It was Sunday, and Washington was supposed to be celebrating. UFC Freedom 250, on the South Lawn of the White House, with the crowds and the lights and the noise of a country enjoying itself. That was the plan.
But there was another plan, too.
At least 12 suspects, scattered across the country, who called themselves accelerationists. They didn’t want to reform American capitalism. They wanted it gone, and they were willing to kill for the absence.
That is what federal law enforcement sources say.
Here is how it ended.
The FBI gained access to a Signal chat where the attack was being arranged.
But before the agents, there was a relative who heard about the plot and called the police. Sources told The New York Post that this is what set everything in motion.
We worry about what technology can do to us.
Sometimes the thing that saves us is older than that.
The facts, as they stand:
The suspects are spread across at least four states — California, Ohio, Missouri and Nebraska. The plan was to gather in Fredericksburg, Virginia, send explosive drones against the White House and the buildings near it, then storm the gates. How close they were to carrying it out, sources say, is not yet clear.
They came out of a 23-member group built around the far-right accelerationist ideology — the same nihilist creed embraced by the San Diego mosque shooters last month. It is not really a politics. It is a wish for ruin.
Five people have been arrested. Authorities first learned of the plot on June 10, according to FBI Director Kash Patel. More arrests are possible, and more search warrants are being prepared. One suspect, sources add, was allegedly planning the attack from inside a mental health facility.
The targets, investigators learned, were “capitalist elites,” “billionaires” and politicians who had taken money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
And the plot’s cruelty was in its design.
Explosive drones would strike the South Lawn during the event. The crowd would run toward what it thought was safety. Outside the grounds, a sniper team would be waiting.
They counted on our instinct to flee, and built the trap around it.
It didn’t happen. “Thanks to the rapid action of this FBI, our partners, and the Department of Justice in a multi-state operation, multiple individuals are now in custody and allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold,” Patel said.
It was stopped. By agents, yes. But first by a tipster who picked up a phone.
This story is developing.
