Chaffetz: Threats against lawmakers should be taken seriously

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) voiced concern on Saturday that prosecutors and law enforcement officials aren’t taking threats against lawmakers seriously.

“When these threats do come in we have to take them very seriously,” Chaffetz, who’s leaving Congress at the end of June, said on “Fox & Friends.” “I worry that prosecutors aren’t prosecuting these cases; law enforcement is not looking at them as deeply as they need to be.”

His comments came less than two weeks after a gunman opened fire at a park in Alexandria, Va. where a group of GOP lawmakers were practicing for a charity baseball game. 

{mosads}Among those shot in the attack was House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was taken to the hospital in critical condition. He has since been upgraded to fair condition and was removed from the intensive care unit on Friday.

The shooter was identified as 66-year-old James Hodgkinson, a former volunteer for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign and a professed opponent of President Trump. He was shot by police at the scene and later died of his injuries. 

The shooting rattled lawmakers on Capitol Hill and prompted calls to address the country’s deepening political divide.

Chaffetz said on Saturday that he Republican lawmakers experienced a surge in death threats and personal attacks after Trump took office in January.

“I saw it almost snap when Donald Trump was actually sworn in as the president of the United States,” Chaffetz said. “There’s something on the far left that really went over the top, because the death threats, the number of vile, personal attacks just skyrocketed.

“And just because they’re coming in great quantity doesn’t mean that law enforcement and the prosecutors shouldn’t be pursuing these,” he added.