Apprehended with guilty pleas and statements of facts
DOJ: White supremacists hoped to ignite “race war” by attacking power grids
Plea agreements detail plan to attack substations across US and cause mass unrest.
"Three men yesterday pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists for their roles in a white supremacist plot to attack US power grids.
"These three defendants admitted to engaging in a disturbing plot, in furtherance of white supremacist ideology, to attack energy facilities in order to damage the economy and stoke division in our country," Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen said in a Department of Justice announcement.
The defendants are Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of West Lafayette, Indiana, and of Katy, Texas; and Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. They were charged in US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio and face maximum prison sentences of 15 years. The plea agreements recommend post-prison supervised release of 30 years with computer monitoring and a ban on the use of "online encrypted communication platforms."
"As part of the conspiracy, each defendant was assigned a substation in a different region of the United States," the Justice Department said. "The plan was to attack the substations, or power grids, with powerful rifles. The defendants believed their plan would cost the government millions of dollars and cause unrest for Americans in the region."
Hope for a “race war”
A statement of facts the defendants admitted to in their plea agreements described their hope to ignite a "race war":
In addition, the defendants believed that time associated with replacing the substations would cause confusion and unrest for Americans in the region. There were also conversations about how the possibility of the power being out for many months could cause some serious change or straight out war, even a race war; additionally, that without power across the country, it could cause the next Great Depression, people wouldn't show up to work, the economy could crash and there would be a ripe opportunity for potential (white) leaders to rise up. One theme of the group discussions centered around the need to create disorder to bring the system down, which would cause people to doubt the system and create a true revolutionary force against the system.
Planning for the attacks happened between October 2019 and March 2020, according to the statement of facts. . .
Read more >> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/02/doj-white-supremacists-hoped-to-ignite-race-war-by-attacking-power-grids/
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