{"id":21193,"date":"2023-12-09T02:03:26","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T08:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=21193"},"modified":"2023-12-09T02:04:20","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T08:04:20","slug":"a-deluge-of-violent-messages-how-a-surge-in-threats-to-public-officials-could-disrupt-american-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=21193","title":{"rendered":"A deluge of violent messages: How a surge in threats to public officials could disrupt American democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(CNN) \u2013 <\/strong>By the time the FBI first showed up at Kevin Patrick Smith\u2019s home in early February, he\u2019d already left dozens of threatening voice messages for US Senator Jon Tester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou stand toe to toe with me, I rip your head off. You die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FBI agents admonished Smith \u2013 who lived about a mile from the Montana Democrat\u2019s office in Kalispell \u2013 to stop the threats, which were making the senator\u2019s staff members afraid to come to work. But the middle-aged contractor couldn\u2019t bring himself to stop. After 10 days, he resumed the calls in ramped-up fashion, leaving messages that now alluded to guns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All said, Smith left about 60 messages for Tester\u2019s office, sometimes over the din of a TV or radio blaring in the background. Aside from some vague accusations (\u201cyou\u2019re pedophiles and you\u2019re criminals\u201d), Smith\u2019s threats contained few specifics about why he was so angry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When FBI agents returned to arrest Smith in late February, they confiscated four shotguns, five rifles, eight pistols, a home-made silencer and nearly 1,200 rounds of ammunition. Smith pleaded guilty to threatening to injure and murder a US Senator and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His case is but a drop in a tidal wave of menacing behavior in recent years that has rattled the offices of public servants and is on a path to collide with what is shaping up to be the most politically toxic presidential election in modern memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the 2024 campaign revs up \u2013 and on the heels of indictments against the Republican frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, who has verbally attacked<\/u><\/a> some of his courtroom adversaries \u2013 the ongoing onslaught of violent messages, particularly to federal lawmakers and other public officials, threatens to disrupt the American machinery of government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the threatscape to members of Congress and other public servants appears to have cooled in 2022, this year has seen several flareups that could prove a harbinger. They include a recent burst of threats targeting some GOP holdouts in the failed effort to award far-right Rep. Jim Jordan<\/u><\/a> the House speakership, another surrounding Trump\u2019s<\/u><\/a> indictments<\/u><\/a>, and yet another targeting progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar<\/u><\/a> \u2013 who has been historically critical of Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians \u2013 following the outbreak of the war between Hamas and Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Threats have also recently targeted election officials. Last month, staff in election offices in several states received suspicious letters<\/u><\/a>. One of them, in Washington state, contained fentanyl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are perhaps the most dangerous hate crimes,\u201d said Anne Speckhard, director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, referring to threats against public officials and election workers. \u201cThey\u2019re really scary because they can take down a democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CNN reviewed more than 540 cases involving people who have been federally charged with making threats against public officials or institutions between January 2013 and November 2023. The analysis includes every prosecuted threat CNN could find against public officials or institutions that was announced by the Offices of the United States Attorneys<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lion\u2019s share of those names, including Smith\u2019s, were provided by a research group<\/u><\/a> at the University of Nebraska, offering a rare glimpse into the lives of the accused as well as the names and political affiliations of the targeted. The researchers say nearly 80% of the defendants were convicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CNN\u2019s analysis \u2013 which also includes some cases logged by the Prosecution Project,<\/u><\/a> a database of alleged perpetrators of political violence \u2013 shows first and foremost just how rare prosecutions are for people who unleash hostile, abusive or harassing invective at public servants or their family members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021 \u2013 a peak year for the activity \u2013 more than 9,600 direct threats and \u201cconcerning statements\u201d were leveled against members of Congress, according to the Capitol Police<\/u><\/a>. Another 4,500-plus that year were hurled at judges, attorneys, jurors, and others who are protected by the US Marshals Service<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The datasets reviewed by CNN showed that, in 2021, just 72 threats against public servants or institutions led to federal charges. Of those, about half were threats driven by ideology, which CNN defines as violent statements made against partisan elected officials, presidential appointees, election workers or against professionals \u2013 such as doctors, judges, school officials or law enforcement officers \u2013 for reasons connected to hot political buttons such as abortion, LGBTQ issues or police brutality. About 40% of all the cases across the decade were politically motivated, CNN found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Examples of non-ideological threats include ones where suspects threatened people investigating or adjudicating their cases or threatened to kill people indiscriminately, such as by bombing a school.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some threats to public officials are also prosecuted at the state and local levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials say the vast majority of hostile messages to public servants aren\u2019t actionable, meaning they don\u2019t meet the legal threshold for being prosecuted as threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecuting threats could become even more difficult in light of a Supreme Court decision<\/u><\/a> this summer in favor of a Colorado man who argued that his harassing messages to a woman on Facebook \u2013 including the phrase \u201cDie. Don\u2019t need you\u201d \u2013 weren\u2019t intended as threats and should be protected speech. That 7-2 decision, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett dissenting, reversed a lower court\u2019s ruling based on a less rigorous prosecution standard, which maintained that a threat crosses the line if it puts \u201ca reasonable person\u201d in distress<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden administration had weighed in on the case, unsuccessfully arguing<\/u><\/a> in an amicus brief that further raising the bar for prosecuting threats could frustrate the ability of public officials to carry out their duties at a time of heightened political rhetoric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Barron, a former election official in Georgia, received hundreds of vitriolic and threatening messages after the 2020 election, when Trump lasered in on the state during his failed bid to claim fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A state attorney general spokesperson told CNN that none of the threats to election officials in Georgia that were referred to and reviewed by the office \u201crose to the level of criminal conduct or no suspect could be identified\u201d and no charges were filed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think Trump gave everyone a license just to say whatever they wanted, make whatever threats they wanted,\u201d Barron told CNN. \u201cI think they knew they wouldn\u2019t get punished for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one voicemail provided to CNN, a man who believed the election was stolen made reference to \u201cCaucasian\u201d founding fathers and said Barron \u2013 who is White but managed a majority-Black staff \u2013 deserved to be shot or \u201cserved lead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barron said the threats \u2013 along with a GOP-led effort to undermine his office \u2013 played a role in his decision to resign<\/u><\/a> as the elections director in Fulton County in the spring of 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy daughter became worried about me,\u201d he told CNN. \u201cMy condo has floor-to-ceiling windows and she didn\u2019t want me near the windows where they are overlooking the street.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barron added that two agents did interview him about the \u201cserved lead\u201d threat, but said he hasn\u2019t heard any updates since his departure. John Keller, an official with the election task force established by the DOJ in 2021, told CNN that the hostile message does seem to \u201cmeet the definition of a true threat,\u201d but that he couldn\u2019t comment on cases in which charges haven\u2019t been filed. The spokesperson for the Georgia attorney general said the office didn\u2019t receive any information about that particular threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katherine Keneally, head of threat analysis and prevention at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said threats to public officials are under-prosecuted. She believes this is due in part to a \u201cresource-strapped\u201d Department of Justice, as well as the challenge of assessing when a threat crosses a line into speech that isn\u2019t protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly difficult, and I do not envy the DOJ\u2019s position,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though prosecutions are comparatively rare, they are up as well, having risen roughly in synch with the explosion in violent and vitriolic rhetoric overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CNN\u2019s analysis found that the number of ideologically driven threats against public officials that led to federal charges skyrocketed during the presidency of Donald Trump, nearly tripling the number of threats that were prosecuted during the final term of President Barack Obama (when the dataset begins). The number of threats that led to arrests peaked in 2021 \u2013 with more than 40% that year happening in January prior to President Joe Biden\u2019s inauguration \u2013 before dropping in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These figures don\u2019t include ideologically or racially motivated threats or acts of violence that target fellow citizens, which have also been on the rise<\/u><\/a>. In the wake of the unfolding crisis in Israel and Gaza, US officials have warned that such threats<\/u><\/a> against Muslims and Jews have spiked; authorities are also on high alert<\/u><\/a> for possible terrorist activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Threats of violence against public officials or their families not only terrify people, they also play havoc with the legislative process. Jordan\u2019s supporters<\/u><\/a> tormented<\/u><\/a> his moderate GOP colleagues in October in what some said was a concerted campaign to \u201cattack\u201d and pressure the holdouts into voting for Jordan\u2019s ill-fated speakership bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CNN\u2019s analysis found that in recent years threats of this nature have become more targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Obama\u2019s second term, politically motivated threats to public officials that led to federal arrests were less likely to name names. And when they did, they tended to name Obama himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 2013 and January 19, 2017, the sitting president \u2013 Obama \u2013 was the target in 71% of all such threats against named public officials, CNN found. During Trump\u2019s tenure, threats to the president fell to 24% of the total to public officials; so far under Biden\u2019s, it\u2019s 19%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conversely, the number of named partisan targets quadrupled during the Trump era, with threats singling out all levels of public officials, from members of Congress to state election officials<\/u><\/a> to governors<\/u><\/a> and city council candidates<\/u><\/a>. That trend has continued into the Biden presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Trump took office, threats to members of both parties rose sharply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More Republican officials \u2013 who were almost never singled out during Obama\u2019s second term \u2013 were targeted than Democrats in prosecuted threats during the Trump years (43 Republicans targeted vs. 35 Democrats). However, the number of Democrats who were threatened during Obama\u2019s term \u2013 16 \u2013 more than doubled under Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger told CNN that threats to certain members of Congress often seem to come on the heels of media stories about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny time a member of Congress is in the news, whether it\u2019s good or bad or just neutral \u2026 you will see a spike in threats to that individual member,\u201d he said. \u201cIt just gets people to notice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As president, Biden has borne the brunt of threats lobbed at Democrats, though he\u2019s on pace to receive significantly fewer prosecuted threats than each of his two predecessors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the combined Trump and Biden eras, Republicans and Democrats were targeted almost evenly: 82 threats leveled at named Republican officials and 80 threats against named Democrats led to federal charges, CNN found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The GOP tends to take fire from both sides, as the Trump years gave way to a lasting surge of threats against members of their own party often labeled as RINO, a term embraced by Trump supporters that means \u201cRepublican in name only.\u201d Still, in the cases examined by CNN, it was more common for members of the GOP to be verbally attacked by people whose politics appear to be to their targets\u2019 left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One incident happened in May, when an Oklahoma man went on an 11-minute trolling rampage against Republicans on Twitter, now known as X, that landed him in prison for a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the evening of May 15, Tyler Jay Marshall, then 36, posted threatening messages to the Twitter accounts of Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and US Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas that caught the attention of the Oklahoma Information Fusion Center, a criminal intelligence taskforce, which notified the FBI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marshall, whose lawyer told the court that he does not own a gun, pleaded guilty and was sentenced<\/u><\/a> in mid-October to a year in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attorney, Tyler Box, told CNN that Marshall \u2013 who is in federal custody \u2013 is a veteran who\u2019d been discharged from the military due to an injury, had recently gotten divorced at the time of the incident and developed a severe drinking problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen he would get very intoxicated, he would vent online,\u201d Box said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A judge wrote that Marshall also displayed signs of having an \u201cextreme mental health crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CNN found that the prosecuted threats to US presidents tend to be less coherently partisan than the prosecuted threats made to members of Congress and other politicians. For instance, at least four of the 30 perpetrators charged with threatening Trump during his presidency had also threatened Obama; another also threatened Biden. About a third of the 32 perpetrators who threatened Obama did so while incarcerated; another fifth had documented mental health issues, CNN found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Threat perpetrators often argue that they are exercising their freedom of speech. One of them emailed with a CNN reporter from prison on condition that he not be named due to fears for his safety. That offender views himself as a political prisoner and claims his due-process rights were violated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt (t)he end of the day I am in prison for WORDS in a country tha(t) pretends to have a first amendment and care about its laws,\u201d he said. \u201cFor this reason I no longer trust my government and am scared for my life and the lives of my family if I speek (sic) out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to which cases are prosecutable, the specificity of the threat matters \u2013 as does the intent of the perpetrator, and the impact it has on the victim. Threats that are more generalized or non-credible often fall within the bounds of protected political speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2019I\u2019m going to kill you at 12:01\u2019 versus \u2018I\u2019m going to kill you,\u2019\u201d said Seamus Hughes, a senior researcher with the project at the University of Nebraska. \u201cIf you got a good lawyer, you\u2019re off on the second one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith, who made threats to Tester, the Montana Democratic senator, embodies a few common characteristics of the threat perpetrators examined by CNN. As a 45-year-old<\/u><\/a> who made the threats, he was actually a little older than most perpetrators in the dataset, where the median age was 37.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But like dozens of the perpetrators examined by CNN, he was grappling with mental health issues. Smith also was still reeling from a contentious and bitter divorce. Divorce \u2013 along with loss of loved ones, solitude and substance abuse \u2013 was another recurring theme in the lives of many offenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of the culprits\u202f\u2013 more than 90% \u2013 are male.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite a few, like Smith, continued to make threats even after being warned by law enforcement to knock it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One high-profile case this summer involved Craig Robertson, a\u202f75-year-old widower from Utah who brazenly ignored warnings by the FBI to stop making threats online against Trump\u2019s adversaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the avid collector of assault rifles and other guns went on to post a barrage of detailed death threats \u2013 often alongside photos of firearms \u2013 against public officials, including Biden ahead of a presidential trip to the Beehive State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The threats to Biden prompted another visit from the FBI that turned tragic when an agent fatally shot Robertson after he allegedly aimed a gun at them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A similar but lesser-known case began in early 2020, when FBI agents were alerted to disturbing voicemail death threats against California Rep. Adam Schiff. They traced the phone number back to a cheap motel in the desert town of Bullhead City, Arizona, and visited the room in question. Inside was the culprit: 77-year-old Steven Martis, a Vietnam veteran with no family who rode a mobility scooter and had a taste for alcohol, weed and Fox News, according to court records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agents let him off with a warning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as with Robertson in Utah and Smith in Montana, Martis seemed unfazed by the admonishment. Five weeks later, he was at it again, this time targeting then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In mid-January of 2021 \u2013 11 days after the Capitol riot \u2013 Martis left Pelosi another venomous message:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, Martis was arrested; investigators found no firearms in his room (though they found a gun part). He was tried and convicted for issuing threats to public officials, and sentenced<\/u><\/a> to 21 months in prison, despite how his probation report \u2013 highlighted in court by his attorney \u2013 said Martis did not appear to have the means or intent to carry out his criminal threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many threat offenders, however, do have the means \u2013 and the apparent propensity \u2013 to carry out acts of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CNN discovered 60 cases in which threat-makers had firearms confiscated, and at least 44 cases in which people who made threats took additional steps to follow through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most chilling examples were often people who made threats not directly to the public official in their crosshairs, but indirectly to a friend or family member, who then turned them in to authorities. CNN found at least four such offenders who had gone so far as to drive towards Washington, DC, with weapons in their cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among them was Kenelm Shirk III, then a troubled 71-year-old lawyer from a small town in Pennsylvania. On January 21, 2021 \u2013 a day after Biden\u2019s inauguration \u2013 Shirk became unglued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That evening, during a fight with his ex-wife \u2013 with whom he was living \u2013 Shirk said he planned to kill Democratic senators and left in his car. The woman called the police, who tracked him down at a gas station 90 miles away. Inside his car was an assault rifle, two handguns and hundreds of rounds<\/u><\/a> of ammo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shirk was brought in for a mental-health evaluation; a nurse told the court that he relayed his plans to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shirk pleaded guilty<\/u><\/a> to making threats to murder Democratic members of the US Senate and was sentenced to time served of 16 months in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Shirk\u2019s apparent plan never came to fruition, his case highlights findings by Gary LaFree<\/u><\/a>, a criminology professor from the University of Maryland, who has tracked perpetrators of political violence and their co-conspirators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These offenders are, on the whole, better educated, older and more financially secure than people who commit other violent crimes, said LaFree, who works with a database<\/u><\/a> that includes attacks on civilians but does not track threats.\u202f(LaFree said the average age of perpetrators in his database is 33. Most violent criminals tend to be in their mid-to-late 20s, according to FBI data<\/u><\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not the bottom of the food chain, like the poorest of the poor; they\u2019re more like people who are underachievers,\u201d he said, noting that while socioeconomic status is a good indicator of crime, it\u2019s not as reliable for predicting political violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outright acts of physical violence against public officials have been rare in recent years. And culprits in those cases do not always make threats prior to lashing out physically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, neither the right-wing conspiracy monger who attacked Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Pelosi, with a hammer last fall nor the left-wing extremist who in 2017 opened fire on a group of Republican lawmakers practicing for a charity baseball game in DC \u2013 severely wounding current House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and injuring several others \u2013 made explicit threats to public officials prior to those attacks, according to the Secret Service and other authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keneally of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue \u2013 a think tank that specializes in researching hate, extremism and disinformation \u2013 said while people who commit political violence sometimes make threats beforehand, the more egregious attackers \u2013 such as mass shooters \u2013 often do not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not issuing threats to anyone because they are very much focused on wanting to stay under the radar,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, some who make threats do go on to commit heinous acts of violence. A case in point is Robert Card, a 40-year-old National Guard reservist who murdered 18 people in two successive shooting rampages in Maine before dying of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this fall, Card allegedly accused fellow reservists of calling him a pedophile and threatened to shoot up a drill center at the National Guard facility in Saco, Maine, according to prior reporting from CNN<\/u><\/a>. His threats prompted the Maine National Guard to ask local police to conduct a wellness check on Card, about six weeks before the massacre. Officers were unable to make contact with Card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related article: Cops were sent to Maine gunman\u2019s home weeks before massacres amid concern he \u2018is going to snap and commit a mass shooting\u2019<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But threats don\u2019t need to lead to violence to cause damage \u2013 especially when they come in torrents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, one in five election workers signaled<\/u><\/a> a desire to walk off the job, with more than half of the workers citing safety concerns after false claims of widespread election fraud in 2020 set off a tidal wave of threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust because nobody\u2019s killed \u2013 bombs not detonated or triggers not pulled \u2013 you don\u2019t need those things to happen to still have a really negative impact on our system,\u201d said Pete Simi, a sociologist and associate professor at Chapman University who coauthored the University of Nebraska study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, the 542 prosecuted threats examined by CNN include few cases involving people who showed up at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, for an immense pro-Trump gathering that culminated in a deadly riot. That\u2019s because the vast majority of the 1,200-plus defendants in those cases were charged not for making threats but for other offenses including disorderly conduct, unlawful entry, assault and seditious conspiracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few places were as impacted by this phenomenon as Arizona, which became a hotbed of stolen-election conspiracy theories and threats after the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The onslaught was so bad it led to an exodus of election workers, with two-thirds of the state\u2019s counties losing key personnel due in part to the threats made on their lives and families, according to state Attorney General Kris Mayes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very worried,\u201d said Clint Hickman, a member of the local board of supervisors in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix. \u201cWe\u2019re losing an incredible wealth of knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, Mayes \u2013 who took office in January \u2013 says prosecuting threats to election officials is her top priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to put a stop to that,\u201d she told CNN. \u201cIf you do this, you\u2019re going to land in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This summer, one such perpetrator was handed a stiff sentence for making threats against two Arizona election officials in the aftermath of the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Rissi, then a 63-year-old resident<\/u><\/a> of Iowa, first targeted Hickman, a member of the Maricopa County board that certified the election amid a high-profile right-wing effort to conduct an \u201caudit\u201d of the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On September 27, 2021 \u2013 less than a week after a private firm conducting the highly controversial \u201caudit\u201d released a draft report<\/u><\/a> affirming Biden\u2019s win \u2013 Rissi phoned Hickman\u2019s office from five states away and left a voicemail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He made a similar call to then-Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich<\/u><\/a>, another Republican who\u2019d vouched for the election\u2019s validity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rissi\u2019s case illustrates not only how threats to public officials can undermine democracy, but also how the radicalization fueling the threats can tear at the fabric of a family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rissi\u2019s son told CNN that his father\u2019s longtime partiality to conspiracy theories went into overdrive a couple of years prior to Trump\u2019s presidency and only picked up steam after Trump took office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said his father once bet him $100 that both former President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be hung within 30 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow out of touch with reality do you have to be to actually believe that something like that is going to happen?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Rissi, who pleaded guilty to two counts of sending a threatening interstate communication, declined to comment for this story.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rissi also fumed about the demonstrations over the 2020 police murder of George Floyd \u2013 and how his son had participated in one. Late one night, the father left his son a vicious voicemail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Rissi took the stand at his sentencing hearing this summer for his threats against Hickman, he struck a contrite tone and pleaded for mercy, claiming he was so heavily medicated with morphine due to chronic back and knee issues that he couldn\u2019t fully remember what he\u2019d said until the FBI played the voicemail back to him at his home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I finally heard the recording that I left for Mr. Hickman, I was horrified,\u201d Rissi said, according to a transcript of his sentencing hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his part, Hickman, 58, testified that day about the \u201cnightmare\u201d of enduring a bombardment of threats from many culprits in addition to Rissi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge sentenced Rissi to two-and-a-half years in prison, exceeding by six months what the prosecution was seeking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Hickman had implored the judge to show \u201ccompassion\u201d when sentencing Rissi, he told CNN he is satisfied with the decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe these judges are understanding the threat to our democracy, and they are going to mete out justice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date, the Justice Department, which created a special unit following the 2020 election to prosecute threats of violence against election workers, has filed charges against 20 defendants, Keller said. That includes Rissi, who reports to prison in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe department takes this conduct extremely seriously,\u201d Keller said. \u201cWithout those election workers, our elections don\u2019t work. And without our elections, our democracy doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s too soon to know whether the 2024 election will trigger another tsunami of threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there has been no shortage of alarming<\/u><\/a> incidents<\/u><\/a> of late, CNN\u2019s analysis found that threats that led to federal prosecutions actually plunged from a peak of 72 in 2021 to 46 last year. Politically motivated ones also fell in that timeframe from 38 to 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also declining last year was the overall number of threats and concerning  statements to public officials in at least two big categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such messages targeting members of Congress dropped<\/u><\/a> 22% in one year, to 7,500, in 2022 \u2013 though that tally is still nearly twice as high as it was in 2017, when the Capitol Police started releasing the figures. Manger told CNN his agency has already investigated 7,300 threat assessment cases this year and is on track to top 8,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Threats and \u201cinappropriate communications\u201d to judges and other courtroom personnel plummeted<\/u><\/a> 70% in 2022, to 1,362 \u2013 the lowest level since 2015, according to the US Marshals Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead, the federal government has begun to weigh in on what to expect in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Homeland Security released a threat assessment<\/u><\/a> for next year saying it anticipates the threat of violence committed by people radicalized in the US \u2013 mostly \u201clone offenders\u201d \u2013 to remain \u201chigh, but largely unchanged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manger told CNN that his agents are inundated with threat assessment cases, each handling roughly 500 a year. It amounts to a \u201cgrueling\u201d workload for the resource-strapped agency as it prepares for a potential spike in threats to federal lawmakers in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much hate, vitriol, you know, just hate speech that goes on on social media and elected officials,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not just talking about here at the Capitol; I\u2019m talking about elected officials all over the country are just targets now more so than I think they ever were.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of the current trendline, state and federal officials have responded in recent months to a steady drumbeat of unsettling incidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May, a 60-year-old right-wing conspiracy theorist<\/u><\/a> left a voicemail in the office of a Texas Congresswoman calling her a \u201ctranny and a pedophile\u201d and threatening to \u201cput a bullet\u201d in her face; the suspect, Michael David Fox, pleaded guilty to making a threat. In late September, another Montana man \u2013 this one a 29-year-old whose history of menacing behavior had previously led to the confiscation<\/u><\/a> of his five firearms \u2013 was accused of making death threats to Sen. Tester; he agreed to plead guilty. Last month, the offices of two Georgia Republicans in Congress \u2013 Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene<\/u><\/a> and Rich McCormick<\/u><\/a> \u2013 received death threats; McCormick temporarily closed a Georgia office as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the while, the approaching election and Trump indictments have already proved a combustible cocktail on Trump\u2019s social media platform, Truth Social, with Trump himself posting scores of rants, ranging from the vengeful to the dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On June 29, the former president posted what he said was Obama\u2019s home address on the platform. Trump\u2019s message was re-posted that same day on Truth Social by 37-year-old Taylor Taranto, who then posted a comment on Telegram saying \u201cSee you in hell, Podesta\u2019s and Obama\u2019s\u201d before driving to the area and live-streaming himself on <\/strong>YouTube walking around Obama\u2019s DC neighborhood. Taranto \u2013 who sometimes bragged to his listeners that he stormed the Capitol on January 6 \u2013 was arrested<\/u><\/a> by Secret Service agents after a brief pursuit on foot in a wooded area near the neighborhood. They seized from his van two handguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a machete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taranto is currently being held at a Philadelphia jail, awaiting trial on charges stemming from the Capitol riot and the June 29 incident. His attorney did not respond to CNN\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day before he showed up in Obama\u2019s neighborhood, Taranto had livestreamed from his van that he was in Maryland and wanted to blow up the National Institute of Standards and Technology. His ramblings included an ominous message for then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whose office had recently spurned Taranto\u2019s request for surveillance footage of the January 6 attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cComing at you McCarthy,\u201d Taranto said. \u201cCan\u2019t stop what\u2019s coming. Nothing can stop what\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

edition<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(CNN) \u2013 By the time the FBI first showed up at Kevin Patrick Smith\u2019s home in early February, he\u2019d already left dozens of threatening voice messages for US Senator Jon Tester. \u201cYou stand toe to toe with me, I rip your head off. You die.\u201d FBI agents admonished Smith \u2013 who lived about a mile from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[4130,22620,24766,1959,2710,20943,24877],"class_list":["post-21193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-disruption","tag-proliferation","tag-public-officials","tag-surge","tag-threats","tag-united-states","tag-violent-messages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21195,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21193\/revisions\/21195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}