A Colorado man who applied for a federal government job allegedly admitted to planning terror attacks after failing multiple polygraph tests.
Ethan Collins, a pilot who had his hours and wages cut due to lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, admitted to planning a sabotage of the Colorado power grid, according to The Daily Beast. He also reportedly expressed support for a failed kidnapping plot against Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (RELATED: 6 Men Indicted For Allegedly Plotting To Kidnap Gov. Whitmer)
After three failed polygraph tests while applying for a government gig, Colorado man Ethan Collins finally admitted he actually hates the U.S. government and has an affinity for terrorism. Dig into the full crazy story by @pbmelendez and @SeamusHughes: https://t.co/z4hz6f6YYZ
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 16, 2021
Collins reportedly failed three polygraph tests before eventually admitting that “he felt he was a terrorist” even as he “considers himself as a patriot.” Collins expressed admiration for ISIS’s “courage and conviction to bring their vision of a society into existence through force,” even as he disagreed with their “ideology and their use of torture, rape, and murder,” according to The Daily Beast.
Collins also considered targeting Denver’s Federal Reserve building, state data centers, and electric turbines, according to the FBI. He was reportedly arrested Feb. 8 in Utah, shortly after his final interview, when law enforcement officers found unregistered guns and silencers at his home.
At least 180 people were charged with domestic terrorism and related crimes in 2020, the highest total since the federal government began tracking the numbers in 1995. Some lawmakers, including Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, have called on President Joe Biden to place alleged domestic terrorists on the no-fly list, and have suggested passing a new domestic terrorism law.
The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the push, saying that the government would use the new powers against minorities and “groups the government views as having ‘unpopular’ or controversial beliefs.”