Frederica Wilson to return to DC this week after threats
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) will return to Washington Tuesday after steering clear of the Capitol last week over threats she received amid a rancorous feud with the White House.
Wilson, a 74-year-old Miami lawmaker, made headlines this month for sharply criticizing President Trump’s condolence call to the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, an Army Green Beret killed in action in Niger on Oct. 4.
Wilson, a friend of the Johnson family who overheard the call, said the president’s words and tone were insensitive — a characterization Trump has denied.
The highly public clash led to a series of threats against Wilson, who skipped votes last week in light of security concerns.
Joyce Jones, Wilson’s spokeswoman, said the threats came in the form of “calls, tweets [and] weird things sent in the mail.” She declined to describe the nature of the threats, but said the office takes them “very seriously.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Jones said.
Illinois police are reportedly investigating a suburban Chicago man over an alleged threat to lynch Wilson, which surfaced on Facebook. And Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) told the Miami Herald that Wilson has received “substantial death threats.”
Eva Malecki, spokeswoman for U.S. Capitol Police, said the department does not comment on ongoing investigations.
The uproar began earlier in the month after Trump’s call to Johnson’s widow, Myeshia Johnson, who was in a car with Wilson at the time. Both Wilson and Johnson, who are black, claimed the president said Johnson knew what he signed up for in entering the armed forces. They also claimed Trump couldn’t remember the name of the fallen soldier.
Trump has repeatedly refuted that depiction, saying he was “extremely courteous” and has “one of the greatest memories of all time.”
The feud escalated when Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, staged a press conference defending the president and portraying Wilson as a shameless self-promoter who had sought undue credit for the funding of a South Florida FBI building. A video of Wilson’s 2015 speech disproved Kelly’s charge, but the White House has stood by the retired Marine general, suggesting his own service to the country makes him beyond reproach.
{mosads}The episode has excavated deeper charges of racial bias lodged against the White House — Wilson said the administration is “full of white supremacists” — and eroded relations between Kelly and the Democrats, particularly members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), who are urging Kelly to apologize to Wilson.
“He should admit that he was wrong and apologize,” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), an icon of the civil rights movement, told The Hill. “I think that would restore some of his standing with the Democratic members, and especially the members of the Black Caucus.”
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), another CBC member and deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was even sharper in condemning Kelly, whose previous reputation as a straight-shooter had won him respect on both sides of the aisle.
“He lied on her, but he lied to us,” Ellison said. “Nothing short of [an apology] will ever allow me to believe a word he ever says.
“At a time when it’s commonly said that he’s the adult in the room, we find out that we’re in a situation where the blind is leading the blind.”
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