Some 83 hours of calls with more than 100
participants linked to The Base group were analyzed by the SPLC, which monitors
hate, for a new podcast, “Sounds Like Hate.”
Military training or knowledge of firearms was
an important asset, according to the released calls. So was having a place to
train.
One of the people in the calls trying to join
the Base says he is 17 years old and offers his mother’s property for a
training exercise.
“What date would be best in January for
everybody?” the caller, who gave a pseudonym of Erik, asks the group. Two
members, apparently vetting ‘Erik’ for membership, talk about stocking up on
ammunition before the event. One talks about having blown through a lot of
ammunition at a prior meeting. One offers to place orders and ship them for
others.
That meeting appears to have been postponed,
according to the calls, because Erik says his mother got nervous. It is unclear
if it ever took place. But it gives insight into what the group values, how
they operate, and how they view themselves.
The calls, dating from 2018 until January
2020, were supplied by a confidential source, said Jamila Paksima, co-host of
the podcast. The authenticity was verified by subject matter experts who
recognized the leader’s voice from previous audio appearances and were able to
verify other corroborating details, Paksima told CNN.
The group and its
leader
The man at the center of most of the calls is
Rinaldo Nazzaro, the group’s leader, who the SPLC says now lives in St.
Petersburg, Russia.
CNN contacted Nazzaro via an e-mail address
attached to his name regarding the leak of the secret calls.
He did not dispute that he was the leader of
the group, but challenged its characterization.
“The Base is a survivalism and
self-defense network. Our objective is sharing knowledge and training to
prepare for crisis situations,” Nazzaro said in an e-mail to CNN.
“The Base is not a neo-Nazi organization or a terrorist group. We do not
encourage violence beyond self-defense situations.”
The UK topped the list with 26,668 new cases and 191 coronavirus-related deaths in the previous 24 hours, while Italy recorded an additional 15,199 infections, up from its previous record of 11,705 on Sunday.
The Czech Republic saw an increase of 11,984 cases on Wednesday, while Poland recorded 10,040 and Switzerland had 5,596 new infections.
The records are following a worrying trend in Europe which is forcing governments to reintroduce restrictions on social interaction and hospitality services throughout the continent.
According to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Europe has registered more than 5 million cases and 200,000 deaths, with new cases beginning to rise sharply from the end of September.
Meanwhile, Spain has become the first western European country to reach more than 1 million confirmed cases after reporting 16,973 additional cases in the past 24 hours.
The country has 34,366 confirmed deaths.
European Union leaders will hold a video-conference next week to discuss how to better cooperate as the infections rise.
Hospitals struggle to cope
With case numbers that were brought largely under control by lockdowns in March and April now surging, authorities in countries from Poland to Portugal have expressed mounting alarm at the renewed crisis confronting their health infrastructure.
Belgium, struggling with what its health minister called a “tsunami” of infections, is postponing all non-essential hospital procedures, and similar measures are looming in other countries where case numbers have been rising relentlessly.
“If the rhythm of the past week continues, rescheduling and suspending some non-priority activities will become unavoidable,” Julio Pascual, medical director at Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar, told Reuters.
European countries boast some of the world’s best health services and doctors say that with the benefit of almost a year’s experience with coronavirus, they are much better equipped to treat individual patients clinically.
But the capacity of hospitals to handle a wave of COVID-19 patients, as well as people suffering from cancer, heart disease and other serious conditions, is still vulnerable.
The Trump campaign denied Wednesday that they hired two armed men who showed up to an early voting site in one of Florida’s most hotly-contested counties, after the president repeatedly called for an “army” of poll-watchers to supposedly prevent election fraud.
Pinellas County elections supervisor Julie Marcus, a Republican, said that the men, dressed like security guards, arrived at an early voting site in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, pitched a tent, and told sheriff’s deputies they’d been hired by the Trump campaign, according to WFLA, NBC’s Tampa affiliate. They also said they’d be back on Thursday.
“The sheriff and I take this very seriously,” Marcus told WFLA. “Voter intimidation, deterring voters from voting, impeding a voter’s ability to cast a ballot in this election is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in any way, shape, or form.”
The Trump campaign flatly denied hiring the men. “The Campaign did not hire these individuals nor did the Campaign direct them to go to the voting location,” deputy press secretary Thea McDonald told WFLA.
But given Trump’s rhetoric over the course of the campaign, it’s hardly surprising that this is happening. The campaign has boasted that it’s training 50,000 volunteer poll watchers, labeling the effort “Army for Trump.”
During the first presidential debate last month, Trump said he was “urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully,” after falsely claiming that Philadelphia elections officials were engaging in corruption by barring unapproved poll-watchers from a satellite elections office.
“The most important thing is this: We don’t want people to harass voters when they are in the process of exercising what is a fundamental right, which is their right to vote,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in an interview with Showtime last week.
In Minnesota, Tennessee-based private security company Atlas Aegis posted a job listing earlier this month calling on former U.S. military special operations personnel to apply for “security positions in Minnesota during the November election and beyond to protect election polls, local businesses, and residences from looting and destruction,” the Washington Post reported. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison opened a probe into the company earlier this week.
