Irmo man accused of threatening Trump earned $100,000 a year at V.C. Summer nuclear project

The Irmo man charged with threatening to kill President Donald Trump had a job at the defunct V.C. Summer nuclear plant construction project making more than $100,000 a year, according to an affidavit he filed in Richland County Family Court.

Travis Lang, 47, worked as a nuclear inspector at the project, according to his affidavit. It was shut down in July 2017 in the midst of ongoing construction delays and cost overruns. Lang was one of thousands thrown out of work on the failed multi-billion dollar project. Since then he has been unemployed except for sporadic part-time work for DoorDash.

Lang, who was indicted earlier this month by a federal grand jury in Columbia on a charge of threatening to kill Trump, is going through a divorce with his wife of nearly 16 years.

His affidavit was filed in 2023 as part of that ongoing divorce proceeding. It sheds light on Lang’s mental conditions during the past several years when he allegedly made threats not just to Trump, but to other high-ranking public officials as well.

“Travis believes I’m an FBI and/or confidential informant,” Lang’s wife wrote in her own affidavit in which she cited numerous examples of what she said were “clearly a serious mental illness of my husband.”

“Travis thinks that I am somehow the recipient of ‘nuclear secrets’ and that I’ve received ‘kickbacks and bribes’ from Saudi Arabia,” Lang’s wife wrote.

In Lang’s affidavit, he spoke of how he had reported bribes being paid at the V.C. Summer nuclear project, but nothing was done. He was then moved to another position in “receiving and procurement,” he wrote.

In a hearing last week at the federal courthouse in Columbia where Lang’s mental health was discussed, Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett set a $25,000 bond for Lang and ordered that he “obtain psychiatric treatment as directed by the U.S. Probation Office.”

Lawyers at that hearing also said Lang has an upcoming hearing in Richland County probate court to see whether he should be ordered committed for psychiatric evaluation. Such hearings are closed to the public.

Gossett also set other conditions on Lang’s release. If he makes the $25,000 bond and becomes eligible for release, Lang must be confined to his home apartment in Irmo, wear a GPS monitor, have his computer usage monitored, not contact public officials and not have firearms, Gossett wrote.

Currently Lang is in the Lexington County jail.

Secret Service agent testifies

During Lang’s hearing in federal court last week, the lone witness was Matthew Reisenweber, a 23-year veteran Secret Service agent based in Columbia.

Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Matthews, Reisenweber recounted Lang’s history of encounters in South Carolina with the Secret Service, the federal agency charged with protecting the lives of the president, vice president and other high-profile officials or their families.

Since April 2021, Lang had posted threats on Twitter beginning with then-President Biden, about whom he wrote, ‘I am going to kill you given the opportunity,’” Reisenweber testified.

Secret Service agents then visited Lang and told him “the threatening behavior” is illegal and he could be charged with a crime, Reisenweber testified.

Another incident happened in April 2023 when Lang put up another Twitter post threatening Biden, then-Vice President Kamela Harris, Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, Reisenweber testified.

When Reisenweber visited Lang after that post, Lang admitted he made the post but said he did not mean it and he didn’t intend to follow through with it.

“I said, ‘You are not allowed to threaten the president of the United States or anyone we protect,” Reisenweber testified. “I said if you continue to do it, we will be back and you may well be charged with a crime.”

Lang has also sent threatening messages to U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Attorney General Alan Wilson and Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, and he is not allowed to go into the S.C. State House, Reisenweber testified. He did not give details on why Lang is banned from the State House except to say “lawmakers had him banned.”

Threat that led to indictment

The threat that led to Lang’s indictment came on Feb. 17 of this year, Reisenweber testified, when Lang sent a message via Facebook to his 23-year-old son saying he was going “to kill myself or Donald Trump.”

Following that message, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department sent a deputy to Lang’s residence but he refused to come to the door, Reisenweber said.

Lang also recently sent his wife’s attorney an “implied threat,” asking the attorney for “the newest version of the CIA assassination guide,” Reisenweber testified.

And last December Lang posted on his Facebook page a photograph of two handguns and two loaded magazines, Reisenweber testified.

“The behavior of Mr. Lang seems to have escalated over time,” Matthews told Gossett as he argued that Lang posed a threat to the community and should not be allowed to post a bond.

However, Jeremy Thompson — Lang’s public defender attorney — argued that Lang’s threats had actually “de-escalated” over time, and the Facebook message to his son was “not necessarily even a threat” since the statement was not directed to Trump.

“To me it sounds more like a cry for help... than a threat he intended to carry out,” Thompson said as he urged Gossett to set a low bond. “This is not somebody who needs to be detained.”

Moreover, Lang has indicated he does want help, Thompson told Gossett.

Lang filed to run for president as a Republican in 2024, according to Federal Election Commission records.

In her affidavit, Lang’s wife said he told her after he filed for president, “It is most likely that I will become the next President of the United States of America!”

However, he was not a serious candidate in terms of money raised or name recognition. He was not, for example, on the ballot for the South Carolina Republican primary in February 2024 won by Trump.

Lang contributed $6,000 to his 2024 presidential campaign committee and only has $3,506 left, according to the most recent FEC records.

“If I were president, I could expose the problems with the nuclear industry by executive order,” Lang wrote in his affidavit. “I believe this. Running for president is not a ‘stunt’.”

Lang also posts on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and on Grok. A November 2023 post on X, apparently referring to his political campaign, said, “Thank you all so much for your support! 15k and still rolling!!!!”

Threatening the life of the president carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

One legal issue raised by Thompson, Lang’s attorney, is whether the threat that Lang made in the Facebook message to his son on Feb. 17 — the date cited in the indictment — amounts to a crime of violence.

“This was not a threat to the president,” Thompson told Gossett. “This was a threat against the president that was conveyed to a third party.”

Thompson’s assertion was countered by prosecutor Mathews, who said, “The government contends this is a crime of violence.”

And, Matthews said, the hearing was “not really the place to argue whether this was a true threat. That is more of a trial issue.”

Matthews added, “No threat can really be taken too lightly.”

In the past year, Trump has been the target of two failed assassination attempts.

In the first, at an open-air rally in Pennsylvania last July, Secret Service agents killed a man who fired a rifle at Trump from a nearby rooftop agents had failed to secure. Trump’s ear was grazed and two rally-goers were wounded and one was killed.

Secret Service agents foiled a second assassination attempt last September when agents spotted a rifle poking out of bushes at a Florida golf course where Trump was golfing. The alleged shooter fled without firing his weapon and was later arrested by Florida law officials.