{"id":2269,"date":"2026-07-09T09:19:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T04:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=2269"},"modified":"2026-07-09T09:19:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T04:19:39","slug":"federal-agents-thwarted-attack-on-trumps-ufc-event-fbi-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=2269","title":{"rendered":"Federal agents thwarted attack on Trump\u2019s UFC event, FBI says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/dd\/79\/b0cc315440a48b0de8f644413c12\/ufc-freedom-25-trump-3-142.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Federal agents thwarted an alleged planned attack on Sunday\u2019s White House UFC fight, FBI Director Kash Patel and the Secret Service said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Patel <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FBIDirectorKash\/status\/2066835691506471290\" target=\"_blank\">wrote on X that FBI coordinated<\/a> with other agencies, including the Department of Justice, in a \u201cmulti-state operation,\u201d with several individuals \u201cnow in custody\u201d and planned attacks \u201cstopped cold.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile the result represented the best of investigative work, it was also nothing out of the ordinary for this law enforcement team \u2014 we are built to detect, respond to, and bring to justice those who threaten the lives of American citizens \u2014 particularly during large gatherings like the historic UFC 250 fight,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/playbook\/2026\/06\/15\/3-things-to-watch-as-trump-strikes-a-deal-00961932\" target=\"_blank\">UFC event<\/a> was held on Trump\u2019s 80th birthday and is one of several White House events marking the country\u2019s 250th anniversary. Thousands were in attendance, including Trump, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a host of congressional Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>When reached for comment, the FBI pointed to Patel\u2019s social media post and declined to share further details on the investigation. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/fbi-disrupts-alleged-explosive-drone-plot-targeting-white-house-ufc-event-officials-say\" target=\"_blank\">Fox News, which first disclosed the foiled planned attack<\/a>, reported that investigators identified 23 people connected to the plans.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/media\/1446016\/dl?inline=&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery\" target=\"_blank\">complaints<\/a> made public Tuesday, the Justice Department described a plot by conspirators to fly explosive-laden drones over the makeshift UFC arena&#8217;s north side, with snipers stationed to kill &#8220;certain high value targets&#8221; when they fled to the south. <\/p>\n<p>The mother of one of the suspects, according to the documents, said they expressed &#8220;ultra-religious and antigovernment sentiments, specifically citing grievances about government corruption, the handling of the Epstein files, data centers taking up all the water in communities, and other government actions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Secret Service Director Sean M. Curran said in a statement that \u201cspecial agents, mission support personnel and technical security teams worked around the clock to identify those responsible and hold them accountable\u201d in the run-up to the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump was seemingly unaware of the threat. When asked if he was briefed about the investigation on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in France on Tuesday, Trump said he \u201chadn\u2019t heard about it,\u201d going on to praise the event.<\/p>\n<p>The Secret Service appears to have been surprised by Patel&#8217;s announcement. Deputy Director Matt Quinn said at a Tuesday news conference that the agency did not disclose the existence of the ongoing probe.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you the Secret Service led that investigation from the beginning. I&#8217;ll tell you that it&#8217;s ongoing,&#8221; Quinn said. &#8220;In order to maintain the integrity of the investigation and the security plan, we chose not to leak it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a Tuesday morning interview on \u201cFox and Friends,\u201d Vice President JD Vance called on top Democrats to turn down the political temperature, continuing a trend from senior Trump officials arguing that political violence is coming predominantly from the left.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/05\/06\/trump-counterterrorism-strategy-vows-to-counter-violent-left-wing-extremists-with-transgender-ideology-00909284\" target=\"_blank\">Trump administration\u2019s counterterrorism strategy<\/a> released last month emphasized a focus on &#8220;violent left-wing extremists,\u201d reversing a focus from the Biden administration on extremism on the right.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou see more political violence and violent rhetoric coming from the left than the right these days.\u201d Vance said. \u201cEverybody has a role to cut this stuff out. But I think a lot of my Democratic colleagues in Washington have got to look themselves in the mirror and say \u2018why is so much of this political violence coming from our side of the spectrum?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>Emilio Perez Ibarguen contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal agents thwarted an alleged planned attack on Sunday\u2019s White House UFC fight, FBI Director Kash Patel and the Secret Service said Tuesday. Patel wrote on X that FBI coordinated with other agencies, including the Department of Justice, in a \u201cmulti-state operation,\u201d with several individuals \u201cnow in custody\u201d and planned attacks \u201cstopped cold.\u201d \u201cWhile the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/dd\/79\/b0cc315440a48b0de8f644413c12\/ufc-freedom-25-trump-3-142.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}