Trump Threatener Tried Hiding In Bathtub: Feds

PROVIDENCE, RI — The Rhode Island man charged with threatening to kill President Donald Trump, as well as Attorney General Pamela Bondi and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, tried hiding from the law in a halfway house bathtub, an FBI agent said.

The feds tracked Carl Montague, 37, down to OpenDoors in Providence, FBI Special Agent Ciara Corbett said in an affidavit filed in federal court. OpenDoors is the "first and the largest organization in the state dedicated to helping people that have been in prison," according to its website.

The FBI launched a probe of Montague after "Trump Media and Technology ... the parent organization of social media platform Truth Social, notified the United States Secret Service" on June 27 of a threatening post directed toward Trump, Bondi and Miller, the affidavit said.

The threat, posted by Truth Social user @tacoustic, said, "It's a shame you won't get to see the end of your fl'***** term, because I'm gonna make sure I put a bullet rate (sic) between your fl'***** head you piece of s***, you Pam Bondi. Stephen fl'***** miller, all you b******, are gonna get a fl'***** bullet to the head every single fl'***** one of you," according to the affidavit.

Agents tracked the IP address for @tacoustic back to OpenDoors and headed over on June 29, but as it was a Sunday, the front office was closed and they could not get inside the building, the affidavit said.

Corbett said she showed a photo of Montague to "several individuals sitting outside the building entrance who stated they recognized the individual as 'Joe's friend' but indicated he had not lived there in a few years."

Agents returned the following day and spoke to the individual they believed to be Montague's friend Joe, who claimed he had not seen Montague "in a few days," the affidavit said, but another OpenDoors resident "insisted Montague was most likely in Joe's apartment at that moment."

"Agents and management returned to the second floor," the affidavit said. "Management entered (Joe's apartment) for an annual apartment check and confirmed that Montague was inside the apartment hiding in the bathtub."

Montague, apparently after emerging from the bathtub, agreed to speak with the FBI and "began confessing to making threats before agents were able to introduce themselves or explained why they were there," the affidavit said.

"Montague stated he was smoking a lot of marijuana when he posted the threat," the affidavit said. "Montague claimed he deleted his Truth Social account after sending the message. Montague was upset with current politics and expressed his frustrations via Truth Social."

Montague was arrested Wednesday morning on charges of threats against the president, interstate threats, and threatening to assault, kidnap, or murder a United States Official, a United States Judge or a federal law enforcement officer.

He appeared in court Wednesday afternoon and was released on an unsecured $10,000 bond, records show.