'Paranoid' GOP lawmaker who is obsessed with ‘Biblical War’ sought GPS devices to track adversaries: report

Republican state Rep. Matt Shea of Spokane, Washington reportedly sought GPS devices and other spycraft to use against his political adversaries.

The revelations are part of a trove of emails obtained by The Spokesman-Review.

The paper said that Shea, who has connections to the Christian identity movement, believes that "Muslims, journalists and critics of all political stripes are 'supporting tyranny' if they don’t support his view that the United States is 'a Christian nation.'"

In 2018, Shea was criticized for writing a manifesto called “Biblical Basis for War.”

The paper noted:

Already, Shea and some of his closest supporters have made physical preparations for a holy war, one that would help them establish their long-envisioned 51st state, their Redoubt, their Christian homeland. Leaked emails published this week reveal that Shea has had close ties with a group that conducted “patriotic and biblical training on war for young men.”

Whistleblower Jay Pounder, Shea's former security provider, said that lawmaker asked him obtain GPS devices to track his opponents.

“He was thinking that, at some point in the future, there would be concerning people that need to be tracked,” Pounder said.

Emails showed that Shea told Pounder to buy "two cheaper active models" off of Ebay. Pounder said that he never obtained the devices but he did obtain other items.

“He gave me a bug sniffer,” Pounder recalled. “He gave me a cellphone jammer that plugs into a cigarette lighter.”

“He was a paranoid dude,” he added. “He was always scared that the government was listening. He was always scared that if a black van pulled up, the doors would fly open and they’d scoop him away. And he always said that he would not go down without a fight.”

The former associate said that Shea kept a blacklist of "informants" in his network. Pounder called the list “mostly paranoid delusions."

Read the entire report at The Spokesman-Review.