This story reads like a great piece of fiction, but it's anything but fake news.
Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson was arrested on a federal criminal complaint charging him with gun and drug offenses on Feb. 15.
Sounds like pretty run of the mill stuff, right?
Well, it probably was until a pretrial detention memo filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland came to light on Twitter.
Federal agents found 15 firearms — including several rifles — and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition inside Hasson’s basement apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland. They also found a container with more than 30 bottles that were labeled as human growth hormone, court papers said.
"The current charges are the tip of the iceberg," the memo reads. "The defendant is a domestic terrorist, bent on committing acts dangerous to human life that are intended to affect governmental conduct."
The memo also alleges that in September of 2017 Hasson sent himself a draft letter which he had apparently written to a known American neo-Nazi leader.
"We need a white homeland as Europe seems lost," Hasson wrote.
The memo also alleges that Hasson conducted online searches and "made thousands of visits for pro-Russian, neo-fascist, and neo-Nazi literature" from January 2017 to January 2019.
In another draft email, Hasson wrote that he was "dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on earth," pondered how he might be able to acquire anthrax or toxins to create botulism or a deadly influenza, and described an "interesting idea" that included "biological attacks followed by attack on food supply."
Hasson was also a supporter of Anders Breivik, who committed two coordinated terror attacks in Norway that led to the deaths of 77 people.
"From early 2017 through the date of his arrest, the defendant routinely perused portions of the Breivik manifesto that instruct a prospective assailant to amass appropriate firearms, food, disguises and survival supplies," the memo reads.
In December of 2018, Hasson performed an internet search for Joe Scarborough after the MSNBC host called President Donald Trump "the worst ever."
"On January 17, 2019 ... the defendant compiled a list of prominent Democratic Congressional leaders, activists, political organizations, and MSNBC and CNN personalities," the memo continues.
When he was arrested in Silver Spring, Maryland, Hasson also had a large quantity of hit list of people he intended to kill. He is due to be arraigned tomorrow.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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