A lawyer for one of the Michigan men accused of planning what federal officials claim was some kind of Halloween terror attack now says no such plot existed. Even though FBI director Kash Patel’s announcement Friday that those with ties to “international terrorism” had been foiled, no federal charges have been filed as of Sunday. 

The lawyer, Amir Makled, told the Detroit News that allegations of a terror attack being plotted are unsubstantiated. Mr. Makled says that the suspects are simply teenage boys and young men saying things on the internet — not people with real intentions to do harm. 

“This is not a terrorist cell,” Makled told the Detroit News. “There was never any planned mass-casualty event or terrorism plot of any kind that I’m aware of. They might have been on some websites or online chat groups that they shouldn’t have been, but nothing that is illegal.”

Mr. Makled says he is aware of five people being questioned as part of the FBI’s investigation. Law enforcement conducted searches of several homes in Dearborn and Inkster, two suburbs of Detroit. 

“This morning the FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack and arrested multiple subjects in Michigan who were allegedly plotting a violent attack over Halloween weekend,” Mr. Patel said in a post on X on Friday. In that message, he said that more details would follow, though no additional information has been disclosed as of Sunday.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Mr. Makled’s interview with the Detroit News. 

One senior law enforcement source claimed in an interview with Fox News that the alleged terror plot had ties to ISIS, though the outlet was not able to verify those claims. 

One person who spoke with the Associated Press confirmed Mr. Makled’s claim that these discussions among the teenage boys and young men in Michigan were happening in online chat rooms. While discussing violence and a potential attack, the participants mentioned “pumpkin day.”

Mr. Makled says the suspects are between the ages of 16 and 20. 

“If these young men were on forums that they should not have been on or things of that nature, then we’ll have to wait and see,” Mr. Makled told the outlet. “But I don’t believe that there’s anything illegal about any of the activity they were doing.”

On Friday, MSNBC reported that officials inside the FBI and at the Justice Department viewed Mr. Patel’s announcement that morning with a sense of frustration because they believed the director was trying to claim credit for himself and his agency before the investigation was complete. Those sources believed that the probe could be compromised by Mr. Patel’s hasty announcements. 

The kind of online chat rooms, such as Discord and other similar platforms, have come under scrutiny in recent weeks following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The alleged killer in that case, Tyler Robinson, allegedly told friends in a Discord chat that he was the one who had shot and killed Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University on September 10. 

Concerns about teenage boys and young men being radicalized through these online groups has grown so significant that now Congress is hauling executives in from these companies to demand answers. 

Last week, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Congressman James Comer, announced that the general counsels for four gaming and chat room services — Valve/Steam, Discord, Twitch, and Reddit — would sit before his committee for transcribed interviews later this month. The four interviews will be conducted separately, and behind closed doors. 

“In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk and other acts of politically motivated violence, Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that extremists have used to promote violence,” Mr. Comer said in a statement.