A Florida man was indicted this month over threats against Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Diego Villavicencio faces a four-count indictment that alleges he threatened a member of Congress, writing, “I’ll kill you and your family and you won’t do anything about it”; that he threatened an unnamed individual who, he wrote, would “be shot and killed on Sept. 23”; and threatened the president of the United States, writing: “I’ll be driving there to take a couple of shots at trump and some other corrupt plutocrats.”
Swalwell confirmed that the unnamed member of Congress in the indictment is him. Swalwell, an outspoken critic of Trump and 2026 candidate for governor of California, is a recurring target of threats. He also served as an impeachment manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial.
“The aim of this threat was to silence me,” Swalwell told NBC News. “Political violence has never been the answer. And it never will be. My family and I are grateful to the Department of Justice for their attention to this violent threat.”
The unnamed individual appears to be Powell. The Fed chairman was not named in the indictment, but an FBI affidavit states that one of the posts read “Jerome is next.” The threat was reported to the FBI by a senior special agent with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Protective Services Unit ahead of a Sept. 23 Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce 2025 Economic Outlook Luncheon, where Powell spoke, the affidavit said. The Federal Reserve did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A federal judge ordered Villavicencio held after he was arrested last month. A trial has been set for May. An attorney for Villavicencio did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Swalwell’s office told NBC News last year that the Justice Department hadn’t brought charges in two cases involving threats against him and his family.
He and Attorney General Pam Bondi got into a discussion about security during a congressional hearing last month, with Bondi telling members of Congress that “none of you should be threatened, ever,” and that “none of your children should be threatened. None of your families should be threatened.”
Swalwell said he had not discussed this particular case with Bondi.
In an affidavit last month, an FBI special agent wrote that an X user believed to be Villavicencio had “called for terrorist acts of violence against government officials and CEOs.”
One of the threats came in response to a social media post in which Swalwell wrote that Bondi “REFUSED to prosecute MULTIPLE direct death threats against me and my family.”
The X account that the FBI said appeared to belong to Villavicencio also published a post in October that read “Death to America Bomb America Bomb the federal reserve Kill politicians Kill CEOs Shoot Joe Biden Shoot [redacted] Shoot Donald Trump END CAPITALISM FREE THE PEOPLE.”
The user was suspended in November, “apparently for violating X’s terms of use,” the FBI affidavit said.
