A 29-year-old Chicago man faces federal charges after prosecutors say he sent a string of threats through the official White House website, vowing to shoot President Donald Trump with a "high caliber sniper rifle" and track down his son Barron Trump to attack him with a serrated bread knife.
Michael Kovco was arrested on April 3 and charged with transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, a crime that carries up to five years in federal prison. A newly unsealed criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago details a series of escalating messages that began in mid-March and drew an immediate response from the Secret Service.
Federal prosecutors are now seeking to hold Kovco in custody pending trial. A detention hearing was scheduled for Friday.
Kovco first came to agents' attention on March 17, when he allegedly sent a message through the White House website signed, "Mr. I'm going to [expletive] kill your child Kovco." Two days later, on March 19, Secret Service agents went to his Chicago apartment but did not find him home.
Someone at the residence told agents Kovco was not taking his prescribed medication, was unemployed, and rarely left the apartment, court documents state.
What happened next made things worse. Roughly two hours after agents visited his home, prosecutors say Kovco fired off another message through the same website, this one targeting the very agents who had just knocked on his door. The message read, in part:
"I'm gonna hunt the secret service agent that comes to my door's family so he better not tell me any identifying information at all like first or last name or pet name or address or place of work because im going to buy a small concealable firearm and go shoot up his place of work immediately if he tells me anything."
Kovco allegedly sent five more messages that same day, each one escalating the threats. Prosecutors said the messages included threats to shoot the president with a sniper rifle and to find Barron Trump, described as being "in NYC or DC or wherever", and attack him with a serrated bread knife.
This is not the first time federal authorities have moved swiftly against individuals who threatened the president. The FBI arrested a Massachusetts man after months of Facebook posts threatening to kill Trump, underscoring the volume of threats law enforcement now tracks.
Kovco did not make it difficult for investigators. The messages sent through the White House website included his phone number and email address. The IP address used to transmit them matched the Chicago home he shares with two other adults.
Prosecutors also allege Kovco sent a separate threat on August 18 through the Central Intelligence Agency's public website. The complaint does not detail the content of that message, but its inclusion in the case suggests a pattern of conduct federal authorities deemed serious enough to fold into the charging document.
The charge, transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, is a straightforward federal statute. If convicted, Kovco faces up to five years in prison. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros made clear that the government views these threats as more than online ranting. He said political violence "will be dealt with as the serious federal crime that it is." Secret Service Special Agent-in-Charge Dai Tran added that the agency "aggressively" pursues threats to ensure the safety of those under its protection.
Those words carry weight given the security environment around the Trump family. Just recently, F-16s were scrambled and flares deployed after a civilian plane breached restricted airspace near Mar-a-Lago, a reminder that the threat picture extends well beyond online messages.
The Justice Department press release on the case confirms the charge and the court's jurisdiction. The complaint was unsealed in Chicago, where Kovco resides and where the case will be tried.
What sets this case apart from routine online bluster is the specificity of the threats against Barron Trump. Prosecutors say Kovco did not merely express general hostility. He named the president's son, described a weapon, a serrated bread knife, and referenced potential locations where Barron might be found.
Barron Trump, now a young adult who recently made headlines for launching a beverage company with former high school classmates, has lived much of his life in the public eye. Threats against a president's child are not new in American history, but the directness of these alleged messages, sent through an official government portal, signed with the sender's own name, reflects a brazenness that federal authorities clearly decided could not be ignored.
The case also raises questions about the screening systems on government websites. Kovco allegedly used the White House's own contact portal to deliver his threats, and his first message on March 17 was flagged quickly enough for agents to visit his home within two days. That response time matters. But the fact that he was able to send at least six more messages on March 19, after agents had already identified him, suggests the portal itself did not block further submissions from the same user.
The Secret Service has long dealt with threats against sitting presidents, but the digital age has made it easier for disturbed individuals to transmit explicit, violent messages directly to government channels. The agency's posture, as described by Special Agent-in-Charge Tran, is aggressive pursuit. The question is whether the pace of threats is outrunning the resources available to track them.
Internal discipline within the Secret Service itself has also drawn scrutiny. A Secret Service agent on the Vance detail was recently suspended over an alleged leak, raising separate concerns about the agency's internal integrity even as it faces mounting external threats.
Court documents in the Kovco case paint a picture of a man who was unemployed, rarely left his apartment, and was not taking prescribed medication, details relayed to agents by someone at his residence. None of that excuses the conduct alleged in the complaint. But it does suggest that the intersection of mental health crises and easy digital access to government officials creates a recurring vulnerability that law enforcement must manage case by case.
Kovco's detention hearing will determine whether he remains behind bars while the case proceeds. Prosecutors clearly believe he poses enough of a risk to seek pretrial detention, a signal that the government views the threat as credible, not performative.
When a man can sit in a Chicago apartment and send a signed death threat against a president's teenage son through the White House's own website, the system had better treat it like what it is. Credit to the agents and prosecutors who did.