Missouri man pleads guilty to threatening Rep. Cleaver after Jan. 6 Capitol attack

A 63-year-old southwest Missouri man pleaded guilty Thursday to threatening to assault U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and another member of Congress, according to court documents.

Kenneth R. Hubert of Marionville pleaded guilty in federal court in Springfield to two counts of threatening to assault a United States Official.

The threats aimed at Cleaver came the day after a violent mob breached the U.S. Capitol with the intent to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Hubert did not participate in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In his signed plea agreement, Hurbert admitted that he left a voicemail at Cleaver’s office in Independence on Jan. 7 in which he called the representative a racial slur and said Cleaver was “dumb as a rock.”

“How about a noose around his neck?” Hurbert admitted in the plea agreement to saying.

When FBI agents contacted him on Jan. 19, Hurbert said he left the voicemail because he was upset about a statement Cleaver had made in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Hubert also admitted that on May 6, 2019 he called the Washington D.C. office of Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee and told a staff member that “he has a noose with the Congressman’s name on it” and planned to “put a noose around his neck and drag him behind his pickup truck.”

Three days later, when contacted by the FBI, Hubert said he made the call because he was offended by a comment Cohen previously made about then-President Donald Trump.

In the plea agreement, Hubert admits that he threatened the two congressmen and that the threats were done with the intent to retaliate against them on account of the performance of their official duties. Hubert further admitted that the threats were true threats.

At a detention hearing in March, it was revealed that while Hubert had no criminal convictions on his record, he has shown “criminal-like conduct” dating back to 2014, when he left derogatory voicemails with a federal judge in Montana.

In 2016, Hurbert was investigated for calls he made to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in St. Louis, according to prosecutors.

“Pack up your tents and go back to your f------ Arab country, that’s if you want to stay alive,” Hubert allegedly told the civil rights and advocacy group.

When he was questioned about his voicemail to Cleaver, Hubert allegedly told FBI agents he was also previously investigated by the U.S. Secret Service for saying President Barack Obama “needed to be hanged from a light post.”