Minutemen Join White Supremacists In 'Co-Hosted' Strategy Session
The , a white supremacist hate group, publicly announced earlier this week that it was co-hosting an anti-immigration strategy session with Americans4America, the official Las Vegas chapter of Jim Gilchrist鈥檚 .
Despite the Minuteman Project鈥檚 oft-touted anti-racist policies, the meeting took place June 24, offering some of the strongest evidence yet of direct ties between the Minuteman movement and overtly racist organizations.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of overlapping between our two groups,鈥� Nevada CCC leader Don Wassall told the Intelligence Report. 鈥淚 met a couple of people from their group who are interested in trying to recruit more and get more people active in both of our groups.鈥�
While a June 23 placed by the CCC in the Las Vegas Review-Journal listed Americans4America and the CCC as 鈥渃o-hosts鈥� of the meeting, Wassall told the Report that, in fact, the Minutemen were more like special invited guests.
The relationship between the two organizations is 鈥渉ard to explain,鈥� said Wassall, but 鈥渨e are working with them [the Minutemen].鈥�
Wassall said the handful of Minuteman Project members who attended the meeting did not include Americans4America founder Kricket Telfer, who could not be reached for comment. Wassall called Telfer 鈥渁n acquaintance.鈥�
Like all Minuteman Project chapters, Americans4America declares on its website that it has, 鈥渘o affiliation with, nor will we accept any assistance by or interference from, separatists, racists, or supremacy groups.鈥�
Commingling with the CCC nullifies that assurance, as does joining forces with Wassall, whose long history of right-wing extremism is beyond dispute. Wassall, who booked the conference room where the joint CCC-Minuteman Project session was held, was the head of the Pennsylvania chapter of the CCC before moving to Las Vegas last December.
Wassall is a longtime member and current executive director of the American Nationalist Union (formerly known as the Populist Party), a radical-right organization started in 1983 by veteran anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Willis Carto. Since 1996 Wassall has been the editor of the group鈥檚 publication The Nationalist Times. The periodical鈥檚 online version contains blatantly racist articles and links to hate group websites including New Nation News and the Political Cesspool, as well as the International Conspiratological Association.
Wassall was also a prominent supporter of the , a group formed to raise funds for a neofascist political party in England. The group collapsed after its leader, Mark Cotterill, was deported back to England in the wake of an Intelligence Report 别虫辫辞蝉茅.
And now, apparently, he鈥檚 backing the Minutemen. Wassall said the next CCC meeting in Las Vegas is planned for the last Tuesday in July, and that it 鈥渕ay or may not鈥� be co-hosted by Americans4America.
