FAA employee charged with Trump death threat in New Hampshire

A Federal Aviation Administration employee in New Hampshire was arrested for allegedly threatening to kill President Donald Trump, whom he criticized for the war against Iran, the U.S. attorney’s office in Concord said Tuesday.

Dean DelleChiaie, 35, who was arrested Monday, allegedly conducted internet searches on his government work computer in late January for terms that drew the attention of the U.S. Secret Service, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Those subjects included “how to get a gun into a federal facility, previous assassination attempts against the President, the percentage of the population that wants the President dead, and the phrase ‘I am going to kill Donald John Trump,'” the office said.

DelleChiaie admitted to the Secret Service in early February that he conducted those searches and that he owned three firearms, including one he kept in the safe of his Nashua, New Hampshire, home, the prosecutor’s office said.

Then, on April 21, “DelleChiaie allegedly used his personal email to transmit a threat across state lines to the White House’s public facing email address,” the office said

“In the email, which had as the subject ‘Contact the President,’ DelleChiaie stated, ‘I, Dean DelleChiaie, am going neutralize/kill you — Donald John Trump — because you decided to kill kids — and say that it was War — when in reality — it is terrorism. God knows your actions and where you belong,'” the office said.

DelleChiaie is charged with interstate communication of a threat against the president.

He works in mechanical engineering in the FAA, according to the online site Open Payrolls, which tracks pay for federal employees.

DelleChiaie appeared on Tuesday morning in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire. Details of that hearing were not immediately available from the prosecutor’s office.

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on the hearing.

The FAA, when contacted for comment, referred the request to prosecutors.

If convicted, DelleChiaie faces a maximum possible sentence of five years in prison, and a $250,000 fine.

Former FBI Director James Comey was charged on April 28 in a federal indictment with threatening to kill Trump by posting a photo on Instagram of seashells on a North Carolina beach arranged to form the numbers “86 47.”

“86” is slang for ejecting or removing a person, according to dictionaries, and Trump is the 47th president of the United States. Trump said last year he believed that Comey, who has long been an antagonist of his, was calling for his assassination.

Comey, who remains free without bond, has said he is innocent in that case, and his attorney has said he plans to seek dismissal of the indictment on the grounds of vindictive prosecution by the Department of Justice.

Another defendant, Cole Tomas Allen, is charged with trying to assassinate Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, on April 25.

Allen was tackled by Secret Service agents that night after he stormed through a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton Hotel, a floor above where Trump and top officials in his administration were dining with hundreds of journalists.

Allen allegedly fired a shot from the shotgun he was carrying that night, hitting a Secret Service agent’s protective vest, according to U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro.

Allen is being held without bond.