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☆ Man sentenced to prison for tweeting to suppress votes for Trump
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-19 | by ( Rohan Goswami | In Rohangoswamicnbc | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

A Trump-supporting social media influencer was sentenced to seven months in prison for conspiring to suppress the votes of possibly thousands of people who supported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Douglass Mackey, who was 33 when he was convicted in March, was also ordered to pay a $15,000 fine. Mackey made podcast appearances and social media posts about those beliefs, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said that 99% of the texts received by that number were sent after Mackey first posted a deceptive Hillary advertisement from one of his social media accounts. Andrew Frisch, Mackey's attorney, told CNBC he remained "optimistic" about Mackey's prospects on appeal, which has not yet been taken up.

Persons: influencer, Hillary Clinton, Douglass Mackey, Mackey, Ricky Vaughn, Hillary, Andrew Frisch Organizations: States, Court, Eastern, of, Trump, Prosecutors, CNBC Locations: of New York, Brooklyn, United States

☆ Man Who Spread Misinformation on Trump’s Behalf Sentenced to 7 Months
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-18 | by ( Colin Moynihan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A digital-age dirty-trickster who used Twitter posts that looked like Hillary Clinton ads to spread false information before the 2016 presidential election was sentenced on Tuesday to seven months in prison. But they argued that Mr. Mackey committed a crime days before the election when, using the name Ricky Vaughn, he posted images targeting Black and Latino voters that claimed it was possible to vote by text message. The idea, prosecutors said, was to suppress votes for Mrs. Clinton. One of the images showed a Black woman and another one had a message in Spanish. Both included logos resembling the Clinton campaign’s and fine print attributing them to “Hillary for President.”

Persons: Hillary Clinton, Douglass Mackey, Donald J, Trump, Mackey, Ricky Vaughn, Clinton, “ Hillary, ” Organizations: Twitter

CNN —Donald Trump’s legal troubles deepened earlier this week when he was informed by special counsel Jack Smith that he’s the target of the criminal investigation into the aftermath of the 2020 election – the clearest sign yet that the former president could soon face more criminal charges. But without more detail, it’s hard to know exactly what shape the charges will take or what Trump 2020 election-related conduct they are aimed at. Among the potential charges Trump has been warned about is one pertaining to witness tampering, according to the Wall Street Journal and other outlets. Trump’s alleged involvement in a criminal conspiracy has been invoked in the litigation around the House select committee that investigated January 6’s pursuit of Trump lawyer John Eastman’s emails. That ruling pointed both to the obstruction of an official proceeding statute and the general conspiracy statute.

Persons: Donald Trump’s, Jack Smith, Smith, Trump, Todd Blanche, ”, Norm Eisen, “ Trump, Shan Wu, CNN’s Manu Raju, Mike, Joe Biden, ” Eisen, “, Justin Levitt, Levitt, Douglass Mackey, ” Mackey, Joe Biden’s, Enrique Tarrio, Trump’s, John Eastman’s, David O, Carter, Eastman, Elie Honig, ” Honig Organizations: CNN, Sunday, White, Trump, ABC, The New York Times, Loyola Law School, Obama Justice Department, Biden White House, Klux Klan, Wall Street, Justice Department, Boys, Eastman, Capitol Locations: United States, New York, Georgia, Arizona

WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) - A social media influencer who once had 58,000 Twitter followers was convicted by a federal jury of election interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race over a voter suppression scheme, the Justice Department said late on Friday. Douglass Mackey, also known as “Ricky Vaughn,” was convicted of the charge of conspiracy against rights stemming from his scheme to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote, the Justice Department said in a statement. In 2016, Mackey, 33, established an audience on Twitter with 58,000 followers. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, Vaughn has in the past openly supported hate groups. Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington, Editing by Franklin PaulOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Far-Right Twitter Influencer Found Guilty of Spreading Misinformation to Voters
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( James Fanelli | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Douglass Mackey was convicted Friday after federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, N.Y., said he plotted with others on Twitter to trick supporters of Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 presidential election. A far-right Twitter influencer was found guilty in a New York federal court Friday of spreading misinformation to Hillary Clinton supporters ahead of the 2016 presidential election, in a case involving a rare federal charge and a legal test of free speech on social media. A jury in Brooklyn convicted Douglass Mackey of a single criminal count after prosecutors said he plotted with other Twitter users to create memes intended to trick supporters of Mrs. Clinton into thinking they could cast a ballot by texting a phone number or posting a hashtag on social media. Federal prosecutors said Mr. Mackey supported Donald Trump in the 2016 race and hoped to reduce voter turnout for Mrs. Clinton by creating and sharing the memes.

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