In September 2008, members of a Wayward, Fla., chapter of the Ku Klux Klan concocted an elaborate scheme to assassinate Barack Obama days before he was elected president.
They planned every detail, identifying the day, time and location of the strike; obsession over senatorial motorcade lines; provision of 50 caliber rifles for the work; and organizing the destruction of the assassins’ vehicles afterwards.
There was only one scenario they hadn’t considered: that the elaborate plan would be undone by one of their own.
Joe Moore had been initiated into the so-called Invisible Empire the year before, impressing fellow Klansmen with a decorated military history and expert craftsmanship. Of course, the honorably discharged Army vet was tapped to pull the trigger that would take Obama out. Little did his “brothers” know that he had infiltrated America’s oldest hate group as a counter-terrorism informant.
“I had to follow [my orders] and do whatever is necessary to prevent the assassination of Barack Obama,” Moore writes in his new memoir, “White Robes and Broken Badges” (Harper, forthcoming). “Because I was the only one who could.”
Driven by a fervent patriotism and deep contempt for bullies, Moore conducted the FBI’s first undercover operation targeting the KKK. He took part in cross burnings, witnessed brutal acts of violence and took part in terrifying rituals – all while carrying a recording device.
Moore identified several police and government officials who had pledged allegiance to bigotry. And by feeding him misinformation about his Klan relatives, he potentially saved the life of the man who would become America’s first black president.
The Jacksonville resident describes in stark detail his years of rubbing shoulders with devout racists. A Klan member showed him bunkers loaded with firearms and tactical equipment. Another paid a visit to a backyard incinerator that he called “my personal creatorium.”
However, living a double life made it possible. Moore would use acting practice methods to get into character, such as listening to a downbeat cover of Guns N Roses’ “Ain’t It Fun” and wearing a distinctive hat embroidered with the American flag. He still had trouble keeping his realities distinct.
“The deeper I got into the Klan, the more of a challenge it became to leave all that at the door when I went home to my wife and son,” writes Moore, who turned to the breathing techniques he used while armed. forces to self-regulate. “All I could imagine was members kicking in the door to come get me after learning my true purpose.”
That paranoia didn’t stop Moore from launching a second espionage campaign in 2013, this time infiltrating a hooded and cloaked collective based 100 miles away in Bronson, Fla. His first round had ended four years earlier, after he withdrew prematurely due to the risk of exposure.
It turns out, Obama’s rise to prominence — and the political backlash following the 2014 police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. – greatly increased interest and enrollment in the KKK and other white supremacist groups.
But it all came crashing down after Moore implicated four prominent members in a plot to kill a black man named Warren Williams for a personal grudge.
However, no good deed goes unpunished. After a dramatic, guns-drawn, SWAT takedown of the perpetrators in 2015 outside a home depot in Alachua, Fla., Moore and his family were forced to take on new lives and abandon their old identities.
“I would lie awake at night thinking that my payback for the most successful Ku Klux Klan infiltration in the history of the FBI was losing my house, almost all my possessions, my friends, and by all accounts, my my future,” Moore recalls.
Justice was finally served in 2017, when all four accused Klan members received prison sentences. The decision sent shockwaves through the many KKK chapters, prompting fears among members that similar moles were in place across the country. As a result, Klan numbers declined, with many former members aligning themselves with right-wing groups such as the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.
“I take great pride in dealing a hateful organization a devastating near-death blow,” writes Moore, who now lives with his family in an undisclosed location. “The overall movement overall, however, was far from dead or even in decline.”
Moore cautions that his time as an insider illuminated his understanding of how divided America has become, identifying former President Donald Trump as a conduit for that division. He draws a line between the Ku Klux Klan and modern white nationalist groups until January. 6 uprisings—a connection underscored by Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin, who writes the book’s foreword.
“The Klan and the like-minded groups it has produced have learned to balance bullets with obfuscation and pistols with paper, both of which have the potential to do more irreversible damage to the state of our democracy than the former,” Moore wrote. . “With the 2024 elections on the horizon and democracy itself on the ballot. . . we should be LOT fear.”
#KKK #plot #assassinate #Barack #Obama
Image Source : nypost.com