WASHINGTON (AP) — Law enforcement officials disrupted a planned attack targeting the UFC cage-fighting show staged at the White House this past weekend, according to court papers unsealed Tuesday that say plotters disgruntled with the direction of the country spoke of flying explosives-laden drones and shooting panicked crowd members as they fled.
The FBI obtained encrypted text messages between roughly 20 participants who shared detailed maps of the
area and discussed the need for a “safe house” and escape routes after the attack, the documents show. It was unclear from the court records how close the would-be attackers came to being able to carry out their plan, which was thwarted last week.
FBI agents learned about the possible threat on June 10, four days before the mixed martial arts extravaganza on the White House’s South Lawn, “and thanks to the rapid action of the FBI, our partners, and the Department of Justice in a multi-state operation, multiple individuals are now in custody and allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold,” Director Kash Patel said in a post on X on Tuesday.
Five people were arrested from states including Ohio, Missouri and California, said a law enforcement official familiar with the matter. The official spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that was not yet public.
Among those arrested was Tycen Proper, a 19-year-old Ohio man whose mother contacted local law enforcement last week with concerns about his firearms purchases and online communications, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.
An assistant federal public defender assigned to represent Proper, who's charged with crimes including attempted murder of an officer or employee of the United States, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Proper admitted in an interview with law enforcement that he participated in the planning of an attack, according to the affidavit, which says some members of the group began communicating with each other last March through a TikTok group called “Vanguard of the Old.”
“The members of the group stated that they wanted to protect the United States, which they believed was headed in the wrong direction,” the affidavit says. “Members of the group believed that the United States needed to be torn down so that it could be rebuilt. Some expressed a desire that people who were involved with Jeffrey Epstein should not govern the country.”
President Donald Trump, who celebrated his 80th birthday at the UFC event on Sunday, was friends with Epstein many years ago but has said he ended their relationship before the disgraced financier’s crimes became known. Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday in Évian-les-Bains, France, where he was attending the Group of Seven summit, Trump, a Republican, said he had not been briefed on the thwarted plot.
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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Évian-les-Bains, France, contributed to this report.
