The Washington Post ran a story on Saturday profiling in detail the man who threatened to harm Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the reasons he chose to do so.
Joseph Morelli was sentenced to three months in prison in late 2023 after calling Greene’s office in March 2022 multiple times and leaving a series of threats over voicemail, warning that he may come unhinged if he stopped taking his medication. These included a threat to show her “what violence truly is,” that he was “gonna have to hurt [Greene] physically,” and that he could “pay someone 500 bucks to take a baseball bat and crack [Greene’s] skull,” according to a Department of Justice press release from August 2023. The FBI investigated the case after being altered to the threats, and Morelli was subsequently arrested and convicted.
The Post interviewed Morelli — now out of prison — and painted a picture of a man who acted the way he did because of his disheartening life circumstances and negative perception of Greene.
“What had made March 3, 2022 a different kind of day?” reads the Post story. “Maybe it was the [electroconvulsive therapy]. Maybe it was timing, the mania and depression coming together in his brain.