Unmasked: inside America's most violent Ku Klux Klan

Voices from the secret world of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

This is the first in a three part series on Imperial Wizard Christopher Barker and his Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

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By Nate Thayer

March 20, 2018

Every Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan distribute racist literature in the dead of night across the United States. Every Valentine's day, they drop anti-gay leaflets in small communities. During religious holidays, they distribute leaflets claiming the Christian bible says blacks are "mud people" and Jews "Spawns of Satan".

In recent weeks, this KKK group has waged a campaign of "Night Rides" leaving white supremacist propaganda in Ziploc baggies weighed down by bird seed, kitty litter, or Tootsie Rolls on thousands of front lawns across the country causing outrage in small towns who think they have been targeted by hordes of hooded, violent racists.

But a more than one year investigation shows that about two dozen people are responsible for the bulk of the nationwide flyer campaigns coordinated out of the rural North Carolina home of Imperial Wizard of the Loyal White Knights, Chris Barker.

The evidence suggests Imperial Wizard Christopher Eugene Barker, 37, of Yanceyville, North Carolina, is the violent, white racist equivalent of a late night television religious huckster, and his Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan as much akin to a motley, dysfunctional social club comprised of angry, disenfranchised Internet warriors as it is an organized group of domestic terrorists.

What they sell is unfiltered hate and intolerance and business is booming.

But that doesn't mean that Barker or his LWK aren't dangerous.

Mr. Barker was not receptive to requests for interviews in several recent email and telephone messages. "I could care less what you think of me. My legacy was written before I knew you, since the day I met true Nazi war criminals and true Klansman (Edgar Ray) Killen and (Thomas Edwin) Blanton," wrote Barker recently. Killen planned and directed the murders of the three civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964. Blanton is a convicted domestic terrorist currently serving a life sentence for the 1963 bombing of the Birmingham, Alabama 16th street Baptist Church which killed four young African American girls. "To those of old, it was written by the man on top of the mountain. So continue your trash journalism while the L.W.K continues." Barker said.

Along with his wife, Amanda, the #2, or "Imperial Kommander", the Barker's forward their family and their LWK as good examples of God fearing Christian Americans.

The public record says otherwise.

"I remember, at the end of the 2015 Klonvocation, he told all the members to 'on your way home, find yourself a nigger and kill him'," recalled former LWK member Richard Dillon of Indiana, referring to the annual gathering of Loyal White Knights members from across the country held on Barker's property in Yanceyville, North Carolina. "He was dead serious. He meant it. No smile. No laughing. He meant it. He said 'Because you won't be from there, no one will know and you won't be a suspect.' I said to myself 'no way, he didn't just say that.' Barker didn't even know half the people in that room. You never forget it when you hear those kind of words. I will remember them until the day I die."

Over the last 16 months, more than two dozen dissident current and former members of the Loyal White Knights have provided this reporter the secret membership lists including names, photographs, addresses, contacts, and unfiltered access to their members only, password-protected message boards, discussion groups, and live thrice-weekly nationwide telephone conference calls, along with thousands of confidential documents and internal communications.

These, along with interviews with dozens of other current and former Loyal White Knights, members of other Ku Klux Klan factions, and law enforcement who follow U.S. domestic terrorist groups have provided an exclusive portrait of the internal world of the largest, most extremist KKK faction in the United States.

The media publicity generated from their national, coordinated leafleting campaign, such as this article, gives this handful of isolated Klansmen an empowerment they have never experienced otherwise in life-and inevitably results in a spike of calls to their 1-800 telephone hotline and website from people seeking to join. That, in turn, has generated at least tens of thousands of dollars that the Barker's pocket for their personal use, numerous current and former LWK members said in interviews.

"LOL JEW! You lost once again to the L.W.K. We are building our movement thanks to your stories," wrote Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard-or national leader- Barker in response to a request for an interview. "Continue PLEASE!!!!!!!!!"

The disproportionate public reaction to Klan efforts to incite community anger stands in stark contrast to the numbers of members in the Loyal White Knights of the KKK itself.

According to internal Loyal White Knights records, there are about 250 members or applicants to the largest KKK group in the country. Over the previous three months, only around 100 of these have been active on their private Internet web site, members only discussion group, live chat page, or thrice weekly password accessed members only telephone conference calls. The numbers reflect a loose, diminishing allegiance and enthusiasm for the group after new members initially first pay their dues online.

The Klan faction has several real life gatherings annually, usually on private property, but the events have never exceeded 100 attendees with most numbering between 20 and 70, according to more than a dozen current and recent members of the LWK. Their last in person event was in November 2017 on the rental property of Imperial Wizard Barker in Yanceyville, North Carolina. It was attended by an estimated 70 people, including family and children, from a number of states, according to three LWK Klan members who were in attendance.

Some of the rank and file of the Loyal White Knights are law-abiding citizens. Others are not. Many have defected from the rogue Klan group over the last two years in objection to Mr. Barker's personal behavior. An estimated 90% of those who were members 16 months ago have defected since then, only to be replenished by an equal number almost exclusively over the Internet. It was in December 2016 that Barker and another leader, the Grand Dragon of California William Hagen, were arrested on attempted murder charges for stabbing another Klansman, Richard Dillon of Indiana, in a drunken confrontation in Barker's dining room in the pre-dawn hours before a scheduled "Trump Victory Parade."

Background investigations of many current members of the Loyal White Knights paint a portrait of what few would describe as upstanding citizens. A starkly disproportionate percentage of the less than 250 members of the Loyal White Knights have a history of violence which include attempted murder, first-degree rape, assault and battery, domestic violence, sexual assault on a minor, various weapons-related charges, and scores of alcohol and drug related arrests, an investigation shows. A majority are unemployed or living on various government funded welfare schemes, notably social security and disability programs.

Barker welcomes Nazi sympathizers, convicted felons, and violent racists as new members.

The numerous usually about one hour long telephone chit chat conference calls amongst Klansmen and women included members from at least 13 states, according to those who identified themselves in the scheduled telephone conference meetings monitored over the last six months. In the sessions, members appear to be incautious and relaxed, thinking they are having a private discussion, on the reasons they hold the political beliefs that they do.

"Our own former president, that nigger who was in the White House, allowed these terrorists to come into the country," said Brian, the Exalted Cyclops-or local leader- from Ridegely, West Virginia. "Now they are here in force in Detroit, Chicago and so forth. When you are out at your local supermarket, keep an eye out because you never know when they will start shooting people," the West Virginian cautioned other members.

"A lot of people don't know where the first nigger came from," continued the West Virginian Exalted Cyclops, who then detailed his interpretation of the biblical story of Cain and Abel. "Cain, the first born son of Adam and Eve was a nigger. He killed his brother, Abel. Cain was the first murderer on earth and niggers have been doing it ever since," he said.

"Actually Cain was a Jew," interjected James Seay of Virginia, the Klan's official Christian Pastor who uses the pseudonym James Moore. "It takes a woman seven years to cleanse herself after birth. The white race was brought down to this earth 7522 years ago by Yahweh. The Black race are the watchers of Satan."

"I know as Klan we have major issues with Jews and Niggers, but they aren't our only concern, our only threat. They are trying to outlaw our fliers, but you can't talk about 'Jose' coming across the border or call Muslims terrorists, but most of all you can't say you are proud to be white," commented the West Virginian in the discussion.

But few have a more disturbing personal resume than Imperial Wizard Christopher Eugene Barker.

Mr. Barker has been arrested at least 40 times, according to law enforcement records, all for criminal behavior and none for politically related activities, but he has never been to prison.

North Carolina law enforcement have kept Mr. Barker, 37, on their radar screen since he became an adult nearly 19 years ago when the then 18-year old broke into a church funded charity store. After stealing a few cheap electronic devices, Barker ransacked and destroyed thousands of dollars of clothes and food items intended for the poor and needy in his small hometown of Eden, North Carolina in Rockingham county, North Carolina, according to Eden police.

Barker has been arrested more than 25 times on alcohol related and domestic violence charges alone, according to law enforcement documents from North Carolina and Florida. Other charges include malicious arson, assault, larceny, various weapons charges, communicating threats, and attempted murder.

He holds the rare distinction of, while on supervised federal probation after being convicted of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, being arrested three times in one day-once for assaulting his wife and twice for driving while intoxicated by separate law enforcement agencies, and not spending that night in jail.

His wife, Amanda Barker, has called the cops at least 7 times pleading for help while being assaulted by her husband in recent years, resulting in his arrest and felony criminal charges.

These include having a loaded shotgun forced into her mouth and cocked and her husband threatening to pull the trigger, according to law enforcement documents.

Among several attempts to prevent him from murdering her, Ms. Barker reached out to police to assist in stopping her husband from burning down their own home after he threatened to rip the exhaust pipe from their wood stove and burn down the house, requested law enforcement intervention after being physically assaulted and injured, on another occasion punched in the face, other times blackening her eyes, pulling her hair, and throwing her to the ground injuring her shoulder, among numerous other cries for help to cops in at least two North Carolina counties and three states, according to documents.

But then Ms. Barker refuses to cooperate with any effort to prosecute her husband, and the charges are dropped.

On April 3, 2014, Barker was charged with Assault on a Female—his wife, Amanda– in Rockingham County, North Carolina, but the County District Attorney dismissed the case on April 22, 2014, because she refused to cooperate or attend court hearings. It was at least the fourth time he was criminally charged with assaulting his wife. Later that same year, on December 12, 2014, law enforcement responded to a 911 call from Barker's wife to the Barker's home. The Caswell County North Carolina Sheriff's Department reported that when a sheriff deputy arrived "he spoke with Amanda Barker who reported that Mr. Barker had assaulted her by pulling her hair. She further reported that Mr. Barker had gone outside and jerked the exhaust pipe off their wood stove and threatened to burn down their house." But Amanda Barker did not pursue charges.

On a separate occasion, while drunk, Mr. Barker burned down the trailer home of a neighbor he was convinced was sleeping with his wife, according to other North Carolina law enforcement officials and documents. Fire investigators found a Walmart discount card at the scene of the smoldering home and traced it back to Barker. "When we went to interview him, he was so drunk I could only understand about half of what he was saying," said the then Rockingham County Deputy Fire Marshall in an interview. "He was drinking beer throughout the interview. I think Mr. Barker has an alcohol problem."

"We have long been aware of Chris Barker," said Craig Blitzer, the then Rockingham County, North Carolina, District Attorney, in earlier interviews. "We have charged Barker over the years with forgery, assault with a deadly weapon, making threats, an arson charge, an assault on a female in 2011 and again in 2014, DWI in '07 and '09 and '04, possession of stolen goods, larceny, two charges of possession of a stolen weapon, and an open container charge last month. And that is just in Rockingham County."

The Rockingham County District Attorney was caught up in a corruption scandal in 2017 involving the neighboring Caswell County District Attorney, where Barker has since moved, in which the two elected officials are alleged to have swapped their wives for no show jobs on each other's county payrolls. Both have since resigned.

Another time, Barker was arrested for threats and intimidation "when he did threaten to physically injure the person of Joey Belton by writing him a letter stating that the next time he sees him he would blow his head off."

Barker was also arrested when he tried to "sell or trade a rifle for a fifth of liquor," reads one police arrest incident report. Barker first told the police "the rifle was not his to begin with. He then changed the story and said his wife Amanda brought the gun. She was contacted and denied her husband's story. Once again Mr. Barker changed his story, saying he got the rifle from a third person. That person was contacted and said "he traded the rifle to Barker for a shotgun."

"We are just very happy he moved out of Eden, because he is no longer our problem," said the town police chief in an interview. A North Carolina cop from a larger law enforcement agency said "Frankly, we would be happy if he just gets the fuck out of the state of North Carolina."

THE BARKER FAMILY

Mr. Barker's high school sweetheart, Amanda, has remained married to the Loyal White Knights Imperial Wizard for more than twenty years, including after he was arrested for trying to murder someone in front of their two underage children leaving pools of blood in their dining room 15 months ago.

Mrs. Barker remains her husband's biggest defender.

"That shit is funny. No one lies as much as this fag. Anyone can read between the lines and see this is non sense commie trash journalism," Mr. Barker's wife responded referring to a reporter this week.

Like many things in life, it is often the wife who runs the show. Amanda Barker is, according to more than two-dozen LWK members in separate interviews, the brains and chief logistician of the Loyal White Knights.

Ms. Barker holds the self- appointed title of "Imperial Kommander" of the rogue KKK faction, although traditional KKK internal bylaws still forbid women from being full-fledged members of the organization founded more than 150 years ago.

THE FAMILY BUSINESS

Many former members assert that the LWK is a moneymaking operation where funds are diverted to personally support the couple. Christopher Barker is not known to be otherwise employed.

Former members of the group say the Barker's operate a personal for-profit business that earns them tens of thousands of dollars annually in membership dues alone, mostly paid by money order made out to Amanda Barker and sent to a rented post office box in tiny Pelham, Caswell County, North Carolina. A twenty-dollar initial membership fee is sent by money order to the Pelham, North Carolina PO Box that is registered under the name of Ms. Barker. An additional ten-dollar a month membership charge also goes directly to the couple, according to numerous other LWK members. The couple depends on the income, say numerous current and former members of the Loyal White Knights. Members are encouraged to purchase their Klan robes, KKK patches, flags, and other knickknacks through the Barker's.

The group's PayPal account has been terminated as a violation of the company's terms prohibiting hate groups. Their website similarly has been taken down because their server objected to the racist content. The LWK now use Google Wallet for online payments and donations.

The Barker's routinely request donations for alleged causes, utility bill expenses for their home, any costs associated with hosting Klan gatherings or traveling to LWK events staged out of state, among other things.

In December 2017, a long time member of their Georgia realm was dying from illness and, even before she died, the Barkers were soliciting money on their online message, chat, and discussion boards as well as their telephone conference calls from members to "pay for her funeral expenses."

"Barker told me they had raised nearly $1000, but he stopped returning calls and we never saw a penny," said the woman's husband, who is not a member of the Klan. "We had to scramble on the day of the funeral to come up for money for the coffin and other expenses. I want the world to know who thrives the Barker's are. It just is not right," he said in a series of phone interviews. Several other Klan members confirmed they had donated money for the women's funeral expenses.

Another senior LWK officer has been very ill with chronic emphysema and the Barker's suggested to his wife that "we take out a one million dollar life insurance policy on him in the name of the LWK," the man's wife said in an interview. "What kind of people do that?"

"They may not have graduated from high school, but they know how to hustle people out of money, " said former member Dillon. "They print out copies of Klan books from their printer and hard sell them to members at gatherings and cross lightings. Amanda will tell people 'you need to have these to read them before Klan Klass'," said Dillon referring to weekly telephone conference calls where members call in and listen to bible lessons, read articles relevant to KKK political issues such as immigration, gay rights, crime reports involving African-Americans, and various perceived Jewish global plots that Klan members cull from conspiratorial dark corners of the Internet.

"I had people blowing up my phone asking if the LWK is some kind of scam. They would mail the application with $20 bucks and never hear a thing," said Paul Peck of Illinois, who headed the LWK operations for 13 states until he resigned in December 2016 after Christopher Barker was arrested for attempting to murder Mr. Dillon of Indiana. "The Barkers would tell me 'as long as we have the application and money, let them join.' They still owe me for two hats and some patches. They should at least be charged with mail fraud and deceptive practices."

In his petition to receive free legal council after his arrest for attempted murder, Barker write that neither he nor his wife are employed nor own any assets. He lists $1000 a month in expenses for rent, utilities, and food for his family, which include two teenage children.

Several LWK members say that the national incendiary leaflet drops are not intended to recruit potential members from those who were leafleted, but rather to cause community outrage and media attention which then results in calls to the LWK hotline from people who want to join.

"Sometimes, after I did a flyer drop, I would call the local media and say I was an outraged citizen who was leafleted. This always resulted in TV coverage," said another now former LWK member who has given up his previous white supremacist beliefs and requested anonymity. "And that always results in calls to the hotline by people wanting to join."

Referring to the leaflet distribution, Peck said: "Me and the wife did a 'Night Ride' once and it hit the front page of three newspapers in three towns. The best thing these people can do is just ignore it—don't call the cops, no press, throw them in the garbage. The Loyal White Knights are scum. Quote me on that."

"They have no books or records," said another former senior LWK official. "It all goes in their pockets."

In a request for reply to criticism from other KKK members to the Barker family Klan business, Amanda Barker wrote this week "What are you a fucking retard. You need to learn English…Are you one of Nate Thayer's gay lovers?????"

This kind of raw hatred and vitriol seems more appropriate to children on a playground during recess prior to being given cookies and milk before being ordered to take a nap, except they are a virulent racist and anti-Semitic hate group and almost all are armed.

The Barker's and their Loyal White Knights propensity for violence is very real. In 2015, Barker came out in support of Dylan Roof, who shot and killed 9 South Carolina churchgoers. His wife then applied for a legal permit to publicly demonstrate in support of the mass murderer.

Christopher Eugene Barker and the FBI

The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force disagrees that Christopher Barker is a sufficient threat to public safety to be locked up, according to three law enforcement agents familiar with Mr. Barker's case, and have repeatedly intervened with courts to keep him out of jail

The Imperial Wizard of the most violent and extremist Ku Klux Klan faction in America has never been to prison because, according to law enforcement sources and documents, Mr. Barker works as a confidential informant for the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, the agency responsible for terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

In 2012, Federal law enforcement was tracking a New York man, Glendon Scott Crawford, who was trying to build a mobile radioactive nuclear Buck Rogers like ray-gun device to target Muslim houses of worship when the FBI intercepted communications between Barker and the man and first learned, for the first time, Crawford was a member of the Loyal White Knights.

Barker replied to the domestic terrorist saying"call me":

Barker, who is a convicted felon and therefore not allowed to own a firearm, was immediately arrested on gun charges and strong armed to cooperate to stop the plot.

It was then that Barker made a deal to stay out of prison and began working as an informant for the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.

According to three law enforcement sources, Mr. Barker's FBI JTTF handlers are a Greensboro, based FBI agent and a pair of North Carolina police, detective Robert Finch and Sgt. Steven Kory Flowers, who are secunded to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. They have been instrumental in ensuring that the Klan leader is protected. Detective Finch declined to comment when contacted. "Your emails and phone messages were received. Since you are referencing the FBI, I would suggest reaching out to them for comment. Have a good day." Mr. Finch replied from an official Greensboro North Carolina email address. Sgt. Flowers could not be reached for comment. The FBI field office in Greensboro, North Carolina declined to comment.

Detective Finch and Flowers specialize in following domestic terrorists in North Carolina, working with federal and other law enforcement.

Both Mr. Barker and the FBI have kept their promises to each other, according to numerous unhappy law enforcement officials and former members of his Ku Klux Klan faction.

Mr. Barker gives the government the names, photographs, contact information, license plate numbers and any other details of the member's private lives upon request in exchange for the government not putting him in prison, they say.

Barker sent an email to Crawford on August 28, 2012 after they met: "Everything went well hope things are good on your end… great plan. Would love to see this once great nation in our hands again. Back in the hands of White Christian Americans just like our founding fathers planned it to be. Take care Brother keep in touch Hail Victory." Barker had been arrested between the July email and this one and was now working for the FBI JTT

The LWK and Charlottesville, Virginia

Less than a month before the August 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia white nationalist rally that turned deadly, the Loyal White Knights held a separate demonstration in Charlottesville. The FBI JTTF alerted Charlottesville police the group would be carrying concealed weapons. "The LWK rally which was originally planned for the court building has since been moved to the public park in order for the LWK to carry concealed weapons," wrote Greensboro, North Carolina and FBI JTTF member Sgt. Kory Flowers to the Charlottesville Virginia police chief weeks before the deadly confrontation in August 2017. "Traditionally and recently across the country in clashes such as this one, I would anticipate 30-50 LWK members, and in excess of 500 Antifa or criminal-minded anarchists, armed with surreptitious weapons and facial coverings. In the last six months in confrontations such as these, the result has been numerous assaults, injuries, property damage, and arrests. Pre-planning is key with confrontations such as this…"

Amanda Barker, in whose name all LWK public event permits are made because her husband is forbidden from engaging in Klan activities as a condition of his federal probation, chastised Charlottesville police warning of "a shooting" saying "my people will hurt others" if they did not prepare. "Trust me when I will say that my people will die for what they believe in," she wrote July 1, 2017 to the Charlottesville police. "I fear a shooting…I will have my concealed weapons permit in the crowd armed and waiting for anyone to shoot at us. I will not let my people die. So if I was you I would check everyone in the crowd if not my people will hurt others for shooting at us (and) this will be on you…my people want to be there is peace but your chief is not putting his foot down, so a blood bath will be on him!"

The Charlottesville, Virginia police chief and other city officials and law enforcement were blamed for being ill-prepared for the deadly turn the subsequent white nationalist rally took the following month. Chief Alfred Thomas resigned in December-17 days after the release of an independent report that was highly critical of the police department's handling of the white-supremacist rally in August.

Since he began work for the FBI in 2012, Barker was arrested many more times, violating numerous conditions of the supervised federal probation imposed by the federal court of the Middle District of North Carolina. In April 2016, Barker's federal probation officer was fed up and independently petitioned the court to have his probation revoked and remand him to federal prison. The federal judge agreed and issued a warrant for his arrest. "The defendant violated supervised release conditions requiring that he not (1) commit another federal, state, or local crime, (2) associate with or be in the company of any gang members/security threat group member, including but not limited to the Ku Klux Klan (the "KKK"), (3) frequent any locations where gangs/security threat groups congregate or meet, or (4) wear, display, use, or possess any clothing or accessories which has any gang or security threat group significance," wrote a federal judge on June 23, 2016. "IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED…that the oral Motion for Detention by the United States is GRANTED. The defendant is committed to the custody of the United States Attorney General or his designated representative for confinement in a corrections facility."

The judge declared Barker a "danger to society."

Barker was found to have violated the conditions of his federal probation and an arrest warrant was issued for him in North Carolina in April and June 2016

But the U.S. Assistant Attorney from the Department of Justice–which represents the FBI–argued that Barker should not be incarcerated. Instead, he was, given another slap on the wrist, released from a local county jail after a short incarceration, given three months of additional punishment of home confinement wearing an ankle bracelet, and his existing three-year supervised federal probation had another year tacked on to it.

Within months, on December 3, 2016 while on this enhanced federal probation, Mr. Barker was arrested again and charged with attempting to murder another Klansman, Richard Dillon of Indiana, during a drunken confrontation in the early morning hours in the dining room of Barker's North Carolina house hours before a scheduled Klan "Trump Victory Parade" down the main streets of Caswell County, North Carolina.

On December 13, 2016 Barker was formally indicted on charges of "aiding and abetting felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill serious injury" in Caswell County, North Carolina. Richard Dillon, the Klansman from Indiana, according to hospital documents, was stabbed "three times penetrating the interior of the upper chest."

But even after being arrested on attempted murder charges on December 3, the federal government refused to revoke his supervised probation. The felony charges of attempted murder, a cross burning and initiation of new members into his KKK faction at his residence, and the organizing of a very public "Trump Victory Parade" are all violations of the conditions of his federal parole.

In an extraordinarily unusual move, Barker's FBI JTTF handlers arranged for the federal judge-ordered probation imposed the previous August to be retroactively cancelled and Barker was soon released from the Greensboro North Carolina county jail, according to federal court documents and interviews with KKK and other law enforcement sources. The FBI did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Instead, on December 15, two days after he was indicted by a North Carolina grand jury for attempted murder, the U.S. Office of Federal Probation petitioned a federal judge to retroactively "terminate" Barker's federal probation for illegally possessing military war weapons. The judge granted the probation revocation on January 12, effective retroactively of his attempted murder arrest. "At the time of his completion of probation on October 26, he was in compliance with all terms of his probation," reads the request for retroactive termination of his probation from the Office of Federal Probation to the federal judge.

On January 10, 2017 The federal judge granted the highly unusual request to retroactively rescind Barker's probation after he had been arrested for attempted murder

Shortly afterwards, a North Carolina state court lowered Barker's bond on his new attempted murder charges, too, and released the Klan leader from custody again.

From his home in early 2017, Barker waged a coordinated campaign threatening and intimidating the man he was accused of trying to kill, as well as potential witnesses likely to testify against him at his Caswell County, North Carolina trial, according to emails sent from Barker and his Klan loyalists obtained in this investigation.

The Caswell County, North Carolina district attorney's office dropped the charges against Mr. Barker, witnesses declined to show up for any scheduled trial dates because of numerous threatening messages sent to those who agreed to testify, fearing for their lives.

The Caswell County district attorney's office was distracted at the time because the elected district attorney was under federal investigation in a corruption scandal for stealing taxpayers money which has since resulted in his resignation.

After the Caswell County judge released Barker on a reduced bond awaiting trial, the Caswell County district attorney's office then filed charges of Assault and Battery against the victim of the stabbing, Richard Dillon, and informed him if he came back to North Carolina to testify against Chris Barker he would be arrested and jailed.

"That mother fucker tried to kill me. I am supposed to be dead," said Dillon, a former Klansman. "And they issue a warrant against me and say if I set foot in North Carolina to testify as a victim and witness against him I will be arrested? No fucking way am I going back to North Carolina to testify when the same prosecutors tell me they will arrest me if I do. I don't know what is going on with those people in Caswell County, but I don't trust them. Barker should be in prison, but he isn't. Why? Because he is working for the FBI."

The Caswell County District Attorney's office then, inexplicably, dropped the charges against Chris Barker but still refuses to do so against his victim.

Almost all Klan members have legitimate, real life complaints. They are angry at being disenfranchised and ignored by the American political elite and are all almost all full-throated supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump. They are trying to be a frightening voice for what they view as a threat to a diminishing caucasion majority. They believe they speak for a sector of rural white Americans with little access to jobs, health care, education, or opportunity from once all white and now forgotten communities. They blame their fear of growing disenfranchisement largely on religious and racial minorities, a sinister global Jewish conspiracy, an influx of immigrants, the shuttering of manufacturing and industrial jobs in communities long ravaged by epidemics of opiate, methamphetamine, and alcohol abuse.

Most of the several dozen other KKK factions, where internecine high volume bickering is the norm, are unified only in their visceral dislike for Mr. Barker and his LWK. "The LWK and Chris Barker are what gives real Klan's a bad name," said one former member who now is a leader of another KKK group. "They are just a money making machine to gain publicity to attract new members -there are good Christian American God fearing Klan's who are trying to do good."

According to the leaders of several other Klan factions, Barker and his Loyal White Knights are not a real Klan group.

In an unprecedented move of rare agreement between Klan factions nationwide, in 2017, the elders from 21 different Klan groups held a rare meeting to declare Chris and Amanda Barker and his LWK group "banished from the Invisible Empire" and declared the Loyal White Knights "klandistant"-or not recognized as a legitimate Klan group.

Several other Klan groups say Mr. Barker has been "banished"- or expelled-from at least three other Klan groups. "You have to really have fucked up to be kicked out of three Klan groups," said one.

Barker doesn't represent any other Klan but Barker," said JB Elmore, the Imperial Giant of the United Knights of Tennessee, in an interview. The Southern Poverty Law Center once referred to Mr. Elmore as "The most dangerous man in America."

"He is brainwashing these people into believing what he tells him. If Barker said to me in person the things he does on the Internet, I would go to prison. Don't you think if I wanted him 'visited', he would have been visited by now? I haven't because I don't want to go to jail. Barker should have been sent there a long time ago."

"Welcome to the Invisible Empire," Christopher Barker said in March, declining a reporters request for comment.

Upcoming:

Part Two of the series on Christopher Barker and his Loyal White Knights: The Imperial Wizard and his problem with cheap motel rooms

Part Three: Profiles in Hate: Portraits of the men and women of the Loyal White Knights from their secret internal files ■

Originally published on nate-thayer.com (Mar 2018). Recovered via the Wayback Machine.