From Judge Virginia Kendall (N.D. Ill.) in U.S. v. Holmes:

After the Government filed a Criminal Complaint against Holmes on March 13, 2026 , a grand jury returned an Indictment charging Holmes with violating 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) on April 7, 2026. The Indictment alleges that Holmes operated the X account "@MapleStCapital" that displayed an American flag emoji with the statement "END The Fed." The Indictment alleges that Holmes posted on that account several statements against the Jewish community and Israel, including: "The jew will be destroyed and discarded," "From the river to the sea every Jew will die," "You inbred people will all die," and "Die Jew."

On or about March 3, the State of Israel posted a video [on the account "@Israel"] that showed a billboard with the face of Ali Khamenei along with the statement: "The world is a better place without Khamenei." In that post, the State of Israel wrote: "It's a first step towards a better world." Holmes responded to this post from the State of Israel with the following message: "I'm going to shoot up a synagogue." It is that statement that the Government alleges violated 18 U.S.C. § 875(c)….

The Indictment alleges that:

TIMOTHY HOLMES, defendant herein, knowingly transmitted in interstate commerce a communication containing a threat to injure the person of another, namely, a post on X in which he wrote, in response to a post from "@Israel", "I'm going to shoot up a synagogue", and defendant transmitted the communication for the purpose of making a threat, knowing that the communication would be viewed as a threat, and recklessly disregarding a substantial risk that others would regard the communication as a threat….

Holmes asserts that his statement "I'm going to shoot up a synagogue" is not a true threat because it lacks sufficient specificity. Holmes maintains that his post was but a "generalized, albeit offensive, statement directed at an institution or building" that fails to rise to the level of a true threat because "[i]t does not identify a particular individual or group of individuals" and it also does not "specify a location, a time, or any target beyond the generic category of 'a synagogue.'"

This position is not "an argument about the validity of the indictment in light of the First Amendment, but is instead a dispute over the meaning and inferences that can be drawn from the facts." This Court has rejected these types of arguments for over a decade because these issues are improper to decide on a motion to dismiss. Because Holmes' arguments go to the substantive merits of the Government's case—and not to whether the Indictment is sufficient—the Court rejects them.

Holmes' contention that his post is protected political hyperbole fails for the same reasons. Invoking Watts v. United States (1969), Holmes claims that his posts "were responsive to foreign policy events and government statements." The Court understands Holmes' position to be that the First Amendment protects his post as political speech, and thus the Court must dismiss the Indictment because the post does not violate 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). For starters, this position, like many others Holmes raises, tangles and conflates multiple procedural and substantive issues into one incomprehensible ball.

To the extent Holmes' position is that, as facially alleged, the Indictment, even if accepted as true, cannot, as a matter of law, satisfy § 875(c), this argument fails. The Court cannot accept such a premise.

This is not a scenario where the Court could comfortably accept the Government's allegations as true and find that it failed to satisfy Rule 7(c)(1). Holmes is not alleged to have posted some mundane political position such as "Taxes are too high!" Nor did he post an offensive, but generally understandably non-threatening statement such as, "Slow drivers should go to hell!"

He posted: "I'm going to shoot up a synagogue" in response to a post from the State of Israel after posting statements such as: "Die Jew," "You inbred people will all die," "The jew will be destroyed and discarded," and "From the river to the sea every Jew will die." Holmes is free to explain to a jury that his post was mere political commentary; but at this stage of the proceedings, the Court finds that the Government has sufficiently alleged that this statement is a "serious expression[ ] conveying that a speaker means to commit an act of unlawful violence." …

Holmes changes direction by raising three arguments that challenge the Government's position from a statutory standpoint. He first claims that the Indictment must fail because his post "I'm going to shoot up a synagogue" does not satisfy 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) because it "refers to a building or institution, not to 'the person of another,'" "does not identify any individual or individuals," and "does not threaten bodily harm to any specific person." In substance, these arguments challenge whether Holmes' statement is a true threat and are again rejected for the reasons above. Holmes' next position—that the Government failed to allege sufficient mens rea—is duplicative and rejected for the reasons above….

In his fourth and final argument, Holmes presents two constitutional challenges. Holmes begins by claiming that the Government's prosecution of him is an impermissible content-based restriction on political speech. The exact direction of Holmes' argument is ill-defined, but the general thrust is that the Government violated 34 U.S.C. § 30506 and the Constitution. To be sure § 30506(4) states that "[n]othing in this division shall be construed to allow prosecution based solely upon an individual's expression of racial, religious, political, or other beliefs[.]" This language, however, must be read with its purpose: to establish interpretive safeguards for the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and its amendments.

Holmes offers no authority that the Government's prosecution of someone under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) for threatening to shoot up a synagogue runs afoul of 18 U.S.C. § 249 or 34 U.S.C. § 30506. Indeed, § 30506 expressly confines its applicability to "this division" of the code which referred to Division E of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, which is where the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, 18 U.S.C. § 249, was enacted. Simply put, 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) is not part of the equation.

At any rate, the face of the Indictment lends no support for Holmes' position: the Government charged Holmes under § 875(c) for making a threat in interstate commerce; no reasonable inference can be drawn that the Indictment seeks to suppress political speech. Holmes is again free to present his legal theories to the jury, including his position that posts concerning killing jews is protected political speech.

Holmes' final argument is that the Indictment violates the Due Process Clause because "[a]pplying § 875(c) to prosecute the posting of publicly available information and ambiguous statements about travel—where the defendant's actual conduct was entirely lawful and disclosed to law enforcement—creates intolerable ambiguity." This position fundamentally misunderstands the Indictment and again disregards what the grand jury has charged Holmes with. Holmes is not charged with violating § 875(c) for posting things about travel or going to Florida. The grand jury charged him with violating § 875(c) because he replied to a post from the State of Isreal by stating: "I'm going to shoot up a synagogue." The Court already explained that Holmes is free to challenge any evidence concerning traveling to Florida should the Government seek to rely on it.

For cases allowing threats prosecutions over similarly general threats to kill Jews, "Zionists," "MAGA," "blacks," and "Christian[s]," see General Threats to Kill Jews and "Zionists" Can Be Punished and "See MAGA, Shoot MAGA" in TikTok Video Was Criminally Punishable Threat.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Quinn Ford represents the government.