House minority leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) criticized Republican leaders in Congress and the White House this week for failing to contact him after a Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by President Donald Trump was accused of threatening to kill him.
“Not a single Republican has reached out either from the House, the Senate, or the White House, in connection with the death threat and the arrest,” Jeffries told reporters Oct. 23, according to Forbes. “But that does not surprise me in terms of the environment that we’re in.”
Christopher Moynihan was arrested Oct. 19 and taken into custody by New York State Police for allegedly sending text messages about his plans to “eliminate” Jeffries during his Oct. 20 appearance at the Economic Club of New York.
Moynihan has been charged with making a terrorist threat, a felony. He was arraigned on Oct. 21 and pleaded not guilty.
He received a Trump-issued pardon in January, one of more than 1,500 pardons granted to individuals who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of Trump’s 2020 presidential election defeat to Joe Biden.
Jeffries slammed Trump, and Republicans, over the move.
“[Republicans] can’t justify the fact that Donald Trump pardoned hundreds of violent felons on his first day in office. People who brutally beat police officers, including seriously injuring, on these Capitol steps,” Jeffries said. “[Trump] pardons these violent felons and then unleashes them on American communities all across the country, and many of them have reoffended.”
Jeffries also pointed out that House Speaker Mike Johnson has not reached out to him. Johnson said he was unaware of Moynihan’s threats against Jeffries and shifted focus to the recent anti-Trump “No Kings” protests and what he described as “violence on the left.”
“The assassination culture that’s been advanced now—this is the left, in almost every case that is advancing this, and not the right,” Johnson said. “Let’s not make this a partisan issue. You don’t want me to go there.”
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