Spokane Suspect's Neo-Nazi Ties Run Deep

Mentor had urged followers to strike
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 11, 2011 1:17 PM CST
Spokane Suspect's Neo-Nazi Ties Run Deep
In this undated handout photo provided by KXLY 4 News, bombing suspect Kevin William Harpham is shown.   (AP Photo/KXLY 4 News)

Kevin William Harpham, the man accused of plotting to set off a bomb in Spokane during the city's MLK parade, might have been nudged along by one of his white nationalist heroes. As Media Matters notes, Harpham had been a regular poster on the extremist website Vanguard News Network for years. On Jan. 8, about a week before the failed Spokane plot, fugitive Craig Cobb posted on the site and urged people to follow the examples of so-called lone-wolf terrorists, like the man who flew his plane into an IRS building and the neo-Nazi who opened fire in the Holocaust Museum.

Harpham is clearly an admirer of Cobb, who's on the lam and wanted in Canada on hate crimes charges. On Jan. 6, Harpham posted at VNN: "Craig, if you read this and you need a place to stay for the winter I have an empty basement with a couple rooms, a bed and bathroom you can live in till spring." Harpham never mentioned the Spokane incident in any of his own postings, notes ABC. (More Kevin William Harpham stories.)

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