San Francisco (AFP) - Two men with extremist militia links have been charged with amassing an arsenal of guns and pipe bombs to attack the California headquarters of the Democratic Party, the US Justice Department said Friday.
Ian Benjamin Rogers, 45, and Jarrod Copeland, 37, began planning the attack on the Sacramento headquarters shortly after Republican president Donald Trump's loss to Joe Biden in the November 3 election last year, according to the indictment unsealed in San Francisco federal court.
Their plan gained pace after the January 6 Trump-inspired insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington, which temporarily halted the certification of Biden's election victory.
"I want to blow up a Democrat building bad," Rogers told Copeland in a message.
In their messages Rogers and Copeland expressed hopes of igniting a "revolution" with their attack.
"After the 20th we go to war," Rogers wrote to Copeland, referring to the January 20th inauguration of Biden as president.
The Justice Department unveiled an expanded indictment against the two, after having first charged Rogers alone in January.
At the time law enforcement discovered Rogers had nearly 50 firearms, including illegal fully automatic weapons or machine guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition and five functional pipe bombs in his home and business.
Both Rogers and Copeland were followers of the violent, extreme-right Three Percenters movement, whose members allegedly took a leading role in the storming of the Capitol on January 6.
In messages the two also discussed attacking Twitter after it banned Trump for posting inflammatory statements, along with billionaire Democrat supporter George Soros and the mansion of Democratic California governor Gavin Newsom.
But they focused their attention on the Democratic Party offices in Sacramento, and began contacting members of the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys right-wing militia for support.
"We need 500 pissed off patriots that want America back," Copeland wrote.
Rogers faces five charges of conspiracy to destroy a building, illegal bomb possession, and illegal possession of machine guns, with the conspiracy charge bringing up to 20 years in prison.
Copeland faces the same conspiracy charge and a second one of obstruction of justice for destroying his text communications with Rogers.
