Ross man gets probation for threatening congresswoman, senator

A Ross man who federal prosecutors said threatened members of Congress will serve a year of probation, including six months on house arrest.

Harry E. Miller, 65, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab.

Miller was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2021 and charged with three counts of transmitting interstate threats. He was charged separately with intimidating a federal employee.

Miller pleaded guilty to the latter count in February. As part of his plea agreement, prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed on the sentence imposed.

According to the indictment, Miller called a district office for U.S. Rep. Kathleen Clark, D-Mass., on Aug. 19, 2019, and said he was willing to abolish government by spilling blood “by taking out four to five Democrats.”

During the call, he also said he would “start shooting Black people to keep them in line if he had to.”

He also said the congressional staffer would die in his forthcoming civil war, the indictment said.

Then, on Jan. 7, 2020, Miller called the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, D-N.C., and said he was going to “put a bullet in Sen. Burr’s head.”

That same day, in a call transferred to a person in Tennessee, Miller said if he traveled to the nation’s capital, he “would be willing to shoot four or five senators in the head and that this statement was not a threat but a promise.”