A man from Billings, Montana, was found guilty Wednesday of levying a threat against former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy amid his fury over a Chinese balloon that floated over US airspace last year.
Richard Rogers, 45, had made over 100 calls to McCarthy’s office during a span of 75 minutes on Feb. 3, 2023, including messages in which he threatened to assault the speaker, prosecutors alleged.
The 12-member jury found Rogers guilty of threatening to harm a congressman, which entails a maximum of six years behind bars and $250,000, and on two counts of harassment, which includes up to two years of prison time and a $250,000 fine.
Rogers’ chilling calls to McCarthy’s office came just a day after the Harris-Biden Pentagon confirmed it was tracking what some alleged was a high-altitude spy device that floated over sensitive military installations. The Pentagon acknowledged the balloon after civilians spotted it.
In addition to the calls to McCarthy’s office, which were riddled with obscene comments, Rogers also allegedly made some 150 calls to an FBI tip line between 2021 and 2022, according to prosecutors.
The two counts of harassment also pertain to those calls to the FBI.
Rogers’ trial took place over the course of three days and he defended the calls, characterizing it as “civil disobedience.”
In some of the calls to the former House speaker’s office, Rogers demanded inquiries into allegations he made of conspiracies between President Biden and the FBI, per court documents.
Prosecutors played some of the calls for the jury to hear, including ones in which Rogers had a hair-trigger temper and would fly into a spit of rage, hurling vulgarities on the phone.
“You can’t talk to people that way. It’s common sense,” Assistant US Attorney Thomas Godfrey argued.
“He’s calling not out of political protest — he’s calling because he gets enjoyment out of it.”
Ironically, Rogers previously worked as a customer service representative. Rogers claimed to have been in Washington, DC, during the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
In court, he argued that he restrained himself on the phone.
“They were disrespectful to me, so I was disrespectful to them,” Rogers argued.
Sentencing is slated to take place on Jan. 31.
McCarthy was ousted from the speakership on Oct. 3, 2023, amid a mutiny led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) after the California Republican averted a government shutdown.
On Feb. 4, 2023, US fighter jets shot down the balloon off the Carolina coast. China has denied it was a spy balloon and that it merely went off course.
Pentagon officials claimed that the balloon was equipped with “intelligence collection capabilities,” but later concluded that “it did not collect” during its time over American airspace.
