Man who threatened FBI officials over Mar-a-Lago search faces up to 3 years in jail

Federal prosecutors are pursuing a sentence of three years in prison against a Pennsylvania man who admitted to making threats against FBI officials for investigating former President Donald Trump, reported WFMJ on Wednesday.

Adam Bies, who pleaded guilty to making interstate threats and threatening federal law enforcement, first made the threats in August 2022, following reports of the search warrant executed at the former president's Mar-a-Lago country club in South Florida to obtain boxes of classified documents Trump had been hiding.

Through the online alias "Adam Kenneth Campbell," Bies reportedly posted to the far-right platform Gab with threats such as, "If you work for the FBI, you deserve to die" and "Come and get me you piece of [expletive] feds. I'm going to [expletive] slaughter you."

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Gab, run by the far-right tech CEO Andrew Torba, has become notorious as a haven for hate speech, particularly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories; the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter, whose lethal rampage was just a couple counties over from Bies' home in Mercer, posted his violent intentions to Gab before striking.

The search of Mar-a-Lago was part of an investigation that ultimately led to federal charges against Trump for violations of the Espionage Act. That case, one of four criminal cases against the former president, is scheduled to go to trial in South Florida next year.

As Trump's legal problems have mounted, far-right extremists have escalated threats against the FBI. In one of the largest incidents last year, Ricky Shiffer, a man who may have had ties to the January 6 attack, opened fire on the FBI's field office in Cincinnati, leading law enforcement on a chase and standoff that ended with him being killed by police in a local cornfield.