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A recently radicalized Texas teen allegedly plotted to assassinate a Republican congressman on behalf of ISIS, according to the feds.
The 17-year-old boy from McKinney was inspired by sick online terrorist propaganda to kill Texas Rep. Keith Self, the co-founder of the Sharia-Free America Caucus — and managed to get a firearm, even though he is a minor, sources told WFAA.
He had planned to carry out his plan at a public cook-off, but was arrested by the FBI on Oct. 5, officials told the outlet. The unidentified teen remains in federal custody.
“Preserving our constitutional republic from radical Islam means accepting the costs that come with it—name-calling, threats, and worse,” Self, who introduced a bill in July to protect the Constitution from Sharia Law, wrote on X on Wednesday.
“Our Founders believed this country was worth the sacrifice. I served 25 years in the military because defending freedom was worth the sacrifice. This only strengthens my resolve. I will not back down.”
Self told CBS News Texas that the first he knew of the threat was when the feds told him they’d arrested someone out to gain notoriety by trying “to shoot at me.”
“When we knew about it, they had him,” Self said, saying he was “very grateful” to the FBI. “I understand that they’ve known about this kid for a while.”
Such threats are “more routine than you would think with members of Congress,” Self said, while stressing that previous ones he has had were “not to this degree and not any that action was taken by law enforcement.”
“So often we hear that somebody does something and then you find out later that the FBI had him on some sort of watch list and didn’t take action,” Self said. “So I am very grateful that the FBI took action in this case.”
While he called it a “very unsettled time,” the Republican insisted he was not fazed.
“I was in the military for 25 years, deployed multiple times,” he told the local CBS station.
“I also knew that the law enforcement had him under control. Now, it would have been a little different if they had said, ‘There’s an unknown threat out there.’
Self, who is up for re-election, has been one of the most ardent critics of Sharia Law in Congress – an ideology he has previously described as “dangerous” and a “culture of violence and domination.”
“The United States Constitution and Sharia are fundamentally at odds with one another,” he said last November.
“While Western civilization has evolved, Islam has not. Islam is stuck in the 8th century, and if they succeed at imposing their beliefs on us, we will be dragged back into the ‘Dark Ages.’”
Self will face off against Democrat Evan Hunt in November’s congressional election.
In 2024, he won with 62.5% of the vote against Democrat Sandeep Srivastava.