A 71-year-old New Yorker is accused of threatening to kidnap and kill Donald Trump over the 2020 election
A New York City resident has been arrested for saying he plotted to abduct and murder US President Donald Trump if he refused to hand over power after losing the 2020 election.
Thomas Welnicki was arrested on Monday after he allegedly told the Secret Service on multiple occasions of his plot to kill Trump and another 12 unidentified pro-Trump members of Congress, who he believed backed the Republican president’s claims of election fraud.
While Trump is not mentioned by name in the complaint, which was filed with the US District Court in Brooklyn, a footnote identifies “Individual-1” as the “person who served as president from January 2017 to January 2021.”
Welnicki revealed his plan in calls and voice messages to the Secret Service, spanning several months. The messages that started well before the November 2020 presidential election included a “voluntary interview” in July to the US Capitol Police, in which Welnicki reportedly said that “if [Individual-1] loses the 2020 election and refused to step down,’ he would ‘acquire weapons’ and ‘take him down.’”
“I really hope that God takes [Individual-1] out,” Welnicki said.
He also supposedly “bragged about how easy it was for him to acquire a firearm” in New York City, stating that while he didn’t “want to hurt anyone,” he would “stand up to fascism,” according to court documents.
In a subsequent phone call to the Secret Service’s Long Island office in January, Welnicki doubled down on his threat, saying that he would do “anything” he could to “take out [Trump] and his 12 monkeys.” He even indicated that he might strike during a particular Trump rally, saying: “If I had the opportunity to do it in Manhattan that would be awesome … Tomorrow [Trump] will be in Georgia, maybe I will.”
Numerous Trump critics had warned in 2020 that he would attempt to hold on to power post-election. Trump ultimately bowed out and moved to Florida to live at his Mar-a-Lago resort, after courts refused to hear his attempts to contest the vote totals in several states. Congress certified Democrat Joe Biden as the winner following the January 6 Capitol riot.
Welnicki was ultimately released on a $50,000 bond, with his attorney insisting that he posed no threat to Trump at any point. “The bulk of his calls seem to be him calling [the] Secret Service to discuss with them his concerns,” the attorney claimed.
Welnicki’s name, age, and arrest record overlaps with a “Thomas Welnicki” who lived in Florida during the 1990s, racking up a string of drug arrests and eventually serving an eight-year prison term on heroin charges, according to public arrest records cited by the media. That same man was also questioned regarding the disappearance of a 7-year-old girl in the area in 1982, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
At the time, Welnicki claimed he was a physic while describing in detail the two men who had supposedly kidnapped and murdered the girl. He was not charged in the girl’s disappearance, and the case was never solved.
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Suu Kyi was convicted last month on two other charges and given a four-year prison sentence, which was then halved by the head of the military-installed government.
A passenger complained that the phrase used to disparage President Biden indicated support for ‘insurrection’
American Airlines is apparently investigating one of its pilots after a complaint that he had a sticker saying ‘Let’s go Brandon’ on his personal luggage, which angered one of the passengers.
Responding to an angry tweet about the image, the airline’s official account thanked the complaining woman for bringing it to the company’s attention and asked her to DM them with more details.
The original post is no longer public, since the complainer changed her account settings to privacy mode. According to captured screenshots, she accused the pilot of “displaying … cowardly rhetoric” while wearing a uniform and claimed she and other passengers were “disgusted” to see the sticker before the flight. She posted a couple of photos as proof, though some people drawn by the unfolding scandal found them suspicious.
Before making her account private, the woman posted what she said were private messages exchanged with the company. In those, the self-described “elite status member” claimed the sticker supported “the insurrection of our government/the sitting president” and expressed concerns for personal safety while being flown by the pilot. The company assured her that an “appropriate internal review will occur.”
The phrase ‘Let’s go Brandon’ has been popularized as a tongue-in-cheek substitute for an expletive targeting the incumbent US president since last September, when an NBC reporter claimed to hear it instead of a ‘f**k Joe Biden’ chant during a live report.
Some Biden supporters perceive it as deeply offensive and indicative of radicalism. An AP correspondent made headlines in late October, when she complained on Twitter that a Southwest Airlines pilot welcomed passengers with a ‘Let’s go Brandon’ before taking off. Some like-minded pundits even compared the pilot’s greeting to that of a terrorism supporter.
As an experiment, I’d love for an @SouthwestAir pilot to say “Long live ISIS” before taking off. My guess is that 1) the plane would be immediately grounded; 2) the pilot fired; and 3) a statement issued by the airline within a matter of hours
Southwest put its pilot under investigation, stating that it didn’t condone “divisive or offensive” behavior from employees, but refused to comment on the individual involved.
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