Author, Ana Fagi
Place of work, BBC
Published 3 hours ago
Reading time: 5 min
The US Department of Justice said on Tuesday that the FBI had uncovered a group that was preparing an attack on the White House on June 14, during the UFC mixed martial arts tournament there to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States and the anniversary of President Donald Trump. Five people have been arrested in the case and charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
This is an adapted translation of a BBC correspondent's material. The original in English can be read here.
“The attack was foiled in preparation,” FBI Director Cash Patel wrote on social media on Tuesday, June 16, adding that the operation was carried out in several states at once.
According to law enforcement officers, the attackers were going to attack buildings near the White House with drones containing explosives and fire at “high value targets.”
One of the suspects was arrested last week in Ohio after investigators examined encrypted messages relating to other alleged conspirators. Charging documents say the messages "exhibited ultra-religious and anti-government sentiments."
A total of five people have been arrested so far, and their names have been made public. The man arrested in Ohio was 19-year-old Tysen Proper, and 24-year-old Brian Omar Roa and 32-year-old Michael Alan Thomas from California, 32-year-old Daniel Eskridge from Missouri and 31-year-old Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez from Nebraska were also arrested in different states.
Each is charged with conspiracy to commit murder, the Justice Department said in a statement.
According to court documents, the suspects planned to use drones to create panic and direct people fleeing from the drones into the range of a group of snipers. Then the second group of attackers was to storm the gates of the White House.
According to investigators, the conspirators wanted to provoke the “beginning of a revolution” by shooting “important targets,” that is, wealthy people and politicians present at the UFC tournament. According to law enforcement officers, the group members discussed among themselves “dissatisfaction with government corruption, the progress of the investigation into the Epstein case, the fact that data centers are depriving cities of water, as well as other actions of the authorities.”
Members of the group said they wanted to "defend the United States, which is moving in the wrong direction," the FBI document said. To do this, they intended to “destroy the United States so that later it could be built anew,” intelligence officers quote the group’s plans.
The UFC event at the White House, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States and President Donald Trump's 80th birthday, was private but well-attended: about 4,300 people were on the South Lawn of the house and about 85 thousand more people could watch the UFC fights from the area in close proximity to the building.
Court documents related to Alvarez say the conspiracy group considered U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Elon Musk, as well as several elected officials, as potential targets, although not all of them were present at the UFC event.
Trump, asked about the foiled attack on Tuesday during the G7 summit in France, said he had "not heard anything about it."
The plans of the group and its existence, as follows from the statement of the security forces, became known thanks to Proper. His mother called local law enforcement late on June 10, just days before the White House event, because she was concerned that her son had purchased many firearms. She also noticed that her son was corresponding online with people in a group that, according to her description, consisted of former military personnel and was based on Christian values.
When questioned by the FBI on June 11, Proper admitted to participating in the attack and said that he and his accomplices began communicating with each other around March through a TikTok group called Vanguard of the Old (some court documents refer to the name Vanguard of the Old Republic).
It is unclear whether the group is affiliated with any larger, established organization.
Proper told investigators that group members were primarily recruited through TikTok. Those who were “vetted” by other participants moved on to discussions on Signal, an encrypted messaging app, prosecutors said. According to investigators, there were about 19 people in the main chat, and four to five in smaller chats, depending on the roles.
In group chats, the documents say, group members discussed plans to assassinate individual American congressmen and prominent businessmen, some of whom allegedly “received money from the pro-Israel lobby.” Eskridge described one of the potential victims as "a major figure known to most people in the country."
Court documents show the suspects distributed maps of Washington that showed sniper locations, drone launch points and power grids as potential targets. The case file contains screenshots of posts from social networks that contained maps, tactical equipment and weapons.
Proper said in the documents that he did not intend to shoot people, but that some other members of the group did intend to use violence.
The BBC has contacted Proper's lawyer for comment and is awaiting a response.
If the suspects are convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, they could face penalties of up to life in prison and a fine of $250,000.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 29.
Two months earlier, there had been a shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which Trump was also attending, and less than a month earlier, in late May, a man opened fire at a White House security checkpoint and the man was killed by Secret Service agents.
