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A surprising name showed up in the criminal complaints after the FBI and Justice Department disrupted an alleged domestic terror plot at the UFC Freedom 250 event. Tristan Leavitt — a West Virginia delegate and the president of Empower Oversight — says he was stunned to learn he was listed as a potential target. That single detail tells us a lot about how online trackers, conspiracy thinking, and sloppy notifications can put innocent people at risk.
What the government says and what it found
The Department of Justice unsealed complaints and announced charges after investigators say a group planned to use drones and armed snipers to attack people at the White House South Lawn event. Law enforcement arrested five men so far and is still searching for others. Officials called the arrests a rapid, necessary response that stopped an attack cold. Court filings show chat groups, weapons, and a handful of online tools the suspects used to pick names. Several federal and state officials — including Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Governor Jim Justice of West Virginia, Representative Carol Miller, Representative Riley Moore, Senator Tom Cotton, and Senator Marsha Blackburn — were among the names mentioned.
Why Tristan Leavitt says he was listed
Leavitt told reporters he learned he was named when a reporter called him — not from the FBI. He says he had taken a public trip to Israel late last year and posted about it, and suspects may have pulled his name from public sources that track pro‑Israel support. That is plausible: the defendants appear to have used public donation trackers and conspiratorial chatter to pick targets. But investigators have not, publicly, explained why every single person named in the filings was included. So an innocent whistleblower ends up on a terror list and no one says why. That is worrying, plain and simple.
Law enforcement notification and common sense
When a criminal complaint names private citizens or state officials as potential targets, there should be a prompt, clear process to tell those people. Learning about a possible threat from a news alert is not good enough. If the FBI and Secret Service disrupted a real plan, they deserve credit. But the agencies should also do a better job telling people they might be in danger and explaining why their names showed up. And while we’re at it, we should call out the real problem: an echo chamber of bad information and violent rhetoric that feeds plots like this one.
What must come next
This episode should prompt two fixes. First, federal investigators need to keep unrolling the evidence and explain how suspects picked targets. Transparency matters when people’s safety is at stake. Second, political leaders and civic institutions should stop treating conspiracy theories like opinion and start treating them like poison. Tristan Leavitt says he won’t be intimidated. That’s exactly the right response. We need strong law enforcement, better notification systems, and a society that refuses to let fringe radicals turn politics into a kill list.
