Marine Investigated for Threats Against President Obama

by Karen Hatter | February 13, 2009 at 05:43 pm

1028 views | 36 Recommendations | 6 comments

The Secret Service will only state they are investigating a marine formerly stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina but, it is widely believed the man under investigation is former Lance Corporal Kody Brittingham, 20, of the United States Marine Corps, being investigated for alleged threats against President Obama.

The Secret Service is quoted as saying they had a " .... protective, intelligence investigation" that was launched after the arrest of the former marine for an unrelated crime uncovered evidence of the former marine's alleged plans.

The Marinecorpstimes.com has reported:

“We have a protective intelligence investigation ongoing involving a Camp Lejeune Marine,” Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said Friday. Donovan would not release any additional information.

The Marine was arrested by the Jacksonville Police Department several weeks ago, before Obama took the oath of office, according to a report in The Daily News of Jacksonville.

Enctoday.com reports:

His mid-December arrest by the Jacksonville Police Department on breaking and entering charges yielded evidence he posed a "credible threat" to then-President elect Barack Obama, a federal law enforcement source told The Daily News on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

From an article in the Southern Poverty Law Center :

Marine Lance Cpl. Kody Brittingham, stationed at Camp Lejuene, N.C., was arrested in mid-December on an unrelated armed robbery charge and, as a result, separated from the service on Jan. 3. But a search of Brittingham’s barracks also turned up a journal containing white supremacist material and a plan to kill Obama, according to a newspaper account. That reportedly prompted a Secret Service investigation of his alleged threats against the president that is ongoing.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been investigating increased enlistment of White supremacists/nationalists, attributing the increase, in part, to the military being spread thin as it fights a war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A report was issued by SPLC regarding this information in 2006.

In my article, Two Sides of a Coin, published in August 2008, I discussed aspects of the F.B.I.'s concerns with White supremacist/nationalist activity in the military.

From my article:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released an unclassified 14 page report, dated July 2008, entitled, White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11, detailing increased activity in the Armed Forces, with the report stating:

Sensitive and reliable source reporting indicates supremacist leaders are encouraging followers who lack documented histories of neo-Nazi activity and overt racist insignia such as tattoos to infiltrate the military as ‘ghost skins,’ in order to recruit and receive training for the benefit of the extremist movement.

The Marine, Kody Brittingham, a 20-year-old lance corporal, wrote that he had taken an oath to “protect against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.” In a signed “letter of intent,” tucked away in his barracks at Camp Lejeune, he identified a “domestic enemy” he planned to eliminate last winter: President Obama.

The details of this threat, which were revealed at his arraignment hearing in North Carolina, have not previously been reported. Mr. Brittingham pleaded guilty in August and awaits sentencing on charges of threatening to kill the president and attempted armed robbery.

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Amy Judd

at 18:01 on February 13th, 2009

what an idiot...

Rhonda J Mangus

at 20:08 on February 13th, 2009

Thanks for this story, Karen!

Babel-Fish

at 21:01 on February 13th, 2009

This racial related incident may open a can of worms within the US military. White supremacy movements are bound to be trying to recruit from the military, we may find in the near future the true size of the problem within the military system it self.

Karen Hatter

at 09:26 on February 14th, 2009

Thank you for your thoughts, Babel-Fish.

However, there is an element that is being encouraged to go the reverse route.

As some individuals seek to join White supremacist/nationalist groups, some of the organizations are encouraging them to join the armed forces to acquire training to bring back to the ' White brotherhood', with the F.B.I., as I stated above, identifying them as 'ghost skins'.

Obviously, the likelihood that those engaged in these type of activities is a fraction of all those enrolled in the military but, it only takes one or a handful of persons committed to ideology to wreak havoc.

This alleged plot surfaced when military personnel searched the quarters of Mr. Brittingham, finding a journal said to contain the plot, as authorites were investigating a string of robberies, involving him, other Marines and a civilian.

A. Tran

at 11:10 on February 14th, 2009

Good piece and follow-up comments, Karen. It doesn't take a leap of imagination to believe that the FBI are concerned about white supremacists and other extreme right-wing folks who join the military and use that as a subterfuge to carry out their destructive agenda.