According to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, the man was identified as 72-year-old Thomas Welnicki, and he was arrested this morning by officials with the U.S. Secret Service.
While the criminal complaint does not explicitly identify Trump, a footnote in the complaint states that a man identified as Individual 1 served as the U.S. President from January 20, 2017, to January 20, 2021.
The complaint stated that during a voluntary interview in July 2020, Welnicki told officials with the U.S. Capitol Police Department that he planned to “acquire weapons” if Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and refused to step down. He told police that he would use the weapons to “take him down.”
According to the complaint, in early January 2021, Welnicki left two messages from his cellphone with the Secret Service’s Long Island Resident Office. In the two messages, Welnicki threatened to kill Trump “as well as 12 unnamed representatives and/or senators,” the complaint said. Welnicki said in the messages that the 12 unnamed members of Congress “backed” Trump.
Additionally, Welnicki claimed in the messages that there was a $350,000 reward to kill Trump and the 12 unidentified members of Congress, according to the complaint.
“I am going to do anything I can to take out [Trump]. Oh yeah that’s a threat, come and arrest me. I will do anything I can to take out [Trump] and his 12 monkeys. . . . If I had the opportunity to do it in Manhattan that would be awesome. . . . Tomorrow [Trump] will be in Georgia, maybe I will,” Welnicki said in one of the messages, the complaint stated.
According to the complaint, Welnicki called the Secret Service’s New York Field Office on several other occasions, including three times in November where he identified himself by name, referred to Trump as “Hitler” and said, “I will do everything I can to make sure [Trump] is dead.”
A day later on November 9, he conducted a voluntary interview with law enforcement officials and admitted that he had called the Secret Service’s New York Field Office a day prior.
In December, Welnicki called the Secret Service’s New York Field Office and spoke about staging a protest outside of Trump’s home and said, “the new Civil war could break out and taking up arms against the government is justified when ballots don’t matter,” the complaint alleged.
Newsweek reached out to Trump for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
