Virginia man threatened to set Kamala Harris on fire, FBI says

A Virginia man was arrested late last week, accused by the FBI of making online threats to kill Vice President Kamala Harris and other public officials.

According to court records reviewed by Newsweek Magazine, Frank Carillo of Winchester, Virginia, was charged with making threats against the vice president of the United States after investigators discovered he had made several threatening statements on the microblogging platform GETTR. Carillo had his first court appearance in the Western District of Virginia on Monday, where a judge ruled that the defendant be detained pending a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday.

FBI Special Agent Melissa Macaron wrote in a criminal complaint that investigators first received reports of Carillo’s posts on July 27, after he made an online threat against a Maricopa County election official in Phoenix, Arizona. The threat read in part: “Someone needs to kill this scumbag.” The official’s name was redacted from court documents.

Agents at the FBI’s Phoenix office asked GETTR to review more details of Carillo’s account and found that he had made approximately 4,359 posts targeting various public officials, according to court documents. The names included Harris, President Joe Biden, FBI Director Christopher Wray and others who were not named in the records.

Investigators say Carillo mentioned Harris 19 times on his social media account, including a threat made on July 27 that read: “Kamala Harris needs to be burned alive. I will do it personally if no one else does. I want her to suffer a slow, agonizing death.”

In another post the same day, Carillo wrote, according to court documents: “Harris will regret ever trying to become president because if that ever happens I will personally gouge his eyes out with a pair of pliers but I will shoot and kill everyone who gets in my way first, that’s a damn promise.”

The July 27 email came just six days after Harris announced her candidacy for the Oval Office and two weeks after an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.

Since the shooting, which left Trump with a wound to the tip of his right ear, law enforcement has charged two Florida men with threatening public officials. One, arrested July 15 by the Secret Service, was accused of threatening to kill Biden. The second, arrested July 19, was accused of threatening Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.

Carillo was also accused of publishing several posts in which he discussed using firearms to shoot people. The criminal complaint included examples of threats directed at Muslims, immigrants and Canadian Prime Minister Justice Trudeau.

FBI officials identified Carillo through subscriber information provided by GETTR. A search warrant was carried out at his residence on Friday, during which police found an RF-15 rifle and a 9mm handgun. Carillo also asked an officer during the search if it was “about the things online” he “posted,” according to authorities.

He was arrested after the search and the felony charge against him carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Newsweek Magazine I reached out to Carillo’s assigned public defender by email on Monday for comment.

In a press release regarding Carillo’s arrest, U.S. Attorney Christopher Kavanaugh of the Western District of Virginia said, “Open political discourse is a cornerstone of our American experience. We can disagree. We can argue, and we can debate. However, when those disagreements cross the line and become threats of violence, law enforcement must intervene.”