Domestic Terrorism

“Enemy of the People”

Written by SK Ashby

Donald Trump has declared that the free press is the "enemy of the people" and a California man has now been charged and arrested by the FBI for saying the same thing when he threatened to kill employees of the Boston Globe newspaper.

A man from Encino, California, who apparently wasn't bright enough to use a pay phone or burner phone, is set to be extradited to Massachusetts after placing over a dozen threatening phone calls to the Globe.

From the Department of Justice:

Robert D. Chain, 68, of Encino, California, is charged with one count of making threatening communications in interstate commerce. Chain will appear in federal court in Los Angeles this afternoon and be transferred to Boston at a later date. [...]

On Aug. 10, 2018, the Boston Globe announced that it was requesting that other newspaper publications around the country publish a coordinated editorial response to political attacks on the media. The coordinated editorial response was to be published on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018.

According to court documents, immediately following the announcement, Chain began making threatening calls to the Boston Globe’s newsroom. In the calls, Chain referred to the Globe as “the enemy of the people” and threatened to kill newspaper employees. In total, it is alleged that Chain made approximately 14 threatening phone calls to the Globe between August 10 and 22, 2018.

According to transcripts of the phone calls, Chain referred to Globe employees as "faggots" and said he was going to shoot them "in the head." Chain even gave the Globe a timetable, saying he would shoot them "at 5 o'clock."

He obviously didn't do that because he was in California, but the next time this happens it could come from someone much closer who could actually carry out their threats.

If we actually had explicit federal statutes for domestic terrorism, I believe this would qualify.