69-Year-Old Militia Leader Accused of Harassing Migrants on the US-Mexico Border Boasted of Aim to Kill Obama, Clinton: Report
Guess we could have seen this one coming. The 69-year-old leader of an armed militia group accused of rounding up migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and holding them at gunpoint before turning them over to U.S. Border Patrol told the FBI his group was training to kill Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and prominent Democratic donor George Soros, federal prosecutors say.
Larry Mitchell Hopkins, the 69-year-old leader of the United Constitutional Patriots, is in custody on charges of possession of firearms by a felon. He was previously convicted of illegal possession of a firearm in 1996 and 2006 and had been barred from owning any weapons, the New York Daily News reports.
As the Daily News explains, according to a federal criminal complaint:
Back in 2017, Hopkins invited an FBI agent into his home and showed him at least nine weapons, including an AK-47 assault rifle and ammunition, according to the complaint, filed Monday. He allegedly told the agent the weapons were his girlfriends, but then referred to one of them as his.He also claimed that he and members of United Constitutional Patriots “were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, because of these individuals’ support of Antifa,” or anti-fascists, according to the complaint.
The FBI declined to comment on why it waited so long to charge Hopkins, the Associated Press reports.
The United Constitutional Patriots made news last week after video on social media showed armed militia members stopping migrants, including families with children, as they crossed the border into the U.S. from Mexico.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico called the group’s action “kidnapping,” while a spokesman for the group in an interview with the New York Times called it “a verbal citizen’s arrest.”
Federal authorities arrested Hopkins, of New Mexico, on Saturday. He had an initial appearance in federal court in New Mexico on Monday.
