For most of the last week, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson has been the latest target of Donald Trump’s wrath. The congresswoman from north Miami hit the ceiling after learning that Trump made particularly callous remarks to the mother of one of the soldiers killed in the Niger ambush. She has refused to back down even in the face of attacks from White House Chief of Staff John Kelly–whom Wilson derided as a Trump puppet–and Trump.
At least twice this weekend, Trump has taken his war of words with Wilson to Twitter.
I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 21, 2017
Wacky Congresswoman Wilson is the gift that keeps on giving for the Republican Party, a disaster for Dems. You watch her in action & vote R!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2017
But lately, Wilson has had more serious things to worry about than nasty tweets. She’s been the target of death threats.
On Wednesday night, Wilson was supposed to speak at Gulfstream Park. But at the last minute, she had to call it off. Watch why, courtesy WFOR-TV in Miami.
Several Wilson staffers told WFOR’s Carey Codd that they’d fielded “multiple threatening phone calls” at her Washington office. These calls were related to Wilson contending that Trump told Sergeant La David Johnson’s relatives that Johnson “knew what he signed up for.”
Even after staffers reported the threats to the Capitol Police, Miami Gardens police, and the House threat division, the threats continued unabated. On Friday, a spokesperson for Wilson’s office told WFOR that the calls got so bad that many of Wilson’s constituents couldn’t get through. Many of the calls came from out-of-state numbers.
At one point, Wilson’s staffers had to shut off the phones at the Washington office. Her office in Miami has also had to deal with threatening calls as well. The Department of Homeland Security is also on the case.
Wilson’s staffers were particularly alarmed when they learned of a Facebook post from a guy named Tom Keevers in Des Plaines, Illinois–near Chicago–who openly called for Wilson to be lynched.
According to Wilson’s staffers, Capitol Police got in touch with police in the Chicago area and paid Keevers a visit on Friday. There’s no word yet on whether Keevers is in custody.
Wilson appears to be the latest Democratic lawmaker to learn the hard way that there are certain elements who believe speaking out against Trump should be a hanging offense. Earlier this year, Congressman Al Green was bombarded with equally disgusting death threats after he became the first lawmaker to formally call for Trump to be impeached.
In the absence of something I haven’t heard or seen, there has been no word from anyone in the House Republican leadership regarding these outrageous threats. This is unacceptable. It is time for us to come together as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and demand that Speaker Paul Ryan and his colleagues show some leadership and strongly condemn this pigweed.
I’d be saying the same thing if a Republican lawmaker were being targeted with death threats and the Democrats had the gavel. No matter where you stand, death threats against elected officials have no place in any sort of civilized discourse. Period, full stop.
(featured image courtesy Unitarian Universalist Science Committee, available under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license)
