A Massachusetts man who was arrested and charged Monday with trying to kill Trump administration officials said he was inspired by Luigi Mangione.
Ryan English, 24, turned himself in to Capitol Police shortly after 3 p.m. Monday near the ramp leading to the Capitol building’s south door, according to a U.S. Capitol spokesperson.
He claimed to be carrying knives and Molotov cocktails, and a search of him revealed a folding knife and two Molotov cocktails fashioned out of 50 milliliter Absolut Vodka bottles, stuffed with cloths doused in hand sanitizer, according to the criminal complaint.
English said he was inspired by Mangione, who was charged with assassinating the CEO of UnitedHeathcare in December, prosecutors said in a court filing.
“I didn’t have a plan in my mind. I felt like I had to do this. I felt like I was on a mission. … Maybe I told myself to have faith and just see where this goes and I had been thinking about for this for a while because of Luigi Mangione,” English told prosecutors. “I have seen the response to that and that situation. … It was not an everyday thing and it extremely shook up everything.”
Due to a congenital heart defect, English said he has four months to live and planned to flee the county after carrying out his plan, according to the court filing.
English told prosecutors his violent plan including using Molotov cocktails to murder Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and using a knife to slit the throat of a member of a conservative think tank. English also wanted to ram President Donald Trump with his car and stab him to death on the White House steps and wanted to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
After arriving at the Capitol, English said he had a change of heart and turned himself into police. He had a handwritten note addressed to a person named Judith.
“This is terrible but I can’t do nothing while these nazis kill my sisters,” the letter read.
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