Wichita man used Facebook to threaten President Biden’s life. He’s going to prison

A Wichita man was sentenced Wednesday to just under two years in federal prison for threatening to kill U.S. President Joe Biden in a Facebook message sent to a local television station last year.

Cody McCormick, 28, pleaded guilty on Jan. 24 to one count of making a threat against the president of the United States, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas said in a news release announcing the 21-month sentence.

McCormick, who also spells his first name with a K, sent the threat in April 2023, “detailing his intention to murder U.S. President Joseph (Joe) Biden,” which included a plan to get a Greyhound bus ticket so he could travel to “shoot him,” the release says.

When the U.S. Secret Service interviewed McCormick about his intentions — asking him “if they needed to be worried about him if President Biden came to Wichita” — McCormick told them he would “force” the president “to step down from office” and would “kidnap him,” the release says.

He also told Secret Service agents: “My intent is to kill Joe Biden if I don’t get the help I need,” according to the release.

McCormick, who has been in custody for a little more than a year, asked the court to sentence him to time served, according to an April 29 sentencing memorandum that argues his “individual need for mental health treatment outweighs society’s collective need for harsh punishment.”

McCormicks’ lawyer, James Pratt, wrote in the memorandum that his client’s lifelong affliction with developmental delays and severe mental health issues, along with his desire to get help addressing them, fueled his threats in large part.

But McCormick had “no concrete plans, nor the means” to carry them out, Pratt wrote.

“Cody McCormick was seeking mental health treatment the only way he could think of, communicating a threat ... (against) the President of the United States,” Pratt wrote. “When that did not seem to work, he ... (arranged) the encounter with the Wichita police,” where he attempted “suicide by cop” that same day.

At the time, McCormick had been unmedicated for a month and had trouble filling his prescriptions, the memorandum says.

“During that encounter Cody would either be killed by officers, or he would be taken into custody for treatment,” Pratt wrote. “Fortunately, Cody was taken into custody. Unfortunately, he also committed a federal crime which resulted in the charges against him and his being housed in a detention facility, rather than a state hospital.”

McCormick belongs in mental health treatment, not prison, Pratt wrote.

Originally, McCormick was charged with three counts of making a threat against the president, but prosecutors agreed to dismiss the other two counts when he pleaded guilty, his plea agreement says.

More threatening messages

An affidavit attached to an April 27, 2023, criminal complaint filed against McCormick gives more details about what transpired, including that he also sent a message to a law enforcement agency, the Lane County Sheriff’s Office, on April 23, 2023, saying he planned to get an “AR 15 and I will be going to kill Joe Biden.”

The affidavit goes on to say that McCormick called Biden “the worst (expletive) president ever” and said that “the country is going to hell because of him” and that “it’s my job to kill and finish him.”

McCormick also suggested in the message that he might die because law enforcement “will kill me.”

That same day, McCormick sent another Facebook message to Wichita TV news station KSN expressing similar threats and opinions about the president’s performance.

It was in that message that he said he would get the bus ticket so he could travel to kill the president.

“I plan on kill Joe Biden the worst President in US history he is (expletive) disgrace. I will get a Greyhound bus ticket and go and shoot him. That way I will go end his (expletive) life I promise you,” he wrote to KSN.

McCormick made additional statements about planning to kill the president to staff at Ascension Via Christi Hospital St. Joseph on April 23, 2023, and told U.S. Secret Service agents who interviewed him the next day at the hospital’s mental health facility that he would “force” Biden “to step down from office” if he had the opportunity, the affidavit says.

McCormick also told the agents he would kidnap Biden and would “travel as far up as Oregon” to reach him, according to the document.

Wichita man indicted over Facebook, hospital comments threatening to kill President Biden