The three men drove through the night in a rented pickup truck with a bag full of automatic rifles in the back seat, and after 10 hours on the road, Michael Hari revealed the objective of their trip.
"We're going to go to Minnesota and we're going to bomb a mosque," Hari told them, according to Michael McWhorter's testimony in St. Paul's federal courthouse on Thursday morning. It was about 4 a.m. on Aug. 5, 2017, and the three men were an hour away from the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington.
McWhorter, one of the passengers in the truck, is a star witness for the prosecution in the domestic terrorism trial of Hari, which began Monday. McWhorter pleaded guilty in January 2019 to two federal charges related to the bombing of the mosque. Several people had gathered inside for dawn prayer when the pipe bomb ignited, along with a bottle full of gasoline and diesel fuel. The bombing didn't injure anyone, but Muslim faith leaders in the Twin Cities say the attack irreparably shook their community.
Hari, 49, of Clarence, Ill., has pleaded not guilty to five federal charges, including multiple civil rights and hate crimes. Prosecutors say Hari's hatred for Muslims, and for others who were different from him, motivated him to plan and help execute the bombing.
As part of McWhorter's plea, he agreed to testify against Hari. McWhorter, 31, and Joe Morris, 25, the other man in the truck, will be key to proving the prosecution's case that Hari was the mastermind behind the bombing and leader of a radical anti-Muslim militia called the "White Rabbits."
In opening statements, Hari's attorney, James Becker, urged jurors to be skeptical of testimony from McWhorter and Morris, saying their stories have changed over time. McWhorter said he didn't hold strong political beliefs before he met Hari and had never voted. Under cross examination, Becker read several Facebook posts in which McWhorter makes pro-Donald Trump, anti-Muslim statements in summer 2017. McWhorter said he didn't specifically recall writing the posts but said he must have done so if they're under his name.
Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney John Docherty, McWhorter told the jury Thursday that Hari took advantage of his desperate financial situation in 2017 to recruit him for what Hari originally called security work. At the time, McWhorter said, he'd lost his job and was supporting 11 people, including his wife and her four children. He was a high school dropout struggling to make ends meet.
Hari, a friend of McWhorter's parents who ran for sheriff on the Libertarian ticket years earlier, offered him $50,000 plus regular installments of $6,000 to join his new company, McWhorter said. McWhorter readily agreed, even though Hari was vague about what the work entailed.