Photo: Alamy
A Massachusetts man accused of posting threats on social media to kill President Donald Trump was arrested Wednesday following a standoff with law enforcement in which authorities said he brandished a sword.
Andrew Emerald, 45, was charged in an eight-count federal indictment filed in Springfield alleging he made a series of threatening Facebook posts in 2025, including statements about traveling to President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
“Either Trump is dead and in the ground by 2026 or I am hunting him down and putting him there,” Emerald wrote in one post, according to the indictment.
Emerald pleaded not guilty at an initial court appearance and was ordered held without bail pending a detention hearing scheduled for Monday. An attorney for Emerald did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to court documents, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was alerted to the posts after receiving a tip from a citizen who warned Emerald that threatening the president is a crime. Prosecutors said Emerald responded that he had been making threats for years and added that if authorities pursued him, “I’ll kill them until they kill me.”
In another post, Emerald reportedly wrote, “I have very good reason to threaten his life and to go after it, whether I have my Second Amendment rights or not. If the people that are supposed to have not gone after him by the new year, I am hear Trump I’m coming for you.”
When agents went to Emerald’s home in Great Barrington to execute an arrest warrant, he initially refused to surrender, authorities said. An FBI affidavit states that Emerald later appeared outside holding a long metallic sword, which he had previously referenced in online threats.
Officials said an FBI crisis negotiation team and local police responded to the scene. Emerald ultimately agreed to surrender after speaking with an officer by phone.
During a subsequent search of the residence, investigators said they recovered multiple bladed weapons. The case remains under investigation.
