Occasionally you’ll find a news story which lays out a series of stunning facts but doesn’t quite add them up. The Washington Post published just such a story this afternoon about two brothers named Jeffrey Clark, Jr. and Edward Clark, both of whom were active in “alt-right” circles and followers of Richard Spencer. Jeffrey was arraigned today on weapons charges in DC. Edward is dead. Their story points to the possibility that Roberts Bowers synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh may not have ended with him.
Let me start with the bare outlines of the story. There are additional points that I’m not able to confirm since it’s after hours. So I’ll keep to those I can and I or another member of our team will follow up tomorrow.
Jeffrey Clark, Jr (30) and his brother Edward Clark (23) allegedly became active involved in neo-nazi, white supremacist, “alt-right” circles in 2016. They were close followers of alt-right leader Richard Spencer. They attended the notorious “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017. In other words, they were not just racists and twitter trolls. They were actively involved in the relatively small community of activists who interacted with movement leaders and attended many of the high profile protests – including but not limited to Charlottesville. There’s lots of additional color. But you get the basic profile.
They were both on Gab and both in communication through Gab with Robert Bowers, the man who committed the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. Within a few hours of Bowers beginning his massacre, Edward Clark went to Theodore Roosevelt Island just outside Washington DC and killed himself with a Berretta pistol.
Police who responded to the scene found not only 8 additional rounds in the pistol but two more magazines with an additional 20 rounds on Clark’s person. Bowers began his massacre at approximately 9:50 AM and Clark was dead by 12:45 PM.
After Edward Clark’s death, Jeffrey Clark became more agitated and outspoken with his family about his white supremacist views. An escalating series of outbursts led family members to turn Jeffrey Clark into authorities fearing he was a danger to others or himself. That led to his arrest last Friday, November 9th.
Critically, in one of those outbursts, Clark told family members that even though he and his brother had done nothing wrong, the FBI might come looking for him since he’d been in contact with Bowers on Gab. He said “they had not broken any laws, but at some point if a line gets crossed, I would be violent, everyone has a line . . .”
It’s not clear why Eddie Clark committed suicide. He apparently left no suicide note. But given that the two were in communication with Bowers and he killed himself a short time after Bowers massacre started, it’s not a huge leap to think they might be connected.
This site, which appears to track alt-right activists, has a fairly detailed article on the brothers, with pictures at various protests. Here’s the court document with most of the details. This woman, Lacy MacAuley, who appears to be an antifa activist and who had at least one run-in with the Clark brothers, posted this photos of an encounter she had with the two of them last year. The two brothers are in the MAGA caps.
Here are photos I snapped at the book event, a talk on “Fascist Creep” at @PottersHouseDC, of Jeffrey Raph Clark (collared shirt) and his brother Edward, who committed suicide a few weeks ago, hours after the Philadelphia #TreeofLife terrorist attack. @phscoop pic.twitter.com/vmnA1bI8vP
— Lacy MacAuley (@lacymacauley) November 14, 2018
She says Jeffrey Clark made a death threat to her after she photographed him at this book event in DC and antifa activists heckled him.
Here’s a screengrab of one of her interactions with him which remained live until his account was suspended.
More on all of this tomorrow.
