Parris Island, SC – A White US Marine recruit was lured into a false interrogation by federal agents. When they failed to groom him into a confidential informant to be used against pro-White activist groups—even offering him a quarter of a million dollars to do so—he was terminated from his job and sent back home right before his boot camp graduation.
Federal agents, including three members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and two members of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), masqueraded as “Department of Defense civilians.” Assuming fake identities, they issued a mock “employee survey” to an entire Marine platoon with the precise goal of luring their intended target into a separate room so he could be ambushed and interrogated.
Once isolated from his peers, the agents grilled the young Marine recruit for four hours and ultimately offered him a choice: turn into a confidential informant for the federal government or be terminated from the Marine Corps. The recruit chose the latter.
The Justice Report first learned of the FBI-led sting operation after receiving an anonymous tip from an individual claiming to be close to the matter—and after a brief correspondence—we were able to verify the story and secure an exclusive one-on-one interview from the recruit in question: United States Marine Corps Private Paul Kaltenbach.
“It was a few days before graduation. We had done some PT in the morning, and my First Sergeant was like, hey, we need the whole platoon over to battalion headquarters,” said Kaltenbach, his voice still hoarse from enduring 13 weeks of intense USMC boot camp. “She said, ‘You’re going to meet some Department of Defense (DOD) civilians. They’re doing a survey.'”
“It was a survey that let us rank individual people in the platoon. They claimed it was a way for them to see who performed the best and gauge who was likely to get their preferred duty station,” he continued. “Once everyone was done completing the survey, they said they needed ten people to come back to do an ‘in-depth Q&A’ on the survey, and my name was the last name they called.”
That’s when things started to seem “weird,” according to Kaltenbach. “They said it was important that everyone stays in order. Which, I thought, was really weird.” Kaltenbach followed orders, showing up to the ad-hoc “Q&A” session being held by a group of mysterious “DoD civilians” when he was the last one called.
“When I was in the Q&A, they asked us three questions. Who do you trust the most? Who do you feel you’d go to war with? Do you feel that anyone in your group exhibits ‘hate group or extremist tendencies?'” explained Kaltenbach. “As soon as I read that last question, I knew something was off. All of the other questions were about trust, but that last one seemed really out of the blue, but I had to do a million diversity questionnaires since I joined the military, so it didn’t ring too many alarm bells at that time.”
“[The] NCIS will defeat threats from across the foreign intelligence, terrorist and criminal spectrum by conducting operations and investigations ashore, afloat, and in cyberspace, in order to protect and preserve the superiority of the Navy and Marine Corps warfighters.”
NCIS Mission Statement, NCIS website
When we asked Pvt. Kaltenbach if the agents hosting the “Q&A” introduced themselves as members of the FBI, or read him his rights prior to their questioning, he replied, “No. Not at first.”
“The people that interviewed me at the Q&A claimed to be DoD civilians, but it turns out they were actually FBI and NCIS agents. It was a sting operation, basically. They revealed who they actually were to me about two hours in, and told me this was about my background check,” said Kaltenbach. “At first, they asked me stupid stuff like what’s my favorite moment from boot camp, least favorite, and things like that. But the interview went on for about four hours. Even my own command was confused as to why I was gone that long. It started at around lunch chow time and ended at dinner.”
“The people that interviewed me at the Q&A claimed to be DOD civilians, but it turns out they were actually FBI and NCIS agents. It was a sting operation, basically.”
USMC PVT. Paul Kaltenbach
So why were federal agents targeting Kaltenbach in the first place? According to him, they were trying to get him to divulge personal information on a loose acquaintance they believed he had from years prior.
“They were targeting me because I used to know a guy who was allegedly part of that group, Patriot Front. A long time ago, he got into some legal trouble and was arrested, and I think the FBI has been monitoring me ever since, even though I never did anything wrong, had never been charged with anything, and never broke the law. When they found out I was at Parris Island, I think they saw an opportunity.”
“They kept asking me about the guy I knew that got arrested. They wanted to know what I knew about him. He was from North Carolina, about 30 minutes from the power stations that were attacked,” explained Kaltenbach. “They thought he might know somebody who could have done it and said if I had any information to connect this guy to the attacks, I could go back to my platoon right now. They said, ‘If you’re 100% truthful with us right now, we’ll go to the General and say, hey, he’s back in.'”
Kaltenbach was, of course, referring to a coordinated attack on a series of electrical substations in Jones, Moore, and Randolph counties in North Carolina that took place in late 2022 and early 2023. The attacks, in which police allege gunfire was used by unknown assailants to sabotage electrical equipment and disrupt power to neighboring communities—in some cases for days—are cases that have yet to be solved.
Desperate to pin the attacks on White nationalists or other adjacent right-wingers, the FBI is now offering up to $25,000 for any information that could lead to a suspect. Kaltenbach alleges he was personally offered much, much more.
“If I had any information to connect him to the attacks, I could go back to my platoon right now. They said, ‘If you’re 100% truthful with us right now, we’ll go to the General and say, hey, he’s back in.'”
USMC PVT. Paul Kaltenbach
“I didn’t have anything they were looking for, so they eventually offered me three options. One, I get to stay in the Marines, but I have to work for them wherever I get stationed as a confidential informant. They were prepared to offer me a quarter of a million dollars as a sign-on bonus. To be a rat,” he explained. “They said that if I chose to stay in the Marines, they would want me looking for and joining ‘terror cells’ within the corps.”
“The second option was I get kicked out of the Marines, but I get on their payroll to work for them wherever I go in the civilian world. They said they wanted me to join groups. As many as I could. They mentioned Patriot Front, active clubs, and even something called Atomwaffen by name. They wanted me to look for evidence of violence and extremism. The third option was nothing. I get kicked out and that was it.”
The revelation was chilling, but not at all unexpected coming from an agency awash with scandal and whose morality and ethics have long been placed into question by both sides of the political spectrum. In 2022, the FBI was found to be complicit in a scheme to craft internal policy to match the political demands of the incumbent President.
“…White supremacy is the greatest terrorist threat to our Homeland today.”
President Joseph Biden, United We Stand Summit, 2022
At the “United We Stand” forum in September, President Joe Biden aggressively enforced a narrative that White supremacy was the nation’s largest security concern, but after current and former FBI whistleblowers revealed that the agency was guilty of reclassifying its cases as “domestic violent extremism” to fit a regime quota—even offering career incentives for agents who played along—many have now come out to demand a complete abolishment of the FBI.
The Agency’s harsh treatment and laser focus on right-wing, pro-White political activists predates President Joe Biden, however. Under the Trump Administration, the FBI oversaw the takeover of the aforementioned Atomwaffen Division, a violent White nationalist group that many now regard as cult-like and “satanic.” The discovery—that professional FBI operative, Joshua Caleb Sutter, was paid over $80,000 to brainwash and entrap young members of the division to commit horrific crimes in 2018—was revealed by National Justice in the summer of 2021.
It was exactly this kind of morally corrupt and dangerous activity that led to USMC Private Paul Kaltenbach rejecting the FBI’s offer, even if it meant sacrificing everything he had worked to achieve in boot camp.
When the Justice Report asked Kaltenbach what his response was to an offer of $250,000 dollars, the Marine private replied, “I told them to get f—ed. I felt like I was trapped in the room and couldn’t leave, so I just started to shut down.” But despite his refusal, the FBI, according to Kaltenbach, kept trying to coerce him.
“Be on team America, be on our side, and help us. Right now, you’re probably 50% team America, but we need you to come over the edge and be 100% team America,” said Kaltenbach, explaining the way federal agents attempted to use Kaltenbach’s innate sense of patriotism to adopt a new life as a domestic spy. “They said, ‘This isn’t a 5th amendment situation. This is about your background check. Don’t you want your security clearance so you can go out and do your job? You have to talk to us.'”
“Right now, you’re probably 50% team America, but we need you to come over the edge and be 100% team America.”
FBI & NCIS to PVT. Paul Kaltenbach
“They kept saying, ‘We need people like you, and you’re in the military. We know you want to serve your country. But we need people who can think like they do. We know you’re hip with the internet, and we know that you know.'”
The harassment and “insulting” treatment Kaltenbach experienced at the hands of federal agents and the United States Marine Corps continued even after his forced interrogation had concluded. After being dismissed from the Q&A, he would soon discover that his immediate command of Drill Instructors and First Sergeant were left completely unaware of what was going on during his absence.
“After the interview, the NCIS agents took me back to my unit, and I finally got to eat my boxed chow since I didn’t get to eat for hours,” he said. “Then my Senior Drill Instructor basically pulled me into a closet. He had no clue what was happening, and he’s supposed to be in charge, and no one had told him why I was gone so long.”
“My First Sergeant and Company Commander kept trying to find out what was going on too,” Kaltenbach continued. “He said, ‘I don’t know what’s happening, but just keep working on your graduation uniforms for tomorrow, and if you get pulled out, whatever happens, happens.'”
“When I came back to my platoon, all of my fellow recruits thought the survey was bullshit,” he said. “They all thought it was some kind of investigation or something. Apparently, they spoke to recruits in other platoons and no one else in those other units had to take any surveys. Just ours.”
“They offered me a quarter of a million dollars to work for them as a sign-on bonus…I told them to get f—ed.”
USMC PVT. Paul Kaltenbach
“Graduation was coming up in a few days, and I was told the First Sergeant was looking for me. She asked me how I was doing and if I was okay. The entire command still had no idea what was going on, they were all in the dark. The federal agents had essentially sidestepped the whole chain of command. They were working straight at the top with the General.”
According to the United States Marine Recruit Depot Parris Island’s website, the commanding officer in charge of the prestigious warfighting base is listed as Brigadier General Walker M. Field. Having enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1991, the now-decorated officer fought in a supporting role as an artilleryman alongside Task Force Tarawa during Operation Iraqi Freedom. While his personal decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal and the Legion of Merit, he could add another distinction to his growing collection: that of FBI collaborator and accomplice to political oppression waged against his own White Marines.
“My Senior Drill Instructor then drove me over to the NCIS building, and that’s when the FBI pulls me in and makes me a final offer. I said nope, not interested,” affirmed Kaltenbach. “They never gave me anything in writing, so I didn’t believe any of their offers anyway. Then they said, ‘Bye’ and sent me back home.”
NCIS personnel, Kaltenbach then claims, told him that after a briefing with the General of Parris Island, the Marine recruit was “realistically done” with the Marine Corps, despite having never committed any wrongdoing. He was then issued an “involuntarily discharge” from active duty citing, “fraudulent entry,” an excuse, experts confirmed, typically reserved for those failing to disclose a medical or legal issue to a recruiter.
According to Kaltenbach’s DD 214 form, the USMC “separation code” of JDA1 is for fraudulent entry and was classified as “entry-level separation.” The form also lists a re-entry code of RE-3F, which according to online charts, means a recruit “can normally reenlist in their service or another service, but will probably require a waiver to be processed.”
When the Justice Report reached out to a USMC recruitment office for clarification on the paperwork issued to Kaltenbach, we were assured our findings were accurate. “There is a way to reenlist after a separation for fraudulent entry,” claimed a recruiter from Virginia. “Medical reasons are the most common for this kind of discharge, maybe they didn’t disclose something to their recruiter. It could also be a legal reason as well. The recruit would just need a waiver.”
While getting approved for reenlistment via a waiver might be easy for someone with an undisclosed medical problem or prior legal issue, the task becomes impossible if the discharge was due to pro-White politics or a prior White nationalist association, no matter how small. Simply put: despite what Kaltenbach’s DD 214 form might claim on its face, the FBI, NCIS, and USMC brass had essentially barred the young man from military service for the rest of his life.
“They told me, ‘Realistically, we talked to the General and you’re gone.’ They asked me if I was okay and if I was going to hurt myself or others,” he said. “I was never charged for anything criminally or did anything wrong. Everything felt so stupid. So insulting. ‘Sorry we’re taking away your career, now please, don’t shoot yourself!'”
Now that he was discharged, Kaltenbach was temporarily assigned to a special controlled unit designed for boot camp washouts. Dubbed the “Recruit Separation Platoon (RSP),” the United States Marines website once described it as a unit made to “address the deficiencies that prevented (recruits) from completing recruit training.” Kaltenbach, however, wasn’t a washout, and according to him, was a star recruit whose only “crime” was refusing collaboration with entrepreneurial members of the FBI.
While he was there, Kaltenbach would be denied access to his phone and other basic freedoms for the remainder of his stay on base. He claims this was done on purpose to keep him “hushed.”
“After I left the NCIS building, they sent me to RSP (recruit separation platoon). I was hoping they would send me to “Broke Marine Platoon (BMP),” which is where they send any Marine that’s temporarily unfit, but at least there, you still get to have some freedoms like having your cellphone. But they just wanted to detain me. I felt like they were trying to keep me hushed.”
“After I turned all my stuff in, I broke the record for the quickest person off Parris island,” he said. “The record before me was 4 days, I did it in 3. I still got to leave the same day I would have graduated, but I did it a different way. They gave me a plane ticket, and I flew home.”
“But they just wanted to detain me. I felt like they were trying to keep me hushed…I broke the record for the quickest person off Parris Island…The record before me was 4 days, I did it in 3.”
USMC PVT. Paul Kaltenbach
Unfortunately for Kaltenbach, the FBI continued its campaign of harassment and surveillance even after he returned home and was miles away from Parris Island. Once the plane landed, the ex-Marine claimed agents have been following him around town, and have even kept close tabs on his family members.
“They’ve been following me. There have been up to four cars now, one gray, and one black Ford Explorer, but they stopped using those ever since I walked up and took a picture of them,” he explained. “I know they’ve been following my family, too. They circled my house twice. They’d always be looking, and the drivers always came off very federal. Like your run-of-the-mill FBI agent. You can smell it on them.”
Now that he’s left to pick up the pieces, Kaltenbach says he “feels terrible,” and is finding it difficult to re-adapt back to civilian life after weeks of intense USMC boot camp. Without a job, or even a reliable vehicle, Kaltenbach has set up a GiveSendGo campaign to help fund his life post-federal interference. The Justice Report asks that anyone willing to financially contribute please consider doing so.
“I feel terrible. I lost everything I gave a shit about. I lost my career. I hate being in this civilian world. I was so into my routine, and even the shittiest parts of training I loved,” he explained. “Boot camp is supposed to break people down and rebuild them, but with me, they broke me down and they left me unfinished. They left me right at the edge and then said, ‘F—k you.'”
The Justice Report reached out to military veteran and founding committee member of the pro-White advocacy group, the National Justice Party, Michael McKevitt, for comment on Kaltenbach’s boot-camp crucible. He had this to say: “While we don’t necessarily want young White men fighting for an occupational government like the United States, it’s extremely concerning that the FBI can intervene—and if you tell them no—your career is ruined before it gets off the ground.”
“It’s very much in line with what U.S. Military Equal Opportunity (EO) training is like. It’s not a surprise, and it’s actually indicative of a lot of big issues that we, as White people, face in the United States today. The fact that a young White man can’t answer the warrior’s call that he feels in his heart if he wants to is a shame.”
National Justice Party founding Central Committee member, Michael McKevitt
Despite intervention by the federal government, the Marine now says he won’t let the political oppression get to him. No matter what people say, he’ll always consider himself a soldier. “I am a Marine. I earned my Eagle, Globe, and Anchor,” said Kaltenbach at the tail end of our interview. “Sure, I didn’t walk across the parade deck, but I am a Marine, and nobody is going to tell me I’m not.”
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