Right-wing influencers are breaking out bogus 'Antifa' conspiracy theories after Patriot Front members were arrested near an Idaho Pride event

• Idaho police arrested 31 people affiliated with the extremist group Patriot Front on Saturday.
• Authorities said the members were found in a U-haul near a local Pride event and planned to riot.

Right-wing influencers and conspiracy theorists are peddling false narratives about "Antifa" and undercover federal agents after the dozens of extremist group Patriot Front members were arrested and accused of planning to riot near an Idaho Pride event.

Police in the northwest Idaho city of Coeur d'Alene arrested 31 individuals affiliated with Patriot Front — a white nationalist group — in a U-haul on Saturday after someone said they spotted them loading gear into the vehicle.

The men were armed with riot gear like shields, shin guards, and at least one smoke grenade, Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee White told reporters; the men also wore insignia representing Patriot Front, White added.

All 31 men were charged with misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to riot. They posted $300 bail bonds each and were released from jail on Monday, local NBC-affiliate KHQ reported.

But in the aftermath of the arrests — made near the city's Pride in the Park event — false conspiracy theories quickly surfaced online.

Some baselessly claimed that those arrested were actually members of Antifa, the loose collective of anti-fascists and anarchists commonly used as a scapegoat in conservative circles. Others accused some of the members arrested of secretly being federal agents infiltrating the group.

But at a Monday press conference, Lee vehemently pushed back against the conspiracy theories.

"Let me be very clear here. These were not law enforcement officers that we arrested," the police chief said. "These were members of the hate group Patriot Front. These were not Antifa in disguise; nor were they FBI members in disguise."

Among those peddling baseless theories was former conservative Washington state lawmaker Matt Shea — who was expelled from the House Republican caucus after a 2019 investigation accused him of participating in and inciting political violence — claiming without evidence that the incident was an Antifa "ambush."

"It looks like Antifa may have been setting an ambush for us," Shea said in a Facebook video uploaded to right-wing outlet Redoubt News on Saturday afternoon, claiming the non-existent threat was "thwarted."

Shea was leading a "prayer walk" at the same time as the Coeur d'Alene Pride event, the Spokesman-Review reported.

Meanwhile, a few hours after the arrests, conservative outlet the Idaho Tribune tweeted that Coeur d'Alene police were "reportedly 'rounding up'" Antifa members — citing random tweets as its evidence. The tweet has spread on Telegram, being shared by at least two popular right-wing channels with over 70,000 and 40,000 followers, respectively.

A Gateway Pundit article highlighted a Patriot Front member carrying a megaphone with an "FBI" sticker, leading some Twitter users and commenters to speculate that the group was full of FBI agents.

But as other Twitter users pointed out, the sticker on the bullhorn actually said "Abolish the FBI."

Other stickers on the bullhorn included a image of Black Lives Matter's logo crossed out with the words "Zero Tolerance" underneath, as well as the phrase "Reclaim America."

The publisher of the conservative blog Information Liberation wrote an article calling the Patriot Front arrests "made for TV" and implied that local police collaborated with federal agents and undercover informants.

A far-right influencer also tweeted baselessly claiming that Patriot Front isn't a real organization, "except as an arm of the Department of Justice."

This isn't the first time conservatives have tried to baselessly frame Patriot Front as a "fake" organization or an FBI-engineered false flag.

After the white nationalist group demonstrated at the National Mall in December 2021, numerous right-wing influencers tried to discredit the group's activities or blame it on federal agents.

Patriot Front formed in 2017 as an offshoot of the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America, following infighting after the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally. Patriot Front's credo revolves around the belief of a white ethnostate for America cloaked in extreme so-called patriotism.

The group's leader and founder, Thomas Rousseau, was one of the 31 masked men arrested on Saturday.