A man pardoned by US President Donald Trump for his role in the 2021 Capitol riot has been charged with threatening to kill the top Democrat in the House of Representatives.
Christopher Moynihan, 34, was arrested in the town of Clinton, New York, for making a terroristic threat to kill a member of Congress, New York State Police said. He has pleaded not guilty.
Moynihan allegedly planned to target House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries during a speech to the Economic Club of New York scheduled for this week, according to court filings obtained by the BBC’s US partner CBS News.
“I cannot allow this terrorist to live,” Moynihan allegedly wrote in text messages.
According to court filings, Moynihan also wrote: “Even if I am hated, [Jeffries] must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future.”
Jeffries, a lead contender to become Speaker should Democrats take control of the House, said he was grateful to police and federal agents for apprehending “a dangerous individual who made a credible death threat against me with every intention to carry it out”.
“Unfortunately, our brave men and women in law enforcement are being forced to spend their time keeping our communities safe from these violent individuals who should never have been pardoned,” he added.
Moynihan was sentenced to 21 months in prison in 2023 for breaching the Capitol on 6 January 2021 as part of the mob seeking to stop Congress from certifying that Joe Biden had won the 2020 election and to keep Trump in power.
Prosecutors said he was one of the first rioters to break through police barricades.
After he entered the Senate chamber, they said, he flipped through a notebook on a desk and took pictures with his phone, saying there had to be information in them they could “use against” lawmakers.
On Trump’s first day back in office, he pardoned Moynihan and more than 1,000 other riot defendants, calling them “hostages” whose lives had been “detroyed”. Several other pardoned rioters have also since been arrested for a variety of charges.
Last month, he posted a doctored video of Jeffries wearing a sombrero when talks on avoiding a government shutdown failed and accused him of favoring people in the country illegally over US citizens.
Political violence has turned deadly in the US this year. A man in June allegedly targeted Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, killing one and her husband and wounding another. Then, in September, a Utah man allegedly shot and killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Moynihan is being held in a facility in Poughkeepsie and is next scheduled to appear in court on Thursday. He has been read his charges and pleaded not guilty, according to the local prosecutor.
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