Reuters unmasks Trump supporters terrifying U.S. election officials

[tblue37]

Reuters unmasks Trump supporters terrifying U.S. election officials: Law enforcement has taken little action as backers of Donald Trump aim stark threats at election officials. Reuters tracked down nine of the harassers. Most were unrepentant.

These cases provide a unique perspective into how people with everyday jobs and lives have become radicalized to the point of terrorizing public officials. They are part of a broader campaign of fear waged against frontline workers of American democracy chronicled by Reuters this year. The news organization has documented nearly 800 intimidating messages to election officials in 12 states, including more than 100 that could warrant prosecution, according to legal experts.

The examination of the threats also highlights the paralysis of law enforcement in responding to this extraordinary assault on the nation’s electoral machinery. After Reuters reported the widespread intimidation in June, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a task force to investigate threats against election staff and said it would aggressively pursue such cases. But law enforcement agencies have made almost no arrests and won no convictions.

In many cases, they didn’t investigate. Some messages were too hard to trace, officials said. Other instances were complicated by America’s patchwork of state laws governing criminal threats, which provide varying levels of protection for free speech and make local officials in some states reluctant to prosecute such cases. Adding to the confusion, legal scholars say, the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t formulated a clear definition of a criminal threat.

For this report, Reuters set out to identify the people behind these attacks on election workers and understand their motivations. Reporters submitted public-records requests and interviewed dozens of election officials in 12 states, obtaining phone numbers and email addresses for two dozen of the threateners.

Snip

Much more at link:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats/

[tblue37]

1. Journalists who produced that article also received threats from at least one guy they interviewed:

Link to tweet

[gratuitous]

17. I think that's the guy from Vermont

The cops didn't do anything about him because they said he used an untraceable number. The reporters simply used the number that came up on Caller ID and got right through to him. Had five phone conversations with him before he went off his nut:

Only one of the nine harassers Reuters interviewed wouldn’t reveal his identity: the man threatening Vermont officials. Before reporters started examining him, law enforcement officials had decided against investigating, as many other agencies have done in similar cases nationwide.

Late last year, between Nov. 22 and Dec. 1, he left three messages with the secretary of state’s office from a number that state police deemed “essentially untraceable,” according to an internal police email obtained through a public-records request. The man identified himself as a Vermont resident in one voicemail.

Police didn’t pursue a case on the grounds that he didn’t threaten a specific person or indicate an imminent plan to act, according to emails and prosecution records. State police never spoke with the caller, according to interviews with state officials, a law enforcement source and a review of internal police emails.

Reuters did.

Yeah, I have to agree strongly with the poster who observed that the police response is disappointing, and certainly would have been far more robust if the threats had been made against non-specific police officers.

[tblue37]

26. Yes, it is.

[róisín_dubh]

2. Well that was terrifying...nt

[dalton99a]

3. State police declined to investigate - because 'popped' doesn't mean anything

The man telephoned the secretary of state’s office again on Oct. 17 from the same phone number used in the other threats. This time he was more explicit. Addressing state staffers and referring to the two journalists by name, he said he guaranteed that all would soon get “popped.”

“You guys are a bunch of f‑‑‑‑‑‑ clowns, and all you dirty c‑‑‑suckers are about to get f‑‑‑‑‑‑ popped,” he said. “I f‑‑‑‑‑‑ guarantee it.”

The officials referred the voicemail to state police, who again declined to investigate. Agency spokesperson Adam Silverman said in a statement that the message didn’t constitute an “unambiguous reference to gun violence,” adding that the word “popped” – common American slang for “shot” – “is unclear and nonspecific, and could be a reference to someone being arrested.”

Legal experts didn’t see it that way. Fred Schauer, a University of Virginia law professor, said the message likely constituted a criminal threat under federal law by threatening gun violence at specific individuals. “There’s certainly an intent to put people in fear,” Schauer said.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Have to wonder if anyone in law enforcement were part of that scheme.

[Bev54]

25. If not directly, they are now apart of it, indirectly by refusing to

investigate and recommend charges. Let's hope they are not further implicated because someone dies or gets hurt. If so, they too should be seen as accomplices.

[orleans]

11. if the same person had said that to cops--would the cops feel the same way?

saying popped is "unclear and nonspecific and could be a reference to someone being arrested"?

[Dustlawyer]

15. Most of LE are Trump supporters.

They pick and choose what they enforce instead of following the law.

[Haggard Celine]

23. Yes, that's the crux of the matter.

Expect LE to make excuses for them. They won't do anything until after the officials get "popped," and then only reluctantly.

[hadEnuf]

18. The excuses and ignoring of these obvious threats shows that in many cases law enforcement

tacitly approves of this type of behavior. At the very least it shows they may be unreliable when things escalate. We need to be prepared to protect ourselves in some way.

In contrast, if this were a BLM protester making these kinds of threats there would already be a SWAT team surrounding their house.

This will continue and escalate until we throw down and take these Nazis head on, IMO.

[Bettie]

19. Nothing tacit about it

they fully endorse the fuckery if it comes from right wing white people.

If the people are not-white or are not right wing, well, suddenly everything is threatening.

[hadEnuf]

22. I like to think that there are still some real cops out there that that want to uphold the law

fairly, but I certainly see what you are saying.

[toughtony]

24. THE POLICE ARE LYING...

They know what it means, there is only one way to interpret that statement. Gangs, the mafia have all used that term before to mean shoot someone. "Dude you bout to get popped." What else could it mean in that context?

I think the police knew but just didn't want to do anything about it. After all what good are their heroes if they're in jail.

[lagomorph777]

4. "highlights the paralysis of law enforcement in responding to this extraordinary assault"

Time's up. Garland's gotta go.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

5. I agree Garland

Isn't giving out the sentences these monsters really need.

[Kid Berwyn]

6. DoJ needs to hire some help.

Lots of crime to clean up, it seems.

[Ray Bruns]

7. Garland? Garland ? Garland?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fgiphy.com%2Fexplore%2Fbueller&psig=AOvVaw0L9XRMx_iyNcbkyPiVWrBR&ust=1636560009613000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCODet6LTi_QCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAN

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. These RWNJs are scary

[Hekate]

13. They are, and the legal/law enforcement response is flabby beyond belief

Flabby

[albacore]

9. People keep saying that the US is getting like the Wild West....

I disagree...

If it were the Wild West, the election officials and office-holders would track down their tormentors and shut them up one way or another. Dox them... threaten their families. Or their jobs. Or maybe do actual violence.

Those creatures want a civil war... but I suspect they'd back off if things got personal. Demonstrations outside their homes, businesses, jobs.... late-night phone threats...missing pets...

[hadEnuf]

21. By doing nothing we are going to force a type of civil war.

[Joinfortmill]

12. Nazi 2.0

And as Joe would say, "I'm not kidding."

[bucolic_frolic]

14. Do we want a country held hostage by fear and threats?

What punishment could these cretins expect after the insurrectionists receive paltry sentences? A find of $50 and 'don't do that anymore?'

These should be the $5,000 fines for a first offense.

[FakeNoose]

16. It would be easy to locate these perps on Chump's new social media platform

All the feds need to do is hack the members' login credentials. I'll bet they've already done that.

[Jon King]

20. There is no TFG media platform.

Its barely in the starting stages of raising capital and likely will never happen. The code they were going to use was not properly license so it looks like it won't ever get off the ground.

[Trueblue1968]

27. here they are, if you know them, TURN THEM INTO TO LAW ENFORCEMENT

MAYBE THEY WILL END UP IN JAIL FOR THREATENING BODILY HARM TO PUBLIC OFFICIALS

Ross Miller, a Georgia real-estate investor, warned an official in the Atlanta area that he’d be tarred and feathered, hung or face firing squads unless he addressed voter fraud. In an interview, Miller said he would continue to make such calls “until they do something.” He added: “We can’t have another election until they fix what happened in the last one.”

SNIP

Jamie Fialkin of Peoria, Arizona, talked of a grand conspiracy of those controlling the media, the banking system and social media companies. “When you have those three things, you can get away with anything – you can tell people, ‘black is white, white is black,’ and people go, ‘OK,’” Fialkin said. ..... Fialkin blamed one person in particular for Trump’s Arizona loss: Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the state’s top election official. On June 3, Fialkin called Hobbs’ office and left a message saying she’d hang “from a f‑‑‑‑‑‑ tree.”

“They’re going to hang you for treason, you f‑‑‑‑‑‑ bitch,” Fialkin said.

SNIP

Jeff Yeager, a 56-year-old self-employed electrician from Los Angeles, California. Yeager, too, called for her execution.

“When Katie the c‑‑‑ is executed for treason, what are you f‑‑‑‑‑‑ traitors going to be doing for work?” Yeager said in a June 17 voicemail left for Hobbs and her staff. Months later, on Sept. 8, he left another voicemail warning she’d be executed. Yeager acknowledged leaving the messages and said he didn’t care if Hobbs felt threatened. “If she thinks that I’m a threat to her, I’m not,” he said. “But the public is going to hang this woman.”

SNIP


‘BE AFRAID’: A screenshot of Eric Pickett’s Facebook threat to Colorado’s chief elections officer

Eric Pickett, a 42-year-old night staffer at a youth treatment center in Utah, said his anger boiled over after watching an Aug. 10 “cyber symposium” held by pillow magnate Mike Lindell, a Trump ally who has pushed false election conspiracy theories. At the symposium, Peters, an election-fraud conspiracy theorist, claimed Griswold “raided” her office to produce false evidence and “bully” her.

None of that was true, according to state officials. Nonetheless, Pickett snapped. He got on Facebook and sent Griswold a message.

“You raided an office. You broke the law. STOP USING YOUR TACTICS. STOP NOW. Watch your back. I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP, I SEE YOU SLEEPING. BE AFRAID, BE VERRY AFFRAID. I hope you die.”

A Griswold spokesperson said the August message was promptly referred to state and federal law enforcement. The threat was reported by Reuters in September.



there are more on this article..... read here https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats/

[Maraya1969]

28. If someone could compile a website with photos and dox these people I bet a lot of it would stop.

I know I would be humiliated if some of my behavior from the past was put on audio or video. I think a healthy does of "Oh shit what if someone sees/hears" is a good thing.