I go over how the How the U S Government infiltrated and co-opted political groups in America.

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TRANSCRIPT:

How the U.S. Government Infiltrated and Co-Opted Political Groups in America

The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted clandestine operations under their counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO, between 1956 and 1971 to surveil, infiltrate, disrupt, and discredit American political organizations that were deemed counter to government interests.

These activities included blackmailing activists, bankrolling favored groups, and even supporting assassinations.

The program officially began in August 1956 with the targeting of the US Communist party. The missions were established by the first director of the FBI, John Edgar Hoover, and carried out under FBI agent William C. Sullivan. At first, The FBI would make harassment phone calls and spur IRS audits aimed at communist groups.

However, Hoover’s desire for power and control led him to expand his infiltration, using the agency’s resources to spy on whoever he thought would be an obstacle to him and the military-industrial complex.

He wiretapped the home telephone of a Supreme Court clerk, a congressional staff member, three executive officials, a lobbyist, a Washington law firm, and even Martin Luther King Junior’s phones, among others.

Hoover compiled a list of some 26,000 Americans he labelled as “potentially or actually dangerous,” persons who could be seized or jailed at the president’s command.

Under Hoover, the FBI also set up a Ghetto Informant Program with some 7,400 informants for Hoover’s spying network.

Hoover’s sweeping invasion covered most any kind of group that could be considered outside the pro-war, pro-central-planning government paradigm, from targeting Black Civil Rights Groups, to the Nation of Islam, to anti-war organizations.

Among some of the more concerning activities was the use of false media to try to enrage and incite conflict among different groups. The smear campaigns included things like placing informants into Black Nationalist organizations to spread false statements of impending hits, which ultimately lead to Malcom X’s assassination.

The FBI’s misinformation campaigns also led to the assassination of Illinois Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Chicago, a party Hoovered called “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”

These shady tactics targeting civil rights movements also involved blackmail. One of the more infamous incidents was the FBI’s sending an anonymous letter to Martin Luther King Junior suggesting he end his own life under the threat of the FBI’s releasing an audio tape exposing his sexual activities.

The FBI also funded counter organizations like the group called the Minutemen, which would use threats and violence to counter protest other political groups Hoover wanted neutralized.

The Senate Church Committee of 1975 noted in book 2 of their state clandestine activity findings that the FBI:

Mailed anonymous letters to the spouses of intelligence targets for the purpose of destroying their marriages,

Used the IRS to target and deter a protest leader from attending the Democratic National Convention,

Made up marijuana charges as a pretext to arrest people and disrupt activities,

And opened and copied hundreds of thousands of letters to spy on the communications of various targeted individuals.

The CIA also partook in similar activities with their corollary division, Operation CHAOS.

The CIA would weaponize the IRS against perceived enemies, such as improperly obtaining the tax returns of Ramparts Magazine for political targeting, the magazine responsible for exposing the CIA’s media manipulations under Operation Mockingbird.

COINTELPRO was “officially” terminated in April 1971, but the spying and manipulations continued.

Even just one year after it was supposed to permanently end, the FBI was already planting hundreds of bugs without warrants and opening thousands of pieces of personal mail.

The FBI’s continued use of informants is so common to this day that the phrase, “FBI Foils FBI Plot” has become a witticism.

The 2020 alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer by a group of men called the Wolverine Watchmen was exposed as a seeming entrapment case with an FBI agent acting as an undercover instigator along with at least 12 other possible informants.

So, the next time you see something weird at a political event, like a bunch of buff dudes all together wearing a similar accessory such as the same bracelet or colored socks, be aware that it might just be the FBI continuing their shady undercover disruptions of disfavored political groups.