Do you think what people breaking the law online is just a game with no consequences? 33 year old Douglass Mackey of West Palm Beach learned the hard way that it isn’t. Back in 2016 he was helping Trump beat Hillary. On Friday, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted him of criminal behavior— election interference— and he now faces as many as 10 years in prison. You may know him by his pseudonym, Ricky Vaughan, the Charlie Sheen’s character in the 1989 film Major League. The Department of Justice explained the case:
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.
As proven at trial, between September 2016 and November 2016, Mackey conspired with other influential Twitter users and with members of private online groups to use social media platforms, including Twitter, to disseminate fraudulent messages that encouraged supporters of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to “vote” via text message or social media which, in reality, was legally invalid. For example, on November 1, 2016, in or around the same time that Mackey was sending tweets suggesting the importance of limiting “black turnout,” the defendant tweeted an image depicting an African American woman standing in front of an “African Americans for Hillary” sign. The ad stated: “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home,” “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925,” and “Vote for Hillary and be a part of history.” The fine print at the bottom of the deceptive image stated: “Must be 18 or older to vote. One vote per person. Must be a legal citizen of the United States. Voting by text not available in Guam, Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii. Paid for by Hillary For President 2016.” The tweet included the typed hashtag “#ImWithHer,” a slogan frequently used by Hillary Clinton. 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.
Several hours after tweeting the first image, Mackey tweeted an image depicting a woman seated at a conference room typing a message on her cell phone. This deceptive image was written in Spanish and mimicked a font used by the Clinton campaign in authentic ads. The image also included a copy of the Clinton campaign’s logo and the “ImWithHer” hashtag.
The New York Daily News reported that Mackey’s attorney said they will appeal the verdict. “Prosecutors argued that Mackey posted the images to trick Black voters and women in particular, pointing to his past posts describing Black people as ‘gullible’ and saying women shouldn’t be allowed to vote… Mackey testified that he was only posting non-serious “memes” that he didn’t think anyone would take seriously. Even though he was a member of the group chats where the fake ads were workshopped, he claimed he ‘had the group on mute’ and wasn’t paying attention to the stream of messages. ‘It was no criminal conspiracy. It was the internet,’ defense lawyer Frisch said in his closing argument. He added that although roughly 4,900 people called the vote-by-text number, ‘No one was tricked.’… [Prosecutors] showed pages of group chat logs where pro-Trump trolls discussed how to make the text-by-vote images look convincing. The trolls also tested out ideas like photoshopping MAGA hats on celebrities like Ariana Grande, and posting fake Clinton ads with the logo ‘Draft our Daughters’ to trick people into believing that Clinton wanted to send young women to war. A key witness for the prosecution— a notorious troll with the screen name ‘Microchip’— was allowed to testify anonymously. He said the fake vote-by-text ads were designed to ‘defraud voters of their right to vote,’ and described Mackey as a leader in the group chats, someone respected for his large following and his strategic use of memes. Microchip, who testified he began working for the FBI in 2018, pleaded guilty to conspiracy against rights last year. As part of his plea deal, he agreed to testify against Mackey and help the FBI in several other cases.
Marjorie Traitor Greene has been screeching about the case and portraying Mackey as a victim instead of a perp.