Federal authorities are trying to determine who has been anonymously ordering pizzas that are sent to the homes of U.S. lawmakers across the country and to the homes of those who help protect those lawmakers.
The mysterious deliveries have authorities worried that they could be intended to send a menacing message, according to congressional sources and others familiar with the matter.
Both Democrats and Republicans in the House have received the unsolicited pizza deliveries, according to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office. Pizzas also were sent to current and former leadership of the U.S. Capitol Police, sources said.
“These recent pizza deliveries are troubling and yet again, bring to light the heightened threat landscape we are living in,” the Capitol Police said in a statement to ABC News. “Violence and threats, of any kind, targeted at elected officials will not be tolerated.”
Police United States Capitol car in Washington D.C., July 8, 2024.
Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The Capitol Police said they are “working with our federal, state, and local partners to address the matter.”
Though many of the pizza deliveries arrived this past weekend, as Minnesota authorities were racing to find the man who allegedly shot two state Democratic lawmakers, the deliveries began before the Minnesota attack, a congressional source said.
The Minnesota shooting spree left one of the lawmakers and her husband dead. The alleged gunman, Vance Luther Boelter, was captured on Sunday, and federal authorities said he named even more potential targets in writings they say they found, including more than 45 federal and state Democrats from Minnesota.
“It’s only the most recent example of violent political extremism in this country, and that’s a trend that’s been increasing in recent years,” the acting U.S. attorney in Minnesota, Joe Thompson, said Monday in announcing federal charges against Boelter.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson.
U.S. Attorney’s Office
As described to ABC News by the congressional source, the recent pizza deliveries are just another potential source of worry.
“People are really scared,” the congressional source said.
Concerns about the pizza deliveries were raised on calls Tuesday with congressional officials and House Sergeant at Arms William McFarland, a congressional source said.
Acting House Sergeant-at-Arms William McFarland testifies during the House Administration Committee hearing titled “Looking Ahead Series: House Sergeant at Arms Strategic Plan for the 118th Congress,” April 18, 2023.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
The U.S. Capitol Police declined to provide ABC News with more details about the deliveries, citing an effort to “protect ongoing investigations and to minimize the risk of copycats.”
On Monday, ahead of another briefing to discuss security measures for lawmakers, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., released a video praising the U.S. Capitol Police and the Senate sergeant at arms for “bending over backwards during very trying times and … doing an excellent job.”
Law enforcement officials told ABC News that many public officials have been anonymously sent pizzas in recent years and that the deliveries are thought to be intended to send a potentially threatening message: letting recipients know that the sender knows where they live.
Federal Judge Esther Salas, whose son, Daniel Anderl, was murdered at her home in 2020 by a man posing as a delivery driver, recently told ABC News Prime’s Linsey Davis that “hundreds of pizzas are being delivered to the personal homes of judges throughout the country.”
“We had heard about pizzas being delivered to judges’ houses, and that says what? ‘I know where you live,’” Salas said, adding that recent pizza deliveries were sent to the homes of other judges, and used the name of her murdered son as the sender.
