Jordan Green, Investigative Reporter

A government oversight agency has opted against opening an investigation into a decorated Marine Corps colonel assigned to an elite advisory role at the Pentagon, who was the subject of a complaint for appearing on a podcast that advocated for his boss’ execution.

The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General agreed with a recommendation that a complaint against Col. Thomas M. Siverts does not warrant investigation, and closed the case. The decision was outlined in an October 29 letter to the complainant, who had alerted Siverts' superiors confidentially.

Siverts, who previously commanded the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit at Camp Pendleton and led deployments to East Asia, is currently assigned to the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. The Joint Staff supports General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is the highest-ranking military officer and principal military advisor to the secretary of defense, president and National Security Council.

In an episode of “The Berm Pit” podcast posted in late 2024, Scott Siverts, the colonel’s younger brother, and co-host Matt Wakulik discussed how Pete Hegseth, who was then President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Defense, should be rated.

“Why don’t we grade them on a scale of how many bullets I put in their head,” Wakulik suggested, as previously reported by Raw Story.

“Six bullets,” Wakulik went on to say about Hegseth, as Scott Siverts looked on with an air of amusement. “I’d have to put another one in there after I emptied the whole chamber — or the whole cylinder.”

Scott Siverts previously told Raw Story that when the podcast faced a public backlash over its extremist content earlier this year, his brother told him to leave the episode with his interview online.

“I like the episode,” Col. Thomas Siverts said, according to his brother. “If they come after me at some point, I don’t care. It’s free speech.”

The complainant, whom Raw Story has agreed to grant anonymity due to fear of retaliation, wrote in an email protesting the decision that Col. Siverts had “had ample time — over a year and a half — to denounce this extremist platform, request his episode’s removal, and make clear that he does not endorse or tolerate its content.” Instead, the complainant said, Col. Siverts “doubled down” by telling his brother to keep the episode online.

“To every Republican and veteran I’ve spoken with, it looks like complicity,” the complainant said. “Colonel Siverts, a man with top-secret clearance, continues to work in the same building as Secretary Hegseth — the man his brother once ‘rated’ with six bullets to the head on-air.”

Ian O’Dett, the whistleblower reprisal investigator for the Inspector General of the Marine Corps, which recommended dropping the case, referred questions about the matter to the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General. That office did not respond to a request for comment about the decision to close the case.

A public affairs officer for the Joint Staff, where Col. Siverts is assigned, declined to comment for this story, and phone calls and emails to Col. Siverts went unreturned.

Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson declined to comment for this story.

During his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Hegseth vowed to discontinue Biden-era efforts to root out extremism from the military.

“Things like focusing on extremism… have created a climate inside our ranks that feels political when it hasn’t ever been political,” Hegseth said. “Those are the types of things that are going to change.”

The episode featuring Col. Siverts, which was recorded in March 2023, does not include any political commentary, but rather focuses on Col. Siverts’ experience in the Marine Corps. Scott Siverts also served in the Marine Corps, and the podcast’s name references the earthen mounds designed to catch bullet casings at firing ranges used by Marines for training purposes.

The podcast’s name and hypermasculine vibe appear designed to appeal to active-duty Marines and veterans. And although the podcast is produced in Pittsburgh, its X account currently lists its location as Camp Pendleton — the largest Marine Corps base on the West Coast.

Scott Siverts filed incorporation papers for the Berm Pit LLC with the Pennsylvania Department of State in February 2023, a month before recording the episode with his brother. In those early days, the podcast primarily featured interviews with mixed-martial arts fighters and other sports figures.

But an episode that ran a couple months before Col. Siverts’ appearance entitled “Militia Man” featured Wakulik, who would go on to become the co-host, discussing his unsuccessful run for Allegheny County sheriff. Wakulik’s involvement with a militia group that uses a symbol associated with white supremacy had made him a lightning rod for controversy during the campaign.

With Wakulik’s participation in the podcast, the content became increasingly political and extreme, including episodes criticizing the United States’ involvement in World War II against the Axis powers and questioning the Holocaust, promoting an antisemitic conspiracy theory about Jews and the Sept. 11 attacks, discussing race war, and endorsing the murder of government officials.

Following a successful deplatforming campaign in the spring of 2025 and Wakulik’s declining health as a result of cancer, the co-hosts posted their last podcast in June.

But only days after the Inspector General’s decision clearing Col. Siverts of wrongdoing, Wakulik announced on X on Nov. 1 that the podcast will relaunch in three months, while appealing to supporters to buy “BermPit” branded apparel to help pay for a new studio.

While promoting its return, the podcast hasn’t shrunk from its co-hosts’ most extreme positions.

On Sunday, the account posted a video of Wakulik criticizing the U.S. military while wearing a shirt reading, “Winston Churchill was a piece of s---” — a jab at the wartime leader of Great Britain, the United States’ primary ally against Nazi Germany during World War II.

“What the f--- has our military done for constitutional rights defending freedom in our own f---ing country?” Wakulik rails in the video. “Have we gained more freedom post-Civil War, post-World War I, post-World War II? Or have we lost more rights, more freedom, our currency devalued to a point of worthlessness with the inflation rate through the f---ing roof.”

On his own X account, Wakulik recently called on his followers to “train for ZOG abolishment” — an acronym for “Zionist occupied government” that promotes a conspiracy theory falsely claiming that Jews control the U.S. and other Western democracies. In another post this past week, he urged supporters to “start discussing getting rid of our enemies — defeating them and removing them from our country,” and to “start discussing using self-defense against them when they try to kill us, imprison us or steal our property.”

Along the same lines, Wakulik criticized white supremacists who complain about Jews, but refuse to take action out of fear of having “a ‘target on your back’ from ZOG.”

Another X user responded by mentioning a tactic for starting forest fires with “ping pong balls filled with a couple substances then dropped from helicopters.

“What were the substances??” Wakulik replied. “Asking for a friend!!!”

The court-appointed lawyers for a defendant described by the government as a leader of a “transnational terrorist group” want a federal judge to dismiss the case against their client because they haven’t gotten paid in almost four months.

John Balazs and Kyle Knapp argue in a motion filed in federal court last month that alleged Terrorgram leader Matthew Robert Allison’s Sixth Amendment rights are being violated because Congress failed “to fund counsel and provide the resources necessary to adequately defend the charges against him.”

Funds to pay court-appointed lawyers for indigent defendants — known as Criminal Justice Act, or CJA panel attorneys — along with investigators, experts, interpreters and other support personnel, ran out in July. They were supposed to be reimbursed at the beginning of the new fiscal year, but continue to work without pay due to the government shutdown.

Like other CJA panel attorneys, Balazs and Knapp said they have been working without payment since early July.

Thomas Brzozowski, who formerly served as counsel for domestic terrorism at the Department of Justice, told Raw Story the likelihood court will agree to throw out Allison’s case is likely remote, but the funding crisis could slow down the prosecution.

“Given that there are likely hundreds of similarly situated defendants around the country, I doubt that the prosecutions would be fatally imperiled, but they very well could face considerable delay,” Brzozowski said. “We’ll have to keep an eye on how this case develops.”

Judge Dena M. Coggins hasn’t ruled on the motion, but she pushed back a status hearing that had scheduled in federal court in Sacramento, Calif. by two weeks — from Oct. 31 to Nov. 14.

Lauren Harwood, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California declined to comment.

The federal courts alerted Congress in a letter in April that due to a $129 million shortfall payments to CJA panel attorneys and support providers would have to be suspended in July.

The letter — co-signed by Robert J. Conrad Jr., director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts — warned that as a result of payment delays, “these attorneys and their experts could decline to accept future CJA appointments by a court, potentially creating unlawful delays in the constitutional right of defendants to a speedy and fair trial.”

“The right to legal counsel and a fair trial are the bedrock of our justice system,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking member of the Senate Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, told Raw Story. “Failure to fund the federal defenders puts cases at risk. So, if Congress wants to fund law and order, it should ensure adequate funding for federal defenders to uphold the Constitution.

“The shutdown is compounding this problem and preventing millions of hardworking people from getting paid,” Reed added. “The solution is for Republicans to come to the table and negotiate.”

Although Allison and his co-defendant Dallas Erin Humber were initially charged under the Biden administration, the Donald Trump’s Justice Department has signaled at least outwardly that it remains committed to the case. In addition to a prosecutor in the Eastern District of California, the department has two attorneys from the Civil Rights Division and one from the National Security Division assigned to the case.

When a third Terrorgram member, Noah Lamb, described by the government as a co-conspirator of Allison and Humber, was indicted in July, the Department of Justice press release included a quote from Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s assistant attorney general for civil rights.

“The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is committed to aggressively pursuing those who engage in hate-fueled conspiracies and terrorist threats,” Dhillon said at the time. “We will use every tool available to protect the civil rights of all Americans and ensure justice for those targeted by such heinous acts.”

Responding to a question about whether Dhillon is concerned that the funding crisis could compromise the Terrorgram prosecution, Natalie Baldasarre, a department spokesperson, told Raw Story: “No comment beyond our filings.”

In recent months, Trump and top officials in the administration have argued that the “radical left” is overwhelmingly responsible for rising political violence in the country, and during an appearance on “Fox and Friends” following the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, Trump appeared to dismiss concerns about right-wing extremism, even offering justification.

“I’ll tell you something that’s going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less,” Trump said. “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”

The government describes Terrorgram, the group it alleges that Allison led alongside co-defendant Humber, as an online network that promotes “white supremacist accelerationism,” described in the criminal complaint as an ideology centered on the belief “that violence and terrorism is necessary to ignite a race war and ‘accelerate’ the collapse of the government and the rise of a white ethnostate.”

To achieve its program of white revolution and domination, Terrorgram promotes mass shootings, industrial sabotage and political assassinations. The U.S. government has linked the group to attacks in the United States, Slovakia, Turkey and Brazil. Prosecutors also allege that Terrorgram was behind foiled plots to bomb an electrical substation in New Jersey and assassinate a politician in Australia.

The government alleges that Allison, as a leader of Terrogram, collaborated with Lamb and Humber to create a “kill list” targeting a federal judge and retired U.S. attorney, among others, and that he operated online channels and archives to disseminate it.

“The List would do for killing what the printing press had done for literacy,” Allison allegedly wrote in one post promoting the document.

The criminal complaint against Allison and Humber highlights one of the targets as “Federal Official 1,” described in the document as “an Anti-White, Anti-Gun, Jewish Senator.” Raw Story has obtained a copy of the document, and can confirm that the targeted individual is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Schumer could not be reached for comment for this story.

Allison’s lawyers took aim at the funding priorities of Trump’s Republican allies in Congress in their motion to dismiss.

“For perspective, rather than approve the $120 million shortfall needed to fully fund the judicial branch, and provide adequate funding for CJA panel attorneys, interpreters, investigators and experts, ‘Congress just approved $170 billion for immigration enforcement, and $45 billion alone to build immigration detention facilities,’” they wrote.

Along with Allison’s case, which has been delayed by at least two weeks, a federal judge in Albuquerque, N.M. agreed to put a death penalty case on hold due to concerns about potential constitutional violations arising from the funding crisis.

Lawyers for Labar Tsethlikai, who is accused of multiple counts of murder, kidnapping and sexual assault, told the court in an Oct. 1 filing that lawyers, investigators, mitigation specialists, paralegals and experts on the defense team “can no longer continue to work for free or pay expenses out of their own pocket.”

Due to their inability to pay mitigation specialists, the lawyers wrote that they had “grave concerns about the ability to effectively represent Mr. Tsethlikai as required by the Sixth Amendment and to uncover the necessary mitigating information.”

The government argued in response that “the defense team is required to continue advocating for defendant regardless of the temporary, fleeting lapse in appropriations,” adding that “there is no right to regular, bi-weekly or even monthly pay.”

But Judge David Herrera Urias agreed with the defendant.

“The right to a defense is one of the bedrock principles of this country, and the shutdown has unquestionably impeded defendant’s right to counsel in this case,” he ruled.

Paul Linnenburger, a CJA panel attorney representing a defendant in a separate case in New Mexico, described the funding crisis as “a ticking time bomb.” Echoing the concerns of court officials, Linnenburger told Raw Story he worries that the lapse could cause lasting damage.

“There’s a lot of providers that this is the work they do, and they haven’t been paid in four months,” said Linnenburger, who represents a client charged with marijuana manufacturing conspiracy. “That becomes very problematic At the end of the day, we’re small businesspeople.

“We rely on other providers — experts, investigators and, in complex cases, discovery coordinators. Those people are essentially beginning to tell us, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ I can’t say I blame them.”

Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf’s appearance before a Senate hearing on political violence this week resurfaced inconvenient remarks for a witness called by Republicans intent on painting rising political violence as a left-wing problem.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) read back Wolf’s Senate testimony from five years ago.

“White supremacist extremists, from a lethality standpoint over the last two years … are certainly the most persistent and lethal threat, when we talk about domestic violent extremists,” Wolf said at the time.

On Tuesday, before the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, chaired by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Wolff offered a strikingly different assessment.

“The increase in politically motivated violence over the last several years has been driven largely by radical, left-wing extremist groups and individuals that believe violence is a legitimate means to achieve political goals,” Wolf testified.

Wolf is now executive vice president of the America First Policy Institute. Founded in 2021 and closely aligned with Trump, former leaders include Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Secretary of Agriculture Brook Rollins and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

In a statement to Raw Story, Wolf did not disavow his 2020 assessment on white supremacist violence, but said: “America has experienced a historic rise in left-wing violence, especially following President Trump’s second election victory.”

At the time of Wolf’s September 2020 hearing, the U.S. had experienced a series of mass shootings by white supremacists, including Patrick Crusius, who killed 23 people, mostly Latinos, at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in 2019, and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.

Both killers echoed Donald Trump’s rhetoric depicting immigrants and refugees as an “invasion” or “invaders.”

U.S. counterterrorism officials also took note of the 2019 massacre carried out by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Crusius cited Tarrant as an inspiration. So did Payton Gendron, who killed 10 African Americans at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. in 2022.

Tarrant’s attack catalyzed the emergence of the term “saints” among white supremacists to glorify terrorists. The U.S. Justice Department is currently prosecuting three Terrorgram leaders on terrorism-related charges.

“White supremacist violence is clearly not the primary threat facing our country today,” Wolf told Raw Story. “All you have to do is look at the data, which has changed significantly in the last five years.”

Wolf cited incidents often mentioned by the administration and allies to make the case that political violence now emanates from the left: the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, two attempts on Trump’s life, the attempted assassination of conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and attacks on centers that offer an alternative to abortion services.

He did not cite the murder of Minnesota Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband by an abortion opponent; a recent death threat against Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) by a Jan. 6 rioter; or the bludgeoning of Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), by a QAnon follower.

Nor did Wolf mention some 1,500 individuals pardoned by President Trump over the Jan. 6 assault on Congress.

William Braniff, a former director of DHS’ Center for Prevention Programs under President Joe Biden testified alongside Wolf.

Braniff agreed that violent incidents are on the rise. But he told the subcommittee, “Violent events do not fit neatly into any one ideological category.”

Braniff noted that DHS contracted with the University of Maryland in 2005 to create a global terrorism database, by congressional mandate. In March, the Trump administration canceled funding.

Drawing on the database, Braniff said: “This year, compared to last year, terrorism events are up 67 percent. Fatalities are up nearly 150 percent. Americans are dying from ISIS-inspired, white supremacist, antisemitic, anti-government, anti-vax, anti-law enforcement and nihilistic attacks.”

‘Black Lives Matter and antifa riots’

In 2020, when Wolf flagged white supremacist violence, he was overseeing DHS as the first Trump administration deployed federal agents against protesters in Portland, Ore., a harbinger of the current standoff at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the city.

On Tuesday, Sen. Schmitt and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) cited rioting related to protests against the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, a familiar Republican talking point.

“There is an epidemic of politically motivated violence,” Cruz said. “And the politically motivated violence in this country is overwhelmingly emanating from the left. We saw that during the Black Lives Matter and antifa riots across the country, as cities across America burned.”

Schmitt complained that some studies of political violence “systematically ignore antifa and Black Lives Matter riots.”

Michael Knowles, a podcast host at the conservative outlet The Daily Wire, complained in testimony that “the Black Lives Matter riots, overtly leftist demonstrations that left dozens of people dead … fail to show up on registers of left-wing political violence.”

Cruz, Schmitt and Knowles did not delve into who was responsible for such violence. The data suggests they were presenting an incomplete picture.

Drawing on data provided by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), and multiple news reports, Raw Story counted 34 deaths plausibly linked to racial justice protests and unrest in 2020, not counting the police killings that sparked protests. Of those, three appear to involve perpetrators directly linked to Black Lives Matter, “antifa” or their supporters.

On May 28, 2020, the second night of rioting in Minneapolis, rioters set fire to a pawnshop. The charred remains of 30-year-old Oscar Lee Stewart Jr. were found in the ruins. Montez Terriel Lee was convicted of arson and sentenced to a decade in prison.

The following month, 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. was shot inside a stolen Jeep Cherokee that sped through an area of Seattle known as the CHAZ — Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone — and occupied by protesters. No charges have been brought, but bystander video appears to implicate an activist security team patrolling amid fears of a right-wing attack.

In late August 2020, Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer, was fatally shot in Portland, Ore. Michael Reinoehl, the self-described “antifa” shooter, claimed self-defense. Before he could be apprehended, Reinoehl was killed by federal agents, an event President Trump described as “retribution.”

Danielson’s death is the only politically motivated homicide in the U.S. linked to an identified antifascist in the past quarter-century.

In contrast, one study found that white supremacists and other right-wing extremists killed at least 329 between 1994 and 2020.

The circumstances of Danielson’s shooting remain unclear. As noted by ACLED, Trump supporters were staging a car caravan through downtown Portland, and some right-wingers “sprayed pepper spray and shot paintball guns at counter-demonstrators rallying in support of the BLM movement and against police brutality, as well as journalists.”

The entry also notes video showing right-wing demonstrators driving vehicles through left-wing counter-demonstrators attempting to block the streets.

‘Might shoot looters’

Eight other deaths in 2020 could be linked to racial justice protests, if not directly.

In some, civilian bystanders were killed by criminals who appeared to be exploiting chaos. Victims include David Dorn, a retired police captain in St. Louis whose widow spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention; Chris Beaty, a former college football player murdered in Indianapolis while assisting a woman being mugged; and Marvin Francois, a photographer killed in a robbery while leaving a protest in Kansas City.

Among the most shocking deaths associated with the 2020 protests is that of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, shot by an alleged Bloods gang member manning a barricade in the area where Rayshard Brooks was killed by Atlanta police. Julian Conley was convicted of murder and other offenses, and sentenced to life in prison.

Kyle Rittenhouse mugshot. (Kenosha County Sheriff's office)

But in at least 23 cases — roughly two thirds — Raw Story found that perpetrators of unrest-related deaths were not linked to Black Lives Matter, antifa or their supporters. They include five people killed by police, one killed by the National Guard, others killed by motorists and shopkeepers, a man with severe mental illness, and a security guard for a news crew.

In one example, Steven Carillo, an airman active in the far-right Boogaloo movement, took advantage of unrest after Floyd’s death to murder David Patrick Underwood, a federal security officer guarding the federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., and Damon Gutzwiler, a Santa Cruz County deputy sheriff attempting to serve a warrant.

Raw Story’s analysis tallied 11 Black Lives Matter protesters killed: roughly equal to the number of unaffiliated civilians.

Two — Summer Taylor and Robert Forbes — were struck by vehicles. Barry Perkins III was dragged by a tractor-trailer. Others, including James Scurlock and Italia Impinto, were shot.

Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran marching with BLM protesters in Austin, Texas on July 25, 2020, was fatally shot by Daniel Perry, a former soldier who reportedly searched for locations of protesters and told a friend he “might go to Dallas to shoot looters.” Perry was convicted of murder, then pardoned by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Perhaps most memorably, Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot two BLM supporters during unrest in Kenosha, Wis. in 2020. He was acquitted on all charges.