As Raw Story has previously reported, Jones recruited for the white supremacist terror network the Base, attended rallies with the more public facing white supremacist group Patriot Front, and fought with the police alongside the Proud Boys at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Following a traffic stop in upstate New York, Jones pleaded guilty in December to being a felon in possession of a gun. He is currently awaiting sentencing.
While Jones’ involvement by the Proud Boys has been previously reported, his one-time membership in the Charlotte chapter was confirmed last month during an acrimonious public spat on the social media app Telegram as a mutinous faction pushed aside the chapter’s one-time president.
Joshua Ballinger, the one-time president of the Charlotte Proud Boys chapter, referenced Jones by his nickname “Strategian” during a marathon exchange of video chats, audio chats and texts that ran up to 250 comments on June 13.
“Oh, are you talking about Strategian — the dude that was in f---ing Charlotte while you were in Charlotte and went through the same vetting that you went through, I guess?” Ballinger said. “Are you talking about that guy? That guy that was 19 and was sleeping with a 17-year-old? Even though, yeah, it is illegal and he shouldn’t have been doing it and that’s f---ing, to me, gross, but come on, man, you’re pulling a stretch.”
As previously reported by Raw Story, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police responded to a call for service at a house in Charlotte where Jones was staying in an attempt to locate a 17-year-old girl who was listed as a missing person. During the visit to the house, the police determined that the girl, described in the incident report as “mentally handicapped,” had been assaulted, while classifying the offense as “forcible rape.” The case was cleared because the victim chose not to prosecute.
While downplaying the alleged rape, Ballinger also misstated Jones’ age. He was 24 at the time of the incident.
Since the group’s founding in 2016 but to a more pronounced degree in the past 12 months, the Proud Boys have presented themselves as guardians of public morality, while interjecting themselves into emotionally fraught public controversies over COVID restrictions, the teaching of race in public schools and drag shows to try to instigate violence with left-wing adversaries.
Jones has been active with the Proud Boys going back at least to August 2020, when he participated in an ambiguously defined march against human trafficking in Fayetteville, N.C., that drew upon conspiracy theories associated with QAnon. Charles Donohoe, then the president of Piedmont North Carolina Proud Boys chapter, was at the rally, and would later plead guilty to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Following the 2020 election, Jones showed up at a rally to protest COVID restrictions in Raleigh that was led by Proud Boys leader Jeremy Bertino, who has since pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy for his role in the insurrection. The Raleigh gathering served as a regional feeder event for a Dec. 12, 2020 protest against the election outcome that would come to be seen as a dress rehearsal for the Jan. 6 insurrection. Jones was there, too.
On Jan. 6, Jones marched with hundreds of Proud Boys to the U.S. Capitol, and can be seen pulling away barricades on the West Plaza in close proximity to Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola, who has since been convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding. Jones was arrested by DC police for violation of curfew on Jan. 6, but has yet to face any federal charges for his role in the attack.
Prior to the alleged rape in Charlotte, Jones pleaded guilty to crime against nature for having sex with a 15-year-old girl at a time when he was 18. Since his conviction in 2019, Jones’ criminal record has been publicly accessible on the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction website.
Since Jones’ arrest on the federal charge for felon in possession of a gun in June 2022, North Carolina Proud Boys, like their counterparts across the country, have put their primary focus on harassing patrons at drag events, including a drag queen story hour at public library in Wilmington; and drag brunches in Sanford and Winston-Salem.
In September 2022, the North Carolina Proud Boys threatened to protest a drag show at a restaurant in downtown Albemarle, a small city 40 miles east of Charlotte.
Dressed in a suit and tie, Ballinger addressed his concerns to the city council five days before the event as four Proud Boys in the group’s traditional colors sat in the audience. Ballinger also recorded himself confronting the city’s director of planning and development services by asking him if he supported “kids at drag shows” while implying that he had a conflict of interest because his enforcement unit came down in favor of the venue.
Ballinger could not be reached for comment for this story.
‘Not a good look’
During the blowup on Telegram last month, Proud Boys who are part of the rogue faction cited Michael Jones’ past membership in the Charlotte chapter as evidence of a failure in Ballinger’s leadership.
“Also, whose chapter did the informant come out of?” asked a Proud Boy known as “Tanky.” “Yeah, that’s right — the old Charlotte chapter. Who also had a pedophile inside their chapter that they allowed to go to other brothers’ houses in front of their kids. Oh yeah, that’s the old Charlotte chapter. S---, not a good look.”
“They created a whole new degree of f---ed-upness,” another member identified as “Jimbob Smith” added. “It’s a fed-ophile. It was a fed informant mixed with a pedophile. Only Charlotte can do that!”
While Jones is a convicted sex offender and is alleged to have committed rape against a 17-year-old, there is no evidence that he is sexually attracted or has committed sex acts with prepubescent children, as the word “pedophile” implies.
Beyond the Proud Boys, Jones is not the only far-right activist with a history of sexual misconduct. Last summer, 31 members of Patriot Front were arrested on conspiracy to riot charges when they arrived in a U-Haul truck loaded with riot gear at a Pride celebration in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. When police seized the phone of one of the men, Utah resident Jared M. Boyce, they found child porn. In May, Boyce was sentenced to one year in jail.
And in January, Andrew Hazelton of Maine, a member of the New England-based white supremacist group NSC-131 — which has been actively involved in harassing drag shows and the LGBTQ community — was sentenced to five years for possessing child porn after he solicited a 10-year-old girl to send him photos of herself in her underwear and without a shirt, and told her he wished he could have sex with her.
‘You all can all inform together’
While Proud Boys in the Charlotte chapter appear to throw around the accusation of informant rather loosely, Raw Story has independently confirmed that Jones has in the past worked as a paid FBI informant.
Lira Gallagher, a spokesperson for the FBI Washington Field Office, declined to comment.
Even as Jones pushed back against popular right-wing conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 attack was orchestrated by the FBI, he promoted violence in an Instagram post published while he was living in Charlotte in early 2022.
“There might have been a handful of agents in the crowd, but they lost control and things got worse than they anticipated,” he wrote. “They anticipated letting in a door or two and making that look like the end of the world. But the doors got smashed down and people f---ed around in offices and threw paperwork around for fun. There were lots of based people and heroes in that crowd, and they did more than you could dream to do unless you’re working on some cool plans that no one else needs to hear about.”
Paradoxically, the Proud Boys membership has grown since Jan. 6, even as dozens of members have been arrested for their involvement in the attack on the Capitol, and four leaders, including former national chairman Enrique Tarrio, have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. But the blowup inside the Charlotte chapter illustrates how paranoia about federal informants, real and imagined, can erode trust within the movement and create some degree of paralysis.
During the lengthy exchange on June 13, members of the rogue faction also expressed suspicion about a former member nicknamed “JT,” a reference to Jay Thaxton, a North Carolina Proud Boy who flanked Tarrio during a January 2020 Second Amendment rally in Richmond, Va. and who was arrested in DC with Jones for curfew violation on Jan. 6, 2021. Thaxton was deposed last year by the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack.
“Where’s JT at?” “Jimbob Smith” scoffed to Ballinger in a voice chat. “He’s over there by the police station with Red, ain’t he? Yeah, that’s convenient. That’s real convenient. Why don’t you go over there and hold church this month? That way you all can all inform together.”
Thaxton could not be reached for this story. Raw Story has not independently confirmed that he has acted as an FBI informant.
In response to accusations that he was compromised because of his association with Thaxton and Jones, Ballinger countered by attempting to link his adversaries to Donohoe, the former Proud Boy who pleaded guilty. Donohoe, who was known by his nickname “Yut Yut,” had served as president of the Piedmont chapter in the Winston-Salem area.
“Yeah, the case I want is all the f---ing information that f---ing Brooks and f---ing Yut Yut gave up, but somehow Archie’s now the vice president — or the f---ing president of your rogue chapter.”
A member of the Northwest chapter, which absorbed the Winston-Salem members after Donohoe’s arrest, took offense at Ballinger’s comment, and posted an angry video chat.
“Talking s--- about Yut Yut and, uh, Brooks is fine,” said the member nicknamed “Kill Dozer.” “They’re f---ing feds. They’re f---ing rats. I talk s--- about ’em. I burned my Yut Yut shirt. But when you talk about, ‘You’re still hanging out with the chapter that spawned Yut Yut and Books,’ and s--- like that, what the f--- are you trying to say, son? Huh? Because if you’re trying to say something about my motherf---ing chapter and trying to associate us with feds that we got rid of, then I want my mother---ing mutual [fight] ASAP.”
‘Some chapters are pure natsoc and wignat’
During the time Jones was active with the Proud Boys, from 2020 to 2022, he was also involved with Patriot Front, demonstrating the porous relationship between the Proud Boys, a group that accepts men of color while claiming to be not racist, and neo-Nazis and other open white supremacist groups. Even before Jones became active with the Proud Boys, he was involved with the Base, a white supremacist terror network linked to an assassination plot and designated a terrorist organization in Canada and Australia, according to an application and vetting call obtained by Raw Story.
In a post on Telegram in February 2022, Jones touted the social benefits of the Proud Boys to detractors who criticized the group for not being racist enough.
“Love or hate the proudboys, at least a lot of chapters have their s--- squared away and safe,” he wrote.
“Some chapters are pure natsoc and wignat,” he continued, using common shorthand terms for national socialist, or Nazi, and white nationalist, “some are a little less cool but still. If you hate them, ask yourself if you have a local group of guys you can drink with or at least rely on heavily.”
Jones’ involvement with the white supremacist movement dates back to early 2019, when he founded a group called Euro Dawn At the time, he had moved back to North Carolina after his enlistment in the Army was cut short by sex offense charges.
Jones completed an application to join the Base in August 2019. During a vetting call that included founder Rinaldo Nazzaro, Jones said his political ideology aligned with “white nationalists,” adding, “I guess national socialist is the best way to put it.”
He remained actively involved with the Base at least through January 2020, when he participated in a vetting call for another prospective member. Nazzaro can be heard on a recording of the call, which was reviewed by Raw Story, telling Jones he wanted to meet the prospect in person due to the fact that the prospect was in Jones’ “AO,” or area of operations. It remains unclear whether the two actually met.
Even after marching with the Proud Boys, Jones continued to promote the Base.
Following a car-ramming attack by an African-American man in Waukesha, Wisc. in November 2021, Jones pitched the Base to his followers on Telegram as a way for white people to join a “local crew” of “like-minded individuals” prepared to “watch each other’s backs.” Jones wrote that if his followers were “still looking for a local crew, the Base can help you link up,” while including a link to a Telegram account associated with the Base.
He also added that Patriot Front and NSC-131 would be workable options for racially conscious white men looking for a local crew to protect themselves from perceived threats from people of color.
Michael Jones during an outing with Patriot Front in Sylva, N.C. in the fall of 2021. Video screengrab courtesy of Unicorn Riot
In late June, a brawl between Proud Boys and neo-Nazis in the Pacific Northwest that resulted from a personal dispute has exposed tensions between the two groups across the country. But two weeks earlier, when the two Proud Boys factions in Charlotte went at each other over the liability presented by their former member, there was a telling silence.
Despite public reporting as early as November 2022 about Michael Jones’ involvement with the Base, no one in the Telegram chat brought up his history of activity with a white supremacist terror group as a negative.
Corbin police seized firearms from two KKK members, emptied the bullets out of the chambers, and then returned the weapons. Video still courtesy Corbin Police Department
Republican presidential candidate John Anthony Castro. Courtesy: John Anthony Castro campaign