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A Nebraska man pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of threatening a social media election official last year, marking the first conviction for a Justice Department task force working to protect pollsters.
Federal authorities said 42-year-old Travis Ford of Lincoln, Nebraska, posted a number of hostile messages on an Instagram page linked to the official, whose name was not released in a Justice Department statement.
“Do you feel safe?” You shouldn’t. Do you think Soros will / can protect you? Ford wrote in a August 2021 statement, apparently targeting Democrat megadonor George Soros, who has long been the target of fake conspiracies by far-right and anti-Semitic groups.
In another post, Ford wrote: “Your security data is too thin and incompetent to protect you. This world is unpredictable these days – anything can happen to anyone. ” He is due to be sentenced on October 6th and faces up to two years in prison, the justice ministry said.
“The Department of Justice will not tolerate illegal threats of violence against government officials,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Threats of violence against election officials are dangerous to human security and dangerous to our democracy.
Election officials say they fear for their personal safety: “We are in danger”
In July 2021, the Ministry of Justice launched a working group led by Deputy Prosecutor General Lisa O. Monaco to combat threats of violence against electoral workers as part of a wider effort to guarantee the right to vote. In a note to federal prosecutors, Monaco cited a “significant increase” in the number of threats against workers in the survey.
The task force has charged at least two people with crimes.
Federal prosecutors in January accused a Texas man of threatening elections and other government officials in Georgia, claiming that 54-year-old Chad Christopher Stark posted a Craigslist statement on January 5, 2021, saying it was “time to an “employee whose name is not included in court documents is killed.
That same week, 50-year-old Las Vegas’ Jersey Luke Junkai was charged after claiming she told an election official she would “die” for stealing the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump – spreading false conspiracy theory for widespread election fraud, promoted by Trump and his allies without evidence.
In Ford’s case, federal officials said he had also posted similar messages on Instagram pages related to President Biden and another public figure.
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