Craig Paul Cobb is a white supremacist who operates the video sharing website Podblanc.
He claims "racism is my religion" and advocates "racial holy war" in accordance with the tenets
of The Creativity Movement.
Cobb gained notoriety within anti-racist and anti-fascist movements and legal advocacy
organizations that investigate hate speech and hate crime for his "celebration of violence
and murder committed against minorities" as documented in his video recordings, online
activities, and disruptions at public events.
Cobb is known for his movement to dominate the hamlet of Leith, North Dakota with other
white supremacists.
The hamlet of sixteen inhabitants has one African-American resident, who is married
to a white woman.
Cobb, who moved to Leith in 2012, attracted other white supremacists to the town and has
Neo-Nazi paraphernalia displayed on his property.
As a result, local residents and anti-racist organizations have organized multiple protests
in Leith against Cobb and his allies.
Cobb has appeared on several radio talk shows and the The Trisha Goddard Show, to talk about
his plans for the white supremacy movement in Leith.
Biography Youth and early adulthood
Cobb was raised in Boston, Massachusetts.
His father was a multimillionaire businessman and his mother was a teacher.
Cobb attended a private school in Boston where he graduated in 1968.
Cobb says he grew up a Christian, but has since renounced Christianity, saying "I don't
understand Christians.
They have a need to be morally superior than the next guy...
They are very threatened by anything with racial cohesion."
After serving in the armed forces he moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for five years
then relocated to Hawaii where he lived for another 25 years and earned a living as a
taxi driver.
It was believed during his taxi driving career that he developed white supremacist views,
with the rising crime rate in Hawaii, and the ethnic demographics of the state.
In 2003 he relocated to Frost, West Virginia, where he opened a grocery store and subsequently
registered a business called "Gray's Store, Aryan Autographs and 14 Words, L.L.C."
During this time he was involved in unsolicited inter-state deliveries of a neo-Nazi newspaper
published by Alex Linder, distribution of Project Schoolyard CDs to local children,
and attended an invitation-only leadership conference of the National Alliance.
Moving abroad In late 2005, after receiving an inheritance
of $85,000, he moved to Tallinn, Estonia.
In Tallinn, Cobb met with white power skinheads, and purchased land 30 miles south of Tallinn
where he hoped to establish an "International Office of White Diaspora".
During this period of time, Cobb established Podblanc, a white supremacist video sharing
website.
He also unsuccessfully attempted to find an Estonian wife and came to public attention
after conducting an interview with a former Estonian Ministry of Justice employee whom
he introduced as the leader of the Estonian Nazis.
On August 25, 2009, he was issued a ten-year ban from Estonia and deported to Canada, where
Cobb claims to hold citizenship, for "endangering state security, public order, public safety,
moral standards, health, other public interests" and promoting racism.
During his period of incarceration before deportation his supporters in the U.S. made
contact with Canadian neo-fascist Paul Fromm in order to prepare for Cobb's anticipated
arrest under Canadian hate speech laws.
In March 2010, after posting videos of anti-racist activists online, he was discovered to be
living in Vancouver where he also made an unsuccessful attempt to register a non-profit
society called Whitepeace.
Returning to the U.S.
In June 2010 Cobb was arrested by police in Vancouver but released with a summons after
which he left Canada to return to the United States.
In 2010, Cobb was living in Kalispell, Montana, which was a recruiting target for several
white nationalists.
Cobb engaged in a feud with another local neo-Nazi, Karl Gharst, against whom he recently
obtained a restraining order.
His activities were opposed by the local pro-tolerance group Love Lives Here.
At the end of December 2010 Canadian authorities issued a warrant for his arrest on the charge
of "wilful promotion of hatred after a failure to appear".
Cobb responded to the warrant by stating "You can find me in the orange easy chair near
the elevator" at the Flathead County Library in Kalispell.
Leith, North Dakota
Cobb relocated to western North Dakota due to its supply of high-paying jobs at oil fields
and high proportion of white residents.
He claimed that he was fired from a job due to disagreements with a co-worker, and that
he lost a job with a Fargo paving company after there was media coverage of his settlement
plans.
While Cobb was working in Watford City, North Dakota, he found on Craigslist that there
were lots available for sale in Leith, North Dakota.
He moved there in 2012.
As of December 2013, Cobb resides in Leith, where he is trying to create a white supremacist
community.
He reportedly owns at least 12 plots of land in the town.
Several other prominent white supremacists, including April Gaede and her husband, also
own land in Leith.
He has transferred ownership of two plots to fellow white supremacists Alex Linder and
Tom Metzger.
Another white supremacist, Jeff Schoep, visited Leith in late September 2013 in order to support
Cobb, and he brought several fellow members of the National Socialist Movement with him.
Several former members of Anti-Racist Action formed a peaceful, grassroots movement called
UnityND and began organizing a demonstration of their own in Leith, that would protest
against both Cobb and Schoep.
Several hundred people attended the protests against Cobb and his allies, including hundreds
of members of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
As a reaction to Cobb's planned takeover of Leith, some have even advocated disbanding
Leith and dissolving it into Grant County proper.
Cobb stated that he will pursue to file a restraining order against the Standing Rock
Indian Reservation.
Legal issues On September 24.
2013, it was announced that Custer Health Environmental Services in Mandan which provides
safety and sanitation inspections for five counties, including Grant County, had issued
12 citations the previous week to 10 individuals, including Cobb.
Citing Cobb's failure to install a running water and sewage system in his properties
within the 30 day deadline, the health unit announced they would seek a court order to
condemn his properties, unless he cooperated and released a plan detailing future water
and sewage installation.
Afterwards, Cobb announced that he had no intention of cooperating with the health unit
and planned to fight the eviction notice.
Arrest and release on probation On November 16, 2013, it was announced that
Cobb and Kynan Dutton had been arrested by county deputies and were in custody after
patrolling town while carrying rifles allegedly threatening two residents of Leith and one
visitor with guns, after Cobb's property was allegedly vandalized by the town's residents.
Two videos from their patrol were posted on YouTube.
They were booked on suspicion of terrorizing.
According to the Leith website developer, Cobb and the other man arrested held the guns
high and then lowered them, but did not speak and did not point the guns directly at the
men.
The two men subsequently appeared in court for a bond hearing, and the court decided
that both should be held without bail.
He refused food while in prison, but said that his refusal was not due to a hunger strike;
rather, he was practicing mahasamadhi and that he believed he would leave his physical
body for another "plane of existence" at Yuletide.
He also said he considers himself a martyr.
Together with his follower Kynan Dutton the two men are scheduled for a preliminary hearing
on seven felony accounts of terrorism to be held January 13, 2014.
His bail was set at $1 million.
After a plea agreement, Cobb was released on April 29, 2014 on four years probation
and time served.
Leith's Mayor Ryan Schock and Councilman Lee Cook, who was one of Cobb's victims, expressed
concerns for the town's safety as Cobb had given property to white separatist Tom Metzger,
National Socialist Movement Commander Jeff Schoep and white supremacist Alex Linder.
Cobb himself had earlier announced his "retirement from white nationalism" and has said that
he will seek permission to transfer his probation to Missouri where he will look after his mother.
Media appearances and genetic testing In October 2013, Cobb was featured as a guest
on The Trisha Goddard Show, where he met with the lone black resident of Leith and his white
wife.
The couple said that their lives were being disrupted and that their experience in Leith
since Cobb moving in as ridden with "turmoil and deception."
The episode featured Shahrazad Ali, who agreed with Cobb on the concept of racial separation.
In a November 2013 interview, Goddard revealed the results of a DNA test to which Cobb had
agreed indicating that he was genetically 14 per cent Sub-Saharan African.
Cobb dismissed the results as "statistical noise" and "short science".
An article claiming that Cobb hanged himself after learning of his black ancestry soon
began to spread across social media websites; however, this was a hoax.
Plans for expansion Cobb has expressed interest in purchasing
lots in Regan, North Dakota and Crosby, North Dakota.
However he later said he will leave town if his charges will be dropped.
In February 2014, though, he sold his house in Leith and one other plot of land to a man
from neighboring Carson, and in March he deeded his remaining lots back to the city of Leith.
Of the dozen lots he originally purchased, three remain owned by Alex Linder, Tom Metzger,
and Jeff Schoep.
Video recordings and disruptions Cobb's video recordings fall into two types
of productions.
The first consists of unedited presentations of antisemitic canards commentary and discussion
featuring close-up shots of himself, often presented as part of his "Deprogram" series
on YouTube and Podblanc.
The second consists of street interviews gathered at events where Cobb presents himself as a
journalist for Vanguard News Network, asks a series of provocative questions laced with
racial slurs, typically sparking outrage from targeted individuals.
Documented incidents include a rally in Kingston, New York in 2005 and a 50 Cent concert in
Tallinn in 2008.
The most well-known of these disruptions occurred in October 2005 at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda
as civil rights leader Rosa Parks was lying in state.
Cobb confronted visitors, referred to Parks as a "shitskin communist", and stated that
he was there celebrating her death.
Online activities Cobb uses the online pseudonyms "No 1965 Chain
Immigrants" and "Chain", which references to the abolition of the National Origins Formula
in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
While his Internet activities center upon "tireless propaganda" for Podblanc he is also
active in discussion boards where, after the arrest of Matt Hale in 2003 for soliciting
the murder of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow, Cobb posted the judge's home address, family
photographs and a map to her house.
Lefkow's husband and mother were subsequently murdered.
In reply to a reporter's question "What were you feeling when the double murder happened?"
Cobb stated "What was I feeling?
Emotions are not yet illegal.
I was just fine with it.
I think it was well done."
References
External links "Rassismipreester visatakse Eestist välja",
an article by Mihkel Kärmas in Eesti Ekspress on Cobb's deportation
English translation of Kärmas' article by One People's Project
"Paradise Lost", an editorial by Abdul Turay in Estonia Today on Cobb's time in Estonia
Photographs of Craig Cobb