April 15, 2019

This Trump Official Mocked Rep. Omar’s Death Threats on Instagram. It Led to More Death Threats.

Nancy Pelosi has requested more security for Omar.

Lynne PattonKathy Willens/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Over the weekend, Lynne Patton, a regional administrator at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the highest-ranking black woman in the Trump administration, used her personal social media account and added to the torrent of death threats that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), the first Muslim woman elected to Congress, has been receiving in recent days.

Rep. Omar has faced threats from right-wing extremists and keyboard warriors since she began her tenure as a congresswoman representing the Minneapolis area. After tweeting criticism about AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group, Rep. Omar was flooded with accusations of anti-Semitism. But the attacks escalated last week when President Donald Trump tweeted an out-of-context video of Rep. Omar’s remarks at a recent Muslim civil rights event. The video made it appear that she was belittling the September 11 terrorist attacks. 

After the president tweeted,* Patton, who claims that she too has received death threats, posted a text image on Saturday on her personal Instagram account, mocking Rep. Omar for having complained about the deluge of death threats she has received.

In response, a few of Patton’s 84,000 followers took the opportunity to comment and some added death threats of their own. One Instagram user said he was surprised that no one had killed the congresswoman yet.

Another user said someone should “just do it” rather than just threatening Rep. Omar. 
Another user, aptly named “fathead_mike,” said he had no problem with someone killing her. 
After HUD Secretary Ben Carson appointed Patton to a high-profile position, questions were raised about her qualifications for the job. No such questions arise about her expertise in social media, where her active presence indicates she was likely not unaware of the fact that that posting memes about Rep. Omar could inspire a violent and racist reaction from some of her fans and followers. 

Late on Sunday night, Rep. Omar said in a statement that since Trump’s tweet about her, she’s seen an increase in the threats against her life. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has requested increased security for Omar and her family. Nonetheless, one of the most prominent black officials in the Trump administration appears to think it’s not that big a deal. 

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the president took the tweet down. He did not.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate