The Secret Service took two bullets for Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Weeks after walking out of federal prison, Diedrich Holgate sent his probation officer a text demanding Trump pardon him – or he would kill him.
Now Holgate is back behind bars, and what he said next tells you everything about the radical left's war on this president.
Diedrich Holgate Made 30 Threats to Kill the President and the System Released Him Anyway
Diedrich Holgate, 47, wasn't some first-time offender who snapped under pressure.
A Texas court convicted him back in 2018 for leaving threatening voicemails targeting two Travis County judges.
He spent years posting death threats on social media, calling the Secret Service's Washington Field Office directly, and threatening everyone from the First Lady to Supreme Court justices.
In one call to Secret Service, Holgate laid it out plainly: "The president is going to die. I don't care if it is Trump or Biden. I will hang everyone for treason."
That's 30-plus documented threats against the president across multiple years, multiple states, and multiple agencies – and the system still released him in January.
He walked out of a federal halfway house in Portland just weeks after serving his sentence.
Then he started texting his probation officer.
"Trump's gonna fkn pardon me or I'll kill him!!!!" he wrote.
https://twitter.com/allthe_dot_news/status/2036182061476712709?s=20
In another message: "You're with me or You're a traitor & infidel that's taken the Mark of the beast."
His probation officer told the court they believe Holgate has the actual capacity to harm Trump.
Federal Repeat Offenders Who Threaten the President Are Rearrested at Record Rates
This isn't an isolated case of one unstable man making threats.
2024 set the record for federal arrests on presidential threats – 180 in a single year, the highest number in over a decade.
Former Secret Service agents have told Fox News that threats against Trump come in dozens every single day.
And the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that violent offenders re-offend at a rate of nearly 64 percent – meaning almost two out of three walk right back into the same behavior.
Holgate fits that profile precisely.
At his 2025 sentencing, physicians testified he suffered from mental illness and delusional thinking – and at one point during his earlier case he was found not competent to stand trial.
The system certified him for release anyway.
Convicted in July 2025, placed in a halfway house, turned loose on January 21 of this year – and within weeks he was texting death threats to the president from his cell phone.
https://twitter.com/theinquisitr/status/2036060193616724166?s=20
When a man with that history gets released into a Portland halfway house and nobody is surprised when the threats start again, the system isn't broken by accident.
The Federal Halfway House That Released a Convicted Presidential Threat Offender in January
Holgate didn't just violate the terms of his release once.
He failed to report to his probation officer, left the halfway house without authorization, got kicked out for smoking a vape – and on top of all of it, texted death threats to the president directly to the officer assigned to supervise him.
He didn't hide it. He didn't care.
A magistrate judge ruled there was probable cause to hold him, and his next hearing is March 26.
That's the good news.
https://twitter.com/BrandonStraka/status/2035668696975507788?s=20
The bad news is that Holgate had a 2018 conviction, then a 2025 conviction, and was still placed in an unsecured halfway house with a documented history of delusional thinking and 30-plus threats against the commander-in-chief.
The Secret Service is running down dozens of threats every single day – and the federal system just handed them another one by releasing a man who had already proven, twice, exactly what he would do the moment he got out.
Holgate is back in custody.
But the judge who signed off on that halfway house placement is still on the bench, the system that produced this outcome is still intact, and somewhere right now another Diedrich Holgate is walking out of a federal facility toward a cell phone.
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Sources:
- Elaine Mallon, "I'll kill him: Convicted man back in custody after threatening Trump, then demanding pardon," Fox News, March 23, 2026.
- "Former Secret Service agents weigh in on political threats in 2025," Fox News, July 12, 2025.
- "Man accused of threatening to kill the president and didn't care 'if it is Trump or Biden' gets prison term," The Daily Chronicle, July 29, 2025.
- "Recidivism of Federal Violent Offenders Released in 2010," United States Sentencing Commission, February 10, 2022.
- "Threats against public officials persist in year after Trump assassination attempt," The Hill, July 13, 2025.