The informant, a former federal contractor who testified under the alias “Jackson” while wearing a disguise of fake glasses, nose and mustache along with short-cropped hair tinged with gray dye, was put in contact with Clendaniel by Russell following extensive conversations via Telegram and Wire about sabotaging electrical grid infrastructure, particularly six substations around Baltimore.
February was to be Brandon Russell’s moment: facing federal charges of conspiring to blow up a series of power stations around Baltimore and trigger a citywide blackout, the neo-Nazi figurehead decided to take his case to trial and mount an entrapment defense against the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The trial took place amid heightened secrecy and security, exacerbated by two of Russell’s Terrorgram Collective comrades being caught last fall by federal agents trying to identify witnesses and government agents set to testify against him.
Instead of seeing the FBI as baiting Russell into a violent plot, a jury of 12 Marylanders last week took less than an hour to hand down a guilty verdict that could land Russell back in federal prison for 20 years.
His trial pulled back the veil on the Biden administration’s assault on violent rightwing extremists (that will almost certainly end with the current regime), the role of a controversial private intelligence firm in the FBI’s investigation, and the depth of Russell’s involvement with the Terrorgram Collective propaganda network.
