(LibertySociety.com) – A 33-year-old Texas man will spend three years behind bars after he was convicted for making threats against Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., via voicemail.
Brian Michael Gaherty took a plea deal and admitted to leaving four voicemails at Waters’ Los Angeles County office. He also received a sentencing enhancement for the hate crime, along with a $10,000 fine. He used profanity and made racist remarks in the messages, but also threatened to kill Waters. In an August 2022 voicemail, Gaherty warned Waters that she needed to move and that he would “cut [her] throat.” He also implied that he was just one in a group of individuals targeting Waters.
The criminal complaint showed that staffers who answered the phone at Waters’ office said Gaherty would leave messages with them for the lawmaker, including threats of physically confronting her in the street. Gaherty did not block his phone number when making the calls, which made it easy for the U.S. Capitol Police to identify him as the source of the threats. He was contacted and told to stop in October 2022, but Gaherty left another voicemail just one month later telling Waters that she messed up by reporting him to the police. Waters attended Gaherty’s sentencing and told the judge her family was living in constant fear and that she had experienced nightmares after she found out about his threat to cut her throat.
Threats against lawmakers are nothing new but are almost always taken seriously by law enforcement officials. However, mainstream media news outlets, which predominantly lean left, mostly focus on threats against Democratic lawmakers rather than taking a neutral stance on the matter. Threats and violent acts against Republicans are often ignored. Democratic lawmakers also avoid discussing any threats against their colleagues across the aisle and find no problem with their own heated political rhetoric while simultaneously condemning Republicans for similar remarks.
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