Witness Remembers Talk About Making Bombs Court Told Militia Members Described Molotov Cocktails, Trip-Wire Triggers At Meetings

Members of the Washington State Militia met to discuss politics - but also pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails and trip-wire triggers for explosives, witnesses testified Friday in the trial of seven people accused of plotting against the government.

Brian Smith, 28, an Oak Harbor banker who lived in Bellingham until several months ago, said militia members at a meeting he attended in summer 1995 also discussed how to disable three substations to knock out the power supply of Whatcom County, on the Canadian border.

Bellingham is in Whatcom County.

That meeting, Smith said, was very different from two earlier militia meetings he had attended, at which only political topics were discussed, ranging from water fluoridation to property rights.

“My previous impression of the Washington State Militia was that it was generally a political-style group,” he said. “The ‘training meeting’ … in my view was a preparation for terrorism.”

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour ordered the second part of that comment stricken.

The defendants face an 18-count indictment that accuses all of them of conspiracy, and several of various weapons counts. They are Washington State Militia founder John Pitner, 45, of Deming; Gary Marvin Kuehnoel, 47, of Bellingham; Frederick Benjamin Fisher, 61, of Bellingham, who was the militia’s assistant director; Bellingham resident Marlin Lane Mack, 24; Tracy Lee Brown, also known as William Smith, about 60, of Seattle; and Renton residents Judy Carol Kirk, 54, and her husband, John Lloyd Kirk, 56.

Prosecutors allege they were members of or had ties to the Washington State Militia or the freemen - anti-government groups that gained public attention after events such as the Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho and the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, Texas. They built bombs, sold illegal guns and took other actions as part of an anti-government conspiracy, prosecutors say.

Defense lawyers contend their clients were set up by an undercover FBI agent and a paid informant who enticed them to commit crimes they otherwise would not have. They describe their clients as loyal Americans who are afraid of the U.S. government, and who think they need to prepare for a future invasion by foreign troops.

Smith said he began attending militia meetings because of his concern over gun control and anti-hunting initiatives.

But at the third meeting at Pitner’s home, he said Mack reviewed how to build pipe bombs and how they were to be used “in riot situations to create confusion,” or as booby-traps to protect an area.

Militia members were told they should gather materials for the illegal bombs as preparation, but not to make them, Smith said. Mack, however, said he had begun to build one, Smith said.

Pitner and Kuehnoel then described how to make trip-wire triggers and booby-traps using mouse and rat traps, wire, shotgun shells and other items, Smith said. They were to be used to protect areas where militia members had cached survival supplies or were holding meetings, he said.

Another witness, Joshua Leibrant, a 19-year-old metal fabrication worker from Everson, said he joined the militia in January 1996 and was part of the group until the raids on July 27 that led to the defendants’ arrests.

He said he also received pipe-bomb training from Mack, although he said he “wasn’t really thrilled with the idea” of making bombs and never did so.

He also got instruction in how to make shotgun-shell booby traps, but added, “I don’t believe it would do any damage” since the shell wasn’t confined and would probably just splatter.

Leibrant said he considered militia members’ comments about killing federal agents and foreign soldiers to mean defensive killings only, although he began to have second thoughts about Mack “because of some of the jokes he said.”

“I started to wonder if he was serious,” Leibrant said.

Leibrant also said his belief in a coming invasion by UN troops was bolstered when a Swedish co-worker displayed photos of himself standing by a UN military vehicle and said he was in Bellingham to make contacts for an invasion. At one point, Leibrant said, the co-worker put an awl to Leibrant’s throat and said he could kill him.

Lawyers pressed Smith on whether comments were made about pipe bombs and other weapons being for offensive or defensive use. He said he was told only that they were for “encounters” with invading UN or NATO troops.

Smith said he didn’t attend any more meetings after that, despite about a dozen invitations from Fisher.

He admitted, however, that after the third meeting he agreed to go with Mack to see whether they could find a cave suitable for caching supplies.

The paid informant, Edwin Maeurer, is scheduled to testify when the trial resumes Tuesday.