GovernmentExecutive.com

U.S. Attorney Troy Eid on Tuesday dismissed reports of a plot to assassinate Barack Obama, calling threats made by two men held on drug and weapons charges "racist rantings" by two people "high on meth" and "not a credible threat" to the senator from Illinois.

The threats, according to authorities, were made by Nathan Johnson and Shawn Robert Adolf, two of three men arrested Sunday evening in connection with a routine traffic stop in nearby Aurora that turned up two rifles with scopes (one of them described by Eid as "a sniper rifle"), body armor; camouflage clothing; and equipment for making methamphetamine.

Those items were in a truck driven by Tharin Gartrell that was stopped by police. Gartrell apparently led police to Adolf and Johnson, staying in separate hotels, who were later arrested. Adolf, who has several outstanding felony warrants, broke his ankle attempting to elude arrest by jumping out of his hotel room's sixth-story window. A quantity of meth was recovered from his room, police said.

Eid said that the evidence of a plot "did not meet the legal standard" to be "a true threat" but that the investigation was continuing.

According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, during an interrogation by Colorado state police and Secret Service agents, a girlfriend of one of the three men said that Gartrell, Johnson, and Adolf, while high on meth, stated an intention to kill Obama during the convention. Adolf rented a room in the Hyatt Regency Tech Center in Denver, believing Obama would be staying there later in the week, and he acquired a rifle fitted for a silencer, along with body armor and other equipment. The girlfriend also said that Adolf had ties to white supremacists. According to an affidavit, the woman quoted Adolf as saying: "No nigger should ever live in the White House."

Nevertheless, Eid said that the threats were not credible, partly because the three men, who he repeatedly referred as "meth heads," were "high on meth" when making the threats.

The arrests were a common topic of conversation among convention-goers and others in town for the convention. Brandon Brea of Orinda, Calif., who was wearing a large "Obama" pin on his sweatshirt, wanted to know whether President Bush had appointed the prosecutor in the case. "That will tell you whether this thing gets buried," said Brea, who was strolling on the 16th Street pedestrian mall.

Eid was indeed appointed by Bush, in 2006. Before that he was a close aide to Bill Owens, then the Republican governor of Colorado; previously he was a longtime lawyer and business executive born and raised in the state. The son of an Egyptian immigrant, Eid is the first Arab-American U.S. attorney, his official biography says.

Obama and top officials for his campaign have had little to say about the arrests, as Obama has usually declined to discuss death threats against him since he emerged as a serious presidential candidate. He was placed under Secret Service protection in May 2007 after a death threat, the first time that a presidential candidate had received such protection before being nominated. A 22-year-old Miami man was arrested three weeks ago after he was accused of publicly threatening Obama's life and the life of Bush. He told authorities he was joking.

For full coverage of the Democratic National Convention, go to NationalJournal.com.

COMMENTS

• Didn't Jesse Jackson, on national TV, state that he wanted to cut Obuma's nuts off. Now that is what I call a threat. Why wasn't Jesse arrested? Eddie Posted September 3, 2008 10:30 AM
• An international passenger once joked to a Customs Inspector about having “four grenades" in his suitcase. The inspector had many reasons to believe the person was joking, but nevertheless, isolated the suitcase, called emergency personnel and detained the individual after an immediate search for potential weapons. In our day and age, who can still hold the notion that a person is NOT going to follow through with a threat, just because he was under the influence of a substance when he made it? These notions get people killed, and the responsibility, sadly, is on our own law enforcement personnel who don’t take the threat seriously. The presence of weapons, the location and the testimony of the significant other should have been enough to at least open a case against these two men for conspiring to commit a hate crime. I would also wish to remind Ann that my rights as an individual stop at the point where they infringe yours, and that one of the few things that the federal government is actually required to do by the Constitution is to protect the lives of 'We the people'. Do not justify a murder threat just because "it's bound to happen". If your disagree with having a man with a different skin color occupying the White House, please resort to politics, go to work on the campaign trail, join with all your whatever-color supremacist friends and defeat such candidate on the ballots. This is, my friend, the American way. Are we, who like to call our nation a 'beacon of democracy to the world' a place where leaders are removed by murder? This is not justified, even though every once in a sad while someone does it. Vote Obama, McCain, or another candidate, but don't justify murder to achieve political ends, because that precisely is the definition of a terrorist. River Posted August 28, 2008 1:43 PM
• Why would being "high on meth" excuse an assassination threat? Just because he was stoned does not mean that he did not mean it. For as long as intoxicants have existed, people have used them as an excuse for their actions. History has proven that many a murderer used booze or drugs to given him/her the courage to do what he/she could not do while sober. Another Concerned Citizen Posted August 28, 2008 12:34 PM