FBI Director Kash Patel said agents broke up a plot to attack Sunday’s UFC event at the White House before anyone got hurt. Patel didn’t name any suspect publicly, and the bureau hasn’t released details on how far along the plan had gotten or how many people were involved.
The event itself went forward June 15. Patel confirmed the disruption in the days after – without spelling out what kind of attack was planned or who was behind it.
Former Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem, who spoke with NPR about the case, has worked on domestic security planning at the federal level. She didn’t offer details beyond what the FBI had confirmed.
Not much else is public. The FBI hasn’t said whether anyone is in custody, what charges – if any — have been filed, or whether the threat was considered credible weeks out or only in the days before the event.
Hosting a major sports event on the White House grounds already stretched the usual security perimeter, which would have made the logistics of protecting attendees more complicated than a venue built for that purpose. Whether that factored into how the alleged plot was structured isn’t something the bureau has addressed.
The UFC has held events at arenas and stadiums across the country, but a match on the White House grounds was an unusual setup — one that drew both the crowd and, apparently, whoever was behind the plan Patel says his agents stopped.
What charges, if any, will follow – and whether the case will be prosecuted federally – hasn’t been announced.
Reported by NPR. Read the original report.
