Man made death threats after Trump editorials: prosecutors

BOSTON — A California man upset about the Boston Globe’s co-ordinated editorial response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks on the news media was arrested Thursday for threatening to travel to the newspaper’s offices and kill journalists.

Robert Chain called journalists the “enemy of the people,” federal prosecutors said.

Prosecutors say 68-year-old Chain’s threatening phone calls to the Globe’s newsroom started immediately after the Globe led newspapers across the country in a co-ordinated condemnation of Trump’s “dirty war against the free press.”

The day the editorials were published, Chain, of Encino, told a Globe staffer he was going to shoot employees in the head at four o’clock, according to court documents.

That threat prompted a police response and increased security at the newspaper’s offices.

After the editorials ran, authorities say Chain said he would continue threatening the Globe, the New York Times and “other fake news” outlets as long as they continue their “treasonous and seditious acts” in attacking Trump.

Several times, he called Globe employees the “enemy of the people,” a characterization of journalists that Trump has used.

Prosecutors say he was to appear in Los Angeles’ federal court and be transferred to Boston. He’s charged with making threatening communications in interstate commerce, which calls for up to five years in prison.