Robert James Talbot, Jr. woke up on the morning of March 27 ready to carry out the plan he’d allegedly been concocting for months. He drove to a storage facility in Houston, Texas where he met the three other members of “Operation Liberty.” According to a criminal complaint filed against him, Talbot had recruited his teammates via a Facebook group called the American Insurgent Movement to help him rob armored cars; the first phase of his larger scheme to kill police officers and blow up mosques and government buildings. Talbot allegedly provided his team with detailed maps of the financial institution he wanted to target, and escape routes for best avoiding law enforcement. He put two Composition 4, or C4, plastic explosive devices in his black backpack and asked one of his team members to read a “manifesto” he’d brought with him.

“We must rebel. There is no other option,” it read, according to the complaint. “Blood and bullets are the only two things that will change this world, short of divine action.”

On his way to carry out the robbery, Talbot was arrested by an FBI SWAT team.

Unbeknownst to the 38-year-old Talbot, he’d been the subject of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation since August, 2013. The people he’d recruited to be a part of his team were a pair of undercover FBI agents and a civilian informant.

While the words “terrorism” and “insurgent” often conjure thoughts of Islamic extremism, the majority of domestic terrorist attacks in the United States over the past two decades have been carried out by right-wing radicals. According to data compiled last year by the liberal website ThinkProgress from the National Counterterrorism Center, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, right-wing extremists have been responsible for 56 percent of domestic terrorist attacks and plots since in the U.S. the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. 12 percent have been perpetrated by Islamic extremists.

Before a federal judge, Talbot—who reportedly wore the green fatigues and brown “American Insurgent Movement” t-shirt he was arrested in—was charged Friday with attempting to interfere with commerce via robbery, solicitation to commit a violent crime, and possession of an explosive material. Talbot faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 if convicted of the attempted robbery charge alone. Each of the remaining charges carry an additional 10 years and $100,000....