In late October of 2021, an anonymous source sent us a tip: the racist, neo-Nazi hate group known as “Patriot Front” had a new member in Utah. The source didn’t know the new guy’s real name, but they gave us the notes from his application interview in the hope that we’d be able to identify him. (You can read the full text of the interview notes at the end of this article.) After reading the notes, we knew a lot about the political views of applicant 462179, but didn’t have enough for a positive ID. When independent media outlet Unicorn Riot published PF’s leaked chat logs in January 2022, we searched for the applicant’s user number in the chats and learned he had chosen the moniker “James.” His chat logs gave us several more details about his personal life, so when he got arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho in June 2022, we were easily able to connect Branden Mitchel Haney of Kaysville, UT with his pseudonym, “James UT.”
The Trace
From his chat logs, which you can read at the Unicorn Riot website, we know that “James UT” lives in Kaysville; that he’s older than most of the other PF members in Utah; that in November of 2021 he and his wife were expecting a baby; and that he’s in flight school.
Branden Haney offers free ground lessons to other neo-Nazis.
Arrest records show that Branden Mitchel Haney lives in Kaysville, and was 35 years old at the time of his arrest. Since the ostensible upper age limit for PF membership is 35, that would make him one of the oldest members in the organization. Photos posted on Facebook show that Haney’s wife was pregnant in November 2021, and a family picture posted in January of 2022 shows Haney holding a newborn baby. A baby registry for the couple shows a due date of January 4, 2022.
Branden Mitchel Haney holds a newborn infant in a family picture posted on Facebook, January 2022.
Haney deleted his Facebook account shortly after posting bail in Coeur d’Alene, but not before we were able to archive a handful of posts, including the photo below, taken from inside an airplane cockpit in July 2020. Additionally, the hat he wore for the family photo above has the logo of a Utah flight school on it.
Photo of an airplane cockpit, from Branden Haney’s Facebook.
Branden Mitchel Haney and Patriot Front
Patriot Front, the organization Haney joined in October 2021, is a white nationalist, neo-fascist hate group. They split off from neo-Nazi group Vanguard America after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally that was held in Charlottesville, VA on August 12, 2017 [1]. Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old resident of Charlottesville, was killed on the day of the rally when James Alex Fields intentionally rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters who had turned out in opposition to the nazi event. Photographs of Fields from earlier in the day show him wearing the Vanguard America “uniform” of khakis and a white polo shirt, and carrying a shield with the Vanguard America logo on it (below, right). In the photo on the left, he is shown at the rally with Thomas Ryan Rousseau, a few hours before Fields murdered Heather Heyer. In December 2018, Fields was found guilty of first-degree murder, and is now serving a life sentence in prison[2]. Thomas Rousseau is currently the leader of Patriot Front.
Thomas Rousseau and James Alex Fields with neo-Nazi group Vanguard America at the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA. August 12, 2017.
More recently, Patriot Front has tried to soften its image and distance itself from its violent origins. A few times a year, the group stages carefully-choreographed “flash” demonstrations, which they film for propaganda purposes. The arrests in Coeur d’Alene on June 11th interrupted what was supposed to be another such event. Documents in Thomas Rousseau’s possession at the time of his arrest detailed the group’s plan to assemble at a city park where a Pride event was being held, march through the park until they encountered resistance, and then move on to other locations “once an appropriate amount of confrontational dynamic [had] been established.” [3]
In addition to producing propaganda videos which they use as recruiting tools, Patriot Front requires members to post advertisements in public spaces, in the form of stickers, flyers, posters, and stencils. Advertising materials must be purchased directly from PF’s leader, and each member must submit photographic proof that he has done a certain amount of “activism” each week – that is, he has posted the purchased advertising materials in public spaces, usually in communities near where he lives. If you’ve seen stickers or other materials around Kaysville or Ogden advertising the Patriot Front hate group since October 2022, Branden Haney is likely responsible for them.
Although Haney was hesitant to join a white nationalist organization after the deadly Charlottesville rally (interview Q5), he finally applied to join Patriot Front in October 2021. Eight months later, he was arrested in Coeur d’Alene, charged with conspiracy to riot, and his name and face were broadcast coast-to-coast as a member of a hate group.[4] We don’t know whether Haney regrets his decision to join Patriot Front, but we do know why he chose to join the group in the first place, and participate in the planned event in Coeur d’Alene.
Branden Mitchel Haney is a racist
Each applicant to Patriot Front participates in an audio interview as part of the application process. The interviewer asks the applicant about his political beliefs, membership in other organizations, and physical condition, while another PF member listens in and takes notes on the applicant’s responses. In answer to one of these interview questions, Haney explained that he used to identify as a Civic Nationalist but now feels that “society needs to be built on a racial structure.”(int. Q6) Civic nationalism (CivNat) is nationalism without the “ethnocentrism,” i.e., racism [5], and applicants who identify as CivNats are usually denied membership in PF. Haney elaborated, “this Nation was founded by Europeans and built for us, and the government has taken us far away from that point. The only way we can fix this is working together with our likeminded European-descended kin.”(int. question “Read Manifesto”) In his view, the thing that’s broken about the US government is that it’s not racist enough anymore.
With that belief in mind, it’s no surprise that Haney thinks the “biggest threat to America is immigration.”(int. Q12) He’s also a fan of the “National Justice Party” (NJP), which advocates for “immigration and natal policy that will ensure a permanent European majority” in the US. In other words, it’s not so much the immigration itself that’s a threat; it’s the fact that some of the immigrants aren’t white.
Branden Mitchel Haney is a neo-Nazi
Because “Nazi” is such a loaded term, and is so often used metaphorically, we want to be very clear about how we’re defining neo-Nazism and why we’re saying that Branden Mitchel Haney is a neo-Nazi. The term “nazi” is a shortened form of the name of Adolf Hitler’s political party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party or NSDAP. A neo-Nazi, then, is someone who wasn’t a member of the original Nazi Party, but adheres to the political ideology of the NSDAP: extreme nationalism, antisemitism, racism, anticommunism, eugenics, a dislike for democracy, and a preference for fascism[6].
While Haney’s interview notes never mention the words “Jew” or “Jewish,” Haney admits to the interviewer that he follows the NJP and “likes what they say.”(int. Q “Political Ideology”) The NJP is an antisemitic, white supremacist group that promotes neo-Nazism. They claim to be a political party, but are not registered with the FEC,[7] and to date have not fielded any candidates for political office. Among other thinly-veiled racist and antisemitic ideas, their list of preferred policies includes “a two percent ceiling on Jewish employment in vital institutions.”
When describing his ideological development, Haney mentions that he had a friend who “began listening to Alt-Right shows and got him to listen as well, to things like TDS.”(int. Q4) TDS is “The Daily Shoah,” a podcast hosted by notorious antisemite “Mike Enoch,” whose real name is Mike Peinovich [8]. “Shoah” is a Hebrew word meaning “catastrophe”; hence the genocide of European Jews during WWII is referred to as “Ha Shoah,” usually rendered in English as “the Holocaust.” Peinovich is a conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier, who used podcasts like The Daily Shoah to promote the idea that Jews have taken over or subverted the US government, the global banking system, the entertainment industry, etc. and are manipulating these systems in order to cause harm to white people. He is also a founding member of the NJP.
Branden Haney tells the interviewer that after being introduced to The Daily Shoah, he “began watching things like Greatest Story Never Told” and decided that “Nationalists had a point.”(int. Q4) The full title of the work he’s referring to is Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told. It’s a six-episode, pseudo-historical, revisionist “documentary” that attempts to rehabilitate Hitler’s public image. The “Nationlists” Haney finds himself agreeing with are early-20th-century German National Socialists – the original Nazis. In fact, when asked to describe his current political ideology, Haney says that he “studied NSDAP recently, and likes a lot about what they did,” although he distrusts “concentrated power.”(int. Q “Political Ideology”) So his concern about the Nazi Party and Hitler’s government isn’t the racism, or the persecution of political opponents, or the concentration camps, or the genocide, but rather a vague distrust of concentrated political power. As for Hitler himself, Haney fondly refers to him in the chat logs as “Uncle A.”
Brandon Mitchel Haney wants to turn his family and friends into Nazis
Haney told the interviewer that he wanted to join PF so he could “find likeminded people.”(int. Q “Why Join”) Since “likeminded” in Haney’s case would mean “racist and antisemitic,” we find it encouraging that he claims to have “no likeminded friends or family.”(int. Q8) He is a member of the LDS (Mormon) church, but hasn’t discovered likeminded pals there either; he finds that “the organized LDS church disagrees with him a lot on politics and immigration.”(int. Q15) In fact, Haney believes the biggest problem facing the American nationlist movement is that it’s “lacking in numbers.”(int. Q21) However, he also believes he has a solution to the problem: “keep pressing on people’s opinions, talk to your friends and family and try to make Nationalism grow. It is an uphill battle against the lies people have been convinced of all their lives.” (int. Q21)
Indeed, Nazism is a tough sell. It took several years for liars and grifters like Mike Enoch to convince Branden Haney that Hitler and the NSDAP “had a point.” But Haney is now a willing evangelist for their cause, spreading their poison to his family and friends, and presumably his coworkers and students as well. He won’t come right out and say what he’s selling, of course – at least not at first. He sometimes describes himself to his own family as a “Traditionalist,” but he confesses in his interview that “more honestly, he would call himself a Fascist.”(int. Q14)
Patriot Front member at a training camp in VA, December 2021. The patch on his hat reads “Our tradition is revolution”
Patriot Front member “James UT” may not be willing to tell his family, his friends, or his community the truth about his ideology, but we will. Branden Mitchel Haney is a racist, an antisemite, a neo-Nazi, and a self-described fascist. His worldview and political beliefs make him a danger to people in his community. Patriot Front claims to be a “non-violent” fascist organization, but the truth is that fascism is an inherently violent philosophy, characterized by forcible suppression of opposition. It rejects the idea that violence is automatically “bad,” and in fact sees political violence as a legitimate means of “national rejuvenation”[9]. This is the belief system that Brandon Mitchel Haney subscribes to, and he’s lying to himself if he thinks there can ever be a “non-violent” fascist revolution.
What you can do
Branden Haney is believed to be enrolled in and/or employed at FLT Academy in Woods Cross. In addition to wearing their merchandise in his family portrait, Haney is featured in two posts on FLT’s Facebook page.[10,11] FLT Academy’s website includes this statement on inclusivity: “We seek to cultivate an environment of respect and empathy, advanced by diverse cultures and perspectives.” FLT Academy may not be aware of Branden Mitchel Haney’s racist and antisemitic beliefs, which are clearly at odds with their inclusivity statement. If you’d like to contact them and politely let them know about Haney’s beliefs and his membership in a neo-Nazi hate group, they can be reached by email at flt@fltacademy.com or by phone at (801) 896-4470.
Branden Haney is featured on FLT Academy’s Facebook page in June 2020 (left) and October 2020 (right).
If you have family or friends in Kaysville, you may want to warn them that there’s a neo-nazi in their neighborhood. Printable flyers are available
here. And as always, if you find PF’s nazi advertisements in your neighborhood, take them down!
If you have more information about Branden Haney or any other nazis in Utah, please send tips to utahantifascists(at)riseup(dot)net.
Interview notes for PF Interviewee-462179
Interviewee-462179
35/UT/Salt Lake City
10/26/21
Conductor: Jason NY
Notetaker: Jesse AR
Result: ACCEPTED
Test Question: What do you expect to be asked? Political thoughts, background info.
Political Ideology: Conservative for most of his life got involved in politics when he was 18. Tried to be active in politics. During Trump Primary, described himself as a Conservatarian, and cringes when he thinks of that title now. Saw Trump as untrustworthy back then. Doesn’t really know where he fits in right now, not a Conservative anymore. Follows NJP but unsure about their direction. Likes what they say, but untrusting of politically powerful people. Studied NSDAP recently, and likes a lot about what they did, but untrustworthy of concentrated power.
Transportation: Yes
Permanent Resident or Moving: Yes.
Drug Abuse: No
Religion: Latter Day Saints. No issues with working with other faiths.
Why Join: Wants to find likeminded people, and wants to find a good way to be politically active. Watched our content for a while now, heard an interview with one of our guys in 2016 or 17 on Cantwell’s show that he liked. Wants to see politics in an American style, not from a European template.
Skills: Outgoing, charismatic, good gardener, hunter, used to hike regularly.
Read Manifesto: Yes. It was long, liked it. Read through it a couple times. Our Nation was founded with a set of principles that we are currently nowhere near. This Nation was founded by Europeans and built for us, and the government has taken us far away from that point. The only way we can fix this is working together with our likeminded European-descended kin. Individualism won’t work.
Q1: No past interviews.
Q2: Has a misdemeanor DUI, 15 years ago. No current legal proceedings. No government employ.
Q3: No ailments.
Q4: Started off Conservative, then leaned Libertarian during the 2016 election. Tried to join the Tea Party but they banned him for trying to Primary elect out the established Tea Party candidate for dishonesty in the legaslative process. Found the Republican Party to be untrustworthy. Had a friend who began listening to Alt-Right shows and got him to listen as well, to things like TDS. Began watching things like Greatest Story Never Told and discovered Nationalists “had a point. Eventually, everything clicked.”
Q5: First found us through a interview on a podcast, wants to say it was Cantwell in 2017 or so. Had some fear about applying after seeing Charlottesville and Federal infiltration in groups, thought he couldn’t be involved in a group. Never joined any political groups, but now feels like it is time for him to get involved and meet guys.
Q6: Has heard of Civic Nationalism. Used to consider himself one. Society needs to be built on a racial structure.
Q7: Family has been here for around 200 years. Scotch-Irish heritage. Ethnically British.
Q8: Tried to get involved with the Tea Party, that was about the biggest group he ever tried to join. No history of extrapolitical activism. No likeminded friends or family. Wants to get involved in activism from our positive image, effective activism, and out of a need to be involved with compatriots in a cause.
Q9: Violence is only justified in self defense. Agrees and Understands the Violence Statement.
Q10: Last fight was in high school.
Q11: Schedule is a bit busy, has a family and is involved in school. Has time in the evenings and weekends.
Q12: Biggest threat to America is immigration, but there are a lot of problems at this time. Close second is the threat of inflation.
Q13: Listens to a lot of podcasts. Jared Howe, FTN, TDS, generally therightstuff.biz shows. Sometimes Jared Taylor. Read Dissident Mag.
Q14: Would probably label himself more Fascist, sometimes says to family that he is not a Conservative, but a Traditionalist. More honestly, he would call himself a Fascist.
Q15: Struggles with religion and politics from time to time. The organized LDS church disagrees with him a lot on politics and immigration. He cannot sit back and let our enemy do what they are doing. Jesus loves us all, so he can live with himself taking a stand against foreigners in favor of his family’s wellbeing.
Q16: Working on flight school, so he doesn’t have enough time to read recently. He enjoys articles from National Justice and Dissident Mag.
Q17: Generally fit. Was going to the gym regularly, until about a month ago when he and his family starting falling ill. Sometimes has back issues but they dont effect him much. Runs 3 miles consistently, has a personal trainer that he trains with once a week. 5’10, 195 lbs. Can run a mile in about 10 minutes.
Q18: Ideal family structure is nuclear. Families today are total messes. Women are told to think that the only fulfilled life they can have is in a career, single mothers are held in high regard but statistically make bad children. These issues are created by design. LGBT is disgusting. His upbringing was done pretty well, had some issues but nothing like what is seen today.
Q19: Admires General Patton. He was an amazing leader, led from the front. He was absolutely right when Patton said we fought the wrong enemy.
Q20: Despises Ronald Reagan for what he did to our country’s immigration.
Q21: Biggest problem with Nationalist movement is our lacking in numbers. The best way to solve it is to keep pressing on people’s opinions, talk to your friends and family and try to make Nationalism grow. It is an uphill battle against the lies people have been convinced of all their lives. Patriot Front is the only group with enough courage to still commit activism in the public space.
Q22: Wants to finish school, family comes first. Wants to get involved in the political scene with an organic, positive message.
