All language subtitles for FBI.True.S06E12.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

- We are gearing up
for a military campaign.

- They wanted
society to collapse.

- The base advocated
to violently

target Jewish-Americans,
African-Americans.

- War-- that's what our aim is.

- What made them different was
they're talking about training.

- Mathews may have illegally
crossed into the U.S.

He was prior military.

He wanted to
engage in violence.

- They start honing in on this

Second Amendment rally
in Virginia.

We can shoot into the crowd
and see what's going to happen.

- This was something that we
needed to look at immediately.

- In the FBI,
we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts,

mob stings,

terrorist takedowns.

- Get down! Get down!

- We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.

- Freeze!
- FBI.

- FBI!
- Action!

- But they don't know
the half of it.

What really goes down,

we save that for each other

when we're talking
agent-to-agent.

This is "FBI True."

- Tell me a little
bit about the property

that this hate camp is on.

- Luke Lane had this property.

He was the Georgia
cell leader, per se.

It was a large property they
could do all kinds of things

on, and it was private.

Base members could
conduct their training.

So that is why
our Maryland subjects

continued to travel down
there, because they had

that private place to go to.

They made a point
to go through the woods

into the property to evade
any kind of detection

or law enforcement.

- When they're at the hate
camp, are they having bonfires?

I mean, so they're shooting?

- They're doing defensive
tactics,

weapons tactics,
close order battle.

You name it,
they were doing it.

They were just so focused
on using the violence.

You hear folks talk about this.

It's always, oh, I will.

And they sound like
they're braggarts.

- Right.

- These folks talked about
the violence in a way

that it was clear
they wanted to use it.

They were very focused
on developing real skills

to do something really bad.

We're talking about
people from all

over the country with
weapons engaging

in training for violence.

They have real weapons.

They have long guns.

They have military-style
weapons and equipment that they

use in their training.

They, by and large, would
stay there for a few days.

They're out in the woods.

You put an undercover
involved in this,

that's a safety of an agent.

'Cause these are literally
lives we're talking about.

Unless you live through that
and are seeing that every day,

it's hard to understand
what that-- really

the pressure is on everybody.

To go up 24/7 in the woods
on multiple subjects,

and they all have guns--
- Yeah.

- --we also knew there were
more people out there

and that
we didn't know who they were.

How are we gonna watch this?

What's the signal
if it goes wrong?

And so if something
goes wrong,

we now have a dozen,
20 people armed

who want to fight us anyway.

And now we've
gotta go in there?

What does that look like?

We always wanna
oversaturate it.

And so you're talking
about hundreds

of people that have to be
ready at a moment's notice

to get in there
to stop whatever

that potential thing might be.

- Did they have guards
at night that patrolled

and circled the camp,
or was it like,

when it's bedtime,
we can all snuggle up and--

- Yeah, some of them
would have guards.

And the professionalism
of those

guards at 2:00 a.m. would vary.

- And the FBI always
banks on that.

- I hope you're not implying
that they took a nap.

I-- absolutely.

- Yeah.

- The UC did a great job of
bringing back good detail.

- At this point,
we are starting to see crimes.

And we now believe Mathews,

who has illegally crossed the
border, probably has weapons--

right there, that's a crime.

Should we continue
to watch them,

or is now the time that
we need to arrest them?

- Mathews ends up
staying down in Georgia.

They thought it
was the best place

for him to be to hide out.

He stayed there
for about a month.

So Lemley comes
back to Maryland.

Mathews stays down in Georgia.

As far as we know,
he never left the property,

until Lemley comes
back down to Georgia

in the end of October 2019.

They spend a weekend down
at the Georgia property.

- Mathews is still
at the hate camp property.

Lemley comes down.

It's Halloween weekend.

And Halloween hate camp starts.

- They conducted
some type of Odin ritual,

is what they called it.

They stole a ram from a nearby
property, a nearby farm--

--brought it onto
the Georgia property

that they were training at.

They're about to conduct
this Odin ritual.

And one of the base members
comes out with a knife.

And they attempted
to kill it with a knife.

And they had
trouble doing that,

and they ended up shooting it.

- The UC was there, right?

So he had to witness all this.

It was pretty--
- Horrible.

- It's horrible, right?

And as they're doing this,
they behead the ram.

- Ugh.

- And they take
photographs with it.

And then they took
the blood,

and they perform
some kind of ritual

where they drink the blood.

The UC had to--
obviously, he wasn't going

to drink the blood, right?

So I think he did
something to the effect

where he dipped his finger
and pretended he did.

But--
- Yeah.

- --yeah, it's awful.

They took propaganda
photos holding the ram,

you know, with their masks
on and their faces covered.

And they named it Gar.

And they put that
out there on social media.

So the Georgia cell was
planning to murder a couple

down in the Georgia area.

And the UC was privy
to some of that information.

- What did this couple do
that made them think that they

were that much of a threat?

- Thankfully,
I'm not in their minds.

I couldn't tell you
the real logic behind it.

All we knew is that
they had this belief,

and they appeared to be
starting to act on it.

- So this plot
that they uncovered

went from just talking
about it to conducting

surveillance on the victim--

potential victims' house,
trying to gather information

on them, maybe mapping
out what and how

they were going to do it?

- Absolutely.

So at this point, Mathews
and the property owner,

they didn't see eye to eye.

He may have worn
out his welcome.

Lemley took
a liking to Mathews,

almost like kind of
a brotherly kind of aspect

between them.

Let me look out
for him, obviously, right?

- Yeah.
- And went and got him.

- Absolutely.

- So we surveil him all
the way from Georgia.

During that surveillance,
we confirmed

that Lemley and Mathews
were on the vehicle.

- We've got these multiple
subjects of the FBI

that were just
in a training camp

to learn how
to do more violence,

probably had
weapons in the car.

And now we're gonna
allow them to travel

from Georgia all the
way up, we think gonna

be Maryland, maybe Virginia.

Where are they gonna go?
We don't necessarily know that.

What if they weren't going
to stop in North Carolina

to do an attack?

Those are the kind of things
that we have to look at.

- Atlanta handing off to WFO,
WFO handing off to Baltimore.

Again, hundreds of people
were involved in this.

- And the complexity of
that also is radio channels

as you do the pass-off.

Making sure you're
on the same frequency

is actually more complex
than people think, you know?

- Yeah, make sure your
cars don't look the same.

Can we--
if he's got Georgia plates,

how far can you follow
him in Georgia plates

until you start
noticing Georgia plates?

Hey, now I've got to talk
to a special agent in charge

in another state who knew
nothing about this case.

It's a pass-through case.

What do we do if they
get stopped for speeding?

They're confronted in that car.

What does that look like?

- Lemley takes Mathews to a
motel, which was conveniently

located right next to
a Waffle House

right at the border
of Maryland and Delaware.

The next morning, Mathews goes
to the Waffle House,

and then he sits
in the woods next to

the Waffle House for the entire
day until Lemley gets off work.

And it was kind of a
weird moment, right?

We were like,
what is happening?

- Absolutely.
- Well, Lemley was working.

So Mathews
hung out in the woods,

and that's when they
start figuring out how

they're gonna live together.

- Lemley picked him up,
and they end up

getting a residence
in Delaware,

just over the border,
five minutes

from that Waffle House.

And that's the
first day they end

up moving into the apartment.

They get a
one-bedroom apartment.

Mathews actually lives in the
living room of that apartment.

Lemley's got the bedroom.

And they kind of have, like,
a dining area where they

hang out most of the time.

- How do we know that?

- We're doing a lot of
search warrants, right?

The fact that you have two base
members moving in together,

where, you know,
we have a ton of evidence

on them talking about
committing violent acts--

when they moved
into that apartment,

we saw them carrying
in rifle bags.

We didn't know
what was in there.

Obviously,
we assumed probably rifles,

but we didn't know
exactly what they had.

- Weapons training.
- Exactly.

That was very concerning.

But it was also a great
opportunity for us

to carry out some more
techniques to kind of figure

out what they're
actually going to plan.

We draft a search warrant
for the residence,

a covert search warrant.

Mathews ends up getting a job
as a painter off the books,

using an alias.

So we find a day
that we can get in there

and find out
what they have, right?

That search was huge.

We actually tried to
do it the day prior,

and they never left for work.

- Oh.

- And the amount of
resources a search like that

creates, as we talked about--
- It's lot.

- --it's a lot.

It requires a lot of planning.

We held all those
resources another day,

hoping they would go to work
the following day,

which they did.

Yeah, it is very stressful.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's a big risk.

- Let's talk-- so the covert
search warrant allows us to go

in there and look and
potentially take things,

take photos of things
and leave things.

That's a big bar that we
just don't do every day.

This is one of the most
meticulous things that we do--

- Absolutely.

- --because you're
not just worried

about those two
people or whoever

else is in the occupants.

You're worried about
all the neighbors.

You're worried about
the street traffic.

What happens if
we're found out?

It's easy to say, oh, we've
got teams around there.

They're going to find out,
and they can respond quickly.

But do you wanna have
police officers to respond

to be that first buffer?

What happens if this is
blown and they have phones?

So now we not just
have this site,

we've got sites in Atlanta,

we've got sites
in other states

that we've got to have
contingency

plans if this gets blown.

- We go in there.

We found base propaganda,

the flyers
that we mentioned earlier--

- Save the race; join the base.
- Exactly.

We found devices,
electronics, and computers,

and on those
devices kind of held

some very concerning
behavior, including the video

of Mathews in the gas mask--

- --talking about,
you know, derailing trains,

killing people,
poisoning the water supply.

- We find out
that they have all

the parts necessary
to construct

a rifle, an AR platform rifle.

All of those parts
were bought in a way

that we could not track
the weapon, right?

So it didn't have
a serial number.

It went as smooth
as it could go.

- And validating everything
that your investigation

was learning.

- Absolutely.

- So as part of
this sneak and peek,

we also have a Title III
warrant in addition.

Tell me about that Title
III warrant as it applies

to this sneak and peek.

- So during the sneak
and peek, we install

a microphone and a camera.

We got authorization
to install those devices.

We were only able to
turn on the camera first.

We had to show that they
were in the apartment,

talking to each other.
- Mm-hmm.

- And once we were
able to show that,

we got further authorization to
flip the switch for the T3.

The first time we
flipped the switch,

Mathews, he's talking about the
killing of African-Americans.

- So you guys flipped the
switch, and the first thing out

of his mouth that you grab.

- It is shocking to hear
for the first audio session.

And he's by himself,
talking to himself.

- That's disconcerting
right there.

That's actually
kind of horrifying.

- It was very concerning, but
also validating in the sense

that we're on the right path.

You know, I used to work
drugs, and when you go up

in Title IIIs, typically,
your sessions are, you know,

anywhere from a few
seconds to a few minutes.

In drug cases, like, sometimes
some of it's pertinent,

some of it's not.

- Yep.

- You know,
in this case, this was

not like they talked
about it for five minutes

and then moved on.

This was constant
talk about their activities.

- You have to kind of
verbatim write down

exactly what they're saying.
- Mm-hmm.

- The difficulty with this T3
was you had sessions that were

hours long, 30 minutes long.

- You'd go away
and you'd come back,

and, like, there'd be a whole
new batch sitting there.

And they were all
getting worse and worse

as you read through them.

It's as if they were
playing for the cameras,

and they weren't.

That was the scary part.

- And again, they start
honing in on this

Second Amendment rally
in Virginia.

- The businesses around
the Capitol, some of them

have considered closing for
Monday because they're worried

the back and forth between
gun safety and gun rights

could get out of hand.

- They had all
kinds of discussion

about violence that could
take place at that rally.

- They thought
they could create some

violence
that might accelerate

some of that conflict.

- So December 23, right
before the Christmas holiday,

we're listening to this live
feed from the Title III.

And they are talking
about what they

could do to a state trooper.

Lemley had acquired
a sniper rifle,

and he outfitted
it with all kinds of scopes

and infrared and all
this expensive stuff, right?

We don't know what
they're going to do,

what they're gonna decide
to do in the middle

of the night, right?

They can decide on a whim that
they're gonna go do something,

and how are we
gonna react to that?

You know, these guys would
sometimes leave the residence

and go to get food, or--
- Mm-hmm.

- --a couple of times,
they went out to the range

to shoot the weapon they made.

What would happen
if somebody pulled them over?

What would they decide
to do last minute

that could cause harm
to somebody we're not tracking?

Mathews was constructing
the rifle by watching YouTube.

He's very familiar
with weapons.

This wasn't his first time
dealing with a firearm.

And it did work.

They're excited about zeroing
it in, making sure it works,

making sure it's functional.

The good thing about
having that Title III going

is we knew when they were
gonna go to the range.

We knew which range
they were gonna go to.

So we had time to
prepare and set up

that range to where we
could capture their activities.

They ended up going to a
range to test that rifle out.

We captured all of that.

They're buying ammunition.

They're getting
their tactical gear set up.

Days before, they got all
their comms gear set up.

They're starting to talk
about this Virginia

rally consistently.

- They appear to be
getting fixated on this.

And so now that's getting
us closer and closer

to having to do something.

- From our perspective,
there was no doubt they were

going to leave that residence.

And regardless of what they
were eventually going to do,

it was at that point
we had to make a decision.

We could not allow
them to leave with all

of their weapons, all of
their gear, and do anything,

regardless of what
their plan was.

Come to find out, January
16th was their time they were

gonna leave the residence.

So the undercover was very
privy to the information

and the activities
that the Georgia cell were

partaking in, which included
scoping out a residence,

doing some pre-surveillance
of the targets

they were planning to murder.

So the UC had some
good coverage on that.

And up here in Baltimore,

we needed to allow time
for Atlanta

to kind of develop
that plot, right?

Because of the violence
that Lemley and Mathews

discussed all the time, right?

And they even talked about
targeting law enforcement

if they ever came after them.

- We have made a conscious
decision to layer

how we are gonna,
first of all, get there,

how we're gonna engage the
people we're trying to arrest,

and then what happens next.

It's all designed
to have them comply.

We're not there
to get in a firefight.

We're there to get
them into custody.

We are prepared for every
circumstance that may happen

when we go to that door.

And part of that is we're
prepared to deal with whatever

comes out of that door.

- So what SWAT did was they
surrounded the apartment.

And negotiators actually
called Lemley's cell phone

and gave instructions for
them to turn themselves in.

- And how did that go?
Because you can see--

you're watching inside
the apartment

while that call is being made.

So the phone rings,
and Lemley picks up the phone.

- So I'm actually sitting in
the Bearcat, the SWAT vehicle,

with the feed
from the apartment

and listening
to what's going on.

It was a tense few moments.

Lemley was asleep, so it
took him a minute to realize

his phone was ringing.

Second or third phone call
that he finally picked up on.

Once he realized
what was happening,

you could start to hear
Mathews come into play,

and he was freaking out.

Mathews can be
overheard talking about

what should we do,
what should we do,

what should we do?

Mathews was very
unsure of what to do.

You could tell he was
amping up,

hyperventilating
maybe a little bit.

Lemley smashed his phone.

He told Mathews to do the same.

They put their phones
in the toilet, in the tank.

This took minutes,
which is a long time--

- Yes.

- --when you're
conducting an arrest

operation to not know what
these guys are going to do.

And Lemley very clearly
tells Mathews,

put your hands up
and go outside.

They both walk out,
you know, with their hands up.

A search warrant commences
quickly after that,

and you can see, you know,
a sniper rifle laying out.

The rifle they constructed
was laying out,

all their comms gear,
their bags.

Everything was packed,
ready for their travel.

- The Canadian Army
reservist accused

of recruiting for a
violent neo-Nazi terrorist

group has been arrested.

- They were put in the car,
and they're brought into jail

and have their
initial appearance.

And then they go into the
system awaiting their trial.

- The next day, agents from
the Atlanta field office

arrested Luke Lane
and two other base members

for a murder plot.

- Knowing what you learned
from this investigation,

what are your thoughts, if we
hadn't found out about them

and stopped this cell?

- Ask yourself how
many mass shootings

are going on in this country
every week, if not every month.

- A gunman opened fire in
the historically Black church

Wednesday night as
parishioners gathered for

their weekly prayer service.

- Hundreds of people
running for their lives

when a terrorist opened fire
inside a crowded nightclub.

49 people were killed.

- Shots rang out
just before 10:00 a.m.

- We're under fire.

We're under fire.

- The chaos unfolding
at the Tree of Life

Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

- A total of 13 people were
shot in what they're calling

a racially motivated attack.

- We didn't stop those.

It's something
that I personally

am upset about
in my FBI career,

is that we didn't get in
front of those earlier.

We didn't stop those.

We stopped this one.

- No doubt in my mind that,
you know,

the Bureau as a whole
came together

and stopped
a mass casualty event.

- Over the past
several years,

have you seen a rise
in these extremists cells

and individuals?

- All of us can see that
there has been an increase

in the level of hate speech

in this country
over the last few years.

all: Liberty!

Victory!

- We do want to see whites
rise and have

our own state
here in this country.

- I wish we had the ability
to sit back and wait.

We don't.

Our job is to protect
the American people.

And in order to do that,

we've gotta
take all of these seriously.

The majority of Americans
still believe in us.

And that is so
important to what we do.

But you make a promise
to them to make sure

that they and their
families remain safe.

People believe that,
and they still value that.

And that's what
a career in the FBI is.