Trump threat case closes with no prison time as Jacob Buckley, 23, receives one year probation and $500 fine for TikTok posts targeting the president-elect days before inauguration
A 23-year-old Pennsylvania man who posted explicit threats to kill Donald Trump on TikTok just four days before the 2025 presidential inauguration will not serve a single additional day behind bars. In a sentencing decision that drew attention across the country, Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania handed Jacob Buckley of Port Matilda one year of probation and a $500 fine — a markedly lighter outcome than the one-year prison term federal prosecutors had requested.
The case, which began with a federal investigation by the U.S. Secret Service, wound its way through the court system for more than a year before reaching its conclusion this week. Buckley had already been held prior to the proceedings, meaning the probation sentence means his time in custody is over. He will, however, be required to participate in a mental health treatment program and take the medications that have been prescribed to him as conditions of his release.
What Buckley Posted — and When
The posts that triggered the federal investigation appeared on a TikTok livestream on January 16, 2025, four days before Trump was set to return to the White House for his second term. Writing from an account under the name “Jacob_buckley,” Buckley made three separate statements within a matter of hours. He wrote that he hated MAGA Republicans and would kill all of them, that he was going to kill Trump, and that he was watching the country descend into a “literal oligarchy” in four days and would kill Trump because of it.
The three posts, made in quick succession, were not dismissed by prosecutors as a single impulsive comment. At sentencing, the assistant U.S. attorney handling the case argued that the fact Buckley had repeated the threat multiple times showed this was not a mistake or an isolated slip of judgment. The prosecutor also noted that because the threats were made before Trump had been sworn in, they carried a lower statutory maximum than they would have had he already been a sitting president — a legal distinction that shaped the range of possible sentences.
Key Facts in the Case: Trump Threat Case
- Buckley posted three threats against Trump on January 16, 2025, four days before the inauguration, using TikTok under the handle “Jacob_buckley.”
- The U.S. Secret Service investigated the posts and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania charged him by criminal information.
- Buckley pleaded guilty last summer to making threats against the president-elect. He faced a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
- Judge Matthew Brann sentenced him to one year of probation and a $500 fine, rejecting the government’s request for a one-year prison term.
- Buckley has no prior criminal record. The judge found no credible evidence he intended to carry out the threats.
- As part of his sentence, Buckley must participate in a mental health treatment program and comply with prescribed medication.
What Happened in the Courtroom
By the time Buckley stood before Judge Brann, the picture that emerged was considerably more complicated than the initial charges had suggested. Defense attorney Arthur Fritzinger told the court that his client had accepted responsibility for his actions and, in the more than a year since posting the threats, had taken meaningful steps to address his mental health. Buckley himself spoke at the sentencing hearing, telling the judge there was no excuse for what he had done and that he wished he could take it back.
Judge Brann, in weighing all of this, pointed to two factors that worked in Buckley’s favor. First, he had no prior criminal record. Second, and perhaps more critically, the judge found no evidence that Buckley had any intention of actually attempting to follow through on the threats. The posts were the act of a young man with documented mental health struggles, writing on social media in a moment of political frustration — not a credible, operational threat to the president-elect’s safety.
“There is no excuse for why I did it. I wish I could take it back.”
Jacob Buckley, at his sentencing hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann
The judge did not let the moment pass without a broader observation about social media and public discourse. According to local reporting from PennLive and The Lock Haven Express, Brann noted that the internet has fundamentally changed the way people express anger and political frustration. He pointed out that a generation ago, someone upset about politics might have written a letter to a local newspaper.
Today, those same impulses get channeled through platforms where a post reaches an audience of thousands in seconds — and where certain words, however carelessly typed, carry serious federal consequences. Brann urged Buckley to step away from social media going forward, remarking that his opinion was not necessarily something others needed to hear. The judge also encouraged him to avoid marijuana and stay consistent with his mental health medications.
A Sentence That Raised Questions
The outcome drew immediate attention in part because it sits in stark contrast to other recent sentences handed down in similar cases. Just one month before Buckley’s sentencing, a 49-year-old woman in Hawaii was ordered to serve seven months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for making a threat in which she claimed she would blow up the White House and kill the president because she believed she could get away with it. That case, with different specific facts and different circumstances, resulted in a dramatically different sentence than the one Buckley received.
The variation in outcomes reflects the degree to which federal judges have discretion in these cases, and the extent to which individual factors — criminal history, credibility of the threat, mental health, and demonstrated remorse — can push a sentence far from what prosecutors seek. In Buckley’s case, each of those individual factors pointed toward leniency, and the judge followed that logic to its conclusion.
The Broader Climate These Cases Reflect
Buckley’s case did not unfold in a vacuum. It is one of a string of federal prosecutions stemming from threats made against Trump across social media platforms in the period surrounding his return to office. The legal and political environment around presidential security had already been heightened well before Buckley posted his comments — Trump had survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, and a second incident followed at his golf course in West Palm Beach in September of that year.
Against that backdrop, federal prosecutors and the Secret Service moved aggressively on online threats during the transition period and the early months of the new administration. Cases like Buckley’s became a testing ground for how courts balance the constitutional limits of free speech, the federal statutes that criminalize threats against the president, and the individual circumstances of each defendant. The sentencing in Williamsport this week added another data point to that ongoing reckoning — one that, in this instance, came down firmly on the side of rehabilitation over punishment.
Buckley will now navigate a year of supervised probation, a mandatory mental health program, and the lasting reality of a federal guilty plea on his record. His attorney told the court that his client had already done the difficult internal work required of him. Whether the judge’s trust in that assessment proves well-placed will become clearer in the months to come.