Over the course of several days, federal law enforcement quietly made arrests in a foiled plot to attack the UFC fights at the White House, but were keeping a lid on the details because the investigation was still ongoing, according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Then FBI Director Kash Patel posted details of the arrests online on Tuesday, claiming FBI credit for the investigation with a nod to “law enforcement partners” that helped.
It took some federal law enforcement officials by surprise, in part because authorities were still working to take suspects into custody in the sprawling investigation into more than two dozen people on an encrypted chat, according to three law enforcement officials. Some of the suspects in the alleged plot spoke of flying drones laden with explosives onto the South Lawn and then shooting at the fleeing attendees, according to law enforcement.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship event was in honor of America’s 250th anniversary and President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.
Law enforcement officials worried that news of the arrests would spook the suspects, the officials said. On Monday, federal prosecutors had asked a judge to seal a case.
One law enforcement official was “shocked” by the public disclosure and worried it could hinder the ongoing probe.
The official said Patel did “a lot of damage” by treating the work of law enforcement partners as “an afterthought” in the investigation.
The second official said that there was frustration among career FBI agents working the case, because interviews were still being conducted after his public pronouncements.
“There were still people being rounded up on a sealed federal case,” they said of Patel’s announcement. “It’s not great.”
There are a total of 26 usernames under investigation, and 14 had been identified, including the five arrested, two additional law enforcement officials said. Three people had been partially identified, while nine usernames had not yet been tied to an individual, they said.
Patel’s announcement has put the director in the spotlight again. Previously, Patel filed a $250 million lawsuit against The Atlantic over a story that focused on concerns about his drinking habits. The lawsuit is ongoing. NBC News reported in February that Trump himself had expressed disappointment with Patel’s actions at the Olympics, when the director was featured on video drinking beer in the locker room of the men’s hockey team after their gold medal victory.
The FBI didn’t dispute frustrations over the rollout, but instead said there had been a collaborative law enforcement effort over the case.
“The FBI and U.S. Secret Service are proud of our strong working relationship. This investigation highlights that continuous partnership and could not have happened without the great work and coordination between our two agencies,” the statement read. “This weekend’s thwarted attack should be a message to any criminal actor that if you target Americans, you will be found and brought to justice.”
Patel took to social media early Tuesday to announce that “multiple individuals” were in custody.
His first post on X at 6:50 a.m. ET included a screenshot of a Fox News story. He replied to that post seven minutes later with a link to the story, which had scant details about the suspected plot besides Patel’s own statement to the outlet. He also posted about it on Truth Social, Trump’s social media website; Patel had been on Truth Social’s board.
The U.S. Secret Service, which investigates threats to the president, made its frustrations known.
“I’ll tell you, the Secret Service led that investigation from the beginning. I’ll tell you that it’s ongoing,” Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn said at an unrelated news conference when asked about the post. “In order to maintain the integrity of the investigation and the security plan, we chose not to leak it.”
Quinn also recalled a phrase he learned early in his career, when he was in the Secret Service’s New York field office: “Don’t choke on your own smoke.”
Secret Service Director Sean Curran’s statement hit a similar note, highlighting the importance of not making statements that could jeopardize cases down the line. “Equally important to our protective mission is ensuring accountability through the justice system,” Curran said. “To that end, our formal comments regarding the specifics of this case will be made through court filings.”
The investigation originated not with federal law enforcement, but with a mother’s call to local law enforcement that she was concerned about her son’s behavior, court documents show. The Knox County Sheriff’s Office and Danville Police Department in Ohio went to the home of 19-year-old Tycen Proper on June 10. He was taken into custody at a mental health center, according to federal authorities. Family members told authorities that Proper had made “sympathetic comments about Adolf Hitler” and posted “anti-Semitic comments on Facebook” in recent months, court documents said.
He was interviewed by the FBI, where he gave up details of the chat, according to federal officials.
By Friday, another suspect from West Virginia told the FBI that group members had canceled their attack plans that morning, officials said.
An FBI task force officer swore out a criminal complaint against Proper on Friday, but the case remained under seal as the investigation unfolded. A federal prosecutor asked a federal magistrate judge to keep the case under seal on Monday, which the magistrate judge agreed to do. The case was eventually unsealed on Tuesday, after Patel’s social media announcement.
By the end of the day Tuesday, five defendants were in custody and facing federal charges: Proper; 24-year-old Bryan Omar Roa; 32-year-old Michael Alan Thomas; 32-year-old Daniel Eskridge; and 31-year-old Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez.
Proper’s attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment, and neither did attorneys for Eskridge and Alvarez. It wasn’t yet clear who was representing Thomas and Roa.
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