Pennsylvania man arrested for threatening to "slaughter" FBI
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A Pennsylvania man has been arrested and charged with threatening the FBI after the agency's Mar-a-Lago search, allegedly posting on the right-wing social media platform Gab that all FBI employees deserve to die.
Why it matters: The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have warned that threats against law enforcement officials have spiked since the FBI retrieved classified material from former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
Driving the news: Adam Bies, 46, is charged with influencing, impeding or retaliating against a federal law enforcement official, according to an FBI affidavit.
- "My only goal is to kill more of them before I drop," Bies allegedly wrote on Gab, adding that he would "slaughter" them.
- He compared the FBI to the Nazi SS paramilitary group as well as the Soviet-era KGB, the affidavit states.
- "I’ll shoot an SS officer in the head just as quick as I’d shoot a KGB officer in the head," he allegedly said in one post. "Police state scum are police state scum. Period."
Gab provided subscriber data to the FBI after a domestic terrorism tracking group tipped off a national FBI threat team.
The big picture: The FBI and DHS issued an unclassified joint intelligence bulletin last week after the Mar-a-Lago search in Palm Beach, Florida.
- The agencies said they "have identified multiple articulated threats and calls for the targeted killing of judicial, law enforcement, and government officials associated with the Palm Beach search ... and observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities."
- These include "a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of FBI Headquarters and issuing general calls for 'civil war' and 'armed rebellion,'" the bulletin said.
Trump said Monday the "temperature has to be brought down" amid the surge in threats to federal law enforcement, even as he reiterated his attacks on the FBI over the investigation, saying that Americans are "not going to stand for another scam."
