Right-wing extremist tied to threats against Raw Story reporter arrested on gun charges

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include new details released by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of North Carolina and confirmation that Nix is no longer serving in the Army following the original publication of this article on Sunday, Aug. 18.

Kai Liam Nix, a 20-year-old Army soldier tied to extremist threats against a Raw Story reporter, was arrested on Aug. 15 and is being detained in a North Carolina jail on a “federal hold,” Raw Story has confirmed.

The New Yorker, which published an extensive article Sunday about right-wing extremism, further detailed that Nix’s federal charges involve “illicit sales of firearms and lying on a background check.”

Update, 5:01 p.m., Aug. 19, 2024: A federal grand jury indicted Nix — also known as Kai Brazelton — with unlawful firearms trafficking, including the sale of two stolen firearms, according to a statement Monday from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of North Carolina.

The grand jury also indicted Nix on making false statements to the government by allegedly lying on a security clearance application document by saying he had "never been a member of a group dedicated to the use of violence or force to overthrow the U.S. government."

The FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Department have combined to investigate Nix's case, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of North Carolina.

Together, the charges carry a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison.

Update, 12:10 a.m., Aug. 21, 2024: Bryce S. Dubee, an Army spokesperson, confirmed to Raw Story that Nix "has left the Army," while referring additional questions to the Department of Justice.

Robert J. Parrott Jr., a public defender, told the New York Times "that we should avoid rushing to judgement" on Nix, adding that the defendant "looks forward to making his case in court."

The story by New Yorker reporter David Kirkpatrick links Nix to a demonstration by neo-Nazis in February outside the Greensboro, N.C., home of Raw Story reporter Jordan Green.

The article also links Nix to photographs of a bogus pizza delivery at Green’s home in January — ones circulated by extremists in an attempt to intimidate Green, who was then completing reporting on a neo-Nazi youth gang 2119, also known as the Blood and Soil Crew.

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As detailed by the New Yorker, the license plate of a pickup truck parked outside Green’s home and containing someone surreptitiously photographing the pizza delivery traced back to Nix. The photo apparently taken by Nix was posted by a 2119 member on the social media app Telegram the day after the incident.

Nix, who is an active-duty soldier based at Fort Liberty, N.C., per the New Yorker’s reporting, was also reportedly present at the neo-Nazi demonstration in front of Green’s home in February.

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The New Yorker indicated that Nix photographed four men wearing skull masks holding burning flares in Hitler salutes while flanking a fifth man, who held a sign warning of a “consequence” for Green’s reporting.

The man holding the sign, Sean Kauffmann, along with two of the men making Hitler salutes — Jarrett William Smith and David Fair — had been the subject of Green’s previous reporting.

Photos of the demonstration soon appeared on a Telegram channel named Appalachian Archives.

Also posted: photos of the Nazis posing next to a historical marker commemorating the Greensboro massacre, where a coalition of Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members fatally gunned down five labor organizers in 1979.

Raw Story attempted to reach the Army to confirm Nix's service status, but did not receive a response before publication on Sunday. Messages left for the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina likewise went unreturned Sunday.