Xcel Energy has acknowledged to 11 News sister station CBS4 that it is aware of an alleged plot to disable the nation’s power grid, which included a possible attack on an El Paso County substation. The FBI is investigating a neo-Nazi group that is believed to have been planning an attack on the United States power grid. The plot was being called “Lights Out.” One of the structures targeted that is mentioned in the details of the investigation is outside of Colorado Springs. It’s called “Midway” and it is operated by Xcel. The information is contained in a search warrant affidavit that was accidentally unsealed in federal court in Wisconsin. The warrant is to seek information on a cell phone number from the telephone company service provider. The affidavit details an alleged plot naming three people who have not been charged so far in this case. It was reviewed by CBS4 investigator Rick Sallinger on Sunday, Dec. 13. The next day, the warrant was resealed and no longer open to public viewing. It says the plot is to disable power substations in the southeastern United States and in El Paso County Colorado.
The affidavit cites an informant as claiming the target date to carry out the attack was to be for 2024, but sooner if Donald Trump was to lose the 2020 election.The federal court document describes one of the alleged plotters planning to travel to Denver. There he hoped to meet up with an author popular in neo-Nazi circles.The request for a search warrant says the plotters consulted an online U.S. Department of Energy web site that detailed the power grid and power stations critical to it.The informant told law enforcement that the group planned to fire rifles into the power facilities. The court document states those under investigation referenced the white supremacist group “Atomwaffen.” The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Atomwaffen Division as “organized as a series of terror cells that work toward civilizational collapse.” It adds that their strategy can be traced back to “The Order” in the 1980s.
siehe auch: Alleged white supremacist plot to attack US power stations revealed. An alleged plot by white supremacists to attack power stations in the southeastern US next summer was brought to light on Tuesday. The scheme was detailed in an FBI affidavit mistakenly unsealed last week, The Associated Press reported. The documents were originally filed under seal, along with a search warrant, in Wisconsin federal court in March, according to the AP. They alleged that an Ohio teenager with a fondness for Nazi flags discussed the plan — which he dubbed “Light’s Out” — with a small group of people over text in the fall of 2019. The then-17-year-old said he wanted to create a power outage by shooting rifle rounds into power stations, and there were plans to carry it out next summer, the affidavit states. In a text to an FBI informant, another group member allegedly wrote that “leaving the power off would wake people up to the harsh reality of life by wreaking havoc across the nation.”