Former US senator Jeff Flake has received ‘several’ threats from Trump supporters

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Jeff Flake, a former Republican senator known for his criticism of Donald Trump, has said he received “several” death threats from some of the president’s supporters.

He revealed that one threat came from an unidentified man, who recently visited three separate locations looking for the ex-politician while carrying a gun.

“It was a man living out of his car. He told someone he had just attended a Trump rally,” he said in an interview with The Guardian.

“He showed up at another event two weeks ago.”

Police officers in Arizona are investigating the incident but Mr Flake said “several” other threats had not “been tracked down yet.”

“Threats where they list my kids and their addresses, links to beheading videos ... ” he said.

Another man pleaded guilty to a charge of federal retaliation after leaving Mr Flake a threatening voicemail in 2018.

“I am tired of him interrupting our president, and I am coming down there to take him and his family out,” the man said in the message.

The voicemail arrived after Mr Flake’s intervention led to senate hearings examining a sexual assault accusation against Brett Kavanaugh, then Mr Trump’s nominee for the US Supreme Court.

The caller later pleaded guilty to the charge of federal retaliation after the former senator reported the message.

Mr Flake has been repeatedly targeted by the president, who has mocked him during speeches at campaign rallies and online.

The former senator left office in 2018 and his consistent criticism of Mr Trump shaped his final years on the public stage.

Mr Flake announced that he was standing down in October 2017, during an emotional speech condemning the president from the senate floor.

“We must never regard as 'normal' the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals,” he said at the time.

“We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country.”