Acting United States Attorney for Minnesota Joe Thompson just concluded a press conference announcing the indictment of Vance Boelter for the murder of Mark and State Rep. Melissa Hortman, the shooting of Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, and the attempted shooting of the Hoffmans’ daughter Hope. The six-count indictment includes two stalking charge, two murder charges, and two shooting charges.
The indictment concludes with a notice of special findings as to the murder of the Hortmans that authorize the application of the death penalty under 28 U.S.C § 3591(a)(1) & (2) and § 3592(c), though no decision whether to seek it has yet been made. I have posted video of the press conference below. The Department of Justice has posted the related press release here.
In his remarks Joe discusses the letter Boelter wrote to FBI Director Patel confessing to the murders and stating his motive. As Joe says, the letter appears to be designed to make himself out a psycho and create a defense to what he had done. The why — his tracking and targeting of Minnesota Democrats for murder — speaks for itself but remains something of a mystery.
The emailed version of the press release attaches documents including the search warrant affidavit. I have embedded the 36-page affidavit below via Scribd. It reconstructs the sequence of events and includes relevant photos along with stills taken from video footage. Photographs of Boelter’s letter appear at pages 29-30. At page 18 the affidavit also includes a photo of a page from one of Boelter’s notebooks with the statement: “If you want to save the country you have to get hour hands dirty.”
None of the reporters present asked Joe about Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s desire to try the state’s case against Boelter first. Moriarty is George Soros’s sick joke on Minnesota. I will have to see if I can get a comment from Joe on the state case.
I hear Joe speaking as the voice of decent Minnesota in his remarks. As Joe said when he announced the first criminal filing in this case, the murders represent an attack on our political system. This case, he said, is “the stuff of nightmares.” Today he put it this way: “Vance Boelter committed a terrible act of political violence and extremism, a targeted political assassination that was unprecedented in the state of Minnesota.”
25-Mj-455 (DJF) SW Packet_Redacted by Scott Johnson on Scribd