On August 5, 2017, Michael Hari and two other men from a tiny terrorist group called the White Rabbits firebombed the Dar al-Farooq (DAF) Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, at the time of morning prayers.
A pipe bomb filled with shrapnel exploded. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but there was extensive fire and smoke damage.
One of Hari's accomplices testified that their purpose was to "scare [Muslims] out of the United States".
Hari pleaded guilty and will be sentenced on September 13. Prosecutors have asked for a life sentence.
Hari's lawyer, however, has asked for a mitigated sentence of 35 years because Hari was struggling with acute gender dysphoria when he was planning his terror attack.
In fact, Hari says that he now identifies as a woman named Emily Claire Hari. He has asked to serve his sentence in a woman's prison.
In a sentencing plea, the lawyer wrote:
"Thus, as she formed a ragtag group of freedom fighters or militia men and spoke of missions to Cuba and Venezuela, Ms. Hari secretly looked up 'sex change,' 'transgender surgery' and 'post-op transgender' on the internet. As she purchased military fatigues for their 'missions,' she also purchased dresses and female clothing for a planned trip to Bangkok, Thailand, for male-to-female surgery. She was living a double life."
The judge in this case has a chance to treat this plea with the contempt it deserves and to reject the trans narrative that the gullible media is already spinning around Mr Michael Benjamin Hari. "Hari is seeking an amended prison assignment given her gender identity. She denies any involvement in the attack," says one report .
Mr Hari's life is a bizarre mixture of fantasy and serious professional involvement. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois Police Training Institute and worked as a deputy sheriff for two years. He was elected to various small town offices in the late 90s.
Then, in 2000 he joined the Old Order of the German Baptists, an Amish-like group, and became a pacifist, abjured cars and drove a horse and buggy.
Somewhere along the line, he was married and had two daughters. When the marriage broke down, he abducted his daughters and spirited them off to a religious colony in the jungles of Belize. He only agreed to bring them back if he and the girls were able to appear on the daytime talk show Dr Phil .
In 2017 he drafted a US$10 billion plan to build a wall along the Mexican border. To be fair this was someone else's fantasy, too, but it was crazy enough. In 2018 he sued the Federal government for interfering with his food certification business. "The People of the United States have rejected the Marxist doctrine that the government shall own the means of production," he wrote.
And then he founded the White Rabbits.
Which fantasy deserves to mitigate his sentence? Mr Hari's dream of ridding the US of Muslims? Of Mexicans? Of being a pacificist? Of living a horse-and-buggy lifestyle? Of being a sheriff? Of being a militiaman? Of being a TV sensation? Or of being a woman?
If he is allowed to serve time in a women's prison, won't he be a danger to the other inmates? Surely time behind bars is punishment enough for a woman convicted of a crime. Sharing a cell or a shower with a murderous male fantasist is an example of "cruel and unusual punishment" if there ever was one.
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But woke judges are ignoring the right of women to live without fear of being sexually assaulted.
A few weeks ago, a High Court judge in the UK ruled that it is lawful for transgender women to be housed in women's jails. And this can happen because a male simply identifies as a woman; there is no need for sex reassignment surgery or even a gender recognition certificate.
And in California, a law which came into effect on January 1, the Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, allows prisoners who identify as "transgender, non-binary and intersex" to be housed and searched in a manner "consistent with their gender identity". So far, according to the Los Angeles Times , there have been more than 261 requests for transfers. None have been denied.
"The civil and human rights of female prisoners must not be sacrificed in the pursuit of obliging the demands of men, no matter how they identify," says a feminist group, the Women's Liberation Front .
The Minnesota judge has a chance to stop the slow transformation of America into a transgender Disneyland. He mustn't blow it.