The militia leader who is facing life in prison for masterminding the bombing of a Minnesota mosque now identifies as a woman, according to court documents.
Emily Claire Hari — previously known as Michael Hari — is asking a judge to legally acknowledge her transgender identity. Hari, 50, says a combination of gender dysphoria and right-wing misinformation fueled her “inner-conflict” during the time she’s convicted of bombing Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington.
(Michael Hari – Ford County Sheriff’s Office via AP File)
Elkins cites these as factors in asking U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank to give Hari no more than a 30-year prison sentence — the mandatory minimum for Hari’s conviction — and not the life term sought by prosecutors. She has also asked for an amended prison placement based her transgender identity, but the details of the request are under seal. Elkins could not be reached for comment.
In December, a jury found Hari, of Clarence, Ill., guilty on civil rights and hate crimes related to bombing the mosque. Throughout the two-and-a-half week trial in St. Paul, prosecutors for Minnesota’s U.S. Attorney’s Office described Hari as a hater of Islam and immigrants who viewed both as threats to American culture. After the 2016 election of Donald Trump, Hari bid the federal government on a contract to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall, which Hari viewed as a symbol of protecting American values. Hari later graduated to violent action, manipulating uneducated and financially vulnerable men from his rural community to help “harrass the untouchables.”
The list of targets included the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, which Hari told his acolytes served as a training and recruiting ground for ISIS.
On Aug. 4, 2017, Hari picked up Joe Morris, 25, and Michael McWhorter, 31, in a rented pickup truck filled with assault rifles, a sledgehammer and a 20-pound black powder bomb and drove toward Minnesota. During the trial, Morris and McWhorter told the jury trial that, under Hari’s instructions, they broke open a window to the mosque and tossed the bomb into the Imam’s office as people gathered inside for a morning prayer. Hari supervised from the truck and all three slapped a high-five as they sped away. Morris and Mcwhorter both pleaded guilty to their roles in the bombing and became key witnesses for the prosecution’s case against Hari.
“The property damage was collateral to [Hari’s] real purpose,” prosecutors say in court documents, arguing for the life sentence. “This bomb — the defendant’s bomb — was an act of terror intended to destroy the heart of a community.”
To that end, they succeeded, prosecutors say. “To this day, the Dar al-Farooq community feels unsafe gathering, praying, and bringing their families to the mosque. With a single calculated attack, the defendant irrevocably destroyed the sense of safety and peace that a house of worship is supposed to provide.”
Prosecutors cite Hari’s own writings for the motivations behind the mosque attack and a failed bombing of a women’s clinic. “There is no more anti-Christian religion, and no more anti-American philosophy on the face of the Earth than Islam,” Hari wrote in “The White Rabbits Handbook,” a manifesto for Hari’s militia. “America is a white, Christian country,” Hari wrote.
In her plea for leniency, Elkins describes Hari as a misunderstood “pacifist” who lived peacefully in Anabaptist communities around the world among other cultures. “She is not a ‘White Nationalist,’ a ‘Neo Nazi,’ a ‘Skinhead,’ a ‘Boogaloo Boi,’ nor part of the ‘Arian(sic) Brotherhood.'”
Hari continues to deny taking part in the bombing of which she’s been convicted.
Still, Elkins said, at the time of the attack, Hari was influenced by misinformation and conspiracies published by right-wing blogs like Breitbart, World Net Daily and Jihad Watch, and amplified by unnamed elected officials, according to court documents. “This degrading, anti-Muslim, and Islamophobic rhetoric and misinformation has spread throughout the United States over the past several years through social media and the internet,” Elkins wrote.
Elkins also asks the judge to consider Hari’s advanced age as reason for a 30-year sentence to be sufficient.
“Emily Hari is more than a one-note caricature,” said Elkins. “She is a complex human being who has been convicted by a jury of her peers. She will stand before this Court for sentencing, facing life in prison. She asks the Court to consider a sentence that is just and proportionate rather than vindictive or symbolic.”
Hari’s sentencing date is scheduled for Sept. 13.
Andy Mannix
©2021 StarTribune. Visit startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Michael Hari, you will make a beautiful woman with the beard you have in the photo above!
The anti-Islam sentiment carries merit. Just saying.
How interesting that they want to go after this person for their violence, property destruction, and killing—yet Antifa and BLM get away with every bit as bad, if not worse. We can’t have selective crime punishment—you have to apply the law equitably. More Biden administration nonsense.
If this MAN’S twisted mind wants to be a woman, it would be poetic justice if HE were shipped to a Moslem nation immediately following gender alteration surgery and let HIM “enjoy” being a female there.
It took 50 years for this pice of shoot to identify as a she. Wonder what recently happened and what will happen. Oh, arrest and prison. I think either way (male or female prison) he will be everybody’s girlfriend/boyfriend. He will have a sore anus. A last thought – what does his/her DNA say and what is between his legs?
To the individual who spoke so crudely and ignorantly about Emily being transgender…
Is that the only takeaway you got from this article? Wow.
The reason people don’t reveal their gender is due to people like you. People who are judgmental and possibly fear “their” own unknown.
I’m not at all standing up for Emily’s lawlessness.
She is definitely where she belongs.
However, I feel those who are transgender don’t deserve the way they’re treated. They’re human beings. Their lives have value, like everyone else’s. It’s not about a preference. It’s about who you are on the inside. It has a much deeper meaning. I’m assuming you don’t really want to learn about what that means. So, in closing I’ll say this. I’m not sure if your parents ever told you, but “if you cannot say something nice, then don’t say anything at all”.
The Black Lives Matter protests were overwhelmingly peaceful. However, there were counter-protestors/white supremacists who created the violence and civil unrest. It is extremely convenient to place blame on the Black race or Antifa, just as “former President Trump” does. The “Unite the Right” counter-protestors were peacefully protesting. That is, until a white supremacist- neo-nazi plowed them over with his car.
The Trump-Republican white supremacists and insurrectionists, who illegally entered the Capitol, defecated on the floor of the Capitol, vandalized, brutally attacking police officers, and yelling out what their intentions were, are terrorists. Four good police officers lost their lives because of the insurrectionists. The insurrectionists, like Trump, should be held accountable.
I knew Joe Morris when he was just a boy. He has disabilities, was a foster child, had a rough life, and unfortunately got into this mess by trusting Michael Hari aka Emily. However, just as Trump, the insurrectionists, the corrupt Republicans, and Trump’s allies, as well as the White Rabbit Militia members and all of the 300 anti-govetnment military groups and white supremacists, must be held accountable for their actions. This is not an autocratic country. Do away with that white man “the enemy’s at our gates” mentality, and accept that everyone belongs in the U.S., no matter their race, gender, disability, age, etc.