Right wing groups recruit military and law enforcement members

Based on investigations between 2016 and 2020, agents and analysts with the FBI's division in San Antonio concluded that white supremacists and other right-wing extremists would "very likely seek affiliation with military and law enforcement entities in furtherance of" their ideologies, according to a confidential intelligence assessment issued late last month, reported ABC News.

The document, obtained by ABC News, was distributed to law enforcement agencies both in Texas and elsewhere in the country. It focuses on extremists inspired by the white-supremacist publication "Siege," which served as motivation for the neo-Nazi group known as "Atomwaffen Division," among others. The report is titled "Siege-Inspired Actors Very Likely Seek Military and Law Enforcement Affiliation, Increasing Risk of Tradecraft Proliferation and Color of Law Offenses in the FBI San Antonio Area of Responsibility."

Conclusions in the assessment were based on information from records and informants, some of whom had "excellent access," the FBI authors wrote in the Feb. 25 document.

"In the long term, FBI San Antonio assesses [racially motivated violent extremists] successfully entering military and law enforcement careers almost certainly will gain access to non-public tradecraft and information, enabling them to enhance operational security and develop new tactics in and beyond the FBI San Antonio" region, the document said.

FBI spokesperson Katherine Gulotta said that "FBI field offices routinely share information with their local law enforcement partners to assist in protecting the communities they serve." She did not specifically address the content of the report.

Critics say the document once again shows the nation's top law enforcement agency has been slow to deal with the problem of white-supremacist infiltration of police and the military, even as FBI agents watched evidence mounting.

"When we asked the FBI last year to testify about white supremacists executing plans to infiltrate law enforcement entities across America, the bureau refused and told us it had no evidence that racist infiltration was a problem," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said in a statement. "Now, the January insurrection -- and the growing evidence of off-duty law enforcement officers being involved in the attack on Congress -- and this newly leaked report confirm in my mind that the FBI's failure to level with the American people about organized racist infiltration of law enforcement is having dangerous and deadly consequences."

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