Arrested Coast Guard Officer Planned Mass Terrorist Attack on Scale Rarely Visited: NPR

Editor's Note: This story contains offensive language.

A 49-year-old Coast Guard lieutenant is in police custody and faces charges of national terrorism for allegedly "killing innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country", according to reports. court documents filed Tuesday at the US District Court of Maryland.

Federal prosecutors have said that Christopher Paul Hasson, a white nationalist living in Silver Spring, Maryland, had accumulated a stock of weapons since at least 2017, while preparing the plan to launch a widespread attack against people. Major Democratic legislators, including Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and several top journalists from MSNBC and CNN.

The court documents indicate that Hasson had married for years white extremist and supremacist views – aspiring to establish a "white homeland" – and that he was a "national terrorist determined to commit acts dangerous to human life". which are intended to affect the conduct of the government ".

"I'm dreaming of a way to kill all people on earth," Hasson wrote in a draft email dated June 2, 2017, which was discovered by investigators, according to court records. .

Throughout the e-mail, addressed to "friends … to more probable knowledge", it describes the most effective methods to "cause complete destruction" by triggering a biological attack on the public, followed by the contamination of foodstuffs.

"It will take a lot of blood to make the couch white, they will die, just like the traitors who actively work for our disappearance," he wrote scornfully.

The rudimentary and rudimentary letter also includes a list of things to do for the next four years, revealing Hasson's desire to "get out of debt !!!" Buy a van for conversion, diesel, buy land for his family in the west or perhaps in North Carolina ". He adds that he needs to "get rid" of Tramadol, a highly addictive narcotic. "Get out my head," he says.

Officials on Friday arrested Hasson for illegal possession of a firearm and possession of a controlled substance. But the government called the charges "proverbial tip of the iceberg" and subsequently filed the petition on Tuesday asking the court to detain Hasson, who will hold a hearing on Feb. 21.

According to the government, in recent years, Hasson has embarked on a spate of arms purchases: he has collected 15 firearms and more than 1,000 ammunition ammunition cartridges, all of which have been confiscated in Hasson's basement apartment last week.

During the raid, officials also discovered Hasson's computer, containing a spreadsheet that would list potential targets: senior politicians, past and present, activists, political organizations, and media personalities.

In addition to Pelosi, Hasson would have envisioned some type of violent aggression against the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, Sense. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Richard Blumenthal, as well as US representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maxine Waters. member of the house, Beto O 'Rourke. The list of spreadsheets also included MSNBC hosts Chris Hayes and Joe Scarborough, and CNN's Don Lemon and Van Jones.

The documents filed by the court portray a portrait of an angry and drugged man who has been searching for decades for responses in neo-fascist and neo-Nazi literature and desperately seeking to "make a lasting impression on this world".

Apparently, Hasson frequently asked for instructions from a manifesto written by Anders Breivik, a far-right anti-Muslim Norwegian nationalist who was convicted in 2011 of two terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of 77 people. According to officials, Hasson used Breivik's methods to refine his list of potential victims, conducting Internet searches for "the most liberal senators"; "where most senators live in dc;" and "the judges of the Supreme Court are protected".

Hasson's drug use also appears to stem from Breivik's manifesto guidelines, "taking narcotics in order to increase his ability to carry out attacks."

The documents indicate that, when the officers searched his apartment, they found documents indicating that Hasson had ordered "at least 4,200 100-mg tablets of tramadol" since 2016. While searching his workplace, officials said they had discovered at least 100 synthetic opioid tablets and a locked container. , filled with more than 30 bottles labeled as human growth hormone, wrote prosecutors.

Hasson has worked at the US Coast Guard's headquarters in Washington, DC since 2016. He was an active member of his service at the time of his arrest. Previously, he served in the US Navy Corps. from 1988 to 1993, after which he joined the National Army Guard for about two years.

"An active Coast Guard member, stationed at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, was arrested last week for indictment of illegal guns and drugs as a result of an ongoing investigation." by the Coast Guard Investigation Service, in cooperation with the FBI and the Department of Justice, "spokesman Barry Lane told NPR in a statement.