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The FBI, working in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies, has arrested a 34-year-old man who threatened to shoot Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and her family.
Atlanta-based WSB-TV reported that the outlet had obtained a recording of a phone call in which the man first claimed he was a donor before he then unleashed an expletive-laced tirade at the second-term congresswoman.
“I’m going to kill her next week. I’m going to murder her,” he said, according to the outlet. “You don’t think you’re going to get payback? You’re going to die. Your family is going to die.”
Newsmax reported that the lawmaker’s office identified the man as Sean Patrick Cirillo of Macon, Ga. Her office also noted that Cirillo is now facing a federal charge of using an electronic communications device to make a threat.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution added that the suspect was arrested in Atlanta, noting that he has minor criminal convictions on his record, including a vandalism charge and driving under the influence from roughly a decade ago. He also has addresses in North Carolina and Florida, public records indicate.
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“I want to thank every single member of law enforcement who acted swiftly in response to this murderous threat,” Greene noted in a statement released by her office, according to WSB-TV. “From Rome City Police, the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Capitol Police, the House Sergeant at Arms, and ultimately the FBI who made the arrest, every official acted quickly to put this man behind bars.”
Greene was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. She told reporters that she gets death threats “on an almost daily basis,” adding they “should never be tolerated.” She went on to say that she closed her district office in Dalton, Ga., out of an abundance of caution.
Newsmax added:
Greene is the second Republican U.S. representative from Georgia to close their local office this week because of threats, WSB-TV reported.
Rep. Rich McCormick sent staff in his Cumming office home Tuesday after he said they received “serious threats of violence” at a time when he was leading efforts to censure Tlaib while also feuding with Greene, the Journal-Constitution reported. Greene’s motion to censure Tlaib was rejected by the House last week, but McCormick’s was approved late Tuesday.
Once a member of the House Freedom Caucus, Greene has since had a falling out with some of the chamber’s more conservative members, including Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). Earlier this fall, leaked text messages between her and Gaetz revealed a major fissure.
Greene defended her conservative bona fides after voting for recent legislation that raised the debt ceiling and curbed some spending in an exchange with Gaetz.
“I have almost the same identical voting record as Thomas Massie, the most fiscally conservative member of Congress. And I voted with him on this bill,” Greene said of her GOP colleague from Kentucky.
She then followed up that text by responding to “War Room” podcast host and former Trump administration adviser Steve Bannon, who has called for a “REAL MAGA” candidate to challenge Greene in her next primary.
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“And Bannon, who was senior counsel to Trump in the WH and responsible for the first debt ceiling increase bc Bannon is reckless and nowhere near fiscally responsible, is now telling everyone I should be primaried,” she continued, according to The Daily Beast.
She added that she recently received a “standing ovation” after an “extremely successful” event in Cobb County, Ga., which is in her congressional district, before firing off another text.
“Steve, (conservative activist Laura) Loomer, and any other POS attacking me will not beat me,” Greene told Gaetz. “Because of that people have been reaching out to me because they don’t like what Steve is doing to me… I’m at a place in my life where removing toxic and bad people out of my life makes me very happy.”