David Neiwert@DavidNeiwert
Nov 28, 2021
61 tweets
When writing my tribute to Bill Morlin this week, I dove back into the period when we first worked together in 1996, notably the tale of the Phineas Priesthood terror gang that targeted him. It’s a great story that speaks to our present. So here's another absurdly long thread. /1
This story begins in fall 1995, when Morlin was contacted by a secretive militia group that offered to let him and a photographer attend a training session in the northern Idaho woods. Morlin and photog Dan McComb were both blindfolded and taken to the training area. /2
When the blindfolds were removed, Morlin and McComb found themselves surrounded by a group of armed men with ski masks, who proceeded to conduct military-style exercises and plunk at silhouette targets in the shape of Hillary Clinton and federal agents. /3
They were well-equipped, with expensive scopes on their rifles electronic sensing devices and high-tech guns. They told Morlin that they were being financed by a millionaire businessman who supported their work, and said they knew of at least 3 other militia units in the area. /4
McComb’s main photo became famous, a symbol of the rising paramilitary movement. Morris Dees later used it for the cover of his book ‘Gathering Storm.’ /5
amazon.com/Gathering-Stor
On the day the story ran in the Spokesman-Review, it was accompanied by a sidebar: A story Morlin had picked up on while monitoring police/court records, involving a pair of Sandpoint-area men who had been pulled over by police and found to possess a large arsenal. /6
The arsenal included guns, silencers, night-vision goggles, stolen license plates, a high-tech global listening device, and a wealth of ammunition. The pair refused to identify themselves and were jailed for a month before federal officials decided not to file charges. /7
When Morlin contacted one of the men—Charles Barbee of Sandpoint—he acknowledged the arrest and agreed to an interview, saying he had already been “compromised” by the arrest. This is the photo that ran with the story. /8
Barbee’s presence in Sandpoint was a manifestation of how the Aryan Nations compound 45 miles south had infected the entire region. The church he attended, America’s Promise Ministries, was part of the same racist Christian Identity movement as AN. /9
splcenter.org/fighting-hate/
The pastor, Dave Barley, had set up the church in Sandpoint in 1988, largely because he believed northern Idaho to be a congenial place for its racist beliefs, an environment that had been pioneered by AN. Charles Barbee had moved there with the church. /10
Barbee explained his arsenal thus: “If there’s another Ruby Ridge or Waco, we’re not going to tolerate it again. If the federal government sends in their armies to put women and children to death again, we will respond and put as many federal agents to death as possible.’’ /11
Morlin responded that Barbee sounded bloodthirsty. “Slaying people is not always wrong if it’s justified by God’s law,’’ he told Morlin. /12
Morlin couldn’t have known that the two stories were connected, but they were: Barbee and his companion, Robert Berry, were two of the men in the ski masks training in the woods. The respective plans to resist the ‘New World Order’ each had talked about were the same. /13
It later emerged that the men had formed their paramilitary cell as a subsect within Christian Identity calling itself the Phineas Priesthood, based on a Biblical passage in which the grandson of a priest kills a prince of Israel for cohabiting with a woman outside his tribe. /14
The Phineas Priesthood is not an organization but more of an actionable concept with which extremists may identify. Its core idea is to create independent action cells and “lone wolves” who will murder people they deem to be “defilers” and “usurpers.” /15
splcenter.org/fighting-hate/
The core text of the “priesthood” was a book by an ex-Klansman named Richard Kelly Hoskins titled “Vigilantes of Christendom.” Hoskins, who lived in Lynchburg, VA, was frequently a guest speaker at Identity churches, including America’s Promise Ministries in Sandpoint in '91. /16
“Vigilantes of Christendom” is a 450-page blueprint for race war. Here are some sample pages of the text, describing Phineas as a model for defenders of the white Christian faith—“white cells” that would defend a “diseased body” against “invading aliens.” /17
Hoskins claims a long array of historical/literary figures as fitting the Phineas Priest model: Beowulf, King Arthur, the Confederacy, John Wilkes Booth, the Klan, Jesse James, Adolf Hitler, George Lincoln Rockwell, even Lee Harvey Oswald. /18
The model for his notion of Phineas Priests as “lone wolves” (an idea promoted by neo-Nazi Louis Beam) is serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin, a sniper who targeted interracial couples as well as public figures like Vernon Jordan and Larry Flynt. /19
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pa
His primary modern hero—a flawed model for Christians, as Hoskins admits—is Robert Mathews, the Aryan Nations devotee from northeastern Washington state who founded the neo-Nazi gang The Order, who assassinated radio host Alan Berg and robbed multiple banks in 1984. /20
This thread includes a fairly detailed description of The Order’s short-lived career and where it originated, as well as why it still reverberates. /21
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David Neiwert@DavidNeiwert
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18) This criminality reached its apex in 1984, after one of the angry young transplants who attended AN gatherings regularly – a man named Robert Mathews, who had moved to Metaline Falls, WA, from Arizona – organized an action group he called “The Order”.
The Phineas Priesthood’s blueprint for action was similar: “Executing’’ interracial couples and homosexuals; bombing abortion clinics and “executing’’ abortion doctors; bombing civil-rights centers and “executing” civil-rights leaders and other “race mixers” … /22
… And finally, robbing banks to finance their activities, purchase arms, and help fund the work of other radical Patriots and white supremacists. In Sandpoint, Idaho, a group of men who became devotees of Hoskins’ book went into action. / 23
Having been introduced to Hoskins’ book and its ideas in 1991 at America’s Promise Ministries, four congregants—Barbee and Berry, Brian Ratigan, and an older, gray-bearded man named Verne Jay Merrell who was their leader—formed a Phineas Priesthood cell. /24
These were the same men, it turned out, who had donned ski masks for that training session with Morlin in the woods. And when they decided to make their first strike against the forces of iniquity, as they believed, Morlin and the Spokesman-Review were key targets. /25
They first struck on April 1, 1996, and their first target was the Spokesman-Review—specifically, the paper’s offices in the suburban Spokane Valley. A white van pulled up to a rear circulation door; a worker saw a man in a ski mask jump out and leave something. /26
The worker checked outside the door and saw a lit pipe bomb. He briefly considered yanking the fuse, then thought better of it, closed the door, and ran inside and hollered for someone to call 911 just before the bomb went off. It caused significant damage. / 27
Some 11 minutes later and 30 blocks away, the same white van pulled up to a branch of U.S. Bank. Two masked men with long guns emerged, entered the bank, racked a round into the guns, and announced that it was a stickup. As they herded employees, they shouted. /28
As it happened, this robbery occurred exactly one week after the Montana Freemen standoff had kicked off near Jordan with the arrests of two leaders, LeRoy Schweitzer and Dan Petersen. The Freemen called their community “Justus Township.” /29
spokesman.com/stories/1996/m
“Tell the cops to free the people in Justus or we’ll be back,” the robbers said. “Tell your government and its people not to mess with the Freemen!” “It’s free the people in Justus!” Justice for the people of Justus!” /30
After collecting $50,000 in cash, they ordered everyone out of the bank, and set a pipe bomb on top of the tellers’ counter. When it went off, it blew a hole in the ceiling and ripped apart six tellers’ stations. /31
They also left behind a note, identical to one they had similarly left behind at the Spokesman-Review. It seemed to be mostly a mishmash of biblical language and quotations, warning of a “destroying wind” that would wipe away the iniquitous. This is its contents. /32
At the end, they published the mark of the Phineas Priesthood. / 33
This was a big clue for Morlin. He was familiar with the concept and its spread in Identity circles. At an Aryan Nations gathering, he had spotted an Aryan security officer wearing a belt buckle inscribed with the insignia. /34
Morlin and his photographer convinced the man to pose for a portrait, though all Morlin really wanted was the belt buckle. When he wrote a story about the Priesthood's April 1 attacks, he had the belt buckle blown up from the negative and illustrated the article with it. /35
Morlin also suspected that the December stories had something to do with why the Spokesman’s plant was targeted by the bombers. He turned out to be on the money. /36
A little over two months later, on July 12, the Phineas Priests struck again. This time, their first bomb went off at a Planned Parenthood clinic in the Spokane Valley that, fortunately, was closed when they struck, at around 1:30 p.m. It ripped the place apart. /37
Ten minutes later, the same U.S. Bank branch on East Sprague they had hit the first time was hit by the same gang in a white van, with a third robber in the mix. Witnesses at all these events had observed the getaway driver: a man with a long white beard. /38
The branch employees were familiar with the drill and complied. When the men were done, they left a large propane tank with a detonating device on top inside the bank. The van was found a little later with a similar propane-tank bomb in it. Neither of them worked. /39
The robberies and bombings were big news in Spokane, and the men began taunting their victims. After U.S. Bank put up a $100,000 reward, they sent an anonymous letter (with a copy to Morlin) telling the bank “Your gods are paper” and “no match for Yahweh.” /40
They also sent a note to the Planned Parenthood clinic, where a note quoting a Psalm had been found in the bomb rubble. It actually was just a card. The return address on the envelope was signed, “Phinehas.” /41
It was clear the acts were all connected, just from the timeline alone, not to mention the multiple shared modus operandi. / 42
Eventually, the reward fund reached $130,000. The FBI issued composite drawings of the four suspects in the case, including the third robber in the second attack. / 43
Soon enough, an informant came forward to work claim it, telling the FBI that Merrell, Barbee, and Berry had tried to recruit him into their gang. The three men were placed under immediate surveillance. / 44
The informant also told the FBI that they were planning to rob a suburban Portland bank, and gave them the date. Sure enough, the morning the hit was planned, the three men were seen loading weapons into the back of a white van and driving away. FBI surveillance followed. /44
Portland is a seven-hour drive from Sandpoint, so the FBI had plenty of time. They contacted the bank and told them to close up for the day, lock their doors and draw their shades. Bank employees promptly complied. /45
When the gang arrived, the three men were observed scouting out the bank. They could see people walking up to the door, trying it, and turning away. Finally, they called the bank themselves to see if they were open, and were told they were closed. They promptly drove off. / 46
The men took off back toward Idaho, a large contingent of FBI following, just out of view. They finally pulled over to gas up in Union Gap, Wash., just south of Yakima. They shortly found themselves surrounded by law enforcement and in the custody of the FBI. / 47
Barbee, Merrell, and Berry were charged with the bombings and robberies. The fourth man who helped with the July 12 robberies, Brian Ratigan, an ex-Army sniper, was identified later and captured while trying to hide out in the Idaho woods. / 48
spokesman.com/stories/1997/m
The first trial of Barbee, Merrell, and Berry ended in mistrial when one of the jurors invoked juror nullification, a court tactic popular with Freemen-style “sovereign citizens.” But they were convicted in a second trial and given long prison terms. /49
Ratigan was granted an early release last year at age 61. / 50
spokesman.com/stories/2020/j
Robert Berry also had his sentence reduced last year, but won’t be getting out of prison anytime soon. He’s not scheduled for release now until 2054. /51
spokesman.com/stories/2020/s
Morlin found out that his suspicions about the bombing of the newspaper’s plant were correct. The informant, he discovered when he finally got ahold of the documents, told the FBI that the April 1 bombing was intended to send Morlin a message for his stories of December 3. /52
What most upset Morlin, though, was the fact that he couldn’t cover the trial. Because he had interviewed Barbee beforehand, and had received letters from them, prosecutors decided to subpoena him to testify in the trial—which disqualified him from reporting on it. /53
Incidentally, the whole Phineas Priesthood story was told in a Forensic Files episode for which I was interviewed back in 2001. /54
youtube.com/watch?v=iyn7I4
And yes, there’s an entire chapter dedicated to this story in my first book, “In God’s Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest.” /55
amazon.com/Gods-Country-P
Over the ensuing years, especially as Christian Identity has declined in popularity on the neo-Nazi scene, we have had to deal with fewer would-be Phineas Priests. The one exception was Larry McQuilliams’ rampage in Austin in 2014. / 56
vice.com/en/article/ppv
McQuilliams declared that he was a high priest of the Phineas Priesthood. He attacked the Austin Police headquarters by firing over 100 rounds at the building, and was shot by police at the end, the only casualty. Morlin covered that story too. /57
splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014
There are still neo-Nazi terror gangs prowling the woods of the Pacific Northwest. The thugs from The Base own a piece of land in northeastern Washington, not far from Robert Mathews’ former place, where they do their training. /58
dailykos.com/stories/2019/8
Racist terrorist gangs have been with us for a long time. Their modes of operation have been strikingly similar throughout history. Very few call themselves Phineas Priests nowawadays. But there are a lot more of them. /59
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David Neiwert
@DavidNeiwert
Author, 'The Age of Insurrection: The Ongoing War on American Democracy,' in bookstores June 2023 (Melville House). Staff writer @DailyKos. I block shitheads.
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