Trump’s transition says Cabinet picks and appointments have been targeted by bomb threats and swatting attacks

Trump’s transition team claims that several of the president-elect’s most well-known Cabinet members and nominees have been the targets of swatting assaults and bomb threats. The FBI said it was looking into the matter.

According to Trump transition spokesman Karoline Leavitt, a number of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and Administration appointments were the targets of violent, un-American threats against their lives and the lives of people who live with them last night and this morning.

According to her, the attacks included everything from bomb threats to swatting, which is when criminals use false pretenses to initiate an emergency police enforcement reaction against a specific victim. In recent years, the strategy has become more and more common.

Trump and his transition team are thankful that law enforcement and other authorities acted swiftly to protect the safety of those targeted, Leavitt said.

Targets included former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, who was appointed to head the Environmental Protection Agency; Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first pick for attorney general; Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, whom Trump selected to head the Department of Labor; and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick to be the next ambassador to the United Nations.

Law enforcement officials are also looking into whether Susie Wiles, Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general Trump has selected to succeed Gaetz, and other incoming administration officials were also victims and how each was singled out, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity while the investigation is ongoing.

Requests for comment were not immediately answered by Wiles or Bondi.

In a statement, the FBI said it was investigating with its law enforcement partners after learning of multiple bomb threats and swatting operations directed against incoming administration nominees and appointments.

White House spokesman Saloni Sharma said the White House is in communication with Trump’s transition team and federal law enforcement, and that President Joe Biden has been briefed.

Sharma added that the president and his administration denounce threats of political violence and that Biden is still keeping a close eye on the situation.

Stefanik, her husband, and their 3-year-old son were driving home from Washington for Thanksgiving on Wednesday morning when they received a bomb threat at their Saratoga County home, according to Stefanik’s office.

In response to the bomb threat, New York State Police reported that they searched Stefanik’s house Wednesday morning but were unable to locate any explosive devices.

In a social media post, Zeldin disclosed that he and his family had also been threatened.

He tweeted a pipe bomb threat against myself and my family at our house today along with a pro-Palestinian message. I’m safe; my family and I weren’t at home at the time.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office in Florida posted on Facebook that it was notified on Wednesday of a bomb threat that referenced the alleged mailbox of former Congressman Matt Gaetz at a residence in the Niceville area.

According to the office, Gaetz does not reside at the address, even though a family member does. There were no dangerous gadgets found.

Gaetz was Trump’s first pick for the position of attorney general, but he resigned in response to claims that he had slept with minors and paid for sex. A Justice Department inquiry into claims of sex trafficking produced no charges against Gaetz, who has strongly denied any misconduct.

The threats follow an unsettling and unusual period of violence during the electoral campaign. When a shooter opened fire on a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July, one of his supporters was killed and the candidate was grazed in the ear.

A later assassination attempt at Trump’s golf property in West Palm Beach, Florida, was thwarted by the Secret Service after an agent saw a pistol barrel sticking through a perimeter fence while Trump was playing.

Trump was also the focus of an Iranian murder-for-hire plot, in which one guy claimed responsibility for planning the Republican president-elect’s murder.

According to court documents, investigators also detained a guy last week for allegedly posting videos on social media threatening to assassinate Trump. On November 13, authorities released a video showing Manuel Tamayo-Torres brandishing what looked to be an AR-15-style firearm and threatening to shoot the former president.

According to court records, he also transmitted a video from an arena in Glendale, Arizona, on August 23, the same day that Trump addressed a campaign rally there. A request for comment on Wednesday was not immediately answered by Tamayo-Torres’ lawyer.

Public personalities from all political parties have been the targets of fabricated bomb threats and home shooting incidents in recent years.

The FBI responded to a spike in these events during the holidays at state capitols, courthouses, and the residences of public leaders nationwide approximately a year ago. Bomb threats prompted a lockdown and mass evacuation in early January. No explosives were discovered, and no one was hurt.

Last year, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones were among those targeted.

Earlier this year, there were targeted attacks on the judges overseeing Trump’s criminal election meddling case in Washington and his civil fraud case in New York.

On Christmas Day last year, Jack Smith, the special counsel for the Justice Department, who recently abandoned the two criminal cases he filed against Trump, also received a false emergency call.

Trump falsely accused members of the Haitian community of kidnapping and eating cats and dogs earlier this year, which prompted a barrage of hoax bomb threats on Springfield, Ohio, city officials’ residences, government facilities, and schools.

The great majority of the bomb threats that were sent to dozens of historically Black schools and universities nationwide in 2022 took place during Black History Month.

Every time a member of Congress is swatted, we collaborate closely with our local and federal law enforcement colleagues, the US Capitol Police stated in a statement on Wednesday. Citing the necessity to reduce the possibility of copycats, the police declined to disclose any details.

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, called the threats “unhinged and dangerous.”

President Trump said on the website X that he had been the target of not one, but TWO assassination attempts this year. Bomb threats are also being made against several of his Cabinet nominees and their families. “It is not who we are in America,” he continued.

From Washington, Richer reported. This article was written by Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; and Colleen Long and Eric Tucker in Washington.

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