Rep. Keith Self has vowed he will not back down after a 17-year-old Texas boy allegedly plotted to kill him on behalf of ISIS.
The McKinney teen, who authorities say was recently radicalized by online terrorist propaganda, planned to carry out the assassination at a public cook-off, according to the FBI. Federal agents arrested the minor on Oct. 5, and he remains in federal custody. Despite his age, the teen had managed to obtain a firearm, sources told WFAA.
Self, who introduced legislation in July to protect the Constitution from Sharia Law, addressed the threat publicly on Wednesday in a post on X. “Preserving our constitutional republic from radical Islam means accepting the costs that come with it—name-calling, threats, and worse,” he wrote.
“Our Founders believed this country was worth the sacrifice. I served 25 years in the military because defending freedom was worth the sacrifice. This only strengthens my resolve. I will not back down.”
The congressman said Texas that he first learned of the plot when federal investigators informed him they had already arrested a suspect seeking notoriety by trying “to shoot at me.” Self expressed deep appreciation for the bureau’s handling of the case, noting that agents had been monitoring the teen for some time before moving in.
“When we knew about it, they had him,” Self said. “I understand that they’ve known about this kid for a while.”
He contrasted this intervention favorably with other cases where warning signs went unheeded. “So often we hear that somebody does something and then you find out later that the FBI had him on some sort of watch list and didn’t take action,” Self continued. “So I am very grateful that the FBI took action in this case.”
The Republican lawmaker characterized such threats as disturbingly common for members of Congress. “More routine than you would think with members of Congress,” he said, though he acknowledged this plot differed in severity from his previous experiences. Previous threats against him were “not to this degree and not any that action was taken by law enforcement.”
Self’s military background, he indicated, helped him process the danger without alarm. “I was in the military for 25 years, deployed multiple times,” he told the station. He added that the situation would have felt more precarious had the threat remained active and unidentified. “I also knew that the law enforcement had him under control. Now, it would have been a little different if they had said, ‘There’s an unknown threat out there.'”
Self has emerged as one of Congress’s most vocal opponents of Sharia Law, co-founding the Sharia-Free America Caucus and pushing legislation he argues is necessary to prevent Islamic religious law from influencing American governance. “The United States Constitution and Sharia are fundamentally at odds with one another,” he declared last November. “While Western civilization has evolved, Islam has not. Islam is stuck in the 8th century, and if they succeed at imposing their beliefs on us, we will be dragged back into the ‘Dark Ages.'”
Self, who won re-election in 2024 with 62.5 percent of the vote against Democrat Sandeep Srivastava, faces Democrat Evan Hunt in November’s congressional election.