Washington, DC – A month ago, Unicorn Riot published internal chat records from Identity Evropa, one of the largest and most active alt-right/neo-Nazi groups in the United States. Since then, the group has rebranded itself as the so-called ‘American Identity Movement’. The group’s leader, Patrick Casey, has described the name change as a maneuver to avoid the online bans that plagued Identity Evropa as well as an attempt to side-step “baggage” after Charlottesville (such as legal liability). The group is also seeking to tap into wider right-wing support by using patriotic imagery as cover for their white supremacist ideology.

Editorial note: Identity Evropa and the American Identity Movement are proven to be the same group, so at times the groups’` names are used interchangeably. The American Identity Movement is also abbreviated as ‘AmIM’ to avoid confusion with the American Indian Movement (AIM). 

Patrick Casey recently moved to Washington, DC following the announcement that his group was rebranding. Casey has moved into a building that will also serve as American Identity Movement headquarters in DC, where he will be living rent-free off of dues paid by members. Matthew Robert Warner, who acts as the group’s Chief of Staff, is assumed to be living with Casey at the group’s new headquarters. Casey and Warner had previously lived together and were spotted moving to DC in a U-Haul truck together.

Leaked chat logs provided a detailed, publicly-accessible view inside the secretive racist group and has resulted in many members of Identity Evropa/American Identity Movement being identified by journalists and antifascists. A report by the Huffington Post found seven members of the hate group serving in the US military. Dannion Phillips, who is currently in the US Air Force, is under investigation by the armed services but his disciplinary status remains unknown. Joseph Ross Kane of the Texas Army National Guard is also under investigation due to his membership in IE. Kane had been assigned to a Military Intelligence Batallion, according to Military.com.

Christopher Cummins, who currently works as a doctor and holds the rank of lieutenant Colonel in the Army, was also identified as a member. His disciplinary status is also unknown. Two reservists with the Marine Corps – Lance Corporal Jason Laguardia and Corporal Stephen Farrea – are also currently under investigation after being identified in the Huffington Post report based on chats leaked by Unicorn Riot. Stephen Farrea attended the 2019 ‘Leading Our People Forward’ conference as part of Identity Evropa.

More military members of the hate group have been exposed just this week. Colorado resident Cory Allen Reeves, a Master Sergeant in the US Air Force, was exposed by Colorado Springs Antifascists as a member of Identity Evropa/the American Identity Movement. Also just outed as an active member from the group’s Discord chat is Andrew Wietgrefe, who works as a farmer in South Dakota and posted about having experience working with nuclear energy for the Navy.

Anonymous antifascists identified Daniel Morley, who served as Identity Evropa’s recruitment director, as a policeman working as a School Resource Officer at L.C. Bird High School in Virginia. Morley has since been fired, and felony charges were reportedly dismissed against a black student due to Morley’s involvement in his case.

In addition to Morley, several other members of the neo-Nazi group had jobs that gave them access to children. At least two public high school teachers have been exposed as members of Identity Evropa – Stephen William Arnquist of Dallas, Texas, and Matthew Muller, a teacher at Archbishop Rummel High School in Matairie, Louisiana. Arnquist was placed on leave on April 4, 2019 by the Dallas Independent School District pending an investigation.

Unicorn Riot’s reporting led to additional Identity Evropa members being identified including James Ambrose Meyer, who had been employed as Chief Technology Officer for Seven Tablets, and was reportedly fired after being exposed. Howard J. Fezell, a 66-year-old former member of the National Rifle Association’s Board of Directors, was also exposed as a member. David Fanelli, Identity Evropa’s Pennsylvania state director, claimed to have cultivated a close relationship with Philadelphia GOP officials and works for Boeing, according to his Facebook profile. Boeing has not yet returned our request for comment about whether they are aware of Fanelli’s racist activities.

While the “new” American Identity Movement has received some favor in the wider right-wing media space, the group is still struggling to organize itself after being removed from the Discord and Slack chat applications, which had previously been used to coordinate among the group’s hundreds of members. After Discord and Slack leaks exposed large amounts of their communication, IE/AmIM has switched over to using a chat platform called Mattermost for their private organizing conversations.

Mattermost is self-hosted chat software but appears to be licensed out under Terms of Service which forbid use of their platform that contains threats or incites violence. (Slack and Discord both banned Identity Europa for promoting hate speech and violence in March 2019.) Mattermost has not responded to our request for comment.

The American Identity Movement’s website, AmericanIdentityMovement.com, is hosted by Digital Ocean, a popular website hosting provider. Digital Ocean’s Terms of Service Agreement states that users  “will not transmit, distribute, post, store, link, or otherwise traffic in Content…that is…offensive, profane…or is otherwise inappropriate as determined by us in our sole discretion.” As of this writing, Digital Ocean has not responded to our request for comment about whether AmericanIdentityMovement.com violates their Terms of Service.

NameCheap, the domain registrar for the new American Identity Movement site, forbids “hate sites” in their Universal Terms of Service Agreement. A request for comment to NameCheap about whether the American Identity Movement violates their terms of service did not receive a reply before this report was published.

AmIM’s email domain on their new official website is hosted via Protonmail, an encrypted email company based in Switzerland, which has strict laws against hate speech.. Reached for comment by Unicorn Riot, Protonmail stated that,

Our mission is to make privacy, security, and freedom of information freely accessible to everyone. This does not include protecting people or groups engaging in illegal activities. ProtonMail has a zero-tolerance policy toward anyone who uses our service for criminal purposes, and we cooperate with law enforcement agencies within the legal framework of Switzerland, where our company is based. When we become aware of unlawful or prohibited activities, we block accounts or ban users.

– Protonmail

AmIM, like Identity Evropa, has been using the payment processor Zelle to receive funds from members and donors. Unicorn Riot was able to reach Early Warning, the “owner and network operator” of Zelle, for comment about use of their financial platform by Identity Evropa and the American Identity Movement. They indicated that they would investigate the group’s use of their service and possibly remove accounts that violated their user service agreement:

“Zelle® prohibits using our service to send or receive money for activities that promote violence, intolerance and hate. When we learn of possible violations, we quickly investigate and when appropriate, work with our financial institution partners to suspend or terminate those individuals or organizations from using Zelle. See our terms of service.“

– Early Warning Corporate Communications

Filings for a nonprofit corporate entity tied to the American Identity Movement, the ‘Foundation for American Society’,  were submitted in Arizona on February 18, 2019 and approved by regulators on March 1, 2019. While the American Identity Movement has claimed it is not a “rebrand” of Identity Evropa (a claim Unicorn Riot reporting has already disproven), the cover sheet submitted to the Arizona Corporation Commission, the Foundation for American Society lists the email address [email protected] as its contact information. The Foundation For American Society paperwork also lists Patrick Casey, the President of Identity Evropa and the American Identity Movement, as the foundation’s director.

While Identity Evropa, aka the new American Identity Movement, has suffered serious disruptions to its operations after last month’s leaks, they are still active. It remains unclear how long this latest iteration of the alt-right group will last, and to what extent tech and finance companies are willing to enable them in exchange for a small profit.