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NH Libertarians appear to encourage the assassination of Kamala Harris
Multiple users posted screenshots of the deleted post that said: “Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero.”
The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire is under fire after allegedly writing on social media that assassinating Vice President Kamala Harris would be heroic.
Multiple users, including reporters, posted screenshots of a deleted post shared to X early Sunday morning that read: “Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero.”
The Libertarian Party addressed the post Sunday morning, writing that “Libertarians are truly the most oppressed minority.”
“We deleted a tweet because we don’t want to break the terms of this website we agreed to,” the post said. “It’s a shame that even on a ‘free speech’ website that libertarians cannot speak freely.”
New Hampshire Democrats, Republicans react
Raymond Buckley, the chair of the state’s Democratic Party, called the post “disgusting, dangerous, and wrong.”
The chair of the New Hampshire GOP Chris Ager condemned the post on Sunday.
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“There is no room for this type of dialogue,” Ager wrote. “PERIOD.”
The state’s Libertarian Party have been criticized for its controversial social media posts in the past. Governor Chris Sununu called their posts mocking the Holocaust and the death of Senator John McCain “horribly insulting” in 2022.
Is their speech protected?
A community note appeared on the party’s post allegedly endorsing the assassination of Harris, according to other posts on X. The note said “it is legally not free speech to incite violence.” The Libertarians replied saying the post violated X’s terms of service, but was “perfectly legal.”
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“Libertarians understand the law much better than Democrats,” they wrote.
Incitement. to violence is not protected as free speech by the First Amendment, but the words have to be “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and is “likely to incite or produce such action,” according to Brandenburg v. Ohio, a landmark Supreme Court case.
The New Hampshire Department of Safety said it was aware of the post and was working with its federal partners. The local FBI office referred Boston.com to the U.S. Secret Service, which said they are aware of the post and “don’t comment on matters involving protective intelligence.”
“We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees,” a Secret Service spokesperson said.
The Libertarian Party did not return a request for comment to Boston.com but shared their apparent reply to The Boston Globe’s inquiry on X calling their journalists as “evil as rapists and murderers.”
“A proper society would exclude Globe Journalists from residing within it entirely,” they wrote. “This is our only comment.”
Former President Donald Trump was the subject of an apparent assassination attempt at his Florida golf club also on Sunday, his campaign reported. Trump said he was “safe and well,” and the alleged shooter was taken into custody.
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This article was updated to include comment from the U.S. Secret Service.
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