FAA engineer arrested after alleged threat to kill Trump

A 35-year-old Federal Aviation Administration mechanical engineer from Nashua, New Hampshire, was arrested after federal prosecutors said he sent a threat to the White House about killing President Donald Trump and used his government work computer to look up assassination-related material.

Dean DelleChiaie was charged in federal court in New Hampshire with interstate communication of a threat against the president. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors said he was expected to appear in court Tuesday, May 5, after his arrest Monday, May 4. The FAA has suspended him, according to reporting on the case.

The criminal complaint, filed Friday, May 1, said DelleChiaie used his government computer in late January to search for terms including how to get a gun into a federal facility, previous assassination attempts against the president, the percentage of the population that wants the president dead, and the phrase, “I am going to kill Donald John Trump.” The U.S. Secret Service interviewed him in early February, and prosecutors said he admitted making the searches and acknowledged owning three firearms, including a handgun kept in a safe at his home.

The case raises sharp questions about how federal agencies identify insider threats before they become crimes. DelleChiaie worked inside one of the government’s most security-conscious transportation agencies while, prosecutors say, using federal equipment to explore how to smuggle a weapon into a federal facility. That combination has heightened attention on vetting, workplace monitoring, and the limits agencies face when trying to detect danger without trampling employee privacy or due process.

Reporting also said DelleChiaie allegedly wrote a threat on a whiteboard at home and criticized Trump over the war against Iran. The case has drawn added scrutiny because it comes amid other recent Trump-related threat and assassination cases, including the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey and the arrest of Cole Tomas Allen in a separate matter.