Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson was arrested on charges of illegal weapons and drug possession. Investigators found files on his computer suggesting Hasson planned to target members of Congress and media figures in hopes of creating a “white homeland.”

| U.S. District Court via AP Legal Coast Guard officer accused of plotting to kill Democrats, journalists

A U.S. Coast Guard officer has been arrested after federal investigators discovered a stockpile of illegal drugs and weapons in his home that they allege were part of a plot to commit acts of mass terrorism.

Prosecutors say Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson, who was arrested Friday, was intent on committing white-supremacist terror attacks. Though he was initially arrested on charges of illegal weapons and drug possession, a court filing says those charges are “the proverbial tip of the iceberg.”


“The defendant is a domestic terrorist, bent on committing acts dangerous to human life that are intended to affect government conduct,” the filing alleges.

While searching Hasson’s suburban Maryland home, investigators found a number of files on his computer suggesting that Hasson planned to target members of Congress and media figures in the hopes of creating a “white homeland.”

“Liberalist/globalist ideology is destroying traditional peoples esp white,” Hasson wrote in a draft email, according to court documents. “No way to counteract without violence. It should push for more crack down bringing more people to our side. Much blood will have to be spilled to get whitey off the couch.”

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Hasson referred to his targets as “traitors,” and appears to have named figures such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman, John Podesta. He appeared to find inspiration in Russia for its antipathy toward American liberalism, and his browser history revealed searches including “what if trump illegally impeached” and “civil war if trump impeached,” according to the court filing.

“Looking to Russia with hopeful eyes or any land that despises the west’s liberalism. Excluding of course the muslim scum. Who rightfully despise the west’s liberal degeneracy,” Hasson wrote in a draft email according to the filings.

Hasson also was apparently inspired by Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian far-right terrorist who carried out two attacks in 2011 in Oslo and at a political youth camp. Breivik took a cocktail of steroids and other drugs, believing they would help him carry out the attacks. Similarly, investigators found steroids and the pain reliever Tramadol — a highly addictive controlled substance — in Hasson’s home.

Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Program on Extremism at The George Washington University, first reported Hasson’s arrest Wednesday afternoon.

The initial charges against Hasson are relatively uncommon, and appear to illustrate the challenges investigators face in charging individuals who may pose an imminent danger but where evidence of actionable threats against specific people is weak. Charges can also be harder to bring against lone-wolf types who are mulling violence on their own but haven’t conspired with others in a specific plot, legal experts say.

Hasson’s case has echoes of one that federal prosecutors brought in November against a Washington, D.C., resident who harbored neo-Nazi views, Jeffrey Clark Jr. The FBI initially said Clark was in contact with the perpetrator of a deadly attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue that month, but authorities later retracted that claim while pointing to a plethora of comments by Clark threatening violence against African-Americans and Jews.

A Huffington Post reporter complained to police in August that Clark had threatened to put her “feet first into a woodchipper.” However, no action was taken against him at the time.

After Clark’s family called the FBI two months later, Clark was arrested on a federal charge of possessing weapons while also possessing or being addicted to a controlled substance, as well as possession of an ammunition magazine illegal under D.C. law. His defense lawyer sought Clark’s release because the charge was unusual and might be an unconstitutional burden on Second Amendment rights. His lawyers also noted that the drug he was allegedly using, marijuana, is legal under D.C. law, though it remains illegal under federal law.

A federal magistrate judge declined to release Clark, citing his extremist statements and apparent interest in violence. He remains in custody pending trial.

Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.