PHILADELPHIA — Al Schmidt, the only Republican official in Philadelphia to oversee voting during the 2020 presidential election, on Monday told the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that with a single tweet, then-President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of death threats against him and his family because of his refusal to back Trump’s false fraud claims.
The menacing threats, Schmidt said, came after a Nov. 11, 2020, tweet in which Trump referred to him as a “RINO” — a Republican In Name Only — and a “disaster on the massive election fraud and irregularities which took place in Philadelphia.”
“The threats prior to that tweet ... were pretty general in nature,” Schmidt told the committee. After Trump’s tweet, Schmidt said, “the threats became much more specific, much more graphic.”
