Kamala Harris Leads the Party of Violence

On July 15, as Democrats so often do, Joe Biden complained about President Donald Trump’s rhetoric. While insisting that the election would be free and fair, Biden claimed that he feared Trump’s statements would lead to violence. But if Biden and Kamala Harris really want to deal with the scourge of political violence in this country, they should start with members of their own party.

Eric James Rennert is one of the trashier members of our society. He has a criminal record spanning over three decades and is a twice-convicted domestic abuser. The 65-year-old took his crime game to a whole new level this past May, however, when he lodged a telephonic threat to kill, kidnap and assault Judge Aileen Cannon of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, who was presiding over one of the indictments against President Trump. Three days later, Rennert left another such message, and he continued with another message threat in July after Judge Cannon had dismissed the indictment. Judge Cannon’s family were targets of kidnapping and assault threats in Rennert’s ravings. Only last week did the Biden-Harris Justice Department indict Rennert. Why? Many January 6 rioters were arrested within days and weeks; yet, Rennert’s indictment inexplicably took over four months.

Another example: America was very kind to Panos Anastasiou. He emigrated here from Greece as a small child and became an American citizen. He relies on Social Security benefits for his income. Anastasiou repaid America’s generosity by leaving over 465 threatening messages during a 16-month period between last March and this July with the Supreme Court. In them, Anastasiou made barbaric threats to kill the six constitutionalist justices on the Court: Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Neil Gorsuch, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Anastasiou expressed a desire to torture the justices in a manner like North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un does. Anastasiou wanted to lynch Justice Thomas and used racial slurs to refer to the African-American justice. Anastasiou also threatened the wives of Justices Thomas and Alito.

The FBI visited Anastasiou to discuss his threats, and he referenced the FBI visit in another threatening message. U.S. Magistrate Judge Kyle Reardon in Alaska unwisely released this maniac from pretrial detention. Why did it take nearly a year and a half after the first message for the Biden-Harris Justice Department to seek an indictment? Why did the FBI visit Anastasiou to warn him rather than arrest him? Since 2016, Anastasiou has donated $800 to ActBlue, a leftist group affiliated with Democrats. Did his political views lead the Biden-Harris Justice Department to go easier on him?

Nicholas Roske was a pet store employee in California who was very angry about the draft opinion leaked in May 2022 that purported to overturn Roe vs Wade. Roske flew to Washington and found his way to the home of Justice Kavanaugh, who was asleep with his wife Ashley and two teenage daughters. Roske had a murder kit with him, including a gun, zip ties, and boots specially crafted so that he could move stealthily about the Kavanaughs’ home. His goal was simple: kill Justice Kavanaugh. God help any of Justice Kavanaugh’s family members had they gotten in Roske’s way. Fortunately, a Deputy United States Marshal spotted Roske casing the home, and Roske fled, calling 911 and claiming to be suicidal. His social media posts revealed that he had planned to kill three justices to change the composition of the Supreme Court.

After the leak of the abortion draft, protesters flocked to the homes of the six constitutionalist justices. Several justices left their homes to go to safehouses. Justice Barrett’s children even had to deal with these lunatics at their school. A federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1507, makes it a crime to obstruct justice by picketing outside a judge’s home during a pending case. Biden-Harris Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to enforce this statute against any of these protesters who were blatantly violating it. Then-Biden-Harris White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki articulated President Biden’s view that people somehow have the First Amendment right to target individuals in their homes (they don’t) and obstruct justice by targeting judges in their homes while a case is pending (that’s a federal crime). 

Neither Biden nor Harris ever condemned the protests outside the justices’ residences or at the school of Justice Barrett’s children. What occurred at these justices’ homes defiled the First Amendment. These were not government offices; they were private residences. Leftist maniacs caused massive disruptions in these neighborhoods, even impacting a school with small children. The Biden-Harris Justice Department took an inexcusably long time to indict Rennert and Anastasiou, but its utter inaction regarding these illegal protests is even more disgraceful. Indeed, the Biden-Harris Justice Department refuses to enforce the clearly constitutional federal criminal obstruction statute–even after Justice Kavanaugh and his family nearly got murdered in their home.

Iran, a terrorist state, has attempted to carry out plans to assassinate Trump. This alone should have led the Biden-Harris Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service to increase his security dramatically. He is not just a former president like Jimmy Carter. He is the target of credible threats of assassination from a foreign state, and he is the leading opposition candidate for the presidency in next month’s election. Yet, on July 13, not even an inch and a fortunate swivel of the head saved his life. Matthew Thomas Crooks climbed a ladder to a roof with a direct line of sight to President Trump and began to fire a few minutes into Trump’s speech. One of the bullets hit the top of the president’s ear; it is a miracle that the shot did not blow his head off.

Crooks never should have gotten up to that roof. Snipers should have guarded it, but there were complaints about the heat that afternoon and the roof’s being sloped, making it easier to fall off of it. Crooks had no problems staying balanced as he nearly assassinated President Trump, murdered Trump supporter Corey Comperatore, and severely wounded two other rally goers. The Biden-Harris Secret Service did not have enough personnel at the scene to establish a secure perimeter; for instance, there should have been a guard at the ladder that Crooks climbed. In fact, the Biden-Harris administration refused several requests from Trump’s Secret Service detail for increased security.

In recent years, the agency has become a social experiment where the focus has shifted from protection to enhancing so-called diversity, specifically with the goal of achieving a 30%-female agent quota. Many women have served with distinction in law enforcement, and we honor them just like we do the men who have done so. Quotas, however, are indefensible, and we need to return the Secret Service to the premier protection agency that sets the standard for the world. If a woman is not tall or strong enough to protect a 6’3” likely former and future president, she shouldn’t get assigned to that crucial job.

The July 13 near-assassination should have taught the Biden-Harris White House, DHS, and Secret Service a valuable lesson, but we learned on September 15 that it had not. Ryan Routh, a leftist lunatic with a long arrest history who never should have had a gun on account of his being a convicted felon, made his way to a Palm Beach golf course where Trump plays on many weekends. Routh, who has a long history of deranged anti-Trump social media posts, scoped out an area and made himself at home in a so-called sniper’s nest for nearly a dozen hours. 

Then, when President Trump was several hundred yards away, Routh pointed his scoped rifle through shrubbery, readying himself to finish the job that Crooks had failed to accomplish. Thankfully, a Secret Service agent spotted Routh and returned fire, causing Routh to drop his gun and flee. He made it 50 miles before being arrested by deputies in another county. Had the perimeter around President Trump widened, as it should have prior to and especially after Crooks’ assassination attempt, Routh would never have gotten that close, and he would not have gotten away. Only because of the quick thinking of a good Samaritan did law enforcement obtain Routh’s license plate, which led to his arrest.

For years, leftists have claimed that President Trump’s rhetoric causes violence. Did President Biden’s statement about putting a “bull’s-eye” on Trump lead to his head nearly getting blown off on live TV? Or the repeated claims of Biden and Harris that Trump is a threat to the existence of our democracy? To be clear, Crooks and Routh are responsible for their own actions. The issue, however, is consistency. While many in the media jump at every chance to accuse Trump of engendering violence, these same so-called journalists are quiet as church mice when Trump is the repeated target of it after virulent rhetoric by Biden, Harris, and their allies.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also has engaged in inflammatory rhetoric. After the arguments in a 2020 abortion case, Schumer stood in front of the Supreme Court during a pro-abortion rally and bellowed threats directly against Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Schumer claimed that these two justices would “pay the price” if they ruled against the abortionists. “You won’t know what hit you!” Schumer shrieked. Chief Justice Roberts was so disturbed that he released a statement that lambasted Schumer. 

The next day, Schumer claimed that he had made no threat and that he was “from Brooklyn” and sometimes could become overheated in his rhetoric. Trump is also a New Yorker from Queens, but he never has threatened a judge. He has insulted several, to be sure, and judges have imposed unconstitutional gag orders in response.

Biden-Kamala Democrats viciously attack and smear Judge Aileen Cannon constantly, and she has received many horrifying death threats. In addition to Rennert, Tiffani Gish, a Texas woman, left maniacal telephonic threats against Judge Cannon in 2023, shortly after the judge had received the random assignment to preside over Trump’s case.

Kamala Harris now heads a party responsible for significant increases in crime caused by the influx of over 10 million illegal immigrants. These immigrants poured into the country after President Biden’s campaign rhetoric about suspending all deportations for the first hundred days of his term and then only deporting violent felons. Border Czar Harris has done nothing to improve the situation, instead whining that an awful amnesty bill failed to pass. Under President Trump, the border was far more secure; we never saw a deluge like the one that has overwhelmed Springfield, Ohio. 

This city of 60,000 has had nearly 20,000 Haitian recipients of the Biden-Harris administration’s (illegal) temporary protected status overwhelm its resources in the past few years. New York City also is overwhelmed. After speaking out, Democrat Mayor Eric Adams found himself on the wrong end of a federal indictment. Would New York have indicted Adams had he not spoken out against the massive increase in immigrants that has swept his city? Many cities do not report crimes to the FBI, so the agency’s crime statistics do not tell the tale of the criminal havoc that the recent illegal newcomers to the nation have wreaked.

The First Amendment is a cornerstone of America. We have nearly unlimited freedom to say what we like without fear of government retribution. Many in the media, who are nothing more than Democrat puppets, seek to censor one side, claiming that protected speech is violence-inciting rhetoric. The above summary should (but will not) lead these Democrat mouthpieces to realize that there is plenty of this type of rhetoric on the other side. Failed assassination attempts against President Trump and Justice Kavanaugh have not led to the toning down of the Kamala Democrats’ rhetoric. Had those assassins succeeded, there indeed would have been more than a threat to democracy; democracy would have been decimated. Killing one of the two major presidential candidates would constitute the height of election interference. The assassination of a justice would be unprecedented. The threats against the justices and judges, as well as the attempts to burn down the federal courthouse in Portland during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, constitute the gravest of threats to judicial independence. These riots caused dozens of deaths and thousands of injuries, but Harris promoted a bail fund for these riotous thugs on her social media account and has never retracted it.  

The Biden-Harris Justice Department has given amnesty to BLM rioters while persecuting the January 6 rioters, who were far less deadly and destructive. Unequal justice defiles the rule of law and thus threatens democracy. As the leader of her party, Kamala Harris has failed to spearhead a true defense of democracy; instead, her party is becoming more and more violent. Voters now will decide if her inaction deserves the reward of the presidency.

Mike Davis is the Founder and President of Article III Project.