Ex-soldier linked to far-right groups pleads guilty to gun charge

NEW BERN, NC — A former member of the white nationalist group Patriot Front who was arrested while enlisted as a soldier at Fort Bragg has pleaded guilty to a firearms charge.

Kai Nix, 21, entered a guilty plea for knowingly selling and possessing a stolen firearm for sale in federal court on Wednesday.

Nix was arrested in August 2024. Four days later, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) published a story confirming that he was enlisted in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg and that as a member of Patriot Front, he operated “a social media account that disclosed personal information about perceived political enemies — including journalists, left-leaning activists, politicians and community members.”

Nix denied his involvement with Patriot Front to The New Yorker, which also detailed his activities.

Nix’s enlistment in the Army abruptly ended at the time of his arrest.

He was originally charged with falsely stating on a security clearance application that “he had never been a member of a group dedicated to the use of violence or force to overthrow the United States government,” dealing in firearms without a license, and a separate count of knowingly possessing and selling a stolen firearm.

The indictment did not name the group, but the SPLC cited leaked messages obtained by the left-leaning media organization Unicorn Riot that showed Nix participated in a Patriot Front rally in Philadelphia in July 2021 and a November 2021 training drill with the group.

One participant in the training, Paul Gancarz, was accused of involvement with the vandalism of a mural dedicated to African-American tennis player Arthur Ashe in Richmond, Virginia, only a month earlier. Gancarz and four other members settled a civil lawsuit for conspiracy to violate civil rights under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, and intimidation and racial animosity under Virginia state law.

Nix enlisted in the Army in 2022. The following year a channel named Appalachian Archives appeared on the social media platform Telegram. The SPLC linked Nix to the channel by connecting him to various protests attended by the administrator of the channel.

In September 2023, the channel posted a link to a list of “high-value targets” for assassination produced and distributed by the Terrorgram Collective, a far-right group. The list included Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), a federal judge, a U.S. attorney, mayors and scientists involved in vaccine research.

Since Nix’s arrest, threemembers of Terrorgram have been arrested, and the U.S. State Department has named the group as a specially designated global terrorist entity.

The Appalachian Archives channel frequently posted the phrase “always watching, always listening, always near.”

In January 2024, Raw Story reporter Jordan Green was targeted by a bogus pizza delivery at his home in Greensboro, North Carolina. The next day, a photo of Green at his door appeared on a Telegram channel popular with neo-Nazi teenagers. Green’s security camera captured the license plate of a vehicle parked outside the house at the time of the pizza delivery. A search of the license plate found it was registered to Nix.

Under a plea agreement, the government agreed to dismiss additional charges against Nix, including lying about membership in a group dedicated to the use of violence or force to overthrow the United States government. The plea agreement was not available on Wednesday, and it is unknown whether it includes any agreement that he cooperate in investigations of extremist activity.

Judge Louise Flanagan issued an order on Wednesday requiring that “any motion regarding the substantial assistance of the defendant must be filed under seal” prior to sentencing.

Nix’s lawyer, Keith Williams, said his client was not available for comment.

As the basis for Nix’s guilty plea, a federal prosecutor told the court that in December 2023, Nix communicated with an FBI confidential human source about stolen firearms.

Nix showed a photo of a Glock pistol that he described as “hot,” the prosecutor said. The FBI conducted a controlled buy while providing the informant with a recording device. The FBI determined that the pistol was stolen from a Robeson County sheriff’s deputy.

Nix’s sentencing is set for December 2025. Under the original indictment, he could have received up to 30 years in prison. His maximum sentence with the three charges dismissed is unknown. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina did not return an email requesting comment.

On Wednesday, prior to Nix’s arraignment, a Telegram channel describing itself as a “right-wing” news aggregator published a post praising Nix for “infiltrate[ing] antifa cell Discord servers and discover[ing] vital and sometimes even compromising information.” The post also named Nix as the founder of Appalachian Archives.

“Had the leftist Biden administration not unjustly imprisoned Nix and he was able to continue his good work and defend Americanism, perhaps things could have went differently on September 10th, 2025,” the post stated, suggesting Nix might have disrupted the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.

Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to President Donald Trump, has claimed without evidence that “a vast domestic terror movement” was behind Kirk’s assassination. But evidence presented by federal prosecutors in Utah on Tuesday gave no indication that the shooter, Tyler Robinson, was linked to any extremist network.

Investigators have taken an interest in Robinson’s messages on the online gaming platform Discord, but a review of some of the messages by journalist Ken Klippenstein shows that the discussions were largely apolitical and belie the notion that Robinson was radicalized on the forum.