The Group Chats Behind a White House Plot
On July 16, two of eight men indicted over an alleged plot to attack a UFC event on the South Lawn of the White House pleaded not guilty in a federal court in Ohio. Prosecutors say the group met and grew radicalized in encrypted chats and social-media forums before conspiring to kill President Donald Trump and other officials with explosive drones and snipers.
Two of the eight men charged over an alleged plot to attack a mixed-martial-arts event at the White House pleaded not guilty on July 16 to federal conspiracy charges, The Associated Press reported. Tycen Proper, 19, of Danville, Ohio, and Chandler Scaggs, 21, of Chapmanville, West Virginia, entered their pleas before U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus Jr. in Columbus, Ohio, where the cases have been consolidated, and the judge set a trial for Sept. 14, according to the AP. The six other defendants face the same counts.
Two counts, eight defendants
A federal grand jury in Columbus indicted the eight men on July 9 on two charges: conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, and conspiracy to commit murder on federal government territory and to murder a federal government official, PBS News reported, drawing on the Justice Department's announcement. Prosecutors allege the men planned to kill President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the X owner Elon Musk, among other “high-value targets,” according to CBS News. The target, prosecutors say, was UFC Freedom 250, a cage-fighting card held June 14 on the White House South Lawn before a crowd of about 4,300 to mark the president's 80th birthday and the country's 250th anniversary, as covered by CNN.
A plot that formed online
According to the indictment, the eight met and organized through online chat groups and forums, communicating across the messaging and social-media services Signal, SimpleX, Discord, TikTok and Instagram, PBS News reported. In those spaces, prosecutors say, the men recruited others, encouraged one another to prepare for attacks and shared extremist beliefs, the Justice Department said. Authorities allege the defendants consumed extremist content online and became increasingly radicalized through their virtual interactions, connecting across six states, according to PBS News.
Beginning in May, the indictment says, the group amassed money, firearms, ammunition, body armor, explosives, drones and communications gear, the AP reported. Members cited grievances about government corruption, the water use of data centers and the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files, according to the AP's account of the indictment.
Drones, then snipers
The plan, as prosecutors describe it, was to fly explosive-laden drones at buildings near the event to force a mass evacuation, then open fire on fleeing attendees from pre-positioned sniper posts, CBS News reported. The FBI said it first learned of the threat on June 10, four days before the event, and made an initial arrest in Cincinnati, according to The Washington Post. Five men were taken into custody in a multistate operation, the Post reported, with further arrests over the following weeks, according to NPR. The FBI director, Kash Patel, said the plot had been “stopped cold by the FBI and law enforcement partners,” the Post reported.
The case ahead
If convicted, the defendants face up to 15 years in prison on the material-support count and up to life on the murder-conspiracy count, PBS News reported. The two men who appeared on July 16 pleaded not guilty, and the government's allegations have not been tested in court, according to the AP. Yet the indictment places at the center of the case a now-familiar sequence — strangers meeting in online forums, hardening one another's views and moving toward violence — that prosecutors say ran from the group chat to the arsenal.