After FBI testimony about an alleged Michigan extremist, an Ann Arbor judge Monday rejected a request to free him on bond.
Justen Watkins (Photo: Michigan Attorney General's Office, via Huron Daily Tribune)
Bridge Michigan reports on the case of Justen Watkins, a 25-year-old from Bad Axe described as the national leader of a neo-Nazi group that envisions "white ethno states" in the Upper Peninsula and other rural areas:
Justen Watkins, a 25-year-old from Bad Axe, was "elevated from regional cell leader to overall leader of The Base in early 2020," FBI special agent Jeremy Jaskulski testified Monday in Washtenaw County District Court, where Judge Cedric Simpson denied a motion to release Watkins on bond.
The Base, which organizes virtually and emerged in mid-2018, is primarily active in the United States and is preparing for "an impending race war," according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The agent said Watkins ran training drills and "then used propaganda from [those] hate camps to recruit" more members, according to Jonathan Oosting of Bridge.
Watkins and a co-defendant, Alfred Gorman [of Taylor], face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of gang membership, stemming from an arrest following a joint domestic terrorism investigation by the FBI and state police.
The pair "are linked to a December 2019 incident in Dexter, in which a family was terrorized at their home after the men allegedly used intimidation tactics on the premises and posted messages to other The Base members targeting the home," state Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement last Oct. 29, when the defendants were arrested at their homes. "Using tactics of intimidation to incite fear and violence constitutes criminal behavior."
Their alleged target was researcher Daniel Harper, co-host of "I Don’t Speak German," which he describes as "a podcast confronting white nationalism one asshole at a time." He didn't live where Watkins and Gorman thought he did.
The arrests seven months ago were "the latest in a sweeping nationwide crackdown against the group that started in January [2020]," says coverage by Vice. "Nine members of the Base now face various terrorism-related charges."
When Watkins was taken intio custody at a Bad Axe farmhouse, federal agents confiscated gas masks, helmets, vests, camouflage clothing, surveillance equipment and items with Nazi symbols, according to a U.S. Justice Department forfeiture list reported on by the Huron Daily Tribune.
The only weapons listed were a machete, a "Sword with Nazi Symbol" and a modified knife.
Separately, Watkins was charged in April with breaking into a Huron County garage while accompanied by another member of The Base who paid his original bond in February. That led Judge SImpson to revoke bond last month.
Nessel describes the hate group in her fall news release:
Founded in 2018, The Base is a White supremacy organization that openly advocates for violence and criminal acts against the U.S., and purports to be training for a race war to establish white ethnonationalist rule in areas of the U.S., including Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The group also traffics in Nazi ideology and extreme anti-Semitism, at one point requiring its members to read neo-Nazi books that urge the collapse of Western civilization.
The Base leaders have used online chat rooms to encourage members to meet in-person and engage in military training to prepare for the insurgency against the U.S. government.
Watkins claims to have been appointed leader of The Base, and reportedly ran a "hate camp" for members of the group, where he led tactical and firearms training for participants with the goal of being prepared for the violent overthrow of the government.
