CORRECTION, April 11, 2023: A jury convicted Douglass Mackey in relation to memes he posted during the 2016 presidential campaign. An earlier version of this title suggested otherwise.
Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has succeeded in convicting a man who posted funny internet memes ridiculing Hillary Clinton and her voters in 2016 for the purported crime of “election interference.”
Prosecutors said that the man “interfered” in Hillary Clinton’s election in 2016.
Douglass Mackey, who was arrested in West Palm Beach and hit with one charge of conspiracy against rights, was convicted in a federal court in Brooklyn on Friday, “stemming from his scheme to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote,” a DOJ press release said.
“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,” said Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “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.”
Using the name “Ricky Vaughn” online, the 31-year-old provocateur allegedly conspired to use social media and text messaging to fool people into thinking they could vote for Clinton via text message. There are no provisions for Americans to vote via text message, of course.
Prosecutors said that a week out from the 2016 election, Mackey allegedly tweeted a photo of a black woman standing in front of an “African Americans for President Hillary” sign with a caption telling people to “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home. Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925. Vote for Hillary and be a part of history,” the New York Post reported when he was arrested in 2021.
Mackey reportedly reached thousands of people with his Twitter account.
“In 2016, Mackey established an audience on Twitter with approximately 58,000 followers. A February 2016 analysis by the MIT Media Lab ranked Mackey as the 107th most important influencer of the then-upcoming Presidential Election,” the DOJ news release said.
“On or about and before Election Day 2016, at least 4,900 unique telephone numbers texted ‘Hillary’ or some derivative to the 59925 text number, which had been used in multiple deceptive campaign images tweeted by Mackey and his co-conspirators,” the DOJ added.
Mackey’s conviction could see him sentenced to up to ten years in prison, the Post added.
But some said they feel that Mackey’s conviction is an outrage against free speech.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance, said on Twitter that “The political prosecution of Douglass Mackey should terrify every single American.”
“His ‘crime?’ Meme-posting,” Greene said.
“Merrick Garland and his cronies at the DOJ are charging Mackey with a subset of the Enforcement Act of 1870, otherwise known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, clearly intended to criminalize physical violence and intimidation used to prevent people from exercising their rights as outlined in the Constitution,” Greene continued.
“Why is the DOJ contorting this statute to apply to the free speech exercised by individuals with dissenting political views?” she asked.
Greene added, “We’ve seen individuals charged with felonies for obstructing legal proceedings on January 6th, 2021, despite many cases being nonviolent protestors exercising their constitutional right to freedom of assembly, but this may be a new low.”
“Mr. Mackey was not involved in any sort of riot or protest, but rather he simply posted funny images on social media that the DOJ did not like,” Rep. Greene continued, adding, “Joe Biden’s DOJ is hellbent on criminalizing “disinformation,” a legally undefined term, in order to squash freedom of speech in America.”
“Mr. Mackey’s charges must be dropped and Merrick Garland should resign or be impeached,” she insisted.
The political prosecution of Douglass Mackey should terrify every single American.
Did Mackey’s joke go too far?His “crime?” Meme-posting.
Merrick Garland and his cronies at the DOJ are charging Mackey with a subset of the Enforcement Act of 1870, otherwise known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, clearly intended… pic.twitter.com/TFxQGksFpj
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene?? (@RepMTG) March 16, 2023
Twitter user Devon Graham agreed. “Ricky Vaughn found guilty. You can now go to prison for memes in the United States of America. We are in a new phase,” he tweeted.
Ricky Vaughn found guilty. You can now go to prison for memes in the United States of America. We are in a new phase. pic.twitter.com/gbeT64kwE3
— Devon Graham (@DevonGraham31) March 31, 2023
Fox News star Tucker Carlson was also shocked by the case.
Carlson called the case “the single greatest assault on free speech and human rights in this country’s modern history.”
“The Biden administration is trying to send a man to prison for saying things they don’t like and create a precedent so they can do it to you, too,” he warned.
But Tucker added that federal investigators could not find anyone who thought they actually voted by text when they tracked down some of the people who texted to the number in Mackey’s memes. “So, there’s no victim here,” Tucker pointed out.
It also turns out that the main witness against Mackey was a man who was in Mackey’s chat group. But the government prevented Mackey’s lawyer from cross-examining, talking to, or even learning the name of this man, because the “witness” was an FBI plant in Mackey’s group.
Carlson slammed the judge in the case and said, “He should dismiss this case immediately with prejudice.”
“Everything about it, from the charges themselves, to the timing, to the intimidation of witnesses violates the Constitution. And if free speech, the First Amendment, means anything, it means that what’s happening to Doug Mackey is an outrage, and should end immediately,” Tucker concluded.
Tucker Carlson discusses the case of Douglass Mackey, known on Twitter as “Ricky Vaughn”, who the Biden DOJ is trying to send to jail for *10 Years* for posting Memes about Hillary Clinton in 2016. pic.twitter.com/1CO0q4cdso
— ALX ?? (@alx) March 15, 2023
Meanwhile, we have the entirety of the media establishment caught openly working to suppress information that could have led to the re-election of Donald Trump in 2020 when they suppressed the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop and indulged a constant stream of lies about “Russia collusion.” If Mackey is getting ten years for an internet joke about Hillary Clinton, members of the media should get life for keeping the truth about Hunter’s laptop from the American people.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
