Federal authorities on Thursday charged a California man with threatening to kill Boston Globe employees for the newspaper's role leading this month's defense of press freedoms by hundreds of U.S. news organizations against attacks by President Donald Trump.
Prosecutors said Robert Chain, 68, called journalists "the enemy of the people" in threatening phone calls that echoed the phrase Trump has used to criticize unflattering news coverage through his campaign and years in office.
"In a time of increasing political polarization, and amid the increasing incidence of mass shootings, members of the public must police their own political rhetoric. Or we will," Andrew Lelling, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts and a Trump appointee, said in a statement on the arrest.