Federal authorities announced charges Monday against a New Hampshire man they say sent threatening text messages to presidential campaigns and targeted Vivek Ramaswamy in particular with a promise to “blow his brains out.”
Tyler Anderson was charged with transmitting a threat through interstate means.
The FBI said Mr. Anderson lashed out after getting a text message last Friday from one of the presidential campaigns advertising an event in Portsmouth on Monday.
“Great, another opportunity for me to blow [redacted] brains out!” Mr. Anderson texted back, according to the FBI. He also added: “I’m going to kill everyone who attends and then [expletive] their corpses.”
The FBI didn’t reveal the name of the candidate but the timing of the event tracks with one held by Mr. Ramaswamy, a GOP presidential hopeful, at a Portsmouth diner Monday morning.
Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign later confirmed he was the target.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for their swiftness and professionalism in handling this matter,” the Ramaswamy campaign said. “We’re going to let the investigators do their work and figure out who this person is and what their motives might be.”
FBI Agent Adam Howe, in a court filing, said Mr. Anderson also lashed out at another candidate after receiving a text about an upcoming appearance.
“Fantastic, now I know where to go so I can blow that bastard’s head off!” the texted reply said.
“Hope you have the stamina for a mass shooting!” the text continued. “And then I’m gonna [expletive] [redacted] corpse.”
Authorities tracked Mr. Anderson down by his phone number. They said the campaign he threatened had his information on file, and it was corroborated by records from local police and the phone company.
When they served a search warrant that’s when they found the threatening messages to the second campaign.
Mr. Anderson, 30, a Dover resident, has an initial court appearance scheduled for Monday afternoon.
The Ramaswamy campaign said it detected a double standard with media coverage of “extremism on the right” even as “the same media goes silent when the target is a Republican.”
“Whenever it’s some nut with alleged right-wing views, the media is quick to blame all conservatives for stoking violence. Yet the media never looks in the mirror and sees that they stoke hatred and violence by questioning our patriotism and motives and accusing us of undermining democracy,” the Ramaswamy campaign said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.