According to court documents revealed on Tuesday, authorities thwarted an attack targeting the UFC cage fighting event at the White House over the weekend. The conspirators, unhappy with the state of the country, considered using drones loaded with explosives and shooting at fleeing panicked crowd members.
The FBI obtained encrypted text messages from about 20 participants who shared detailed area maps and discussed the need for a ‘safe house’ and escape routes after the attack, according to the documents. The court records don’t indicate how close the potential attackers came to carrying out their plan before it was disrupted last week.
The FBI learned of the possible threat on June 10, four days before the mixed martial arts event at the White House’s South Lawn. ‘Thanks to the quick action of the FBI, our partners, and the Department of Justice in a multi-state operation, several individuals are now in custody, and the planned attacks were halted abruptly,’ said the agency director, Kash Patel, in a post on X on Tuesday morning.
Five individuals were arrested in states including Ohio, Missouri, and California, said a law enforcement official familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss information not yet public.
Among those arrested was Tycen Proper, a 19-year-old from Ohio whose mother contacted local law enforcement last week regarding concerns over his firearm purchases and online communications, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case. So far, a federal public defender assigned to represent Proper, who is charged with firearms offenses and crimes including attempted murder of a United States official or employee, has not responded to several messages seeking comment. Proper appeared in court for the first time on Monday in Columbus and faces a detention hearing on Wednesday.
The detainee admitted during an interview with law enforcement that he participated in planning an attack, according to the affidavit, which states that some members of the group began communicating with each other last March through a TikTok group called ‘Vanguard of the Old.’
The affidavit states, ‘Group members declared they wanted to protect America, believing it was headed in the wrong direction.’ The document indicates that group members believed America needed to be brought down so it could be rebuilt. Some expressed a desire that individuals involved with Jeffrey Epstein should not govern the country.
Authorities said the logistics of the attack were discussed through Signal, an app that uses end-to-end encryption for its messaging and calls, via a main chat of ‘approximately 19 individuals’ and smaller secondary chats. Messages obtained from Proper’s phone indicate he discussed the plot with others and pointed out several legislators he believed should be targeted due to their support for Israel, according to the affidavit.
Proper told law enforcement officials he had planned to drive with firearms and body armor to a meeting point in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where the group was ready to convene, he indicated. He mentioned that while he did not intend to shoot people at the White House, others in the group did, as stated in the affidavit.
The plan included using drones to be detonated over the north side of the White House, causing a rushed evacuation into the sniper’s line of fire, awaiting in an attack designed, according to Proper, to ‘spur’ a revolution in America, authorities said.
President Donald Trump, who celebrated his 80th birthday at the UFC event on Sunday, was a friend of Epstein many years ago but has said he ended their relationship before Epstein’s crimes became known. Epstein committed suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday in Évian-les-Bains, France, where he was attending the Group of Seven summit, the republican president said he was not informed about the foiled plot.
Darlene Superville in Évian-les-Bains, France, and Michael Kunzelman in Washington contributed to this report.
This story was translated from English by an AP editor using a generative artificial intelligence tool.
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