I wouldn’t be at all surprised if these guys were mouthing off and a plant egged them on, supplied the means, and then arrested them. It’s SOP.
Considering the three perps pled to identical sentences means none of the three was a “leader”, wheres the article says Peace asked for the pipe bombs. That means the plant was the leader. Then there was the slight change in plans from the alleged inspirational attack on Feds to the attack on local LEO. That suggests there was no plan to do anything. The three patsies showed up for some reason that they would only know and got themselves a plea deal instead.