An Ohio National Guard soldier, who was suspended and recalled from his mission in Washington, D.C., earlier this month for holding white supremacist views, appeared on a neo-fascist podcast uploaded Sunday, where he said that he was being discharged from the military and discussed how federal agents tracked him down and confronted him.
On June 5, nearly two weeks into mass protests following the police killing of George Floyd, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced that one of the 100 Ohio National Guard members deployed to assist the federal government’s response to protests in Washington had been suspended and removed from his mission after the FBI found the soldier had expressed white supremacist views online prior to his assignment. When reached by Right Wing Watch earlier this month, the Ohio National Guard added that the suspended soldier had suspected ties to an “extremist organization.” RWW linked the Ohio National Guard member to the online persona “Zoltanous HN,” whom the independent media collective Unicorn Riot identified as 24-year-old Ohio man Shandon Simpson. Simpson matched the member’s active-duty status, digital moniker, and affiliation with radical hate groups.
In an interview uploaded Sunday on a neo-fascist podcast called “Fascist Maxims,” which advocates Third Position political theory that supports the overthrow of the U.S. government in favor of a white monocultural nation state, Simpson said that federal agents confronted him in Lafayette Park, which sits just north of the White House, and that he was sent back to Ohio where he spent a week in pre-trail detention—a claim the Ohio National Guard disputes. The solider says he has since signed separation documents with the military and is set to receive a general discharge for “unsoldierly behavior” for holding biased and discriminatory views against people of different races. He said that the military had finished its investigation but that the FBI was still probing.
“They’re just trying to figure out how I got into the military, so they can prevent people like me from getting in the military,” Simpson said. “The FBI are still trying to find something to put on me.”
After his recall and suspension made national news, Simpson fell silent. He deleted his Facebook profile, removed all the videos from his YouTube channel and vanished from the Telegram channel associated with his online persona. However,Simpson has resurfaced in the past week. His YouTube channel has three new videos, and he appeared on-camera for the ”Fascist Maxims”podcast, where he further confirmed his identity as Shandon Simpson. He spoke at length about what he says was his experience being discovered in the military, despite claiming at one point that he had signed a nondisclosure agreement with the federal government related to the incident.
He told podcast listeners that after he entered an argument with another individual on Facebook who had discovered he was a National Guardsman, his Telegram chat messages mentioning “race and holy war” were anonymously shared. Simpson baselessly accused the FBI of leaking that information to RWW.
Simpson also said he was present in chats with accelerationist figures where members glorified acts of terrorism and praised white supremacist mass shooters, including a host from the white supremacist podcast “Goy Talk.” Simpson said he posted a political manifesto to several groups, including one where it was discovered by federal authorities.
“I posted it in there, and apparently somebody in there was actually a fed,” Simpson said.
Simpson said that while on duty in Washington he got a phone call from the FBI who were at the hotel he was staying at in Washington and requested to meet with him. He told the agents he was in Lafayette Park, north of the White House where the National Guard had been lined up against anti-racism protesters, and that agents asked for Simpson to give the phone to his commanding officer. Simpson says he complied and, after sensing the severity of the situation, started logging out of his accounts and attempting to erase his online footprint.
“They still got everything anyways,” Simpson said. Federal officials, he said, still have his phone.
Simpson said he eventually was met by seven FBI agents, two CIA officers, and one man from military intelligence who interrogated him in Lafayette Park in front of his leadership. Simpson claims the FBI asked if he would become an informant but that he refused to do so.
“They treated me like a terrorist. They called me a terrorist,” Simpson said.
According to Simpson, agents threatened to drape him in a swastika flag and have him march through Black Lives Matter protesters outside the White House that night.
“I told them I would do it if I wouldn’t get any charges on me,” Simpson said. “I’d probably be more safe doing that.”
RWW reached the Ohio National Guard for comment. “Private 1st Class Shandon Simpson has been processed for separation and the action is pending. He was returned to Ohio where the remainder of his unit was performing duty. He was not in pre-trial detention. He remained on duty with his unit until it was released from duty,” Ohio National Guard Public Information Officer Stephanie Beougher told RWW in an email.
At the top of the podcast, Simpson recounted his experiences with Vanguard America and his dissatisfaction with varied offshoots of the American neo-fascist movement. He talked about designing graphics for Patriot Front, a group that broke off from Vanguard America after the 2017 Unite the Right rally but said he ultimately chose not to work with the group long term. Simpson also talked about interacting with members of Iron March, a now-defunct neo-Nazi forum board, but he said he was eventually turned off of the forum and that it eventually spun into the murderous neo-Nazi gang Atomwaffen Division, which Simpson said “isn’t really a good organization at all.”
According to footage reviewed by Unicorn Riot, Simpson attended the violent Unite the Right white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, where a participant murdered counterprotester Heather Heyer with his vehicle. Simpson was filmed with the small neo-Nazi group Vanguard America, and in a frameof the reviewed footage, Heyer’s murderer can be seen standing near Simpson during one portion of the day. Simpson said he joined the military in late 2018—more than a year after he marched in Charlottesville.
h/t Angry White Men
