Brandon Clint Russell and Sarah Beth Clendanie thought they had the perfect crime to disrupt the country. With a plot to encircle and destroy the electrical stations around Baltimore, the ripple effect of the lost electricity would have crippled DC as well. With the layouts and statements made during the investigation, authorities are classifying this as an ethnic and racially motivated crime.
Tom Sobocinski, who heads the FBI’s field office in Baltimore, spoke at a news conference about their arrest on February 6th. The duo “conspired to inflict maximum harm on the power grid. he accused were not just talking but taking steps to fulfill their threats and further their extremist goals.” Their arrest showcases that the threats against power and water facilities by both external and internal threats are up tremendously.
In 2018, the duo started corresponding while serving separate charges. Clendanie has had a wide variety of crimes on his arrest sheet since 2005 when she got 6 years for robbing a convenience store with a butcher knife. Russell meanwhile had received 60 months back in January 2018 for possession of an unregistered device and improper storage of explosive materials.
At the time of his arrest, Russell’s roommate told investigators that Russell and their two other roommates were neo-Nazis actively planning a terrorist attack on the electrical infrastructure along the “Allegator Alley” stretch of I-75. This statement came after the roommate had killed the other two roommates for their incessant bullying of him for his conversion to Islam from being a neo-Nazi. At the time of his arrest, Russell was on supervised release from this case.
Clendanie made her first appearance on February 6th in Federal court in downtown Baltimore and consented through her lawyer to staying behind bars pending further hearings. A preliminary hearing is slated for February 15th, and a plea is expected to come quickly.
Just last month Clendanie was recorded telling an FBI agent that targeting the facilities she and Russell had selected would “completely destroy this whole city.” The duo sent the agent source information about these facilities, with Russell also sending a video via YouTube about a North Carolina facility that had recently been attacked.
The FBI also uncovered a document from Clendanie that ticks all the blocks for a terrorist manifesto. It included references to Hitler, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, and the person being the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway. Laying out where they wanted to hit and how was crucial. With so many conversations on tape of her and Russell talking about her gaining a firearm, the evidence is crystal clear about their intentions.
Russell has maintained an online relationship with an FBI informant since at least last June. With multiple statements under his alias “Homunculus” indicating his intent to attack critical infrastructure, the disruption of the American way has been a sincere goal of his for some time. At one point they discussed the use of mylar balloons to launch their attack. During this time “Homunculus” explained he believed “putting holes in transformers though is the greatest thing somebody can do.”
For her part, Clendanie joined the group discussion under the names “Nythra88” and “Kali1889” within the last month. This is where she unveiled her desire “to accomplish something worthwhile” and explained that she has a terminal illness. Now was the time to act and she focused much of her efforts on finding out how to get firearms of her own. Moving the conversations to phone calls, the FBI agent taped a nearly two-hour conversation about the plot to attack. In a separate conversation five days later, Clendanie clarified that the targets they discussed were surrounding Baltimore.
The rise of this kind of terrorism is the result of Biden and his horrible policies. The releasing of criminals on low or no bail. The idea that everyone can be rehabbed and made back into a good American has proven to be wrong. It’s time to eliminate this kind of trash from the US. We don’t want or need this.
