Al Schmidt, the only Republican official in Philadelphia to oversee voting during the 2020 presidential election, on Monday told the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol that with a single tweet, then-President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of death threats against him and his family because of his refusal to back Trump’s false fraud claims.
The menacing threats, Schmidt said, came after a Nov. 11, 2020 tweet in which Trump referred to him as a “RINO” — a Republican In Name Only — and a “disaster on the massive election fraud and irregularities which took place in Philadelphia.”
“The threats prior to that tweet… were pretty general in nature,” Schmidt told the committee. After Trump’s tweet, Schmidt said, “the threats became much more specific, much more graphic.”
One message sent to a family member threatened to fatally shoot them and their children. “Heads on spikes. Treasonous Schmidts,” read the message, a screenshot of which appeared during his testimony.
Schmidt’s testimony during the committee’s second public hearing came as members sought to demonstrate Trump’s power to incite supporters to violence through his Twitter account. That argument is central to their case that there is a direct line between the lies Trump proliferated on the social media platform and the deadly attack on the Capitol.
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