President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).
A Pennsylvania man has pleaded guilty to threatening to kill Donald Trump days before his second presidential inauguration.
Jacob Buckley, 22, made several threatening posts on TikTok targeting Trump, then the president-elect, the Justice Department announced in a press release.
According to a plea agreement filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Buckley admitted to writing, “I hate MAGA republicans bro on god I”ll kill all of them” and “I’m going to kill Trump.”
On the same day, Buckley – from his account, Jacob_buckley – wrote, “Bro we going into a literal oligarchy in 4 days and im going to kill Trump,” court documents show.
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Buckley could be imprisoned for up to five years and fined $250,000, and he may also be placed on supervised release for up to 3 years. It was not immediately clear when sentencing will occur.
Trump began his second term in the Oval Office with his inauguration on the afternoon of Jan. 20. In the months since, several federal cases have been brought against U.S. citizens for allegedly threatening his life.
Last month, a 37-year-old man in Rhode Island wrote on the president’s own social media platform – Truth Social – that “It’s a shame you won’t get to see the end of your f—ing term, adding that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi would get a “bullet to the head,” according to federal officials.
Also in July, a Michigan man pleaded guilty to threatening to assassinate Trump and Vice President JD Vance, writing that if either of them ever returned to where he lives, they would be leaving “in a body bag.”
Trump was almost killed by a shooter in Butler County, Pennsylvania, in July 2024 while holding a campaign rally. That gunman was killed by law enforcement, but an attendee of the rally was killed. Months later, a man was reportedly lying in wait with a rifle for Trump at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The suspect, Ryan Routh, faces several charges, including attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate.
