THE CONSTITUTION IS NOT A SUICIDE PACT

“Employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.”

– The Peter Principle

The following people committed the following acts in the year since That Fucking Guy lost the election:

In Arizona, a stay-at-home dad and part-time Lyft driver told the state’s chief election officer she would hang for treason.

In Utah, a youth treatment center staffer warned Colorado’s election chief that he knew where she lived and watched her as she slept.

In Vermont, a man who says he works in construction told workers at the state election office and at Dominion Voting Systems that they were about to die. “This might be a good time to put a fucking pistol in your fucking mouth and pull the trigger,” the man shouted at Vermont officials in a thick New England accent last December. “Your days are fucking numbered.”

All described themselves as patriots fighting a conspiracy that robbed Donald Trump of the 2020 election.

They are regular consumers of far-right websites that embrace Trump’s stolen-election falsehoods.

They were among nine people who told Reuters in interviews that they made threats or left other hostile messages to election workers. In all, they are responsible for nearly 24 harassing communications to six election officials in four states.

Seven made threats explicit enough to put a reasonable person in fear of bodily harm or death, the U.S. federal standard for criminal prosecution, according to four legal experts who reviewed their messages at Reuters’ request.

And none have been charged with a crime by the law enforcement agencies alerted to their threats.

Reuters has documented nearly 800 intimidating messages to election officials in 12 states, including more than 100 that could warrant prosecution, according to legal experts. After Reuters reported this widespread intimidation in June, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was launching a task force to investigate threats against election staff and said it would aggressively pursue such cases.

But law enforcement agencies have made almost no arrests and won no convictions. Apparently, law enforcement disagrees with those legal experts. In the seven cases legal scholars said could be prosecuted, law enforcement agencies had been alerted by election officials to six . None of the perpetrators who made those threats ever heard from police.

Ross Miller, a Georgia real-estate investor, warned an official in the Atlanta area that he’d be tarred and feathered, hung or face firing squads unless he addressed voter fraud. In an interview, Miller said he would continue to make such calls “until they do something.” He added: “We can’t have another election until they fix what happened in the last one.”

Nearly all of the threateners saw the country deteriorating into a war between good and evil – “patriots” against “communists.” They echoed extremist ideas popularized by QAnon, a collective of baseless conspiracy theories that often cast Trump as a savior figure and Democrats as villains. Some said they were preparing for civil war. Six were in their 50s or older; all but two were men.

Representative John Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat, introduced legislation in June to make it a federal crime to intimidate, threaten or harass an election worker.“I think we’re on a dangerous path,” Sarbanes said last week when told the threats were continuing with little law enforcement intervention. “We want there to be some effective and sustained push back on this kind of harassment.”

The man who threatened election workers in Vermont was left alone, despite making multiple calls, because law enforcement had dismissed the case, stating his phone number was “untraceable.” The two Reuters reporters on the story connected with him in September on the phone number police called untraceable.

When contacted, he grew agitated, peppering the reporters with 137 texts and voicemails over the past month, threatening them and describing his election conspiracy theories. He telephoned the Vermont secretary of state’s office again on Oct. 17 from the same phone number used in the other threats. This time he was more explicit. Addressing state staffers and referring to the two journalists by name, he said he guaranteed that all would soon get “popped.”

“You guys are a bunch of fucking clowns, and all you dirty cocksuckers are about to get fucking popped. I fucking guarantee it.”

The officials referred the voicemail to Vermont state police, who again declined to investigate. Agency spokesperson Adam Silverman said in a statement that the message didn’t constitute an “unambiguous reference to gun violence,” adding that the word “popped” – common American slang for “shot” – “is unclear and nonspecific, and could be a reference to someone being arrested.”

Some Vermont officials questioned why the man intimidating state officials wasn’t investigated or prosecuted, highlighting a broader national debate over how to respond to post-election threats. In a pattern seen across America, Vermont law enforcement officials decided this man’s repeated menacing messages amounted to legally protected free speech. Rory Thibault, the state’s attorney in Washington County, which includes Montpelier, supported the decision in a four-page Dec. 15 memo to state police. The messages were “protected speech,” Thibault wrote, because they were not “directed at a single person or official.” They were “conditional” on a “perception of malfeasance in the election process,” and the caller didn’t indicate he would personally inflict harm, he said.

Fred Schauer, a University of Virginia law professor, said the message likely constituted a criminal threat under federal law by threatening gun violence at specific individuals. “There’s certainly an intent to put people in fear.” “The whole purpose of the threats doctrine is to protect people from not only a prospect of physical violence, but the damage of living with a threat hanging over you,” said Timothy Zick, a William & Mary Law School professor.

Moving past that, since January 6, nearly all arrested insurrectionists have been charged with minor misdemeanors. Those charged with more “major” crimes have yet to face potential prison sentences of more than a few months.

It has now been nearly three weeks since Congress voted to hold Steve Bannon in contempt and referred the case to the Department of Justice for indictment and prosecution. Asked yesterday if there was any progress on this, Attorney General Merrick Garland refused any comment. Asked about his non-statement “statement,” Congressman Adam Schiff stated he is getting increasingly concerned about the department’s lack of action. He pointed out that Bannon claims “executive privilege” despite not being a government employee and claiming it from interactions with a former president. Courts have repeatedly found the federal “executive privilege” only involves the office, not the office-holder.

Merrick Garland is obviously a good man. He was an excellent judge on the DC Court of Appeals. He would undoubtedly have been a superior Supreme Court Judge.

As Attorney General, he appears to have found his “Peter Principle” employment.

I don’t remember which judge said this, but I remember the statement: “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.”

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