DOJ: Lafayette woman arrested for threatening on social media to kill Trump
Arrest comes at weekend D.C. march after she was confronted by Secret Service agents over two days about a series of posts on Facebook, Instagram
A Lafayette woman accused of making threats on social media to kill President Donald Trump was arrested Saturday in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Department of Justice reported late Monday.
Nathalie Rose Jones, 50, was charged in U.S. District Court a day after Secret Service agents interviewed her about a series of posts on Facebook and Instagram over a 10-day period in August, including one about how she was “willing to sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea.”
Federal officials say that Secret Service agents interviewed Jones on Friday in Washington D.C., where they say she called Trump a “terrorist” and a “Nazi,” and that she had a “bladed object” she would use to kill the president. Federal officials say Jones told them about wanting to “avenge all the lives lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.” According to court documents, she told the federal officers she planned to leave Washington, D.C., though.
But Jones was arrested Saturday at a demonstration that started at Dupont Circle and went to the White House, according to the Department of Justice, after Secret Service agents interviewed her again. According to the Department of Justice, Jones admitted she’d made threats against Trump when speaking with them a day earlier but that “she denied having any present desire to harm the president.”
Court records filed Monday show she was charged with one count of threatening death or bodily harm upon the president. She also was charged with transmitting threats of violence using interstate commerce.
“Threatening the life of the president is one of the most serious crimes and one that will be met with swift and unwavering prosecution,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a release Monday evening. “Make no mistake — justice will be served.”
According to the Department of Justice, federal officials had tracked what they called threatening posts attributed to Jones on Instagram from Aug. 2-9 and then from Aug. 6-15 on Facebook.
Those periods were prolific for accounts attributed to Jones, who listed herself as a writer who was born in Rensselaer and lived in New York. Some dealt with criticism of the administration’s vaccination policy. Several times, Jones called on federal officials to remove Trump from office, including telling U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “please arrange the arrest and removal ceremony of POTUS Trump as a terrorist on the American People” during Saturday’s march in Washington, D.C.
On Aug. 6, Jones had a post on Facebook that included: “Here’s where we are: I literally told FBI in five states today that I am willing to sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea with Liz Cheney and all The Affirmation present and you did not come to my home this way at all. Let’s deal with this and restore domestic tranquility.”
That same day, Jones posted that: “I have had severe mental illness. But it is not permanent. There might be a moment, an episode, a hospitalization. But I do not just exist in insanity. Why would I? It’s treatable.” The rest of the post was aimed at the administration undercutting trust in vaccinations, particularly among those being treated for mental illness, saying, “I should never have to go into mortal combat with my militia over vaccine administration.”
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