Federal agents have arrested Los Angeles-based leftist podcaster Benjamin Azariah Southworth at his Westlake home Thursday on a grand jury indictment charging him with threatening to kill President Donald Trump, cyberstalking, and making harassing interstate telephone calls.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced that the 40-year-old is accused of posting videos calling for the president’s assassination, then targeting the family of Trump’s personal attorney by publishing a home address and phone numbers and leaving voicemails that justice would “come to your door.”
Essayli said in a post on X, “Threats against the President of the United States are federal crimes. We will not tolerate threats of political violence in the United States. My office will prosecute anyone who crosses that line to the fullest extent of the law.”
According to charging papers obtained by the New York Post, prosecutors say Southworth used Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok from January through May to call for Trump’s death and later claimed some of it was “just rhetoric.”
An April 7 Instagram video cited in the case includes the lines, “I have been vocal in calling for the execution of Donald Trump. This government is illegitimate and out of control. It’s time for course correction. Kill Donald Trump.”
Other posts and texts quoted by prosecutors include statements that he wanted Trump and “his minions dead” and a March video repeating the call to kill the president.
Hellbound and Down 