Obama, Bush Assassination Threat

[mmcd3182]

Man Held For Obama Assassination Threat
MIAMI, August 7, 2008 (AP) A man who authorities said was keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in court Thursday on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, was arrested by the Secret Service on Saturday in Miami and was ordered held at Miami's downtown detention center without bail Thursday by a federal magistrate.

A Secret Service affidavit charges that Geisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in Miami in late July. According to someone else in the 48-member class, Geisel allegedly referred to Obama with a racial epithet and continued, "If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself."

Obama was most recently in Florida on Aug. 1-2 but did not visit the South Florida area.

Another person in the class quoted Geisel as saying that "he hated George W. Bush and that he wanted to put a bullet in the president's head," according to the Secret Service.

Geisel denied in a written statement to a Secret Service agent that he ever made those threats, and the documents don't indicate that he ever took steps to carry out any assassination. He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush.

Geisel's court-appointed attorney declined comment. The charge of threatening a major candidate for president or vice president carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

The Obama campaign declined comment Thursday on the alleged threat.

In the interview with a Secret Service agent, Geisel said "if he wanted to kill Senator Obama he simply would shoot him with a sniper rifle, but then he claimed that he was just joking," according to court documents.

A search of Geisel's 1998 Ford Explorer and hotel room in Miami uncovered a loaded 9mm handgun, knives, dozens of rounds of ammunition including armor-piercing types, body armor, military-style fatigues and a machete. The SUV, which has Maine license plates, was wired with flashing red and yellow emergency lights.

Geisel told the Secret Service he was originally from Bangor, Maine, and had been living recently in a houseboat in the Florida Keys town of Marathon, according to court documents. He said he used the handgun for training for the bail bondsman class, had the knives for protection and used the machete to cut brush in Maine.

In the affidavit, the Secret Service said Geisel told agents that he suffered from psychiatric problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, but he couldn't provide the names of any facilities where he sought treatment.

[demopolite]

This is another one one where the right to free speech is going to make things complicated. The government is going to have to show that this guy took some some affirmative steps toward actually threatening Obama - just saying it is not enough. The Secret Service might have that evidence, which might be why the guy was charged with threatening Obama but not Bush.

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[Kagan]

Lincoln received death threats before he was elected, and they just increased after he won in 1860. History records that he kept a file in his desk containing nearly two dozen written assassination threats.

After the attempt on Truman's life at Blair House, he was heard to comment, "It goes with the territory."

[mmcd3182]

At least now, all the people that keep saying "I'm not going to vote for a black man for the WHite House... he'll get shot before he even walks in the door" have something to go with....

[parrotthead]

I was thinking the other day that we haven't had any assassinations or attempts in several years.

[Kagan]

Originally Posted by parrotthead

I was thinking the other day that we haven't had any assassinations or attempts in several years.

The rest of the world has had plenty unfortunately.

Saddam requested the assassination of Bush Sr after Clinton became president. Clinton responded by launching 50 cruise missiles into the heart of Hussien's command center.

I read somewhere that the Secret Service and FBI preempted several assassination plots against Reagan in his second term.

[demopolite]

Originally Posted by parrotthead

I was thinking the other day that we haven't had any assassinations or attempts in several years.

From Wiki:

George H.W. Bush

April 13, 1993: Sixteen men, in the alleged employment of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, smuggled a car bomb into Kuwait with the intent of killing Bush as he spoke at Kuwait University. The plot was foiled when Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and arrested the suspected assassins.[14] Bush had left office in January 1993. On June 26, 1993, the U.S. launched a missile attack targeting Baghdad intelligence headquarters in retaliation for the attempted attack against Bush.[15] The Iraqi Intelligence Service, particularly Directorate 14, was accused of being behind the plot.[16]


Bill Clinton

October 29, 1994: Francisco Martin Duran fired at least 29 shots with a semi-automatic rifle at the White House from a fence overlooking the north lawn, thinking that Clinton was among the men in dark suits standing there (Clinton was in the White House Residence watching a football game). Luckily, a tourist named Harry Rakosky tackled Duran before he could injure anyone. Duran was found to have a suicide note in his pocket and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.[17]


George W. Bush

February 7, 2001: While President George W. Bush was occupied in the White House Residence, Washington, DC, Robert Pickett, standing outside the perimeter fence, discharged a number of shots from a weapon in the direction of the White House. Eileen O'Connor, CNN Correspondent, reported: 'the U.S. Park Police said that the type of handgun that was -- that was confiscated, if it was an unobstructed view to the White House, could -- a bullet could have reached the White House. But there are a lot of trees, a lot of bushes between this sidewalk, where the suspect was, Robert Pickett, and the White House, so that there was obstructions, mainly trees and bushes'. Following a standoff of about ten minutes, the incident ended when a Secret Service officer shot Pickett, resulting in an injury which required hospital surgery, and Pickett was found to have a history of emotional problems and employment grievances. Lacking conclusive evidence that Mr. Bush was a personal target (although the accused had indeed written to the President on the subject of his grievances), a court in July, 2001 sentenced Pickett to three years in jail in connection with the incident.

May 10, 2005: While President George W. Bush was giving a speech in the Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia, Vladimir Arutyunian threw a live Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade towards the podium where he was standing and where Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and their two wives and officials were seated. The grenade was not operative and did not explode.Arutyunian was arrested in July 2005, but not before killing an Interior Ministry agent while resisting arrest. He was convicted in January 2006, and was given a life sentence