Left: Raymond Chandler III (Raymond Chandler III/YouTube). Right: President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo/Alex Brandon).
New allegations have emerged against a Pennsylvania man who authorities say threatened to kill President Donald Trump and urged members of Congress to murder all billionaires.
Raymond Chandler III, 40, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on charges of influencing, impeding, or retaliating against a federal official or federal law enforcement officer by threat. The five-count indictment alleges Chandler vowed to kill the president, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and a member of Congress and their daughter.
The defendant has a website announcing his campaign for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania to replace Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.). His listed goals on the page, such as “Tax the Billionaires,” “Fight Against Corruption,” and “Abolish ICE,” track with the wishes of the man quoted in the indictment — and his allegedly violent intentions to accomplish them.
“I support armed resistance against ICE. I want every agent dead,” Chandler said in a voicemail to an unidentified member of Congress on April 18, 2025, per the affidavit. “I am willing to go to war. I am willing to personally kill.”
On June 10, 2025, he allegedly went a step further.
“You must arrest the President. You must impeach him. You must convict him, and you must kill him for tyranny and treason,” the indictment reads.
The voicemails continued into the new year, according to federal authorities. On Jan. 12, 2026, the defendant reportedly left another voicemail stating, “I woke up this morning realizing that violence has become necessary. … Donald Trump deserves death … Nothing short of death will bring justice, and without justice there will never be peace.”
It appeared that Chandler’s distaste for the Trump administration was heightened by the government’s strikes on Iran, as he alluded to the “reason I’m running” for federal office.
“You need to back out of this war in Iran,” Chandler said on April 7, 2026, per the court document. “I want you to put a black bag over the President’s head. I want you to bind his hands and I want you to deliver him to the enemy … That’s what I want to see. Senator, you are not protected. The President can’t protect you.”
“If you commit war crimes, I will come to Congress and I will prosecute you for those crimes,” he allegedly went on. “I will try you. I will convict you, and I will hang you. Senator, I will hang you.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, Chandler is also accused of threatening to hurt a family member of the U.S. representative. He allegedly stated, “So imagine your house, your daughter’s house, everyone you know and love who is also rich. Imagine every single one of those homes being surrounded by a thousand people … and then they come and they pull you out of your house and they slit your throat and they slit your daughter’s throat and they slit everyone’s throat.”
The defendant went so far as to request that the federal representative be the one to fatally shoot Trump, according to authorities.
On May 1, 2026, Chandler reportedly left a voicemail referring to the 1886 Haymarket Square Bombing — in which several police officers were killed — and ended the message with “I want you to be terrified.” FBI agents arrested him later that day.
During subsequent court hearings, prosecutors pointed to purported excerpts from a journal owned by Chandler, with lines such as, “I keep calling Congress telling them I want them to kill all the ICE agents and billionaires” and “I must sound insane to them and yet that is where my heart and head are really at.” The magistrate judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania determined that there was “strong” evidence against him and ordered him detained pending trial.
