Jul. 17—WASHINGTON — Just about every time Rep. Dan Newhouse posts on Facebook, the comments start pouring in with the same question from his constituents across central Washington.
“When is your next public meeting??? Would love to ask some questions!” one person wrote under a post celebrating the Grand Coulee Dam’s anniversary on Wednesday.
“In the area yet again and STILL no time for a Town Hall,” another commented after the Republican lawmaker posted photos from an event in Richland on July 10.
“Your time would be better spent holding a town hall meeting,” a constituent wrote under photos from Newhouse’s visit to a Pasco business on March 20. “We need to have you hear us, Dan. Please. We have fears and concerns and YOU, as our Representative, are responsible for hearing us.”
Newhouse is hardly the only Republican in Congress who has avoided large public events since President Donald Trump returned to office in January and began dramatically remaking the federal government with the consent of GOP majorities in the House and Senate, prompting backlash from many of their constituents. But in addition to the advice House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., gave all Republicans on March 4 to skip in-person town halls, Newhouse had another reason to avoid such public events.
Court records reveal that on March 20, the day Newhouse was in Pasco, a man allegedly called his office in Washington, D.C., and told the intern who answered the phone he planned to drive to the congressman’s district office and kill Newhouse and his staff. The court documents refer to Newhouse anonymously as “U.S. Representative 1,” but his spokesman confirmed that Newhouse is the unnamed lawmaker.
“An individual made a real, direct threat against the lives of the Congressman and his district staff which resulted in swift action by federal and local law enforcement,” spokesman Matt Reed said in a statement. “Since the incident, the office has been advised against large, in-person events. The Congressman is eager to hear more from constituents, and staff are working to schedule a telephone town hall very soon with public safety as the top priority.”
Newhouse, a farmer from Sunnyside who served as a state lawmaker and led the Washington State Department of Agriculture before he was first elected to Congress in 2014, has drawn extra scrutiny from both the left and right since he voted in January 2021 to impeach Trump for inciting a riot at the Capitol weeks earlier. Eight of the 10 Republicans who made that choice have since left Congress via retirement or defeat, and Newhouse has survived two tough re-election races with the help of moderate voters and even Democrats who backed him over fellow Republican Jerrod Sessler in 2024.
The threatening phone call described in court documents came not from Newhouse’s 4th Congressional District but from the Seattle suburb of Tukwila, according to a complaint filed in federal court on March 21.
Prosecutors allege that Bradley Whaley of Burlington, in Skagit County, called Newhouse’s D.C. office and asked to speak with the congressman. When an intern answered and said the congressman was in the district, Whaley allegedly asked if Newhouse was in one of his district offices and then said, “I am going to go there and slit (his) throat and slit (his) staff’s throat.”
Whaley allegedly paused for a few seconds and then said, “Yeah, it’s 2 p.m., I still have plenty of time to do that.” When the intern asked for the caller’s name, he first replied with profanity and refused to do so, but then gave his name as “Brad Whaley,” according to the complaint. When the call ended, the intern immediately wrote Whaley’s statements on a form, noting the caller’s phone number and that he spoke with “an aggravated tone” and “a midwestern accent.”
Whaley had allegedly called Newhouse’s D.C. office multiple times from the same number, giving his full name in voicemails and when talking to staffers. Law enforcement investigators obtained phone records that showed a call from the same number that connected to a cell tower in Tukwila at the time of the threat reported by the intern.
According to prosecutors, the same intern had written at least four previous reports on calls received from Whaley, including one in which he threatened to drive to D.C. and attack Newhouse and another unnamed member of Congress. In one expletive-laden voicemail on March 15, Whaley allegedly expressed concern about losing his Social Security benefits and said the Second Amendment to the Constitution gave him the “right to form a militia and take out” Newhouse, then affirmed that he was making a threat.
In another voicemail on March 18, Whaley allegedly said Newhouse shouldn’t be afraid of Trump, “But he needs to be scared of us. We’re in Washington. We will take his ass out.”
On March 21, using location data provided by T-Mobile, law enforcement agents located Whaley and arrested him outside his place of employment in downtown Seattle on suspicion of violating a federal law that prohibits making interstate threats, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison but may also result in only a fine.
Whaley was released on bond on March 24 and his indictment has been postponed until Sept. 15, according to court records.
Whaley’s defense attorney, Chris Black, declined to comment when reached by phone. The lead prosecutor in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachel Yemini, was unavailable for comment, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.
According to a February report by the U.S. Capitol Police, threats against members of Congress, their families and their staffs rose in 2024 to nearly 9,500 cases. That number has more than doubled since 2017, when the agency investigated under 4,000 cases, and peaked at more than 9,600 in 2021.
While political violence isn’t new in the United States, intense division between the parties has raised fears of more widespread attacks on public figures. Trump himself survived two assassination attempts during the 2024 presidential campaign, including when he was shot in the ear at a rally in Pennsylvania in July 2024.
On June 14, Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed by a shooter who seriously injured state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife earlier that night. Hortman and Hoffman, both Democrats, were on a list of dozens of apparent targets of the alleged gunman.
Members of Congress seldom speak publicly about the threats they receive, fearing that any added attention will only worsen the problem, but in March, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina released audio of threatening calls made to his office. Tillis, a Republican who like Newhouse has drawn criticism from both the left and right, announced on June 29 that he wouldn’t run for re-election after Trump threatened to help oust him for opposing the president’s signature tax-and-spending bill for cutting $1 trillion from health care for low-income Americans.
Newhouse has expressed concern about aspects of that bill and separate Republican legislation now under consideration in the Senate that would defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and foreign aid programs, but he ultimately voted for both bills.
Orion Donovan Smith’s work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.