FBI Agents Posing as Media at Hate Group’s Trial Have Passes Revoked

Seven undercover federal agents who posed as journalists to photograph protesters at a civil trial targeting the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations group were stripped of their media passes Thursday after a reporter complained.

The FBI agents had obtained the media credentials earlier this week in the trial aimed at bankrupting one of the most potent forces in the U.S. white supremacist movement.

On Thursday, Capt. Ben Wolfinger of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department said he had not hesitated to issue the media passes to the agents--who at the time were dressed in photographers’ vests and were carrying camera equipment but identified themselves as being with the FBI.

But Sheriff Rocky Watson ordered the passes revoked after a reporter covering the trial for the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., complained.

“What happened is they were here trying to blend in with the media so they would take photos of the protesters who are here protesting the trial,” Wolfinger said.

An FBI spokesman in the agency’s Salt Lake City regional office, which dispatched the agents, had no immediate comment.

There have been very few protesters at the closely watched trial that began Tuesday under tight security. The case was brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of a local woman, Victoria Keenan, and her son Jason, who claim Aryan Nations security guards beat them in 1998.

The lawsuit charges Aryan Nations’ 83-year-old leader, Richard Butler, with recklessness and negligence in supervising his security force. Legal observers say a verdict against the hate group could bankrupt it.