A 72-year-old New York man has been charged with threatening to kill former US president Donald Trump, according to a federal complaint unsealed on Monday. Thomas Welnicki, from Rockaway Beach, allegedly expressed interest in killing then-president Trump in an interview with US Capitol police in July 2020 and in several calls to the Secret Service the following year.
The complaint states that Welnicki told Capitol police that if Trump lost the 2020 election and refused to leave office, he would “acquire weapons” and “take him down”. In a voicemail left with the Secret Service on or about 4 January 2021, he said he would “do anything I can to take out” Trump, adding “if I had the opportunity to do it in Manhattan, that would be awesome”. He also referred to Trump as “Hitler” in later threats.
Welnicki’s lawyer, Deirdre von Dornum, said her client intended no harm and was expressing distress at what he saw as threats to democracy posed by Trump. Welnicki is charged with threatening to kill, kidnap and inflict bodily harm on the former president, identified as “Individual-1” in the complaint.
The threats continued into autumn 2021, when Welnicki allegedly told the Secret Service that “the new civil war could break out” and that “taking up arms against the government is justified when ballots don’t matter”. The complaint also notes that Welnicki believed there would be a $350,000 reward for killing Trump.
