New York man arrested for threatening Senators over Kavanaugh
Federal prosecutors in New York announced the arrest on Friday of a man who allegedly threatened to murder and assault a pair of U.S. Senators for their support of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, as police say the suspect placed a series of threatening telephone calls in which the man threatened to shoot the Senators if they supported the Kavanaugh nomination. In court documents unsealed on Friday, a special agent with the U.S. Capitol Police detailed a number of voice mails left by the suspect, identified as Ronald DeRisi of Smithtown, on Long Island in New York. The expletive-filled messages came during the final stages of debate on the Kavanaugh nomination, some as Kavanaugh testified for a second time before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on the same day as a woman who accused him of sexual misconduct back when they were in high school. “The male caller, who did not identify himself on the recording, stated in relevant part, that he had a “present” for Senator-1, specifically: “It’s a nine millimeter,” court documents stated. “He’s a dead man! Nine millimeter, side of the f—ing head!” police quoted the phone threats. More voice mails were allegedly left by DeRisi after Kavanaugh had been confirmed by the Senate, as he called a second Senator’s office and left threatening messages. “I’m gonna get you,” police quoted the message. “Don’t you know that guy’s a sex offender?” At one point, the suspect allegedly read off the home address of the second Senator; it was not immediately clear from the court documents what two Senators had been targeted by the phone calls. Court documents show that DeRisi pled guilty in 2015 to making threatening phone calls, and that police compared the telphone evidence from the two cases.
Attorney General Sessions hails “aggressive campaign against leaks”
As a former FBI agent was sentenced to 4 years in prison Thursday in Minnesota for disclosing classified information to the news media, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions hailed the latest court moves against leakers in the federal government, saying the Trump Administration is waging what may be ‘the most aggressive campaign against leaks’ in the history of the Department of Justice. “Today’s sentence should be a warning to every would-be leaker in the federal government that if they disclose classified information, they will pay a high price,” Sessions said in a statement, making clear that government leakers will be ‘prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and punished.’ Terry Albury, the Minneapolis FBI agent arrested for leaking classified information to the Intercept, gets four years in prison. 'We are conducting perhaps the most aggressive campaign against leaks in Department history,' AG Sessions says in statement: https://t.co/QBFKUUiXy8 — Kevin Collier (@kevincollier) October 18, 2018 The Sessions statement came after a busy week on the leak front for the feds: + On Monday, a former employee of the Senate Intelligence Committee plead guilty to lying to the FBI about leaks to a reporter. + Wednesday, a Department of Treasury official was charged with leaking banking activity reports to a reporter which was linked to the Russia investigation. + Today, former FBI agent Terry Albury was sentenced to four years of jail time for leaking national security material to the Intercept. From press reports in recent days, it is obvious that more leak investigations are underway as well. + The Trump Administration has sent a subpoena to an immigration attorney, trying to find out how leaked an internal government memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on how asylum applications would be handled for domestic violence victims. + The charges this week against a Treasury Department employee for leaking “Suspicious Activity Banking” reports shows another official in the same office had contacts with the news media as well. + Earlier this week, Attorney General Sessions told the Washington Times that there were 27 ongoing leak investigations at the Department of Justice. + Back in February, Sessions vowed that the Justice Department was going “aggressively” to find out who leaked information about transcripts of phone conversations involving former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
