The UFC match plot: how a far-right group tried to assassinate Trump at his own event | US news

When 19-year-old Tycen Proper graduated high school, his parents gave him at least $3,000 in “graduation money,” according to court documents. Despite his generosity, he seemed content to live at his family’s home in a small Ohio town near Amish country and spend more and more time online.

But Proper had a kind of passion, affidavit says. He quit his job to focus on a special project he planned with his online friends. His mother saw him studying maps of Washington DC. He invested his graduation money in investments that made his father nervous: rifles, shotguns, bulletproof vests, ammunition.

His parents eventually told police that their son was afraid of what would hatch. They were right to be.

Nearly two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Proper and some of his collaborators had foiled a plot to assassinate Donald Trump and other elected officials at a recent Ultimate Fighting Championship event at the White House. As of Friday, eight people from across the country are in custody. They all appear to be men in their 20s or early 30s.

But investigators said at least 19 people were involved in the conspiracy. Many people in the group met through TikTok. After verifying each other’s identities and ideological affiliations, they moved into closed groups on encrypted messaging apps Signal and SimpleX, where they divided themselves into risk tolerance “tiers.” Some met in person for tactical training.

The conspirators planned to hold a demonstration near the White House to distract law enforcement. While Trump and other officials applauded the UFC’s mixed martial arts gladiators, the conspirators would bomb the event with drone-borne explosives, causing a panicked evacuation to an area where waiting marksmen would strike “high-value targets.” A “second wave” of attackers will attack the White House, according to court documents.

Must have been one of the alleged conspirators said others are “a goddamn bloodbath”.

After the story broke, breaking news about the Iran war and World Cup excitement were partially overshadowed. But the facts are shocking and perhaps confusing: the conspirators had far-right views but hoped to kill Republican officials. They chose their targets with the help of a left-wing website that tracks politicians who receive donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), a pro-Israel lobby group. And Abraham Alvarez, 31, one of the alleged ringleaders of the plot. reportedly An undocumented immigrant from Mexico.

The Trump administration added to the confusion by downplaying the seriousness of the threat while praising the FBI’s heroism in stopping the plot. “[T]The plot wasn’t that advanced,” J.D. Vance in question last week. “They didn’t really do that much planning.” He added: “I understand why people are so affected by this… But thank God we have good law enforcement.”

Similarly, some conservative media outlets used different aspects of the story to imply that the conspirators were actually bad seeds of the far left. One of the alleged conspirators, an article published in Federalist magazine defended“He parroted Democratic conspiracy theories that President Trump was protecting child predators linked to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”

This framing is disingenuous — Trump, like everyone else, has brought conspiracy theories about Epstein into the mainstream — but it points to the fact that, from the outside, the plot may seem ideologically incoherent. Still, it’s consistent, said Michael Edison Hayden, a journalist and analyst who studies extremism.

He said far-right communities online are generally hostile to Trump and the Maga movement, as well as Democrats. He said people like the alleged UFC conspirators are “anti-government and the government is run by Republicans.” He suspects the conspirators had fairly standard anti-elite views with antisemitic and accelerationist characteristics.

According to investigators, the conspirators were angry about the Trump administration’s continued alliance with Israel. Proper praised Adolf Hitler in his posts on social media. Another alleged co-conspirator, Michael Alan Thomas, 32, stated that he “believes the U.S. government is run by an elite group of individuals who sacrifice and consume babies.” [Jeffrey] “He is protected by Epstein and now President Donald Trump.” in questionHe adds that Thomas also “bears some of the responsibility for this corruption in government” [on] “The Jewish people hold them and Israel responsible for the ongoing war with Iran.”

He and his collaborators allegedly thought their attacks would bring about (or “accelerate”) a second American Revolution.

While the U.S. Justice Department acknowledged its outrage over what the conspirators called the “Epstein class,” the government’s statement still downplayed a critical element, the recent journalist Jonathan Larsen. defended: Christian extremism.

According to court documents, Proper’s mother said her son had become more religious recently. He feared his friends were manipulating his newfound Christian enthusiasm. He met an “online group” [of] Individuals who represent themselves as former military members who may share a Christian-based ideology,” an affidavit states. in question. The group “expressed extreme religious and anti-government sentiments.”

conspirators crooked He used biblical language about “shepherds” and “lions’ dens” and believed that demons (or at least demon worshipers) preyed on children; itself a QAnon- and Epstein-era update of the age-old Christian anti-Semitic trope. According to court documents, investigators to create A diary in which Proper wrote that “the government is trying to control people and sacrifice children and others to a demonic figure.”

“We are seeing a very aggressive ideological civil war going on on the far right,” said Matthew D Taylor, an expert on contemporary Christian nationalism.

Although both groups use Christian rhetoric, the people on one side are Christian Zionists who work closely with the Trump administration and mostly support the state of Israel. On the other side are anti-interventionist Christian nationalists who feel disappointed and betrayed by the Maga movement. He said they choose to describe themselves as “America First” and benefit from a religious anti-Semitism that “has been part of the far right for a very long time.”

He stated that the US alliance with Israel has become an important issue on the right due to the Gaza war. Charlie Kirk’s assassination increased tensions because Kirk was on both sides of the Israeli line and both sides wanted to claim his legacy. But all this pales into insignificance in the face of the Iranian war; It was “the final straw” for people on the far right who were suspicious of Israel’s influence on Trump, he said.

Taylor said Trump was able to keep the groups together, but these tensions and Trump’s indecisiveness about the Epstein files collapsed the coalition.

Even evangelical Christians, who once formed the basis of Christian Zionism, are losing their support for Israel. Young evangelicals do not share their parents’ philosophizing. “Going into Iran, I think Trump very much misread the landscape and thought, ‘Oh, the Evangelicals are all Christian Zionists; they’re going to love me for doing this,’” Taylor said.

Vance may be right to describe the plot as amateurish. The conspirators were stopped before they could reach Washington, and one of them was apparently frustrated by the problem with the car. It is also unclear to what extent everyone who knew about the plot actively supported it. Due to the prevalence of boasting, fantasy, and irony-layered humor in far-right spaces, some may not have thought the plot was real.

But terrorist plots often begin in a strange limbo between fantasy and violent reality, and the possibilities are grim. Law enforcement officials said the alleged conspirators had thousands of bullets.

“I don’t think this group of young men is particularly unique,” ​​Taylor said. “In fact, there are large numbers – perhaps thousands – of young men across the country who are drawn into similar communities, similar discussions, similar ideas.”

Possible domestic terrorist attacks are often stopped only because concerned family members notify police, Taylor said. “That’s what you hope family members will do,” he said. “But it’s a pretty weak branch to trust.”