A Florida man was arrested on Wednesday in connection with a series of online threats against several of President Trump’s most prominent political adversaries, according to a criminal complaint, which said that his targets included James Comey, Letitia James and Hunter Biden.
Two of the posts appeared within a few weeks of the recent indictments of Mr. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Ms. James, New York’s attorney general, whom Mr. Trump had pressured the Justice Department to prosecute.
The man, Gregory Formicone, 58, of Bradenton, Fla., could face up to five years in prison if he is found guilty of making the threats, which an F.B.I. special agent said in the criminal complaint had appeared on Disqus, a hosting service for online comments.
Mr. Formicone had been responding to articles published by The Gateway Pundit, a website known for spreading right-wing conspiracy theories, including its Oct. 20 coverage of the criminal proceedings against Mr. Comey, according to the complaint.
The website suggested that the federal judge in the case, who was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., had handed an early procedural victory to Mr. Comey, who was charged in late September with one count of making a false statement and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding.
“If he skates and walks on the beach again, he’s going down!” the criminal complaint quoted Mr. Formicone as saying. “We already have a team on it. Time for the American people to administer justice!”
The threat appeared to be referring to a social media post that Mr. Comey made in May that showed seashells on a beach forming the numbers “86 47.” “Eighty-six,” according to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, is a slang term meaning to eliminate or remove. Mr. Trump is the country’s 47th president.
The Secret Service questioned Mr. Comey about the image, which Mr. Trump’s allies said had amounted to a call for Mr. Trump’s assassination.
About four days later, investigators said, Mr. Formicone renewed his calls for violence, this time in connection with the federal government’s criminal case against Ms. James, who was indicted in early October on bank fraud and false statement charges.
That case stems from a home that Ms. James purchased in Norfolk, Va. The Justice Department accused her of falsely claiming it as a secondary residence and using it instead as a rental investment property.
“If they let both of them off the hook, every fn [sic] person involved in the fix will definitely be pushing daisies,” Mr. Formicone wrote, according to investigators.
Mr. Formicone is a registered Republican, according to Florida’s voter registration database. He was charged with one count of transmitting in interstate commerce a threat to injure, and was released on a $50,000 bond on Wednesday after making his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Tampa.
A public defender for Mr. Formicone did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Investigators said that the F.B.I.’s National Threat Operations Center received a tip in late October about Mr. Formicone’s online comments.
According to the complaint, some of his other posts called for the targeting of Hunter Biden, who was pardoned at the end of his father’s presidency; John Brennan, the former C.I.A. director; and a Democratic Connecticut state senator whom Mr. Trump’s allies had condemned for holding up a sign at a “No Kings” protest last month that read “Cholesterol, do your job!” The senator was not named in the complaint.
“Brennan and Comey are average citizens right now,” the complaint quoted Mr. Formicone as saying in one post from late September. “Their safety is not guaranteed.”
Both Mr. Comey and Mr. Brennan — like Ms. James — have been the target of verbal attacks from Mr. Trump.
In response to a request for comment, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said that the threats were “the actions of a random individual” and that Mr. Trump, a survivor of two assassination attempts, “has repeatedly condemned all violence.”
A spokeswoman for Zeta Global, the parent company of Disqus, pointed to the platform’s terms and policies, which prohibit threats and harassment
Neil Vigdor covers breaking news for The Times, with a focus on politics.
The post Florida Man Threatened James Comey and Letitia James, Complaint Says appeared first on New York Times.
