The Alphabet Boys | Trevor Aaronson | TMR

Emma speaks with Trevor Aaronson, contributing writer at The Intercept, to discuss his recent podcast Alphabet Boys. Trevor Aaronson then joins as he dives right into the history of the FBI’s infiltration of left-wing political and civil rights movements, a tactic foundational to the Bureau’s Hooverian ideology, beginning with the Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of the 1950s that ran through the ‘70s, serving to undermine and endanger groups like the Black Panther Party and American Indian Movement and those that served as community leaders, and moving through Senator Frank Church’s investigation into and disbandment of this program and its horrendous abuses. Next, Aaronson walks through the post-Church Committee development of the FBI, as they somewhat took on a reserved role until the birth of the War on Terror, and a mass influx of funding for domestic political infiltration coming after the 9/11 terror attacks and creating a renaissance of the FBI’s right to surveil and infiltrate without a criminal predicate. Trevor then looks to the protests of summer 2020 as he takes Emma through the story of Mickey Windecker, a self-proclaimed mercenary recruited by the FBI to infiltrate and inform on left-wing activists groups planning protests in Denver in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, employing violence, intimidation, and intra-community conspiracy to undermine and entrap Black anti-racist activists into illegal acts, resulting of the arrest of one protestor for the FBI-funded purchasing of weapons for the FBI informant, who would then give said weapon back to the FBI. After briefly touching on Jim Jordan and the GOP’s “Church Committee 2.0” and why we must push back against the revisionist narrative that the FBI only (or even primarily) targets the right wing, Emma and Trevor wrap up the interview by tackling the likelihood that these tactics were also prevalent outside of Denver, and the future of his reporting with “Alphabet Boys.”

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Trevor Aronson contributing writer for The Intercept but the subject of this interview is his excellent investigative work for the podcast alphabet boys. It's a 10-episode documentary podcast from Western Sound and I Heart podcast. and it's about the FBI infiltration of black lives matter protests. It's called alphabet boys again. Trevor, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. yeah. Thanks for having me. of course, so I have listened to every episode. I wait for bated breath for the weekly release of the latest one. I couldn't recommend it more highly. And before we get into the specifics of the podcast I just wanted to talk about the FBI's involvement in activist movements in general. There's a long history of this particularly left-wing activist. Although you know we saw this Gretchen Whitmer story, it's not exclusive to the left. But very very much primarily targeting the left. And I'd say it is as fundamental to the FBI as anything. So just kind of take us through that history if you don't mind briefly. And how ubiquitous this is within the FBI. Yeah, so I think when most people think of the dark chapters of the FBI's history it's you know J Edgar Hoover the Jacob Hoover era of the FBI, and what was known as the counterintelligence program. Or what most people refer to as cointelpro. Cointelpro was a program in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s that was intended to essentially infiltrate and undermine groups that Jager Hoover had termed subversive to American society. They did include some far-right groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. But the primary targets were anti-war Advocate anti-war Advocates and left-wing groups.