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Law enforcement officials disrupted a planned attack targeting the UFC show staged at the White House this past weekend, according to court papers unsealed Tuesday.
Plotters disgruntled with the direction of the country spoke of flying explosives-laden drones to create a diversionary event and then shoot panicked crowd members as they fled, according to the allegations.
The FBI obtained encrypted text messages between roughly 20 participants who shared detailed maps of the area and discussed the need for a “safe house” and escape routes after the attack, the documents show.
It was unclear from the court records how close the would-be attackers came to being able to carry out their plan, which was thwarted last week.
FBI agents learned about the possible threat on June 10, four days before the mixed martial arts extravaganza on the White House’s South Lawn, “and thanks to the rapid action of the FBI, our partners, and the Department of Justice in a multi-state operation, multiple individuals are now in custody and allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X on Tuesday.
“The members of the group stated that they wanted to protect the United States, which they believed was headed in the wrong direction,” the affidavit says. “Members of the group believed that the United States needed to be torn down so that it could be rebuilt. Some expressed a desire that people who were involved with Jeffrey Epstein should not govern the country.”
Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges, having previously served a short prison sentence in Florida on state charges of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18.
Ohio man arrested
According to the affidavit, some members of the group began communicating with each other as early as March through a TikTok group called “Vanguard of the Old.”
Five people from across the country were arrested. Among those arrested was Tycen Proper, a 19-year-old Ohio man whose mother contacted local law enforcement last week with concerns about his firearms purchases and online communications with “individuals who claimed to be ex-military and Christian-based,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.
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Proper and others on the SimpleX chat app allegedly discussed as possible targets members of Congress who had accepted money from American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobby group, including Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Jim Justice and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, and House Reps. Riley Moore and Carol Miller of West Virginia.
It’s not clear that any of those members of Congress attended the Sunday night fight card at the White House.
An assistant federal public defender assigned to represent Proper, who’s charged with crimes including attempted murder of an officer or employee of the United States, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who celebrated his 80th birthday at the UFC event on Sunday, was friends with Epstein for several years. While Trump has offered conflicting answers as to why and how the relationship ended, there’s been no evidence connecting the two men after the early 2000s, well before Epstein’s first arrest in Florida.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday in Évian-les-Bains, France, where he was attending the G7 summit, Trump, a Republican, said he had not been briefed on the thwarted plot.
