The Volokh Conspiracy

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Crime

Just goes to show you never can tell

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A Jewish community center and day school in Davie, Fla., after people were evacuated due to a threat. (Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press)

Seriously, it does, and a good reminder (to people left, right, and otherwise) to always be hesitant to speculate about motivations behind high-profile attacks (and especially high-profile threats). From a Post article by Mark Berman and Matt Zapotosky:

The FBI on Friday arrested a former journalist and said he was behind at least some [but not all] recent bomb threats against Jewish institutions across the country, describing them as part of the man's campaign to harass a woman. . . .

[A] little over a year before his arrest, [Juan Thompson] was fired from the Intercept, an investigative journalism website, for fabricating quotes and misleading colleagues to cover his tracks. . . .

[Thompson] was charged with cyberstalking and accused of communicating at least eight threats to Jewish Community Centers, which an FBI complaint said were "part of a sustained campaign to harass and intimidate" a woman with whom he had been romantically involved. . . .

The criminal complaint filed in federal court points to his Twitter page, where he rails about an ex-girlfriend he describes as a "nasty/racist #whitegirl." Thompson's page also expresses disdain for President Trump and white people generally. "White folk are trash," he wrote in a tweet about the Oscars.

You can see the criminal complaint (marked "sealed," but apparently now unsealed) here.