction is due by the end of the day today.

Passersby noticing a phalanx of vans and SUVs—part of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation at Portsmouth International Airport—recently staged an impromptu protest outside an airport maintenance gate as officials waited to move the detainees onto the airport tarmac.

As they observed shackled passengers in the five vans, one filled with women, and began taking photos, the officials who had not previously had their faces covered pulled up masks, put on sunglasses, and rolled up the windows. “As the vans started to move through the gates,” a witness recounted, “bystanders began screaming, ‘Shame!’”

The detainees were loaded onto an Eastern Air Express Boeing 737 that had just arrived from Youngstown, Ohio. ICE policy requires detainees to be “fully restrained” by the use of handcuffs, waist chains, and leg irons during all flights. After a stop in Harrisburg, Pa., the flight continued to Alexandria International Airport in Louisiana, which has a 400-bed detention facility on the tarmac and serves as a hub for deportation flights to other countries.

Detainee flights are a regular occurrence at the airport. The recent flights from Portsmouth began in mid-July after the department ended similar operations at Hanscom Field in Bedford, Mass., where the operations faced public protests and drew criticism from local officials.

A pattern has emerged. Three times a week—on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday—a flight operated by Avelo Air, Eastern Air Express, or GlobalX Airlines arrives in the morning, is on the ground for about an hour, and departs for a final destination of Alexandria or Harlingen, Texas.

We know this because we can monitor and track the flights using flight data from ADS-B Exchange, a crowd-sourced platform that collects and displays flight data from volunteer-hosted receivers, which includes the ICE detainee flights that commercial flight tracking vendors are prevented from displaying. (I’m building a public database of ICE flights in and out of Portsmouth; check back for updates.)

Angry residents have pressured local officials to act, but Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern told the Portsmouth Herald that “there’s very little that the city of Portsmouth is going to be able to do” to prevent the flights. “This is a federal air base, under federal laws. We didn’t make this decision," he said.

A recent court case bears him out. In 2019, the county executive issued an executive order that banned the servicing of ICE deportation flights by the fixed base operator at King County International Airport in Washington. Late last year, a federal appeals court ruled the order was invalid because it violated the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, which prohibits states from interfering with the operations of the federal government.

Nevertheless, the spontaneous July 22 protest was followed by a large, organized demonstration last night, led by activist groups from New Hampshire and Massachusetts. More than a hundred people gathered to demand an end to the flights—they’re likely to be back.

Earlier this month, Terese Bastarache, the Christian nationalist leader of We the People NH, shared an anti-immigrant meme on her group’s Facebook page that featured a list of New England facilities it claimed are “housing or suspected of housing illegal immigrants.”

The inflammatory meme was created by the New England National Party (NENP), a nativist group that launched earlier this year and whose mission is to become a regional political party “rooted in nationalist and populist ideals.”

When I browsed through the group’s social media posts, a promotional photo that the group had posted on Twitter caught my eye. With a corner of the group’s business card stuck in a weathered wood post in the foreground, and a lush, soft-focus lake scene in the background, it was remarkably similar to a photo posted two years ago promoting the People’s Initiative of New England (PINE).

‘A Nazi wolf in MAGA clothing’

PINE was launched in April 2023 by the Nationalist Social Club, a New England-based neo-Nazi, white supremacist group also known as NSC-131. In an announcement message posted on Telegram, NSC-131 wrote that PINE would allow the group to broaden its membership and reach “by articulating our worldview in a more traditional political manner.”

Rolling Stone described PINE, which was active for about a year, as “a Nazi wolf in MAGA clothing.” In an online manifesto, PINE called for the creation of a white ethnostate in New England and an end to non-white immigration, but in contrast to NSC-131, it ditched the neo-Nazi rhetoric and imagery, welcomed women to its ranks, and interacted with the public in a less threatening manner.

The man behind the curtain

NENP has a polished website and an active social media presence that includes accounts of members gathering at public rallies, but nowhere does it disclose the names of the individuals behind the group. Instead, it uses generic terms like “staff writer” and “spokesperson” to refer to those who presumably lead the organization.

The single exception is a news article on the website that is authored by Adam Hart, which describes him as “a Connecticut resident, political activist throughout New England, and associate of the New England National Party.” Hart has also represented the group in a Twitter Spaces discussion with CT Coalition 4 US, a Connecticut-based grassroots advocacy group that lists him as the NENP contact on its coalition partners webpage.

A Twitter profile with the display name Adam Hart describes him as a NENP “contributor” and includes a link to the group’s website. And there is evidence suggesting that Hart is an admin on the NENP Facebook page. On April 5, he posted a video on Twitter that he recorded at an Indivisible rally that day in Stamford. Two hours later, the NENP Facebook admin posted the same video and described the action, writing, “I was asked to stop recording by his umbrella holder.”

‘I was called a Nazi’

Two tweets from Hart are particularly intriguing, given the possible PINE connection.

Writing in support of a Maine political candidate, Hart wrote, "Had enough Maine? I’ve stood before your legislature and seen their utter disregard and contempt for you all." In a separate conversation regarding support for transgender children, he wrote, “This sort of thing is state sanctioned in Maine. I was called a Nazi for advocating against it.”

The messages called to mind the 2024 appearance by a PINE representative who testified in a Maine legislative committee hearing. The testimony before the Maine Joint Standing Committee on Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services, first reported by Andy O’Brien, came in opposition to LD 227, legislation that offered protections for gender-affirming health care.

Video from the hearing captures the testimony. The speaker began his speech with an introduction: "My name is Adam, and I am a volunteer for the People's Initiative of New England." The committee had announced his name as Adam Smith. Could Adam Smith be Adam Hart?

Berkshire Raggie

The Adam Hart Twitter account was created on January 11, 2025. His first post, “Well, I’m back,” suggested that he had tweeted previously from a different account. Searching through threads from 2024 by those who regularly traded messages with Hart, I found an account with the handle @BerkeshireRaggie that was referenced in the thread but no longer exists on Twitter.

(Raggie is a slang term used for economically disadvantaged whites, often of old Yankee stock, who live in northwestern Connecticut. The name comes from Mount Riga in Salisbury, also known as "Mt. Raggie.")

I then searched the Internet Archive Wayback Machine for archived messages from the account, which was active from April to December 2024, and discovered that the display name on the account was indeed Adam Smith. A cursory search through the Adam Smith tweets produced dozens of messages with biographical information and other content linking the account to the Adam Hart account. The final tweet on December 10, 2024, was: “See you all next year Twitter people.”

The tweets show that he was developing plans for a national political party months before its 2025 launch. On August 13, 2024, he announced that he intended to leave the Republican Party because it did not share his values. A few hours later, he posted a meme with the words “Come Home” superimposed over a picturesque New England scene—the same theme seen in subsequent NENP memes—with the message, “Plans are being formulated.” In a separate message, he wrote, “A new political party that operates with nationalist principles would not be tinkering, it would be revolutionary.”

Several of the Adam Smith tweets express support for NSC-131. “Nazis are silly,” he wrote in one message, “but definitely not enemies if you’re right wing.” He posted an image of an NSC-131 protest, likely taken from the group’s Telegram page, writing that Mainers should “learn from their example.” In another post, he rejected calling NSC-131 white supremacists, claiming the term white nationalists is more accurate, “since their main interest is in keeping the country a white majority and ideally making it a white super majority once again.”

‘I’m a tradesman’

With more than 6,000 posts in just four months from the Adam Hart account alone, the messages create a detailed breadcrumb trail that offers numerous clues to his identity. He described himself as a 35-year-old pipefitter/gas technician, homeschooled until high school, and now living in northwest Connecticut. He wrote that he is of German descent, with four generations of his family buried in Hartland, Connecticut, including a grandfather who guarded German prisoners of war during World War II.

A comprehensive web search failed to find either an “Adam Smith” or an “Adam Hart” who might match that description, so I broadened my search. I began by using the State of Connecticut license lookup to identify all of the state’s residents named Adam who have a Pipefitter License. After identifying a potential match, I then worked to confirm the personal details included in his description.

The state voter registration lookup confirmed his age and town of residence; a bankruptcy petition confirmed his employment and personal details; an essay written by his father and published in a historical society newsletter confirmed the details of four generations of family history; and his mother’s obituary confirmed that he had been homeschooled.

And then I found his photo on his church’s Facebook page, a photo that matches the image of Adam Smith from the Maine legislative committee hearing. (I’m withholding his last name.)

‘Help anonymously’

With the move to create a nationalist political party with broader appeal, Adam now counsels white nationalists to abandon the neo-Nazi symbols and rhetoric—or at least keep them under wraps.

He recently clashed online with Ryan Murdough, New Hampshire’s most prominent and unapologetic neo-Nazi, after Murdough posted public comments on a fundraising page for Shiloh Hendrix—the Rochester, Minnesota woman accused of using a racial slur against a Black child.

On her fundraising page, Murdough had identified himself as the founder of the New England White Network and invited Hendrix to move to New England to join “a pre existing network of racially aware White families.”

“You don’t understand white people at all do you?” Adam wrote. “Be silent and offer financial support to this woman, and please try not to leave retarded comments on her donation page. It isn’t about you.”

“Wignats are one of the greatest obstacles there are for white people,” Adam added, using a derogatory term for neo-Nazi white nationalists. “You are literally a neo nazi, you can’t help anybody. … Help anonymously, and leave the talking to normal people.”

A Manchester man with a long history of neo-Nazi associations and violent confrontations was one of the men arrested in March for vandalizing the Satanic Temple holiday display outside the State House in Concord last year.

John Camden—once known for his Wolfsangel neck tattoo, a rune symbol heavily associated with Nazi Germany—is the former New Hampshire leader of American Guard, a group the ADL described as hardcore white supremacists. Its founder, Brien James, has been involved with some of the most extreme movements of the last three decades, including the Vinlanders Social Club, labeled “one of America’s most violent skinhead gangs” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Before co-founding American Guard New Hampshire, Camden was a member of Connecticut White Wolves, a self-described white supremacist group, and briefly led a group named Aryan Rebels. Screenshots of his social media posts from that time are filled with neo-Nazi and white supremacist references.

Camden has written that he “was a member of WN NS [white nationalism/National Socialism] for over 20 years.” At the 2018 Boston Free Speech rally, Camden acknowledged his history of white supremacism but told The Boston Globe that he now finds common cause with all political conservatives, regardless of race or sexual orientation.

As leader of the American Guard New Hampshire chapter, Camden regularly provided “security” at New England rallies promoted by far-right Resist Marxism and Super Happy Fun America, the group that organized Boston’s 2019 Straight Pride Parade and has been described as a front group for Resist Marxism.

In this video clip, Camden—wearing an American Guard New Hampshire jacket and a black helmet marked with red spatters—is seen violently shoving a rally-goer during the January 2019 Boston Women’s March (full video/Mike Gamms).

In a video clip from the April 2019 Freedom Rally in Providence, RI, Camden can be seen taunting and threatening counter-protesters with a long wooden stick (full video/David Neiwert). “I will fucking kill you,” he shouts. ”I am John Camden, AG president of New Hampshire.”

By late 2019, Camden had begun covering up his neo-Nazi tattoos—a process he documented in a series of Facebook messages posted under the pseudonym Henry Knox.

Around this time, Camden appears to have moved on from American Guard and joined the New Hampshire Proud Boys Sons of Liberty faction, participating in their rallies and protests. In July 2021, he was seen during a Proud Boys protest outside a school board meeting being held at Nashua High School North.

Camden reached out to We the People NH, the rightwing group led by Christian nationalist Terese Bastarache, in early 2022. In a message he posted on the group’s Telegram channel, Camden introduced himself as a “Right Wing street activist” and wrote, “Hope to make good connections here.”

Within three months, Camden had joined members of the group for an event. “We were happy to attend this event,” he wrote, “and we will be in support of many more!” Later that year, he was spotted at an abortion rights counter-protest in downtown Manchester wearing Proud Boys insignia.

On the morning of April 15, 2023, Camden posted a message on Twitter indicating that he was planning a public protest that day. “Going out to take a stand against child grooming,” he wrote, “Pray for me.” Soon afterwards, a contingent of Proud Boys showed up at Bookery Manchester, an independent bookstore on Elm Street, to protest a Drag Queen Storytime program being held at the bookstore.

Camden’s most recent social media posts, from accounts with names including “sledgehammerdeath4satanists” and “OrthoJihadi,” display images of violent, religious zealotry. Describing himself as an Orthodox Christian in the Moscow Patriarchate (the Russian Orthodox Church), Camden posted a TikTok video in which he wrote, “Do not let evil take root. This is not a request. Destroy the Bolshevik Menace. Fight evil and your ancestors will be so encouraged.”

Followed a months-long investigation into repeated instances of vandalism to the Satanic Temple holiday display outside the New Hampshire State House, Camden and two others were arrested by the Concord Police Department on March 27, 2025. He was charged with criminal mischief, a class B misdemeanor.

The vandalized display featured a statue of a goat-headed Baphomet figure with bright yellow eyes, a bouquet of lilacs in one hand, and an apple in the other. “There was nothing inherently offensive about the display,” New Hampshire state Rep. Ellen Read told Boston.com. “There were accusations that it meant to denigrate Christians, but there was nothing about it that was denigrating Christians,” she said. “We’re standing up for First Amendment principles.”

In the aftermath of the catastrophic train derailment just outside East Palestine, Ohio in early 2023, disaster relief organizations aligned with rightwing causes converged on the area, blaming the Biden administration for abandoning the people of East Palestine. Among them was American Community Outreach Network (ACON), a nonprofit that solicited donations to "help provide safe drinking water and pet supplies" for those impacted by the derailment.

The New Hampshire executive officer (XO) for the American Patriots III% (AP3 or APIII) militia group worked to raise money for ACON. Jim Frederick, a Sullivan County machinist who also served as the APIII East Region commanding officer, reached out to We the People NH, the Christian nationalist group led by activist Terese Bastarache, and posted a message in the group's Telegram chat with a link to the ACON donation page.

We now know ACON was established and managed by APIII and was serving as a front to fund the militia group and enrich its members.

‘I want us all to be fucking rich’

Details of the APIII scheme, first reported by ProPublica, are embedded in the massive dump of chat logs, screenshots, recordings, and videos leaked in an undercover operation by John Williams, a lone wolf operative who infiltrated the group. The leaked data was subsequently published online by Distributed Denial of Secrets.

Read more about APIII NH

In a series of voice messages and videos recorded in July 2022, APIII founder Scot Seddon described his plan for the militia group to become “legit” by setting up a nonprofit to provide disaster relief services, one that would fund the group’s operations and make the members a “shit ton of money.”

"We're giving a 20 percent kickback to everyone,” he said. “Anybody that gets money coming through, donated to us, is going to receive 20 percent off the top. So if you raise ten thousand dollars, you're gonna get two grand and that's gonna go directly to you. That's how it's gonna work.”

“There’s so many good things that are going to be coming out of ACON, and each and every one of us are going to be a part of it,” Seddon told the members. First among them was making lots of money. “I wanna be sitting on a yacht in two years with every one of you — with your yachts parked next to mine,” he said. “I want us all to be fucking rich.”

‘We are a legitimate 501(c)(3)’

American Community Outreach Network was registered as a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation in February 2022 — the first step in obtaining 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status from the IRS — using a mailbox service in Allentown, Pa. for its address. Five months later, in a July 30 voice message, Seddon acknowledged that the group had not yet applied for tax-exempt status with the IRS. “We need some funding to get that done,” he said.

Nevertheless, the next day the group launched an ACON Facebook group and Seddon, Frederick, and others began promoting the ACON website and soliciting donations. The website, which made no mention of a connection to APIII, included a statement in its FAQ asserting that the nonprofit was tax-exempt. "ACON is a 501c3 organization. Donations are tax deductible per the guidelines set by the IRS,” it read.

When Hurricane Ian hit Florida in September, John Valle, then APIII’s third-in-command with the title of National Commander Sgt Major, repeated the claim in messages to the group soliciting donations for the recovery effort. “ACON is our 501(c)(3),” Valle said.

Seddon repeated the claim in a Facebook video, telling members, “We are a legitimate 501(c)(3).”

There is no evidence that American Community Outreach Network ever received 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status from the IRS. The nonprofit does not appear in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search, nor is it listed in nonprofit databases maintained by Guidestar and ProPublica.

Granite State appeals

Between the beginning of August and the end of October, Frederick sent at least five messages to APIII chat groups promoting ACON and soliciting donations. These included the Hurricane Water Drive and Operation Turkey Day campaigns in which donors were automatically registered in a raffle to win 1000 rounds of 9mm ammunition.

Frederick joined the We the People NH Telegram group in January 2023 and posted a message recruiting members to join APIII. When he shared the ACON fundraising link with the group in March 2023, he was building on a relationship dating from at least November 2021. That was when he led a group of militia members to a courthouse rally in Concord to support Bastarache and others who had been arrested at an Executive Council meeting the month before.

New Hampshire state law broadly prohibits fraudulent conduct in commercial transactions, including charitable solicitations; intentional violations are class B felonies. False claims about donation tax benefits, even without direct financial harm to donors, could violate the statute.

The scheme unravels

A fundraising report posted in the APIII chat by Valle in October 2022 disclosed that the nonprofit received just $1735 in donations in its first two months of operation. Reporting by ProPublica revealed the nonprofit raised less than $5000 before the ACON website was shuttered in mid-2023. The ProPublica report also indicated that by early 2024, a rumor was circulating among group members that law enforcement was investigating the nonprofit, and state chapters were abandoning the organization over the failed scheme.

The New Hampshire chapter of American Patriots III% (APIII or AP3) has been exposed as a well-armed and well-trained paramilitary organization that appears to violate the state’s prohibition on armed civilian groups, based on leaked chat messages from the group’s state and national leadership that shed light on its operations, training, and ideology.

The leaked messages, which capture the group leaders’ informal banter from late 2020 through early 2023, are among 200 gigabytes of private chat logs, screenshots, and recordings released in an audacious undercover operation by an unaffiliated operative who infiltrated APIII and rose to command the Utah chapter. The complete dataset has been published online by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a nonprofit whistleblower organization led by Emma Best.

‘Suffused with a military ethos’

APIII was founded in 2009 by Scot Seddon, an army veteran who built the national network of organized paramilitary groups following the election of Barack Obama. It is part of the Three Percenters militia movement, which takes its name from the spurious claim that only three percent of American colonists fought against the British during the American Revolution.

“Like other militias, AP3 has a vague but militant right-wing ideology, a pronounced sense of grievance and a commitment to armed action,” wrote ProPublica’s Joshua Kaplan, who profiled the group last year and recently broke the undercover operation story.

The group, which Kaplan describes as “suffused with a military ethos,” has adopted the structure and terminology of a military organization. Its operations are directed by state and national leaders who often have military or law enforcement backgrounds.

Well-equipped and trained

The bulk of the leaked messages describing the group’s Granite State operations were written by the NH commanding officer (CO), a 61-year-old Grafton County home builder. A combat veteran, he was named to the leadership position in August 2021 and adopted the pseudonym, “Craftsman.”

Additional messages came from the NH executive officer (XO), a 52-year-old Sullivan County machinist known by his handle “Jim Fred,” who has also served as East Region CO and NH CO.

“I have a SOLID team, well equipped and trained. Our numbers are strong and growing….” Craftsman wrote in November 2021. “We have built a ‘compound’ of sorts. We are stocked and supplied for 2-3 months for a good sized group. It is a defensible location, with power, water, etc.”

Required gear for APIII members, according to Jim Fred, includes an AR 5.56 rifle with sling and at least six 30-round magazines; a 9mm pistol with a drop leg holster and at least four magazines; a chest rig or plate carrier; and miscellaneous communications and first-aid gear.

Craftsman suggested that he has stocked up on armor-piercing ammunition. In response to a June 2022 news report that “leftist progressives of color” have begun wearing body armor and tactical gear, he noted, “I have invested almost $6000 for 2000 solutions to this problem, should it arise!”

In another message, he describes training with a firearm modified to fire as rapidly as a fully automatic weapon. “So I found out something amazing today!” he wrote. “850 rounds per minute, 3 60 rds drum mags and a bunch of 5.56 makes for a really BIG smile! Does anyone else have a FRS trigger? This thing is AWESOME!”

The NH CO described the group’s training regimen: “We have high intensity firearms tactics available, cold weather training, vehicle cqb [close-quarters battle], food prep and storage, comms are a work in progress, but coming along,” he wrote. “All team members are fully trained to start IV's, do sutures and airways.”

A video he shared depicts a training exercise in which armed personnel retrieve a wounded comrade under enemy fire. “This was the start of training scenarios. Initial blood sweep, 2 tq's applied and casualty pulled back to better cover. Under stress and fire,” he explained. “Paramedic/respiratory therapist and 2 nurses on our team.… Every member can start IV, blood pressure, air tubes, etc.”

Security and surveillance

Messages from Jim Fred indicate members have attended various right-wing gatherings around the state as a group, including a November 2021 rally at the courthouse in Concord to support a group arrested at an Executive Council meeting and the 2A Freedom Rally held in Concord in April 2022.

The XO has turned to We the People NH — the group led by Christian nationalist activist Terese Bastarache, who was among the group arrested at the Executive Council meeting in 2021 — to recruit new members. “Looking for NH leaders. Join us,” he wrote on the group’s Telegram channel, with a link to the APIII website.

APIII NH members mobilized to provide “security and surveillance” for a local crisis pregnancy center in June 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and large rallies protesting the decision were held around the state. “We're pulling overnight shifts here in NH,” Craftsman wrote. “The manager was amazed and grateful! We will be running 4 hour shifts, 2 man teams Fri and Sat overnight.”

Craftsman described himself as a "behind the scenes guy” in Granite State politics. He called former U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc a “dear friend of mine, and our principles” and wrote, “I financially support local candidates, who I have personally vetted. I'm well known, and respected, by many people in local and state gov. But I have no intention of being on the 6 o'clock news.”

Before the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the New Hampshire group was less covert and more involved in community outreach activities. Nashua resident Dave Lopez, NH CO until he left the group in a dispute with national leadership, forged alliances with law enforcement and organized volunteers for community service activities.

After Hurricane Harvey ravaged Texas and Louisiana in 2017, group members volunteered to help collect supplies for a relief drive sponsored by the Lebanon Police Department. The department publicly acknowledged their efforts in a Facebook post, to which Lopez responded, “Always know that American Patriots III% support our first responders 100%.”

‘Time is short’

APIII members believe they will be called to combat in an existential fight to resist government tyranny and quell civil unrest. “I certainly do NOT want violence. I will exhaust every ethical option to keep that from happening,” Craftsman wrote. “But I REFUSE to continue this submission of rights, and destruction of the country I have sworn to protect!”

“I truly believe time is short,” he wrote in January 2022. “And the reason we all came to this group will be on us shortly. I am committed to getting my house (team) in order and functioning as well as possible.”

“[A]ll the bravado in the world will not prepare you for the absolute horror that will befall your families if this goes hot!” Craftsman warned his recruits. “Those of us who have seen and lived that horror, pray to never see it again. That doesn't mean I'm afraid of it. It means I will become something I hoped to never be again. It would require no mercy, no quarter. It will require acts that true warriors are capable of, but hope and pray to avoid.”

The state prohibition on armed civilian groups

New Hampshire state law prohibits armed civilian groups from assuming “any semblance of military organization or character.” Individuals violating the law are guilty of a misdemeanor; organizations are guilty of a felony. Both are subject to having their firearms and other military weapons confiscated.

In 2021, state Rep. Michael Yakubovich (R-Hooksett) introduced legislation to repeal the state ban, with Reps. Erica Layon (R-Derry), Terry Roy (R-Deerfield), and Tony Lekas (R-Hudson) as co-sponsors. The bill, An act repealing the prohibition on armed civilian groups, was subsequently withdrawn.

Yakubovich believes the ban is unconstitutional, but he explained to reporter Kevin Landrigan that he withdrew the bill in response to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. “With everything happening around the country it turned into this huge new deal,” he said. “Some Second Amendment groups said they did not like it at this time. The title of it sounded very scary to a lot of people.”

The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA)—labeled an anti-government extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League—is the most prominent organization in the constitutional sheriff movement, which claims county sheriffs are the ultimate authority in their county and have the power to prevent enforcement of any law they deem unconstitutional.

Even though the Supreme Court has rejected the legal theory central to the constitutional sheriff movement, the CSPOA, led by former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, advises sheriffs they have the power to resist federal authority on issues ranging from border enforcement and gun control to public health measures and election security.

Strafford County, N.H. sheriff candidate Scott Tingle doesn’t use the “constitutional sheriff” catchphrase on his campaign website or in his public social media messages (and he did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story). Still, his supporters have gotten the message that he embraces the constitutional sheriff ideology.

To bolster his credentials as a constitutional sheriff, they are touting Tingle’s membership in the CSPOA, circulating a photo of a CSPOA membership card that indicates the Rochester resident joined the organization in May 2024—six months after announcing his candidacy.

“[H]aving a constitutional Sheriff is our last line of protection from any out of line federal action to violate our rights. VOTE Scott Tingle for Strafford County NH Sheriff!” Rochester Regional Republican Committee chair Carlton Cooper wrote on the committee’s Instagram page. “He will be a humble, honest, and, most importantly, constitutional Sheriff,” echoed the committee vice-chair in an endorsement displayed on Tingle’s campaign website.

Tingle, a pre-trial case manager with Strafford County Community Corrections and a deputy sheriff with the Strafford County Sheriff’s Office, signaled that he is aligned with the constitutional sheriff movement in a response to Cooper's false claim that Kamala Harris, if elected president, plans to confiscate firearms. Tingle’s reply made it clear he would not comply with such an order: “From my cold dead hands…”

White supremacist origins

The belief that the county sheriff is the nation's highest law enforcement authority, with the power to determine if laws are constitutional and to defy the federal officials who enforce them, originated with white supremacist William Potter Gale in the 1970s.

In The Terrorist Next Door, Daniel Levitas described Gale as a self-styled minister who denounced “race-mixing” as a violation of divine law. Gale believed that a “satanic Jewish conspiracy, disguised as communism, was corrupting public officials and the courts, undermining the sovereignty of America and its divinely inspired Constitution.”

“Gale hoped to lay the groundwork for a violent revolution by creating a paramilitary group known as the Posse Comitatus,” Levitas wrote. After a series of deadly encounters with law enforcement, the movement splintered, though Gale's concept of the sheriff as the nation's highest law enforcement authority lived on and the modern constitutional sheriff movement arose from the ashes.

Constitutional sheriff activity in NH

Granite Staters have had encounters with the constitutional sheriff movement. In 2011, Carroll County Sheriff Christopher Conley, identified as a CSPOA member on the CSPOA website, expressed support for sovereign citizen Charles Gregory Melick and allegedly refused to detain him for a federal warrant. Conley lost his reelection bid the next year.

That same year, Hillsborough County sheriff candidate Frank Szabo promised to serve as a constitutional sheriff and vowed to defend citizens from “rogue federal and state agencies.” He made national headlines when he said that he would consider using deadly force to stop an abortion and subsequently lost his primary challenge.

In 2014, CSPOA founder Sheriff Mack went to Nevada to support Cliven Bundy in his standoff with federal authorities. New Hampshire Tea Party activist (and Rochester resident) Jerry DeLemus was also there. When the standoff ended, DeLemus declared that he was going home to run for "Constitutional Sheriff of Strafford County." His plans were derailed when he was convicted on federal charges for his actions at the Bundy Ranch and sentenced to seven years in prison.

An announcement promoting a “Fascist Meetup” at a Manchester restaurant drew reactions from groups who protested the event and others who supported it. The meetup, billed as a gathering that would “spark thought-provoking conversations and inspire action towards our shared goals,” was scheduled to take place earlier this month at the SoHo Bistro & Lounge.

The invitation featured graphics with a mashup of a German Reichsadler and the rattlesnake from a Gadsden Flag with the caption: “I tread where I fucking please.” It was posted on Meetup.com by “Chloe,” widely believed to be Chloe Sowers, the owner of SoHo Bistro and a Free State Project participant who has previously been identified on social media as a “Holocaust denier and anti-Semite.”

A message posted on Soho’s Facebook page a few days later appeared to address the ensuing controversy and confirm the restaurant’s involvement. “We are comprised of many different faiths and ethnicities and only strive for good vibes. We are sorry for any perceived hostility observers may have felt. … SoHo Bistro & Lounge is more than one individual. … We are actively taking steps to address these concerns internally and externally…”

In response to the meetup post, a Manchester anti-fascist group organized a series of protests outside the SoHo Bistro. The first was held on October 3, the day that the meetup had originally been scheduled to take place. “Until accountability is taken by the owner of SoHo, and SoHo publicly states that n*zis are not welcome,” the organizer wrote on social media, “please join in a peaceful protest of SoHo's now deleted event for a fash meetup.”

Organizers claimed that about 30 people attended the rally—including SoHo staff members who left their posts to join the protest. “The employees stood in solidarity with us as we did with them against the owner. … They walked out and essentially shut it down for the couple hours we were there.” A second protest scheduled for the following week was canceled.

Come on down!

The meetup announcement drew a very different reaction from a local white nationalist group. After seeing the online reports, New England White Network leader Ryan Murdough posted a message of support on Gab. "The New England White Network supports Chloe Sowers and her right to hold ‘fascist meetups’ at her business.” he wrote. “Not only are Fascists welcome in New England, we belong here, and we will go wherever we want. All pro-Whites in New England should visit the Soho Bistro and Lounge and celebrate fascism."

The next day, Murdough emailed the restaurant. “I’m trying to get in touch with Chloe. I saw a thread on Reddit that was targeting her and I wanted to introduce myself,” he wrote. “I know a little bit about being attacked by anti-Whites and liberal scumbags. A few of us would like to come down to your place sometime and grab a bite to eat.”

Murdough said he received a brief reply, which he posted on Gab: “Sure! Come on down!” After receiving that response, Murdough posted a second message. “Members of NEWN plan on setting up a time to visit the establishment in the next few weeks,” he wrote, “and if all goes well, possibly make it an official NEWN meeting location.”

An outspoken Christian nationalist pastor who rejects the separation of church and state and urges like-minded religious leaders to get more involved in politics is bringing his MAGA-inspired message of election denial, COVID conspiracy, and government tyranny to New Hampshire.

Rev. William Cook is the founder and CEO of America’s Black Robe Regiment, which takes its name from stories of Colonial-era clergymen who mobilized their congregations to join the American Revolution. His mission is to develop a national network of local chapters with at least two politically active Christian nationalist pastors in every political jurisdiction in America. Cook claims 700 pastors have joined the organization.

Cook’s first New Hampshire recruit was Stephen Baberadt, the pastor at Living Hope Church of Manchester and a public school music teacher, who now leads the America’s Black Robe Regiment state chapter. Baberadt is organizing a public forum in Concord for Cook to promote America’s Black Robe Regiment to area pastors, civic leaders, and “freedom-fighting Americans.” Revolutionary Pulpits: The Last Hope of a Dying Republic will be held at the Grappone Conference Center on Thursday, October 10 at 7 p.m.

‘We're not playing this game of separation of church and state anymore’

Cook’s version of Christian nationalism—the idea that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that its government should embody that Christian heritage—blends cherry-picked stories of the American Revolution with dominion theology and MAGA-inspired conspiracy theories.

Cook rejects the separation of church and state. On a podcast with Matt Shea, the former Washington state legislator who was found to have planned and participated in domestic terrorism by a House-commissioned investigation, Cook said, “The idea that there's separation of church and state . . . is absurd. It's absurd, it is a fraud, and it is tyranny. It is time that every person, every pastor who loves liberty, who loves religious freedom, stands up and says 'No,' we aren't doing it anymore. We're not playing this game of separation of church and state anymore.”

At an event sponsored by the First Landing 1607 Project, which is dedicated to bringing the nation “back to its original roots,” Cook delivered a dark, conspiratorial message of government tyranny. “Your government has been usurped by imposters, your churches shut down by tyrants asserting authority they do not have, your people have been murdered in hospitals using ventilators and kidney-destroying Remdesivir, and they are still being murdered with Covid shots and boosters.”

The Haymarket, Virginia pastor asserts that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump by the Chinese government. He believes that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was a government-led psyop and signaled the start of a war with the intention of “exterminating American Christendom.”

"There was cheating on a scale that really amounts to an international crime and an act of war, particularly by the Chinese, who were at the forefront of this whole operation and led it,’” he told ReAwaken America Tour organizer Clay Clark. “So anybody that's not calling out election fraud right now, there's probably a pretty good chance if they're a public official that they were in on it."

Cook told an audience in Spokane, Washington that he had received a message from God that “death is about to execute a no-knock warrant” on the FBI agents who were arresting the insurrectionists. "He’s going to invade your domicile—this body—and take you out of it . . . and when God’s finished with you, he will send you to your eternal destination, eternal Hell.”

A growing national presence

VICE reports that Cook’s first attempt at creating a Black Robe Regiment group began in 2012 with the Black Robe Regiment of Virginia. The attempt to organize pastors from his home state never gained much traction, but with the MAGA-fueled rise of Christian nationalism, Cook rebranded the group as America’s Black Robe Regiment and began to attract a following.

It was in December 2020 that Cook first gained national prominence when he donned an Oath Keepers T-shirt and joined a who’s who of rightwing extremists—including former Gen Michael Flynn, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes—to address the Jericho March prayer rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Speaking to the crowd that had gathered to support Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election, Cook said, “Today, pastors are dutifully complying with mask-wearing mandates [and] shutting their doors. . . . Why are we complying with tyranny?“

Cook subsequently joined the ReAwaken America Tour, a series of extreme right, Christian nationalist rallies launched in 2021 by Flynn and Clark that promoted a smorgasbord of conspiracy theories, COVID misinformation, election denial, QAnon, and end-of-time prophecies.

In July 2022, Cook hosted a conference to recruit new members that was held in conjunction with a ReAwaken America Tour rally in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Cook claims 150 pastors signed the group’s Gideon 300 Pledge at the end of the session and joined America’s Black Robe Regiment. New Hampshire’s Stephen Baberadt was among that group and was on stage the next day as Flynn “commissioned” the new members.

Baberadt also joined Cook on the stage when the ReAwaken America Tour made a stop in Manheim, Pennsylvania (where Cook mistakenly introduced him as “Ken Baberadt”). “I want to challenge all of the pastors to rise up, to rise up,’ Baberadt told the audience. “And if there’s anybody here that’s from New Hampshire, and you know a pastor that’s preaching what’s being up here, tell them to get in touch with me because I’m looking for them.”

Recruiting Granite State pastors

Baberadt has been meeting with far-right organizations around the state to promote America’s Black Robe Regiment. Last year, he hosted an event at his church for the Constitution Party of New Hampshire, which has nominated anti-abortion activist Randall Terry to be its presidential candidate.

In his talk, Baberadt referenced the Seven Mountain Mandate, a dominionist doctrine that calls on Christians to dominate and transform seven spheres of societal influence: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government. “We're called to shine our light on the seven mountains of influence. . . .” Baberadt said. “If we don't shine our light, darkness will rule.”

Baberadt told the state leaders of America’s Black Robe Regiment that he had spoken outside the State House in Concord on six occasions. In one of those talks, an event hosted by the Christian nationalist-led We The People NH, Baberadt implored pastors to enter the political arena. “Things are happening, trust me they are happening, and there will be a great awakening and a great shakening. . . .” he said. “I'm here to tell you that we need to take back America. Truth and justice are gospel issues, and pastors must rise up and lead.”

A three-year hunt for the insurrectionist dubbed “KnifeLeather” by amateur sleuths ended in New Hampshire. Charles Anthony Espinosa, a 43-year-old Derry resident, was arrested at his home early on the morning of March 26. He now faces up to ten years in prison for his alleged involvement in the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

In court documents, the FBI acknowledged the role that online “sedition hunters” played in amassing the evidence that led to Espinosa’s arrest. “The hashtag identifier ‘#KnifeLeather’ was associated with Espinosa in open source research. ... These posts contained multiple images of Espinosa outside and inside the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021,” an FBI Special Agent wrote.

The FBI highlighted crowd-sourced social media posts that included photographs of Espinosa “with what appeared to be a large knife concealed in the rear waistband of his pants, underneath his black leather jacket” that placed Espinosa under the scaffolding on the west front of the Capitol, “within the restricted area, while in possession of a large knife.”

Court documents also revealed that “a substantial amount of the social media depicting Espinosa on January 6, 2021” was uploaded by Instagram user "Charlie_alpha_echo." The FBI noted the username corresponds to the phonetic alphabet spelling of Espinosa's initials; they linked the account to Espinosa through his phone number and email address, which he used to register the account.

One of the Instagram videos tagging Espinosa showed him on the steps of the Capitol speaking to the January 6 crowd through a megaphone held by “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley. In the video, Espinosa can be heard telling the crowd, “I think it will be a very fucking good idea if we come back on Inauguration Day and do it again… I think this should be happening in every single major city in the country.”

Using third-party video and Capitol Police surveillance footage, the FBI tracked Espinosa entering the Capitol grounds by stepping over a downed fence, using a bike rack to climb up a wall of the Capitol building with the help of other rioters, entering the Capitol building through the Senate Wing door on the west front, walking through the North Crypt sector to the Rotunda, and then, approximately 45 minutes after he entered the Capitol, exiting through the east front.

Espinosa was charged with entering a restricted building or grounds; impeding or disrupting the orderly conduct of government business; engaging in disorderly conduct on the Capitol grounds with the intent to disrupt Congress; and parading, demonstrating, or picketing on Capitol grounds. He faces up to 10 years in prison for the most serious count, 18 U.S.C. § 1752(b)(1)(A), which carries an enhanced penalty if the violator “uses or carries a deadly or dangerous weapon” during the commission of the crime.

From the Keystone State to the Granite State

Espinosa appears to have been living in the Philadelphia area at the time of the Capitol attack, working as an emergency medical technician (EMT) with stints as a musician and an actor. He was issued an EMT license in Philadelphia from the Pennsylvania Department of Health in 2020 and has shared photos on social media wearing a uniform from Philadelphia-based Healthfleet Ambulance. Court documents reveal that Espinosa requested paid time off from his former employer for January 6-7, 2021, writing “Stop the steal!” in the leave request comments section.

Espinosa’s social media posts suggest that he had moved to New Hampshire by the summer of 2022 and wound up in Derry. He received a New Hampshire EMS license in January 2023 and was tagged on social media as a co-worker by employees at Parkland Medical Center in Derry. The state’s Emergency Services User Management Portal indicates Espinosa’s New Hampshire EMT license expired in April 2024, a few weeks after his arrest.

Though Espinosa’s Instagram account is no longer active and there is a gap in his Facebook timeline from October 2019 to July 2022, a number of his January 6 related social media posts remain online.

Espinosa frequently posted messages to a Facebook page for supporters of heavy metal musician Jon Schaffer, who was arrested after he was photographed entering the Capitol on January 6 armed with bear spray. After the Iced Earth guitarist pleaded guilty to two felonies, Espinosa wrote, "He shouldn't be sentenced at all! The feds got him on bullshit charges. Once it blows over, he’s going to blow shit up again."

After moving to New Hampshire, Espinosa appears to have created a Twitter account with a username that matches his Instagram account. Posts reference his age, his Cuban roots, and his time in Philadelphia. In his messages, Espinosa rails against communism, continues to deny that Trump lost the 2020 election, and defends the January 6 attack on the Capitol. “It was NOT and was never an insurrection,” he wrote. “The evidence was ALWAYS there that [Biden did not win]. ‘What is anyone going to do about it?’ is the real question.”

Following my story last week linking white supremacist messages from an anonymous social media account to the executive director for Pathways Pregnancy Care Center in Littleton, the organization issued a statement attacking my motives and credibility, even as they acknowledged that they “recognize several similarities that would lead someone like Mr. Tucker … to believe it is one and the same person.”

In response, I offer this detailed account of my interactions with Pathways Executive Director Samuel Mealey and related activity by a white supremacist using the name ConcernedFrogNH on Gab, a social media platform widely described as a haven for racists, antisemites, and neo-Nazis. This timeline raises serious questions about Mealey’s actions and the organization’s response.

The Pathways statement, printed in full in the Caledonian Record, began by acknowledging that I contacted Mealey for comment before I published the story and he declined, adding that he was “unaware that Mr. Tucker intended to share his beliefs in an article…” (Pro tip: when a reporter contacts you seeking comment for a story, don’t be surprised when a story follows.)

That email exchange took place on Monday afternoon, June 17, and, as I wrote in the story, he volunteered that he rejects the use of the term “hate speech” (a phrase I did not use in my message to him) and believes it is protected by the First Amendment.

Despite saying that he had no comment, Mealey went on to deny possessing a Gab account “associated” with his name — a classic non-denial denial. He also added this detail: “I am aware that [Gab] has a large presence of NH residents, many of whom are conservatives … and so I am not surprised that Pathways was recommended on said site.”

Mealey appeared to be referencing the May 12 Gab message in which ConcernedFrogNH recommended the Littleton pregnancy care center, saying its executive director “is very pro-white, but keeps it mostly on the down-low.” Here’s the thing. In my email to Mealey, I did not provide the name of the ConcernedFrogNH user, nor did I offer specific details about the content posted by the user.

Later that afternoon, I discovered that the May 12 message referencing the pregnancy center had disappeared from Gab, along with two messages I subsequently included in my story that identified ConcernedFrogNH as a 26-year-old. In fact, snapshots I took of the account before and after my email to Mealey indicate that 15 ConcernedFrogNH messages (“Gabs”) were deleted that afternoon.

Mealey requested that I not contact him again, and we had no further contact until after I published the story on Thursday morning. As the Pathways statement noted, Mealey emailed me after the story was live. In that message, which I received late Thursday afternoon, Mealey complained that the article was based on “more-than-flimsy evidence” (I can only assume he meant “less-than-flimsy evidence”) and demanded that I delete it, but he pointedly did not deny that he was the owner of the account, nor did he offer the claim, which he made the next day, that he had identified and spoken with ConcernedFrogNH.

At about that same time, the ConcernedFrogNH account was locked down and public access was restricted; approximately 38 more ConcernedFrogNH messages were deleted; and the public profile was sanitized. “Devout Calvinist Christian White man and National Socialist” became “Devout Calvinist Christian man,” and language describing the user as a public school teacher and self-sustaining farmer was removed.

I responded to Mealey’s message early Friday morning, offering him another chance to comment for the story, which I agreed to update, and to identify any errors, which I would work to correct.

Mealey responded with another demand to delete the story, complaining that I was “making claims with no merit,” but he still did not explicitly deny that he was the owner of the ConcernedFrogNH account, nor did he offer the claim that he had identified and spoken with ConcernedFrogNH.

Mealey also accused me of acting in bad faith, making the unfounded claim that my story was in response to his campaign for state representative — which he curiously called “an election I have no intention of winning, only placing my name in as a favor to Matthew Simon.” For the record, I began working on this story well before the first day of the state election filing period, and I only learned of his bid for state representative after publishing the story.

The unsigned statement from Pathways was released later that day. I was not notified and did not receive a copy. I did receive another email from Mealey that afternoon notifying me that he “was able to communicate with the account holder and he/she kindly removed anything that may have led to confusion as to a shared identity between us.”

The Pathways statement noted Mealey spoke with the account owner after “looking over the content of the Gab.com account in question” and implies this review took place after the story was published, though it does not say how he identified the account owner, how they communicated, or when this conversation took place.

The Pathways statement noted that Mealey asked ConcernedFrogNH to “take down the content that appeared to identify them with Mr. Mealey.” Snapshots of the account I took before my initial contact with Mealey and after publishing the story indicate that at least 53 posts and comments were deleted from the account in two separate instances. That’s a lot of messages that “may have led to confusion as to a shared identity” between Mealey and the ConcernedFrogNH account owner.

Let’s review a few of the deleted messages. Many of them contained personal vignettes, including two posts in which ConcernedFrogNH discussed his mom cutting his hair (“She’s done it for me, my brother, and my dad and still offers to [to] this day”); a story about a bear that killed 10 of his chickens earlier this month (“we were shocked to learn the bear had actually turned the knob on the coop and jumped right in.”); and one in which he confessed that he had not been studying his Greek but was still able to “mangle his way through” a translation.

In other deleted messages, ConcernedFrogNH ridiculed a woman’s health concerns during the pandemic (“I vividly remember watching this absolutely terrified woman basically vacuum seal herself to the shelf behind her as I walked past her in a supermarket”); announced his Irish, Scottish, and French roots (“I’ve got it all!”); and discussed his use of copper rods in planting beds (“Tried it last year for the first time, with mixed results”).

Some of the deleted messages highlighted ConcernedFrogNH’s hate and extremism, including his antisemitism (“People need to move on from accepting that the Jews are behind these things and start talking about how they’re going to respond.”), his racism (“I want a White ethnostate that recognizes the importance of maintaining that exclusionary rule and fights to keep their racial identity.”), and his admiration for Adolf Hitler (“I’ve finally reached the point where I am looking into reading Mein Kampf to really search things out for myself.”).

When the account was unlocked on Friday afternoon, ConcernedFrogNH had posted a casual message suggesting he didn’t know Mealey (despite having praised him back in May): “Someone reached out to me and said I was being mistaken for some guy running for office in my state.” The Pathways statement returned the favor, benignly referring to the owner of the account that spews hateful rhetoric as “understanding of the situation, and a supporter of our efforts at Pathways.”

Mealey denies that he is the white supremacist behind ConcernedFrogNH. The timeline established by his responses, the Pathways statement, and electronic evidence raises serious questions about his actions and his explanation that remain unanswered. Pathways Pregnancy Care Center is a nonprofit that receives public funding from area towns. The community deserves a full and transparent review and a thoughtful response by the board of directors who manage the organization.

An anonymous social media account spreading white supremacist and antisemitic messages, on a platform popular with white nationalists and neo-Nazis, is linked to the executive director of a prominent New Hampshire anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center.

Posting on Gab under the pseudonym ConcernedFrogNH, the author describes himself as a "White defender," a National Socialist, and a "Noticer" (a term used by antisemitic conspiracy theorists) and regularly amplifies neo-Nazi messages and antisemitic tropes.

ConcernedFrogNh messages celebrate slavery ("If it wasn't for certain groups crying about it everytime we try to help these people act like they should, I'd think we could pretty easily whip them back into shape…) and display a casual racism ("They honestly give me the creeps…").

ConcernedFrogNH calls himself a Calvinist Christian but his white supremacist, antisemitic, "God is racist" views more closely align with Christian Identity theology, which asserts that white people are descendants of the ancient Israelites and are therefore God's "chosen people."

ConcernedFrogNH recently promoted a crisis pregnancy center in Littleton, NH, and praised its "very pro-white" leader. Our review of his 300+ Gab posts points to Samuel Mealey, executive director of Pathways Pregnancy Care Center in Littleton, as both author and subject of the post.

Mealey declined to comment for this story — “I don't speak to reporters that believe hate speech exists and attempt to separate it from free speech as protected by the First Amendment” — but shortly after we contacted him, ConcernedFrogNH’s May 12 post disappeared from Gab.

ConcernedFrogNH left a trail of digital breadcrumbs that led us to Mealey. For starters, ConcernedFrogNH wrote that he was diagnosed with diabetes 14 years ago at the age of 12, making him 26 years old today. Voter registration data indicates Mealey is 26 years old.

ConcernedFrogNH describes himself as a former public school teacher. According to the NH DOE Educator Search page, Mealey holds a New Hampshire Beginning Educator License and taught the 4th grade in Haverhill, NH during the 2022-23 school year.

ConcernedFrogNH posted a message stating that he lives in a northern New Hampshire town "of less than 700 people." The 2022 Census estimate for Mealey's hometown of Sugar Hill, where he lives with his parents, was 668 residents.

ConcernedFrogNH wrote that he has lived in the town for 15 years "on the property right beside the [two-acre] field lot" he farms. Property records indicate Mealey's mother purchased the Sugar Hill family home, which sits on a 3.05-acre lot, in 2007.

On March 16, ConcernedFrogNH wrote: "This weeks town meeting showed me just how far gone 80% of [the town's residents] are." Earlier that week, Mealey lost his bid for town selectman at the Sugar Hill town meeting when 82% of the voters cast ballots for his opponent.

Finally, Mealey shared a Facebook message denouncing conservatives who say Christians should avoid the phrase "Christ is King," and the next day ConcernedFrogNH referenced his Facebook message when commenting on a Gab post about "‘right wingers’ who have a problem with 'Christ is King.'"

Pathways Pregnancy Care Center, which Mealey leads, is an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center that presents itself as an unbiased reproductive health care provider but is, in fact, a Christian ministry that works to dissuade people from accessing abortion care.

Pathways receives public funding from area towns, but earlier this year Littleton voters rejected a $3200 funding proposal. Mealey blamed the action on "a select few" who "disagree with our religious beliefs" and vowed the “options counseling” would continue.

Mealey is not an aberration. Reproductive rights advocates say the "anti-abortion movement is very much a white supremacy movement" and have called crisis pregnancy centers “a key component in white supremacist efforts to obstruct abortion access."

As Guardian columnist Moira Donegan notes, "The white supremacist and anti-choice movements have always been closely linked. But more and more, they are becoming difficult to tell apart."

An unapologetic white nationalist has announced he is launching a Republican bid for a seat in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. “I refuse to sit back and watch the state I love turn into a 3rd world dumping ground while traitors and Anti-Whites try and silence anyone who opposes it,” wrote Ryan Murdough, a 38-year-old Holocaust denier who has been active in white nationalist causes for over a decade. “I will always stand up for the interests of White people in New Hampshire and I will never apologize and never back down.”

In a series of social media posts, the New Hampton resident signaled he will seek the Republican nomination in Belknap District 1, a single-seat district currently held by Republican Rep. Harry Viens, a one-term legislator from Center Harbor. “I am sick and tired of watching New Hampshire be invaded by ‘Diversity ’ while our so called leaders cuck out and do nothing but cower in fear of being called 'racist,’ ” Murdough wrote.

Despite omitting the vicious ethnic slurs and racial epithets that routinely fill his social media posts, Murdough’s announcement was subsequently removed by Facebook for violating the platform’s community standards on hate speech. “My original post has been censored by the Jews who run Facebook,” he complained.

If Murdough follows through and files a Declaration of Candidacy next year, it will be his second run for public office. In 2010, the Republican state party disavowed his candidacy for the state House after the Concord Monitor published a letter to the editor in which Murdough promoted his candidacy and called on “white people in New Hampshire and across the country to take a stand” and establish “our own homeland.”

“Mr. Murdough is a despicable racist,“ then-party spokesman Ryan Williams responded. “His racist views are abhorrent and he is not welcome in the New Hampshire Republican Party.” Murdough ultimately received 296 votes in the GOP primary but finished last among the five Republican candidates and failed to advance to the general election.

‘Anti-Whites in New Hampshire’

In his campaign announcement, Murdough identified himself as the founder and president of NH Nationalists, an unincorporated group without any other publicly-identified members; though Murdough claims he has established chapters in several New Hampshire counties. Over time, Murdough has both taken credit for and disassociated himself from the group.

Last year, NH Nationalists gained notoriety with a webpage titled “Anti-Whites in New Hampshire” that featured a list of prominent Granite Staters and their contact information. The list came in response to a well-publicized gathering of business executives, nonprofit leaders and government officials who explored how the state can attract a more diverse workforce. The Union Leader reported that at least a half-dozen of the diversity forum attendees subsequently received threatening phone calls and emails.

Murdough’s link to NH Nationalists was first reported by Miscellany Blue, a story that earned us a spot on the “Anti-Whites in New Hampshire” list. Soon afterward, Murdough acknowledged that the webpage prompted a call from the FBI, writing on social media that they were “concerned about the safety of the people on the list due to the information that is listed on it. In particular, the contact info for the State Representatives was supposedly most concerning to them.”

A couple of months later, Google shuttered the NH Nationalists website, which had been hosted on its Blogger platform. Murdough then launched a new “Anti-Whites in New Hampshire” webpage, along with a racist and anti-Semitic blog, on his eponymous website. Recently, that site was also shut down, this time by WordPress.com, for violating their terms of service.

‘The Swastika is the solution’

For the upcoming campaign, Murdough says he will not agree to any interviews with “anti-White” media outlets. “I will use Gab to communicate as it is possibly the last bastion of free speech online,” he wrote. If Murdough’s social media posts presage his campaign, it will be a toxic stew of racist, anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi rhetoric.

On Gab, Murdough responded to the recent mass shooting in New Zealand with an open letter to the state’s mosques and synagogues: “We condemn the shooting in New Zealand but to be honest we really don’t care about dead Muslims. We care about our own people and we are sick of your third world culture ruining our nations.”

“We do not support violence toward anyone but we are sick of Jews promoting third world invasions into every White nation,” he continued. “We are tired of our women being raped and murdered at the hands or your pet Africans and being demonized for opposing the savagery. As far as we are concerned the blood is on your hands.”

Murdough embraces Nazi ideals and denies the horrors of the Holocaust. “In my opinion, the most important truth we need to tell is the truth about Hitler and expose the Jewish lies regarding the Holohoax,” one Gab post read. “It’s impossible to read Mein Kampf and not realize he was right and has been lied about for 70+ years,” added another.

“The reality is that the Swastika is the solution,” Murdough wrote on Stormfront. “Putting Jews and anti Whites in camps IS the solution. Our enemies want us to run away from the Swastika but we should be running to it.”