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An alleged white supremacist who was involved in the Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Virginia last August reportedly has U.S. government security clearance to do sensitive research for a defense contractor, according to a ProPublica and Frontline investigation.

  • Video footage seemingly shows Michael Miselis — a University of California, Los Angeles doctoral student who also works as a systems engineer for Northrop Grumman — attacking African-American protesters. In one shot, he reportedly pushed a protester to the ground and “began pounding on him,” according to the report.
  • ProPublica and Frontline approached Miselis for comment and he said they had the “wrong guy” and that he didn't know anything about what happened in Charlottesville.
  • But California law enforcement officials have allegedly told reporters Miselis is a member of the Rise Above Movement, a Southern California group the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an “explicitly violent, racist, right-wing fight club that attends rallies around the country to openly brawl with counter-protesters.”
  • Miselis, a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA's hypersonics and computational aero-dynamics group in the engineering department, reportedly has security clearance to work in a computer modeling and simulation group within Northrop Grumman's aerospace division.
  • His alleged ties to a prominent white supremacist group and reported links to violence in Charlottesville, among other places, have apparently not impacted his security clearance or employment.

The Unite the Right march in Charlottesville last summer resulted in the death of Heather Heyer, who was killed when a car plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters. Read the full ProPublica and Frontline investigation here.

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