Secret Service Visits Seattle Activist Amid Political Feud

SEATTLE, WA — The ongoing feud between progressive Seattle activists and the conservative Safe Seattle Facebook community jumped off the internet and into real life this week.

According to Matt "Spek" Watson, the Secret Service visited his home on Monday to talk about a Facebook post he made referencing President Donald Trump. Watson believes a member of the conservative group Safe Seattle may have called the authorities as retribution.

Watson is one of the most prominent online critics of Safe Seattle and the group's affiliated City Council candidates, especially District 2 candidate Ari Hoffman. In response, Safe Seattle often posts screenshots of social media posts made by Watson and others — including immigration activist Alycia Ramirez, journalist Erica C. Barnett, and Civic Ventures senior fellow David Goldstein — as evidence of extremism on Seattle's left.

Those Safe Seattle posts often have repercussions, like online threats, but federal law enforcement action is entirely new. In a tweet on Monday, Goldstein compared it to "swatting," which is when someone calls police as a prank or to get revenge — sometimes with fatal consequences.

On June 11, Safe Seattle published a screenshot of a 2017 Facebook post Watson made that read, "Our president deserves to have his family watch him meet a firing squad." The post was aimed at The Stranger, which quoted Watson in an article about Hoffman.

"A man who makes implied threats against the President of the United States. That's who The Stranger quoted as an authority in a story on Hoffman, under a headline that read: 'Do not vote for Ari Hoffman 'under any circumstances,'" the Safe Seattle post read.

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David Preston, Safe Seattle's main administrator, said he didn't call the Secret Service. But he would not say if one of the group members did.

"The anonymity of my readers is sacrosanct. Whatever they tell me, whatever I know about what they do, is between them and me. If you don't get that, you're in the wrong business," Preston told Patch in a Facebook message exchange.

There were several Safe Seattle members who did suggest calling the Secret Service, however.

"I honestly consider this a threat against the president," a woman named Cleo Subido wrote in a comment on the June 11 post.

"Call the Secret Service," Jim Erickson responded to Subido.

Further down the thread, more comments suggested calling authorities.

"At the very least, the Secret Service should be called on this threat," Nanette Lescher wrote.

Safe Seattle bills itself as a group that promotes "safety solutions for all Seattleites." But the group's Facebook page is often filled with imagery maligning Seattle's homeless population. In March, the group was key in spreading a false story about a beheading murder at a North Beacon Hill homeless camp.

Officially, the Secret Service would neither confirm nor deny they visited Watson's home.

"The Secret Service does not confirm or comment on the absence or existence of specific investigations. The Secret Service can say that it investigates all threats against the President and or any of our protectees," spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie wrote in an email.

Hoffman also denied making the call. Last week, the Middle East Media Research Institute found anti-Semitic posts made on the extremist site 8chan threatening Hoffman. The FBI and Seattle police are monitoring the situation.

"I don’t know anything about it and I have not been in touch with the secret service over the course of the campaign, nor would I have any reason to be. I think you might want to stop twitter sourcing your reporting especially from someone like Spek who has a history of manipulating videos, recordings, statements, and creating lies out of half-truths and outright falsehoods," Hoffman wrote in an email about the Secret Service visit.

Watson said that he was home with his two young children on Monday when the Secret Service agents knocked on his door. Watson said he showed the agents the Safe Seattle Facebook posts, and then the agents took his identification information and left. He said the experience left him shaken.

"[T]he lengths Safe Seattle and their members like Ari Hoffman will go to weaponize law enforcement to stifle political speech is terrifying, and is hands down the biggest reason none of them should ever be allowed anywhere near elected office," Watson wrote on Twitter Monday.