GOP Legislators Targets of Threat
or Prank that Could Be Frame Job

Capitol Inside
September 22, 2021

Texas Republicans lawmakers may decide it would be safer to tackle redistricting on Zoom this fall after being warned by the state police that they could be targets of domestic terrorism amid the fallout from a new abortion ban that's backfired dramatically in multiple ways.

But the "CREDIBLE THREAT TO YOUR SAFETY" that they learned about late Tuesday night has all the makings of a hoax that could have been orchestrated by forces on the far right as a distraction from the snafu that the Texas abortion law has turned out to be on a number of fronts.

GOP legislators discovered that they could be in danger in a bizarre warning in an email from a Department of Public Safety official who cited information that the agency had obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The message didn't elaborate on how lawmakers' safety could be in peril or what they should do to protect themselves from the highly ambiguous threat.

"THIS IS NOT A DRILL," the state police source stressed - spicing the dire warning with a twinge of intrigue more common to a John Le Carré spy novel than a communique from law enforcement. "Our DPS agents will call from many different areas codes, and have not been able to speak with you."

The Republicans would find out today that the terroristic threat was based on a social media post on Reddit that listed the names of all of the lawmakers who'd voted for Senate Bill 8 in regular session this year. The anonymous source reportedly made a vague threat to "end each one of you" - a remark that would be fitting for a crime noir movie and could have been a reference to re-election campaigns.

The initial alert revealed that the threat had been aimed at "a majority of you in the Texas Legislature, both in the House of Representatives and the Texas Senate" as well. But the DPS message saved the most dramatic news for last - adding in a follow-up note that the FBI threat "only applies to those members who may have voted for SB 8, 87th Regular Session."

The messages had the feel of the standard email scam at a higher level. "We are attempting to contact you via your mobile phone, however some of our calls are going unanswered."

The state police agency isn't elaborating up to now on the ambiguous communications - citing the sensitive nature of an ongoing investigation. But the DPS intelligence that has been retweeted throughout the day on social media has given conspiracy theorists on the radical left fodder on why the targeted state lawmakers could be suspects as well.

The post that spawned the state and federal probes could have been an attempt to distract from horrific reviews from voters that the Texas abortion law has generated. A Monmouth University poll last week found that 81 percent of American voters oppose the $10,000 vigilante bounties that Texas Republican legislators approved this spring in Senate Bill 8.

Republicans legislators - hypothetically - could have cooked up the threat as a way to make themselves look like martyrs for the conservative base. The Texas Right to Life organization would welcome anything that would deflect from unflattering attention that it's received for its lead role in the enforcement of a system that flies in the face of tort reform.

The so-called heartbeat bill has the potential to be fatal for some Republicans in suburban legislative and congressional districts and on the GOP's statewide ticket as well in light of the monumental public backlash on the abortion ban.