DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Suspects arrested in plot to attack power stations, destroy Baltimore: Prosecutors

Prosecutors said the suspects were motivated by racist extremist ideology.

A Florida man and a Maryland woman have been arrested on federal charges of plotting to attack multiple energy substation with the goal of destroying Baltimore, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.

The suspects, Sarah Clendaniel of Catonsville, Maryland, and Brandon Russell of Orlando, Florida, were allegedly fueled by a racist extremist ideology as they "conspired to inflict maximum harm" on the power grid with the aim to "completely destroy" Baltimore, U.S. Attorney Erek Barron and a top FBI official said at a Monday morning press conference.

Russell is quoted in court documents saying that attacking power transformers is "the greatest thing somebody can do." He is accused of providing instructions and location information for the substations he and Clendaniel allegedly sought to target as part of their plot, federal prosecutors said.

Clendaniel allegedly told an FBI confidential source she was "determined" to carry out the attacks aimed at Baltimore's infrastructure, saying, "It would lay this city to waste."

"Their actions threatened the electricity and heat of our homes, hospitals and businesses," said Thomas Sobocinski, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Baltimore field office. "The FBI believes this was a real threat."

Sobocinski said the two suspects "had extremist views" and believed that by conducting the attacks, they would bring further light to their views. Sobocinski declined to go into specifics when pressed by reporters.

The arrests come after a series of attacks on energy substations nationwide, including one in December in North Carolina that left 45,000 utility customers without electricity for days and prompted local officials to declare a state of emergency.

The Department of Homeland Security has warned about similar attacks recently. A "National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin" issued on Nov. 30 said individuals and groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and personal grievances "continue to pose a persistent and lethal threat to the Homeland."

In January, two men were arrested in Tacoma, Washington, and charged with conspiracy to damage energy facilities and possession of an unregistered firearm. Prosecutors said the suspects attacked four substations in the Tacoma area, causing more than $3 million in damage.

In February 2022, three men -- Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, and Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22 -- pleaded guilty in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, to crimes related to a scheme to attack power grids in the United States in furtherance of white supremacist ideology. As part of the conspiracy, each man was assigned a substation in a different region of the United States to attack with rifles, believing their plan would cost the government millions of dollars, cause unrest for Americans and even prompt a race war, federal prosecutors said.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/suspects-...ymTY1ZjGgcNg_cbfOo2WJgHu4QwMhQPKxrKRNnuI

More details....

Neo-Nazi leader and Maryland woman allegedly plotted to ‘completely destroy’ Baltimore, Justice Department says

CNN —

Two people charged with conspiracy to damage energy facilities – a neo-Nazi leader and a woman with whom he had a personal relationship – allegedly planned to attack electrical substations encircling Baltimore and “completely destroy” the entire city, according to federal court documents.

The Justice Department has charged Brandon Clint Russell and Sarah Beth Clendaniel with conspiracy to damage energy facilities, alleging that the Maryland-focused plot was driven by ethnically or racially motivated extremist beliefs.

They “conspired to inflict maximum harm on the power grid,” Tom Sobocinski, who heads the FBI’s field office in Baltimore, said during a news conference Monday. “The accused were not just talking, but taking steps to fulfill their threats and further their extremist goals.”

The charges come as domestic violence experts have warned that attempts by extremist groups to attack power facilities are trending up.

Clendaniel will make her initial appearance at Baltimore’s federal courthouse at 2 p.m. ET, and Russell will appear at a courthouse in Florida at 1:30 p.m. ET, according to the Justice Department.

CNN was unable to reach the defendants or their lawyers for comment.

In a recorded voice conversation last month, Clendaniel allegedly told the FBI source that targeting the facilities would “completely destroy this whole city.” She and Russell allegedly sent the source information about the facilities, and according to the charging papers, Russell sent the source a YouTube video about a recent substation attack in North Carolina.

The FBI also obtained a document allegedly written by Clendaniel that authorities say resembles a manifesto. In it, she allegedly references Hitler, as well as Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and a perpetrator of a terrorist attack in Netherlands.

Russell, according to the the charging documents, ascribes to having neo-Nazi beliefs and had started his own local National Socialist Group.

Before allegedly conspiring to attack the Maryland power grid, authorities say he had plotted with his roommates in Florida to attack energy facilities there. That alleged plot was revealed during an investigation into the 2017 murder of two of Russell’s roommates by another roommate.

Law enforcement officials at Monday’s news conference described Russell and Clendaniel as having both a personal and online relationship, but did not elaborate further.

The Justice Department says that Russell, allegedly under the username “Homunculus,” has been in contact with the FBI’s source since at least June of last year. Homunculus allegedly made several statements to the source throughout 2022 about attacking critical infrastructure.

At one point, as Homunculus and the source discussed Mylar balloons, Homunculus allegedly said that “putting holes in transformers though is the greatest thing somebody can do,” and he allegedly floated other ideas to the source about attacking electrical substations.

Clendaniel, said to be going by the username “Nythra88” and “Kali1889,” introduced herself to the FBI’s confidential source last month, according to the charging papers. She allegedly told the source she wanted “to accomplish something worthwhile,” before she died of a terminal illness, as she sought help obtaining firearms.

The source discussed the plans with Homunculus for Clendaniel to participate in an attack on energy facilities, and the source also taped a nearly two-hour voice conversation he had with Clendaniel on January 24 about the plot, according to the charging papers.

In a separate conversation five days later, Clendaniel told the source in a recorded voice conversation that the targets were facilities surrounding Baltimore.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/06/poli...Dkpech2S1favzx-p4yKMA_nwWwiGaceTX-GdLP7U

The criminal complaint.

https://s3.documentcloud.org/docume...lbrandonclintcriminalcomplaint-final.pdf

Sixty minutes had a segment on this very thing several months ago-- saying how vulnerable our electrical grid system is- ain't freedom of information great- we can look forward to idiots shooting out grid systems. How to defend. Ugh.

Nazis, Geez.

People are so worried about socialism, but don't seem to care about extremists if they say they are doing it for America. Or if they say they are doing it to protect their christian beliefs. Or maybe protect their own race.

Hey, I want to protect my christian beliefs, but I don't want to stop someone who is Muslim from worshiping as they believe. I don't believe I have that right.

Probably why you are not a nazi.

Crickets from the trump brigade. Interesting.

Terrible. They should lock them both up for a very long time.

You whatabout Trump even when a story has literally nothing to do with Trump... Then you ask where his supporters are, like they should be here defending wannabe Nazi's.

And again... what is a Trump brigade?

Seems like you have a serious crush on Donnie. Maybe get a job at Mar-a-Lago?

Did I hear something other than crickets. Lol

Well, what does this have to do with Trump??

Nothing … but I’m betting that part of the trump brigade is responsible for attacking our nations infrastructure.

Are you sure? They sound like run of the mill Biden supporters to me.

Neo-Nazis plot to take down the grid

Plots by white supremacists to target electrical infrastructure in the United States have increased dramatically since 2016, according to a report published by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University in September.

“The rise of accelerationist ideology and doctrine during the past decade likely fueled the increased risk of attack plots within white supremacist milieus targeting critical infrastructure, and the energy sector in particular,” according to the report.

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged six individuals with a “discernible, tangible connection” to neo-Nazi groups such as Atomwaffen Division and The Base with plots to destroy power lines, even a nuclear reactor, the report states.

Other white supremacist plots have threatened electrical infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest.

In 2020 and 2021, federal prosecutors charged five neo-Nazis in connection with conspiracy to damage an energy facility. According to court documents filed by the government, one of the defendants carried a handwritten list of about a dozen locations in Idaho and surrounding states, each housing “a transformer, substation, or other component of the power grid for the Northwest United States, that if destroyed could cause damage” to the grid.

The goal, federal prosecutors stated, was “to attack the power grid both for the purpose of creating general chaos and to provide cover and ease of escape in those areas in which they planned to undertake assassinations and other desired operations to further their goal of creating a white ethno-state.”

https://www.opb.org/article/2023/01...ion-attacks-as-fbi-warns-neo-nazi-plots/

Part of the trump brigade………



The Secret Service was tracking at least one neo-Nazi group and multiple individuals that planned to engage in violence and occupy the Capitol building more than a week before the January 6th insurrection, according to documents obtained by CREW. The documents do not show the agency taking action to prevent violence on the 6th.

A member of Vorherrschaft Division posted on Telegram—a messaging site in part associated with far-right extremists and white supremacists—saying, “We need boots on the ground and voices loud enough to be heard for miles. That’s the only way things are going to change…” In other posts, the same member encouraged users to “push for more nationalist policies and attitudes.”




https://www.citizensforethics.org/r...ervice-knew-of-neo-nazi-threat-on-jan-6/

There are good people on both sides. Stand back and stand by.

LOL It still amazes me how a president can say that and his supporters don't get it. Worse, they think it's perfectly OK. For my part, I think those that support this kind of thinking are traitors.

I certainly wouldn't call them traitors. At some point the rhetoric becomes a little extreme. I think the issue is that often times people see what they want to see and rationalize the things they don't want to see. And I think that works the same way from supporters of both parties. Then there are times when people just make up crazy $#!+ because they want to see something that isn't really there.

So stories like this get me thinking.

Is it a chicken/egg thing? Like if law enforcement would just arrest them, charge them, prosecute them, and the media didn't make it this huge story (since it's not really a huge story, nothing happened), would this stuff kind of fade away and be rare events?

Like are these stories giving other unimaginative extremists ideas? The whole idea behind the attack was an agenda, media feeds right into that agenda. So is that coverage feeding the growth of the event regularity?

Same goes with the mass shootings? Many of these folks are trying to make a statement. So don't give them the forum to make that statement. Report it and move on. We give it so much air time, name the person over and over. Heck we remember the shooters names way more than we remember the victims names, because that's what gets plastered all over our TVs.

Another thought.

Why is the only picture of this women, one with a face covering? It says she did time for Burglary, so they must have a mug shot somewhere?

I really don't have the answer to that. I do think there's some validity to consider that there are a portion of people who are starved for attention and fame that it may trigger them much the way you describe.

But then I look at FBI and law enforcement profiles of people who commit mass shootings and think that has nothing to do with it at all.

In this situation I look at how this was something that had been discussed and planned out by extremists online for quite some time. That both the FBI and Homeland Security saw this coming all along in actually spelling out these threats well before they happened or were being fully planned. As far as most mass shootings it seems to me as though much more of them are about mental issues rather than someone actually trying to make any social or political statement from what I've seen.

But then too I think if you look throughout the history of our nation racially motivated killings and trying to divide people along racial lines have happened all along and well before there was the type of media coverage we have now.

I think what you're referring to may be a bit more amplified now but I certainly don't believe it's the core catalyst for such events.

It's not the only picture....

https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5v4pq/baltimore-power-grid-attack-arrest-atomwaffen

https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trumps-very-fine-people-both-sides-remarks/


I’m posting this because it has been posted over and over on here that he was talking about white supremacists. The fact is he was talking about people on both sides of the argument of the taking down of Robert E Lee’s statue. I think that needs to be clarified because the supporters of Trump are being lumped in with neo nazis and others that support white supremacy.

I think this transcript shows just how inarticulate Trump is and how he is tone deaf. Trump supporters are guilty of following a complete moron but not someone who was equating white supremacist to normal people.

When someone has to try to explain and interpret what they said when it was so obvious what he really meant that isn't a good sign.

The media just covers what others do. It’s in the news. I know the 24 hr news cycle is over saturated but they do cover things like…. "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore," can’t be blaming the media for covering the deplorable actions of others. It is their job.

I wasn't blaming the media, just curious if the over saturation of a story incites more of the same behavior.

It's one thing to report the story, but they often report the same story with no new information for days.

On a side note, something the local news does that irks me, is report a story with no information .

There was a recent story about police at a Goodwill store, the reporter knew absolutely nothing, had no information from police, admitted that customers and people were still allowed inside and were making drop offs. And ends the informationless story with "And neighbors in the area want to know if they should be in fear of their safety.". Like really? You just showed and admitted that people were allow in the store and were making drop offs, and we can see on camera random people just going about their business all around there.