A neo-Nazi couple, including the founder of extremist terror group Atomwaffen Division, has been arrested and charged by federal officials for an alleged plot to take down the power grid of Baltimore to “completely destroy” the majority Black city.
Atomwaffen Division (AWD) founder Brandon Russell and Sarah Clendaniel have been charged by the Justice Department with conspiracy to destroy an energy facility. Prosecutors say that their plan was to use firearms to attack five power substations around Baltimore; Clendaniel reportedly told an FBI informant that taking down the stations in quick succession “would completely destroy this whole city.”
Head of the FBI’s Baltimore field office Thomas Sobocinski said in a news conference on Monday that Clendaniel and Russell had plotted to inflict “maximum harm” to the power grid and that they were “not just talking, but taking steps to fulfill their threats and further their extremist goals.” Sobocinski further said that the plot was “racially or ethnically motivated.”
The pair had studied publicly available information about the power grid and allegedly plotted to take it down during peak usage after a winter storm, prosecutors said, by targeting transformers that are harder to replace.
The FBI has been on heightened alert for such plots due to recent attacks on power stations in North Carolina, Oregon and Washington, though the agency says there is currently no evidence that the incidents are related. Neo-Nazis and extremist right-wing groups have increasingly identified attacks on power grids as a potential strategy to cause chaos across the nation in order to accelerate the U.S.’s descent into white supremacy and fascism.
An account linked with Russell recently sent information about the North Carolina power attack to the FBI informant, prosecutors said.
The FBI has obtained a document resembling a manifesto, allegedly written by Clendaniel, containing references to Hitler, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Anders Behring Breivik, a neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in 2011 by bombing the outside of the office of the Norwegian prime minister at the time, a member of Norway’s left-leaning Labour Party, and opening fire on a Labour Party-affiliated youth summer camp.
The 34-year-old said she was dying of kidney disease and told the informant that she wanted to “accomplish something worthwhile.” In her statement, Clendaniel allegedly wrote, “I would sacrifice **everything** for my people.”
Russell is a founding member of Atomwaffen Division, which the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as a “neo-Nazi accelerationism” group with the goal of destroying the country and replacing it with a white ethnostate. He had allegedly previously been plotting to attack the power grid in Florida — a plot that was unveiled during the investigation into the murder of two of Russell’s roommates by a fourth roommate who was also a member of AWD.
The two met while incarcerated and had developed their alleged plot while in prison. Clendaniel was in prison for a series of armed robberies in Maryland.Russell was arrested in Florida in 2017 for unlawfully possessing an explosive device. He had a variety of explosives, ingredients for explosives, firearms and white supremacist paraphernalia in his possession, and a former AWD member said at trial that Russell had planned to carry out an attack against a synagogue, power lines and a nuclear reactor site.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.