In a 2018 anonymous email to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Bay Area man wrote that "the resistance is coming to DC to slash your throat," according to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle.
After some back and forth, it was decided on Monday by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Howard Weiss could be charged with making a criminal threat, when previously it was ruled that he had not made any direct threats, the paper reported.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Breyer of San Francisco dismissed the case last year, citing the email as well as other communications Weiss sent to McConnell as not directly threatening, despite being "vile and repugnant," the paper reported.
However, on Monday it was decided it could be reasonably argued that Weiss was threatening McConnell.
"The district court erred in dismissing the indictment," said the ruling submitted on Monday. "It is 'not clear' enough whether Weiss' October 2, 2018 message was a true threat to be resolvable 'as a matter of law.'"
And therefore the matter should be put before a jury in order to adequately come to a decision, the ruling stated.
"While several aspects of Weiss' message appear politically motivated and reference a third party, the 'Resistance,' as carrying out the threatened violence against Senator McConnell, there are several factors on which a trier of fact could rely to find that Weiss’s statement was a true threat," the ruling said.
These factors include Weiss' likely intent to "engender violence" as well as his targeted sending to McConnell instead of publishing publicly, among others, according to the ruling.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not respond to KCBS Radio's request for comment at the time of publication.
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