Fascist plots, ricin assassins, and the vengeful return of Jesus Christ:
Running the United States is a thankless job, to say the least — just ask President Barack Obama.
The death threats against Barack Obama started before his first 2008 presidential
primary. One early plotter was Jerry M. Blanchard, an accountant who mentioned
assassinating Obama in a Waffle House in Charlotte, North Carolina on July 15th,
2008 — four weeks before Obama's nomination at the Democratic National Convention. As
the book Famous Assassinations in World History recounts, he said:
"He needs to be taken out and I can do it
in a heartbeat. [...] We both know Obama is the anti-Christ."
Blanchard spent 366 days in prison, three years on probation,
and was permanently stripped of his accountant's license.
Soon after, a trainee bail bondsman named Raymond H. Geisel was arrested
after telling his class that he intended to assassinate Obama. The police found body armor,
a 9-mm handgun, four loaded magazines, ammunition,
and a hatchet in his hotel room. He insisted he was joking and served three years probation.
After this, three self-confessed white supremacists were arrested by the Denver
Police Department for driving a truck "full of weapons and meth"
to Obama's DNC nomination with the intention of killing the future president. One of them,
the aptly-named Shawn Robert Adolf, used racist language to characterize his hatred of Obama.
In October 2008, about two months after Barack Obama became the official Democratic nominee
for president, police arrested 19-year-old Paul Schlesselman of Arkansas and 21-year-old Daniel
Cowart of Tennessee for plotting his assassination. Cowart and Schlesselman,
both self-described white supremacists, were apprehended while driving a truck
that had the words "Honk if you love Hitler" written on the hood.
They had planned a cross-country murder spree that was to end in Obama's death.
"Does it worry you, about your own safety?" "Uh, I've got the best folks in the world."
Later in 2008, Marine Lance Corporal Kody Brittingham was arrested for armed robbery.
Police found a journal in his barracks containing white supremacist material,
a written plan regarding how to kill Obama,
and Google searches for "Inauguration Day." He received a 100-month prison sentence.
Finally, a Hawaiian woman named Kristy Lee Roshia threatened to "blow away the
whole Oval Office." In love letters sent to the Boston Secret Service office in 2009,
she insisted that she intended to target Michelle Obama and a number of marines. She was arrested
just two miles away from the spot where the Obama family intended to vacation in Honolulu.
In 2007 and then in 2009, Johnny Logan Spencer posted a racist poem titled "The
Sniper" on the white supremacist website New Saxon. The poem vividly describes President
Obama's death via a sniper rifle. Even though Spencer claimed he wrote
the poem to process his mother's death, he was given a 33-month prison sentence.
Another assassination plot took place not on American soil,
but during Obama's first international trip as president in 2009. As part of a European tour,
he attended the Alliance of Civilizations Summit in Istanbul, where a Syrian man was
arrested for carrying fake Al-Jazeera press credentials. The man confessed that he and
three accomplices had cooked up a plot to stab Obama with a knife. The arrest occurred in
conjunction with local authorities, although the Secret Service went above and beyond in
this case and conducted extensive searches of journalists involved with Obama's tour.
A more high-profile assassination attempt on Barack Obama's life came in November 2011,
when Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez sprayed
semi-automatic gunfire at the White House. In a 20-minute-long video, Ortega said:
"I am the modern-day Jesus Christ that you all have been waiting for."
"He was convinced the government was conspiring against him,
and over the past year he became increasingly more agitated about this."
Ortega was arrested for planning to assassinate the president, as well as
on 16 separate firearms and assault charges. In the end, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The following year, four U.S. Army soldiers were arrested for murder, leading to the discovery that
they had formed a paramilitary group called "FEAR" — or "Forever Enduring, Always Ready." Their plot
involved overthrowing the government, blowing up vehicles belonging to political leaders,
bombing a fountain in Georgia, poisoning a crop of apples in Washington state, and assassinating
the president. One of the soldiers pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight years in 2016; he also
handed over his co-conspirators to authorities, each of whom received a life sentence.
In March 2010, Brian Dean Miller posted a self-incriminating listing
titled "Obama Must Die" on Craigslist. He wrote:
"I am dedicating my life to the death of Obama and every employee
of the federal government. As I promised in a previous post,
if the health care reform bill passed I would become a terrorist. Today I become a terrorist."
Needless to say, Miller was arrested and given 27 months in prison without parole.
Next up is Mitchell Kusick, who was arrested in October 2012 after telling his therapist that he
wanted to kill the president and shoot children at a nearby school. He served nine months in prison.
Then, in 2013, two men from upstate New York were arrested for mixing traditional
explosives and radioactive material to build what they called a "death ray," which they
planned to use on President Obama. The leader of the pair was a self-professed KKK member,
and he was ultimately sentenced to 30 years. The
other perpetrator received 97 months in prison on a variety of charges.
In case you've never seen Breaking Bad, ricin is a poisonous substance produced
by the processing of castor beans that is fatal if inhaled, ingested, or injected.
In 2014, actor Shannon Richardson was sentenced to 18 years in prison for sending a ricin-filled
letter to Barack Obama. She also sent a letter to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
who had advocated for stricter gun control, and Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against
Illegal Guns. She sent the letters in her husband's name in an attempt to frame him,
as they were going through a divorce at the time. During her trial, Richardson said:
"I'm not a bad person. I don't have it in me to hurt anyone."
That same year, James Everett Dutschke was sentenced to five
years of supervised release following yet another ricin plot. Much like Richardson,
he had tried to use the letters to frame someone else — in this case,
an Elvis impersonator whom Dutschke considered his "rival." He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
In 2012, the FBI arrested a Bangladeshi man named Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis,
who conspired to blow up the Federal Reserve in Manhattan. Loretta E. Lynch,
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said at the time:
"Nafis came to the United States radicalized and bent on fighting jihad here in our
homeland. He sought to commit mass murder in downtown Manhattan in the name of al Qaeda."
Nafis had previously targeted President Obama before turning his attention to the
Federal Reserve. He received 30 years in prison — the minimum sentence for
his crimes — after his lawyer portrayed him in a sympathetic light to the court.
Finally, Iraq war veteran Omar J. Gonzalez received a 17-month prison sentence after
literally jumping the White House fence and storming the building carrying a 3.5-inch folding
knife. Gonzalez, who had previously suffered from PTSD, appeared to show remorse for his actions and
fully cooperated with authorities. At the time of the intrusion, his Ford Bronco was found with 800
rounds of ammunition, two hatchets and a machete, several tomahawks, and a number of knives.
If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis
Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness
helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.