What's Really At Stake In The 2016 "Meme" Prosecution of "Ricky Vaughn"

[Right_in_Virginia]

What's Really At Stake In The 2016 "Meme" Prosecution of "Ricky Vaughn"
The Blog of Norman Prattis, Jan 28, 2021

It is difficult to fathom why federal prosecutors waited four years to bring charges against Douglass Mackey, a.k.a. Ricky Vaughn, and it is inconceivable that they did so by dispensing with the requirements of a grand jury. The only explanation is that this is a political prosecution. It needs to be stopped dead in its tracks.

Mackey was arrested in Florida this week on charges that he violated 18 U.S.C. Section 241, a statute that makes it a federal offense carrying up to ten years in prison for, among other things, conspiring to “injure … any person … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”  As statutes go, it is not a model of clarity.

The facts supporting the claim are, according to the criminal complaint filed by the government, as follows: Mackey and others agreed to try to suppress voter turnout for Hillary Clinton in 2016 by creating social media posts that encouraged people to cast their ballots for Clinton by means of a text message. A person doing so would be wasting their effort. You cannot cast a ballot by text message. Presumably, a person who cast such a ballot would not then turn up at the polling place, and their vote would be lost.

As political trickery, the plot is sheer genius. As P.T. Barnum once noted, there’s a sucker born every minute. If there are people stupid enough to fall for this, well, I suppose they didn’t cast lawful ballots. One wonders whether a person gullible enough to fall for this scam ought to be voting in the first instance, but we lack, of course, any standards for determining who can and cannot vote.

But here’s a shocker. This “crime” took place four years ago. Why the delay in bringing the charges until after the 2020 election, and on the cusp of an impeachment trial in which claims of electoral fraud will be raised? It reeks of partisan misdirection.


More:  https://www.pattisblog.com/blog/7196/whats-really-at-stake-in-the-2016-meme-prosecution-of-ricky-vaughn/

[Right_in_Virginia]

FTA

The federal complaint reeks of dishonesty. The name of the politicians the scam was to benefit and hurt are deleted. But we know the beneficiary is Donald Trump. Mr. Mackey’s political views are deleted, but we learn by today’s reporting that he was a “white nationalist.”

This prosecution, one of the first under the Biden administration, is but the first in what is likely to be a tsunami of vindictive efforts to silence those whose views don’t comport with the new administration's. It's not right to be white, unless you confess whiteness something akin to a crime.

[Cyber Liberty]

FTA

Getting a conviction is not the goal here.  No, the plan is to smear and destroy as many people as possible to prevent another Trump from gaining power, forever.  The real damage is done, even if every suit ends up in acquittal.