Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday that federal agents have arrested a man accused of sending a violent death threat through the mail to right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson and his wife, authorities said at a Tampa news conference.
Standing before a podium at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tampa, Florida, Bondi said the suspect, identified by her as 69-year-old George Russell Isbell Jr., was taken into custody in the San Diego area and is federally charged with mailing threatening communications. Bondi called the letter “horrific” and said investigators had worked quickly to trace it through the mail. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the FBI, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Tampa Police Department, and local prosecutors all participated in the probe, she said.
“This was a coward hiding behind a keyboard who thought he could get away with this,” Bondi said. “You are not going to get away with threatening people in this way … We will find you. We will arrest you, we will extradite you, and we will bring you to justice.”
Bondi said prosecutors would not discuss specifics of the letter while the case is pending, but a press release following the conference detailed the suspect wrote that he hoped an “American flag ‘strangles the life out of you,’” and that he would “Love to see [Johnson’s] head explode and your blood stain the concrete.”
U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe of the Middle District of Florida described the investigation as a “textbook” example of interagency coordination. Kehoe said fingerprints taken from the mailed envelope, mailed on or about Sept. 18, were matched to Isbell, and that law enforcement traced the letter’s origin to San Diego before the FBI made the arrest on Oct. 7 in coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in California.
Kehoe said the complaint — which prosecutors have filed in federal court — includes graphic threats calling for the “extermination” of Johnson, describing in violent detail how the author wanted Johnson killed. Kehoe said investigators had attached the threatening communication to the complaint and that the conduct “will simply not be tolerated.”
.@bennyjohnson: “Violence has been mainstreamed by the Democrat Party. It’s not extremist — it is mainstream — and we need a moment of reckoning here.” pic.twitter.com/KRqsKKsbg6
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 10, 2025
Johnson, who attended the news conference, described the emotional toll of the threat and tied it to a broader pattern of politically motivated violence, he said, that has targeted conservative activists and commentators.
“I was a white, cis, Christian Trump supporter,” Johnson said, describing language in the letter that detailed how he would be killed and celebrating the prospect of his children being orphaned. He thanked federal and local law enforcement and the Trump administration for the investigation.
When asked by reporters whether the suspect had access to weapons or the means to carry out the threat, Kehoe and Bondi said the investigation was ongoing and declined to provide further details pending the investigation.
The right-wing podcaster has been subjected to other instances of violence and threats in the past. When Johnson lived in Washington, D.C., in October 2020, a fire was intentionally set in the house next door to him at the time, and security footage showed Johnson’s wife and child being escorted out of their home by the D.C. fire department. Two dogs in the neighboring house died, but no people were injured. Johnson now resides with his family in Tampa.
Johnson claimed that violence has been “mainstreamed by the Democratic Party,” asking, “is any Democrat courageous enough to disavow violence?”
In response to a reporter’s question about whether she agreed with his comments, Bondi said she had just discussed what happened in Minnesota in June when a gunman murdered Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman alongside her husband, Mark, and that she also referenced the antisemitic fire bombing of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) residence in April.
“This was a left-wing radical, absolutely, the same type of person who murdered and assassinated Charlie Kirk,” Bondi said, referring to the defendant charged in that attack, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.
Johnson also lamented the recent death of his friend Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA, who was assassinated last month in Utah during an open debate at Utah Valley University in broad daylight by a gunman armed with a German-made rifle.
The suspect “described in great detail how I would be killed in an open field, just like Charlie, how much blood would come out of my head and neck when it was blown off,” Johnson said, adding that he wants “peace in my nation. I love this country. I want to be able to debate like Charlie did.”
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The charge filed against Isbell is a federal count of mailing threatening communications, prosecutors said. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
The case remains under active investigation. Prosecutors said further details will be released through court records when appropriate and asked anyone with related information to contact the FBI or the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
