White Supremacists Who Plotted Power Grid Attacks Plead Guilty To Terrorism
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The three white supremacists who plotted an attack on the power grid plead guilty to terrorism.
According to the Department of Justice the three men—Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of Katy, Texas; and Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin— who’ve all been arrested – aimed to blow up and destroy power stations in cities across America in the hopes of starting a race war.
Three men have pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges for plotting to attack the U.S. power grid, hoping that the ensuing electricity outages would stir civil and economic unrest that could lead to a race war, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.
Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of Katy, Tex., and West Lafayette, Ind.; and Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wis., sought to assault power grids with “powerful rifles,” federal officials said. The three have pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and face up to 15 years in prison.
“The defendants believed their plan would cost the government millions of dollars and cause unrest for Americans in the region,” the Justice Department said in a news release. “They had conversations about how the possibility of the power being out for many months could cause war, even a race war, and induce the next Great Depression.”
In the fall of 2019, Frost and Cook met in an online chat group, and Frost raised the idea of attacking a power grid, according to the Justice Department. Within weeks, the two started recruiting others. Cook circulated a list of readings that promoted neo-Nazism and white-supremacist ideology as part of the recruitment process, the agency said, and Sawall, already a friend of Cook, quickly joined.
In August 2020, FBI agents searched the residences of the three men and found “racially motivated violent extremism Nazi material” and weapons, according to court documents. In Frost’s bedroom, the FBI found chemicals and components that were “consistent with someone attempting to test and assemble an explosive device.”
The men held “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist views,” Timothy Langan, assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said in the news release.
“As this case shows, federal and state law enforcement agencies are dedicated to working together to protect this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Parker said.
