A Georgia man was arraigned in federal court on Monday on charges related to allegedly making threats against two GOP senators and their families.
According to a press release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, 25-year-old Robert Davis Forney was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 10 on “charges of communicating threats in interstate commerce.” The threats were purportedly aimed at Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Deb Fischer of Nebraska.
The Duluth resident allegedly twice called Cruz’s office on Jan. 9 and “left voicemails in which he threatened sexual violence against Senator Cruz and the senator’s family.” He allegedly took similar actions the next day targeting Fischer, according to prosecutors.
“Threatening our elected officials and their families is an act of violence that undermines our entire democracy,” U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said in a statement. “Political discourse and disagreements never justify resorting to vile attacks against our nation’s leaders.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Hertzberg as interim U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia office last month.
According to the presser, the indictment against Forney came as part of the Trump Justice Department’s “Operation Take Back America.” The initiative, as described by a March DOJ memo, seeks to use resources from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces and the Project Safe Neighborhood Program to “implement core policy objectives established by President Trump and the Attorney General.”
This list of objectives includes priorities such as “Repelling The Invasion Of Illegal Immigration,” “Achieving Total Elimination Of Cartels And Transnational Criminal Organizations,” “Establishing Homeland Security Task Forces,” and other related policy goals.
Forney’s arraignment came a day after a 57-year-old Minnesota man was detained and charged by law enforcement with the alleged murder and attempted murder of two state lawmakers and their spouses.
As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported, “The story is still developing and has yielded plenty of unanswered questions about Vance Boelter’s background, living situation, and apparent re-appointment to a workforce development board by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The consensus so far, however, is that his motives for allegedly assassinating at least one Democrat legislator and her husband, as well as targeting another Democrat and his wife were no doubt radical and most likely political.”
Democrats and their media allies have since used the tragedy to lecture Republicans about “political violence” — despite the fact that, as Boyd noted, “It’s Democrats … who have spent the better part of a decade calling for literal violence against their political enemies. …”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
