One of the top law enforcement officers in Alaska has allegedly been running a pseudonymous Twitter account that promotes an alt-right sect of Mormonism and has repeatedly pushed antisemitic, racist, homophobic, and pro-white supremacy messages on the social media platform since 2016, The Guardian reported Wednesday.
Based on investigations performed by antifascist researchers, The Guardian reported that it was able to identify Alaska Assistant Attorney General Matthias Cicotte—who has worked on multiple civil rights cases for the Department of Law—as a supporter of the “Mormon-derived extremist group the Deseret Nationalists.”
The report describes the group as “a loose association of rightwing Mormons” that are known for “harassing perceived enemies online, such as progressive Mormons, LGBTQ Mormons, former Mormons and political progressives.”
According to the report, an exhaustive investigation of the Twitter handle @JReubenClark showed with near-certainty that the account belonged to Cicotte. The investigative report also resulted in the Alaska Department of Law opening an investigation into Cicotte, who’s duties include acting as the department’s chief corrections counsel.
“Since-deleted tweets archived by anti-fascists reveal that [Cicotte] advocated various extreme positions including the summary imprisonment of Black Lives Matter protesters; vigilante violence against leftwing groups; and a punishment of execution for acts including performing gender reassignment surgery,” the report stated. “Many of the tweets under the JReubenCIark moniker suggest antipathy towards Jews, who are the subject of hundreds of tweets that suggest that they are involved in conspiracies against white people, or that they already control the commanding heights of the economy, the media or education.”
For example, in May 2016 the account posted a derogatory tweet about Jewish women and lamented the perceived loss of power of white men in society.
“Real history was taught in school, Angry yentas didn’t rule, White men didn’t play the fool, Those were the days,” @JReubenClark wrote in the since-deleted tweet.
The account has also regularly rejected that fact that racism exists, saying it was “purely a tool to control people on the right,” and implying there were no examples of “accusations of racism that helped the right, or Christians, or whites in the last 10 years.”
“Is it ‘white supremacy’ to note that some racial groups have higher IQs than others based on IQ tests? I believe that and I am only a Deseret supremacist,” the account tweeted in June 2020, according to The Guardian.
In an online discussion about Kyle Rittenhouse, the account favorably compared the accused double murderer to James Fields, the neo-Nazi who ran over and killed Heather Heyer during the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
“The justice system will fail. He’s not a cop, he’s gonna get screwed like James Fields,” the account tweeted.
Per the report, The Guardian was able to show that Cicotte was the man behind the @JReubenClark moniker by matching public details from the assistant AG’s life to biographical details provided by the person controlling the account.
“The account revealed a number of biographical details that match Cicotte’s, from the length of his marriage, to the identity of his criminal law professor, to his frequent moves, to the dates of his various stints in higher education, to his ownership of a Minivan, to the date of his house purchase,” the report stated.
The account also posted several photos which are said to come from inside of the account owner’s home and depicted “a distinctive patterning on the brickwork” and a “similarly distinctive pattern on wood paneling in the kitchen.” Those matched perfectly with photos of Cicotte’s house that were posted to realtor.com, the report stated.
Ellsworth Warner, who owned the home before selling it to Cicotte in 2014 also confirmed that the photos posted by the @JReubenClark account depicted the inside of his former home.
“Yep, it is the same house,” he told The Guardian, adding that his mother was the one who installed the kitchen cabinets.
Alaska Deputy Attorney General Cori Mills did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime, but told the Guardian that the Department of Law “takes the allegations raised here seriously, and we uphold the dignity and respect of all individuals and ask that all of our employees do the same.”
“Having just learned about this late last week, we are gathering information and conducting a review. Since this involves personnel issues, we are very limited in our ability to comment further,” Mills added.
[image via via-Justin-Sullivan_Getty-Images]
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