capitol terror plot Parents of defendant saw change in him

Associated Press

CINCINNATI

Christopher Lee Cornell showed little direction in his life, spending hours playing video games in his bedroom in his parents’ apartment, rarely going out or working, and voicing distrust of the government and the media. But in recent weeks, his parents say, they noticed a change in him.

They thought it was a change for the better: The 20-year-old suburban Cincinnati man was helping his mother around the house, cooking meals, sitting with his parents to watch movies and talking about having become a Muslim.

“He said, ‘I’m at peace with myself,’” his father, John Cornell, recalled Thursday — a day after his son was arrested in an FBI sting and charged with plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol with pipe bombs and guns and kill government officials.

The arrest came with U.S. counterterrorism authorities on high alert against homegrown extremists and “lone wolves” — disaffected or disturbed individuals who hold radical beliefs but have no direct connection to a terrorist organization.

The bearded, long-haired Cornell was taken into custody outside a gun range and store west of Cincinnati after, the FBI said, he bought two M-15 semiautomatic rifles and 600 rounds of ammunition as part of a plan to go to Washington.

The FBI said he had for months sent social media messages and posted video espousing support for Islamic State militants and for violent attacks by others.

It was unclear from court papers if he had made contact with any terrorist groups.

But in an instant message to an FBI informant, Cornell wrote that he had been in contact with people overseas and that he planned to go ahead with the attack even without specific authorization.

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said a controversial government surveillance program was responsible for alerting authorities to the plot. He mentioned FISA, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which gives the government authority to eavesdrop under certain conditions.

Cornell, using the online name of Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah, told the informant they should “wage jihad,” authorities said in court papers. He purportedly wrote in an instant message that “we should meet up and make our own group in alliance with the Islamic State here and plan operations ourselves.”

Cornell was jailed for a federal court appearance today in Cincinnati. A federal public defender listed as representing him did not immediately respond to messages.

His father called him “a mommy’s boy” taken in by a “snitch” who was trying to help himself.