A former Coast Guard officer who was charged with threatening President Donald Trump has been freed from jail by a Virginia judge.
A 19-page FBI affidavit said that Peter Stinson of Virginia, who left the Coast Guard in 2021 after 33 years and was a Federal Emergency Management Agency instructor, issued repeated threats aimed at Trump, according to CBS.
Stinson actively made anti-Trump posts beginning in 2020 and last week posted, “When he dies, the party is going to be yuge.”
Stinson was charged with making threats against the president. On Monday afternoon, he was ordered to be held pending a hearing on the charges against him.
The Wednesday hearing resulted in Judge Ivan Davis ruling that sending Stinson home with GPS monitoring was enough for now, according to Fox News.
Although Department of Justice prosecutors said Stinson’s many comments about doing violence to Trump were threats, Stinson’s public defender said he was engaging in protected political speech.
Stinson’s lawyers said his posted comments claiming he could not succeed in assassinating Trump were a reason to spring him from jail, while prosecutors said Stinson had received marksman ribbons in the Coast Guard.
Should Peter Stinson remain in jail while awaiting trial?
Yes: 98% (1506 Votes)
No: 2% (26 Votes)
Davis said Stinson can go home once his attorneys verify there are no guns at Stinson’s property, according to WUSA-TV.
Davis granted the DOJ’s request that Stinson not seek travel authorization, but rejected a prosecution attempt to have a third-party custodian monitor Stinson.
“The weight of the evidence, on a scale from one to 10, let’s just say it’s not on the side of 10,” Davis said.
Davis is a graduate of the Howard University School of Law and has been a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia since 2008.
He gave prosecutors until Wednesday to file documents supporting the charge against Stinson.
The charging documents against Stinson noted that he has been posting anti-Trump comments on social media for years.
On April 1, 2020, the document said that in response to a post that read, “You see Trump drowning, what are you throwing him?” Stinson posted, “This morning I feel like I would hit him in the head with an oar” and also wrote, “He wants us dead. I can say the same thing about him.”
Later that month he also wrote, “Would someone just pull the proverbial trigger, please” and later posted, “I would do it. I would take the fall to save America. Too bad I don’t have the operational skills to pull it off. I am willing to serve in a support capacity for someone else with the skills to take care of things.”
The documents noted that posts continued through 2025, with this from Jan. 28: “Somebody needs to do it. Somebody with the skills to do it right. Somebody with the experience. Somebody with the right tools. Somebody needs to get it done.”
The documents said that on Jan. 29, Stinson posted, “Poison maybe. But you got to get real close.”
Two days later, he elaborated, writing, “Poison. That might be the only solution at this point. Take out 1 and 2. Got to get close to disperse. Need a plan. Anyone done this sort of work before?”
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