A Queens, N.Y. man who supposedly made continuous threats to assassinate Democratic members of Congress on social media, including threats to assassinate them President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, was arrested Tuesday morning by FBI agents and NYPD officers.
What We Know:
- Brendan Hunt of Ridgewood, Queens, a previous Occupy Wall Street activist and part-time filmmaker and actor, was charged with intentionally making threats to murder U.S. officials based on posts he supposedly made in December and January on social media sites Facebook, Bitchute, and Parler, at times under the alias “X-Ray Ultra.”
- According to a spokesperson for the office, Hunt, the son of a retired Queens family court judge, has worked for the New York State Office of Court Administration since 2016 as an assistant court analyst. He was suspended without pay after his arrest Tuesday.
- On Dec. 6, Hunt created many Facebook posts about murdering House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both from New York. In one post, he expressed that he wanted Trump to “hold a public execution of Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Schumer, etc.,” stated to court documents.
- As reported in the complaint, after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot by Trump followers, Hunt used two social media platforms visited by far-right extremists to threaten to kill the same three Democrats during Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
- His alleged “x-ray ultra” account on Bitchute, a lightly modified video uploading site favored by right-wing extremists, posted a short video titled “KILL YOUR SENATORS” on Jan. 8.
WARNING (EXPLICIT CONTENT) In a Facebook post, Hunt said, “[T]hey’re gonna come after us, they’re gonna kill us, so we have to kill them first . . . [S]o get your guns, show up to D.C. … If anybody has a gun, give it to me, I’ll go there myself and shoot them and kill them.”
- A few days later, Hunt made a similar comment on a post on Parler, a different social media platform that attracted conservatives but also far-right extremists. Parler went offline the weekend right after the Capitol riot since being cut off by major service providers that blamed it for failing to police violent content.
- According to a Parler post stating Americans must act responsibly now, accredited by the FBI to now-forgive former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Hunt then again endangered the inauguration, as stated by the complaint. An account attached to the same email address as Hunt’s Facebook profile declared, “lets go, Jan. 20, bring your guns.”now-forgive
Hunt was taken to jail Tuesday morning and will be indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
