Why target Raphael Warnock? The answer is clear: A climate of hate.
From the outset, I got why 41-year-old Eduard Florea of Queens was arrested and charged with posting violent threats against a member of Congress. I also understood why he was charged with making threatening statements on and around Jan. 6 regarding acts of violence and the use of firearms. He was nailed by the evidence. Florea had posted comments on the social media platform Parler under the name “LoneWolfWar” calling for the death of a prospective U.S. senator, and he encouraged others to storm and occupy the Capitol to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
Florea pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn this week to threatening to kill a newly elected member of Congress, and he also pleaded guilty to a weapons offense.
What was not immediately clear is why Florea, having a universe of hundreds of elected House and Senate members from which to choose, would threaten to kill, specifically, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, who wasn’t even in office at the time of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Warnock had just won a runoff Senate election in Georgia and would not be sworn in until Jan. 20.
But there was no doubt he was Florea’s target. “Warnock is going to have a hard time casting votes for communist policies when he’s swinging with the … fish,” Florea posted online on Jan. 5, while voting in Georgia was still going on. It seemed pretty clear that Florea mistyped the gangster cliché “swimming (or sleeping) with the fishes,” which suggests a murdered body disposed of in a river. While I’m at it, it’s worth noting that Florea also used a profanity before “fish.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/20/why-target-raphael-warnock-answer-is-clear-climate-hate/
