Politics
JUST IN: Kash Patel Thwarts Assassination Threat Against Trump, Implicates Comey
Another individual has been arrested for planning to assassinate President Donald Trump, FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Tuesday.
Authorities have charged Peter Stinson, a Virginia resident and former U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, with allegedly making threats to kill Trump, according to court documents obtained by Fox News. Stinson served in the Coast Guard between 1988 and 2021.
During his service, Stinson was a sharpshooter and FEMA instructor.
Some of these threats, unsealed in an affidavit on Friday, draw parallels between Trump’s shooting and the executive-style murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione.
On social media, Stinson wrote May 9 that Trump needs to be “[L]uigied” while other posts suggested he could obtain the guns, poison, or knives to carry out a more successful plot against Trump.
Stinson replied to another user at one point, saying he doesn’t have the “necessary skills” to get away with Trump’s murder, the NY Post reported.
Prosecutors also produced social media posts indicating that Stinson was fascinated with the number 8647, the same figure posted by former FBI Director James Comey, which he later took down.
Patel blamed his predecessor for inspiring Stinson to consider taking violent action against the president.
“This is a guy who threatened President Trump’s life using the ’86 47′ language — the exact kind of copy cat law enforcement is now frequently dealing with after former Director Comey’s destructive Instagram debacle,” Patel wrote on X.
Prosecutors wrote in the affidavit that Stinson’s suggestion to “8647” President Trump is “likely in reference to an Instagram post made by former FBI Director James Comey.”
“The post by Comey was interpreted in the news media as a violent threat to President Trump and prompted an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Secret Service. STINSON has since made 13 additional posts on Bluesky including the text, ‘8647’,” the document states.
Stinson, they add, “has self-identified as a member of ANTIFA,” the nebulous network of black-clad progressive rioters who taunted President Trump in the streets for much of his first administration.
On Feb. 2, Stinson allegedly wrote, “Sure. This is war. Sides will be drawn. Antifa always wins in the end. Violence is inherently necessary.”
The deranged Coast Guard veteran is not the only person to be arrested for death threats against politicians since Comey’s posting.
Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Leah Foley announced on Tuesday that Justin David Gaglio, 51, pleaded guilty to making online threats against an unnamed elected official. He allegedly sent up to 80 messages to the politician’s inbox, threatening his life as well as those of his wife and grandchild.
Both prosecutions are just the latest in a string of politically-motivated assassinations, attempts, or plots against sitting elected officials, which have kicked into high gear since Saturday’s targeted murder of a Minnesota lawmaker and her spouse. On Monday, authorities arrested Vance Luther Boelter, 57, ending a three-day manhunt in the woods around Green Isle after he allegedly shot and killed state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and critically wounded state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.
