Marines Investigating Avowed White Supremacist On Active Duty

[ffr]

A 19-year-old Marine has been linked to violent assaults in the deadly Charlottesville rally.

The U.S. Marine Corps has launched an investigation into the activities of an avowed white supremacist in the military whom ProPublica and PBS’ Frontline linked to neo-Nazi assaults.

Lance Corporal Vasillios Pistolis, 19, is stationed at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune and assigned to logistics. He has been active with a number of neo-Nazi organizations, according to ProPublica and Frontline, which have linked six other current and former members of the military to neo-Nazi groups.
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He bragged about the assaults online and was photographed appearing to beat a counter-protester. “Today cracked 3 skulls open with virtually no damage to myself,” Pistolis wrote online after the August rally, Frontline reported.

Link to tweet

-HuffPost

[Hoyt]

1. Does this really surprise anyone? White wingers have dominated the military for decades.

[Ilsa]

2. I think they have made a point of infiltrating

Law enforcement, FBI, and military. No telling how many are in position to cause a lot of harm.

Maybe military entrance screening should include checking for penile erections when shown videos of violence towards minorities and women.

[lpbk2713]

3. Someone should talk to his recruiter.

He probably saw everything in this psycho's background as a positive.

[.99center]

4. This isn't the first time he's been investigated.

https://www.theroot.com/active-duty-marine-moonlights-as-leader-of-violent-whit-1825856300

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service confirms that it looked into Pistolis in the past, but the investigation was apparently dropped. NCIS spokesperson Adam M. Stump told ProPublica that they are currently investigating Pistolis for the second time, but declined to comment on an open investigation.

“At the unit level, I believe there’s a willful ignorance,” said one former Marine. A 2017 poll of 1,000 servicemen found that 25 percent of active-duty personnel say they have encountered white supremacists within their ranks.