Their initials match. So do their surnames.
One is a heartbeat from the presidency, and the other, JD Vance, was sentenced on Monday to two years in prison in connection with threats made against the vice president and President Trump on social media.
The man who made the threats, James Donald Vance Jr., 67, of Grand Rapids, Mich., pleaded guilty to three criminal counts in July, according to filings in U.S. District Court in Kalamazoo, Mich.
Secret Service agents arrested Mr. Vance — not the vice president — in June after linking him to a series of social media posts in March and April on Bluesky in which he vowed to kill the president and vice president, the authorities said.
Federal prosecutors said he also made threats against the billionaire Elon Musk, whom Mr. Trump previously put in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, and Donald Trump Jr., responding to a social media post suggesting that the president’s oldest son might seek the presidency in 2028.
“If tRump, Vance, or Musk ever come to my city again, they will leave it in a body bag,” a criminal complaint quoted Mr. Vance as saying. “I will either be shot by a secret service sniper or spend the rest of my life in prison. I’ve only got about 10 years of life left anyway.”
In another post, Mr. Vance wrote that he would “murder” Donald Trump Jr., referring to him using an expletive, “before he gets secret service protection.”
A federal public defender for Mr. Vance did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
In July, Mr. Vance pleaded guilty to threatening to kill or injure the president and vice president, as well as transmitting interstate threatening communications. Each felony count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
In a filing before Monday’s sentencing hearing, the public defender, Helen C. Nieuwenhuis, wrote that Mr. Vance should receive probation instead of jail time because he was a “first-time offender with serious physical and mental health issues.”
“His statements, while unacceptable, were rhetoric — not plans — and he never took any step to harm anyone,” Ms. Nieuwenhuis wrote. “He cooperated immediately, consented to searches and admitted his conduct.”
Mr. Vance’s lawyer attributed his mental health issues to abuse during his childhood, writing that he was not properly toilet trained.
“Mr. Vance still enjoys wearing diapers,” she wrote of her client, who used the alias “Diaperjdv” on social media.
It was not clear whether Mr. Vance has ever used the initials JD in the same way that the vice president has chosen to: He prefers JD without periods, and it is short for James David.
The vice president has had a number of names in his life, reflecting an upbringing marked by domestic instability and a revolving door of father figures, as chronicled in his best-selling 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Federal prosecutors had urged the judge to sentence Mr. Vance — the defendant — to at least 30 months in prison, pointing out that he had been investigated in 2018 for posting threats against President Trump on Facebook and that he had a history of making threats toward several other people.
In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors drew attention to what they said was another of Mr. Vance’s posts on Bluesky in February, in which he displayed a gun and wrote: “Anti MAGA tool. And yes, that’s my gun.”
“Threats against our nation’s leaders and their families will not be tolerated,” William Shink, a special agent in charge of the United States Secret Service’s Detroit field office, said in a statement on Monday.
Neil Vigdor covers breaking news for The Times, with a focus on politics.
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