Oregon police arrested him in 2006 on charges of impersonating a police officer and a felony weapons offense. They had found him showing guns to teenagers in a gas-station parking lot while wearing a police-style uniform and a badge emblazoned with the words “Special Agent.”
“Hopkins stated that he worked for the federal government directly under George Bush,” Officer Jack Daniel of the sheriff’s office in Klamath County, Oregon, wrote in his report. Hopkins, the report said, claimed variously to be investigating a meth lab, hunting fugitives and undertaking unspecified “operations” in Afghanistan.
Officials in South Dakota indicted Hopkins in 2009 on charges of failure to pay child support. Long before then, Hopkins pleaded guilty in 1996 in Michigan to felony possession of a loaded firearm and was sentenced to 16 months to two years in prison.
Hopkins finally came under the scrutiny of federal authorities in 2017, after the FBI received reports that his group was “training” to assassinate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros, according to documents unsealed Monday in federal court.
Hopkins, 69, appeared in U.S. District Court on Monday after his arrest over the weekend on yet another charge, this time of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.
The arrest followed the posting online of a series of videos by Hopkins’ group, which calls itself the United Constitutional Patriots, showing men in camouflage circling and detaining hundreds of migrants in the desert near Sunland Park, New Mexico, and then handing the migrants over to Border Patrol.
The heavily armed militia’s actions have ignited debate over whether its members broke kidnapping laws and effectively acted as a paramilitary force supporting the Border Patrol. Militia members argue that they were assisting authorities to patrol remote areas of the border and carrying out “verbal citizen’s arrests.”
In an affidavit, David S. Gabriel, an FBI special agent, said the bureau was made aware of the activities of Hopkins after receiving reports in October 2017 of “alleged militia extremist activity” in northwestern New Mexico.
Gabriel said that the following month, two FBI agents went to a trailer park in Flora Vista, New Mexico, where Hopkins was living at the time. With Hopkins’ consent, the agents entered the home and saw about 10 firearms in plain view, in what Hopkins referred to as his office.
Hopkins, who has also used the name Johnny Horton Jr., told the agents that the guns belonged to Fay Sanders Murphy, whom he described to agents as his common-law wife, according to the affidavit. The agents collected at least nine firearms from the home as evidence, including a 12-gauge shotgun and various handguns.
The court affidavit gave few details about the report the FBI received stating that the United Constitutional Patriots “were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama because of these individuals’ support of Antifa.” The term Antifa refers to left-wing activists who have clashed with right-wing groups in cities across the country.
The FBI also did not specify why agents waited to arrest Hopkins after finding his home awash in guns in 2017. At that time, agents concluded that his possession of the weapons was illegal because he had a previous felony conviction. Separately, a probation officer in Oregon had already asked in 2007 for a warrant for Hopkins’ arrest after he failed to report to probation meetings.
Hopkins’ lawyer, Kelly O’Connell, disputed the reports about assassination plans. “My client told me that is not true,” O’Connell said.
He also questioned the timing of the arrest. “My question is, why now?” O’Connell said. He suggested that pressure from prominent Democrats in New Mexico may have prompted the FBI to take action.
O’Connell said Hopkins planned to plead not guilty to the latest charge.
After the 2017 search of Hopkins’ residence in New Mexico, FBI agents contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and determined that none of the firearms collected from the home was manufactured in New Mexico, opening the door to possible additional charges of transporting the weapons in interstate commerce, a federal offense.
O’Connell, who was the host of a conservative radio talk show program in New Mexico until 2017, declined to say who was paying Hopkins’ legal fees.
Hopkins could face up to 10 years in prison if he is found guilty of the new charge. He told the judge Monday that he suffers from various medical problems and gave his age as 70, though court records showed he was 69.
“I’m not a militia specialist,” O’Connell said when asked about the motives of Hopkins and other members of the armed group. He added, “They believe they are helping to enforce the laws of America on immigration.”
Jim Benvie, a spokesman for the United Constitutional Patriots, declined to talk Monday about Hopkins’ legal problems or other actions by the group. But he insisted that the group planned to remain camped near the border in Sunland Park.
“We’re not leaving,” Benvie said.
Still, pressure is building on the group from various directions. Both PayPal and GoFundMe banned accounts for the group, potentially making it harder for the militia to receive donations. And the rail transportation company Union Pacific said it believed that the group was camped on land adjacent to its property in southern New Mexico.
“They have trespassed on our property to access this camp,” said a Union Pacific spokesman, Tim McMahan. “While we cannot make them move their camp, we have asked them to not trespass on our property.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.