A plan to slaughter Americans at a celebration of America was reportedly built around a simple piece of logic: hit the buildings, panic the crowd, and herd the fleeing survivors into the crosshairs of a waiting sniper team.
That, according to officials who spoke to Fox News Digital, was the architecture of a terror plot aimed at UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House — and the people who allegedly dreamed it up were not motivated by the usual foreign banners. They wanted to kill “capitalist elites,” “billionaires,” and politicians who take money from a pro-Israel lobby.
Sit with that target list for a moment, because the legacy press would very much prefer that you don’t.
What the FBI says it stopped
The Bureau and its law enforcement partners disrupted the plot over the weekend, with five people in custody as of Monday and investigators identifying as many as 23 individuals in a potential network of plotters. The plan, officials said, called for explosive-laden drones to strike buildings near the event in order to trigger a mass evacuation, funneling terrified attendees toward a pre-positioned sniper team.
A “second wave” was then intended to storm the White House gate itself.
The FBI first learned of the threat on June 10 and moved fast, securing probable cause for an arrest in Cincinnati, where the first suspect was taken into custody. From there, investigators reportedly uncovered Signal chats in which multiple people discussed attacking the event.
A review of one suspect’s iPhone turned up at least 23 Signal users discussing pre-operational activity, with some planning to travel to Fredericksburg, Virginia, on June 12 or 13 to prepare. The investigation reportedly reached across at least a dozen FBI field offices. ABC News independently confirmed the arrests through its own sources.
FBI Director Kash Patel credited the speed of the multi-state response with stopping the attack before it could begin.