Federal prosecutors say a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant arrested last week planned attacks on prominent Democrats and journalists, according to a court filing made public this week.
Christopher, 49, of Silver Spring, Maryland, was arrested Feb. 15. Prosecutors say agents found 15 guns and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition at his apartment. He was initially charged with gun and drug related counts, but prosecutors wrote in a detention filing in U.S. District Court in Maryland that those charges are only “the proverbial tip of the iceberg.” They argue he is too dangerous to be released before trial.
Prosecutors allege he had been stockpiling weapons since at least 2017 and started a list of possible targets on Jan. 17. USA Today and other outlets report the list included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, Reps. Maxine Waters and Ilhan Omar, and television journalists including Chris Hayes and Don Lemon.
The filing also says he searched online for where members of Congress live in Washington and for what a civil war might look like if a president were impeached. Prosecutors say he repeatedly read white nationalist and neo Nazi material, studied the manifesto of Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik, and wrote in a 2017 draft email about wanting to find a way to harm huge numbers of people. They also cite a letter he wrote to himself calling for focused violence and describing himself as a long time white nationalist.
Christopher is due back in court for a detention hearing. So far he has been charged only with the gun and drug counts, and no response from his defense team had been reported at the time of this post. The investigation was led by the Coast Guard.
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