Berkeley, California – For the second time in a year, the contents of a private antifascist Discord chat have been made available to the public. The resulting leak has confirmed the identity of a key Antifa “researcher” to be a Regional Coordinator for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Thanks to information made available by the online activist groups Patriot Youth and the Appalachian Archive, the Justice Report was able to independently verify the data, and identify John Zack Ortiz, Regional Coordinator for the ADL’s Central Pacific branch. According to the leaks, Ortiz is an OSINT researcher and acts as a “liaison” between the ADL and the international Antifa black bloc group, the American Iron Front (AIF).

Joining the group in April of 2023, Ortiz openly flaunts his paid position at the controversial Jewish power organization in his introductory post, a key step in “vetting” new extremists into the AIF. Under the anonymous pseudonym “johnyz715,” Ortiz would go on to supply fellow AIF members with ADL-branded resources that profile and politically mischaracterize multiple organizations critical of American Jews. The groups include, but are not limited to, Patriot Front, Blood Tribe, the Goyim Defense League, the Aryan Freedom Network, average conservatives, as well as the pro-White civil rights organization, the National Justice Party (NJP).

While a profession inside one of the most controversial, pro-censorship NGOs on the planet might satisfy most people hoping to silence White people in America, Ortiz took it one step further, joining the American Iron Front after he became radicalized by engaging with ADL propaganda over the course of his employment. According to him, the “extremism” he regularly sees at work “shook him to his core,” motivating him to join a group of extremists off the clock. Now, he aids the AIF in their legally fraught campaigns of doxing, intimidation, vandalism, and in some cases, street violence, made apparent in the Discord leaks.

“Hi Friends, Nice to be here with you all,” said Ortiz in a post dated April 30th. “I’m 24 years old and currently live in San Francisco. I have a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics…I work for the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights and anti-hate non-profit, and the extremism I see every day through my work has shaken me to my core.”

“The MAGA movement has abandoned any pretense of democratic legitimacy, and I am deeply worried about the future of our own county,” he continued.

Ortiz, in addition to supplying AIF with key intelligence used to surveil, intimidate, and harass working-class White people online, would also comment about his desires to rise in rank within the ADL. In a post dated May 3rd, Ortiz lays bare his current duties and offers insight into how he could better help his fellow anti-White extremists continue their goal of politically motivated terror.

“My primary roles right now are administration, communications, and marketing, although I’m looking to move into a research analyst position soon,” he admitted in a post dated May 3rd. “The main tools we use are Salesforce Marketing Cloud… WordPress, and Twitter.”

When the AIF first became aware of the existence of the previously mentioned Blood Tribe, Ortiz would jump into the conversation quickly, tapping into his official contacts at the ADL to provide the group with an advanced copy of their official statement on the group. The official post would be made public three months later on August 28th, according to the ADL website.

“I’m asking my contacts with the ADL’s Center on Extremism to see what they can come up with,” he replied in a post dated May 2nd.

In addition to pro-Jewish propaganda, Ortiz would also comment on his desire to use the power of artificial intelligence to craft free and easy promotional material for the antifascist cell. In a series of posts made in May of 2023, Ortiz lamented the fact that Dall E, an AI-generated art tool popular with highly online internet users, would not allow him to generate political content. He also pondered the effectiveness of using TikTok to indoctrinate its sea of young, impressionable users into the murky sex and drug-addled waters of modern American anti-fascism.

“I was experimenting with using Dall E to generate imagery similar to the flyers but it’s difficult because the guardrails on it won’t allow it to generate political content,” he said. “If we can figure out how to make video content, TikTok will be a valuable growth platform.”

Sometimes, Ortiz’s links and comments inside the AIF chatroom would illicit deeply disturbing responses from fellow members. When Ortiz once linked to an article detailing the alleged “swatting” of transsexual Montana lawmaker, Zooey Zephyr, Antifa extremists users would use the Discord to air their deranged and overtly violent desires on her detractors. One user even pondered the use of quicklime, an ancient chemical weapon known to cause horrific burns and blinding in those targeted.

In a post dated May 2nd, Ortiz commented on Michael Knowles, a conservative speaker known to be critical of the widely abhorred transsexual phenomena in America. Calling Knowles’s rhetoric “increasingly genocidal,” another member of the American Iron Front asked, “can he get shot already?”

Paradoxically, Ortiz appears to have no problem consorting and even collaborating with anti-Zionists and others who vehemently oppose the state of Israel, a nation that many in the Antifa milieu perceive to be fascist. In fact, one of the chat’s most prominent moderators is Rochester, NY-based “Eightman,” a prolific Antifa activist who has a history of utilizing social media to rail against Israeli foreign and domestic policies.

Why is this important? According to the IHRA working definition of Antisemitism—the cornerstone of the ADL’s political suppression and intimidation efforts—negative “expressions of animus” toward the Jewish State of Israel is a trait that could be determined to be anti-Semitic. One is then left questioning, what is more important to a man like John Zack Ortiz? His commitment to his employer’s mission and stated goals? Or his own personal dedication to anti-White extremism and membership inside an Antifa militant group opposed to the ADL and Israel, specifically? The contrasts soon became too glaring to ignore.

In a post dated May 2nd, Ortiz linked the ADL’s “hate symbols database” into the chat as a way to assist others in researching “fascists” on social media. In response, fellow AIF member “joe hill’s revenge” unapologetically expressed his “hatred” of the ADL, to which Ortiz replied, “We’re a big tent group, we don’t all need to agree all the time.”

The Investigation

According to its website, the American Iron Front is “a big-tent coalition of patriotic Americans engaged in direct action to disrupt the efforts of authoritarian and anti-democracy groups and individuals in the United States.” With its primary goal of defending “our democracy,” AIF members coat themselves in red, white, and blue trappings in an attempt to masquerade as dutiful American citizens in front of those who may not understand their tactics.

The disguise is only paper thin. Underneath the star-spangled surface, their membership is composed of a wide array of various anti-White extremist ideologies, ranging from “non-authoritarian” communists, anarchists, paraphilics, and heavily armed left-wing militias like the Socialist Rifle Association and the John Brown Gun Club.

“We are everyday Americans committed to a more just, equitable, and democratic nation,” the website continues.

In reality, however, AIF is virulently anti-White and operates across all fifty states and even draws members from Puerto Rico and the foreign nations of Canada, Australia, Poland, and others. While strategically hidden from the public, Its definition of taking “direct action” against its authoritarian enemies includes instances of mass reporting and de-platforming social media accounts, both thinly veiled and overt calls for violence, as well as doxing, intimidation, and if necessary, heavily armed street engagements they call “community defense.”

Identifying Ortiz’ and confirming his claims of employment within the ADL was simple. A quick Google search of the username “johnyz715” would reveal that the moniker was used in varying forms across multiple social media accounts all of which appeared to be tied to a “J. Zack Ortiz.” Alongside a Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and even a Steam account, the Justice Report’s team of researchers and independent journalists also uncovered a key piece of evidence: a LinkedIn profile.

In it, the professional resume site would go on to profile a man of the same approximate age from Berkeley, California—a town within San Francisco—listed as a Regional Coordinator for the Anti-Defamation League starting in June of 2022. The profile also lists previous work appearing to fall under the umbrella of astrophysics, to which johnyz715 claimed to have a bachelor’s in.

Our suspicions were finally laid to rest once we cross-referenced a document leaked in 2022 purporting to show the names, emails, and work phone numbers of all current ADL employees. In it, a “Zack Ortiz” is listed, categorized as an employee tasked with the “growth” of the organization.

The Central Pacific branch of the ADL where Ortiz is currently employed is based out of San Francisco, and “serves” Northern California, Utah, and Hawai’i. It also happens to be a particularly aggressive branch. In 2022, Central Pacific ADL was one of several pro-Jewish organizations demanding that high schools in California implement mandatory “ethnic studies” courses, and rid their curriculums of any lessons of “Antisemitic and anti-Israel bias.”

In March of 2022, ADL Central Pacific was a key instrument in politically intimidating the Oakland-based nature conservation group, the Sierra Club. The historic American institution made headlines after it embraced the boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) movement and made the decision to cancel trips to the state of Israel. ADL Central Pacific, among others, then placed pressure on the Sierra Club, and they soon reversed course. An apology followed, with Sierra Club executives stating they made the decision “without consulting a robust set of stakeholders.”

Recently, the ADL has been rife with controversy and criticism stemming from its heavy-handed approach to silencing its detractors online. In response to multiple high-profile accounts being de-platformed for Jew-critical rhetoric, online activists—such as conservative influencer Keith Woods—took to Twitter with the hashtag #BantheADL. The hashtag soon trended worldwide and earned millions of engagements.

In March, the ADL was exposed for meddling in the operations of law enforcement, after texts and emails revealed a concerning relationship between a Florida Police Chief and the head of the ADL’s Florida branch. In the communications, the ADL appeared to be directing and advising a veteran Police commander on how to deal with pro-White activists exercising their first-amendment-protected freedom of speech. While the activists walked away free from the encounter, ADL director Yael Hershfield, appeared to be disappointed that no arrests had been made.

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