Rep Says His Family Was Threatened As Leftist Rage Rises

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., has a message for the “anonymous” person who made a “credible threat” against his family: “You will not intimidate me.” 

Still, the Wisconsin Republican says the specificity of the latest threat against his wife, children, and grandchildren forced him to cancel an online town hall session last week and miss several votes as he rushed back to his southwest Wisconsin home to make sure his loved ones were safe. 

Van Orden said the letter, sent to his Washington, D.C. office, was immediately reported to the appropriate authorities. The lawmaker’s congressional colleague, Rep. Bryan Steil, a Republican who represents Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District and chairs the powerful House Administration committee, told The Federalist that Capitol security is investigating. 

So is the FBI, Van Orden told me late last week on the Vicki McKenna Show in Milwaukee. 

“The Capitol Police have been involved as well as the Postmaster General and the FBI,” the congressman said. “I spoke to Attorney General Pam Bondi the other day. I’m very thankful for the work she’s doing. She wanted to make sure the FBI was getting involved in this at a very serious level, and says they are.” 

Local police, too, are looking into the incident. Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, Police Chief Kyle Teynor told Wisconsin Public Radio last week that his officers verified the family’s safety and “provided them with assurances that our staff was aware of the threats, the ongoing investigation into the validity of the threat and our ability to facilitate their continued safe residency within our city.”

The two-term congressman, who spent 26 years as a Navy SEAL Senior Chief and served multiple combat tours, said it’s a sad commentary on  the volatile state of U.S. politics that his family is in more danger now than when he was “hunting, chasing down, and killing terrorists as a Navy Seal.” 

“And it’s because I’m a Republican in Congress, that’s why,” Van Orden said in the radio interview. 

Increasing Threats

U.S. Capitol Police reported that the number of threat assessment cases soared in 2024. The agency’s Threat Assessment Section (TAS) investigated 9,474 “concerning statements and direct threats” against members of congress and their families and staff. 

“Decreasing violent political rhetoric is one of the best ways to decrease the number of threats across the country,” USCP said in a press release. But it appears the heated rhetoric has only grown hotter, particularly among the left in the opening months of President Trump’s second term. Top Democrats such as Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the bulbous billionaire with higher office aspirations, have been stirring up the hostility. 

“Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now,” Pritzker said late last month.

“These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace,” added the Democrat who has compared the Trump administration to “Nazi Germany.”

In an op-ed in Newsweek last week, leftist political science professor David Faris, author of It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics, lauded the rotund governor for “Showing Democrats How To Stand Up to Trump.” 

‘Completely Different Place’

The same Democrats who have urged Americans to lower the political temperature are the same people who have spent years harassing, intimidating, investigating, arresting, prosecuting, and attempting to assassinate their political enemies. 

Is it any wonder that a study from the Network of Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) in partnership with Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab found 55 percent of self-identified leftists believe killing Trump is justified at some level? Van Orden said federal law enforcement under the Biden administration did little to stop the rising domestic terrorism threats against conservative Americans. They had other priorities. 

“When the FBI under the previous administration was hunting down our Catholic brothers and sisters for trying to practice their religion as they saw fit, they [at the same time] were roping out parents at school board meetings who wanted to make sure their children were not being taught this woke, transgender garbage,” the congressman said. “If they had spent the last four years in the Biden administration hunting down a few of these people and prosecuting them and sending them to feel prison, we’d be in a completely different place right now as a county.” 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.