A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant arrested last week on weapons and drug charges is a white nationalist who apparently had a hit list of Democratic lawmakers and activists as well as prominent media personalities, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
In a motion for pretrial detention filed in federal court in Maryland, authorities said Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson, 49, was arrested Friday and charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and an opioid called Tramadol.
However, the filing described the charges as "the proverbial tip of the iceberg," and referred to Hasson as "a domestic terrorist" who meant to "murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country."
The filing was first noted by researchers from George Washington University's Program on Extremism.
Prosecutors say Hasson regularly read a manifesto written by Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian far-right extremist who killed 77 people in a pair of 2011 terror attacks, and stockpiled weapons and ammunition. According to the documents, federal agents recovered 15 firearms and "conservatively" more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition from Hasson's "cramped basement apartment" in Silver Spring, Maryland.
According to the document, Hasson organized a spreadsheet of so-called "traitors" that he subdivided into three categories: A,B, and C. So-called "Category A" traitors included Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut (referred to as "Sen blumen jew" in the spreadsheet), Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (referred to as "poca warren") Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California.
Also listed in "Category A" were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Rep. Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., MSNBC personalities Joe Scarborough, Chris Hayes, and Ari Melber as well as CNN host Don Lemon. Names in the "Category B" list included Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., CNN personalities Chris Cuomo and Van Jones, and the Democratic Socialists of America.
Prosecutors say Hasson Googled topics including "what if trump illegally impeached," "best place in dc to see congress people," and "civil war if trump impeached" roughly a month before his arrest.
