Richard C. Weaver
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (July 2006) |
Richard C. Weaver is a mysterious Californian man known by the nickname Handshake Man. Weaver has earned notoriety for the way he is frequently able to bypass the US Secret Service and shake the hand of the American President.
Weaver has allegedly been able to personally shake hands with every US President since Jimmy Carter, in some cases even multiple times on different occasions. He is considered to be a very clever man in the way he is consistently able to bypass the Secret Service, despite the fact that they are well aware of his antics.
Not much is known about Weaver other than the fact that he is apparently a strong, possibly fundamentalist Christian of some sort. He is a self-proclaimed minister of a non-denominational church in Sacramento. His handshakes are often used as a way of passing "notes from God" to the presidents.
According to his site, Weaver is a born-again Christian who is married to Donna Weaver and has two children, Cindy and David. [1] He also believes that God has directly spoken to him and calls him a "modern day prophet" [2].
Contents |
[edit] Pre 2001
It has been alleged that Richard C. Weaver has been able to shake the hand of every US President since Jimmy Carter. However, with little evidence of such events, it is unknown if these instances actually happened. The only confirmed event was the 1997 inauguration of Bill Clinton where he managed to shake his hand [3]. (However, Weaver does have a picture of meeting President George H. W. Bush on his web site.) Despite the incident having led the Secret Service to prepare for his return, he was able to bypass security and meet the recently inaugurated George W. Bush in 2001.
[edit] 2001 Presidential Inauguration
On the January 20th inauguration event of 2001, Weaver was able to meet George W. Bush and hand him a coin after he had been sworn in as President. Weaver had a standing-room-only ticket that would only allow him access to the event. Despite having been shown tapes of a similar meeting between Weaver and former president Bill Clinton, the Secret Service were not able to catch him. [4]
Despite Ari Fleischer insisting that the president was in no harm, The Capitol Police took the matter seriously as a breach of security. [5]
[edit] Post 2001
On February 6, 2003 Weaver attended the National Prayer Breakfast meeting and was able to hand Bush an eight page typed letter about Iraq "from God". [6], [7]
[edit] Allegations
According to his website, Richard C. Weaver has led a very interesting life. He created the Spiritual Revolution through Christ Inc. which was honored in a "Spiritual Revolution Day" by then Governor Ronald Reagan in 1971. He has claimed on his site that in 1977 he started ministering to "six presidents, over half the current U.S. Senators, three Supreme Court Justices, many congressmen, and governors". There is also a claim to ministering to many pro athletes in baseball, football, and basketball [8].
