Adam Bies’ goal was simple: kill as many FBI agents as he could, according to a federal criminal complaint filed Monday in eastern Pennsylvania. And Bies, 46, wasn’t shy about voicing that goal in the days after FBI agents executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump’s South Florida home and beach resort, an agent wrote office in an affidavit for Bies’ arrest. He allegedly threatened to “slaughter” and “kill” FBI agents in multiple posts on Gab, a conservative social media platform. “We the people do not EXPECT to water the trees of liberty with your blood,” Bies reportedly wrote in an Aug. 10 post. “I’ll wait for you to knock down my door.” On Monday, FBI agents arrested Bies. He is charged with threatening to assault or kill a federal law enforcement officer. Bies appeared in court Monday afternoon, and a federal judge scheduled a hearing Thursday to determine whether he should remain locked up as the case against him progresses. Court records do not list an attorney for Bies. The federal prosecutor assigned to his case did not immediately return a request for comment from The Washington Post early Tuesday. After Mar-a-Lago search, Fox News, Trump supporters decry ‘abuse’ of power Bies’ arrest came a week after FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago, sparking a firestorm among conservative politicians and commentators. As Trump supporters protested outside the resort that night, Fox News host Sean Hannity delivered many of his criticisms, denouncing the investigation as “a black day for our democracy, the Department of Justice, the rule of law.” , The Post reported. Hannity warned his viewers that they could be next. “Make no mistake,” the host said, “if you’re connected to Donald Trump in any way, you better cross all your ‘I’s and dot them, because they’re coming for you with the full force of the federal government. “ Stephen K. Bannon, a conservative podcaster and former Trump adviser, was more blunt, calling the FBI the “Gestapo.” “We are at war,” he said. The FBI operative was a prolific contributor to Trump’s Truth Social website That rhetoric led FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, who was appointed to his position by Trump in 2017, to denounce online threats against federal agents and the Justice Department as “deplorable and dangerous,” the Associated Press reported. “I’m always concerned about threats to law enforcement,” Wray said. “Violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter who you’re upset with.” A day later, Ricky Shiffer, a 42-year-old Iraq War veteran, allegedly tried to break into an FBI field office in Cincinnati and then engaged in an hours-long standoff with law enforcement that ended when he was killed in a shootout. Siefer had attracted the FBI’s attention for possible extremist behavior in previous months, but the information agents gathered “did not contain a specific and credible threat,” The Post reported. An account in Shiffer’s name on Truth Social, Trump’s social networking site, posted 374 messages in the eight days before the attack on the FBI office, many of which parroted Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, according to The Post. After FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago, Schiffer’s posts called for all-out war, urging people to “get what you need to be ready for battle.” “Be ready to kill the enemy,” Shiffer reportedly posted two days before the confrontation. “Kill [the FBI] in sight.” The Justice Department opposes the release of the Mar-a-Lago affidavit A day after Schiefer’s murder, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued an intelligence bulletin to their employees warning of “violent threats” against federal law enforcement, other government workers and official facilities, The Post reported. In the memo, Justice Department officials said their online monitoring found many people calling for “civil war” and “armed rebellion.” On Monday, Fox News host Steve Doocy implored Trump to urge his supporters to “fight the rhetoric.” “With all these threats going around, it would ultimately be great if the former president, who has always been a big supporter of law enforcement … it would be great if he would call for an end to the violent rhetoric against federal law enforcement and specifically, the FBI,” Doocy said on “Fox & Friends.” Like Shiffer, Bies reportedly published anti-FBI op-eds in the days following the Mar-a-Lago investigation. On Wednesday, Bies repeatedly threatened the FBI agents — taunting them, calling them “scumbags” who “deserve a painful death,” the FBI agent wrote in the affidavit. On August 10, Bies was quoted as saying that anyone who “works for the FBI in any capacity, from the manager to the janitor who cleans their … toilets, deserves to die.” “You declared war on us and now it’s open season on you,” Bies wrote in the post, according to the affidavit. The FBI agent who investigated Bies’ alleged threats said he tried to avoid law enforcement by using a fake name online. In fact, Bies said as much in chat logs that Gab turned over to the FBI, explaining that he used an alias “so corporate Murica” couldn’t Google me out of a job. The Gab files also included an IP address, which led the FBI to Bies’ home in Mercer, Pa. In one of the posts that caught the FBI’s attention, Bies reportedly wrote that he had accepted what he believed to be an “inevitable outcome” — he would die at the hands of the FBI. “My only goal is to kill more of them before I go down,” he said, according to the affidavit. “I will not spend a second of my life in their custody.” He was arrested four days later. As of early Tuesday, he was locked up in a jail about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh.
