(Ken Silva, Headline USA) It looks like Kashyap Patel’s FBI is continuing the bureau’s tradition of treating racy social media posts as legitimate domestic terrorist threats.
The non-profit transparency group Property of the People recently obtained an internal FBI threat assessment, which warns of an uptick in violent threats against corporate CEOs.
The FBI is turning itself into online rent-a-cops for CEOs, spying on social media posts it considers threatening to corporate executives, per new FBI assessment obtained under FOIA.https://t.co/MLMpoXUcpo
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) March 26, 2025
The FBI’s assessment comes in the wake of a left-winger named Luigi Mangione allegedly assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December.
Some of the threats listed in the assessment might be legitimate—such as a post where someone said they’d be attending a February 2025 shareholders meeting to confront a CEO. Another user allegedly posted a “hit list” of CEOs online on Dec. 7.
However, other posts identified by the FBI as threats were clear jokes.
For instance, one Twitter user posted that he’d “shoot the ceo of con Edison before i pay that light bill.” The user’s post was in response to a video of an ostentatious Christmas lights display, with the person taking the video exclaiming, ““I know that light bill gonna be high!”
I’ll shoot the ceo of con Edison before i pay that light bill https://t.co/Pq3PRkUgFi
— estatí con graza⚡️🇩🇴 (@stat1c_da_king) December 10, 2024
In another instance, the FBI’s threat assessment claimed that someone threatened CEOs by posting, ‘copycat killers identified,’ and naming the CEOs of multiple major U.S. healthcare companies. Rather than a threat, the post was accusing the insurance CEOs of being killers by unjustly denying people health insurance coverage.
“Again, it’s as if the FBI didn’t bother to think through what it was reading and just saw the words ‘copycat killers’ and jumped to conclusions. Brilliant detective work from our premiere law enforcement agency!” noted reporter Ken Klippenstein, who first reported on the assessment.
The FBI admitted that the so-called threats listed in its assessment did not meet the level of federal prosecution, but in at least one case a social media post was referred to local law enforcement for “further investigation” anyways.
If the FBI has an investigation open into someone, it’s allowed to monitor that person’s online activity, run informants at them, and track their every movement.
The FBI investigated numerous people for online social media posts under the Biden administration. At least one of those investigations turned deadly.
Last August, the FBI killed an ailing 75-year-old man who had been making social media threats against Joe Biden and other federal officials.
Here's a thread of some of the posts made by Craig Robertson, the 75-year-old Utah man killed by the FBI today for threatening public officials.
Domestic terrorist or typical old boomer con? pic.twitter.com/fybbiqOSYX
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 9, 2023
After firing a “barrage of bullets” that left Utah man Craig Robertson dead around 6 a.m. on Aug. 9, authorities immediately carried the man out of his house and placed him on the sidewalk. There, his lifeless and bloody body remained for about two hours, according to the man’s neighbor.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
