Three men yesterday pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists for their role in a white supremacist plot to attack US power grids.
“These three defendants admitted to engaging in a disturbing conspiracy to promote white supremacist ideology to target energy assets in order to damage the economy and fuel division in our country,” said Matthew Olsen, assistant attorney general for national security, in a department of justice Notice.
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 the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio and face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. The grievance agreements recommend supervised release after 30 years’ imprisonment with computer surveillance 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 guns. The defendants believed their plan would cost the government millions of dollars and unnerve Americans in the region.”
Hope for a “race war”
A establishment of facts the defendants, who admitted to them in their plea agreements, described their hope of igniting a “race war”:
In addition, the defendants believed that the time involved in replacing the substations would cause confusion and unrest among Americans in the area. There was also talk of how the possibility of a power outage lasting several months could cause serious change or outright war, even a race war; also that without power across the country it could cause the next Great Depression, people wouldn’t show up for work, the economy could collapse, and there would be a good opportunity for potential (white) leaders to rise. One theme of the group discussions revolved around the need to create disorder in order to bring down the system, which would cause people to doubt the system and create a true revolutionary force against the system.
According to the facts, the planning for the attacks took place between October 2019 and March 2020. Frost and Cook met in an online chat group, where Frost “shared the idea of attacking a power grid, a target perceived as vulnerable,” and “Cook with information he had gathered about possible power grids as targets,” the document said. The defendants planned to use “powerful rifles that would penetrate the transformers”.
The men pressed on, with Frost focusing on logistics and Cook on recruitment:
As part of the recruitment process, Cook often asked many literary questions; Cook even gave out a book list of recommended, if not required, reading that promoted white supremacy and neo-Nazism, including titles like A Squire’s Trial and Siege. “Siege” focuses on gaining power through violence as opposed to political means. Cook also looked for younger recruits, believing the individuals were less likely to be law enforcement officials.
Cook’s recruiting efforts primarily focused on youth, the document said.
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