President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House after a shooting incident outside the ballroom at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, Saturday, April 25, 2026 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana).
A Pennsylvania man who threatened to kill Donald Trump as the president prepared to be inaugurated for the second time will not be sent to prison.
Jacob Buckley, 23, has been ordered by Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann, of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, to serve one year of probation and pay a $500 fine. The sentence came after he pleaded guilty last summer to making threats against the president-elect.
On Jan. 16, 2025, as Trump was days from returning to the Oval Office, Buckley commented on a TikTok livestream, "I hate MAGA republicans bro on god I'll kill all of them," according to court records. In another post, he wrote, "I'm going to kill Trump."
The same day, the defendant posted, "Bro we going into a literal oligarchy in 4 days and im going to kill Trump." He used a TikTok profile bearing his name.
Buckley appeared repentant at his sentencing hearing, telling Brann that "there is no excuse" for what he did and "I wish I could take it back," PennLive reported. The judge pointed out that Buckley had no prior criminal record and said there was no evidence he would actually try to carry out the threats.
Prosecutors sought a one-year prison sentence for Buckley. Instead, he will be on probation and must take part in a mental health treatment program and take the medications prescribed to him.
Other defendants in Trump threat cases have not gotten off as easily. A 32-year-old man in Florida who vowed to carry out the "greatest" and "most daring Presidential assassination" in history was sentenced in February to serve more than two years in a federal correctional facility.
That same month, a 49-year-old woman in Hawaii was ordered to serve seven months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for saying she would "blow up the White House and kill the president" because she could "legally get away with it."