A Trump supporter who was convicted of election interference after posting memes of Hilary Clinton online has questioned whether the US is a ‘free country’ ahead of his jail term.
Douglass Mackey is facing seven months in prison after being found guilty of conspiring to deprive citizens of their right to vote in the 2016 presidential election.
Prosecutors successfully argued that fake campaign posters Mackey shared under his alias ‘Ricky Vaughn’ encouraged Hillary Clinton supporters to cast meaningless votes by text message instead of casting an actual ballot.
But Mackey, 33, claimed the posters were harmless memes intended to poke fun at the presidential hopeful.
Now in an interview with Tucker Carlson, he has revealed how his conviction has changed his opinion of the US, saying: ‘I don’t know that we are a free country’.
Douglass Mackey, who was convicted of election fraud for posting fake Hilary Clinton campaign posted in 2016, questioned if America is a ‘free country’ ahead of his seven month jail term
Mackey was interviewed by Tucker Carlson about memes he shared online under his alias Ricky Vaughn which a judge ruled constituted a conspiracy to deprive voters of their right to cast ballots
‘I thought that this was America, I thought that we have the First Amendment, due process rights, that we could criticize people in our ruling class,’ Mackey said.
He also agreed with Carlson that being ‘thrown in jail for making fun of Hilary Clinton’ sets a precedent.
‘The scary thing is if they think that you’re conspiring on the internet they can subpoena your entire life and dig through everything you’ve got so I mean it’s a very dangerous precedent,’ Mackey said.
‘Not only the fact that they can pick you up and drag you to whatever federal district they want in the entire country because tweets go over wires.’
Mackey was convicted in March over his memes, which his lawyers argued were examples of s**tposting’, an internet term for making provocative satirical posts intended to shock and upset online foes.
Mackey and unnamed co-conspirators created a number of images purporting to be Clinton campaign ads, with messages such as ‘Avoid the Line. Vote from Home. Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925.’
The phony campaign ads also carried fine print falsely claiming they were ‘Paid for by Hillary for President 2016’.
At least 4,900 people text the fake phone numbers, prosecutors said.
Mackey, 33, is now facing a seven-year jail sentence for the federal felony
According to a criminal complaint, Mackey and unnamed co-conspirators created a number of images purporting to be Clinton campaign ads, including the one above
Mackey had been known as Ricky Vaughn on social media, based on Charlie Sheen’s character in ‘Major League’, which he used as his Twitter avatar (right)
But Mackey claimed that investigators had not been able to interview a single person who genuinely believed they were casting their vote and instead argued that most people understood it was a joke.
‘Should we be charging these things with ten-year jail federal felonies?’ Mackey asked.
The former economic researcher posted the memes under the account name Ricky Vaughn, a reference to Charlie Sheen’s character in ‘Major League’. His true identity was exposed by the Huffington Post.
He described how he was woken at 7am one day in March by FBI agents who swooped on his home and slapped him in handcuffs.
He claimed he was not told why he was being arrested until he got to the courthouse.
But despite his shock, Mackey insisted he is not afraid to leave his wife and baby to begin his jail term.
At sentencing, Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Ann Donnelly emphasized Mackey was not going to prison for his conservative views.
‘You are not being sentenced for your political beliefs or for expressing those beliefs,’ she said. ‘Each one of us has the right to hold opinions and express those opinions.’
Assistant US Attorney Turner Buford argued that Mackey’s behavior was ‘about vaporizing votes, making them disappear.’
Jessica Morales, Clinton’s digital organizing director in 2016 testified in the case.
‘I thought that this was America, I thought that we have the First Amendment, due process rights, that we could criticize people in our ruling class,’ Mackey said
She said the ‘vote by text’ tweets were highly concerning to the campaign, and asked if she viewed them as a joke, she said: ‘No, not a joke. Not for me. Not a parody.’
‘It’s a very sneaky graphic. It’s designed to look like it came from the campaign… This is designed to look like what we did,’ she said, according to the Daily News.
At the time of the alleged fraud, Mackey had 58,000 followers on Twitter and was considered an ‘important influencer’ in the election, which was won by Donald Trump, prosecutors said.
He had described himself as an ‘American nationalist’ who regularly retweeted Trump and promoted conspiracy theories about voter fraud by Democrats.