Volkmann Visited by Secret Service Following Obama Remarks
It’s been quite a week for Jacob Volkmann.
After defeating Antonio McKee at UFC 125 in Las Vegas on Saturday, the Minnesota-based lightweight gave a post-fight interview to MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani. In that interview, Volkmann jokingly stated that he would next like to fight President Barack Obama, saying that he disagreed with the president’s health care reform plan and that “someone’s got to knock some sense into that idiot.”
After video of the interview spread across the Internet, Volkmann on Tuesday received a visit from the United States Secret Service, who investigates any perceived threats to the president.
“It was a cop and a Secret Service guy,” Volkmann told Sherdog.com. “He came to my house first and I wasn’t there. I was coaching youth wrestling at the high school. He said he wanted to ask me some questions about the post-fight interview. He said someone had called in D.C.
“He just asked me a couple questions, [like] if I was going to Washington to do anything to the president. I said, ‘That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of,’” added Volkmann. “It took maybe two minutes. He said he was embarrassed to even come out here, because he knew that nothing was going on.”
Volkmann, who owns and operates a chiropractic clinic, is not so much rankled by the Secret Service visit as he is the calls and e-mails decrying him as a fighter who should know better than to stay out of the political debate.
“I’m a chiropractor. I have the same amount of education as Obama,” he said. “I’m coming from the health care providers’ point of view. People are e-mailing me, telling me that they were saved by this [reform]... That insurers are denying people from being covered. I’m not for that. I’m against insurers denying payments to health care providers.”
The fighter said that he had received several messages about the video, including one e-mail from a woman irate over his comments who claimed to be affiliated with Obama’s organization. Volkmann said the woman told him she would contact the Secret Service as a result of his interview.
It is unclear how the Secret Service learned of the comments. A spokesperson from the agency’s Office of Government and Public Affairs, based in Washington, D.C., declined to discuss whether or not a visit had occurred. However, that spokesperson added that they were “aware of the matter,” but would not discuss what qualifies a citizen for a visit from the organization.
A call from Sherdog.com to the Secret Service’s field office in Minneapolis was not returned.
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
by Jason Probst (jprobst@sherdog.com)
