A U.S. Coast Guard officer stationed in Washington D.C. is accused of being a domestic terrorist. FBI agents arrested Lieutenant Christoper Paul Hasson and seized a stockpile of weapons and ammunition from his home in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The filings claim he planned to kill politicians and journalists from a list of targets that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and CNN anchor Don Lemon. Prosecutors described Hasson as a white nationalist who planned "to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country."
"The defendant is a domestic terrorist, bent on committing acts dangerous to human life that are intended to affect governmental conduct," prosecutors wrote.
They said that Hasson was inspired by Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who killed 77 people in a pair of attacks in 2011.
Hasson was arrested on charges of illegal weapons and drug possession, but prosecutors said that those charges are the “the proverbial tip of the iceberg.”
Photo: U.S. District Court