CANTOR RECEIVES AN ACTUAL THREAT…. Last week, I gave House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) quite a bit of grief after he talked about an instance in which he was “directly threatened.” The threat, we later learned, didn’t exist, and Cantor’s office struggled to come up with a compelling explanation.
It’s only fair, then, that I note that some sick man really did threaten Cantor and his family, though it was entirely unrelated to the incident the GOP leader had talked about.
A 33-year-old Philadelphia man was charged today with threatening to kill Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) in a profanity-strewn Youtube video that has since been pulled down.
In the video, Norman Leboon says Cantor will “receive my bullets in your office, remember they will be placed in your heads. You and your children are Lucifer’s abominations.”
The San Francisco office of the FBI received a copy of the video on March 26, according to the affidavit in the case…. The affidavit paints a picture of Leboon as a deeply disturbed person. When he was visited by federal agents on Saturday, he “stated that he is the ‘son of the god of Enoch’ and that his father speaks through him. Leboon stated that Eric Cantor is ‘pure evil’; will be dead; and that Cantor’s family is suffering because of his father’s wrath.”
He also told agents that “he had made over 2,000 videos in which he made threats.”
The threatening YouTube video was reportedly posted last Wednesday, the day before Cantor’s mistaken remarks about gunfire at his campaign office, before being taken down. [Update: Cantor was notified about the Leboon threat over the weekend, days after his infamous press conference remarks.]
It’s unclear whether Leboon had any intention of acting on his threats, but it’s nevertheless encouraging that law enforcement has him in custody.
