Secret docs: Neo-Nazi group's newest member is ex-Navy SEAL tied to war crimes case

A former Navy SEAL whose jaw-dropping testimony upended a major war crimes trial in 2019 recently became a member of the white supremacist group Patriot Front, according to secret documents obtained by The Informant.

Corey N. Scott, now 34, stunned prosecutors and observers seven years ago when he took the stand in military court and testified that he, not his platoon leader, killed an injured and unarmed captive in Iraq. His testimony helped that same SEAL Team 7 platoon leader, Eddie Gallagher, win an acquittal on murder and most other war crimes charges at a trial that captured the attention of dozens of members of Congress as well as President Donald Trump and future Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Now, internal Patriot Front documents and social media posts show Scott moved from fighting on the front lines for the U.S. government to being part of an organization dedicated to its downfall.

The documents show Scott is one of the newest recruits of Patriot Front, a racist and antisemitic organization that wants the U.S. Government to collapse. Patriot Front imagines they’ll be able to build a whites-only state out of the ashes of what they call the “bleeding carcass” of American Democracy. 

Scott's own bigoted views as well as his reasons for wanting to join Patriot Front are detailed in a written summary of an interview he did in October with two long-term members of the group, identified by their internal alias Nolan TX and Charles TX, to see if he was a fit for the organization. Each Patriot Front member chooses an alias that includes a fictitious first name along with the postal abbreviation of the state in which they currently reside.

The summary said Scott “describes himself as a white nationalist” and believes Black people and white people are incompatible. It said he sees resegregation as a realistic possibility in the future and that he also spoke positively about the idea of relocating the Black population of the U.S. to the African nation of Liberia.

According to other records obtained by The Informant, Patriot Front accepted Scott as a full member in early December. Scott picked the code name Benjamin OK to match his current home state of Oklahoma.  

The Informant relied on recently updated business records in Florida, where he lived for a time, as well as social media info to confirm that Scott currently resides in Oklahoma. Additionally, The Informant uncovered a racist and antisemitic social media account that displays Patriot Front propaganda and originally used the handle @CoreyNScott. That account then changed its handle in January to @BenOK1776.

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Patriot Front formed in 2017 out of the ashes of white supremacist infighting, as so many of these organizations do. Thomas Rousseau, a teenager at the time living in the suburbs of Dallas, was already part of a small neo-Nazi organization called Vanguard America, which started the year prior but had trouble finding its footing and identity among a growing number of white supremacist groups in the U.S. Friction between Rousseau and the group's leader also led to uncomfortable dynamics within the group for most of that year.

Vanguard America sometimes used the red, white and blue of the American flag in its branding while also embracing icons like the sonnenrad (also known as the black sun.) The Sonnenrad is a symbol invented by the original Nazis in the early 1900s in Germany and used primarily by Hitler's paramilitary force, the Schutzstaffel, commonly called the SS. The group also prominently used the Nazi slogan “Blood and Soil,” even incorporating the phrase into the URL of its website. Other times, it used plain black-and-white iconography depicting a war eagle carrying a fasces in its claws, echoing a logo of the Italian fascists in the early 1900s. 

Rousseau and other members of Vanguard America were sporting that black-and-white war eagle symbol on their caps and polo shirts when they took part in the deadly white supremacist rally known as “Unite the Right” in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. The rally, on its surface, was organized to oppose the removal of Confederate monuments. But its central organizers were an assortment of hardcore white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Consequently, it became the largest white supremacist gathering in the U.S. in decades, with racist activists traveling to Charlottesville from all over the nation.

Among those activists was a man who drove hundreds of miles from his home in Ohio to march alongside Rousseau and Vanguard America. The man sported the group's signature white polo shirt while carrying a black shield. Vanguard America’s leadership later denied he was a member, but photographs and videos from the march show the man, a pudgy, white 20-year-old with short brown hair and sunglasses, trailing slightly behind Rousseau at times and at the center of the group at other times. After the march, the man got in his car and intentionally crashed it into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing activist Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others. He is serving two life sentences in prison plus hundreds of years without the possibility of parole for the attack.

The chaos of the event and intense pressure that followed led to Vanguard America fracturing. Rousseau took the group's southern contingent with him and founded Patriot Front in its stead. He took over the group’s “Blood and Soil” website and gave it a makeover. There was a new eagle, a new fasces and new name, though many of the same members remained.

At just 19, fresh out of high school and with no military experience, Rousseau crowned himself the organization's supreme leader. Now 27, he still rules Patriot Front as a mini dictator.

Rousseau’s strict rules and cult-like distrust of outsiders are designed to keep the group's tactics and membership secret and anonymized. But the code names and flash demonstrations that have become synonymous with the organization have done little to counter its sloppy and sometimes bizarre tactics—tactics that led to numerous members being publicly identified over the years. Journalists and researchers identified various members thanks to poor OPSEC, poor leadership, leaked internal chats, public arrest records and, in one case, a fatal car accident.

Leaked internal communications published in 2022 by the journalist collective Unicorn Riot exposed that members self-identified as National Socialists (Nazis) and fascists, traded antisemitic screeds, and debated the merits of political violence. When a white supremacist carried out a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas in 2019, members in internal forums expressed little regret over the loss of life, with one writing that white men were "being slowly destroyed in a way calculated to produce resentment” and that "of course, some of them decide to lash out.”

In 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center credited the leaked chats and audio recordings published by Unicorn Riot for playing a key role in identifying Brenner Alexander Cole as a Patriot Front regional lead in Texas who used the code name James TX.

Images from Unicorn Riot’s leaks also showed members of a Texas Patriot Front chapter posing with flags (including a red, white and blue sonnenrad) as a young child performs a Nazi salute.

In October, Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists and Front Range Antifascists identified the Turning Point USA chapter secretary of University of Colorado Boulder as a member of Patriot Front.

In numerous examples, publicly identified members of Patriot Front were also exposed as affiliates of other white supremacist groups like Asatru Folk Assembly, NSC-131, and the neo-Nazi cult “Aryanity.”

Like their security problems, Patriot Front's legal troubles have also been substantial. In January 2025, a federal judge ordered the group and Rousseau to pay approximately $2.7 million in damages to Charles Murrell III, a Black musician the group attacked during a march in 2022 in Boston. Separately, Patriot Front agreed to a settlement last year following an incident in Fargo, North Dakota, and just this month, a judgment was handed down against the group in federal court in Richmond, Virginia. In both cases, members of the group had destroyed murals in communities of color. In 2022, 31 members, including Rousseau, were arrested in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho on charges of conspiracy to riot after police stopped a U-Haul packed with members and riot gear near an LGBTQ pride event. 

Rousseau was also arrested in Weatherford, Texas for Patriot Front-related vandalism alongside members Cameron Pruitt and Graham Whitson, The Informant reported back in 2020.

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Corey Scott deployed in 2017 to Mosul, Iraq, with SEAL Team 7's Alpha Platoon. There, he became enmeshed in the Eddie Gallagher war crimes case. 

Several members of the Navy platoon, including Scott, reported that Gallagher engaged in reckless conduct during combat operations, shot unarmed civilians, and that he fatally stabbed a teenage ISIS fighter who was captured wounded, but alive, by Iraqi forces. The allegations triggered an investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and ultimately led to a high-profile court martial.

”I’ve got a cool story for you when I get back. I’ve got my knife skills on,” Gallagher texted to a friend alongside an image of himself with the prisoner’s corpse. “Good story behind this. Got him with my hunting knife.”

Gallagher’s platoon members described the May 2017 stabbing as unprovoked and said the restrained detainee posed no threat at the time.

According to NCIS interviews, Scott told investigators the stabbing left him in “complete disbelief.”

Scott, a combat medic who treated the wounded prisoner of war and said he witnessed Gallagher attack him, became central for the prosecution who had to prove that Gallagher’s actions caused the detainee’s death under U.S. military law. Because there was no formal autopsy of the detainee and his identity has never been confirmed, the case relied almost entirely on witness testimony.

According to court records and testimony, Scott remained with the POW and managed a breathing tube as the teen bled out. Scott also previously said in an NCIS interview that he didn’t believe the wounded prisoner would have died before Gallagher allegedly stabbed him. Throughout his NCIS and pretrial interviews, Scott never implied he was responsible for the teenage prisoner’s death.

Before taking the stand, Scott sought to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, but the judge granted him immunity instead and ordered him to testify in the United States v. Eddie Gallagher.

During the trial, Scott delivered testimony that upended the case.

While Scott said that Gallagher twice stabbed the detainee, he testified that the neck wound had not been fatal. Scott claimed that he had suffocated the prisoner himself. Scott told the courtroom that he placed his thumb over the breathing tube attached to the wounded detainee and described it as a mercy killing to spare him from torture by Iraqi forces.

"I knew he was going to die anyway," Scott testified, according to court transcripts. "I wanted to save him from waking up to what had happened next." 

The testimony shocked the courtroom. According to the Navy Times, Navy prosecutor Lt. Brian John “suggested that Scott might be lying to protect Gallagher.”

Scott replied to the prosecutor that he didn’t think Gallagher “should be spending his life in prison,” and mentioned Gallagher’s wife and children.

Largely due to Scott’s testimony, Gallagher was acquitted of murder and most other charges. Gallagher was, however, convicted for posing for a photograph with the corpse. Scott, like many of Gallagher’s platoon members, also appeared in the trophy shots with the dead POW, though none of them were charged with a similar crime.

According to the AP, Navy officials considered perjury charges against Scott, but, because he was given broad immunity before testifying, they ultimately did not.

The case unfolded amid intense political attention. President Donald Trump repeatedly intervened on Gallagher's behalf while the legal process was ongoing. In March 2019, Trump ordered Gallagher transferred from pretrial confinement to less restrictive conditions while awaiting trial. At the time, the BBC reported that then-Fox News host Pete Hegseth had personally lobbied for Trump to support Gallagher. 

After Gallagher was acquitted of murder but convicted for posing for a photograph with the dead prisoner, Trump granted him clemency in November 2019 and later restored his rank after the Navy attempted disciplinary action. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer was eventually fired over the handling of the situation, with Trump posting on social media that Gallagher had been “treated very badly.”

Unlike Gallagher, who has given interviews for documentaries and MAGA podcasts about the trial, Scott has completely avoided the media spotlight.

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In the notes of his Patriot Front interview from October, Scott wasn’t mentioned by name, but the documents referenced numerous identifying details, including his age, current hometown and more. According to the notes taken by Charles TX and obtained by The Informant, Patriot Front described Scott a “former Navy SEAL involved in a high-profile case in which he strangled an ISIS POW.”  The notes specifically mentioned the “Eddie Gallagher trial” immediately afterward. The notes also say Scott told his Patriot Front recruiters he was a Navy SEAL combat medic. The interviewer described Scott as "ideologically consistent" with "no red flags,” but noted that it was “unclear if a stolen valor situation” existed regarding his military service.

According to multiple Florida business records, including those of a construction company and a failed coffee shop venture, Scott resides in Oklahoma as noted in his Patriot Front interview. Scott also told his Patriot Front recruiters he “has worked in construction for quite some time.”

Scott’s interview notes said that he “describes himself as a White Nationalist” and “described himself as having ‘pretended to not be racist’ for quite some time” before committing to his views openly.

When asked why he wanted to join Patriot Front, Scott said he “wants to work with like-minded people,” according to interview notes.

The document revealed the ideological journey Scott took towards joining Patriot Front. 

According to the interviewer's notes, Scott “grew up in Conservative family” and “wanted to serve Uncle Sam.” They wrote that Scott “became disillusioned under Obama” and “viewed the Biden administration as a disaster.” Despite Scott’s initial support of President Trump in his first term, he “distanced from the Republican party” after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited the Wailing Wall in Israel. According to the summary, Scott also attributed DeSantis’ Israel trip as his “awakening to the JQ.” The “JQ” is a common abbreviation in antisemitic circles for the so-called “Jewish question,” the bigoted idea that Jewish people are a problem in need of a society-wide solution. The “Jewish question” was also central to the Nazi party’s goals of Jewish extermination.

Scott’s interview summary noted that he “didn’t mention anyone as a political thinker that he followed yet,” but that he began to follow white supremacist Nick Fuentes following the streamer’s dinner with President Trump and rapper Kanye West. Scott “remains hesitant about Fuentes’ nature but recognizes it as part of his journey,” their notes continued.

The Patriot Front interviewer wrote that Scott “isn't very well read politically, but enjoys Classical and Medieval historical fiction, as well as American history.” When asked about an American figure Scott admires, he reportedly said he “admires Washington, but doesn't know a lot about him, other than he was an important figure in founding our country.”

Scott’s racist and antisemitic beliefs are repeatedly highlighted in the interviewer’s observations.

In response to a question about the “biggest problem” currently in the U.S., Scott's interviewer wrote that he talked about “political service to Jews as well as mass-migration, as one flows from the other,” leaning into the antisemitic Great Replacement conspiracy theory.

After years of military service in the war on terror, Scott told his interviewers he had come to believe that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan was driven in significant part by drug production tied to “Jewish interests” in the United States.

The interviewer wrote that Scott believes “not even Blacks want to be integrated” and that Jews were “behind” the integration of public schools. Scott further described Black Americans as incompatible with white society and endorsed a Liberia-style resettlement model or “segregation possibly.”

According to the notes, Scott described his wife as “politically aligned.” It documents that she is one-eighth Native American but “doesn’t appear so.” Under another question, Scott reportedly described Native tribal land as “parasitic but needs to be reformed.”

The Patriot Front interviewer wrote that Scott “believes [that] to be an American is to be of European descent.”

The summary said that Scott had no previous experience with white nationalist activism “either as part of a group or alone.” It also noted that Scott became aware of Patriot Front “sometime in early 2025.” Before applying, Scott “researched to make sure that PF was not Jewish related” and he was “impressed” by video interviews he’d watched of Rousseau, the group’s leader.

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Even with all of the indications in the interview notes that Patriot Front had recruited Scott into its ranks, The Informant still wanted to be sure that it had identified the correct person. One of the first stops was the social media website X, where neo-Nazis and other white supremacists have flocked since the site was taken over by billionaire Elon Musk and most content rules were removed.

In the interview notes, the recruiter mentioned that the candidate largely got his news on X from pro-Hitler podcaster Corey Mahler and Patriot Front-friendly MMA fighter-turned-podcaster Jake Shields.

The Informant did a search on X for the name “Corey Scott.” The 20th result was an obvious hit: an account using the handle @BenOK1776 and displaying a profile photo of a man dressed like a member of Patriot Front, with a tan hat, white gator covering his face, sunglasses and a blue jacket. Behind him flew a flag that looked identical to those flown by the group at their flash marches. A January 29 post on the account included the photo and the hashtag #NewProfilePic.

On the timeline, @BenOK1776 expressed the same types of bigoted views seen throughout the Patriot Front interview and the account frequently shared racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, Islamophobic, anti-LGBTQ, and pro-Nazi content. The account would regularly repost or respond to white supremacist and antisemitic figures like commentator Stew Peters and Gab CEO Andrew Torba along with Mahler and Shields. 

It turned out the account had only recently changed its handle. Posts as recent as November showed that other X users had been replying to the account when it used an entirely different handle: @CoreyNScott. The handle matched his full name: Corey Noel Scott.

Data publicly displayed on the X profile showed the account had been active since 2015 and that its username had only been changed once – in January. Data leaks from 2023 also revealed that the @CoreyNScott account was registered to a Gmail address that Scott publicly displays on his LinkedIn profile.

Posts on the account show that Scott was not shy about posting bigoted and pro-Nazi content even under his real name.

“I used to think deporting would be cool, that’s not enough. They’ll just respawn as our descendants problem. Jews have been ejected all over Europe through the centuries, their descendants are now our problem,” @CoreyNScott wrote in November.

”Jews have a special hatred for white people and won’t hesitate to use their enemies against each other,” @CoreyNScott also wrote.

”If anybody is struggling to see the nature of the Jew, I suggest following Jewish rabbis. You’ll be a raging anti semite before you know it,” @CoreyNScott said on X back in 2024.

In January, following Scott’s acceptance into the white supremacist group, the recently rebranded @BenOK1776 shared footage from Patriot Front’s appearance at the D.C. March for Life. The same week the account would change its profile picture to a masked Patriot Front member from what appears to be the march.

“If you reframe and look at history from 0 AD to 1950 the Germans were the moderates,” @BenOK1776 wrote in March under the new handle.

The @BenOK1776/@CoreyNScott account called for “segregation by country,” shared the crowdfunding campaign for a woman who was fired after calling a group of Black people the N-word, and posted Holocaust denial while also fanboying over Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler. The account described immigrants as “culturally and morally incompatible” with the United States and called for the expulsion of Jewish and Indian Americans. @CoreyNScott described “the Muslim problem” as “secondary to the [Jewish] problem.” In response to an image of two dads holding a newborn, @BenOK1776 replied: “inquisition.”

“Yes on all five counts,” @CoreyNScott responded to an account asking if Hitler was right and if America should strip Jewish people of their citizenship, property, and from the media.

In another post, also as @CoreyNScott, the account listed women’s suffrage, the Federal Reserve Act and “defeating the Nazis” as among “our countries [sic] greatest errors.” 

The account repeatedly expressed support for repealing the 19th Amendment, which enshrined women's right to vote, and in one post under the @CoreyNScott handle, the account explicitly stated, “I have daughters and I believe that women should not vote.”

As seen throughout, @BenOK1776/@CoreyNScott’s X profile is steeped in antisemitic conspiracy theories where they blame Jewish people for the murder of Charlie Kirk, the regulation of raw milk, and the July flash flood that killed 27 people at Camp Mystic in Texas. 

@CoreyNScott described himself as Christian but characterized the Old Testament as “partially a race war” and claimed that Jesus “drew borders, called for the genocide of those who were abominations of his creation, and condemned and punished race mixing.”

In a post on November 7, about a month before joining Patriot Front, @CoreyNScott asked: “As a racist do I have to put it into action to be believed?”

On Monday, The Informant reached out by phone and text to a number associated with Scott to ask for his comment on this article. A person on the other end replied by text a short time later: “Who are you with?” 

The person didn't directly reply to follow-up messages. But on Tuesday, The Informant sent a text specifically asking about the X account @BenOK1776. About a half-hour later, the account was deleted.

The Informant also attempted to contact Patriot Front through its website, but no one from the organization responded to a request for comment.

A freelance journalist contributed to this report.