A man who threatened a mass shooting to kill Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, has been arrested, according to the federal prosecutor’s office in New Hampshire.
Tyler Anderson, 30, was charged on Monday with transmitting a threat to injure a person, whom the prosecutor’s office identified as a “presidential candidate” without naming Ramaswamy.
Responding to a text message from the “victim’s” campaign about a political event in Portsmouth, Anderson responded on Friday, “Great, another opportunity for me to blow his brains out”! and “I’m going to kill everyone who attends and then (expelitive) their corpses,” the office said.
He is scheduled to be produced in court later on Monday.
Although the prosecutor did not name Ramaswamy, his campaign was informed of the threat and his Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, “We are grateful to law enforcement for their swiftness and professionalism in handling this matter and pray for the safety of all Americans.”
Documents filed in court by the office of Prosecutor Jane Young said that Anderson had also written to another candidate, “Fantastic, now I know where to go so I can blow that (expletive)’s head off” and he hoped “you have the stamina for a mass shooting!”
That candidate was not named and no other candidate has publicly spoken of the threat.
Asked by an ABC News reporter last week if threats had been made to his life, Ramaswamy said, “We don’t take anything for granted, but I’m confident that the team around us and our family is on this journey together. And I’m praying for our family and our country.”
The Prosecutor’s Office said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) led the investigation into the threat against Ramaswamy.
Ironically, the FBI has been one of Ramaswamy’s targets and he has said that he would eliminate it if he is elected President.
Ramaswamy is running fourth nationally in the aggregation of polls by RealClear Politics, which shows him with five per cent support in Republican primaries.
In the New Hampshire state primary, RealClear Politics places him fifth with seven per cent.
On January 23, that state will be the second to hold intraparty elections for the Republican Party nomination, which can enable it — and Iowa, which will be the first on January 15 — to influence the primaries that follow in determining who stays on in the race where former President Donald Trump holds an overwhelming lead.
No other information immediately was available about Anderson’s political affiliations or his ideology.
In New Hampshire on Monday, Ramaswamy had a lunchbreak event scheduled for Monday in Nashua and two in Manchester.
One was a “Standup with Crypto” forum and the other was a town hall with American Conservation Coalition Action and with youth and college Republican organisations.
On Tuesday, he moves to Iowa.
(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)
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