Dukes Of Hazzard Star Under Secret Service Investigation
Decades after the Dukes of Hazzard show aired its last episode, those Duke boys continue to get in a whole heap of trouble. It’s surviving Duke brother John Schneider who got in hot water over a social media post, and this time, it wasn’t just Boss Hogg who got mad.
John Schneider is now being investigated by the Secret Service after he took to X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) and responded to Joe Biden. There, he wrote that the president is “guilty of treason and should be publicly hung…your son too,” along with a cheeky request for Biden’s response.
The Secret Service probe of John Scheider and his comments is the most definitive response he’ll get from Biden. The TV star could face major consequences: officially, making a credible threat against the president’s life is considered a class D felony by the federal government. At worst, he could face a $25,000 fine and up to five years in jail; other punishments may include certain internet access restrictions, which would be one way to curtail similar social media posts in the future.
Still, John Schneider is not very likely to be convicted of this felony because the law specifically “prohibits knowing and willful threats to kill, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm against” current, past, and future presidents and vice presidents as well as their immediate families. In other words, the law is designed to prevent people from making earnest and credible threats against the president and vice president.
Accordingly, not only has Schneider deleted the original tweet, but he has later clarified that his response to Biden’s criticisms of Donald Trump was not his attempt to actually threaten anyone’s life.
In a statement to Deadline, John Schneider said, “I absolutely did not call for an act of violence or threaten a U.S. president as many other celebrities have done in the past.” He further stated, “Transparency and accountability must happen in order for our constitutional republic to survive.” Ending his statement, the actor definitively wrote, “There is no threat implied or otherwise in that statement.”
It’s not entirely clear how telling the president that he and his son should be publicly hanged is an effective way of calling for transparency and accountability. Still, John Schneider is likely clinging to the rhetorical defense that his original post on X began the alleged threat with “I believe,” meaning that his violent desires were couched as a kind of personal fantasy rather than a credible threat. It doesn’t look like the actor had any intention or any real means of making good on the alleged threat, and that alone means he is unlikely to be charged with anything.
Perhaps the most unintentionally amusing aspect of all of this is that one day before making the offensive post on X, John Schneider finished second on The Masked Singer after the celeb was revealed to be Donut. Correlation doesn’t equal causation, of course, but it’s difficult not to look at Schneider’s social media post as an angry overreaction to his extremely public loss on the popular reality show. He made the angry post only hours after the episode ended, showing the world just how emotional he got that his dancing Donut didn’t receive more acclaim.
Now, with or without the silly costume, it’s fair to say that John Schneider’s mask is off once and for all.
Source: Deadline
