Remember Kirk Bangstad? The Wisconsin brewery owner who publicly lamented that President Trump wasn’t assassinated at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and then offered “free beer the day the President dies”? Well, the Secret Service came knocking — as they tend to do when you fantasize about dead presidents on social media — and Bangstad responded by doing something so monumentally stupid that even his own lawyers are probably day-drinking right now.
He posted the investigating Secret Service agent’s personal cell phone number on Facebook and told his followers to call the agent and tell him to “stand down.” On video. On purpose. Brilliant legal strategy, Kirk. Really top-shelf stuff.
Let’s walk through the timeline here, because it’s genuinely spectacular. Bangstad — owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company, which we’re guessing doesn’t exactly have a booming customer base among the “people who love America” demographic — went on social media and essentially celebrated the idea of presidential assassination. The Secret Service, whose entire job is protecting the President, naturally reached out. An agent left Bangstad a voicemail. Normal stuff. Routine investigation.
So what does our genius brewer do? He takes the agent’s voicemail, transcribes it, posts the agent’s personal cell phone number to his Facebook page, and rallies his little band of merry resisters to flood the agent’s phone. He literally told people to call a federal law enforcement officer and pressure him to stop investigating.
Watch him do it
Pop quiz: What’s 18 U.S. Code § 119?
That would be the “Protection of Individuals Performing Certain Official Duties” statute — also known as the federal anti-doxxing law for law enforcement. It says that if you publicly release restricted personal information about a federal agent with the intent to threaten, intimidate, or facilitate violence against them, you can enjoy up to five years in a federal prison cell. And brother, posting an agent’s cell number while screaming “tell him to stand down” checks every single box on that form.
Here’s the thing about Kirk Bangstad that makes this whole saga so perfectly representative of modern progressivism. He didn’t just wish a president dead and get investigated for it. He got investigated for it and then escalated. He went from “I hope the President dies” to “here’s the personal phone number of the federal agent looking into me — go get him.” That’s not bravery. That’s a man so pickled in his own self-righteousness that he genuinely believes the rules don’t apply to him.
(Sound familiar? It’s basically the operating philosophy of the entire Democratic Party.)
And the video — oh, the video is something else. Bangstad sits there, smug as a cat in a cream factory, reading off a federal agent’s private information to the internet like he’s hosting a podcast. He doesn’t even seem to understand what he’s doing. In his mind, he’s the hero. He’s “standing up to tyranny.” In reality, he’s committing a federal crime on camera and uploading the evidence himself.
We’ve seen a lot of Trump Derangement Syndrome over the years. We’ve seen the screaming. We’ve seen the pussy hats. We’ve seen people literally shaking on TikTok because the wrong guy won an election. But doxxing Secret Service agents because they had the audacity to investigate your assassination fantasies? That’s a new level. That’s the boss fight of TDS.
The Secret Service doesn’t mess around with this stuff. These are the people who protect the President, the Vice President, former presidents, and their families. When you publicly target one of their agents and sic your followers on them, you’re not “resisting” — you’re painting a target on a federal officer’s back. And the feds take a very dim view of that, regardless of how many craft IPAs you’ve brewed.
What makes this even more satisfying is that Bangstad reportedly sent his supporters a panicked email before all this, saying the FBI and Secret Service were coming to talk to him. So he knew the walls were closing in. He had every opportunity to do what any sane person would do — call a lawyer, shut up, and cooperate. Instead, he chose violence. Well, he chose to incite other people to harass a federal agent, which the law treats in a remarkably similar fashion.
So let’s tally up Kirk Bangstad’s current legal exposure, shall we? Publicly wishing for the assassination of a sitting president — that’s already on the Secret Service’s radar. Doxxing a federal agent — that’s a potential five-year felony. Soliciting harassment of a law enforcement officer — tack on some more. Doing all of this on video and uploading it to social media — well, that’s just the cherry on top of the prosecution’s easiest case of the year.
Maybe next time, Kirk, just brew the beer and keep the assassination fantasies to yourself. Though at this rate, his next batch might be brewed in a federal commissary.