Postings on Facebook may suggest that a man arrested today with firearms and potential explosives in proximity to a planned Santa Monica, California Gay Pride Event was a supporter of controversial socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Santa Monica Police said in a news release that they arrested suspect James Wesley Howell after a radio call regarding “suspicious circumstances”. Police say firearms, high capacity magazines and a 5 gallon bucket of chemicals that could have been a capable of forming an improvised explosive device were recovered from his car, which had an Indiana Registration. Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks claimed that the suspect had told an officer of a desire to harm the gay pride event in the city. The principle of innocent until proven guilty applies and Howell has not been convicted of any crime or entered a guilty plea at the present time.

A Facebook page belonging to a man from Indiana, with the same name and a physical resemblance, shows support for socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. The LA Times reported at a photograph of a car on the Facebook page had a licence plate bearing the same number as the vehicle the weapons and potential explosives were recovered from in Santa Monica. There is as yet no official confirmation from police authorities of whether the social media page in question belongs to Howell.

A leftwing pro-Bernie Sanders meme shared on the James Wesley Howell page.

Other postings on the page liken Bernie Sander’s primary opponent Hillary Clinton, who largely deafeated him in the Democrat presidential selection contest, to Nazi mass murderer Adolf Hitler. They also included sharing meme-style material inaccurately claiming Sanders is funded by the “people”, as opposed to Hillary Clinton being funded by the “banks”.

“Sums it up”: Howell’s Facebook Page a misleading image likening Hillary Clinton to Nazi Adolf Hitler

The James Wesley Howell Facebook page also includes other content suggestive of fringe anti-capitalist beliefs and extreme conspiracy theory. A 2015 post on the page claimed that the Jihadist terrorist attacks on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo as well as 9/11 Jihadist terrorist attacks on New York were a hoax, probably perpetrated by bankers.

The conspiracy theory beliefs of this kind are popular with both some far-left and far-right extremists. These conspiracy theories are frequently used to spread anti-capitalist and anti-business disinformation that falsely and maliciously pins the responsibility for deadly terrorist crimes on a purported, imaginary “New World Order” of wealthy companies and big businessmen.