The Montgomery County GOP received a bomb threat Saturday, the party says
A staffer who works for former President Donald Trump’s campaign received the call a little over two weeks after an incident at Delaware County's Republican Party headquarters.
A man working at the Montgomery County Republican Committee’s headquarters in Blue Bell received a call Saturday morning from someone who threatened to blow up the office, the committee’s chair said.
The “pretty profanity-laced” call was “something to the effect of, ‘I’m gonna blow that place up,’” said Christian Nascimento, chair of the Montgomery County GOP. And the caller also said, “I’m going to be waiting to shoot you when you leave tonight.”
The staffer, who works for former President Donald Trump’s campaign, was alone in the office space that the county party shares with campaign staff when he got the call shortly after 11 a.m. Saturday. Out of “an abundance of caution,” the office closed, Nascimento said.
With less than two weeks until Election Day, some staffers went in a few hours later to print materials, he said. “I hope folks aren’t getting numb to [threats of political violence], but I think people are soldiering on,” he said.
Pennsylvania’s Republican Party said the call was reported to local police, the FBI, and Gov. Josh Shapiro’s task force on election threats.
The call was the latest incident of intimidation reported by the GOP in Pennsylvania. According to the Delaware County GOP, protesters cornered and harassed volunteers at its Media headquarters a little over two weeks ago. Pennsylvania’s Republican Party said a GOP staffer in Erie County received death threats from a Philadelphia man in September.
After the two assassination attempts on the former president, his campaign had everyone work virtually, Nascimento said.
Saturday’s caller “seems like a bit of a crackpot,” he said, but “you can’t be too careful.”
Nascimento said that in the final days of the presidential campaign, he is “hoping we can take the temperature down” and “everyone can focus on working for their candidate.”
In a statement, Pennsylvania GOP chair Lawrence Tabas said “there should be unanimous agreement that political violence has no place in our elections.”
“We emphatically urge Pennsylvanians to voice their opinions by voting,” he said, “not violence and intimidation.”