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| Record crowd of 20,000 turns out to protest President Donald Trump at No Kings rally at Texas Capitol in Austin on June 14 |
Texas Dems Targeted by Minnesota Shooter
Who Attended Bible Institute in North Texas
Capitol Inside
June 17, 2025
A Texas congressional Democrat vowed on Tuesday to keep up the fight against fascism in America after learning she'd been on a hit list that police seized from a Dallas Bible college student who's accused of killing the former speaker of the Minnesota House and wounding a colleague during the weekend.
U.S. Reps. Veronica Escobar of El Paso and Julian Castro of San Antonio were among 45 lawmakers who Minnesota native Vance Boelter was allegedly planning to assassinate after getting the apparent plot under way attacks on Saturday at the homes of former Democratic Speaker Melissa Hortman and State Senator John Hoffman.
Law enforcement officials say Boelter shot and killed Hortman and her husband at their home after posing as a police officer. Boelter also is the chief and only suspect in the shootings of Hoffman and his wife at their home on the same night. The senator and his spouse both survived.
Authorities in Texas have not said if an arrest on Saturday in La Grange could be related to the assassination plot in Minnesota. The Department of Public Safety apprehended a man from Katy in connection with a credible threat about a possible attack on several Democratic legislators at a No Kings demonstration in Austin that evening. The DPS said Monday that officers confiscated a gun from the suspect's car but had not charged him with any crimes related to the alleged threat that the agency is still investigating.
Boelter, who's 57, was apprehended in a wooded area close to his home in Minnesota. But Boelter's arrest in connection with the shooting deaths of the Hortmans and the attempted murders of Hoffman and his wife has put the Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas on the map as the school that Boelter attended for three years before his exit there in 1990.
The school, which is known as CFNI, scrambled on Tuesday in attempt at damage control after being linked to the shooter in Minnesota. "We are absolutely aghast and horrified that a CFNI alumnus is the suspect," CFNI said in a statement. "This is not who we are. This is not what we teach. This is not what we model,"
CFNI describes itself as "a three-year nondenominational spirit-filled and spirit-led Bible school that exists to train world changers for God’s Kingdom work throughout the world."
The Minnesota murders were committed on the same day that countless thousands of Americans turned out at No Kings protests across the country to condemn President Donald Trump and his policies. An estimated crowd of 20,000 blanketed the south grounds of the Texas Capitol at an anti-Trump rally on Saturday when 10,000 people marched in Dallas to demonstrate their disdain for the president.
Governor Greg Abbott's fears of violence at the protests in major Texas cities proved to an epic overreaction when the demonstrations in his state were peaceful without any apparent arrests. Abbott deployed 5,000 National Guard troops to confront "lawlessness" that he apparently anticipated after watching police clash with protesters in Los Angeles and New York City earlier in the week.
But after multiple warnings in social media touting the military deployment, the National Guard only evident in downtown San Antonio on Saturday night when several dozen troops formed a barricade at the Alamo to prevent tourists from entering the building during a protest there. Texas Military Department records showed that half of the Guard members who Abbott deployed for protests had been assigned to the border.
Then on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Defense ordered 700 active military members to Texas and Florida to assist ICE with deportations in a development that appeared to be unrelated to the governor's shift of troops from the border to cities for No Kings demonstrations.
Escobar issued a statement after being identified as a name on the alleged Boelter hit list.
"All of these instances are jarring reminders that right-wing extremism has a foothold in our country," the El Paso legislator said. "Politically motivated violence, and violence of any kind, have no place in our democracy and we have a role to play in moving our country to healing.
"In the same breath, I am immensely grateful to the millions of people who showed up to peacefully protest - you are the very best of our country and give me so much hope. We will not be silenced or forced to live in fear; there are so many more opposed to fascism than in support of it."
more to come ...
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