A 30-year-old man from Dover has been arrested and charged with threatening to kill Indian American Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and attendees at a scheduled campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Tyler Anderson, who was charged with transmitting in interstate commerce a threat to injure the person of another, made an initial appearance in federal court in Concord on Dec 11, 2023, according to the US attorney’s office in New Hampshire.
According to the charging documents, Anderson received a text message from Ramaswamy’s campaign notifying him of a political event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
READ: Dover man charged with threatening to kill Vivek Ramaswamy (December 12, 2023)
Anderson responded to the text message on Dec 8, stating: “Great, another opportunity for me to blow his brains out!” and “I’m going to kill everyone who attends and then f*** their corpses.”
The charge provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.
The US attorney’s office did not name which presidential campaign was targeted, but Ramaswamy’s team confirmed on Monday that he was the target, The Washington Post reported.
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Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Ramaswamy campaign, said on Monday, “Unfortunately it is true. We are grateful to law enforcement for their swiftness and professionalism in handling this matter and pray for the safety of all Americans.”
A statement from his staff criticised the news media, “deranged voices” and “left-wing cranks”, accusing the groups of inciting violence against the Republicans ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
“I’m grateful to the people on the front lines who work hard every day to make sure people like me and other Americans keep safe,” Ramaswamy told reporters in New Hampshire.
READ: Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy clash over Israel-Hamas war (October 15, 2023)
“I think that we are very well protected,” he said but declined to reveal when he found out about the alleged death threat or whether he would increase his security.
Ramaswamy’s staff reported the threatening text messages to authorities, the FBI affidavit said. Law enforcement officials searched Anderson’s residence on Saturday, arrested him, and seized his phone and firearms.
While searching Anderson’s phone, the affidavit says, authorities discovered the texts to Ramaswamy in a deleted folder and found additional threatening messages to another candidate.
READ: Vivek Ramaswamy’s odd plan to slash federal jobs amuses critics (November 13, 2023)
According to the affidavit, one message sent on Wednesday read,“Fantastic, now I know where to go so I can blow that b——‘s head off.” Subsequent texts were referring to “a mass shooting” and intentions to defile a corpse.
Anderson admitted to sending the text messages to Ramaswamy and confirmed that he sent threatening texts to other campaigns, according to the affidavit.
A businessman and a Republican presidential candidate, Ramaswamy went on to hold the event in Portsmouth on Monday.
Threats of violence against politicians are up, according to a recent University of Massachusetts-Amherst survey of nearly 300 former members of Congress cited by Forbes.
The survey found 47% reported receiving threats while in Congress, with those who were first elected more recently experiencing a higher number of threats than those first elected earlier.
The numbers were split fairly evenly across party lines, but women and people of colour reported receiving threats at a much higher rate of 69%, Forbes reported.