Republican representative Lauren Boebert was reported to the FBI on Sunday after she posted what some users deemed to be an incendiary message on Twitter.
“We need to terminate this presidency,” she wrote, adding: “End quote. Repeat the line.”
She was mocking president Joe Biden, who mistakenly said “presidency” instead of “pregnancy” last week when referring to abortion rights.
“Ten years old and she was forced to travel out of the state to Indiana to seek to terminate the presidency and maybe save her life,” the president said on 8 July, referring to the case of a child who was allegedly forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion.
He said this while announcing that he has signed an executive order directing federal agencies to undertake a number of initiatives to protect women’s right to access reproductive healthcare in the United States, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the landmark abortion rights ruling Roe v Wade.
The order enables individual US states to make their own decisions on reproductive healthcare.
Soon after the president’s slip of the tongue, Ms Boebert said on Twitter that the presidency must be “terminated”. Social media users reported the tweet to the FBI, the Secret Service and the Justice Department.
One user, who tagged both the FBI and the Secret Service, wrote: “This person continues to threaten the life of the president after taking action on Jan 6 to overthrow a valid election and government... Please take action.”
Another user said: “Calling to have the President of the United States Terminated [sic] seems very dangerous!”
One user called Ms Boebert a “white supremacist terrorist” and said she is “threatening the president”.
“Hey @fbi @January6thCmte @DOJPH you might want to interview this person, sounds like a threat to me,” wrote another.
Yet another commented: “Well, that sure sounds like a threat against the legitimately elected President of the United States, Squeaky,” adding: “Lock her up, @FBI. End quote. Repeat the line with the rest of the Sedition Caucus #LouderThanMAGA”.
This is not the only controversial remark Ms Boebert has made recently.
She was widely criticised after she said that she prays for president Joe Biden’s demise at an event on 11 June.
“I do want you to know that I pray for our President. Psalm 109:8 says, ‘May his days be few and another take his office.’ Hallelujah! Glory to God,” she had said.
Former Democratic congressional candidate Russell Foster had slammed her for the remarks. “So Lauren Boebert is praying for the death of President Biden at a church camp in front of the campers,” he tweeted. “How very ‘Christian’. That she gets wooed and applause for it is even viler.”
After Roe v Wade was overturned, she had said: “Leftists, who now make up the genocide squad, want abortion anytime, anywhere, including babies who are already born. But that’s not going to happen.”
Constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz — emeritus professor at Harvard Law School— called her comments about abortion “disgraceful” on Fox News.
“I think, by the way, what Congresswoman Boebert said—calling people on my side of the issue the ‘genocide squad’ and saying that we are prepared for babies already born to be killed — is even more disgraceful than anything that happened to the justice,” he said.
“And I just want to condemn those remarks in the strongest terms.”
