U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) has seemingly been caught in a lie about a death threat that never happened, Cleveland.com reported on Monday.
On May 14, Moreno introduced a bill dubbed the “Larry Henderson Act,” which would increase the penalty for assaulting police officers up to 20 years in prison.
“This bill just says, let’s make sure there’s federal jurisdiction whenever a federal law enforcement officer is killed or injured in the line of duty,” Moreno said on the Senate floor.
While objecting the bill, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) challenged Moreno and Senate Republicans on their alleged support for police officers when many of them stood quiet earlier this year when President Donald Trump pardoned over 1,500 Jan. 6 participants, many of whom assaulted Capitol police officers that day.
“I oppose violence against all police officers,” Murphy said on the Senate floor. “So I don’t understand why there seems to be an exemption for the violence that was perpetrated against the officers who protect us [Congress] … If we’re serious about protecting police officers, then we need to protect all police officers.”
Trump has repeatedly insisted that the violent offenders are “patriots” and were being held “hostage” while they completed or awaited criminal sentencing. After Trump issued the sweeping pardons shortly after taking office in January, Moreno was quoted defending the action because the offenders were “in jail for a long time.”
Moreno responded to Murphy’s objection by saying Jan. 6 happened four-and-a-half years ago and that people looking to do harm to lawmakers don’t care which political party they are affiliated with. Moreno’s evidence was that a man drove to his Westlake house last year and knocked on his door, and the senator claimed that he was there to kill him.
Contrary to this claim, reports from the Westlake Police Department suggest the man went to Moreno’s house claiming to have “important information” that required him to meet in person. When he was notified he was trespassing and asked to leave by the police, he did not return. Nothing in the reports indicate the man ever made a threat to Moreno or his family.
The reports were originally published by Cleveland.com on Monday, who obtained a comment from Westlake Police Capt. Gerald Vogel, who said the department also doesn’t have records of anyone else going to Moreno’s house.
“We don’t have any indications that he threatened to kill anybody,” said Vogel. “He wanted to meet with him [Moreno] for some cryptic reasons. He wouldn’t really tell us either.”
Vogel said the man showed up to Moreno’s house and to the Westlake Police Department on multiple occasions looking to get in contact with the then-Senate candidate.
Moreno’s office did not repeat the senator’s false claim that it was a death threat. But it doubled down on his threat claims and accused the publication and its newspaper, The Plain Dealer, of “defending an unhinged psychopath.”
“Leave it to the failing Cleveland Plain Dealer to defend an unhinged psychopath who drove halfway across the state to illegally trespass at Senator Moreno’s home, terrifying his family and refusing to leave until police were called to the scene,” said Reagan McCarthy, Moreno’s communications director. “These third world intimidation tactics on politicians have no place in our society and should be roundly condemned—even by partisan media like the Plain Dealer.”
Moreno also claimed on social media Monday evening that Cleveland.com “sided with the stalker” by publishing the police report.