A judge heard testimony from an expert saying a man charged with threatening to kill multiple presidents was not fit for trial at the federal courthouse in Columbia on Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — A former nuclear inspector charged with threatening to kill multiple presidents is too delusional to stand trial until he receives mental health treatment, a psychologist said during a federal court hearing Wednesday.
Travis Lang was arrested in March on charges of threatening to kill President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden, as well as their vice presidents and several South Carolina elected officials. The threats came through various direct messages and social media posts. The 47-year-old Irmo resident has delusions that make him unable to understand his case or help his attorneys, psychologist Lauren Schumacher said.
Travis Lang, 47, of Irmo, is charged with threatening President Donald Trump. (Photo courtesy of Lexington County Sheriff’s Office)Lang pleaded not guilty soon after his arrest. He remains in the Lexington County Detention Center.
Schumacher, who works for the federal Bureau of Prisons in Miami, diagnosed Lang with a delusional disorder after seven formal meetings. Each lasted between 20 minutes and two hours, she said.
Lang told Schumacher that government officials are trying to silence his knowledge of various conspiracies and keep him from running for president, she told District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie.
Lang filed as a Republican candidate for president in the 2024 election, but he didn’t pay to appear on the ballot in South Carolina. His campaign funds consisted of $6,000 of his own money, of which he spent about $2,500, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Lang had a good grasp on the way the legal system works in theory, but he couldn’t apply those facts to his own case, Schumacher said.
For instance, when Schumacher asked about a hypothetical situation, Lang said defense attorneys are meant to represent their clients’ best interests and that judges are impartial decision-makers. But when Schumacher asked about his own case, Lang said his defense attorneys and the judge are part of the conspiracy he believes is working against him, she said.
Lang believes the government is targeting him because he knows secret information about the V.C. Summer nuclear power plant, where he worked as an inspector until its utility owners abandoned their expansion project in 2017, Schumacher said. He claims to know about a racketeering conspiracy and secret information about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. He says he has communicated with Biden and that various public officials are covering up crimes such as treason and murder, she said.
None of Lang’s claims, many of which he said were secret, had any evidence to back them up, Schumacher said. He refused to back down from his beliefs, even when presented with evidence to the contrary, she said.
Those beliefs seem to echo some of the social media posts investigators said Lang wrote about elected officials.
Lang posted on X asking if Biden’s administration ran “counter to the mission at hand,” without clarifying what that mission was, before threatening to kill Biden, investigators said. Also on X, Lang wrote that he would execute Biden and Trump, as well as former vice presidents Kamala Harris and Mike Pence, for “abuse and misuse of office,” when he won the presidential election, investigators said.
All of the threatening posts investigators claim Lang made have since been deleted. An account on X that appears to belong to Lang told Trump to withdraw from office and put Lang in his place and made unfounded accusations that various state and federal politicians have committed treason and murder.
Ahead of the hearing, Lang, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, could be clearly heard muttering to his attorneys about someone trying to hide crimes, including murder and extortion. In his minutes-long rant before the judge walked in, Lang also called the president’s actions an embarrassment to the world, though it’s unclear which president he was talking about.
During psychological testing, Lang seemed to minimize any symptoms he was having, despite being obviously distraught about the conspiracy he believed existed, Schumacher said.
“He denied minor faults or shortcomings most people would acknowledge,” such as minor anxiety or stress, Schumacher said.
Under federal law, a person must understand the nature or consequences of their case and be able to effectively communicate with their attorneys in order to be found competent. Lang didn’t meet either requirement, since his belief that he was caught up in a conspiracy hindered his understanding of his case, and his mistrust of his attorneys made it likely he wouldn’t give them all the information they needed for his case, she said.
Most people with similar mental conditions can become competent after taking medication, Schumacher said. Whether the same would be true for Lang is unclear, she said.
Lang took a mental health drug prescribed during an involuntary hospitalization in 2021, but he felt the medication slowed him down, Schumacher said. She offered Lang multiple chances to speak with a psychiatrist about other medication, potentially including those for more minor issues such as the anxiety he felt over his perceived persecution, but he declined each time.
Lang believes himself to be competent, said his public defender, Jeremy Thompson.
Lang has been adamant that he will not take any medication for his mental health, Thompson said. If Currie finds Lang incompetent to stand trial, attorneys would almost certainly have to return to court to ask Currie for permission to force Lang to take medication, Thompson said.
Thompson asked for a second opinion from another, independent psychologist, citing Lang’s distrust of anyone working for the federal government. Currie declined, saying Schumacher’s analysis seemed fair and honest.
Currie might recommend a second evaluation by a psychologist and psychiatrist before sending Lang to a psychiatric hospital for treatment, she said.
The judge gave no final decision Wednesday, though she told attorneys to expect an order soon laying out the next steps.
This report was first published by the South Carolina Gazette, which like NC Newsline, is part of the national States Newsroom network.
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