Man charged with threatening to kill Indian-American presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy
New York (PTI): A 30-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with death threats aimed at Indian-American Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and his campaign event attendees, the US attorney's office in New Hampshire has said.
The attorney's office on Monday said Tyler Anderson of Dover in New Hampshire was arrested on Saturday and charged with transmitting in interstate commerce a threat to injure Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur.
According to an FBI affidavit, the Ramaswamy campaign sent a text message on Friday to notify voters, including Anderson, about an upcoming campaign event in Portsmouth.
Anderson allegedly responded to the message: "Great, another opportunity for me to blow his brains out!"
He also said: "I'm going to kill everyone who attends" and added a vulgar description of what he would do to the bodies.
While the statement from the US attorney's office did not name which presidential campaign was targeted, Ramaswamy's team confirmed on Monday that he was the target, The Washington Post reported.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Ramaswamy campaign, said on Monday: "Unfortunately it is true."
"We are grateful to law enforcement for their swiftness and professionalism in handling this matter and pray for the safety of all Americans," she added.
A statement from his staff then criticised the news media, "deranged voices" and "left-wing cranks", accusing the groups of inciting violence against the Republicans ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
"I'm grateful to the people on the front lines who work hard every day to make sure people like me and other Americans keep safe," Ramaswamy told reporters in New Hampshire.
"I think that we are very well protected," he added.
He declined to say when he found out about the alleged death threat or whether he would increase his security.
Ramaswamy's staff reported the threatening text messages to authorities, the FBI affidavit said.
Law enforcement officials searched Anderson's residence on Saturday, arrested him, and seized his phone and firearms.
While searching Anderson's phone, the affidavit says, authorities discovered the texts to Ramaswamy in a deleted folder and found additional threatening messages to another candidate.
According to the affidavit, one message sent on Wednesday said: "Fantastic, now I know where to go so I can blow that b------'s head off."
Subsequent texts were referring to "a mass shooting" and intentions to defile a corpse.
Anderson admitted to sending the text messages to Ramaswamy and confirmed that he sent threatening texts to other campaigns, according to the affidavit.
A businessman and a Republican presidential candidate, Ramaswamy went on to hold the event in Portsmouth on Monday.
If convicted, Anderson could face five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a USD 250,000 fine.
Threats of violence against politicians are up, Forbes cited a recent University of Massachusetts-Amherst survey of nearly 300 former members of Congress as suggesting.
The survey found 47 per cent reported receiving threats while in Congress, with those who were first elected more recently experiencing a higher number of threats than those first elected earlier.
The numbers were split fairly evenly across party lines, but women and people of colour reported receiving threats at a much higher rate of 69 per cent, Forbes reported.
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PM Modi, RSS strengthening wall in path of SCs, STs, OBCs: Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi (PTI): Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the RSS were strengthening the wall standing in the path of Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs, even as he acknowledged that the UPA took steps to weaken that wall but not to the extent it should have.
Addressing the 'Samvidhan Rakshak Abhiyaan', Gandhi also referred to the function held on Constitution Day in Parliament and said that it is his guarantee, that "Modi has not read" the Constitution.
"If PM Modi would have read this book then what he does daily, he would not do it," Gandhi said, displaying a copy of the Constitution of India.
Gandhi said the country's whole system is pitted against Dalits, Adivasis and backward class people.
He said a wall obstructs the path of Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs and Modi and the RSS are strengthening that wall by "adding cement to it".
"Slowly the wall (obstructing the path of SCs, STs, OBCs) is getting strengthened. Earlier, the UPA government gave MGNREGA, the land acquisition act, the right to food...those were ways to weaken that wall. Today, when I look back, I can say the UPA government did not weaken the wall to the extent it should have, it did not do it as strongly as it should have," Gandhi said.
"However, we used to make efforts to weaken that wall but they (the BJP) are strengthening that wall by adding concrete," the former Congress president said.
Gandhi said a caste survey being carried out in Telangana is a historic step and the Congress will do the same wherever it comes to power.
