The Trial at the Tip of the Terrorgram Iceberg

Brandon Russell, arguably one of the most influential figures in the American neofascist revival of the past decade, is on trial this week over an alleged plot to knock out Baltimore’s power grid and trigger a race war.

The 29-year-old cofounder of the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi guerrilla organization that was responsible for five homicides and a number of bomb plots before the FBI dismantled it in 2020, Russell was arrested by federal agents in February 2023 along with his girlfriend, Sarah Clendaniel. If convicted of his charges of conspiring to destroy an energy facility, Russell could face 20 years behind bars thanks to a prior conviction and the potential penalty for his current charges.

Russell’s case represents one of the last gasps of the Biden administration’s hard-charging approach to tackling violent far-right extremism that is all but guaranteed to change during US president Donald Trump’s second term in office. It also offers a unique look inside federal law enforcement’s investigation into an insidious accelerationist propaganda network that mixes neo-Nazi ideology with nihilist, Columbine-style violence to inspire mass casualty events in the United States and beyond.

Russell allegedly hatched the plot to black out Baltimore while, according to prosecutors, participating in a noxious, prolific propaganda network hellbent on fomenting violence and chaos. The Terrorgram Collective, which took its name following a massive influx of neo-Nazis to Telegram at the end of the last decade, ran several channels on the messaging​​ app and developed a series of “how-to” domestic terrorism manuals that sought to inspire disaffected young men and women into committing mass casualty events. Terrorgram is currently designated a “tier one” extremism threat by the US Department of Justice.

To date, Terrorgram has released four publications—a blend of ideological motivation, mass-murder worship, neofascist indoctrination, and how-to manuals for chemical weapons attacks, infrastructure sabotage, and ethnic cleansing. Court records indicate there are at least three unreleased Terrorgram Collective compendiums, including “The Saint Encyclopedia” of the far-right mass killers they venerate, including Anders Breivik, Brenton Tarrant, and Timothy McVeigh; and “The List,” a collection of politicians, government officials, business leaders, journalists, activists, and other people deemed legitimate assassination targets.

The screeds appear to have directly inspired a series of ideologically motivated attacks around the world, including a 2022 mass shooting at an LGBTQ bar in Bratislava, Slovakia, successful attacks on power infrastructure in North Carolina and similar failed plots in Baltimore and New Jersey, and a stabbing spree in the Turkish city of Eskisehir. There are currently more than a dozen separate federal prosecutions around the United States that involve people alleged to be core Terrorgram Collective members or individuals allegedly inspired toward violent attacks on infrastructure or civilians.

In one of the Biden administration’s last policy moves against right-wing extremism, on January 13, the State Department formally classified the Terrorgram Collective as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a listing usually reserved for militant groups that hold territory and have a formal real-world paramilitary structure as opposed to a loose propaganda network that seeks to inspire mass casualty events. While it is not unique—the British Home Office formally proscribed Terrorgram as an extremist organization last May, and Russell’s Atomwaffen Division was banned by the UK, Australia, and Canada—it is likely to be the last such action taken toward neo-Nazi groups by the United States government for the foreseeable future.

The Trump administration appears to be engaged in a wholesale shift away from violent far-right extremism, best illustrated by the unprecedented pardons given to more than 1,500 individuals charged or convicted of crimes during the failed insurrection of January 6, 2021, as well as the reassignment of senior Justice Department attorneys in the National Security Division.

In a set of pretrial hearings and motions over the limits of evidence in Russell’s trial, federal prosecutors convinced US District Court judge James K. Bredar to allow in evidence of Russell’s deep neo-Nazi indoctrination, including background about his founding role in the Atomwaffen Division. Russell’s alleged involvement in the Terrorgram Collective is bolstered by a pendant allegedly recovered by FBI agents in a search of his home after his February 2023 arrest: The necklace is made of swastika-bearing beads that contains a larger golden swastika pendant with “Terrorgram” inscribed along the side.

The court is taking extra precautions as the US attempts to convict Russell. Journalists’ use of phones and laptops in the courtroom is forbidden, and the judge granted some witnesses permission to testify anonymously over fears of retaliation by Russell’s compatriots, some of whom have indicated in Terrorgram chats cited in court filings that they have sought to identify informants and agents involved in their cases. Clendaniel, Russell’s girlfriend, pleaded guilty in May and was later sentenced to 18 years in federal prison. It is unclear whether she will be one of the witnesses testifying against Russell.

The prosecution of Russell also offers insight to how American law enforcement and intelligence agencies collaborate with their foreign counterparts to combat the transnational far-right milieu that spawned the Terrorgram Collective.

In an unusual alliance over the past two years, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project weighed in on Russell’s behalf during pretrial motions in an effort to reveal evidence of warrantless surveillance of the fascist figurehead by either the National Security Agency or its counterparts. Although Judge Bredar ultimately denied the ACLU’s efforts on the grounds that the material was classified, the government’s response spoke volumes about the intelligence community’s role in surveilling Russell. American intelligence documents reviewed by WIRED show the Five Eyes alliance of American, Canadian, British, Australian and New Zealander intelligence agencies were keeping tabs on the Terrorgram Collective as far back as 2021.

The presence of Terrorgram Collective members in Croatia, Denmark, Slovakia, South Africa, Canada, and elsewhere overseas, coupled with the State Department’s designation of the propaganda network as a foreign terrorist organization, also point to additional reasons the group would be subjected to the highest level of official surveillance.

Russell was on court supervision when he was picked up for the Baltimore plot nearly two years ago. In 2018, he was convicted on federal charges for possession of homemade hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, a highly unstable compound. He served a little over three years in prison and was released in August 2021. Russell’s arrest, in 2017, on illegal explosives charges, stemmed from a macabre internecine squabble within the Atomwaffen Division and a double homicide at the Tampa, Florida, apartment Russell shared with three other extremist comrades.

Updated 7:35 am EST, January 29, 2025: Corrected the maximum sentence Russell could receive if convicted.