A retired U.S. Army Green Beret arrested for being at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, says the FBI tried to recruit him to spy on the Oath Keepers group a few weeks before the violence at the Capitol.
Jeremy M. Brown, 47, who is being held in the Pinellas County Jail in Florida on federal misdemeanor charges related to Jan. 6, told The Epoch Times he believes his arrest and prosecution are payback for his refusal to become a confidential informant.
Brown said he went to the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 dressed in tactical gear to provide security for event organizers and for VIPs who spoke at the rally.
He said FBI agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) met with him in late 2020 and asked him to become an informant.
“On Dec. 11, 2020, the exact same Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) agents that (later) arrested me attempted to recruit me as a confidential informant,” Brown said in a letter to The Epoch Times from the Pinellas County Jail. “Their ‘pitch’ was intended to gauge my interest in infiltrating law-abiding citizen groups that had no criminal history and certainly were not designated ‘terrorist groups.’”
Read more: Jan. 6 Defendant Says FBI Tried to Recruit Him to Spy on Oath Keepers
