We’re still waiting for Jan. 6 ‘masterminds’ to get theirs
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Proud Boy leader Joe Biggs to 17 years in prison this week. Someone on “formerly known as Twitter” snarked that by the time he gets out of jail, Biggs will be a proud man.
The Lincoln Project is having fun with the fate of the furious.
Comeuppance is a guilty pleasure we were denied in the wake of the banking collapse of 2008. Those assholes got $1.6b in bonuses.
But these threats are not funny. We covered some of this nascent Rwanda talk on Friday. But threats of violence against election workers are widespread enough to deserve an Election Threats Task Force. At least some people are being charged:
More than a dozen people nationally have been charged with threatening election workers by a Justice Department unit trying to stem the tide of violent and graphic threats against people who count and secure the vote.
Government employees are being bombarded with threats even in normally quiet periods between elections, secretaries of state and experts warn. Some point to former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen and spreading conspiracy theories about election workers. Experts fear the 2024 election could be worse and want the federal government to do more to protect election workers.
The Justice Department created the Election Threats Task Force in 2021 led by its public integrity section, which investigates election crimes. John Keller, the unit’s second in command, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the department hoped its prosecutions would deter others from threatening election workers.
I got dispatched in 2022 to investigate reports that some guy with a weapon (unspecified) was spotted outside a local polling station standing (legally) just outside the electioneering limit. He was gone by the time I arrived. The photo I received on my phone was of some morbidly obese dude wearing a .38 revolver that looked so tiny on his hip that it might have come in a box of Cracker Jack.
He may have been a joke, but these real threats are no joking matter.
A Texas man was given 3 1/2 years earlier this month after suggesting a “mass shooting of poll workers and election officials” last year, charges stated. In one message, the Justice Department said, the man wrote: “Someone needs to get these people AND their children. The children are the most important message to send.” His lawyer did not return a message seeking comment.
One indictment unveiled in August was against a man accused of leaving an expletive-filled voicemail after the 2020 election for Tina Barton, a Republican who formerly was the clerk in Rochester Hills, Michigan, outside Detroit. According to the indictment, the person vowed that “a million plus patriots will surround you when you least expect it” and “we’ll … kill you.”
Barton said it was just one of many threats that left her feeling deeply anxious.
“I’m really hopeful the charges will send a strong message, and we won’t find ourselves in the same position after the next election,” she said.
Maybe. Maybe not. Although some of Trump’s followers who found out are figuring it out:
Pam Hemphill was sentenced in May 2022 to 60 days in jail for her involvement in the U.S. Capitol riot. She told Trump to stop using her story for personal political gain.
A self-avowed “ex-MAGA Granny” who served jail time for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot has called out Donald Trump for “using” her story for political gain.
[…]
“Please,” she wrote in a tweet directed at Trump, “don’t be using me for anything.”
“I’m not a victim of Jan6, I pleaded guilty because I was guilty!”