The Terrorist in Donald Trump’s Campaign
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Leach has identified himself as the Secretary General of the Army Of God, a significant position of leadership within the Christian terrorist organization.
Members of the Army Of God have openly acknowledged their involvement in terrorist activities. Army of God member Clayton Waagner stated it plainly, admitting, "They’re right. I am a terrorist."
As a consequence of his terrorist activities, Waagner was indicted on charges of bank robbery, possession of a bomb, carjacking, and possession of a firearm as a convicted felon during a prison escape. Waagner was also charged with threatening forty-two abortion clinic employees.
It’s a lucky thing for Waagner’s intended victims that he was as incompetent as he was violent. He devised a plan to murder multiple abortion providers while traveling across the country. That plan was thwarted, however, when a car he stole to reach his first victim broke down and had to be abandoned by the side of the road.
Clayton Waagner sent packages of fake anthrax to over 500 abortion providers across the United States in 2001. These packages were sent in the wake of actual anthrax attacks, along with a note that read: “We are going to kill all of you. From the Army of God, Virginia Dare Chapter.”
Eventually, Waagner was convicted of fifty-one crimes, including threatening the use of weapons of mass destruction.
David Leach was in frequent communication with Clayton Waagner while Waagner was in prison. In one letter to Leach, Waagner discussed the possibility of the two developing a “Combat Information Center” that would share "data on every abortion mill in the country: address, phone number, hours of operation, names of staff and photos. The type of intelligence that would be useful to a field warrior”.
The Department of Homeland Security designated the Army Of God as a perpetrator of terrorism in its 2014 report, "Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism in the United States, 1970-2013." The group was listed just above the white supremacist organizations Aryan Nations and Aryan Republican Army.
The Army Of God was not merely a group of radical theorists. Its central mission was to engage in violent action to shut down abortion clinics. The organization went on a bloody rampage with the goal of forcing an end to legal abortion in the United States. According to the Global Terrorism Database, the Army Of God murdered three Americans during the 1980s and 1990s, and injured ninety others.
For more on David Leach and his connection with Donald Trump, read Donald Trump’s Army of God: Christian Nationalism in the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.