House

California man arrested for allegedly threatening Gaetz

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) makes a point of order regarding a video involving school board meetings offered by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as a part of an opening statement during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing of the Department of Justice.
Greg Nash

A California man was arrested for allegedly threatening Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) last week.

An indictment from May says Eugene Huelsman called the office of a person with the initials “M.G.” and threatened to hurt someone. 

“Tell [M.G.] to watch his back, tell him to watch his children … I’m coming for him, he’s gonna f—ing die … I’m gonna f—ing kill him … Watch your back, I’m coming for you. I’m gonna put a bullet in you and I’m gonna put a bullet in one of your f—ing kids too,” Huelsman allegedly said in the voicemail.

Federal prosecutors said the call happened on Jan. 9, three days after the Capitol riot.

A spokesperson for Gaetz’s office confirmed the arrest to The Hill, saying Huelsman has been “a longtime member of the media with decades of experience at CNN, ABC, NBC, and many others.”

Huelsman has been a camera operator for decades, and his work on NBC’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” has earned him five Emmy nominations, according to Politico, who first reported the arrest. 

“I’m glad that prosecutors in the Northern District of Florida take death threats against me and my family seriously. I wish that were an ethic across the DOJ enterprise,” Gaetz said in a statement.

The arrest happened after Gaetz said the Department of Justice (DOJ) wasn’t taking threats against him seriously.

“I think someone may be trying to kill me and if they are successful I would like my constituents and my family to know who stopped their arrest,” Gaetz said last week. 

He said the DOJ wouldn’t arrest a man who threatened him on Twitter and came to Washington, D.C. even after the Capitol Police said an arrest should be made, but Gaetz told Politico Huelsman was not the person he was speaking about in that instance.

“An indictment was issued in May, and has now been unsealed the week after my criticism,” Gaetz told the outlet. “If they took our security seriously, they would arrest all of the people who violate federal law and the threats to kill us, not just some of them … I think that the Department of Justice is biased against Republicans.”

Gaetz has been a vocal advocate for former President Trump and his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged in favor of President Biden. Gaetz is also at the center of a federal investigation into whether he had sex with underage girls, an accusation he has denied. 

Tags DOJ Donald Trump Florida Joe Biden Matt Gaetz

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