From WN

A 23-year-old man was arrested after he planned and attempted to detonate what he thought was an explosives-filled van outside an Oklahoma bank in a plot that called back to the fatal 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, according to authorities on Monday via The Washington Post.

Undercover FBI agents met with Jerry Drake Varnell of Sayre, OK in June who said he wanted “to start the next revolution” and held the “III% ideology,” which referenced the “Three Percenters” patriot movement that began in 2008 as a response to the election of President Barack Obama and rallies against gun control and infringement of constitutional rights.

Federal officials arrested Varnell early Saturday over a plot to detonate a vehicle bomb that was parked near BancFirst in downtown Oklahoma City on charges of attempting to use explosives to destroy a building in interstate commerce.

Varnell appeared before a federal judge on Monday and is still in the custody of federal marshals.

A III% group said Varnell had joined their group less than a year ago but was removed from their membership rolls after not being active.

“His claim about following the III% ideology are blatantly false as we do not condone acts of terrorism,” III% United Patriots spokesman Dylan Hunter said.

U.S. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the charges were a reminder for Americans to remain vigilant about the threat of homegrown extremism and radicalization.

“It is chilling to think that a sympathizer of Timothy McVeigh would want to act on hate, as a tribute to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil before September 11,” Lankford said.

A federal complaint filed on Sunday has a confidential informant saying that Varnell said he wanted to blow up a building and “that Varnell was upset with the government and was seeking retaliation.”

Officials said that the initial target was the Federal Reserve Building in Washington D.C. with a device that was used to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds, including many children in a daycare center.

In a series of text messages with the FBI’s informant, Varnell “claimed to have a bunker for when the world (or United States) collapsed” and indicated he was trying to build a team, the complaint states.

“I’m out for blood,” the complaint quotes Varnell’s texts. “When militias start getting formed I’m going after government officials when I have a team.”

The undercover FBI agent posed as someone who could help build a bomb, but authorities said they were closely monitoring Varnell for months while the plot developed.

“There was never a concern that our community’s safety or security was at risk during this investigation,” said Kathryn Peterson, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oklahoma.

Varnell met with the agent on June 1 to discuss obtaining materials to construct the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb like the one used by Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Varnell indicated at the meeting that he had previously made homemade explosives and that he “was of the same mind with people who wanted to use explosives and make a statement,” the complaint says.

“Something needs to be done,” Varnell said, but killing a lot of people was not a good idea, according to the complaint.

Varnell admits that while he would prefer to conduct the attack after business hours to prevent excessive casualties, it would be likely that bank workers or custodians who were inside could be injured or killed in the attack.

Varnell assisted the undercover agent to assemble the device and place it into what he thought was a stolen van which he drove by himself from El Reno to Oklahoma City, dialing a number on a cell phone that he thought would trigger the explosion.

The complaint also states that Varnell constructed a statement that was meant to be posted to his Facebook after the attack which identified the reason as “retaliation against the freedoms that have been taken away from the American people” and “an act done to show the government what the people think of its actions.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe said law enforcement authorities “successfully prevented a hateful act of domestic terrorism.”

–WN.com, Maureen Foody

For more on this story and video go to: https://article.wn.com/view/2017/08/15/fbi_arrest_man_who_planned_to_oklahoma_bombing_that_echoed_1/