Left: US President Joe Biden speaks at Florida Memorial University on Nov. 1, 2022, in Miami Gardens, Florida (mpi04/MediaPunch /IPX). Right: Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, in Kalamazoo, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio). Inset: Kevin C. Butler (Roanoke County Sheriff’s Office).
In Virginia, a 47-year-old man named Kevin C. Butler faces several years behind bars after making repeated threats against former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris. The threats, which were delivered through a series of crude phone calls and messages, have resulted in a five-year prison sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Thomas T. Cullen, as announced by authorities on Friday.
Butler was found guilty of seven counts of knowingly and willfully threatening the president and other successors to the presidency. This verdict followed a two-day bench trial, underscoring the serious nature of his offenses.
In response to the sentencing, acting United States Attorney Robert N. Tracci emphasized the importance of maintaining the integrity of the political process. “Threats of violence against elected officials affront the political process and the rule of law,” Tracci said. “This office will seek clear accountability against those who threaten public officials with acts of violence.”
Details from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia revealed that Butler made several alarming phone calls in early December 2022. During these calls to a state probation and parole office, Butler threatened the lives of then-President Biden and then-Vice President Harris.
Prosecutors highlighted voicemails in which Butler expressed his intentions to kill the top officials in the nation. He made explicit threats, stating plans to arm himself with a “MAK 90,” a type of semiautomatic firearm, and expressed a desire to “jump over the fence” at the White House to carry out his threats against the President.
As detailed in the criminal complaint, one specific incident occurred on December 1, 2022, when Butler left a voicemail for a state probation officer. In the message, he declared his intention to kill President Joe Biden, saying, “whenever I get the chance, Imma kill the President Joe Biden” and adding, “I’m going to DC one way or another and I’m gonna do it.”
That same day, he spoke to a different probation officer and made multiple threats, including telling her he was going to “buy a gun from a street” and “aim it at the Secret Service people,” followed by, “I’m just going to kill the President.”
In an interview with federal agents, prosecutors say Butler admitted to making the calls. He also explained that he planned to obtain a gun from a friend and travel to the nation’s capital, where he would kill multiple Secret Service members to get to the president.
“Butler stated that he is an anarchist and believes that he must kill President Biden because of the evil that has been done by the military and actions taken by former President [Barack] Obama when Biden was the Vice-President,” federal agents wrote in a probable cause affidavit included with the complaint.
Butler was convicted in 2014 in the Eastern District of Virginia for making similar threats against then-President Obama and then-Vice President Biden, court records show.
