NBC News: “A Michigan man was sentenced to one year in prison Thursday for sending an email threatening to hunt down and bleed out like a ‘pig’ an attorney for the whistle-blower who set in motion then-President Donald Trump’s first impeachment. District Judge Thomas Ludington handed down the sentence after the man, Brittan Atkinson, described his arrest and prosecution as a ‘blessing in disguise.’ ‘I’m now on the right medication for my mental issues and more importantly, I’ve walked back to the Lord so my spiritual health is better, too,’ Atkinson told the judge. Atkinson admitted to sending the email to Washington lawyer Mark Zaid the day after Trump held up a photo of the attorney and read some of his tweets at a rally in Louisiana in November 2019.”

“‘All traitors must die miserable deaths,’ Atkinson’s email read in part, according to the indictment. ‘Those that represent traitors shall meet the same fate[.] We will hunt you down and bleed you out like the pigs you are. We have nothing but time, and you are running out of it.’ The email came at a time when Zaid was facing sustained attacks from the president and his allies after he came forward as the attorney for the whistle-blower who had reported concerns about a phone call in July 2019 between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. During the call, Trump pressured Zelenskiy to announce an investigation into Joe Biden, who was then the Democratic presidential front-runner, at the same time as the U.S. was withholding nearly $400 million in military aid. Atkinson was arrested in February 2020 on a charge of violating a federal law banning threats communicated across state lines. He pleaded guilty last November. His lawyer, Donald Neville, told the judge Thursday that Atkinson was at a low point in his life when he made the ‘completely stupid and horrible decision’ to send the email.”