Patel Announces Major Arrests As FBI Foils Terrorism Plot
The FBI has reportedly thwarted a major terrorist attack planned for Halloween weekend in Michigan, arresting several suspects in a sweeping operation early Friday morning.
“This morning the FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack and arrested multiple subjects in Michigan who were allegedly plotting a violent attack over Halloween weekend. More details to come. Thanks to the men and women of FBI and law enforcement everywhere standing guard 24/7 and crushing our mission to defend the homeland,” FBI Director Kash Patel announced on X.
According to the New York Post, FBI agents carried out coordinated raids in Dearborn and Inkster, two Detroit-area cities with large populations, as part of the operation. FBI Detroit spokesman Jordan Hall confirmed the bureau’s presence at several locations.
A senior Michigan official told The Post that the Dearborn Police Department had been briefed on the federal raids, but Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was not notified in advance — a sign that Patel’s FBI may be keeping sensitive counterterror operations close to the vest to prevent political interference.
“When Patel posted, nobody had been briefed. So now everybody’s slowly getting the information,” the official said.
The arrests come as Patel’s FBI simultaneously works to expose and reform the bureau’s past political abuses — including the now-discredited “Arctic Frost” investigation, which targeted President Donald J. Trump and hundreds of his allies during the Biden administration.
The Discredited “Arctic Frost” Investigation
Documents newly released by Director Patel reveal that the FBI’s 2022 Arctic Frost memo — which authorized the Biden-era probe into Trump’s post-2020 election activities — was based on weak evidence and partisan motives, according to multiple former federal prosecutors.
The memo, which was drafted around the time Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign, relied heavily on CNN interview clips as supposed evidence linking the president to an “alternate elector” conspiracy. Experts who reviewed the document said it lacked clear legal justification and would never have met standard thresholds for opening a federal criminal case.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who obtained the memo from Patel, said the document reveals the same political bias that drove the FBI’s 2016 Crossfire Hurricane Russia collusion hoax.
“Sure looks that way. … and it looks like this was just the same old weaponization, same old political focus, going after your political enemies,” Jordan told Just the News.
“That same mindset that was there in 2016 is the mindset we see now in 2022 with Arctic Frost, and then as it transformed into Jack Smith, special counsel, later in 2022 — same mindset. So yeah, that’s what it sure looks like.”
The investigation, which was approved at the highest levels of the Biden Justice Department — including Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, and former FBI Director Christopher Wray — was eventually transferred to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office, which used its powers to issue hundreds of subpoenas to Trump’s allies across the country.
Patel, who was appointed FBI Director by President Trump earlier this year, has vowed to “clean house” and restore the bureau’s integrity after years of politically motivated targeting of conservatives.
The twin headlines — a successful terror plot disruption and the exposure of FBI corruption under prior leadership — mark a stark contrast between Patel’s current FBI and the partisan agency Americans saw weaponized during the previous administration.
As one former federal agent told Just the News, “This is the difference between an FBI that protects America and an FBI that protects politicians.”
For now, the Michigan terror suspects remain in custody as federal agents continue their investigation. Meanwhile, Patel’s team is methodically dismantling what he calls “the remnants of political rot” left behind by the Biden-era DOJ.