Thomas Welnicki, a 72-year-old from New York, has been charged with threatening to kill former President Donald Trump. Welnicki, who was upset by what he saw as Trump’s threats to democracy and once likened him to Hitler, vowed to do everything he could to kill the former president, according to authorities. In July 2020, Welnicki allegedly told Capitol Police that if Trump lost the 2020 election and didn’t step down, he would “acquire weapons” and “take him down” himself. In January 2021, Welnicki called the Secret Service and threatened the president’s life as well as the lives of 12 congressional supporters and referenced a $350,000 bounty. “I will do anything I can to take out [Trump] and his 12 monkeys,” Welnicki told the Secret Service. “Tomorrow [Trump] will be in Georgia, maybe I will.” Most recently, in a December 2021 call with the Secret Service, Welnicki claimed that “the new Civil War could break out and taking up arms against the government is justified when ballots don’t matter.” He has been charged with threatening to kill, kidnap, and inflict bodily harm.
