Threatening the President Carries a Lighter Sentence Than Threatening an ICE Agent Congress classified threatening the life of the President as a federal felony in 1917, and the statute has outlived eleven administrations without a single rewrite of the core language. Title 18, Section 871 criminalizes any knowing and willful threat to kill, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm on the sitting president, the president-elect, or a former president within a defined protection window.