A New Hampshire man was indicted for allegedly sending text messages in which he threatened to kill three presidential candidates, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday.
Thirty-year-old Tyler Anderson was charged with three counts of transmitting in interstate commerce a threat to injure the person of another. Anderson sent a string of threatening messages over the last month to three different presidential campaigns based on the charging documents, the DOJ said.
In the first alleged incident on Nov. 22, Anderson threatened to “impale” and “disembowel” a candidate. On Dec. 6, he allegedly sent threats that he would “blow” the “head off” of another candidate and carry out a “mass shooting.” In the most recent alleged occurrence on Dec. 8, Anderson threatened to “blow” the “brains out” of a third candidate and “kill everyone” in attendance at a then-upcoming campaign event.
While the Justice Department did not name any of the three presidential candidates who received threats, a spokesperson for GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said that the most recent threats from Dec. 8 were sent to his campaign, according to The Associated Press.
Anderson had been released from jail on Dec. 14 on conditions after being arrested earlier in the month, and a federal district court judge is slated to determine a sentence, the press release states.
He faces up to five years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000 for each charge.
“We have seen an increase in threats of violence against public officials and those seeking public office across the country, and I have made clear that these types of illegal threats undermine the function of our democracy,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland, according to the press release. “We will not tolerate illegal threats of violence directed at public officials or those seeking public office.”
The news comes as Colorado’s Supreme Court justices face a flood of threats from those opposed to the court’s Tuesday ruling barring former President Trump from appearing on the state’s GOP primary ballot next year. The incidents also follow a nearby mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, in late October that left 18 people killed and 13 injured.