Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, appeared in U.S. District Court on Monday after his arrest over the weekend on a charge of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.
The arrest followed a series of videos posted by Hopkins’ group, which calls itself the United Constitutional Patriots, showing men in camouflage circling and detaining hundreds of migrants in the desert near Sunland Park, New Mexico, and then handing the migrants over to Border Patrol.
In an affidavit, David S. Gabriel, an FBI special agent, said the bureau was made aware of Hopkins’ activities after receiving reports in October 2017 of “alleged militia extremist activity” in northwestern New Mexico.
Gabriel said that the following month, two FBI agents went to a trailer park in Flora Vista, New Mexico, where Hopkins was living at the time. With Hopkins’ consent, the agents entered the home and saw about 10 firearms in plain view.
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Hopkins told the agents the guns belonged to Fay Sanders Murphy, whom he described as his common-law wife, according to the affidavit. The agents collected at least nine firearms from the home as evidence.
The court affidavit gave few details about the report the FBI received stating the United Constitutional Patriots “were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama because of these individuals’ support of Antifa.” The term Antifa refers to left-wing activists who have clashed with right-wing groups in cities across the country.
Hopkins’ lawyer, Kelly O’Connell, disputed the reports about assassination plans.
He also questioned the timing of the arrest. “My question is, why now?” O’Connell said, noting the weapons were found in Hopkins’ home in 2017. He suggested that pressure from prominent Democrats in New Mexico may have prompted the FBI to take action.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.