


Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) said he missed votes in the House and had to reschedule a town hall Wednesday due to a “credible threat” made against his family.
Van Orden said that a letter containing a “credible threat” to his wife, children, and grandchildren was sent to his office in Washington, D.C., and that it was reported to the appropriate authorities.
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“No elected official, regardless of political party affiliation, should have to worry about the safety of their family while serving the American people. Threats of political violence are not just dangerous — they are anti-American,” Van Orden’s press office said Tuesday.
“The Congressman looks forward to returning to D.C. to do the job the people of Wisconsin’s Third District elected him to do,” the statement continued.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, U.S. Capitol Police said, “For safety reasons, we cannot discuss any potential investigations.”
Other politicians have been threatened in recent months. This week, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a number of judges have received suspicious pizza deliveries to their homes. He asked the Justice Department and FBI on Tuesday to “immediately investigate” the deliveries, describing them as “threats intended to show that those seeking to intimidate the targeted judge know the judge’s address or their family members’ addresses.”
“The targeted individuals reportedly include Supreme Court justices, judges handling legal cases involving the administration, and the children of judges,” Durbin said. “Some of these deliveries were made using the name of Judge Esther Salas’s son, Daniel Anderl, who was murdered at the family’s home by a former litigant who posed as a deliveryman.”
Other elected officials and political figures have said they have had their personal information doxxed and been swatted amid a rise in high-profile political violence in recent years.
The FBI announced an investigation into a rise in swatting incidents against conservative personalities in March after multiple right-leaning media figures, including radio show host Joe Pagliarulo, podcaster Shawn Farash, and Infowars’s Chase Geiser, said they were swatted.
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Reps. Tom Emmer (R-MN), Shontel Brown (D-OH), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) all reported being swatted over the winter as well.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband was attacked with a hammer by a home intruder in 2022, the same year a man plotted to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. President Donald Trump was the target of two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign cycle.