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.”

CBS4 reporter Brian Maass interviewed one of the suspects in the Denver County jail last night. (Video from the interview can be watched here.)

Nathan Johnson, 32, an associate of Gartrell and Adolph, was also arrested Sunday morning. He told authorities that the two men had “planned to kill Barack Obama at his acceptance speech.”

“He don’t belong in political office. Blacks don’t belong in political office. He ought to be shot,” Johnson told Maass.

“Do you think they were really plotting to kill Obama?” Maass asked.

“I don’t want to say yes, but I don’t want to say no,” he said.

Federal agents from the FBI, Secret Service, BATF and a joint terrorism task force are involved in the investigation. Aurora Police spokesman Det. Marcus Dudley said Monday night that there could be more arrests in the plot, but federal officials continued to tamp down fears over the plot.

Monday night, Eid issued a statement: “We’re absolutely confident there is no credible threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention, or the people of Colorado,”

Maass reports Tuesday afternoon:

“It’s premature to say that it was a valid threat or that these folks have the ability to carry it out,” said a U.S. government official familiar with the investigation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Meanwhile, Colorado Independent sister site the The Michigan Messenger reported a flurry of discussion over the suspected plot on white supremacist site Stormfront.org after news broke Monday night. One post, which was removed by Stormfront administrators soon after it was posted, read:

…it doesn’t hurt to make our positions clear of what we accept for our ranks to distance ourselves a little. Particularly since all of the typical stereotypes are in play. You know. Us “Nazis” are druggies, which brings up images of lacking education and living in trailers as a result. I certainly think there is a little embellishment going on.

Read Colorado Independent’s continuing coverage of the alleged assassination plot against Barack Obama.

[At] least four people are under arrest in connection with a possible plot to kill Barack Obama at his Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver. All are being held on either drug or weapons charges.

CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass reported one of the suspects told authorities they were “going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a … rifle … sighted at 750 yards.”

Law enforcement sources tell Maass that one of the suspects “was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama. He responded in the affirmative.”

As reported earlier, Aurora police arrested 28-year-old Tharin Gartrell early Sunday morning after his rented pickup truck was seen swerving on the road.

Sources told CBS4 police found two high-powered, scoped rifles in the car along with camouflage clothing, walkie-talkies, a bulletproof vest, a spotting scope, licenses in the names of other people and methamphetamine. One of the rifles is listed as stolen from Kansas.

Mug shot of Tharin Gartrell, one of two men suspected of an assassination plot against Sen. Barack Obama. (Photo/Aurora Police Department)

Subsequently authorities went to the Cherry Creek Hotel to contact an associate of Gartrell’s. But that man, who was wanted on numerous warrants, jumped out of a sixth floor hotel window. Law enforcement sources say the man broke an ankle in the fall and was captured moments later. Sources say he was wearing a ring with a swastika, and is thought to have ties to white supremacist organizations.

A third man — an associate of Gartrell’s and the hotel jumper — was also arrested. He told authorities that the two men “planned to kill Barack Obama at his acceptance speech.”

That man, along with a woman, are also under arrest.

Authorities have scheduled a news conference for Tuesday afternoon.

A Rocky Mountain News story just posted lists the names, arrest details and charging information for three of the suspects arrested early Sunday.

Detective Marcus Dudley, a police spokesman, would not comment on reports that the men were involved in a plot to kill Obama. He told reporters gathered in a parking lot behind the police station that he could not discuss the “federal implications” of the case or whether others beside the three men had been arrested. However, he did confirm that federal authorities were involved in arresting two of the men.

… Dudley identified the three suspects as:

* Tharin Robert Gartrell, 28, who was carrying a Colorado identification card that listed a Centennial address. Gartrell was erratically driving a rented 2008 blue Dodge Ram truck that was not registered in his name. The guns, ammo, drugs and other equipment were found in the truck.

* Nathan Johnson, 32. About three hours after Gartrell’s arrest, police from Aurora, Denver and Greenwood Village, and federal agents arrested Johnson at a hotel near Interstate 25 and Belleview Avenue. He is being held on drug charges in Denver. His bond amount was not available.

* Shawn Robert Adolf, 33. Police and federal agents arrested Adolf at the Cherry Creek Hotel at 600 South Colorado Boulevard in Glendale around 5 a.m. Sunday after he jumped from a sixth-floor window. Adolf was injured when he fell four stories onto the second-floor roof of the hotel kitchen. He then jumped again onto the ground around the hotel, where police caught him a short time later. Johnson was hospitalized with unspecified injuries from his fall. He is being held on 7 outstanding warrants with bonds totaling $1 million.