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Jury Acquits Man Accused of Soliciting Trump's Murder on Bluesky
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/jury-acquits-man-accused-of-soliciting-trumps-murder-on-blueskyA jury took about two hours Tuesday to acquit a man accused of soliciting President Donald Trump’s assassination on social media, a setback for the Justice Department office led by Trump’s newly-installed loyalist Lindsey Halligan.
Halligan, flanked by a security detail, attended arguments during both of the trial days, said two people present in the Alexandria, Va., courthouse.
Her team of prosecutors at the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia suffered the loss as they prepare for trials in two other criminal cases with appeal to the president: a mortgage fraud allegation against New York Attorney General Letitia James and a false statements case against former FBI Director James Comey.
Prosecutors tried to establish that Peter Stinson’s Feb. 18 post on Bluesky—"Take the shot” and “We’ll deal with the fallout"—along with dozens of other anti-Trump posts going back several years amounted to evidence that he was inducing others to commit violence. But his defense lawyers argued that Stinson’s comments were protected by the First Amendment and that he never took actual steps to carry out an assassination. Stinson is a former Coast Guard officer, according to prosecutors.
The government pointed to Stinson’s history of incendiary posts on X, formerly Twitter, and Bluesky, including his reaction to the attempted assassination of Trump on the campaign trail in Butler, Pa., last year. One of them read, “Three inches to the right, and the shot woulda gone through the eyeball. Practice. Practice. Practice.”
Halligan, flanked by a security detail, attended arguments during both of the trial days, said two people present in the Alexandria, Va., courthouse.
Her team of prosecutors at the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia suffered the loss as they prepare for trials in two other criminal cases with appeal to the president: a mortgage fraud allegation against New York Attorney General Letitia James and a false statements case against former FBI Director James Comey.
Prosecutors tried to establish that Peter Stinson’s Feb. 18 post on Bluesky—"Take the shot” and “We’ll deal with the fallout"—along with dozens of other anti-Trump posts going back several years amounted to evidence that he was inducing others to commit violence. But his defense lawyers argued that Stinson’s comments were protected by the First Amendment and that he never took actual steps to carry out an assassination. Stinson is a former Coast Guard officer, according to prosecutors.
The government pointed to Stinson’s history of incendiary posts on X, formerly Twitter, and Bluesky, including his reaction to the attempted assassination of Trump on the campaign trail in Butler, Pa., last year. One of them read, “Three inches to the right, and the shot woulda gone through the eyeball. Practice. Practice. Practice.”
Indicted for shit posting on Blue Sky but the jury said nah
— Joshua Holland (@joshuaholland.bsky.social) 2025-10-30T00:58:49.873Z