Threats to lawmakers are on the rise, security officials tell senators

WASHINGTON (AP) — Threats to members of Congress are on the rise, security officials told senators on Tuesday at an emergency briefing in the wake of the killing of a Minnesota state lawmaker in her home over the weekend.

U.S. Capitol Police leaders and Senate security officials said that threats against elected officials, including federal lawmakers, has “dramatically increased,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer after the briefing, “and that means we need more protection.”

The suspect in the Minnesota attack had dozens of Democratic members of Congress listed in his writings, in addition to the state lawmakers and others he’s accused of targeting. The man is accused of shooting and killing former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home early Saturday in the northern Minneapolis suburbs and wounding another lawmaker and his wife at their home.

The shooting renewed fears — and stoked existing partisan tensions — over the security of federal lawmakers when they are in Washington and especially when they are at home. Credible threats to members of Congress have more than doubled in the last decade.

Still, it is unclear what more can be done amid yearslong disagreements over how much money should be spent to protect lawmakers. GOP Texas Sen. John Cornyn said after the briefing that they were told that threats against public officials are going up, but “it's always a resource issue, and it's trying to make sure that it's proportional to the threat and not an overreaction.”

The U.S. Capitol Police’s threat assessment section investigated 9,474 “concerning statements and direct threats” against members of Congress last year, the highest number since 2021, the year that the Capitol was attacked by Trump’s supporters after he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. In 2017, there were 3,939 investigated threats, the Capitol Police said.

The numbers are a troubling tally of an era that has been marked by a string of violent attacks against lawmakers and their families.

In 2011, Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot and wounded at an event in her Arizona district. In 2017, Republican Rep. Steve Scalise was shot and wounded as he practiced for a congressional baseball game with other GOP lawmakers near Washington. In 2022, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was attacked by a man who broke into their San Francisco home. And in 2024, two men separately tried to assassinate Donald Trump during his Republican presidential campaign.

All four survived, some with serious injuries. But those attacks, among others and many close calls for members of both major political parties, have rattled lawmakers and raised recurring questions about whether they have enough security — and whether they can ever be truly safe in their jobs.

“I don’t have a solution to this problem right now,” said Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, a friend of Hortman’s who received increased security after the attack. “I just see so clearly that this current state of play is not sustainable.”

Smith said after the briefing that the meeting was “productive,” and Capitol Police are “doing what they can do.”

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said Monday that lawmakers are “clearly at the point where we have to adjust the options available to us.”

As threats have increased, members of Congress have had access to new funding to add security at their personal homes. But it is unclear how many have used it and whether there is enough money to keep lawmakers truly safe.

“Resources should not be the reason that a U.S. senator or congressman gets killed,” Murphy said.

Instead of bringing lawmakers together, the Minnesota shootings have created new internal tensions. Smith on Monday confronted one of her fellow senators, Utah Republican Mike Lee, for a series of posts on X over the weekend. One mocked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat who ran for vice president last year. Another post said of the killings, “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”

And Trump said he had no plans to call Walz, describing the Democratic leader as “so whacked out.”

“Why would I call him? I could call him and say, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’” the Republican president told reporters aboard Air Force One during an overnight flight back to Washington. “The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. So, you know, I could be nice and call him, but why waste time?”

Friends and former colleagues interviewed by The Associated Press described Vance Luther Boelter, the man accused of killing Hortman and her husband, as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for Trump. Records show Boelter registered to vote as a Republican while living in Oklahoma in 2004 before moving to Minnesota, where voters don’t list party affiliation. His attorney has declined to comment.

Smith talked to Lee outside a GOP conference meeting as soon as she arrived in Washington on Monday. “I would say he seemed surprised to be confronted,” she told reporters afterward. Lee’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Lawmakers were already on edge before the shootings, which came less than two days after Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a press conference with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in California. Officers restrained Padilla and put him on the ground.

Angry Democratic senators immediately took to the Senate floor Thursday afternoon to denounce Padilla's treatment. “What was really hard for me to see was that a member of this body was driven to his knees and made to kneel before authorities,” said Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

After the briefing on Tuesday, some senators said they are more concerned about the threat of violence against them.

“I think it’s safe to say that members realize there’s a lot more going on than they knew,” said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “I think we have to get more serious about security and taking actions against people who have already these kind of activities against members, swatting and things of that nature. We can’t just let it go unanswered.”

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said lawmakers heard the “degree to which colleagues are being targeted in a whole lot of different ways.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said senators needed to be protected more thoroughly without interfering in their work.

“There needs to be more resources and investigations of these threats in real time. And right now, very often, they are discounted as a prank or a joke,” Blumenthal said. “Political violence is spreading like a virus and it needs to be countered more effectively.”

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Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.