The Trump administration is answering with law and order. The Justice Department has been hunting down and prosecuting threat-makers: this month, a coordinated team of the Butts County Sheriff's Office, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the FBI arrested Anthony Lantrell Bennett in Buffalo for threatening to kill Rep. Mike Collins and his son-in-law. Back in April, federal agents arrested former Illinois attorney Sean Lenckus on five felony counts of interstate threats for posting death threats in the comments of YouTube videos. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison per count. The message from this White House is simple: threaten a public official and you will be found.
That crackdown lands against a grim backdrop. A New York Times investigation published this morning — reported by Nick Corasaniti and built on hundreds of records obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, court documents, law enforcement logs and dozens of interviews — found that over the two years from 2024 through August 2026, thousands of violent threats washed through the mailboxes, offices, voicemails and phones of the people who govern the nation. "Serving in public office in the United States is dangerous," the Times reports, describing "an unending river of violent threats" hitting everyone from state and local officials to members of Congress. Officeholders told the paper it keeps getting worse.
The numbers back it up. The U.S. Capitol Police investigated 9,474 concerning statements and direct threats against members of Congress in 2024 alone — the highest number since 2021. Separate research tracking threats against public servants found just 8 recorded cases in 2015 compared to 291 in 2025. In Minnesota, threats reported to the State Patrol jumped from 18 in 2024 to 93 in 2025, with 78 more in just the first four months of 2026. The Times found the threats have reshaped private lives, cost millions in security and pushed officials out of office entirely.
Nobody is spared. President Trump himself survived two assassination attempts in 2024, including the shooting at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally that left one rallygoer dead and Trump and two others injured. Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman was assassinated in her home in June 2025. Rep. Ilhan Omar was attacked with a syringe at a town hall in January. And back in 2022, an armed man was arrested outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home in an attempted assassination.
Critics will point fingers at heated political rhetoric — Omar herself says threats against her "skyrocket" when the president attacks her by name, and Democrats argue harsh language fuels the fire. The administration's answer is that the cure for threats is consequences, not speech-policing: investigate, arrest, prosecute. With election season in its final weeks and officials campaigning under guard, that argument is about to get its loudest test yet.