A 32-year-old Butler, Pennsylvania, man pleaded guilty Monday to two federal counts of threatening to assault and murder President Donald Trump, other U.S. officials, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, capping a months-long string of online threats that included talk of mass shootings, stockpiling firearms, and what he called "American Revolution 2.0."
Shawn Monper entered his plea after the Department of Justice charged him with threatening federal officials and law enforcement officers with intent to impede or retaliate against them while they carried out their duties. Fox News Digital reported that Monper faces up to 10 years in prison on each count, a fine of up to $250,000, or both. U.S. District Judge W. Scott Hardy scheduled sentencing for August 12, 2026.
The case landed one day after the FBI was tipped off, and it landed hard. Federal agents were notified about a YouTube account on April 8, 2025. By April 9, Monper was in handcuffs at his home in Butler. The speed of the arrest underscores just how seriously investigators treated the threat, given what Butler already means in the context of presidential security.
The FBI traced the threatening posts to a YouTube user identified as "Mr Satan," an account investigators linked to Monper's home in Butler. The threats spanned from January 15 through April 5, 2025, nearly three months of increasingly specific and violent language directed at the president, his allies, and federal law enforcement.
On February 17, Monper posted what reads like a manifesto-in-miniature. In a comment attributed to his account, he wrote:
"Nah, we just need to start killing people, Trump, Elon [Musk], all the heads of agencies Trump appointed, and anyone who stands in the way. Remember, we are the majority, MAGA is a minority of the country, and by the time its time to make the move, they will be weakened, many will be crushed by these policies, and they will want revenge too. American Revolution 2.0."
That post alone named the president, Elon Musk, and every Trump-appointed agency head as targets. But Monper did not stop there.
By March, he was describing an active buildup of weapons. In one post, Monper wrote: "I have been buying 1 gun a month since the election, body armor, and ammo." In another, he stated: "I have bought several guns and been stocking up on ammo since Trump got in office." The FBI investigation found that Monper obtained a firearms permit after Trump's inauguration, the Washington Examiner reported, lending material weight to what might otherwise be dismissed as keyboard bravado.
On April 1, Monper turned his sights explicitly on ICE agents. He wrote: "If I see an armed ICE agent, I will consider it a domestic terrorist, and an active shooter and open fire on them." In other posts, he declared that "ICE are terrorist people, we need to start killing them" and that "eventually im going to do a mass shooting."
These were not vague gripes. They named targets. They described weapons. They laid out a timeline. And they came from a man who, by his own account, was arming himself month by month.
The fact that Monper lived in Butler, Pennsylvania, adds a grim layer of context. On July 13, 2024, Trump was shot in the ear during a campaign rally in that same community. The Secret Service killed the shooter on scene. One audience member died and another was injured in the attack.
Butler is not a large city. It is the kind of place where a presidential assassination attempt becomes part of the town's identity overnight. For a resident of that same town to spend months posting online about assassinating the same president, while buying guns and body armor, is a set of facts that federal investigators could not afford to treat lightly.
The broader pattern of threats against Trump remains a serious concern. In September 2024, Ryan Routh was arrested after he was found armed and lying in wait outside Trump's golf course in West Palm Beach. In February, Routh was sentenced to life in prison plus seven years. Monper's case now joins a growing list of individuals who moved beyond political anger into explicit, documented threats, or worse, against the president. That pattern is something other public officials have faced consequences for fueling, even when their rhetoric stopped short of criminal threats.
Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the joint investigation that brought Monper down. As National Review reported, Bondi said:
"I want to applaud the outstanding and courageous investigative work of the FBI and the Butler Township Police Department, who thankfully identified and apprehended this individual before he could carry out his threats against President Trump's life and the lives of other innocent Americans."
The Butler Township Police Department worked alongside the FBI in the investigation. That kind of federal-local cooperation is exactly what threat cases demand, especially when a suspect is actively acquiring weapons and describing specific scenarios for using them against law enforcement officers and elected officials.
Monper's guilty plea removes any ambiguity about whether these posts were protected speech or idle talk. He admitted in federal court that his statements constituted criminal threats. The question now is whether the sentence will match the severity of the conduct, months of escalating threats against the president, named officials, and ICE agents, accompanied by a documented weapons buildup.
Monper's threats against ICE agents deserve particular attention. At a time when immigration enforcement has become one of the most politically charged functions of the federal government, the men and women carrying out lawful removal operations face not only legal obstruction from some state and local governments but now explicit threats of lethal violence from individuals like Monper.
Calling ICE agents "terrorist people" and declaring an intent to shoot them on sight is not political dissent. It is a federal crime, and Monper has now admitted as much. The agents he threatened are public servants enforcing laws passed by Congress. They deserve the same protection any law enforcement officer expects when doing a dangerous job. The broader legal and political battles surrounding the Trump administration's enforcement priorities, including questions about investigations and legal exposure for officials carrying out administration policy, make this kind of threat environment all the more dangerous.
The rhetoric Monper used, framing federal agents as terrorists, calling for revolutionary violence, describing MAGA supporters as a "minority" to be overwhelmed, echoes a strain of political extremism that treats lawful governance as illegitimate and violence as justified resistance. That framing has consequences. It has now produced a guilty plea in federal court.
Several questions remain open. The DOJ has not disclosed whether Monper entered a plea agreement or what its terms might be. The specific federal statutes under which he was charged have not been publicly identified in available reporting. And while Monper described buying multiple firearms and body armor, it is unclear how many weapons were recovered or what investigators found at his home beyond the firearms permit.
Sentencing is more than a year away. Judge Hardy will have the full scope of Monper's conduct before him when he decides the penalty. The maximum, 10 years per count, would send a clear message. Whether the court imposes it remains to be seen. The ongoing political tensions surrounding Trump, including intra-party disputes over loyalty and accountability, guarantee that cases like Monper's will continue to draw intense public interest.
The case also raises a harder question about the political climate. Monper did not act in a vacuum. He absorbed a narrative, that federal officials are terrorists, that the current administration is illegitimate, that violence is a reasonable response to policy disagreements, and he ran with it. He ran with it all the way to a federal courtroom. The broader culture that Congress and the courts continue to grapple with in other high-profile matters makes accountability in cases like this all the more important.
When a man spends three months threatening to assassinate the president and shoot federal agents, and backs it up by buying guns every month, the system has to work. This time, it did. The FBI moved fast, local police helped, and a guilty plea followed. The real test comes at sentencing.