Supply: David McNew / Getty

An influencer and avid supporter of Donald Trump has been despatched to jail for trying to cease Black individuals from voting in 2016.

On Wednesday (Oct. 18), the Division of Justice introduced that Douglass Mackey, a rabid supporter of former President Donald Trump was sentenced to seven months in jail for election interference in Brooklyn, N.Y. Mackey, who glided by the username “Ricky Vaughn” on X, previously generally known as Twitter, had been discovered responsible of utilizing his account to unfold misinformation geared to particularly trick Black individuals into believing that they may vote by textual content message. This got here shortly after he despatched messages to his 58,000 followers about the necessity to “restrict Black turnout” within the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

An instance of Mackey’s misconduct discovered him tweeting a photograph of a girl standing in entrance of an “African People For Hillary” signal. “Keep away from the Line. Vote from Dwelling,” the tweet learn. “Textual content ‘Hillary’ to 59925.” The tweet was additionally accompanied by the hashtag that Clinton’s marketing campaign used on the time – #ImWithHer. The tweet was reportedly despatched out November 1, 2016. An extra investigation by the FBI discovered that Mackey additionally despatched out a tweet that includes a font just like that utilized by Clinton’s marketing campaign group with a girl sitting at a desk typing on a telephone. The message was in Spanish and used the identical hashtag and a duplicate of Clinton’s marketing campaign emblem. That tweet was despatched out round Election Day.

“The defendant weaponized disinformation in a harmful scheme to cease focused teams, together with black and brown individuals and ladies, from taking part in our democracy,” mentioned United States Lawyer for the Japanese District of New York Breon Peace within the press launch. “This groundbreaking prosecution demonstrates our dedication to prosecuting those that commit crimes that threaten our democracy and search to deprive individuals of their constitutional proper to vote.” Mackey had additionally written at size saying Black voters had been “gullible,” and was outed by the M.I.T. Media Lab as a high election influencer.

Andrew Frisch, Mackey’s lawyer, had written to U.S. District Decide Ann M. Donnelly that Mackey was a modified man after starting psychotherapy in 2018. “The Douglass Mackey who stands earlier than the courtroom for sentencing just isn’t Ricky Vaughn of seven years in the past,” the memorandum mentioned. Decide Donnelly denied Frisch’s request for leniency, saying that Mackey’s actions had been “nothing wanting an assault on our democracy.”