Kash Patel’s announcement on Halloween that the FBI had taken down a terror plot near Detroit made me skeptical. After all, when you have a director with Patel’s track record, it can be difficult to take him seriously, and his post on X stating that the FBI had “thwarted a potential terrorist attack . . . over Halloween weekend,” came even before charges were filed, reminiscent of his premature announcement of the arrest of a suspect in the murder of political activist Charlie Kirk. But if the public allegations about the plans are true, then federal prosecutors were wise to authorize arrests.

Of course, all defendants are entitled to the presumption of innocence, and the defendants charged in this case proclaimed theirs. But based on the facts in the complaint, law enforcement officials could not have waited until they had more evidence to take down what appeared to be a conspiracy to commit a mass shooting on behalf of ISIS, a foreign terrorist organization. 

To date, eight defendants have been arrested in the plot—five in Michigan, including two juveniles, two in New Jersey, and one in Washington state. The Michigan men were charged with conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a designated terrorist organization and receiving and transferring guns and ammunition for terrorism. The complaint includes disturbing allegations. First, the investigation began in June when a confidential human source witnessed chatroom conversations among some of the suspects about conducting an ISIS-inspired attack. An undercover FBI agent participated in additional calls. 

Second, during a July phone conversation, some of the men discussed traveling together to Syria to join ISIS and “die there,” unless the “Amir sends you to Paris for a 2015.” According to the complaint, ISIS uses the term “Amir” or “Emir” to refer to a leader or commander. One of the participants in the call said that two of the men planned to stay back in the United States to “do the same thing as France” and said “it’s probably going to be at like a club, a disco.” Investigators concluded that the men may have been referring to a deadly 2015 terror attack in Paris, in which gunmen and suicide bombers simultaneously attacked cafes, restaurants, a concert hall, and sports stadium, killing 130 people and injuring 350. 

Third, after that phone call, two of the men in Michigan, Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud, both 20, bought assault rifles and firearms accessories, including a forced reset trigger, which allows the shooter to increase the rate of fire in a semiautomatic weapon. They and another man, Ayob Nasser, 19, began training with the guns at local shooting ranges. Mahmoud also bought 1,600 rounds of ammunition. Searches of their property revealed three assault weapons, two rifles, four handguns, tactical vests, 44 ammunition magazines, a flash suppressor, and other firearm accessories. Ali, Mahmoud, and Nasser did not participate in any of the phone calls, but one of the alleged co-conspirators who did stayed at the home of Ali when he was visiting the United States. Mahmoud’s and Ali’s social media accounts contained content supportive of ISIS. 

Fourth, while under FBI surveillance, some of the men appeared to engage in scouting missions at the Cedar Point amusement park in Ohio and gay bars in suburban Detroit. ISIS claimed responsibility for the 2016 mass shooting in Orlando at the Pulse nightclub, frequented by members of the LGBT community. That attack resulted in 49 fatalities. 

Fifth, in other calls and text chats, the men made frequent references to doing “pumpkin” and “Pumpkin Day,” which agents concluded could be a code word for Halloween, which was specifically mentioned on one occasion, along with the word “operation.” Nasser’s electronics revealed a search for the size of the crowds at Cedar Point on its fall HalloWeekends. The men also encouraged each other to follow through on what they had been “planning for 40 days,”  said they would “see it on the news,” and spoke of “going to paradise.” One man discussed consulting with someone described as the father of an “Islamic Ideologue,” who advised him not to wait to do his “good deed.”

Those facts are disturbing, to be sure, but they seemed a long way from establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. To be fair, the FBI’s affidavit states that it did not include every fact known to investigators and includes only facts sufficient to establish probable cause. In addition, searches that followed the arrests may yield additional evidence from electronic devices. But what remains unknown are the details of the plot—the target, the timing, the location. According to defense attorneys, the men are video gamers who possessed their guns legally, and their conduct could be consistent with innocent behavior. Communicating in chat rooms and engaging in firearms training are not crimes. Statements about “pumpkin” and “doing a France” are vague at best. The allegations of surveillance of nightclubs are based only on observations of the men driving around the area. Plenty of people research a tourist attraction online before visiting. 

The reports reminded me of a 2010 case prosecuted by my office while I served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Members of an anti-government militia group, the “Hutaree,” were charged with conspiring to kill police officers and federal agents. Like the men in the Halloween plot, they had trained with firearms and discussed their plans with an undercover FBI agent, though no precise date was known to have been set. If anything, the Hutaree’s plan was more developed. The militia group had discussed a plan to lure an officer to their property, kill him, and then attack the large crowds of law enforcement officials who would attend his funeral. They possessed weapons that included a machine gun and built improvised explosive devices out of two-liter soda bottles and ground metal shrapnel. The case ended with a dismissal before it ever went to a jury when the judge found insufficient evidence of a fully formed conspiracy. I disagreed with that conclusion, but respected the judge’s decision. Reasonable minds can disagree about legal conclusions.

That case, too, was disrupted by FBI agents before every detail of the plot was known. While investigators discussed waiting to gather more evidence, that was a luxury we believed we could not afford. Everyone understood the risks of waiting too long to make arrests. The FBI often speaks of disrupting plots “left of boom.” On that imaginary timeline, “boom” marks the attack. The goal is to stop the plan to the left of that point, that is, before the attack. Sometimes taking down a case too far left of boom makes it impossible to collect enough evidence to prove the case, but the alternative could prove fatal. 

The Halloween plot may end the same way as the Hutaree case with an acquittal at trial. Or, it may never get that far if there is no evidence of a specific plot. It’s easy to second-guess charing decisions when it is impossible to connect all the dots, but the risk of doing nothing is just too great. The government will bear the burden of proving its case at trial, but arresting the defendants on these facts was, in my view, the right call. 

Sometimes, even Kash Patel gets it right.