Read news reports about the arrest last week of lunatic Coast Guard Officer Christopher Hasson and you might get the impression that he was in some vague sense a supporter of President Trump. But that’s why I read the full court filing instead to find out the truth. Sure enough, there’s not really any evidence he was.
MSNBC couple Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski screamed at one of their guests Thursday insisting (without evidence!) that Hasson’s unfulfilled plans to kill a bunch of Democrats and media liberals was directly inspired by a devotion to Trump. (Admittedly, the outburst had less to do with legitimate concern for political violence and more to do with Scarborough and Brzezinski getting to talk about themselves.)
Scarborough was allegedly one of the people Hasson targeted. The court filing says that on Dec. 27 last year, Hasson searched the Internet for Scarborough, after reading a news story quoting Scarborough as having called Trump “the worst ever.” Hasson then added Scarborough’s name to a spreadsheet of names that included high-profile Democrats and other media personalities.
Trump’s name comes up twice in the court filings. On Jan. 17 of this year, among the things Hasson searched the Internet for included “what if trump illegally impeached” and “civil war if trump impeached.”
Those details made it into reports on Hasson’s arrest by the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC News and others. But the motive for Hasson’s unrealized roughshod plan for “complete destruction” wasn’t Trump or anything Trump said. The court document shows that it was a preoccupation with race and a nihilistic view that had no clear attachment to politics at all, outside of an unspecified antipathy for “liberalist/globalist ideology.”
In other words, Hasson was crazy.
According to prosecutors, Hasson wrote in an email drafted June 2, 2017, “I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth,” though he lucidly acknowledged that he would likely need “the unwitting help of another power/country.” He faults “liberalist/globalist ideology” for “destroying traditional peoples esp[ecially] white” ones.
His preferred method for what he called “complete destruction” was a mass plague of disease or poison.
Later in the email he writes to himself, “Read and get education have to move to friendly area and start to organize. Get leadership within the community, sheriff, city manager, mayor, lawyer?” (It’s unclear whether his campaign for city comptroller would begin before or after the extermination of liberalist/globalists.)
He also says he wants to “start small” by learning “basic chemistry.”
Then you get to the part of the email that makes sense of his interest in the potential impeachment of Trump or some civil war resulting from his presidency.
Hasson wrote, “Look up tactics used during Ukrainian civil war. During unrest target both sides to increase tension. In other words provoke gov/police to over react which should help to escalate violence. BLM protests or other left crap would be ideal to incite to violence.”
Hasson didn’t care about Trump. He was looking for a catalyst that would help spark his fantasy, which included shooting up liberals, becoming town sheriff, and learning the periodic table.
The court filing says that in September 2017, Hasson wrote to an unnamed “known American neo-Nazi leader” to say, “We need a white homeland…” The document makes clear that the real inspiration behind Hasson’s ideas (such as they were) and his stock piling of guns and ammunition was the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway carried out by Anders Behring Breivik.
Prosecutors said that “from early 2017 through the date of his arrest [Feb. 15], the defendant routinely perused portions of the Breivik manifesto that instruct a prospective assailant to amass appropriate firearms, food, disguises, and survival supplies.”
Nowhere outside of Hasson’s two searches for Trump and impeachment or civil war is the president mentioned. There was the search for Scarborough after the host criticized Trump but that only indicates Hasson simply used criticism of Trump as a way of gauging who fit his hazy idea of “liberalist/globalist.”
Hasson said nothing of “fake news,” nothing about making America great. He only harbored hatred for non-whites, a dim hope that some day he might kill a lot of “liberalist/globalists” and aspirations to run for state-level office.
On his show Thursday, Scarborough also claimed (without evidence!) that the mass shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue, which left 11 dead, was carried out by a Trump lover. In fact, that guy hated Trump, referring to him as a “globalist” with an affinity for Jews.
Scarborough is lying about Hasson and he’s lying about the synagogue shooting. Don’t let him, or anyone else in the media, get away with it.
