(NEW YORK) — An upstate New York man who was pardoned by President Donald Trump for his actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 allegedly threatened to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York State Police said.
Christopher Moynihan, 34, of Clinton, was arrested Saturday and charged with making a terroristic threat, police said. He is the first pardoned Capitol rioter to be arrested over alleged political violence.
In the criminal complaint, investigators quoted text messages allegedly sent from Moynihan on Oct. 17 to an unidentified recipient.
“Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live,” one message allegedly said, according to the complaint.
“Even if I am hated he must be eliminated,” Moynihan wrote, according to the complaint. “I will kill him for the future.”
The text messages “placed the recipient in reasonable fear of the imminent murder and assassination of Hakeem Jeffries by the defendant,” the complaint stated.
Moynihan appeared in the Town of Clinton Court where he was remanded to the Dutchess County Justice and Transition Center in lieu of $10,000 cash bail, police said.
He is scheduled to make his first appearance in Dutchess County State Supreme Court on Thursday. It was not immediately clear whether he had hired a lawyer.
Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement Tuesday that he is “grateful to state and federal law enforcement for their swift and decisive action to apprehend a dangerous individual who made a credible death threat against me with every intention to carry it out.”
Moynihan was convicted of obstructing an official proceeding in 2022 after he broke through a security perimeter and entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Prosecutors said he entered the Senate Gallery and paged through a notebook on top of a senator’s desk and took photos with his cellphone. During the riot he said, “There’s got to be something in here we can f—ing use against these —-bags,” according to prosecutors. Court filings from when he was charged included screenshots from a video showing Moynihan in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Moynihan was sentenced to nearly two years in prison in February 2023 before he and more than 1,500 others who had been convicted or otherwise charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot received a pardon hours after Trump took office.
“I said on the very day that Donald Trump pardoned 1,600 people en masse without obviously studying the details of each individual case, that President Trump and his administration would be responsible for whatever happens with these people,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said during a press event Tuesday while joined by Jeffries. “They’ve got a responsibility to rein them in.”
“We have a very serious problem with political violence in this country. Thank God that you are safe, Mr. Jeffries, but we are asking for the Department of Justice to get serious about reining these people in all over the country,” he continued.
Jeffries said during the press event that “we’re living in a moment of extreme political violence” impacting those in public service, while vowing not to bow down.
“When it comes to these extremists out there, you better watch how you talk when you talk about me,” he said.
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