policy
NEW YORK (AP) — Quite a few President-elect Donald Trump's most outstanding Cabinet members and appointees have fallen victim to bomb threats and “swatting attacks,” Trump's transition team said Wednesday. The FBI said it was investigating.
“Last night and this morning, several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and administration members were victims of violent, un-American threats against their lives and those who live with them,” Trump transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a press release.
She said the attacks ranged from bomb threats to strikes by which attackers initiated an emergency law enforcement response against a targeted victim under false pretenses. The tactic has develop into popular lately.
Leavitt said law enforcement and other agencies acted quickly to make sure the security of those targeted and that Trump and his transition team were grateful.
Among those targeted were New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump's pick to be the subsequent ambassador to the United Nations; Matt Gaetz, Trump's first nominee for attorney general; and former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, who was named head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Law enforcement officials are also investigating whether Susie Wiles, Trump's recent chief of staff, and Pam Bondi, the previous Florida attorney general whom Trump picked to switch Gaetz, in addition to other recent administration officials were also victims — and the way they were each targeted. said a police official who remained anonymous in the course of the ongoing investigation.
Wiles and Bondi didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
The FBI said in a press release that it was “aware of numerous bomb threats and attacks against new government nominees and appointees” and was investigating with its law enforcement partners.
The FBI added: “We take all potential threats seriously and, as always, encourage the public to immediately report anything they believe to be suspicious to law enforcement.”
White House spokesman Saloni Sharma said President Joe Biden has been briefed and the White House is in touch with federal law enforcement and Trump's transition team.
Biden “continues to closely monitor the situation,” Sharma said, adding that the president and his administration “condemn threats of political violence.”
Stefanik's office said she, her husband and their 3-year-old son were driving home from Washington for Thanksgiving on Wednesday morning after they were notified of a bomb threat against their residence in Saratoga County.
Her office said, “New York State, county law enforcement, and the U.S. Capitol Police responded immediately with the utmost professionalism.”
New York State Police said a team was sent to go looking Stefanik's home Wednesday morning in response to the bomb threat but didn’t find any explosive devices. The agency directed further inquiries to the FBI.
Zeldin said in a social media post that he and his family had been threatened.
“A pipe bomb threat against me and my family at our home was sent today with a pro-Palestinian message,” he wrote on X. “My family and I were not home at the time and are safe. We are working with law enforcement to learn more as this situation develops.”
Police in Suffolk County, Long Island, said emergency crews responded to a bomb threat Wednesday morning at an address listed in public records as Zeldin's home and checked the property.
In Florida, the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office said on Facebook that around 9 a.m. Wednesday it “received a notification of a bomb threat involving former Congressman Matt Gaetz's alleged mailbox at a home in the Niceville area.” .
While a member of the family lives on the address, Gaetz is “NOT a resident,” the office said. No threatening devices were found.
Gaetz was Trump's first candidate for attorney general, but withdrew from the race after allegations that he paid women for sex and slept with underage women. Gaetz has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and said last 12 months that a Justice Department investigation into allegations of sex trafficking of underage girls had ended with none federal charges being filed against him.
The threats follow a political campaign marked by disturbing and unprecedented violence. In July, a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing the then-candidate within the ear with a bullet and killing one in every of his supporters. The Secret Service later foiled one other assassination attempt at Trump's golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, when an agent spotted the barrel of a gun sticking through a fence while Trump was golfing.
Trump has also been the topic of an Iranian assassination plot, with one man saying he was tasked with planning the assassination of the Republican president-elect.
Authorities also arrested a person this week who they are saying posted videos on social media threatening to kill Trump, court documents show. In a video posted Nov. 13, Manuel Tamayo-Torres threatened to shoot the previous president while apparently holding an AR-15 rifle, authorities said
Among the opposite videos he posted, based on court documents, was one from an arena in Glendale, Arizona, on Aug. 23, the identical day Trump held a campaign rally there. A lawyer for Tamayo-Torres didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment Wednesday.
Public figures across the political spectrum have been victims of false bomb threats and false reports of shootings of their homes lately.
About a 12 months ago, the FBI responded to a surge in such incidents at officers' homes, state capitols and courthouses across the country around the vacations. Many were locked down and evacuated in early January after receiving bomb threats. No explosives were found and nobody was injured.
Those targeted last 12 months included Georgia Gov. Burt Jones, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.
In Wu's case, a male caller told police he had shot his own wife and tied up one other man. When police and emergency responders arrived on the address provided by the caller, they quickly realized it was the house of the mayor of Boston. Wu, a Democrat, has also been the goal of various swatting calls since taking office in 2021.
The judges overseeing the civil fraud trial against Trump in New York and the criminal election interference trial against him in Washington each got here under fire earlier this 12 months. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who recently dropped the 2 criminal cases he brought against Trump, was also the topic of a fake 911 call on Christmas Day last 12 months.
Earlier this 12 months, schools, government buildings and the homes of city officials in Springfield, Ohio, received a series of false bomb threats after Trump falsely accused members of Springfield's Haitian community of kidnapping and eating cats and dogs.
And in 2022, scores of historically black colleges and universities nationwide were bombarded with dozens of bomb threats, with the overwhelming majority arriving during Black History Month celebrations.
The U.S. Capitol Police said in a press release Wednesday that any time a member of Congress falls victim to a swatting incident, “we work closely with our local and federal law enforcement partners.” Police declined to supply further details, also to “minimize the risk of imitators.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the threats “dangerous and baseless.”
“There have been not one, but TWO assassination attempts on President Trump this year,” he wrote on America are.”
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