© Lex Villena; Gab/CantwellDouglass Mackey was a prolific far-right Twitter user under the name "Ricky Vaughn."
, also known as Ricky Vaughn on Twitter, has been found guilty on charges of election interference by a federal court in the Eastern District of New York.
The charges stem from a meme Mackey posted on Twitter in 2016, jokingly encouraging supporters of Hillary Clinton to vote by text.
The Department of Justice alleged that this constituted election interference,
despite being unable to provide evidence that anyone was deceived by the meme. Mackey argued that he was simply trying to
create a viral meme
, and that other Clinton supporters had posted similar memes encouraging Trump supporters to vote by text without consequence.
An expert witness for the defense withdrew from the trial after being contacted by a reporter from the SPLC.
Federal prosecutors claimed that
Mackey worked with fellow meme makers to create the Twitter posts and make them as real as possible.
"This wasn't about changing votes. This was about vaporizing votes, making them disappear," said Assistant US Attorney Turner Buford.
"The number was real and set up to receive incoming messages," he explained. "The release of these fake campaign ads was timed to flood the internet before Election Day."
Mackey posted the memes on November 1, a week before the election, and Frisch said that the meme's message was "ludicrous to anyone with a basic knowledge of how presidential elections work," the
New York Daily Mail reported.
Comment: The Gateway Pundit
adds:
"Mackey has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of attempting to deprive individuals from exercising their sacred right to vote for the candidate of their choice in the 2016 Presidential Election," stated United States Attorney Peace.
"Today's verdict proves that the defendant's fraudulent actions crossed a line into criminality and flatly rejects his cynical attempt to use the constitutional right of free speech as a shield for his scheme to subvert the ballot box and suppress the vote."
Douglass Mackey was indicted in January 2021 by the feds for using the social media platform to 'spread election disinformation' to Hillary Clinton voters in 2016.
"Ricky Vaughn" AKA, Douglass Mackey, used Twitter to post memes and troll Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election cycle.
33-year-old Mackey was arrested in West Palm Beach in 2021 on one charge of conspiracy against rights.
According to the unsealed indictment, Mackey conspired with others on Twitter to encourage black people to cast their votes via text message.
The Eastern District of New York said in its indictment that one week before the 2016 election, Mackey tweeted an image of a black woman in front of an "African Americans for President Hillary" sign.
Emblazoned on the picture was the message: "Avoid the Line. Vote from Home. Text 'Hillary' to 59925. Vote for Hillary and be a part of history"
According to the complaint, more than 4,900 people 'cast their vote via text message.'
Buzzfeed News said they sent a text message to the number and Hillary Clinton's campaign actually responded and redirected people to the proper channels.
So how many people just sent a text message out of curiosity and didn't actually fall for the meme?
The most chilling part of the indictment is the criminalization of normal political speech and banter:
"Starting in at least 2015, MACKEY participated in numerous Group DMs. These groups, which at times included dozens of individuals, and at times had overlapping membership, served as forums for the participants to share, among other things, their views concerning how best to influence the Election. Among other things, MACKEY and the members of these groups used the Group DMs to create, refine and share memes and hashtags that members of the groups would subsequently post and distribute."
An example of the criminal behavior describes Mackey and his friends on Twitter joking around in private groups about trolling "shitlibs" with memes:
"For example, on or about December 22, 2015, MACKEY and his associates exchanged messaged in the Fed Free Hatechat relating to memes suggesting that certain voters were hiding their desire to vote for a Presidential candidate from on of the two main political parties ("Candidate 2"). MACKEY stated, using MACKEY Account 1, "It's actually a great meme to spread, make all these shitlibs think they're (sic) friends are secretly voting for (Candidate2)". A participant in the group conversations, a Twitter user, described it as "perfect psyops" to which MACKEY later replied, "We've hit upon meme magic motherlode." The next day, MACKEY used MACKEY Account 1 to retweet a tweet that contained one of the discussed memes with the following text: "If you need support, I am here for you #(Candidate 2)Closet."
The feds have criminalized political speech in order to lock up Trump supporters.
Wrong-speak is now an official crime. Expect wide application of this precedent.
Comment: The Gateway Pundit adds: Wrong-speak is now an official crime. Expect wide application of this precedent.