A federal grand jury in the Northern District of Oklahoma has indicted David Glen Shuck, 63, of Cleveland, Oklahoma, on eight counts of threatening to assault and murder a United States Senator and members of the Senator's family [1]. The indictment was unsealed June 4, 2026 [1].
Court documents allege that Shuck placed three separate phone calls to the Senator in March 2026, each time making explicit threats to kill both the Senator and his family members [1]. The nature of the calls, including their timing and content, forms the factual basis for all eight counts in the indictment [1]. Federal law prohibits threatening to assault, kidnap, or murder a member of Congress under 18 U.S.C. § 351, which carries substantial prison exposure per count.
The investigation was conducted jointly by the U.S. Capitol Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation [1]. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma [1]. Federal authorities did not publicly name the targeted Senator in the press release announcing the charges.
Threats directed at members of Congress have drawn sustained federal enforcement attention in recent years, as incidents of targeted political violence and intimidation against elected officials have prompted coordination between Capitol Police, the FBI, and local U.S. Attorney offices. Shuck's indictment follows that enforcement pattern, involving the same inter-agency investigative structure applied in analogous cases nationwide.
If convicted on all eight counts, Shuck faces significant cumulative sentencing exposure. No trial date has been publicly announced. The case will proceed in federal court in the Northern District of Oklahoma, where prosecutors must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the calls constituted true threats, a standard the Supreme Court most recently addressed in Counterman v. Colorado (2023), which requires proof that the defendant acted with some degree of subjective awareness that the communications could be perceived as threatening.