An aspiring nation singer and diehard MAGA fan got down to defend Donald Trump’s honor, however wound up in handcuffs as a substitute.
North Carolina insurance coverage salesman and semi-pro musician Stephen Jike Williams, who performs merely as Jike Williams, vowed to execute truth checkers for the “defamation and slander” of the ex-president. When the FBI confirmed up at his door, Williams threatened the lifetime of a feminine agent assigned to research, in accordance with a felony criticism first obtained by The Each day Beast.
He then adopted up a couple of days later with extra dying threats on TikTok, in a video titled, merely, “Fuck the FBI,” the feds say.
Williams, 42, is now charged with threatening to homicide a federal regulation enforcement officer and transmission of interstate threats. The criticism towards him, which was unsealed Friday in North Carolina federal court docket, says that Williams was incensed over, variously, the 2020 “stolen” election, vaccine mandates, his TikTok account getting suspended, and liberals pushing “anti-Trump propaganda.”
Williams’ court-appointed lawyer, Corey D. Buggs, didn’t reply to The Each day Beast’s request for remark.
Williams’ troubles started with a Sept. 18 e mail to the Good Info Basis, a left-leaning nonprofit based after the 2020 election to struggle mis- and disinformation.
“You might be hereby ordered by we the individuals below the legal guidelines of the structure to stop and desist all defamation and slander of Maga [sic] Republicans and Donald Trump,” the message learn, in accordance with the criticism. “That is Treason an act of warfare and we’ll deal with you accordingly. You could have until [sic] the tip of the month to print a retraction whistle blow on your self or I’ll shut you down personally.”
The e-mail went on: “Deadly motion can be essential if any bodily detainment is tried once I shut you down. Depart peacefully or your kids will overlook who you might be.”
On Sept. 19, the Good Info Basis’s lawyer forwarded the e-mail, which Williams had allegedly despatched from his private account, to the FBI. Brokers within the Washington Subject Workplace despatched the bureau’s investigative evaluation to the bureau’s Greensboro Resident Company Workplace for follow-up, the criticism states.
On Oct. 3, “a feminine FBI agent… and a male Job Pressure Officer”—that’s, an area cop deputized to help in federal investigations—”tried to interview Williams at his residence,” it explains.
The pair had been in plainclothes and confirmed up in an unmarked automotive, in accordance with the submitting. After they pulled into the driveway, Williams bolted from his entrance porch and ran towards the car.
“Why the fuck are you on my property?” Williams shouted, in accordance with the criticism.
The feminine agent confirmed Williams her credentials, which “immediately made [him] very indignant, and he started yelling that the Division of Justice and the FBI employed a Russian agent to steal the election,” it says.
Williams continued screaming into the window of the automotive, spittle hitting the agent sitting inside, the criticism continues, including that the duty power officer “suggested Williams to cease spitting on” the agent.
“Williams stepped again and continued being irate and hostile,” states the criticism. “Williams referred to as [the agent] a ‘bitch’ a number of occasions and said [the task force officer] ought to arrest [the agent] and have her executed for treason and sedition. Williams said to [the agent], ‘I’m going to take you out.’”
When the 2 warned Williams that he may very well be charged criminally for threatening a federal agent, he allegedly started screaming again and again, “Get the fuck off my property!”
The agent and the duty power officer left with out interviewing Williams in regards to the threatening e mail to the Good Info Basis, in accordance with the criticism.
On Oct. 6, the FBI agent, whose title is redacted within the criticism for her security, a separate submitting reveals, up to date a staffer on the Good Info Basis with information of the aborted meet with Williams a couple of days earlier.
Through the name, the agent “discovered that Williams’s e mail… was in response to a TikTok video made by a social media influencer that was requested by the Good Info Basis to supply anti-Trump rhetoric,” the criticism states. “Within the video, the influencer uncovered that the Good Info Basis was paying influencers to submit movies and requiring them to make use of preestablished speaking factors, one in all which the representatives of the Good Info Basis couldn’t present any factual assist for.”
The staffer informed the agent that the inspiration actually used “an outdoor firm to rent social media influencers to create movies that aligned with their data and beliefs about former President Donald Trump,” the criticism goes on.
They’d acquired “a number of emails” in response to the TikTok video, however Williams’ “was essentially the most egregious,” in accordance with the criticism. (The “influencer” in query seems to be a lawyer who in September claimed he had been supplied $400 by The Good Info Basis for an anti-Trump Instagram submit.)
On Oct. 7, the FBI’s Nationwide Menace Operations Middle acquired a tip from an individual recognized within the criticism solely as “J.Okay.”
“J.Okay. reported that they’d noticed a TikTok video wherein a male topic was threatening to kill FBI brokers,” the criticism says, noting that J.Okay. offered a hyperlink to the offending clip.
Williams had posted the video, titled, “Fuck the FBI,” in response to the bureau’s go to to his dwelling a couple of days earlier, in accordance with the feds. In it, he parroted Trumpian claims in regards to the FBI being “corrupt,” and mentioned “all brokers are thought of to be ‘enemy combatants.’”
“I’m not enjoying with the fucking FBI,” Williams allegedly mentioned within the two-minute-eighteen-second video. “They’ve been placed on fucking discover, should you step again foot on my fucking property, I ain’t gonna sit there and speak to you. I’m going to bust your fucking head open with fucking .308s, man. I’m going to kill each single one in all you, stack you up in your automobiles, and drive you again to headquarters and end the fucking job… They’re completely uncontrolled. Stand as much as em, struggle em, shoot em on sight.”
In a sequence of follow-up movies, Williams boasted of getting “kicked [the FBI] out of the yard,” and detailed his capturing expertise. He additionally held forth on the “new world order, and mentioned he was upset as a result of one in all his TikTok accounts had been suspended.
“I’m able to shoot fucking FBI brokers, CIA brokers, and any federal regulation enforcement agent working for Joe Biden or anyone like [German economist and World Economic Forum founder] Klaus Schwab… Australian police, any of them,” Williams mentioned within the video, in accordance with the feds. “Execute these motherfuckers on sight. In the event that they wanna fucking de-populate, de-populate them.”
Williams went on, complaining that the federal government desires to “take away our weapons,” in addition to individuals’s “skill to speak,” and {that a} “purge” of the citizenry was within the offing. (None of that is true, in accordance with Second Modification consultants.) He threatened to assassinate Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and requested why he wasn’t allowed to show his rifles on TikTok however “they’ll present you a syringe that kills little children of their sleep.” (None of that is true, in accordance with medical consultants.)
He ended the video by exhorting viewers to “Fucking struggle, man. Combat!”
Williams was arrested Friday and detained pending a detention listening to on Nov. 23. If convicted on each counts, he faces greater than a decade in jail.
