Alex Jones on alleged FBI monitoring of Nick Fuentes: ‘It’s a trap’

Jones started simulcasting his Infowars show through Fuentes’s Cozy.TV streaming service in February 2022, suggesting that he ultimately ignored Weaver’s warning. Prior to announcing his public-facing relationship with Fuentes, the two men helped Trump push lies about a stolen election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Separately, they both appeared outside of the Capitol on the day of the insurrection, riling up their respective fans.

Weaver, the Infowars performer who warned Jones against collaborating with Fuentes in the texts, told him in early March 2020 that associating with the then 21-year-old extremist was a mistake. In addition to warning Jones about Fuentes’s hatred and his interest in Nazism, Weaver claims that a man named Matthew Colligan confessed to her that he monitored Fuentes and his friends and relayed information about them to the FBI.

Colligan went by the pseudonym “Millennial Matt” in the runup to attending the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and associated himself with “alt-right”-era internet performers like Timothy “Baked Alaska” Gionet. Colligan seems to have kept a lower profile in the years that followed that event. He resurfaced in Hatewatch’s reporting when he appeared around Fuentes in photos, as Weaver mentions. More recently, Colligan appears to have orbited around a cluster of radical right figures who live in Idaho, where Hatewatch found that he registered two vehicles and caught misdemeanor charges for a DUI. His once chatty and ostentatious public online persona is otherwise hard to find.

Hatewatch tried to reach Colligan at multiple phone numbers, but could not locate him. Hatewatch also tried a number associated with “Matt Young,” which an alias Colligan is believed to use in Idaho. The person operating the Matt Young number declined incoming calls from Hatewatch. Hatewatch also emailed an address associated with Colligan’s mother and attempted to contact his brother by both email and phone in an attempt to get in touch with him for this story.

Hatewatch reached out to Jones and Fuentes by email for this story, as well as other extremists who knew Colligan in the run-up to the 2017 Unite the Right event. Weaver spoke to Hatewatch by phone about the texts. Her comments are included below. When Hatewatch reached the FBI for comment via email on the allegations that Colligan may have been an informant, the Bureau’s press office replied, “The FBI does not have a comment.”

‘I went and hung out with the groypers at a bar last night’

Weaver first raises her concerns about Fuentes to Jones via text on March 1, 2020. Days before, Fuentes held his first America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), which he promotes as an alternative to the relatively more mainstream Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Around the same time, on Feb. 26, Jones had joined Fuentes and several other prominent far-right figures at a Washington, D.C., event called “Emergency Save the First Amendment Summit,” sponsored by the Infowars-linked website National File. When Fuentes spoke at that event, Jones praised him , saying, “This is a good guy right here. He’s not a bad guy.” The next day, on Feb. 27, a Hatewatch reporter briefly attended a private Infowars event at a venue a few blocks away from CPAC. Hatewatch observed Fuentes among the crowd.

In the texts, Weaver warns Jones that his audience does not like Fuentes and that Fuentes’ younger-skewing fans are unlikely to purchase the supplements Jones sells through his website. Jones misspells Weaver’s name in his phone, listing her as “Milly” Weaver. Hatewatch has corrected the spelling.

Millie Weaver to Alex Jones, 6:15.48 p.m.:
I went and hung out with the groypers at a bar last night to find out info about them. An intoxicated leader in their group close to Nick told me that yes Fuentes is antisemitic and most of them are. Also that many of them were arrested at Charlotteville and became FBI informants. Also told me about how one of their guys committed suicide over it. On another note, White House Admins told me the groypers have the Democrats and Taliban behind them. Countless Infowars supporters that buy products kept asking me “why is Alex promoting the groypers” and expressed their willingness to stop supporting you financially. I doubt 20 year old groypers will want to buy supplements but the older wiser crowd isn’t digging it.

Over two hours pass before Weaver texts Jones again. She sends him a tweet she posted, advertising the Infowars Store to people “worried about the Coronavirus.” He responds with enthusiasm.

Alex Jones to Millie Weaver 8:53.26 p.m.:
Bad ass
!!

Another hour and a half passes. Weaver then attempts to direct Jones’ attention back to her previous warning by sending him a photo that includes Fuentes, anti-immigrant extremist Michelle Malkin, Cassandra Fairbanks, racist and anti-LGBTQ+ internet performer Steven Franssen, and white nationalists Jaden McNeil and Matt Colligan. Everyone in the photo points their index finger up to signify “America First.”

(Hatewatch determined that Fairbanks posted the same photo on her Telegram account earlier that day.) Weaver singles out Colligan to Jones as being linked to the FBI.

Millie Weaver to Alex Jones, 10:16.37 p.m.:
The guy in the red hat is who told me all that info at the Irish pub

Jones responds to her the next morning, March 2, 2020.

Alex Jones to Millie Weaver, 6:48.07 a.m.:
It’s a trap for sure

Millie Weaver to Alex Jones, 7:40.15 a.m.:
Yeah he also told me he used to work at planned parenthood before he switched his political ideology. How do you go from planned parenthood rep to Hitler lover in the blink of an eye. And yes he said he used to be a Hitler advocate during the Charlotteville stuff.

Jones refers to the situation as an “op,” connoting something fraudulent, staged by a political enemy or government agency.

Alex Jones to Millie Weaver, 8:49.13 a.m.:
A op for certain

‘An afterparty where the groypers were’

When Hatewatch called Weaver, she immediately recalled the messages she sent Jones, warning him about Fuentes. She specified that when she wrote “many of them were arrested at Charlotteville and became FBI informants,” she meant certain prominent Unite the Right attendees like Colligan, but not necessarily Fuentes or his other friends. She said she based the texts on what Colligan allegedly confessed to her. She said Colligan portrayed the obligation as being stressful for the Unite the Right attendees who were allegedly cornered by federal law enforcement.

“Cassandra Fairbanks invited me to an afterparty where the groypers were and Nick Fuentes. At a bar,” Weaver recalled of the night that inspired the texts.

Fairbanks is a junk news blogger who currently works for a YouTube performer named Tim Pool. Hatewatch reached out to her for comment by email, but she did not respond.

Weaver told Hatewatch that Colligan then confessed to her that he “is part of Nick Fuentes’s crew and keeps tabs on Nick Fuentes” at the behest of the FBI.

“So, that is one of the reasons that I was trying to [warn Jones],” Weaver said, referring to Colligan’s alleged confession that he was an informant. “He said that him and a bunch of people got rolled up on by the FBI [after Charlottesville].”

‘Nick is an antisemite!’

On the afternoon of March 3, Jones texts Weaver a link to “Summit News,” a website featuring posts authored by longtime Jones collaborator and antisemite Paul Joseph Watson. The link describes former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka as being part of “Conservative Inc.,” slang far-right activists use to describe people they perceive as being too close to the Republican Party establishment.

Alex Jones to Millie Weaver, 5:26.14 p.m.:
Please tweet

Weaver responds, accusing Jones and Watson of embracing Fuentes’ worldview.

Millie Weaver to Alex Jones, 5:43.50 p.m.:
I’m not promoting Nick Fuentes “attack Conservative inc” talking points.

Alex Jones to Millie Weaver, 5:48.30 p.m.:
I get Playing nice

Alex Jones to Millie Weaver, 5:48.48 p.m.:
But Gorka is bad news

Millie Weaver to Alex Jones, 5:57.35 p.m.:
Gorka is a stick up ass but that’s beside the point

Two minutes pass, and Weaver cautions Jones that Fuentes genuinely hates Jewish people.

Millie Weaver to Alex Jones, 5:59.32 p.m.:
Fuentes created his army or Groypers “goyim / gripers” to destroy what he calls “conservative inc.” He’s creating terms. Im not falling into the trap of using his terms.

Millie Weaver to Alex Jones, 6:00.52 p.m.:
It only benefits the Democrats the get conservatives in fighting. Groypers also hate Isreal [sic] and use trumps support for Isreal [sic] to drive people away from Trump. And Yes Nick is an anti Semite!

Weaver sends Jones two tweets from Fuentes’ fans, possibly to back up her claims. Twitter suspended one of the accounts, rendering it unviewable. Someone appears to have deleted the other account.

In addition to partnering with Fuentes through his streaming website, Jones also helped boost Fuentes’ name recognition in December 2022, when he hosted the white nationalist along with Kanye West on Infowars. Jones hosted the men on his website at a moment when the embattled rap star’s antisemitic comments made national news.

West, who now goes by the moniker Ye, praised Hitler on Jones’ show. Jones later attempted to distance himself from the comment by describing West’s interest in Hitler as being “homoerotic.”

On Fuentes’ alleged LGBTQ+ hypocrisy: ‘Don’t know what cat boys are’

On the same thread, Weaver alleges that Fuentes is gay. Fuentes, a virulent misogynist who often references so-called incel subculture, meaning men who are involuntarily celibate, frequently absorbs homophobic comments from other extremists. In addition to frequently disparaging women, Fuentes has urged his male followers not to have sex with them. He has said, “having sex with women is gay.”

“Homosexuality is silly,” Fuentes told his audience on a Jan. 16, 2022, livestream in response to rumors that he has sex with men. “When you’re with your friends and when you’re growing up, it’s, like, a joke. You know? Everyone understands that.”

McNeil, one of the white nationalists who appeared in the photo Weaver shared, defected from Fuentes’ group in May 2022. He was Fuentes’ roommate, and on a livestream, he accused Fuentes of searching his bed for semen stains using a blacklight as part of an effort to control his sex life. Simon Dickerman, another one of Fuentes’ collaborators, defected at the same time, and described Fuentes’ America First group as a “homosexual death cult” on the same livestream.

Millie Weaver to Alex Jones, 6:03.23 p.m.:
Nick also secretly runs around on dates with male prostates [sic] that identify as cat boys while bashing gay people.

Alex Jones to Millie Weaver, 6:19.02 p.m.:
Don’t know what cat boys are

Millie Weaver to Alex Jones, 6:20.06 p.m.:
It’s like identifying as a cat

“Cat boys” refers to men or non-binary people who dress or behave as cats, often in a manner that evokes fetishistic, homoerotic play.

Weaver could be referring to one specific internet performer associated with Fuentes. Fuentes and Tor Gustafsson Brookes, a video streamer who uses the name Catboy Kami online, appeared together in livestreams in late 2019. Fuentes explained his relationship to Catboy Kami on a livestream, saying, “It’s because he has a good sense of humor. It’s because he’s good looking.”

Colligan turns up in Idaho, a hotbed of hate

The alleged federal informant Colligan appears to have relocated to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho in recent years. Long regarded as a hotbed of radical right activity, that region of Idaho has recently attracted a younger group of high-profile extremists who seek entry into mainstream politics, including former Identity Evropa member Dave Reilly and antisemite Vincent James Foxx .

Daniel Walters , who covers extremism in that region for the publication Inlander, observed to Hatewatch that Colligan appeared on the Idaho scene “quietly” and after several other figures had already settled there. Walters noted that Colligan sometimes goes by the alias “Matthew Young” in Idaho. (Young may be a name taken from Colligan’s mother’s side, based upon a review of his family’s social media accounts.)

Arrest records show Idaho State police charged Colligan with driving under the influence on January 28, 2021, and carrying a concealed weapon while under the influence, both misdemeanors. Colligan, or someone else, paid a combined cash bond of $800 for the two charges. Hatewatch also determined that Colligan registered two cars to an address in Coeur d’Alene. He registered a 2016 Chevy Cruze in October 2022 and a Subaru Forester in December 2022.

Colligan’s low profile after Unite the Right

Hatewatch contacted the bigoted internet performer and former Florida congressional candidate Laura Loomer, who knew Colligan during the runup to the Unite the Right event in Charlottesville. She alleged at that time that Colligan harassed her, taunting her with sexual and antisemitic remarks. (Loomer is a Jewish woman.) Loomer told Hatewatch that Colligan resurfaced briefly in the years that followed to apologize to her about those interactions. Loomer said she had otherwise had no contact with Colligan, saying he kept a low profile online in recent years and had not surfaced on Twitter since Elon Musk restored her account on that site.

Hatewatch also reached out to Richard Spencer, who knew Colligan during the run up to Unite the Right. Spencer said that in 2017, he admired how Colligan produced propaganda for his movement, adding a “lighter,” “cute millennial” touch to it. Spencer said that Colligan essentially disappeared after that and he had not heard anything about him.

The Massachusetts-based local publication MassLive reported on Colligan’s attendance at Unite the Right in September 2017 and spoke to people who knew him. The publication described Colligan as performing a “seemingly 180-degree political flip” in the aftermath of Trump’s election, before giving voice to white nationalist views.

Police arrested dozens of members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front in Colligan’s home of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho in June 2022, after they attempted to disrupt a local LGBTQ+ Pride event.

Hannah Gais contributed to this reporting.

Illustration by Lincoln Agnew.

This reporting is part of a series. The series will continue in Part V.