Overkill? Jamie Bonkiewicz Nebraska activist gets secret service visit after trolling White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt on X. Visit leads to questions of freedom of speech and whether the Trump administration is merely checking for security of its employees or attempting to stifle free speech that it doesn’t like?
An activist has shared video of the moment the Secret Service turned up at her door after she posted a cryptic post about White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.
Nebraska native Jamie Bonkiewicz was questioned by agents on her front porch over what federal authorities deemed to be a potentially threatening post shared on X about Donald Trump‘s press secretary earlier this week.
Veiled threat or provocateur? Or freedom of speech?
‘When Karoline Leavitt gets what she deserves, I hope it’s televised,’ Bonkiewicz wrote on Thursday.
A clever play on words? Or nasty and incendiary? Or just sly and bemusing? Or even sinister and threatening? Or none of the above?
Less than 24 hours after sharing her post on X, the midwest woman was visited by two Secret Service agents who had arrived to ‘quiz’ her about the meaning of her post. Specifically if the post had been a ‘veiled threat’?
Or could one wonder out aloud on the flip, was the Secret Service’s visit its own veiled threat to a US citizen for merely expressing her point of view?
While questioning (interrogating ?) Bonkiewicz about her political affiliations, the Nebraska woman explained that she wanted to see the Trump administration, including Leavitt, be placed on trial for alleged crimes against US citizens.
Posted Bonkiewicz on January 17th alongside video of Friday’s ‘interaction’ with secret service agents, ‘The Secret Service came to my door today because of a tweet. No threats. No violence. Just words. That’s where we are now.’
Social media responds to secret service visit to activist’s house
The post has since received 4.5 million views,
‘If they can come intimidate you over non-threatening X posts where are we heading?’ one person wrote as they re-shared Bonkiewicz’s video.
Responded another, ‘You threatened the life of Press Secretary Leavitt. You know what you did. You should apologize for inciting violence. Instead, you’re defending your vile words. Shame on you.’
Stated another, ‘It’s good to see law enforcement paying visits to these people. ‘
Bonkiewicz who presumably falls under the ambit of a left wing provocateur, agitator previously shared a photograph of herself wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Is he dead yet?’, in an apparent reference to Donald Trump, who survived an assassination attempt in July 2024.
The video, which was filmed by a man at Bonkiewicz’s side during the interaction, starts in the middle of the conversation between her and the unidentified agent.
‘You don’t want to perceive any ill will towards these people, other than what you’re saying?’ the agent can be heard asking, in relation to the Leavitt post.
‘Yeah, I want to see her trial,’ Bonkiwicz replied. The agent asked whether she goes to ‘any demonstrations or anything like that’, only to refuse to answer.
Define freedom of speech? Define political activism?
The agent said he was ‘just curious’, then moved on to ask whether she had ‘any weapons in the house’, to which Bonkiwicz said ‘no’.
Part way through the interaction, the man filming interjects to ask what the Secret Service considers to be ‘crossing the line on social media’.
‘That’s a very good question,’ the agent replied.
‘Technically, I believe in freedom of speech, everybody has that.
‘Crossing the line is when you issue a direct threat, like “I will go kill the president”… statements like that.’
‘Something like this, a veiled threat,’ he added, referring to Bonkiewicz’s X post.
‘Is it a threatening nature? Now that I know that you didn’t mean anything by it, it’s basically a non-issue, so it’ll basically end here. I’ll go back, and write up a report.’
‘I never said anything about killing anybody,’ Bonkiwicz said.
The federal agent then checked again what her intention was with the Leavitt tweet, and she replied: ‘The trials, the Nuremburg trials.
‘When all of this s*** it over, I want to see all of them (the Trump administration) go to trial, and I want it to be televised, so I can watch it.’
The Nuremberg trials were the international criminal hearings for Nazis accused of committing atrocities against their citizens while conspiring to invade several European countries in the 1930s and 1940s.
The episode comes amid the backdrop of Bonkiewicz, a vocal opponent of the Trump administration, often sharing posts criticizing Donald Trump and his inner circle on her social media accounts.
She is pictured on Facebook wearing t-shirts reading ‘F*** Pete Ricketts’ – the Republican Senator for Nebraska – and posing with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
In 2023, she streamed state debates on abortion and transgender health, and in 2024 she spoke at a state Board of Education hearing on sexually explicit books in school libraries.
