The FBI on Thursday arrested a man who allegedly made threats against The Boston Globe after the paper led a campaign with other news organizations to publish coordinated editorials condemning President Trump for his attacks against the press.
Robert Chain, 68, of Encino, Calif., is being charged with one count of making threatening communications in interstate commerce, according to a statement released by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
{mosads}Chain’s arrest, which was first reported by NBC News, comes weeks after hundreds of newspapers around the country published editorials denouncing Trump’s rhetoric towards the press.
“To label the press ‘the enemy of the people’ is as un-American as it is dangerous to the civic compact we have shared for more than two centuries,” the Globe wrote in its editorial.
Court documents show that, according to the DOJ, Chain began threatening the Globe right after it announced its plans for coordinated editorials.
The DOJ said Chain threatened to travel to the Globe’s newsroom and shoot employees. He is being accused of making 14 threatening phone calls between Aug. 10 and Aug. 22 — ones in which he referred to the newspaper as “the enemy of the people,” echoing a line Trump has repeatedly said of the press.
“You’re the enemy of the people, and we’re going to kill every f–king one of you,” Chain allegedly said, according to NBC News.
A threat was reported at the Globe’s newsroom on Aug. 16, the day many newspapers published their editorials.
Officials from the Boston police told Boston 7 News that they did not think the threat was “super serious.” Regardless, police increased patrols around the building and told the news station that the FBI was investigating.
“We are grateful to the FBI, the US Attorney’s Office, the Boston Police, and local authorities in California for the work they did in protecting the Globe while threats were coming in, for investigating the source, and for making this arrest. We couldn’t have asked for a stronger response,” Jane Bowman, vice president of marketing and strategic partnerships, said in a statement to The Hill.
“While it was unsettling for many of our staffers to be threatened in such a way, nobody – really, nobody – let it get in the way of the important work of this institution.”
Trump responded to the coordinated editorials by accusing the Globe of “collusion with other papers.”
–Updated at 11:43 a.m.