One of the top Democrats whom prosecutors alleged Brendan Hunt threatened to kill was Senator Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York.
Former New York State government employee Brendan Hunt will remain behind bars as he awaits trial for allegedly threatening to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and many other Democratic politicians on the day of the U.S. Capitol insurrection, a federal judge ruled on Monday.
Hunt pleaded not guilty during the same 30-minute hearing.
“I’m not prepared to release Mr. Hunt on personal recognizance bond,” U.S. District Judge Pamela K. Chen said.
Finding that Hunt “presents a danger that cannot be addressed” without a bond, Chen added: “It’s a threats case. These are threats that were made by electronic media.”
Prosecutors itemized those alleged threats at length in an eight-page criminal complaint on Jan. 18.
“Trump, we want actual revenge on democrats,” Hunt, who called himself X-Ray Ultra, allegedly posted on his Facebook account “HuntBrendan.” “Meaning, we want you to hold a public execution of pelosi aoc schumer etc. And if you dont do it, the citizenry will. We’re not voting in another rigged election. Start up the firing squads, mow down these commies, and lets take america back!”
Hunt, who works at New York’s Office of Court Administration, was reportedly suspended without pay on the day of his indictment.
Filled with conspiracy theories and white supremacist themes, Hunt’s blog posts and social media feeds were rife with coronavirus misinformation and antisemitic hatred.
“Fuck the lockdown po-lice!” Hunt allegedly wrote. “Yeah booiii run those pigs over! Anyone enforcing this lockdown mask vaccine bullshit deserves nothing less than a bullet in their fucking head! Including cops! If you’re going to shoot someone tho, go after a high value target like pelosi schumer or AOC. They really need to be put down. These commies will see death before they see us surrender! USA!!”
On Jan. 8, two days after the U.S. Capitol siege, Hunt allegedly posted an 88-second video on BitChute—a site popular with far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists—titled “KILL YOUR SENATORS” that included the summary “Slaughter them all.”
“We need to go back to the U.S. Capitol when all of the Senators and a lot of the Representatives are back there, and this time we have to show up with our guns. And we need to slaughter these motherfuckers . . . [O]ur government at this point is basically a handful of traitors . . . so what you need to do is take up arms, get to D.C., probably the inauguration . . . so called inauguration of this motherfucking communist Joe Biden . . . [T]hat’s probably the best time to do this, get your guns, show up to D.C., and literally just spray these motherfuckers . . . like, that’s the only option . . . [T]hey’re gonna come after us, they’re gonna kill us, so we have to kill them first . . . [S]o get your guns, show up to D.C., put some bullets in their fucking heads. If anybody has a gun, give me it, I’ll go there myself and shoot them and kill them . . . [W]e have to take out these Senators and then replace them with actual patriots . . . [T]his is a ZOG government . . . [T]hat’s basically all I have to say, but take up arms against them.”
“ZOG” is short for the white supremacist conspiracy theory of a “Zionist Occupied Government,” and “88”—the length of the video—is neo-Nazi code for “Heil Hitler,” after the eighth letter of the alphabet.
Those are among the several antisemitic conspiracy theories linked to Hunt’s social media accounts, including a post about the “Goy Guide to Kabbalah” on Reddit and 9/11 misinformation on YouTube.
The next hearing in the case has been scheduled for March 15 at 10:30 p.m.
(Photo via Twitter screengrab)