FBI informant reveals how he prevented Obama's assassination by the Ku Klux Klan, claims presidency and protests rising Klan membership

In the summer of 2008, Joe Moore, a former Army sniper, infiltrated the upper ranks of the Ku Klux Klan branch in Gainesville, Florida, as an undercover FBI informant. Then-US Senator Barack Obama was running for president, and Moore's KKK brothers let him in on a plot to assassinate the popular Democrat, who wanted to become the first black president of the United States.

Obama would come to nearby Kissimmee in October and, as Moore told NPR in an interview with host Tonya Mosley this week, “they explained to me that they had a plan that included several members, vehicles, two anti-materiel rifles and some police officers who would be involved to some extent” to “deploy very heavy firepower in Obama's direction” during Obama's motorcade and rally.

The Klan got inside information about Obama's visit from police and further help from contacts at the Florida Department of Transportation who were able to assist with fake license plates for vehicles to be obtained from a local junkyard, Moore said. He had gained the trust of KKK leaders that he was the right man for the mission because of his military background as a sniper and intelligence agent, so at a subsequent meeting to plan the assassination, he was well positioned to step in and thwart their plan.

“And then a light went on in my head,” he told Mosley. “And I said, 'Hey, what are you guys going to do about the drones?' And then they looked at me with a shocked face, and then they looked at each other and looked back and said, 'Drones? What drones?' I said, 'Well, the Secret Service, you know, now that Obama is the candidate, he has an increased level of Secret Service protection, and that level includes drones.' I didn't know that was the case, but they didn't know it either. … Of course, I immediately came up with a solution that stopped it.”

Moore's riveting account of foiling the assassination attempt on Obama, as well as two other assassination plots in Florida that led to the conviction of three Klansmen, can be found in his new book, White Robes and Broken Badges: Infiltrating the KKK and Exposing The Evil Among Us, which tells the story of the several years he lived a double life as an informant for the FBI between 2007 and 2017.

In it, he also describes witnessing the growing threat posed by white supremacist extremist groups and his concerns about how their hateful ethics have created the breeding ground for recent incidents of racist violence and domestic terrorism, including those in Charlottesville, Virginia, Ferguson, Missouri, and in DC on January 6, 2021.

In the book, Moore describes Obama's presidency as the fuse and Ferguson as the powder keg for that fuse, leading to an explosion of right-wing extremism in America. He told NPR that the killing of Michael Brown and the ensuing nationwide riots and protests in 2014 further strengthened the Ku Klux Klan, in part because one of the Klan's national leaders, Frank Ancona Jr., “lived not far from St. Louis and he had been in contact with business owners in the area to ask them if they wanted the Klan to come and provide them with protection.”

“And the [Klan] The membership during the Obama years and the Ferguson riots brought out people who were already like-minded,” he said. “These people who may have had white supremacy,[ac]s followers were looking for people to join a group with. This catapulted the investigation into the Klan's recruitment process.”

Moore said the leaflets the Ku Klux Klan distributed during protests in Ferguson and St. Louis, which criticized protesters for unrest in the city and warned that they would not tolerate threatening police officers, “are evidence of the evolution of their ability to propagate themselves.” The far-right groups “instill fear, and then they attract people who have that fear, and then they continue to incite that fiery hatred within the organization,” he said.

In its annual report on hate and extremism released in June, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) documented 595 hate groups in 2023, a 72 percent increase from 2022. While this included only 10 active KKK groups, it included a 50 percent increase in white supremacist hate groups in 2023, with the number increasing to 166 from 109 the previous year.

“What we are seeing now should be a wake-up call for all of us,” said Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the SPLC, in a phone call with reporters, including the Missouri Independent. “Our 2023 report documents more hate and anti-government extremist groups than ever before. Just months before a historic election, these groups are multiplying, mobilizing, and plotting to destroy democracy, which in some cases they are already enacting.”

Florida has long been a hotbed for Klan and white nationalist activity, and Moore learned firsthand how dangerous their members could be – especially with the support of local police.

In his second stint as an FBI informant from 2013 to 2017, Moore infiltrated the Traditionalist American Knights of the KKK in North Central Florida and rose to the rank of Grand Knighthawk for the Kingdom of Georgia and Florida.

In that role, he became the Klan's top security official in the region and someone who could be called upon to use violence when necessary, ABC News reports. The company worked with AP on a documentary about Moore's dangerous work as an informant during that time.

The FBI in Florida has been intercepting threats from domestic terrorist groups since 2006, and Moore said his mission is to “penetrate the Ku Klux Klan, identify individuals involved, and alert the FBI to any illegal activities.”

He soon got wind of a plot to murder a black man named Warren Williams, a former inmate who had gotten into a fight in a prison hospital with a Florida corrections officer named Thomas Driver, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Williams had bitten Driver during the fight, and Driver was particularly angry because he had to undergo testing for contagious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C.

In December 2014, during a cross burning in rural North Florida, three Klansmen, all Florida corrections officers, approached Moore and told him to murder Williams. Moore informed his FBI handlers, who instructed him to be wiretapped for the next few months to gather evidence of the plot.

That's exactly what he did, and all three men were found guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in 2017.

The documentary includes compelling audio clips of some of his secret recordings, including a conversation while Moore was driving with two KKK hitmen who were scouting out Williams' house. One was an active police officer, the other had a long career as a police officer and was retired.

They discussed their plan to snatch Williams from the sidewalk, inject him with a lethal dose of insulin and push him into a river. The Klansmen were chased away that day when one of the officers noticed an unmarked vehicle following them, but Moore gathered enough evidence to convict them.

The Florida Department of Corrections later denied in an email to AP claims that there were broader links to white supremacist groups or to a systemic problem beyond “the isolated actions of three individuals who committed heinous and illegal acts.”

Moore said that during his time as an informant, he discovered dozens of police officers, correctional officers, sheriff's deputies and other law enforcement officials who were linked to the Klan and other extremist organizations.

In a 2021 investigative series, AP reporter Jason Dearen documented how Florida's prisons were filled with guards and other employees who “openly flaunted their affiliations with white supremacist groups to intimidate inmates and black colleagues, a persistent practice that often goes unpunished.”

“The KKK has always wanted to take over law enforcement because it's a power mechanism that allows them to increase their power if they control it,” Moore said. “I think people don't realize how dangerous it is to have one KKK member in the organization because then recruitment takes place and that spreads and ultimately attracts other people who may be persuadable.”

Although the Ku Klux Klan's membership has declined sharply over the last century, Moore says they have made up for the lack of members by skillfully placing people in high positions.

“What I learned… from what I was able to do for the FBI was that the truth was hidden from the public,” Moore explained. “It wasn't necessarily that the KKK was becoming less and less numerous. I mean, to some extent, that was true. The bigger problem was that the KKK had become more insidious, more involved in espionage, more concerned with being effective and less and less impetuous.”

He expressed concern about the signals former President Donald Trump has sent to right-wing extremists since he entered the national political scene in 2016, including on issues such as immigration.

“Many of the things Donald Trump has said are consistent with the ideology of white supremacy and other similar movements,” Moore said. “But in my research, I've learned that it's not just what I need to worry about. Often, it's what I don't see that I need to be able to recognize.”