Gosar should expect visit from Secret Service over anime threatening AOC and Biden, ex-prosecutor says

Protection unit frequently investigates those who post videos or photos depicting violence against president

A CNN legal analyst speculated on Tuesday that Rep Paul Gosar could find himself visited by the Secret Service over a video he posted to his official congressional Twitter feed.

Mr Gosar turned heads on Monday after his account tweeted a video depicting him as a character from the anime Attack On Titan delivering a fatal blow to a monster edited with the face of Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; the character is also seen battling a creature with the face of President Joe Biden.

In one scene, the Gosar-character strikes the AOC-creature with a sword in the back of the head, causing blood to erupt.

Elie Hoenig, CNN’s senior legal analyst, told New Day hosts John Berman and Brianna Keilar that the video posted by the Arizona congressman was “unbelievably dangerous”.

"Gosar will get a visit from the Secret Service, no question about that,” said Mr Hoenig, a former federal prosecutor who worked on organised crime cases with the Southern District of New York.

He then added that the House should vote to expel Mr Gosar from the chamber, a rarely-used move that the body did not take even when another GOP member, Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, was found to have supported calls for violence against Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the past.

“The US Constitution, Article One, gives the House of Representatives and the Senate power to expel its own members by a two-thirds vote ... that is very, very rarely done,” Mr Hoenig said, adding: "But you have to ask, if not now when?

"What person at what company in the United States, public or private, would not get fired for doing something like that? Congress has that constitutional power. We'll see whether there's any will to exercise it,” Mr Hoenig said.

Mr Gosar’s team defended the video in an emailed statement to The Independent on Monday, claiming that violence was not glorified in the video.

“We made an anime video. Everyone needs to relax. The left doesn’t get meme culture. They have no joy. They are not the future. It’s a cartoon. Gosar can’t fly and he does not own any light sabers,” said the spokesperson for Mr Gosar, who added that the video was about “fighting for truth”.

The congressman himself has not commented publicly on the clip beyond a compliment from his personal account, which read: “The creativity of my team is off the hook.”

Ms Ocasio-Cortez commented on the video and joined calls from some of her Democratic colleagues for Mr Gosar to face consequences for posting it on Monday.

“So while I was en route to Glasgow, a creepy member I work with who fundraises for Neo-Nazi groups shared a fantasy video of him killing me. And he’ll face no consequences bc [House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy] cheers him on with excuses. Fun Monday! Well, back to work [because] institutions don’t protect [women of colour],” she tweeted.

So while I was en route to Glasgow, a creepy member I work with who fundraises for Neo-Nazi groups shared a fantasy video of him killing me

And he’ll face no consequences bc @GOPLeader cheers him on with excuses.

Fun Monday! Well, back to work bc institutions don’t protect woc https://t.co/XRnMAKsnNO

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 9, 2021