We’re grateful to have Trevor Aaronson on the pod this week to discuss his reporting on FBI infiltration of the racial justice movement in Denver almost three years ago. Aaronson tells the story of how Mickey, a fifty-year-old outsider in military fatigues who talked a big game about his past history of combat, joined a group of young activists and fought to dispel their suspicions about his motives — only to inform on and threaten the group in exchange for checks from the FBI (to the tune of $20,000). Watch below:

Why would the FBI pay this “violent felon” — who actually managed to fly under the radar because his appearance as a potential fed was so strikingly obvious — to work secretly and internally against racial justice organizers in Denver? With Trevor joining us to lay out the details of this harrowing story, we learn how and why Mickey Windecker got onto the FBI payroll to provide information to the Feds about anti-racist protesting and organizing work in Denver over the summer of 2020.

In his reporting for the Intercept, Aaronson spoke to everyone from Mickey himself to Mickey’s fellow volunteer Peshmerga fighters in Iraq and Denver organizers who were forced to contend with Mickey’s destructive tactics. What emerges is the story of a man who strove to stoke violence and discord through deeply disturbing means — encouraging the destruction of neighborhoods, bringing weapons to organizing spaces, putting activists in peril. In Mickey Windecker, the FBI found the perfect agent of chaos to attempt to crush racial justice organizing in Denver. We’ll talk about why their interest in doing so is so significant, and what lessons the left can take away from this governmental attack on crucial grassroots activism.