The Terrorist Living Right (Wing?) Next Door

Despite reports that the FBI and other agencies have been directed to deemphasize their investigations into Right-Wing Terrorism in the U.S. (which is a major problem), a Texas woman, Julia Ann Poff (very close to Poof Red notes), has pleaded guilty to placing bombs in the mail.  Her targets were a bit diverse as she sent bombs to  Obama and Our Poor Idiot Governor.  The moral of the story is that it is the crazy alt-right nutjob with an axe to grind that is more likely to do you in than your garden-variety Islamic terrorist.  The Houston Chronicle has more.

A Brookshire woman pleaded guilty Monday to mailing then President Barack Obama a homemade explosive, which was traced back to her through cat hair stuck on the box’s packaging.

The bomb was one of three that Julia Ann Poff, 47, admitted sending to public officials, according to court records. In her plea, she also acknowledged sending similar packages to Gov. Greg Abbott and the then-acting Social Security administrator, whose agency had apparently denied her disability benefits, documents show.

The boxes contained victim-activated improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, according to the FBI Houston field office.

The box was intercepted on Oct. 6, 2016 at the Bolling Air Force Base in Maryland. FBI exlosives experts examined the small, flat rate box and identified it as a homemade bomb, officials said.

The package included a micro-USB cable box, a cell phone, hobby fuse, matches, paper wadding, plastic sacks, sandpaper and two 20-ounce coke bottle caps, plus pyrotechnics and smokeless powder, according to the FBI.

An investigation linked the box [sent to Obama] to Poff or her husband, partly because investigators found cat hair under a taped address label, “microscopically consistent” with hairs taken from Poff’s gray cat, named Ash.

Poff’s daughter told authorities that the phone in the box was her old cell phone, which was last seen in August or September of 2016 in their home’s garage . Poff’s debit card was also connected to the micro-USB box.

That September the governor opened a box containing a box explosive stuffed in a cigarette pack, but it did not blow up because Abbott failed to open it as designed.

Poff was upset with Abbott because she had not received child support from her ex-husband, according to federal court documents. Her frustration withthe governor stemmed from a legal battle with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, which began when Abbott was the attorney general.

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