Black Robe Regiment & Truth for Health: Religious Militias, Covid Disinformation & Insurrection
Bill Cook of Truth for Health is a founder of the Black Robe Regiment
The Counter Disinformation Project has previously reported on the Truth for Health Foundation, focusing on the role its members from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons have played in covid disinformation, in particular its promotion of alternative treatments. Merging covid disinformation with religion Truth for Health have created an in church telesales franchise.
Congress’ Covid Oversight Committee report titled “A knife fight with the FDA provided evidence Trump officials sought to pressure the FDA to approve the unproven treatment hydroxychloroquine. Paul Alexander of Truth for Health Foundation was advising inside the Trump administration at the time as was his Pandata colleague Scott Atlas, and there are other overlapping members between Truth for Health and Pandata.
Now after further research its time to examine the other contingent that makes up the membership of the Truth for Health board, the Black Robe Regiment. A religious militia group interlinked with the Oathkeepers and with ties to the Proud Boys, the Black Robe Regiment leads to Michael Flynn, Rodger Stone and insurrection.
AFLD, undermining institutions
Working with others including Allison Neitzel’s Misinformation Kills the Counter Disinformation Project has examined how elements of the covid disinformation network are part of a wider anti-science movement which seeks to destabilise and undermine institutions. We have reported on the secretive Council for National Policy’s(CNP) connections to disinformation groups including the leaked conference call where members discuss the creation of America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLD).
We have also reported how members of Pandata and HART have worked with AFLD whilst developing a network of groups across boarders with different focuses from gaining access to media and politicians to drawing together the anti-vaxxer movement.
A leak of a CNP meeting which had Jay Bhattacharya as a guest speaker ( GBD, Pandata, Brownstone Institute, Collateral Global) revealed AFLD founder Simone Gold had become a member of the CNP.
The CNP meeting was before Gold began her prison sentence after being found guilty of trespass inside Capitol Hill on 6 January.
Truth for Health & The Black Robes
Much of the following is from the reporting of Bruce Wilson Right Wing Watch and Jennifer Cohn
https://buckscountybeacon.com/2022/09/michael-flynn-and-roger-stones-dangerous-crusade-continues/
Truth for Health was originally founded in 2007 under the name Straight Truth about Hormones Foundation. It changed its name to the Truth for Health Foundation in 2021 after having pivoted to a focus on covid, in particular the promotion of alternative treatments.
membership list
From Right Wing Watch
“According to Cook’s website, his group was launched in 2012 at Patrick Henry College with the help of retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, executive vice president at the Family Research Council, and E.W. Jackson, a religious-right activist who was the Republican nominee for Lt. Gov. of Virginia in 2013. Also on the speaker’s list were Michael Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association and Patrick Henry College and now head of the religious-right legal giant Alliance Defending Freedom, and John Guandolo, an anti-Muslim activist who said the day after the Capitol Insurrection that the rioters had shown “restraint” by not executing the “traitors” in Congress.”
The Family Research Council is a key CNP organisation focused on opposing abortion on any grounds.
Right Wing Watch reported that in 2018 in response to the the Supreme Courts ruling on same sex marriage Cook had called on pastors to be more political and disobey restrictions on electoral politicking by churches and other tax-exempt nonprofit groups:
“It is time for clergy to stand up and disobey that law. We are not bound by law,” Cook said to the crowd. “If a judge or a legislature hands down a ruling that is unconstitutional, we do not have to obey it. The only reason we might obey that is to save our skin, and that time is over. We need to be willing to pay the price for doing what is right or we lose the nation.”
There are several iterations of the Black Robe Regiment, Pastor Greg Locke, a close confidante of Roger Stone, is involved with a “Black Robe Regiment” group that seems to not be affiliated with Cook’s group that is closer to Michael Flynn, however both groups have the same links to militia groups and other Christian nationalist which is the guiding principle of the Black Robe Regiments. They do not believe in the separation of Church and State, espousing what appears to be a Christofacist theocracy, and with Michael Flynn and Rodger Stone now working so closely together there doesn’t appear to be any difference between the two Black Robe Regiment groups.
Black Robe Regiments have been responsible for book burning events, in this example from Tennesse they were burning copies of fantasy books like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter for encouraging children to engage in witchcraft.
The pastors of the Black Robe Regiment have a particular fixation on witches, claiming they can identify them hiding in their congregations.
And their attitudes towards to LGBT+ community is openly hostile, invoking God and Satan.
Militia links
The Black Robe Regiment is heavily tied to militia groups, in particular the Oathkeepers who are heavily implicated in the storming of Capitol Hill. On Dec 12, 2020, Cook wore an Oathkeepers T-shirt during a Jericho March rally in Washington, D.C., called “Hear the Church Roar!”
The Regiment stated in a 2021 newsletter that it partners with the Oathkeepers. On April 8 that year, it held a special webinar featuring and defending Rhodes who was under a cloud of suspicion for his role in Jan. 6. The ad for the event stated that, “We are all Oathkeepers now.” It concurrently promoted an April 22 town hall with Mike Flynn
Members of Black Robe Regiments have also been known to work with the Proud Boys.
Civil War
The Black Robe Regiments “commissioning” came from Pastor E.W. Jackson and Lt General Willian G Boykin, the launch event shows the groups many links to Christian fundamentalists.
Boykin sits on the board of Morningstar Ministries’ Oak Initiative which is a dominionist political initiative. Dominionism believes in Church control over the “seven mountains” which are 1. business, 2. government, 3. family, 4. religion, 5. media, 6. education, and 7. entertainment.
Rick Joyner who leads Morningstar Ministries has made repeated calls to prepare for civil war, first urging American’s to rise up in a military coup in 2013 to overthrow Obama.
NewsWeek reported on similar demands made in 2014.
“Rick Joyner has urged Christians to "mobilize" to fight a civil war against left-wing activists. Joyner, who recently described Black Lives Matter protesters as the "KKK of this time," discussed his concerns about a civil war in the U.S. during an appearance on the conservative Christian program The Jim Bakker Show. Right Wing Watch first reported his remarks on Monday.
"We're in time for war. We need to recognize that. We need to mobilize. We need to get ready," Joyner said during the show. He went on to discuss "our civil war," saying that he'd seen in a dream that "militias would pop up like mushrooms" and they would be backed by God.
The pastor went on to say that God had "seeded" the U.S. with veterans of recent wars who "know how to fight in urban warfare." He said that these veterans would "be a part of the leadership of these militias and help us in what's about to unfold in our own country." Joyner described them as "patriots."
This ties in with the Truth for Health Foundation’s dedicated section for military personnel which offering to support military personal who do not want the vaccine, its likely the Black Robe Regiment members of Truth for Health would then seek to recruit
The Medical Freedom Fund
Its worth noting that much of the legal support Truth for Health offers is in the form of loans from the donations they receive. The interest rates for this support is not known.
As Bruce Wilson has reported, civil war is a reoccurring theme for Joyner and others linked to the Black Robe Regiments.
Harass the Enemy
Harass and destroy the enemy, this is a tactic being utilised on a number of issues, from abortion and LGBT+ rights to covid. The sceptic and anti-vax movement is highly focused on harassment, from raising the Nuremberg 2.0 banner, to legal threats, common law constables, complaints to workplaces, to even stalking, the head of California’s medical board was followed by a private investigator on behalf of AFLD while a Chief Justice was followed during lockdown in the hope of catching them breaking the rules to use to undermine the legitimacy of lockdowns. British newspapers did the same.
Certain UK papers worked directly with disinformation groups to generate stories, this includes attacks on scientists which accuse them of being hardline fringe thinkers with political intentions.
Shortly after a European academic committed suicide after a campaign of abuse the founder of Pandata Nick Hudson suggested lockdown supporters deserved to have their lives destroyed.
The Rabbit Hole
As documented, the initial reason for covid disinformation was an effort to keep the economy going, the consideration by the CNP being that a healthy economy would be vital for Trump securing a second term. The undermining of public health officials and government institutions also served the purpose of undermining trust in the whole system.
Qanon and other conspiracy theories had been growing in popularity pre-pandemic, as had the kind of militant Christianity exemplified by the Black Robe Regiment’s rhetoric. In the US and in other countries the same media and campaigning infrastructure that has advanced the cause of the radical right and libertarianism was quickly turned to amplifying the covid counter narrative. Covid disinformation groups, particularly those with links to Pandata managed to get mainstream attention, school focused campaigns such as Us For Them in the UK and FidK in Germany were very successful at establishing themselves in the mainstream media and winning the support of right wing media.
The rabbit hole leads to global conspiracies, run by Bill Gates, the NWO, the WEF or “ancestral satanic bloodlines” as claimed by a recent expose of individuals involved in the anti-vaxxers’ Grand Jury. While these conspiracy theories might not make their way into mainstream media beyond the likes of Fox News or GBNews, there are many outlets which blow the dog whistle of covid extremism.
“Masks don’t work, the government knows they don’t work, its theatre, they are doing it to control us.”
“Lockdowns don’t work, they want to keep us in lockdown for ever, variants are an excuse to lock us down again, the hospitals aren’t full.”
“They want to reintroduce masks, that means they are preparing to lock us down again.”
“PCR tests are unreliable, most cases are false positives, stop testing and the pandemic goes away, the government knows this but more people are testing, they are looking for an excuse to lock us down again.”
Statements like the above have been common in mainstream media, particularly in right leaning outlets, the claim that measures don’t work on their own isn’t conspiracy, however the suggestions of ulterior motives for measures is directly feeding the conspiracy theorists. The problem is that many governments have misled their citizens, they did give out misleading information for instance the nature of airborne transmission and then often did a poor job of correcting their errors, some countries did twist figures and statistics, some pursed a strategy of high transmission in hope of herd immunity without being honest about it.
The sceptics and minimisers all fed the conspiracy theorists, for instance claims children don’t contribute to transmission and aren’t harmed by covid, and the argument there was no benefit to them from vaccination meant that when vaccines were offered the anti-vaxxers were able to exploit this.
The contradictions in the response by governments around the world left gaps for disinformation groups to exploit which is exactly what they did.
While elements of mainstream media questioned government motives, they then platformed their chosen alternative experts with links to prestigious institutions who in turn shared platforms with conspiracy theorists such as Jay Bhattacharya appearing at an AFLD summit, the right wing media’s preferred experts even joined groups like Pandata to work alongside conspiracy theorists like Michael Yeadon.
Members of AAPS and Truth for Health promoting unproven treatments in early February 2020 laid an important foundation for conspiracy, the narrative of a safe effective cure that could quickly end the pandemic being suppressed by government has had incredible traction. The now dominant MAGA wing of the Republican Party adopting the narratives and in some cases employing disinformation doctors ramped up the politicisation of the pandemic.
If you can get people to believe covid is a global scam with many governments, front line healthcare workers and independent academics complicit in a cover up, then getting those same people to believe some voting machines had been tampered with is a small step.
As the first wave faded, the summer was filled with rallies and protests, unable to criticise Trump, the focus of hate for covid disinformation centred on Anthony Fauci and decision makers at state level, the cross over between these rallies and those being organised for the presidential election were clear to see from the commonality of banners and the presence of the militias. A symbiotic relationship, MAGA supporters were easily drawn towards covid disinformation while sceptics were pulled deeper into the MAGA movement, which was to be expected considering the overlap of organisers and funders with links to the CNP.
The Christian Nationalists like the Black Robe Regiment preached about Satan and the battle against evil, throwing into the mix covid disinformation and conspiracy theory. Bill Cook and the other Black Robe members pursue their dominionist agenda with the merging of church and alternative treatments culminates in Medicine and Ministry United which was founded by Truth for Health members. The initiative seeks to re-centre healthcare around religion based on principles they believe have been abandoned since the 17th Century.
Medicine and Ministry promote a documentary called Before the Wrath, which explains why the Rapture must occur before the return of Jesus. Combined with articles and seminars elsewhere on the website there are multiple references that suggest Doomsday is imminent.
Insurrection
After the presidential election senior elements of the covid disinformation network supported the narratives of Stop the Steal while the Christian Nationalists appear close to the centre of the insurrection. The role of Flynn and Stone has been well documented as investigations continue.
It’s difficult to untangle the level influence covid disinformation had on encouraging people to participate in the events of January 6, but it seems difficult to argue that the anti-institution narrative didn’t contribute to some extent to the sense of threat and conspiracy that was harnessed on that day.
Contagion
Due to the international nature of the disinformation groups this was also embraced by many sceptics in other countries. An example of this would be Maajid Nawaz who hosted a three hour radio show on LBC, one of the UK’s most popular current affairs radio stations. The #HARTleaks reveal Nawaz later attended at least one Pandata meeting where he received a briefing on their alternative science from the likes of Michael Yeadon, Peter McCullough, Rodger Hodkinson and Paul Alexander.
In the run up to January 6, Nawaz used his radio show to question the validity of the US election, promoting the doomed legal challenges, at the same time he also promoted the Great Barrington Declaration, there was not a second wave it was a result of flaws testing and exaggerated statistics, measures weren’t needed to tackle the growing Alpha variant wave, the government had ulterior motives, he talked about China’s social credit system being implemented across the Western world and accused academics of being stooges for Chinese spies.
After January 6 Nawaz used his platform to question the nature of the insurrection being reported in the mainstream media, and then signed an open letter to the FBI and MI5 with several members of Pandata including Clare Craig and Stacey Rudin of the AIER.
Since January 6 elements of those involved in covid disinformation have continued to claim Biden is not a legitimate president. At a CPAC organised by Turning Point Nigel Farage of the UK delivered a speech to a MAGA crowd where he agree that the election had been stolen, he also claimed large scale electoral fraud was occurring in the UK and told the crowd they needed to be prepared to fight in the coming battle for freedom.
Farage knew his audience, the ReAwaken Tour has sought to maintain the Stop the Steal narrative, and the Black Robes appear at many of these events, even swearing in new members into the regiments.
Canadian Truckers
The truckers rallies in Canada had a similar energy as Stop the Steal and covid disinformation groups featured heavily. As with other countries Canada’s disinformation groups run parallel with the US, there are several “Concerned Doctors” organisations which use the same language and campaigning tactics as AFLD.
Canadian members of Pandata, World Doctors Alliance and the World Freedom Alliance were present while others involved are now members of the World Council for Health. WSHFD founded by Claus Rinner in Canada is the twin organisation of MWGFD in Germany. The links are many, and a number of these groups are affiliates of FLCCC and BIRD who promote alternative treatments.
The rallies in Canada were very similar to the a truckers freedom protest in the US in 2020, and a series of truckers rallies were organised in other countries, however after several organisers pulled out of the US 2022 version it became ramshackle and fell apart without much direct impact, becoming a recruiting exercise for further action.
In Canada the rallies were much more organised and well funded with petrol stockpiles prepared to keep the trucks running. Members of the police and authorities were suspended after being suspected of supporting the truckers in a similar fashion to accusations made regarding the storming of Capitol Hill.
Tech activists managed to track donations to sources outside of Canada with IP’s located in Romania and Bangladesh, Michael Flynn is also implicated through a number of freedom organisations. Bots and trolls around the world amplified members of disinformation groups promoting the protests and calling for similar action in their own countries.
The Ottowa truckers even set up a “science council” which held a press conference which was watched and promoted online. The event was moderated by Laura Braeden.
The first speaker was former Trump adviser and Truth for Health member Paul Alexander, also of Pandata and Brownstone Institute.
Alexander was followed by his Truth for Health and Pandata Colleague Rodger Hodkinson.
Those defending the truckers claimed they were merely opposing mandates, this is not the case.
The truckers went far beyond a protest about mandates. From Jack Posobiec’s channel on Telegram.
This manifesto of demands was widely shared on the convey’s Telegram channels.
The letter covers many of the narratives of the anit-vax movement, the calls for criminal prosecution is Nuremberg 2.0, the claims about HIV in the vaccine was heavily promoted by groups like the World Doctors Alliance and Doctors for Covid Ethics. As in the US there were warnings of civil war.
More on the truckers in the thread below.
Where does this end?
The undermining of trust in institutions and government has been an integral part of the sceptic movement, those opposing lockdown in the media were willing to platform alternative experts who fit their confirmation bias. They allowed conspiracy theorists and antivax narratives to gain a mainstream foothold and have opposed all efforts to tackle disinformation.
We see this with the defence of a number of groups whose accounts PayPal cancelled for breaching the terms of agreement.
There have been very few consequences for those profiting from disinformation, and the international movement is becoming bolder with its claims and demands. Contrarian academics that used to minimise covid are increasingly using the language of the anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists, people in the mainstream are questing the need for an updated booster for all but the most vulnerable. This helps to reinforce the beliefs of the conspiracy theorists.
The groups around the world that were set up supposedly to just oppose mandates are increasingly making reference to conspiracy theories around global government, social credit systems and the Great Reset. For instance
the Together Declaration in the UK is soon to host an event to discuss the globalist agenda and how to resist the Great Reset.
Individuals associated with the Grand Jury set up in Germany recently released a report in which they claimed “satanic ancestral bloodlines” involved in the European banking system were seeking to enslave the world.
The World Council for Health has launched a Reigniting Freedom campaign to fight back against the globalist agenda and the implementation of a social credit system. One of the tasks set for supporters is to completely disconnect from mainstream media and to only rely on sources from within the disinformation network.
The World Freedom Alliance has launched a Fractal Circles initiative to create small mobile cells of resistance against the global agenda, they claim the social contract has been broken by government and that the law should no longer apply to them.
Several groups such as Liberty Springs founded by HART members Narice Bernard and Michael Yeadon, and a project by the World Freedom Alliance seek to set up isolated communities of sceptics.
Encouraging supporters to remove their children from state education is also a reoccurring theme, the World Freedom Alliance is producing an education manifesto and is funding a private school project in Spain where children will be taught based on the principles of natural health and common law. Other groups are producing resources for home education focused on their world view.
America’s Frontline Doctors and Truth for Health are trying to create an alternate healthcare systems while calls go out for the abolition or total reform of many institutions, for example there have been recent attacks on the American Academy of Pediatrics for calling to protect children from the harms of covid.
The covid disinformation network has many of the hallmarks of a cult, the senior faces of the movement sound more like preachers than scientists basking in the hero worship they receive from their followers. There is no end point, those involved will continue to push for further action, for instance they called for an end to mandates in favour of personal choice, but now they harass and ridicule those who choose to continue to wear a mask. They will continue to incite their base, the accusations of genocide and crimes against humanity will continue to increase, the calls for vengeance and retribution will not simply go away if they are ignored.
The latest initiative by the Word Council for Health demonstrates the international nature of the movement. Malhotra’s press conference did not take long before it descended into likening vaccination programmes to the holocaust. Off the back of Malhotra’s paper and press conference there is a concerted PR campaign with open letters and anti-vax documentaries being released while Malhotra does a tour of interviews across the disinformation online broadcast channels.
As supporters descend deeper into the rabbit hole believing a genocide is underway, faced with the rhetoric of civil war and insurrection it seems a matter of time before more violence occurs. While the movement is a minority group, it is too large to ignore.
Further Reading