Man Who Claims Ties to ‘Christian American Patriot Militia’ Threatens Obama in Facebook Post

The U.S. Secret Service is aware of a man with ties to a group called the Christian American Patriots Militia who is the apparent author of a Facebook post that says the antigovernment group has the “authority” to assassinate President Obama.

“We now have authority to shoot Obama, i.e., to kill him,” Everest Wilhelmsen wrote on his Facebook page on Nov. 19 – the same day Larry Klayman and his Reclaim America Coalition held a rally across from the White House to begin a “second American Revolution.”

While Wilhelmsen’s post doesn’t specifically mention the rally or Klayman, the anti-Obama rhetoric is in the same vein.

The Secret Service reportedly became aware of Wilhelmsen’s written threat yesterday, the day before the nation marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

It’s not immediately clear whether Wilhelmsen’s public statements cross the line from free speech protected by the First Amendment to an actual threat against the president, which is a federal crime.

A spokesman for the Secret Service would not say if the Facebook post had prompted an investigation, but history has shown such threat-making gets top-drawer attention from the agency assigned to protect the president.

“That’s not something we openly discuss,” the Secret Service spokesman said in response to a query from Hatewatch.

Wilhelmsen’s post says the president’s “willful violations and alienation of our Constitution, constant disregard for our peaceful protests and corruption of all the three branches of government, (i.e., rogue and illegitimate government), reveal the dictator that he is. Obama and his co-conspirators disrespect our Constitution (constitutional rule of law) and abuse the American people.”

It continues: “The authority to kill Obama comes from the 2nd Amendment of our Constitution: He is levying war on the United States and aiding and comforting our foreign enemies – the 2nd Amendment gives us the right and duty (authority) to engage an enemy of the United States that does so with the design to reduce us under absolute Despotism. I would be very surprised, if Obama does not leave Washington DC today (Nov. 19th) ... never to return, if he is not dead within the month.”

Wilhelmsen is listed as the administrator of the Christian American Patriots Militia. Its Facebook page says it has 1,405 members, who operate as a “closed group.”

“The foundations of our nation are Christian principles built upon the bedrock of Truth, not on the shifting sands of lies,” the group’s Facebook page says. Further, it says the “founding fathers” and the Constitution give modern day Christians the “rights and duty to bear arms against any government having a design to reduce us under absolute Despotism.”

Wilhelmsen has posted other anti-Obama and anti-Muslim comments on Facebook in recent weeks, as well on a Twitter account, where he says he is “fighting illegitimate public authorities and oppression, lifting up the downtrodden and freeing the enslaved.”

His Facebook page says he has “work and education” connections with the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., and the “Teheran American School,” in Tehran, Iran.

A spokeswoman for the art college said Wilhelmsen is not currently on the faculty or enrolled there.