I believe an unlikely mix of alleged drug trafficking related politicos and alleged white nationalist related politicos united to elect the infamous “Bloc of Four” in the abysmal voter turnout election of 2005. During their four year term the drug business was good again and white nationalists used Coatesville as an example on white supremacist websites like “Stormfront”. Strong community organization and support from law enforcement, in particular Chester County District Attorney Joseph W. Carroll has begun to turn our community around. The Chester County drug trafficking that I believe centers on Coatesville continues and I believe we still have public officials in place that profit from the drug sales. But the people here are amazing and continue to work against the odds to make Coatesville a good place to live.
People see the internet posts and talk about them. Corporate news might be powerful in Washington DC but not in the rest of the nation.
I was a planning commissioner in Lower Frederick Township Montgomery County PA. One of the few registered Democrats in local government. I was told to “be careful.” There was an active KKK/Skinhead organization. They had cross lighting ceremonies along the Perkiomen Creek. I wasn’t careful. I got a reputation. A woman called me when she had a problem with the skinheads in the home next to her. I went to the mayor of Schwenksville. In a few days the skinheads were gone.
Growing up around them I kind of have a nose for KKK. Who are the most frightening people I ever met. Talk to people a while and you can figure out who you can trust. The Mayor of Schwenksville was one person. A local auto mechanic, former Army MP was another. The Republican extremists might think they have areas locked down with fear & hate but they don’t. Americans are overwhelmingly good not hateful people.
There were some “America First” Nazis in the Republican Party before & even months after Germany declared war on the United States.
“At its height, the Bund had organized 20 youth training camps. Promoted as family-friendly summer camps, Camp Siegfried in Long Island, Camp Hindenberg in Wisconsin, and Deutschhorst Country Club in Pennsylvania were some of the camps devoted to promoting favorable views of Nazi Germany and spreading Nazi ideology in the United States. The camps’ popularity grew rapidly. The New Jersey division of the Bund opened its 100-acre Camp Norland at Sussex Hills in 1937 and the annual German Day festivities at Camp Siegfried in Long Island attracted 40,000 people in 1938.”
Here in Coatesville John Birch Society Chapter Leader Pat Sellers kept his admiration for Hitler almost hidden.
In York County PA I met several “Hitler did bad things but he was good for Germany' people.
Now some PA Republicans like Doug Mastriano openly support Nazis.
Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, is most famous for having participated in the January 6 insurrection, continuing to repeat Donald Trump’s election lies, and threatening to use his authority over that state’s election mechanics to instigate a constitutional crisis. But he also has maintained ties to an undisguised anti-Semite.
Mastriano has paid Gab, a white-nationalist site, for “consulting.” Gab’s founder and CEO, Andrew Torba, has responded to reporters who exposed his ties to Mastriano with a series of anti-Semitic diatribes.
“We don’t want people who are atheists. We don’t want people who are Jewish. We don’t want people who are, you know, nonbelievers, agnostic, whatever. This is an explicitly Christian movement because this is an explicitly Christian country.”
An incredibly ominous sign in the GOP’s rightward lurc
July 28, 2022
Deposition Transcripts of January 6 TRAITORS Finally Released and OMG!:
***
Nick Fuentes' success story. His parents told him get a job. He said let me try out my white nationalist/Nazi podcast from the basement. It worked. Now he’s a leader in the Republican Party hate machine & moving into real estate.
Hatewatch uncovered Fuentes’ deception by examining police records and archives of Fuentes’ livestreams, conducting interviews and making observations in Fuentes’ new neighborhood of Berwyn, in the inner-western part of Chicago’s suburbs.
I know it takes a while but this video makes the conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 Election a little easier to understand. And you will laugh:
Dec 16, 2022
MAGA Congressman Scott Perry squared off with the DOJ and Special Counsel Jack Smith before the DC Grand Jury in connection with his January 6 text messages. MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports:
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Perry was "one of the leading figures in the effort to throw out Pennsylvania’s votes in the 2020 presidential election."[72]
After the election, Perry promoted false claims of election fraud.[73][74] Days after the election, in text messages to White House Chief of StaffMark Meadows, Perry suggested John Ratcliffe should direct the National Security Agency to investigate alleged Chinese hacking. Perry also asserted "the Brits" were behind a conspiracy to manipulate voting machines and that CIA director Gina Haspel was covering it up. The next month, he sent Meadows a link to a YouTube video that asserted voting machines had been manipulated via satellite from Italy; Meadows later sent the video to former Acting Attorney General Richard Donoghue, seeking an investigation.[75][76][77] Donoghue told the committee the contentions in the video, originating from QAnon and far-right platforms which had been brought to the White House, were "pure insanity."[78]
Perry reportedly played a key role in a December 2020 crisis at the Justice Department, in which Trump considered firing Rosen and replacing him with Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the civil division of the DOJ.[74] According to The Los Angeles Times, Perry "prompted" Trump to consider the replacement.[81]The New York Times reported that Perry introduced Clark to Trump because Clark's "openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Mr. Trump with a welcome change from Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president's efforts to undo them."[74] Before the certification of the electoral college vote on January 6, Perry and Clark reportedly discussed a plan in which the Justice Department would send Georgia legislators a letter suggesting the DOJ had evidence of voter fraud and suggesting the legislators invalidate Georgia's electoral votes, even though the DOJ had investigated reports of fraud but found nothing significant, as attorney general Bill Barr had publicly announced weeks earlier.[74][82] Clark drafted a letter to Georgia officials and presented it to Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue. It claimed the DOJ had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States" and urged the Georgia legislature to convene a special session for the "purpose of considering issues pertaining to the appointment of Presidential Electors." Rosen and Donoghue rejected the proposal.[83] In August 2021, CNN reported that Ratcliffe had briefed top Justice Department officials that no evidence had been found of any foreign powers' interference with voting machines. Clark was reportedly concerned that intelligence community analysts were withholding information and believed Perry and others knew more about possible foreign interference. Clark requested authorization from Rosen and Donoghue for another briefing from Ratcliffe, asserting hackers had found that "a Dominion machine accessed the Internet through a smart thermostat with a net connection trail leading back to China."[84]
On January 6, 2021, Perry joined Missouri senator Josh Hawley in objecting to counting Pennsylvania's electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election.[85] During the storming of the U.S. Capitol that day, Perry and his congressional colleagues were ushered to a secure location.[86]
On December 20, 2021, House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack chairman Bennie Thompson wrote to Perry asking him to provide information about his involvement in the effort to install Clark as acting attorney general. Thompson believed Perry had been involved in the effort to install Clark, given previous testimony from Rosen and Donoghue, as well as communications between Perry and Meadows.[87][88][89] Perry declined the request the next day, asserting the committee was illegitimate.[90] Among several text messages to Meadows the committee released on December 14 was one attributed to a "member of Congress" dated January 5 that read "Please check your signal", a reference to the encrypted messaging system Signal. In his letter to Perry, Thompson mentioned evidence that Perry had communicated with Meadows using Signal, though Perry denied sending that particular text message.[91][92][88] CNN acquired and published additional Meadows text messages in April 2022 that confirmed Perry had sent that message.[75]
On June 9, 2022, Select Committee member Liz Cheney said that Perry requested a presidential pardon from Trump in the weeks after the January 6 attack.[93][94] On June 10, Perry denied Cheney's assertion, calling it "an absolute, shameless, and soulless lie".[95] On June 23, 2022, the Select Committee broadcast testimony from witnesses who said Perry and others had requested pardons. That included testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Meadows, that Perry was one of several lawmakers who contacted her to "inquire about preemptive pardons."[96] In response, Perry said he had never spoken with any White House staff about a pardon for him or any other members of Congress: "this never happened."[97][77]
On August 9, 2022, Perry reported that three FBI agents had seized his cellphone after presenting him with a warrant. He called the seizure an "unnecessary and aggressive action".[98]
Text messages released in December 2022 documented Perry's involvement in the historically unprecedented efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. [99]
Business career
In 1993, Perry founded Hydrotech Mechanical Services, Inc., a mechanical contracting firm in Dillsburg. The firm provides contract construction and maintenance services to municipal and investor-owned utilities from North Carolina to New York, specializing in large meter calibration. In 2002, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection accused the company of altering sewage monitoring reports while doing work for the Memphord Estates Sewage Treatment Company. Perry faced criminal charges of conspiring to falsify state-mandated sewage records. In the aftermath of the investigation and review, he was allowed to complete a diversion program and avoid any criminal charges, which allowed him to maintain his U.S security clearance.[12][13]
In 2012, Perry gave up his state house seat to run for the 4th congressional district. The district had previously been the 19th district, represented by six-term incumbent Republican Todd Platts, who was giving up the seat to honor a self-imposed term limit. In 2010, when Platts wanted to become U.S. Comptroller General, he spoke to Perry about running for the seat.[19]
Perry won a seven-way primary with over 50% of the vote. Although outspent nearly 2 to 1 in the campaign, he beat his closest competitor with nearly three times as many votes.[citation needed] Political newcomer Harry Perkinson, an engineer,[20] advanced in a two-way Democratic primary.[21] Perry won the general election, 60%–34%.[22]
In 2014, Perry was unopposed in the Republican primary and the former Harrisburg mayor, Linda D. Thompson, was unopposed in the Democratic primary.[23] Perry won the general election, 75%–25%.[24]
Perry won the 2016 election with no primary challenge and no official Democratic opponent. Joshua Burkholder of Harrisburg, a political novice, withdrew from the Democratic primary after too many signatures on his qualifying petition were successfully challenged. His subsequent write-in candidacy won the Democratic primary, but he was unaffiliated in the general election.[25][26][27][28][29] Perry defeated Burkholder, 66%–34%.[30]
After ruling the state's congressional map an unconstitutional gerrymander, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a new map for the 2018 elections. Perry's district was renumbered the 10th and made significantly more compact than its predecessor. It lost most of the more rural and Republican areas of York County to the neighboring 11th district (the old 16th). To make up for the loss in population, it was pushed slightly to the north, absorbing the remainder of Democratic-leaning Dauphin County that had not been in the old 4th.[31] On paper, the new district was less Republican than its predecessor. Had the district existed in 2016, Donald Trump would have won it with 52% of the vote to Hillary Clinton's 43%;[32] Trump carried the old 4th with 58% of the vote.[33]
Pastor and Army veteran George Scott won the Democratic primary by a narrow margin and opposed Perry in the general election for the reconfigured 10th. The two debated in October before Perry won with 51.3% of the vote to Scott's 48.7%, with the new district boundaries taking effect in 2019.[34][35][36][37] Perry held on by winning the district's share of his home county, York County, by 11,600 votes.[38] This was the district's closest race since 1974, when Bill Goodling won his first term in what was then the 19th with 51% of the vote.[39]
In 2020, Perry had no Republican primary challenge, and the Pennsylvania auditor general, Eugene DePasquale, won a two-way Democratic primary.[40] Perry was reelected with 53% of the vote in the general election.[41][42]
In January 2018, Perry suggested that ISIS might have been involved in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, but authorities have maintained that gunman Stephen Paddock acted alone.[46][47][48]
In October 2020, Perry was one of 17 Republicans to vote against a House resolution to formally condemn the QAnon conspiracy theory.[50] He said he voted against the resolution because he was concerned about infringements on free speech, saying, "it's very dangerous for the government ... to determine what is okay to like and what is not okay to like."[51][52]
In March 2021, Perry voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.[53][54] He said only 9% of the act's spending was allotted to defeat the COVID-19 virus, while the rest would advance Democratic policies.[55]
In April 2021, at a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee meeting on immigration, days after Fox News host Tucker Carlson promoted the Great Replacement theory, Perry said, "For many Americans, what seems to be happening or what they believe right now is happening is, what appears to them is we're replacing national-born American—native-born Americans to permanently transform the political landscape of this very nation."[56]
In June 2021, Perry was one of 21 House Republicans to vote against a resolution to give the Congressional Gold Medal to police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6.[57] He cosponsored a bill, introduced the same day, that would give the same medal to police officers without mentioning the attack.[58]
At the June 2021 Republican Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, Perry said Democrats "are not the loyal opposition. They are the opposition to everything you love and believe in" and "want to destroy the country you grew up in", invoking comparisons to Nazis.[59][60]
In July 2022, Perry was among 47 House Republicans to vote for the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and protect the right to same-sex marriage at a federal level.[61] Perry said, "Agree or disagree with same-sex marriage, my vote affirmed my long-held belief that Americans who enter into legal agreements deserve to live their lives without the threat that our federal government will dissolve what they've built."[62] Four months later, in an interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Perry said he was tricked because he did not want to appear racist by voting against the bill, which also protects interracial marriage.[63] Perry voted against final passage on December 8, 2022.[64]
Please don't skip this 1 minute read. This Friday December 16th, our nonprofit humbly asks for your help. It matters. Wikipedia and its sister sites were created when knowledge wasn’t so readily available outside the classroom or the old paper encyclopedia. There was no space online where you could learn for free, uninterrupted by ads or paywalls. This space belongs to you. If Wikipedia has given you $2 worth of knowledge, join the 2% who donate. — The Wikimedia Foundation
Maria Strollo Zack, a Georgia-based lobbyist and leader of the 501(c)4 organization Nations in Action, said she told Trump about the conspiracy theory at his Mar-a-Lago resort on December 24, 2020.[4] On December 29, Mark Meadows forwarded a letter explaining the Italygate claims to acting Attorney GeneralJeffrey Rosen.[4] The letter was printed on the letterhead of USAerospace Partners, a company led by Republican businesswoman Michele Roosevelt Edwards.[4]
On January 6, 2021, the Institute for Good Governance—a firm also headed by Edwards—released a joint statement with Nations in Action[5] stating an Italian hacker named Arturo D'Elia had confessed to "using Leonardo computer systems and military satellites located in Pescara, Italy" to change U.S. election results.[4] The Italian bureau of prisons later said it was investigating how two American men gained access to the Salerno prison where they tried to interrogate D'Elia.[6] D'Elia told reporters that he had refused to speak with the Americans, and that he had no connection to the alleged conspiracy, saying, "I didn't steal anything. I didn’t pass anything to anyone. I just created malware."[7]
According to Zack, the operation had been coordinated by the American embassy in Rome, with the help of Italian general Claudio Graziano who was a member of the board of Leonardo.[4][1][8] Also on January 6, Media Matters for America reported supporters of the theory were trying to get "#ItalyDidIt" to trend on Twitter. Related posts were retweeted by QAnon promoter Ron Watkins and other conspiracy theorists affiliated with the movement.[9]
On January 11, a power blackout in Vatican City sparked a rumor among QAnon followers that Pope Francis had been arrested for his involvement in "Italygate" and that the blackout had been orchestrated by the police in order to cover the operation.[2] Around the same time, a photo circulated on the Internet, which purportedly showed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arresting Italian president Sergio Mattarella for his role in the conspiracy; the picture had actually been taken during Pompeo's October 2020 visit to India and showed Pompeo with ambassador Kenneth Juster.[10]
Role of Mark Meadows
According to The New York Times, during Trump's last weeks in office, his chief of staff Mark Meadows tried to persuade the Department of Justice to investigate these claims. Meadows emailed Rosen a link to a YouTube video about the claims; Rosen forwarded the email to his deputy Richard Donoghue, who responded it was "pure insanity".[11][12][13][14][15]The Washington Post commented that Italygate was "the craziest election fraud conspiracy" pushed by Trump's associates, which showed "just how desperate President Donald Trump and his team were to grab hold of something — anything — that could genuinely cast doubt on his election defeat”.[16]
“Each week it seems we learn more and more about the role Justice Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, played in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
She sent at least 21 text messages to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, contacted 29 Arizona state lawmakers (some of them twice), and pressured the chair of the Senate elections committee and at least one other Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin to set aside Biden’s popular-vote victory and “choose” new presidential electors that would vote for Trump.[5]
Just as alarming is that Thomas used the “independent state legislature theory” as the basis for her argument, the same argument at the core of Moore v. Harper, the case soon to be heard by the Supreme Court.
This is the Republicans scheme that could remove American voters from the selection of the next president.
It all hinges on the once-fringe idea called the independent state legislature theory that gives state legislatures the power to disregard the popular vote and substitute their own slate of electors pledged to whoever they wish. The theory perverts the Elections Clause of the Constitution by claiming the lack of specific mention of the judiciary's role in the times, places and manner of holding federal elections means the courts can’t even review the state legislatures decisions.
That means Moore v. Harper could let Republican controlled state legislatures overrule the will of the people and pick the next president of the United States -- without you.
If the Supreme Court were to rule to adopt this principle, they wouldn’t just be ruling against more than a century of judicial precedent, they would be rejecting the lessons that inspired the framers to write the Constitution in the first place. They believed it was dangerous to give state legislatures unchecked power just as much as they believed in the dangers of giving unchecked power to the President.
The Conference of Chief Justices, a bipartisan group representing the chief justices of all 50 state supreme courts, has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in opposition to the once-fringe independent state legislature theory that the legislative branch has sole authority to manage federal elections and therefore state courts cannot rule a legislature’s election-related actions are unconstitutional.[6]
John Eastman, Trump’s lawyer who pleaded the fifth before a Georgia grand jury in the Fulton County election-interference probe at the end of August, filed a brief for the conservative Claremont Institute in the case, too. The brief acknowledged that the Supreme Court has ruled against the theory in multiple cases spanning the last century, but all of those rulings got it wrong and the court should undo that precedent now.[7]
We used to be able to depend on the U.S. Supreme Court to adhere to precedent, but if there’s one thing the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade taught us, we simply cannot.
Ginni Thomas irreparably compromises Justice Thomas’ impartiality."
“The most important case for American democracy” in the nation’s history — that’s how the former appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig describedMoore v. Harper, an extraordinary lawsuit that the Supreme Court considered in oral arguments Wednesday morning. Judge Luttig, a conservative and a widely respected legal thinker, is not one for overstatement. Yet most Americans aren’t paying attention to the case because it involves some confusing terminology and an arcane legal theory. It is essential that people understand just how dangerous this case is to the fundamental structure of American government, and that enough justices see the legal fallacies and protect our democracy…
In practice, the theory that the petitioners in the case are seeking to use would turn hundreds of state constitutional provisions into dead letters in federal elections. For instance, 48 states affirmatively guarantee a right to vote in their constitutions. (The federal Constitution still does not.) Most state constitutions guarantee free, fair, equal or open elections. Even the secret ballot — so fundamental to American democracy — is a creature of state constitutions. If the justices accept the most aggressive version of the independent state legislature theory that the petitioners want them to and even if they accept a weaker version, provisions like these could become invalid overnight, because the theory holds that state constitutions have no authority to impose any regulations on federal elections…
That so many justices would take the theory seriously is bad enough. Three of them — Justices Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas — appear to favor the independent state legislature theory, as they suggested in an opinion in an earlier stage of the case. Justice Brett Kavanaugh has also indicated his openness to it. It’s worse when the public trust in and approval of the court have fallen to historic lows, thanks largely to aggressively partisan recent opinions, as this board has argued.
There’s an old saying that only close cases make it to the Supreme Court. If they weren’t close, they would have been resolved in the lower courts. But Moore v. Harper isn’t a remotely close case. A ruling for the North Carolina lawmakers would flood the federal courts with election litigation that normally plays out in the states, upending the balance of federalism that defines American government. That’s not a conservative result; it’s a dangerously radical one.
“Going into the oral arguments for Moore v Harper on Wednesday, it was easy to forget just how radical and strange it was that the US supreme court was hearing the case in the first place.
Moore v Harper is a challenge by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled state legislature to a decision by the state’s Democratic-controlled supreme court, which threw out what the court called an excessively gerrymandered congressional district map that the legislature put forward, saying the map violated a state constitutional law guaranteeing free elections. Unhappy, the legislature adopted what used to be a fringe theory: that state courts don’t have much jurisdiction over election matters at all.
This used to be the kind of claim that a different supreme court would never dignify by granting certiorari. The “independent state legislature” theory has been put forward only a handful of times over the past hundred years, and even then, only by blatant partisans acting in transparent bad faith.
But “blatant partisans acting in transparent bad faith” is now a decent description of the supreme court, so the meritless case is being heard this term. And the North Carolina legislature’s gambit even has a shot of succeeding. When oral arguments began on Wednesday morning, the theory advanced by the legislature had garnered public expressions of support by four of the nine sitting justices – Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas. As happens so frequently with this court, a theory that was once confined to the radical rightwing fringe has been ushered into doctrinal legitimacy by judges eager to secure conservative outcomes.
The independent state legislature theory posits that, when it comes to determining how to conduct federal elections, state legislatures have virtually no limits on their authority and no other government bodies that can check them. State constitutions can’t limit how legislatures order elections, according to this theory, and neither can state courts.
It’s an odd conception of state legislatures, picturing their power over elections as special and different, not subject to the ordinary checks and balances of executive actions and judicial review. Under it, all state constitutional provisions that protect voting rights, ensure equal protection of the law and guarantee due process would be moot, as far as elections go; legislatures would not be bound by them…
If it were adopted by the federal supreme court, the independent state legislature theory would call a mulligan on all of this, disposing of the regular relationship between state legislatures and state courts along with about 100 years’ worth of precedent.
Applied to appointing electors every four years for the presidential election, this was the theory that backed the election subversion plot cooked up by Trump advisor and disgraced law professor John Eastman: it was the theory that if a state legislature didn’t like the electors dictated to them by the voters of their states, they could simply advance another slate of electors instead.
The case before the supreme court now applies the theory to federal congressional elections. It posits that if a state legislature wants to draw a dramatically gerrymandered congressional map – the kind that dilutes the value of votes, erodes the competitiveness of elections and forecloses the ability of the people to express their will through the political process – then it can. State legislators have to abide by the rule of law, according to the theory – except for when they’re determining the rules by which they get to remain in power.
Moore v Harper has come to be seen as an existential threat to functioning democracy in America, in no small part because, in the hands of insurrectionists like Eastman, the tenets of the independent state legislature theory have already become fodder for an attempted coup.
Understand that anyone with a rifle can take out an electric power substation. I expect multiple copycats.
Using a rifle to take down a power grid ain't a new idea. North Carolina is the first success.
11 News Colorado Springs
Dec. 23, 2020
"The informant told law enforcement that the group planned to fire rifles into the power facilities. The court document states those under investigation referenced the white supremacist group 'Atomwaffen.”
“Washington law enforcement sources confirm that they received a memo from the FBI warning them about similar attacks to power stations in the Pacific Northwest.
The memo read:
"Power companies in Oregon and Washington have reported physical attacks on substations, using hand tools, arson, firearms and metal chains possibly in response to an online call for attacks on critical infrastructure. In recent attacks, criminal actors bypassed security by cutting the fence links, lighting nearby fires, shooting equipment from a distance or throwing objects over the fence and onto equipment."
Some of those attacks happened within the last couple weeks.
One of the largest power providers in the state, Puget Sound Energy, told KING 5 Wednesday that two incidents occurred at their stations in late November.
"We are aware of recent threats on power systems across the country and take these very seriously. We are monitoring our infrastructure and can confirm we have had two incidents occur in late November at two different substations. Both incidents are under investigation by the FBI," said a representative of PSE.
To further understand what might be the potential motive for such attacks on the power grid, we spoke with a journalist who has spent years researching and reporting on the actions of extremist groups.
"The trope of attacking power infrastructure-- of hitting the electrical grid, critical infrastructure -- is an old tenet of the American extreme right wing," said Ali Winston, an independent journalist.”
Washington law enforcement sources say they received a memo from the FBI warning them about attacks to power stations in the Pacific Northwest.
***
"Where the North Carolina investigation stands
Anti-government groups in the past two years began using online forums to urge followers to attack critical infrastructure, including the power grid. They have posted documents and even instructions outlining vulnerabilities and suggesting the use of high-powered rifles.
One 14-page guide obtained by CNN cited as an example the 2013 sniper attack on a high voltage substation at the edge of Silicon Valley that destroyed 17 transformers and cost Pacific Gas and Electric $15 million in repairs.
The caliber of the bullets in that California incident is different from those used in North Carolina, a law enforcement source told CNN.
But whoever attacked the North Carolina substations “knew exactly what they were doing,” Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields has said.
Investigators recovered around the damaged substations nearly two dozen shell casings from a high-powered rifle, law enforcement sources told CNN. While no rifle has been recovered, the ballistics may still offer critical evidence. And bullets pulled from a transformer station and brass shell casings found a short distance away are being examined, the sources said.
The casings can be entered into a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives database and matched to any other shell casings fired by the same gun at another crime scene, or to the gun itself if it’s found. The locations of the casings may also offer clues.
The sheriff on Wednesday asked the public to provide any surveillance footage from the areas that were hit and announced $75,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible.
Someone who lives near the West End substation heard around 20 gunshots in quick succession the night of the attack on the station, he told CNN affiliate WRAL. The power did not go out for about 30 minutes after that, he said.
“Me and my wife were just sitting on the couch just watching a movie and all of the sudden, about 8:45, about 20 shots fired off right across the street,” Spencer Matthews told WRAL.
The outages crippled the local economy and paralyzed daily life for more than 45,000 homes and businesses. And just because the electricity is back on doesn’t mean the pain is over.
Businesses “have lost a tremendous amount over the last few days,” Moore County Manager Wayne Vest said. The outages affected more than 600 food establishments, Moore County Health Director Matt Garner said
“We know our residents are going to end the day and go through the night in power and light and in safety. But there’s another element of our population is still suffering … and that’s our local merchants,” Pinehurst Mayor John Strickland said.
“If you’re dining out, if you’re only going to go out once, go out twice,” Vest said. “If you were going to shop and buy one package, buy two packages.”
CNN’s Raja Razek, Whitney Wild and Geneva Sands contributed to this report."
