An ardent Trump supporter was convicted of threatening to kill members of Congress just days after the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, posting a video online titled “KILL YOUR SENATORS: Slaughter them all.”
The Washington Post reports that 37-year-old Brendan Hunt of Queens, New York, posted the screed on BitChute, a site popular with far-right extremists, on January 8th. He was arrested on January 19th.
The jury acquitted Hunt on other charges stemming from statements he made in 2020 against Democrats Senator Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They ruled that those statements didn’t amount to threats.
According to the Post, the charges were brought against Hunt because they were specific. “He offered detailed descriptions of how he wanted to end the lives of the people he claimed were complicit in ‘stealing’ the election from former president Donald Trump. To support the case, the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn offered evidence that appeared to illustrate Hunt’s deeply rooted racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic beliefs.”
Deploying the Tucker Carlson defense, Hunt took the stand to testify that his comments shouldn’t be taken seriously and that he was impacted by the use of marijuana and alcohol when he made the statements. He also said that he was suffering from depression and boredom during the coronavirus pandemic.
Hunt faces up to ten years in prison.