A Virginia man charged with threatening Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell and others pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court, acknowledging he wrote in a text to the former ambassador that he would “get a bullet” to the head.
Scott Allen Bolger, 33, was arrested by federal authorities on Dec. 26 after Grenell reported receiving a text to his personal cellphone from an unknown phone number two days before Christmas that read: “Step on U street and get a bullet put between your eyes, loyalist pig skin p—y.”
Federal prosecutors read the text aloud in an Alexandria courtroom Thursday, telling U.S. Senior District Judge Anthony J. Trenga that Bolger had separately made threats to an ex-girlfriend over the past three years.
Trenga set a sentencing hearing for May.
An attorney for Bolger, who has been detained since his arrest, declined to comment on Thursday’s plea hearing, as did the prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia who are handling the case.
Grenell, whom President Donald Trump appointed last year to overhaul the Kennedy Center, did not attend the hearing or respond to a request for comment. In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Kennedy Center thanked the FBI and federal prosecutors for their handling of the case.
“The Left has targeted the Trump Kennedy Center with boycotts and violence so we’re pleased to see this individual recognized as a legitimate threat,” Roma Daravi, vice president for public relations at the center, said in a statement.
Bolger’s political allegiances are not clear. He is registered as a Democrat in West Virginia, but his ex-girlfriend, who was also threatened by Bolger in the past and attended the plea hearing, said she did not believe his motives were partisan.
“He doesn’t really care about politics,” she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of concern for her safety. “He’s just not well.”
Grenell previously served as U.S. ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence. A Trump ally, he has overseen a tumultuous restructuring of the Kennedy Center’s governing body and the controversial decision in December to add Trump’s name to the building and outdoor signage.
Over the past year, a variety of artists, including composer Philip Glass and actress Issa Rae, have canceled performances in protest. Grenell, in turn, has admonished those artists on X for caving in to the “woke mob.”
In court documents, officials noted that Bolger threatened his ex-girlfriend and once threatened a roommate. The ex-girlfriend, who was not named in court documents, listened as Bolger acknowledged repeatedly harassing and threatening her since 2022.
Prosecutors accused Bolger in court documents of creating multiple fictious accounts on the social media platform X and Proton Mail to harass the woman, including publicly sharing private images of her on the internet.
In an interview, the ex-girlfriend said she felt bittersweet over the case against Bolger.
“I felt unimportant because nobody did anything until it was someone that was in the public eye,” she said.
She said she made numerous complaints to local police about Bolger’s threatening behavior over the years but was not taken seriously.
“I just felt like what happened to me didn’t matter,” she said.
In a December statement, which prosecutors cited in court documents, Grenell said he grew up with a father who taught him to value robust debate involving differing points of view.
“In my current role as a Presidential Envoy, I have been attacked and harassed by people who don’t know me and who simply want to leave nasty, rude and angry messages because I don’t share their political viewpoint,” Grenell wrote. “But I strongly believe it is their right to be bitter and angry. I understand the passion. And I think the freedom to be rude and angry is a cherished right.”
This case, he wrote in the statement, is “much different.”
“Today we are dealing with someone who went far beyond sharing his angry opinion,” Grenell said. “Today we see a man who wants to kill someone because of their political differences.”
Grenell added that “the people doing what he is doing, and there are many, must be given clear instructions from community leaders that their calls for shooting people in the head will have swift and severe consequences.”
“Unstable people are watching what we do today,” he said.
When sentenced, Bolger could face up to five years in prison.
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