Report Examines Extremist Links Of Bucks Co. ‘Patriots Network’

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — A Bucks County-based group that caused a stir in August over its plans for an anti-mask protest in Doylestown is once again being linked to a national anti-government militia movement.

The Proud American Patriots Network canceled its protest last month and denied claims it was tied to the Three Percenter movement and other right-wing militia organizations.

However, a report recently published by the Digital Forensic Research Lab calls into question those denials and examines the group's connections to the Three Percenters, which been linked to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and is considered a terrorist entity by Canada.

The Proud American Patriots Network circulated flyers in August for a “No More Mask Mandates” protest outside the Central Bucks School District’s administrative offices before board members met to discuss its masking policy.

The planned protest prompted a flurry of posts, including a short video made by the CBSD Families Against Extremism Facebook group that purported to show the Proud American Patriots Network’s ties to militia groups like the Three Percenters.

Grace Packer Legislation Aims To Protect Foster Kids

The Proud American Patriots Network tried to distance itself from militia groups and alt-right organizations last month. It posted a message on its website that said the Proud American Patriots Network “renounces anything to do with the Three Percenter movement.”

Joshua Hogan, founder of the ReOpen Bucks group, also defended the organization, saying the accusation that there would be a "militia/paramilitary" presence ahead of the board's meeting was "completely absurd on its face."

15 Central Bucks Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

In his report, DFRLab researcher Jared Holt detailed links between the Proud American Patriots Network's founders — TJ and Brittany Kosin, of Warwick — and Three Percenters.

Since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, many followers of the Three Percenter anti-government movement “have made efforts to regroup the movement’s supporters into clusters with the same ideology repackaged without the extremist branding,” Holt said.

“One group based in the village of Jamison, Pennsylvania, discreetly laid blueprints for a new national Three Percenter entity under the veil of a proposed 501c4 nonprofit political advocacy organization, seeming to bury the group’s extreme sentiments beneath the façade of a formal, government-registered nonprofit,” Holt wrote in the report.

Boy Finds Grenade In Bucks Co. Backyard During Treasure Hunt

“Though PAPN has sought to present itself to unassuming allies and the public as an innocuous conservative nonprofit, the DFRLab’s findings make clear the group has also operated with an ulterior agenda,” Holt wrote.

The Proud American Patriots Network has tried to deny its affiliations with the Three Percenter movement, but cofounder TJ Kosin recently confirmed to the Bucks County Courier Times that he was a member until last summer. He said he left the movement when it became more militant and less involved with community outreach efforts, the report states.

Kosin also told the outlet that five PAPN members attended former President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C., but none were involved in the riot that followed at the Capitol. Since then, PAPN has tried to further distance itself from the Three Percenter movement and rehab its image online, the report states.

The Proud American Patriots Network now boasts up to 175 members across the country, with the uproar over its planned Central Bucks protest increasing membership, Kosin told the Bucks County Courier Times.