Washington, DC (AFP) – A US Coast Guard officer who espoused white supremacist views and drafted a target list of Democratic politicians and prominent media figures has been arrested on firearms and drug charges.

Christopher Paul Hasson, 49, an admirer of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, was arrested last week and a powerful arsenal seized from his home in a Washington suburb, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.

“The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country,” US District Attorney Robert Hur said in a motion seeking that Hasson be detained until trial.

“The defendant is a domestic terrorist, bent on committing acts dangerous to human life that are intended to affect governmental conduct,” Hur said.

Hasson, who was arrested on Friday, is being held on drug charges and for unlawfully possessing firearms and ammunition.

The US Attorney’s office said 15 guns and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition were recovered from Hasson’s cramped basement apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland, along with illegal drugs, including steroids and human growth hormone.

Prosecutors said Hasson identified himself as a “White Nationalist for over 30 years and advocated for ‘focused violence’ in order to establish a white homeland.”

Hasson routinely perused portions of the “Breivik manifesto” on amassing firearms and how to compile a list of targets, they said.

Among the documents seized, according to prosecutors, was a draft letter to an unidentified American neo-Nazi leader in which Hasson described himself as a “long time White Nationalist” and a “man of action.”

A spreadsheet of potential targets compiled by Hasson included Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats in the House and Senate.

Media personalities on the list included CNN’s Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and Joe Scarborough.

– Former Marine, Army National Guardsman –

Prosecutors said Hasson’s internet searches included such queries as “most liberal senators,” “where do most senators live in DC” and “are supreme court justices protected.”

He also routinely perused “pro-Russian, neo-fascist and neo-Nazi literature.”

In a draft email, Hasson wrote that “Liberalist/globalist ideology is destroying traditional peoples esp white. No way to counteract without violence.”

According to prosecutors, Hasson began obtaining his cache of firearms in 2017 and had also expressed a desire to obtain biological weapons.

Hasson, a lieutenant in the US Coast Guard, has been working at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington since 2016 as an acquisitions officer, according to prosecutors.

He served in the US Marine Corps from 1988-1993 and also spent two years in the US Army National Guard.

Hasson is to appear before a court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Thursday.

Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer, is serving a 21-year sentence for the July 2011 massacre of 77 people, most of them teenagers who were attending a youth camp.

© Agence France-Presse

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

CBS Boston: “Feds: Coast Guard Lieutenant Compiled Hit List Of Lawmakers Including Sen. Warren”

Washington, D.C. (AFP) – Donald Trump’s billionaire commerce secretary fueled accusations Thursday that the US administration was deaf to the impact of the government shutdown after saying he didn’t understand why some federal workers were turning to food banks.

Wilbur Ross shrugged off the impact of the shutdown — now in its 34th day — saying workers should just take out loans to cover their expenses.

Asked by CNBC television whether he was aware that some federal workers were getting food from homeless shelters, Ross said: “Well I know they are and I don’t really quite understand why.”

Noting that the 800,000 federal workers currently working without pay will eventually receive their paychecks, Ross said “there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it.

“The idea that it’s paycheck or zero is not a really valid idea,” he said, while adding that he did feel “sorry for the individuals that have hardship cases.”

Ross’ comments were ridiculed by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is refusing to authorize the $5.7 billion in funding Trump wants to build a wall on the border with Mexico.

AFP

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said top members of the Trump administration don’t know what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck
“They just don’t understand what it means to live paycheck to paycheck,” Pelosi said.

“They have Wilbur Ross saying he doesn’t understand why when he was asked about people going to food lines and pantries,” she told reporters.

“I don’t know, is this the ‘Let them eat cake’ kind of attitude,” she said. “Or ‘Call your father for money.'”

– ‘They need that paycheck’ –

Senator Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, also lashed out at Ross, saying his comments “reveal the administration’s callous indifference towards the federal workers it is treating as pawns.”

AFP

US President Donald Trump said many federal employees who are working without pay support his demand for funding for a border wall with Mexico
“Secretary Ross, they just can’t call their stockbroker and ask them to sell some of their shares,” he said. “They need that paycheck.”

It wasn’t just Democrats criticizing the commerce secretary’s remarks.

“I don’t think comments like that help,” said Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah.

Asked about Ross’ remarks, Trump said his commerce secretary has done a “great job” but “perhaps he should have said it differently.”

Trump said his message for federal employees working without pay was “I love them. I respect them. I really appreciate the great job they are doing.

“Many of those people that are not getting paid are totally in favor of what we are doing because they know the future of this country is dependent on having a strong border,” he said.

Ross is not the first senior Trump administration official to make comments about furloughed federal workers that have raised eyebrows.

Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, came under fire after suggesting on PBS Newshour earlier this month that federal workers were essentially getting free vacation.

“A huge share of government workers were going to take vacation days, say between Christmas and New Year’s,” Hassett said.

“And then we have a shutdown, and so they can’t go to work,” he said. “So then they have the vacation, but they don’t have to use their vacation days.

“And then they come back, and they get their back pay,” he said. “Then in some sense they’re better off.”

Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said Thursday that Trump and other top administration officials have shown a lack of “common decency” by failing to sit down with struggling federal workers.

“The truth is I’ve never seen a president with so little empathy,” Warner said.

© Agence France-Presse

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

CNBC: “Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross: Unpaid federal workers should take out loans”

At the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards, he famously interrupted an acceptance speech by the then 19-year-old Swift for Best Female Video to say that Beyonce deserved the honor.

“Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time!” he said, leaving Swift in tears.

Now, their on-off feud has made the somewhat unlikely shift from the stage to the political arena.

West is a vocal — and somewhat improbable — supporter of President Donald Trump and will sit down with him for lunch at the White House this week, after meeting his wife Kim Kardashian earlier this year.

Last weekend, the rapper made headlines with an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” that ended with an off-camera defense of Trump — while sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat.

“There’s so many times I talk to, like, a white person about this and they say ‘How could you like Trump? He’s racist.'” said West, who is 41.

“If someone inspires me and I connect with them, I don’t have to believe in all their policies.”

Swift got press for her politics as well, shedding years of silence on her views just a month ahead of crucial midterm elections to endorse two Democrats running in Tennessee, where she has lived for years.

The 28-year-old pop star is an outspoken feminist and backer of the #MeToo movement, but until she took to Instagram on Sunday, she had been famously apolitical. Not any more.

Swift appealed to her 112 million followers to register to vote and cast their ballots for Democrats running for the Senate and House.

“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” Swift said.

“I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country,” she added.

– ’25 percent less’ –

AFP/File / LISA O’CONNOR. Taylor Swift has shed her apolitical persona and endorsed Democrats running for the House and Senate in Tennessee, where she has lived since her teen years.

Trump has been a vocal Swift fan in the past, tweeting her praises on several occasions, but the Republican president has dialed down his affection for her.

“Let’s say that I like Taylor’s music about 25 percent less now, okay?” Trump told reporters on Monday.

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential hopeful whose daughter Sarah Sanders is the White House spokeswoman, fired off a dismissive tweet.

“So @taylorswift13 has every right to be political but it won’t impact election unless we allow 13 yr old girls to vote,” Huckabee tweeted.

The last laugh may be on Huckabee.

Kamari Guthrie of Vote.org told Buzzfeed News that voter registrations have surged since Swift’s Instagram post.

Vote.org had received 65,000 registrations within the 24 hours after Swift’s message, more than the 56,669 recorded in the entire month of August,” Guthrie said.

“Thank God for Taylor Swift,” Guthrie told Buzzfeed.

– ‘How good is Kanye West?’ –

The White House meanwhile announced that West would have lunch with Trump on Thursday and would also meet with his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.

AFP/File / TIMOTHY A. CLARY. Kanye West and Donald Trump at Trump Tower in December 2016.

“Topics of discussions will include manufacturing resurgence in America, prison reform, how to prevent gang violence, and what can be done to reduce violence in Chicago,” Sanders said.

West has taken flak for his support of Trump, who won less than 10 percent of the black vote in 2016.

Despite Trump boasting regularly that black unemployment is at historic lows, only 10 percent of the African-Americans surveyed last month by Quinnipiac University said they like his policies.

That has not stopped West from singing Trump’s praises — and the president returning the favor.

“Republicans are delivering for African-Americans like never before,” Trump said at an election rally last week in Tennessee.

“And you saw that the other night with Kanye West,” Trump said in a reference to the rapper’s “SNL” appearance.

“How good was Kanye West?”

Featured Photo: GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards in New York, Kanye West jumped onstage after Taylor Swift (C) won the “Best Female Video” award, interrupting her speech — and launching a feud.

Related video added by Informed Comment:

USA Today: “Taylor Swift endorses a political candidate for the first time”

The charges were drawn up by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who is looking into Russian interference in the November 2016 vote and whether any members of Trump’s campaign colluded with Moscow.

The 29-page indictment accuses members of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU of carrying out “large-scale cyber operations” to steal and release Democratic Party documents and emails.

“There’s no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in announcing the charges at a press conference in Washington.

“There’s no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime,” Rosenstein added, although the “conspirators corresponded with several Americans during the course of the conspiracy through the internet.”

However, “there’s no allegation in this indictment that the Americans knew they were corresponding with Russian intelligence officers,” he said.

Rosenstein said he briefed Trump about the indictment before Friday’s announcement and that the timing was determined by “the facts, the evidence, and the law.”

The deputy attorney general’s press conference came as Trump was meeting Queen Elizabeth II and just three days before his meeting with Putin in Helsinki.

– Calls to cancel Putin meeting –

Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, immediately called on Trump to cancel the Putin talks.

POOL/AFP / Ben STANSALL. The indictments of 14 Russian military intelligence officers were announced as President Donald Trump met with Queen Elizabeth II.

“These indictments are further proof of what everyone but the president seems to understand: President Putin is an adversary who interfered in our elections to help President Trump win,” Schumer said in a statement.

“President Trump should cancel his meeting with Vladimir Putin until Russia takes demonstrable and transparent steps to prove that they won’t interfere in future elections,” he said.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden also urged Trump to cancel the summit saying “in light of what’s been revealed about Russia’s attack on our democracy, the president shaking Putin’s hand would be a moment of historic cowardice.”

Republican Senator Ben Sasse stopped short of calling on Trump to cancel the meeting but said “All patriotic Americans should understand that Putin is not America’s friend, and he is not the president’s buddy.”

Speaking earlier Friday, before the indictments were announced, Trump said he would ask Putin about the allegations of Russian election meddling.

“I will absolutely, firmly ask the question, and hopefully we’ll have a good relationship with Russia,” he told a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May.

But he simultaneously denounced the Mueller investigation as a “rigged witch hunt,” and said he has been “tougher on Russia than anybody.”

“We have been extremely tough on Russia,” Trump said.

The US president recalled that 60 intelligence officers were expelled from the Russian embassy in Washington in response to a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in Britain.

Russia has denied any involvement in the attack and rejected accusations that it interfered in the US presidential election in a bid to bring about the defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

– No ‘knowing involvement’ by Trump campaign –

In a statement, the White House highlighted Rosenstein’s remarks that no Americans had been charged in the indictment.

“Today’s charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result,” it said. “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along.”

The indictment alleges that beginning in March 2016 the GRU agents began targeting over 300 employees and volunteers of the Clinton presidential campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

“The conspirators covertly monitored the computers of dozens of DCCC and DNC employees, implanted hundreds of files containing malicious computer code, and stole emails and other documents,” it said.

Around June 2016, they began releasing tens of thousands of the stolen emails and documents using “fictitious online personas, including ‘DCLeaks’ and ‘Guccifer 2.0,'” the indictment said.

Some of the documents and emails were released through a website identified in the indictment only as “Organization 1” which is believed to be Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks.

Other documents and emails were made public through a website and Twitter account known as DCLeaks which the GRU falsely attributed to a group of “American hacktivists.”

Mueller, the special counsel, previously indicted 13 Russians and three companies for allegedly interfering in the presidential vote.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been indicted for money laundering and other crimes while former national security adviser Mike Flynn has been charged with lying to the FBI.

Featured Photo: GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / CHIP SOMODEVILLA. US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told reporters 12 Russian military officers were accused of “conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election”.