Washington State House should investigate extremist Matt Shea’s disturbing conduct

This is appalling… but not sur­pris­ing:

A Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can politi­cian took part in pri­vate dis­cus­sions with right-wing fig­ures about car­ry­ing out sur­veil­lance, “psy­ops” and even vio­lent attacks on per­ceived polit­i­cal ene­mies, accord­ing to chat records obtained by the Guardian.

That Repub­li­can politi­cian is Matt Shea, a for­mer Unit­ed States Army lieu­tenant who now serves in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, osten­si­bly rep­re­sent­ing the 4th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict — though we don’t think he rep­re­sents any­one at all giv­en his views and lengthy record of hate speech.

Shea is as extreme as they come. He has admit­ted to dis­trib­ut­ing lit­er­a­ture asso­ci­at­ed with the white nation­al­ist Aryan Nations move­ment call­ing for the death of non-Chris­t­ian males who do not fol­low bib­li­cal laws. (Shea’s activ­i­ties so alarmed the Repub­li­can Spokane Coun­ty Sher­iff that the FBI was called in to inves­ti­gate.)

“You have a sec­tor that is preach­ing hate and false­hood, then you have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to shut that down,” Sher­iff Kne­zovich told the Pacif­ic North­west Inlan­der. “Matt Shea has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to shut that down. He feeds the fire.”

Shea and a small group of oth­er mil­i­tant right wingers want the part of Wash­ing­ton they live in to secede and form a new state called Liberty.

They are obsessed with cre­at­ing a pseu­do-lib­er­tar­i­an par­adise and wrong­ly believe that if they could only sev­er polit­i­cal ties with West­ern Wash­ing­ton, they would be free to imple­ment their white nation­al­ist agen­da. (I say pseu­do-lib­er­tar­i­an because this soci­ety would not be tru­ly lib­er­tar­i­an; Shea and his ilk do not believe in repro­duc­tive rights or the free­dom to mar­ry as true lib­er­tar­i­ans do.)

Shea — who often speaks at right wing ral­lies yet declines inter­views — is in total agree­ment with Don­ald Trump that the mass media are “the ene­my of the peo­ple”. He fre­quent­ly denounces peo­ple he does­n’t agree with as “Marx­ists”.

Pri­or to being pro­filed by Rolling Stone last year and inves­ti­gat­ed by the FBI, Shea was involved in sup­port­ing the mil­i­tant group that seized con­trol of the Mal­heur Wildlife Refuge in Ore­gon and broke numer­ous fed­er­al laws.

Now The Guardian has obtained evi­dence that Shea dis­cussed car­ry­ing out vio­lent attacks against oth­er peo­ple with oth­er extrem­ist right wingers.

“Fist full of hair, and face slam, to a Jer­sey bar­ri­er. Treat em like com­mu­nist rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies. Then shave her bald with a K‑Bar USMC field knife,” wrote Shea pal Jack Robert­son in the chat. “Would make good attach­ment points for hoist­ing com­mu­nists up flag poles. Espe­cial­ly the ones with nip­ple rings. But… if you cinch up zip ties enough, you don’t even NEED nip­ple rings for hoisting.”

“Shea, the elect­ed Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tor, did not demur from any of these sug­ges­tions,” reports The Guardian’s Jason Wil­son. “He also appeared will­ing to par­tic­i­pate direct­ly in sur­veil­lance of activists.”

“In response to a request in the chat for back­ground checks on Spokane res­i­dents, Shea vol­un­teered to help, going on to name three indi­vid­u­als – includ­ing an orga­niz­er for the lib­er­al group Indi­vis­i­ble, and a col­lege professor.”

This dis­turb­ing con­duct war­rants fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. The Wash­ing­ton State House should open its own inves­ti­ga­tion into Matt Shea and his activ­i­ties. Shea should at least be cen­sured for this con­duct and for­mal­ly rep­ri­mand­ed. This is absolute­ly unac­cept­able behav­ior for a pub­lic offi­cial. There must be dis­ci­pline. House lead­er­ship can­not look the oth­er way: they must act.