Operation HYPO After Action Report: Infiltrating Violent Protest Organizations

Oath Keepers – by Navy Jack

As many of you know, Oath Keepers initiated Operation HYPO in response to the increasingly violent protests that broke out across the country following the election. We had some members already in a position to quickly infiltrate the protest organizations that were active in support of Operation Sabot. I myself assumed an identity of an individual from another state with all of the necessary elements to ensure success of my assigned responsibilities. Working during the day, I would travel by night to meetings and protests in various cities. Most weekends were consumed with assimilating reports from other operatives, grooming equipment and planning our activities. Our entire team had immense support from Oath Keepers senior leadership.  

In my case, it took quite a while to become accepted into the groups that I was responsible for observing. I think a lot of this was because I am a little bit older than our other operatives. I dyed my hair and bought clothing appropriate for the assignment. By actually participating in a large number of protest activities, I was eventually “recruited” into a series of organizations with increasing levels of responsibility. It took a month of steady involvement before any of the really hard-core group leaders would even talk to me. My military and post-active duty DoD experience was extremely valuable. I learned to behave as they behave and to “trigger” on appropriate issues. I also learned that the brain-washing that moves people into these organizations is mostly external to the organizations themselves. The people joining are brain-washed by numerous sources before they even participate in their first protest or direct action. The MSM, our colleges and universities, social media and leftist alternative news organizations are the primary sources of the initial brain-washing that is taking place. The radicalization process is unique to each person, but generally follows a pattern of being very rapid for those with little or no responsibilities in their daily life to long and laborious for those with a real life outside of the movement. Young, under-employed single white males are the vanguard of these movements.

In order to gain trust, we found that the best thing to do was to be aloof and skeptical with regard to the plans and activities of the groups and to be independent and outspoken when plans were being discussed in our presence. Most of the details associated with “direct actions” were not discussed with anyone other than the group of individuals assigned to carry out the specific task. In the groups that I was assigned to penetrate, there were plenty of blowhards thumping their chest about something they had done that demonstrated their skill and ability to participate or lead. Most of this was hyperbole, but the newer members would eat it up like young soldiers listening to the inflated heroics of a platoon member that had only been with the unit a month longer than them.  We all know the type.

While most of our operatives started and stayed with one specific group, I was unable to initially penetrate the group I was responsible for infiltrating. I had to work my way up the ladder, moving from one group to another in order to achieve my objective. In my migration from group to group, I found that political ideology was a significant factor in the determination of what types of activities the groups would sponsor; ranging from sit-ins to marches to direct action. I can broadly classify these ideologies as liberal socialists, communists and anarchists.

The liberal socialists are primarily coming out of our higher education system. They are comprised of professors, students and under-employed graduates. They are primarily white with a roughly equal split between male/female. They are not militant. They are willing to conduct blockades, marches and sit-ins.

The communists are a much broader spectrum of society with a strong leaning towards immigration issues. The communists actively recruit from a wide pool of candidates, including liberal socialists, the LBGT community, the environmental activists and the anti-white racist groups (Black Lives Matter, La Raza, Islamic Fundamentalists, etc.). They have a significant number of minorities in their ranks and they are militant in their operations and planning. The communists encourage independent action of their members to assimilate members from groups like Black Lives Matter, La Raza and other less militant organizations like ANSWER Coalition. They have no ethical boundaries. To communists, the ends always justify the means. They will do everything that the liberal socialist do in order to protest an issue and always take it one step further. They are not inclined to conduct direct actions.

The anarchists are by far the most dangerous of these groups. They are organized like militias. They actively train and practice their operations. They have discipline and zero tolerance for weakness. They have a number of former military personnel providing expertise to enhance security, logistics and martial arts capabilities. The majority are physical fit, military age males. They are primarily white with few minority members. Their leadership tends to be either former military, a proven leader from the occupy movement or a highly educated alpha-male. They are far more capable than their recent activities would demonstrate. They have formed community defense organizations and are idolized for their willingness to take action from the other groups discussed above. They are however anarchists that despise communism as much as they despise capitalism. They see patriots and constitutionalists as their primary enemy. To them, everyone is a NAZI or a fascist unless they are an anarchist. There is no debate allowed on these issues, ever. They operate under various names, but the vast majority identify with the anti-fascist movement. With the election of President Trump, their membership has increased exponentially. There are at least 50,000 nationwide. They have been able to assimilate much of the “occupy” and “black-bloc” movements. Most of what these organizations accomplish are classified as direct actions. They will participate in a protest or a march, but they are not big fans of passive resistance.

For those of you that are not familiar with the term “direct action”, these are very precise coordinated operations conducted by small groups (4-6 members) that have very specific unit and overall goals. The planned smoke bombing of an Inauguration Ball is a good example of a direct action. Our team foiled this operation. We informed the DC Police Department, the National Press Club and the Inauguration Ball security team leaders of these plans on January 9th, 2017. Direct targeting of individuals and businesses are common direct action activities for the Anti-Fascists. Destruction of property (burning your car, damaging your house, busting the windows out where you work, etc.) are standard direct actions against targeted individuals of these groups. Ask James O’Keefe from Project Veritas or Milo Yiannopoulos from Breitbart News.  They are both now having to deal with this.  The following video was recorded at Portland International Airport last night. The PDX Black-bloc initiated “direct action” to assault individuals who they believed were supporters of the President. You can watch a longer version of this event, now being characterized as a riot, here.

This type of activity is exactly why Oath Keepers deployed security teams to Washington DC during the Inauguration, to protect people from such brutal assaults.

There were dozens of organizations trying to penetrate these groups immediately following the election. Groups like Capital Research, various law enforcement agencies and Federal contractors were all involved. All were busted or turned away at some point, especially if they attempted to penetrate the larger anti-fascist organizations in Washington, DC, New York City and Philadelphia. Oath Keepers personnel to date have never been busted. We did coordinate some activities and evidence with the leadership from Project Veritas, who as you may know was able to produce additional video evidence that led to arrest warrants being issued for the conspirators of the Inaugural Ball smoke bomb plot.

To put this into perspective, if you were caught trying to film a liberal socialist meeting, you would be encouraged to join their movement repeatedly before being asked to leave. If you got caught trying to film a planning meeting of the Revolutionary Communist Party or one of the other militant communist groups, you would be roughed up on your way out the door and there is a good chance you would lose your recording equipment. If you got caught trying to film one of the larger anti-fascist organization meetings, you would see a security protocol employed that would cause the meeting to come to a quick end. You would then be asked to turn over your recording equipment, be blacklisted and scheduled for direct action.

Of the major police departments we have worked with, Cleveland, Philadelphia and New York City were by far the most responsive. These departments appreciated the information we provided and took affirmative action to prevent property damage and violence. The Police Departments in cities including Portland, Seattle, San Diego, Chicago and Cincinnati were receptive to our reports but faced political pressure that may have undermined the overall effectiveness of our efforts. The police departments of Baltimore and Washington DC were severe disappointments. In every case except for one where we reported plans that could result in damage or injury, these departments took no preemptive or preparatory actions.

The following video provides a good example of our inability to motivate the Washington DC Police Department. It is 5 minutes of a four hour DisruptJ20 meeting that we recorded and provided to the Washington DC Police Department 9 days before the actual events unfolded. We have replaced the original video with actual scenes of the real events unfolding:

We have received extremely positive correspondence from the Philadelphia Police Department and the thanks of at least one Federal law enforcement agency for our efforts. I may be able to share redacted versions of these letters in the coming weeks once our operative rotation is completed.

As of today, our operatives are still engaged with four of the largest anti-fascist/anarchist organizations. It is almost as difficult and dangerous to pull our people out of these groups as it was to get them in. Recent arrests in Philadelphia, Washington DC and other locations have caused the groups that we are still involved with to become paranoid, so we are using the prominence of our remaining operatives over the next several weeks to bring in replacements.

We have already started a new operation code-named “Operation Aussetzen” to expand our coverage of the more dangerous organizations. We won’t be publicizing much on this new operation until at least early spring. The goals of the new operation will take into consideration the lessons learned from working with the various law enforcement agencies and should be even more productive in generating arrests and shining daylight on these terrorist organizations.

Most of the video we have recorded to date will never be made public to protect the identities of our operatives. All of our materials with incriminating evidence have already been provided to law enforcement. Our future operations will be conducted using newly devised methods that should allow for more of our video evidence to be released to the media. I really can’t say much more about these new methods for now, but I am highly optimistic. Oath Keepers has a large number of former undercover police officers that have provided their expertise to improve our methods of collecting evidence. I have personally reached out to the Oath Keepers that provided our team with guidance and support to thank them for their contribution to our success.

Update 01/31/2017 – We are working to confirm specifics, but it does appear that several of the defendants charged with felony rioting during the Presidential Inauguration are now cooperating with prosecutors. Their assistance identifying additional individuals that were responsible for the injury of police officers and damage to buildings could warrant a reduction in charges. We will update this article when more information becomes available.

https://www.oathkeepers.org/navyjack-operation-hypo-action-report/