Dreaming of a way

Another citizen of Trump’s America:

A Coast Guard lieutenant and self-described white nationalist who was arrested in Maryland last week was plotting to kill a long list of prominent journalists and Democratic politicians, as well as professors, judges and what he called “leftists in general,” federal prosecutors said in a court filing on Tuesday.

A a long list of prominent journalists and Democratic politicians plus also everyone on the planet.

Prosecutors quoted a letter that he drafted to friends in 2017 and that the authorities found on his computer. In it, Lieutenant Hasson, who works as an acquisitions officer at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, wrote: “I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth. I think a plague would be most successful but how do I acquire the needed / Spanish flu, botulism, anthrax not sure yet but will find something.”

But maybe that was just a moment of grandiosity. Apparently he’s been more focused recently.

In the last month, prosecutors said, the lieutenant used his work computer to draw up a list of prominent figures he called “traitors” and wanted to kill, including many well-known anchors and hosts on the CNN and MSNBC news networks and a number of Democratic elected officials. The list included, among others, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maxine Waters, Senator Richard Blumenthal, whom he referred to as “Sen blumen jew,” and many of the senators running for president in 2020.

He had recently performed internet searches seeking information about whether senators and Supreme Court justices receive Secret Service protection, the court filing said.

He was hoping to start a race war, to “get whitey off the couch.”

Federal investigators said in the court filing that Lieutenant Hasson had begun stockpiling weapons in 2017. When federal agents searched his cramped basement apartment in Silver Spring, Md., they said, they found a cache of 15 assault rifles, shotguns and handguns and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition that the lieutenant had amassed.

The Program on Extremism at George Washington University called attention to the court filing in Twitter posts on Wednesday. In the filing, the authorities cited writings found on the lieutenant’s computer that point to extreme racist and apocalyptic views.

Shortly after the violence incited by a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, the authorities say, Lieutenant Hasson drafted a letter to a well-known neo-Nazi expressing support for the idea of building a “white homeland” in the Pacific Northwest.

Hey! No thank you! We’re just fine here, thank you very much, and we don’t need no stinkin white homeland.

The authorities said Lieutenant Hasson had studied the 1,500-page manifesto that the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, a far-right Norwegian extremist who killed 77 people in 2011, wrote in the hope of inspiring other killers.

Following Mr. Breivik’s advice about how to start a race war that would topple liberal governments, Lieutenant Hasson planned to assassinate prominent figures. He performed internet searches for the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, among others, and for the phrase “civil war if Trump impeached,” the authorities said.

Lieutenant Hasson’s efforts appeared to intensify in January. The authorities say he searched for a section of Mr. Breivik’s manifesto that advises other mass murderers to begin a six-week cycle of steroids once all their preparations for violent acts are complete. Federal agents said they had found a locked box in his apartment containing more than 30 vials of human growth hormone.

So, possibly, he was close to putting his plan into action.

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