Taxpayer-Funded Death Threats Exposed

Smartphone showing an incoming call with decline and accept buttons

A taxpayer-funded media worker spent 15 months phoning in death threats against a Trump‑ally congresswoman, and the system is only now catching up.

Story Snapshot

Former Voice of America employee Seth Jason admitted to eight violent threat calls against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene over 15 months.
Jason pleaded guilty to two federal charges after threatening to kill Greene, her staff, and her family from inside VOA headquarters.
The campaign of threats hit its peak around the presidential inauguration, raising concern about political intimidation.
The case exposes serious questions about security, media bias, and accountability in a taxpayer-funded news outlet.

Threats From Inside a Taxpayer-Funded Newsroom

Federal prosecutors say sixty-four-year-old Seth Jason, a longtime studio supervisor and lighting director at government-funded Voice of America, made eight threatening phone calls to the district offices of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene between October 11, 2023, and January 21, 2025.^[8] According to the indictment, he called her offices in Dalton and Rome, Georgia, where staff members and sometimes family could pick up the phone.^[5] The United States Capitol Police later traced the calls back to multiple phone lines inside Voice of America headquarters.^[8]

The Justice Department says Jason threatened to use firearms to kill Greene, her staff, and their families, including references to rifles.^[8] Court filings and local reporting describe one admitted statement where he threatened to shoot Greene “between the eyes” with an AK-47 rifle.^[6] In another voicemail, prosecutors say he warned Greene she would not “see the inaugural” and claimed she, her staff, and her family would be dead.^[2] These threats went beyond angry political talk and moved into precise, violent promises.

Fifteen Months of Escalating Political Intimidation

Over a span of fifteen months, Jason’s calls reportedly grew more extreme and detailed.^[2] Prosecutors say that on January 8, 2025, just days before the presidential inauguration, he left a message warning that Greene and those around her were marked for death and would not survive to watch the ceremony.^[2] On January 21, 2025, he left another voicemail saying Greene and her staff “were as good as dead” and should “make your last will ready,” adding that the only thing they would hear was “bang” and that he was “yearning” to hear her cry for her last breath.^[2]

Investigators say the calls were not one mistake or a single outburst but a pattern of eight separate threats.^[2] The case also fits into a wider rise in threats against public officials. The United States Capitol Police reported thousands of threat assessment cases against members of Congress, their families, and their staff in recent years, with numbers climbing well above earlier levels.^[17] Conservatives, including President Trump himself, have often been the main targets of such harassment and threats.^[22] For many readers, this case feels like part of a larger climate that tries to scare strong voices into silence.

Guilty Plea, Prison Time, and Questions Left Hanging

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced that Jason pleaded guilty to two federal crimes: interstate communications with a threat to kidnap or injure and anonymous telecommunications harassment.^[2] The original indictment had charged him with four counts, including influencing a federal official by threat and by threatening a family member, but prosecutors allowed him to plead to two charges instead.^[8] That means two serious theories of the case were never fully tested in court, even though they helped shape how the public saw the 15‑month threat campaign.

News reports state that Jason now faces a federal prison sentence, with prosecutors seeking significant time behind bars.^[4] The statutes involved can add up to a maximum of seven years in prison when combined, though sentencing guidelines and the plea agreement influence the final number.^[4] Defense-side arguments focus on intent and proportionality, but the admitted facts leave little doubt that Greene, her staff, and her family spent months wondering if a violent stranger might act on his words. That fear alone is an attack on the free exercise of elected office.

Media Silence, Government Responsibility, and a Warning for Patriots

The investigation showed that Jason placed each of the eight calls while working inside Voice of America headquarters in Washington, D.C.^[2] Voice of America is funded by American taxpayers and supposed to present fair news to the world, yet one veteran employee used government phone lines to terrorize an elected conservative woman and her team.^[5] So far, the available coverage does not show a detailed public explanation from Voice of America about how this went on for more than a year without internal controls stopping it.^[6] That silence raises real oversight concerns.

This case sends two clear messages to readers who value the Constitution. First, threats and political violence must never be used to silence speech, no matter which side is targeted. Second, when the threat comes from inside government-funded institutions, citizens have every right to demand strict accountability and equal treatment. As political intimidation against outspoken conservatives grows, strong and even-handed enforcement of the law is not only justice for Rep. Greene, it is a warning shot to anyone who thinks they can bully patriots into backing down.^[16]