Man sentenced to prison for threats against Biden and Obama

Lina PortmanJune 2, 2024

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Joe and Jill Biden: AP Photo/Will Weissert; photo by Adam R. Mouser: Sangamon County Detention Center; image of Barack Obama: AP Photo/Thanasis Stavrakis; image of Hillary Clinton: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

A 40-year-old Illinois man will spend more than a year in a federal correctional facility for making violent threats against the lives of President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and several congressional Democrats.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Lawless on Wednesday ordered Adam R. Mouser to serve a 14-month prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to one count of threatening the President of the United States, authorities said.

Mouser faces a maximum sentence of five years. After his incarceration, Mouser will also have to serve two years of supervised release.

According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Illinois, Lawless chastised Mouser during Wednesday's sentencing hearing, telling him that “words matter.”

“I think it's common sense not to threaten to kill another person,” she said, noting that the threats were “repeated” and “escalated” even after Secret Service agents are returned to Mouser's home.

As previously reported by Law&Crime, Secret Service agents learned on August 10, 2023, that Mouser had posted threats on X in which he said threatened to kill Biden.

“I'm going to murder her with my bare hands, then put a bullet in that piece of woman,” he wrote in reference to Joe and Jill Biden.

The next day, Mouser defied federal authorities, writing that “the sad pathetic pigs won't shoot me” because he would shoot back and kill them, then hunt down their children “and murder them too.”

In response to a post in which another person asked readers if they would rather eat with Obama or Clinton, Mouser responded on August 9 by saying he would shoot them under the chin.

Mouser also claimed that a “Utah man” was murdered by U.S. officials for threatening Biden, an apparent reference to Craig Robertson, 75, who was killed inside his home after pointing a handgun at FBI agents who attempted to place him under arrest. .

According to the criminal complaint, authorities found Mouser at his home in Jacksonville, Illinois, about 225 miles southwest of Chicago.

A Secret Service agent and a local police detective spoke to Mouser at the home on August 23, 2023, and said he “seemed very hostile” from the moment he opened the door. He was then quick to confirm that he was behind the online threats.

“Yes, I posted it,” Mouser said when asked about the threats.

Mouser also emphasized that he meant what he said and stood behind the messages, according to the complaint.

“Mouser stated that he had First Amendment rights and that we were trying to silence him,” authorities wrote in the complaint.

But Mouser was wrong, because the First Amendment does not protect “actual threats” of violence.

Mouser later wrote about the investigators after they left, disparaging them in online posts.

In one post, Mouser wrote that he was alive, but added, “I will not go quietly.”

In another article, he claimed that authorities came to his house at night to kill his family while they slept.

“The Fed protects pedophiles and scum,” he reportedly wrote. “I hope you stay alive longer than me.”

The case against Mouser was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service and the Jacksonville Police Department.

Alberto Luperon contributed to this report.