‘Credible threat’: Rachel Maddow breaks down attack on Travis County Democratic headquarters

In the early morning hours of September 29, a male suspect threw a crudely made Molotov cocktail into the headquarters of the Travis County Democratic Party in East Austin, igniting a small fire. Along with the incendiary device was a still-unreleased note, described as threatening and political in nature.

Immediately denounced as an act of terror by TCDP and some local politicians, it is also being treated as a “credible threat” by the FBI, according to the Rachel Maddow Show. Hours after the fire at the TCDP headquarters, a person matching the suspect appeared on surveillance footage vandalizing a downtown Austin building that houses the Travis County Attorney’s Office.

“Now, we can tell you tonight that the party has been told the FBI is treating this as a credible threat. We can also tell you this attack was accompanied by a written threat to Texas Democrats,” the MSNBC host said during her Wednesday broadcast.

The Travis County Democratic Party headquarters was the victim of an attack on September 29.

Katie Friel/MySA

Joining Maddow during the show was TCDP chair Katie Naranjo, who elaborated on the investigation.

“The lieutenants who we met with this morning as well as the captain of the arson unit for Austin Fire Department, as well as the FBI and Travis County Sheriff’s Office who [are] also investigating another incident nearby, as well as Austin Police Department, have all let us know that they are open active investigations, that they are following leads, and that they do feel confident that some of those leads are going to get them to the perpetrator,” Naranjo said.

“We may not always agree about what comprehensive safety looks like in our community,” she added, “but there are good people and public servants who serve our community and we have to lift them up.”

Maddow goes on to detail the violence perpetrated against democrats, highlighting the attack on a Biden campaign bus driving on I-35 just north of Austin during the 2020 campaign, and the January 6th insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

“You can’t blame them for doing it, but physical violence and intimidation worked in that instance,” Maddow said of the Biden bus attack. “Physical violence and intimidation works unless it’s punished and when it isn’t punished when people get away with it, they do it more.”