According to Fox News, via The DC, Rand Paul has been informed that he should expect federal charges to be brought against his neighbor for attacking him the other day and breaking six of his ribs:
Here’s more:
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has been told to expect federal charges against his socialist neighbor who attacked the Republican senator last week, Fox News’ Shepard Smith reported on Thursday.
That prosecutors are expected to bring federal charges in the attack indicates that they may believe it was politically motivated, Smith reported. Previous media reports that the attack was over a long-standing dispute are inaccurate, Paul’s office has said.
Paul’s attacker, 59-year-old anesthesiologist Rene Boucher, has claimed that the assault on Paul was over a “trivial matter” and had “nothing to do” with politics.
Earlier today Rand Paul came out and vigorously his attacker’s claim that this was about a landscaping argument:
FOX NEWS – Rand Paul’s office fired back Thursday at the attacker who left the Republican senator with six broken ribs, calling the “violent” assault a “blindside” and seeming to challenge reports that the clash stemmed from a landscaping dispute.
Paul’s senior adviser Doug Stafford issued the senator’s most detailed statement yet on the nature of the attack, just hours after Paul’s neighbor Rene Boucher entered a not guilty plea in court.
“Last week Senator Paul was vigorously assaulted by someone in his neighborhood. This is a serious criminal matter involving serious injury, and is being handled by local and federal authorities,” Stafford said. “As to reports of a longstanding dispute with the attacker, the Pauls have had no conversations with him in many years.”
Stafford said the first so-called “conversation” with the attacker “came after Sen. Paul’s ribs were broken.”
“This was not a ‘fight,’ it was a blindside, violent attack by a disturbed person,” Stafford said. “Anyone claiming otherwise is simply uninformed or seeking media attention.”
The statement seemed to counter widespread media speculation about what led to the attack, including accounts that it may have stemmed from a longrunning landscaping dispute.
Even if it were over a landscaping issue, you don’t handle it by breaking someone’s ribs. Good grief!
But I seriously doubt it was about landscaping given the above statement. More likely is that if the assault was politically motivated it might carry stiffer penalties, so the attacker is trying to lessen his punishment or something. That’s my guess, but I’m not lawyer.