Colorado’s U.S. attorney said last week the three suspects — facing federal drug and weapons charges — didn’t pose a “credible threat” to Obama, calling their plans “more aspirational, perhaps, than operational.” But, according to court documents, FBI Special Agent Robert Sawyer believed there was sufficient evidence to charge the men with a criminal conspiracy to kill Obama.

Mug shots of suspects Tharin Gartrell, 28; Shawn Robert Adolf, 33; and Nathan Johnson, 32.

The court documents said the underage girlfriend of one of the suspects described the plot as a suicide mission. Another woman told police Adolf was a member of the Sons of Silence, a white nationalist group, and described all three men as racists.

Johnson, Shawn Adolf and Tharin Gartrell all thought that Obama had a suite in the third floor of the Hyatt Hotel, where they were staying. In fact, the senator was staying in another Denver Hotel.

The men were doing meth inside the hotel with two women on Aug. 23 discussing the plot to kill Obama, according to federal records.

Adolf said “it would not matter if he killed Senator Obama because police would simply add a murder charge to his pending charges,” according to the records. There were seven outstanding warrants for Adolf’s arrest.

Adolf, who was wearing a swastika ring when he was arrested, was being held on $1 million bond based on multiple outstanding charges, including drug offenses, burglary, larceny and aggravated motor vehicle theft.

9NEWS notes the plot could have had origins in a popular movie:

The plot is similar to that in the 1992 movie “The Bodyguard” starring actors Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. In the movie, Costner stops an assassination attempt against Houston by spotting a weapon hidden inside a gutted-out TV camera.

“The law recognizes a difference between a true threat — one that can be carried out — and the reported racist rantings of a drug addict,” U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said.

He said the men’s plans were “more aspirational, perhaps, than operational.”

Mug shots of suspects Tharin Gartrell, 28; Shawn Robert Adolf, 33; and Nathan Johnson, 32.

Eid said authorities determined there was no firm plot to harm Obama. Asked what else they could plan to do with the weapons, Eid said, “I don’t know what they were for.”

“A bunch of meth heads get together, we don’t know why they do what they do. … People do lots of stupid things on meth,” Eid said. “If you’re talking about a true threat, there has to be some evidence they’re not just talking about it or thinking about it, especially in a drug-induced state.”

The three could have ties to fringe white supremacist groups, authorities said. One was arrested while wearing a swastika ring.

Colorado Independent sister site The Michigan Messenger examines links between meth trafficking and white nationalist groups. One of the men arrested Sunday had equipment to manufacture meth and faces trafficking charges, police said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, tracking online discussion among white supremacists this week, finds fears that the supposed assassination plot was a trick by authorities to clamp down on racists:

“I completely predicted that they would do this,” “AZDane” wrote on [Stormfront.org, a white supremacist message board]. “If Obama IS assassinated, it will be the gov’t doing it and we’ll take the blame. Like always.”

The AP reports the fears of a white supremacist threat to Obama could be overblown:

The Homeland Security Department has no specific information about threats to the presidential conventions, but officials say the biggest domestic terror threat would come from the “lone wolf” — someone who is generally sympathetic to white supremacist groups and inspired by racist beliefs, according to an Aug. 22 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press.

In an AP interview last week, the head of the Secret Service’s Protective division said the white supremacist threat to Obama has been exaggerated.

“I think that it’s something that, at times, the media tried to make more of,” Nick Trotta said. “We’ve always watched them, as we watch all the other groups.”