When police showed up at Paul William Ryan’s property in Arizona, they found 32 pipe bombs. Ryan warned them they’d find some of his writings about antifa, survivalism, and “corruption.”
Court documents obtained by The Daily Beast show that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Phoenix obtained a search warrant for Ryan’s phone numbers and mobile data after local police found dozens of explosive devices on his property in March.
Ryan’s alleged pipe bomb collection and political rants came to the attention of the feds because of an argument over money at his property in Vernon, according to court records. Federal agents wrote that Ryan fell out with two men, described as “ranch hands,” after he raised the rent on the trailer space leased to them. The rent hike prompted the two men to leave and when one went looking to recover a tool he had loaned Ryan, he claimed to have seen pipe bombs stashed in ammunition cans inside Ryan’s trailer and quickly phoned the police, according to an affidavit.
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Under questioning, Ryan didn’t cop to making the pipe bombs but he did tell law enforcement that they’d likely find his DNA on the devices. Investigators also noted that the bombs looked like they had been constructed from materials at Ryan’s property.
He also told police that they were likely to “find information related to survivalism and ‘preppers’ and “writings about corruption and derogatory writing related to antifa” on his electronic devices.
Since antifa activists turned up at riots in the wake of the Minneapolis’ police killing of George Floyd, the sometimes violent movement has emerged as a catch-all boogeyman on the right wing and conservatives have used the amorphous movement as a scapegoat for everything from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to non-existent mobs seeking to storm the suburbs.
The investigation also comes amid increasing concern about far-right domestic terrorism and increased scrutiny of it by the Biden administration. In March, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an assessment which placed far-right extremists as the largest terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland.
One tenant of Ryan’s told law enforcement that the Arizona man had started a text message group chat labeled “Rebel Radio” which blasted out messages that “were political in nature” in which “Ryan would disparage groups such as antifa and discuss survivalism.”
The allegations of interest in right-wing survivalist and prepper materials described in court documents tracks with an apparent trail left by Ryan on the internet. Ryan appears to have frequented survivalist websites. One commenter on a survivalist site used Ryan’s name, phone number, and address and described himself as a “life long prepper” and “small businessman” who “grow[s] my own food.”
The commenter, who posted a month after the search warrant was executed on Ryan’s property, complained about coronavirus lockdowns and threats from government officials. “Thier [sic] is nothing like having a government official sitting next to you in church and saying. ‘Your [sic] not hurting anyone and your [sic] not breaking the law. But if you continue we are sending ATF.’”
“Just follow who gets the money and who is waiting for a token gesture check from the government,” he wrote, referencing stimulus checks sent out during the coronavirus pandemic. “Must be nice all I got was threats from the government and cops that I would get shot down if I continued to try to make a living or provide for myself.”
ATF and Arizona public safety officials analyzed five of the pipe bombs found on the property and discovered they were made of smokeless powder, a propellant commonly used in firearm ammunition and widely available on the internet and in gun stores. X-rays of the bombs revealed they’d been loaded with nails to act as shrapnel which could cause additional wounds to anyone in the vicinity of a blast.
The Apache County Sheriff’s Office and the Justice Department did not respond to questions from The Daily Beast and the ATF declined to comment. In late March, multiple federal and state law enforcement agencies put out a joint statement asking the public for assistance in locating Ryan after authorities found the explosive devices in his trailer. But court documents indicate authorities were able to interview Ryan in Show Low, Arizona, a week later.
Ryan did not respond to text messages from The Daily Beast.
The search warrant obtained by FBI agents sought data from two Verizon phone numbers associated with Ryan but authorities appear to have come up empty on their hunt. Data prior to April 2021 “was removed from their systems,” according to court records, and “Consequently, no content was obtained via the search warrant” besides “basic subscriber data and a few voicemails.”
Court documents indicate that federal law enforcement is investigating Ryan for possible violations of federal law regarding possession or storage of explosives and possession of an unregistered explosive device, but prosecutors have not charged Ryan with a crime.
