Georgia militia group planned ricin attack to 'save the Constitution'

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that four members of a fringe militia used a book written by Fox News "expert" Mike Vanderboegh as a basis for a plot to commit domestic terrorism.

Federal law enforcement authorities on Tuesday arrested four Georgia senior citizens for allegedly plotting to kill government officials and spread terror with guns, explosives and the toxin ricin.

An FBI criminal complaint (PDF) claimed that Frederick Thomas cited Vanderboegh's book Absolved as a model for the group's actions.

"The plot of Absolved involves small groups citizens attacking United States federal law enforcement representatives and federal judges," special agent David Wylie explained.

Thomas along with Samuel Crump, Ray Adams, and Dan Roberts, who together called themselves the "covert group," hatched the plot over the phone, at their residences and even at a Toccoa, Georgia Waffle House.

"There is no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly, highly illegal: murder," Thomas was recorded telling a confidential informant.

"When it comes time to saving the Constitution, that means some people have got to die."

At one meeting, Roberts claimed to be in contact with a man named "Sammy" who had the experience and the ingredients necessary for manufacturing the deadly toxin ricin.

"What I'd like to do is make about 10 pounds of that," Crump told him. "Put it out in different cities at the same time: Washington, DC; maybe Newark, NJ; Atlanta, GA; Jacksonville, FL; New Orleans."

Crump also contemplated using botulinium toxin to carry out attacks.

"That other kind, one pound can kill 30 million people," he asserted. "We need somebody to back us with some damn money so we can make that other shit."

As for Vanderboegh, Media Matters noted that he had been recently "mainstreamed" by Fox News after breaking the story about the Department of Justice's Operation Fast and Furious.

In a 2010 blog post, he also called on the opponents of health care reform to break the windows of Democratic officals.

"All of my work has been trying to get people to understand that a civil war is possible," he admitted to WIAT-TV last year. "When a system becomes tyrannical, it is lawful, it is quote -- unquote -- constitutional, the way that they are perverting it and turning it. To be law abiding in such a system is no virtue."

"To further push us back from our rights after we have said we will not back up, then you must understand that if you cannot persuade us, if you cannot intimidate us then you must kill us. But remember, we'll shoot back. We'll shoot back. No Fort Sumters, no Oklahoma Cities. We will sit and wait to see what they decide and if health care is worth the deaths of some of us to Nancy Pelosi, she will rue the day. She will rue the day because she is starting a fight that she cannot win."

Watch this video from WIAT, broadcast July 13, 2010.

Watch this video from Fox News, broadcast July 2011.