Man charged with threatening to kill President Biden
Man with connections to anti-government faces federal charges for alluding to intending to kill commander-in-chief
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An alleged attempted assassin is up against a federal indictment for threatening to kill President Joe Biden in a series of text messages to people across the country.
John Benjamin Thornton from New Mexico faces a charge of using interstate commerce communications to send a threat to injure another person.
In the texts, Thornton said he “taking leadership of revolutionary Army called the 3%ers,”. This is believed to be referring to The Three Percenters, a militia movement intent on taking down the U.S government.
As reported in the complaint seen by CNN, Thornton also labelled himself a “revolutionary war general” and sent a message reading “5 stars after I execute Joe Biden for treason”.
Federal investigators do not say who the recipients of the text message were.
The FBI have established that Mr Thorton owned the phone, enclosing a photo of him and stating he was previous connection to criminal complaints.
Thornton has been the subject of complaints since November 11, 2020, by several persons who have received messages characterized as “disturbing or threatening since that time," the complaint read.
According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Mr Thorton has refuted all allegations put to him by the FBI. His lawyer Bernadette Sedillo made this clear in a statement.
“It is very early in the case, but once the facts bears out, will show a completely different picture,” she told the AP. She also said that they messages were “taken out of context”.
Other threats have been made to the current president’s life, such as a man from North Carolina who was arrested for saying he intended to harm Mr Biden. He is believed to have directly contacted the White House. Another man, from Maryland, had federal charges put against him and was accused of threatening both Mr Biden and Kamala Harris, the vice president.
The Independent reached out to the White House for comment.