LA Leader Targeted In Domestic Terror Attack: FBI

LOS ANGELES, CA — A U.S. Coast Guard officer arrested for planning a domestic terror attack "on a scale rarely seen in this country" had Los Angeles Rep. Maxine Waters in his sights, according to investigators.

The FBI arrested Christopher Paul Hasson at his Maryland home a week ago, discovering a large cache of weapons and drugs inside his home. In court filings, investigators said Hasson was planning to kill prominent Democrats including Waters and TV personalities like Don Lemon and Joe Scarborough. Though the extent of Hasson's alleged terrorist plot is alarming, it's not the first time Waters was targeted by a would-be assassin, according to investigators. A Florida man arrested last year for allegedly sending pipe bombs to prominent Democrats included Waters among his targets, prosecutors allege. And in July, the same month someone sent her a package addressed to "Anne Thrax,'' a San Pedro man was sentenced for threatening to kill the Congresswoman for criticizing the president.

Waters' profile on the national stage has risen with the presidency of Donald Trump. She has emerged one of his most vocal critics, and he, in turn, has attacked her intelligence. As the chair of the House Financial Service Committee, Waters vowed to obtain the president's tax returns. Her adversarial stance to the president has made her a prominent target on Fox News and right-wing radio.

Waters was among a number of black Democratic voices that Hasson honed in on, according to court records. Hasson was a supporter of a white ethnostate in the Pacific Northwest, a right-wing extremist trope that has been supported by Washington neo-Nazis for decades. Hasson also wrote a letter to an unidentified a neo-Nazi leader expressing his support for a Pacific Northwest whites-only state, according to court records.

“I am writing [to] you regards to your ideas behind North West migration … I am a long time White Nationalist, having been a skinhead 30 plus years ago before my time in the military,” Hasson wrote.

“We need a white homeland as Europe seems lost. How long we can hold out there and prevent n---erization of the Northwest until whites wake up on their own or are forcibly made to make a decision whether to roll over and die or to stand up remains to be seen,” he continued.

According to prosecutors, Hasson planned attacks targeting presidential candidates Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York; Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts; Cory Booker, D-New Jersey; and Kamala Harris, D-California.

"The defendant is a domestic terrorist, bent on committing acts dangerous to human life that are intended to affect governmental conduct," officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland said.

Authorities believe Hasson had been stockpiling weapons since 2017 in preparation for his attack.

You can read the charging documents here:

Christopher P. Hasson charg... by on Scribd

Patch Staffers Alessia Grunberger, Neal McNamara and Paige Austin contributed to this report.