Hatewatch (USA)
A longtime far-right activist and defense lawyer with a history of making death threats, Jason Lee Van Dyke appears to be leading Brazilian jujitsu (BJJ) training efforts inside Patriot Front, according to social media posts reviewed by Hatewatch.
Training in martial arts like BJJ provides white nationalist groups such as Patriot Front a way to attract new and younger audiences who are fans of combat sports. It also provides white nationalist group members with fighting skills to use when confronting their perceived enemies in the streets. The group has used violence in the past, including attacking a Black musician during a 2022 demonstration.
Van Dyke, who has been the preferred lawyer for Patriot Front when its members are criminally charged or sued for their racist activism, announced June 1 on X that he had obtained a black belt in BJJ, writing that “going from white to black belt is, aside from becoming a lawyer, the hardest thing I have ever done.” Van Dyke’s X post included a photograph of him standing next to two unidentified people in a gym. The next day, June 2, an active club in Texas that Hatewatch revealed is secretly controlled by Patriot Front posted to Telegram to congratulate its “newly minted black belt, John” who “led” the group’s training that day. Previous Hatewatch reporting identified “John TX” as Van Dyke’s alias within Patriot Front.
While at the time Van Dyke denied to Hatewatch that he is the person behind the pseudonym, Hatewatch linked Van Dyke to “John TX” using leaked chats in which a user named “John TX” talked about motorcycles he owned. All the motorcycles “John TX” said he owned were the same motorcycles Van Dyke owned, according to data broker websites. A source with insider knowledge of Patriot Front also told Hatewatch about Van Dyke’s involvement in the group.
Hatewatch sent Van Dyke a series of questions via email about his involvement in Patriot Front, the ethical obligations of lawyers outside the courtroom and the strategy behind using BJJ to recruit. Van Dyke’s 1,000-word response to Hatewatch included denials, self-promotion and notes about the benefits of BJJ.
Van Dyke denied any involvement in Patriot Front, writing, “I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of Patriot Front.”
Asked about his Patriot Front alias John TX, Van Dyke responded, in part, “If I was a member of Patriot Front, why would I have an alias. I’m a lawyer. I am an equity partner at my firm.”
He then mentioned all the places his name and contact information appear on his firm’s office supplies and asked, “Do you honestly believe, if I was in Patriot Front, that I would have an alias? What good would it do me? It’s comical, even for an organization as brainless as the SPLC (and you can certainly quote me on that).”
Everyone in Patriot Front has an alias, even people whose names and membership in the group are widely known. The only exception is Patriot Front’s leader, Thomas Rousseau.
The June 2 Telegram post included a photograph of eight people in a gym, six of whom have their faces poorly blurred, posing in front of a mural that reads, “America is dead, long live America.” The two people without blurred faces are well-known Patriot Front ringleaders Graham Whitson and Kieran Morris. Though Van Dyke’s face is somewhat blurred, he appears to be kneeling in the middle of the group. The facial hair and overall appearance of the person kneeling in the middle are identical to the facial hair and appearance of Van Dyke in the photograph he posted to X the day before.
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