Rantz: Secret Service visits Seattle provocateur after Trump ‘firing squad’ post

Seattle’s resident social media troll says he was visited by the Secret Service after a vaguely violent Facebook post about President Donald Trump. While he originally wrote it off as funny, rapper Spekulation found a sympathetic audience and decided to play victim.

The post, originally on Facebook, read, “Our president deserves to have his family watch him meet a firing squad.” It’s a post that reveals a deep level of derangement and lack of intellect, but certainly not a direct threat of violence against Trump. Still, Spekulation says he was visited by Secret Service agents.

Spekulation initially reflected on the visit with humor, Tweeting, “Welp, the Secret Service just left my house after being called by Safe Seattle people. I showed them the Safe Seattle posts about me, they chuckled, took some ID info and said sorry to bother. You’re gonna have to try harder than that, losers.”

Spekulation has previously posted that community group Safe Seattle is a “hate group” because he disagrees with their perceived approach to tackling the homelessness crisis. He also retweeted the ridiculous claim that they’re a “terrorist organization.”

But just two minutes after joking about the visit, Spekulation’s tone changed.

“The lengths Safe Seattle and their members like Ari Hoffman will go to weaponize law enforcement to stifle political speech is terrifying, and is hands down the biggest reason none of them should ever be allowed anywhere near elected office.”

His speech wasn’t stifled, but still an ironic statement since, just last week, Spekulation tried to sabotage a panel on homelessness by asking his followers to send in fake RSVPs so tickets wouldn’t be made available to people actually interested in attending. It’s one of the ways people like him tries to silent speech he doesn’t like.

Spekulation has relentlessly targeted Ari Hoffman, a local Seattle Council candidate who has been victimized by virulently anti-Semitic threats leveled against him and his family. The activist has previously claimed it’s okay to steal Hoffman’s signs because he disagrees with the candidate’s positions on homelessness. His Hoffman pre-occupation aside, it’s unclear why Spekulation names the candidate as responsible here.

The implication that Hoffman was behind the Secret Service visit was picked up by the usual group of Twitter trolls and Facebook activists.

On Facebook, Women of Color Speak Out posted: “If you’re a person of color in Seattle or IN SOLIDARITY with Black and Indigenous communities, please DON’T vote for people like this. He sent the Secret Service on organizers for calling out Safe Seattle for their racism and classism. We need to continue the legacies built from Indigenous and Black matriarchs in Seattle, not the erasure of them.”

There’s a lot wrong with this post, including their bizarre belief that the Secret Service was dispatched to investigate someone for calling out racism and classism. But, more important, Hoffman says he didn’t report anyone.

“I have no idea what they are talking about,” Hoffman said in a statement to The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “I have been dealing with too many government agencies already because of death threats against me and my family to add another. I’m not really interested what an unhinged failed rapper makes up about me. I’m interested in working for my constituents to solve real challenges facing Seattle.”

Spekulation would later clarify that Hoffman didn’t, in fact, make the call to the Secret Service. Women of Color Speak Out was told their claim was wrong. They said they’d correct it, but kept it up about two hours after they said they’d make the correction.

While I understand the Secret Service has to review claims of violence against the President, this obviously wasn’t a serious threat of violence against Trump. And, to be fair, despite being shaken, Spekulation says they joked about the visit.

At the same time, it’s also worth noting that this was likely going to occur. Spekulation is a local provocateur — the progressive Milo Yiannopoulos — purposefully pushing boundaries to earn plaudits from progressive activists. At the same time, he actively tries to get his targets to overreact, which is how I’d describe contacting the Secret Service here. And when they do overreact, Spekulation plays victim. That’s what professional victims — and social media trolls — usually do.

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