Trump supporter found guilty of threatening to kill lawmakers

A supporter of former President Trump has been found guilty of threatening to kill lawmakers before President Biden’s inauguration in January.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn handed down the verdict for Brendan Hunt, a Queens resident, on Wednesday, The Washington Post reported. Hunt could face up to 10 years in prison.

Authorities said Hunt had posted a video on social media shortly after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot titled “KILL YOUR SENATORS: Slaughter them all.” 

Hunt said in the video that people should take guns to Biden’s inauguration later that month and “literally just spray these motherf—ers.”

Authorities said Hunt also posted on Facebook in December that he wanted Trump to “hold a public execution of pelosi aoc schumer etc” or else “the citizenry will,” referring to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

While the jury in Brooklyn convicted Hunt on one count of threatening to murder lawmakers, it found that the posts from 2020 were not criminal.

Hunt was an employee of the New York State Office of Court Administration and a part-time filmmaker and actor before he was arrested a day before Biden’s inauguration. He was later suspended and then fired.

Hunt’s attorneys attempted to argue that their client’s speech was comedy and that jurors needed to watch how he “cracks up” during the January video. Hunt also tried to argue that he was intoxicated during the video and had no real intention of following through with any of his comments.

Hunt was not a part of the Capitol riot and said he was shocked when police raided his home. While the charge did not stem from the Capitol breach itself, it was the first known case where a jury weighed the events of Jan. 6 in its verdict, The New York Times reported.