20 year old planned to bomb the Capitol and shoot lawmakers as they fled

The plan: Set off pipe bombs to put lawmakers and employees in a panicked state and then gun them down with an assault rifle as they ran across his path and that of an accomplice.

This was the plan, the FBI says, of 20-year-old Christopher Lee Cornell of Cincinnati, Ohio planned to soon carry out on the United States Capitol Building.

The FBI had first become suspicious of Cornell, who was living at home with his parents during all of this, when he posted statements and statuses online that seemed to be sympathizing with the terror group ISIS. The FBI continued to follow and read what Cornell was posting, under the alias, Raheel Mahrus Ubayda, on Twitter. When they became certain that Cornell was a legitimate terror threat, an FBI informant was used, which is usually someone who is a convict, who if they help the FBI with a case, have a very good chance of getting a prison sentence lessened or something along those lines. The informant’s job, who was acting as an accomplice to Cornell, was to coax Cornell into saying that he was going to pull off the attack.

Cornell’s father, John Cornell, says that his son is an overall good kid. In his mind, he said, his son couldn’t hurt a fly. However, he said that he and his wife still love their son more than ever.

John Cornell says that his son was vulnerable and was coerced into saying the things to the informant that he had said. He knows that in his heart that his son was never thinking of killing innocent people.

“He may be facing life in prison,” John Cornell told CNN. “Do you know how devastating that is?”

The elder Cornell told The Cincinnati Enquirer that his son had converted to Islam in the past couple of years and had found “peace in the religion.” Cornell also said that his son had endured his share of abuse because of and regarding his religious beliefs.

Cornell wrestled at Cincinnati’s Oak Hills High School, graduating in 2012. His former principal, Principal John Stoddard issued a statement describing Cornell as a “typical student” who was not a discipline problem.

“His teachers were shocked at the news of his involvement in this situation,” the statement said. “Teachers … remember Christopher as a quiet, but not overly reserved, student who would participate in class and did not withdraw from his class work.”

One of Cornell’s high school classmates, Jake Flick, told NBC News that Cornell started to change during his senior year.

“He would say the weirdest stuff about the government,” Flick told NBC, adding that Cornell was very interested in “anarchy.”

When Cornell was arrested, following his purchase of two M-15 semi-automatic rifles and 600 rounds of ammunition, he was already preparing and packing to travel to Washington, D.C.