At the commencement of the trial of online meme creator Douglass Mackey, also known as Rickey Vaughn, attorney Andrew Frisch informed the federal jury Monday that Mackey did not aim to deceive voters by sharing Hillary Clinton memes during the 2016 election, which encouraged her supporters to cast their votes via text messages from home.
Frisch reportedly argued Mackey was merely trying to have his posts go viral, saying he Mackey was “sh*t-posting,” or “stuff-posting” as he stated to the jury.
“It means what it says — he was posting stuff,” explained Frisch. “A lot of it was online trash-talking. Juvenile, sure, and some of it was vulgar.”
“Whatever your reaction when you hear his views … whether he was a great thinker or a neanderthal caveman, you will see that none of it is proof of a criminal conspiracy.”
Federal prosecutors are said that Mackey collaborated with other meme makers to make their spoof social media posts appear as authentic as they could.
“This wasn’t about changing votes. This was about vaporizing votes, making them disappear,” claimed Assistant US Attorney Turner Buford.
“The number was real and set up to receive incoming messages,” he stated. “The release of these fake campaign ads was timed to flood the internet before Election Day.”
State Freedom Caucus Network Communications Director Greg Price made a post about the controversy to Twitter on March 14 suggesting a double standard from the Department of Justice.
Douglass Mackey tweeted the meme on the left before the 2016 election and the Biden DOJ is now trying to put him in jail for 10 years for posting it.
The tweet on the right was also posted before the 2016 election by a liberal activist but she has never been arrested. pic.twitter.com/HuQS6tEcZ5
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 15, 2023
Earlier his month, Fox News host Tucker Carlson blasted the Biden administration over its conduct surrounding Macket in an episode of his primetime show. In the report, Carlson noted that not a single person was fooled into attempting to cast a vote by text as a consequence of viewing Mackey’s online jokes.
“[If] the First Amendment means anything, it means what’s happening to Doug Mackey is an outrage and should end immediately,” Carlson asserted.
If the First Amendment means anything, it means that what's happening to Douglass Mackey is an outrage. It should end immediately. pic.twitter.com/wX52zIw9mJ
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 15, 2023
Another person who has stoop up for Mackey is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling on him to drop the charges for the meme maker, and to “immediately thereafter resign as Attorney General of the United States before your gross incompetence and twisted sense of justice further deteriorates the right enumerated in and protected by the Constitution. ”
The political prosecution of Douglass Mackey should terrify every single American.
His “crime?” Meme-posting.
Merrick Garland and his cronies at the DOJ are charging Mackey with a subset of the Enforcement Act of 1870, otherwise known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, clearly intended… pic.twitter.com/TFxQGksFpj
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) March 16, 2023
