On Friday, the Justice Department’s task force on election threats arrested a Texas man who used Craigslist to call for the assassination of Georgia election officials because they rejected Trump’s demand to find enough votes to overturn change the election results in his favor.
The man, Chad Christopher Stark, was charged by Federal prosecutors of calling for “Georgia Patriots” to “put a bullet” in a Georgia election official, The New York Times reported, citing the indictment.
Prosecutor said that Stark, 54, of Leander, Texas, made the threat in a post on Craigslist, the online message board, while then-President Trump and his allies were putting public pressure on Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who certified Trump’s defeat in Georgia to Joe Biden.
“Georgia Patriots it’s time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors,” Mr. Stark wrote, according to the indictment. “It’s time to invoke our Second Amendment right it’s time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges,” he added, according to The Times.
Stark’s threat came at a moment of intense political pressure against election officials in battleground states. His posting was published on Jan. 5, a day before a Trump-inspired crowd attacked the United States Capitol in an effort to block Congress from certifying Biden’s electoral victory.
Stark was charged with one count of communicating interstate threats.
The case is the first brought by the department’s Election Threats Task Force, an agency created last summer to address threats against elections and election workers.
The Times cited Kenneth A. Polite Jr., the head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, who said on Friday that the task force is reviewing over 850 reports of threats to election officials and has opened dozens of criminal investigations.
During the 2020 election cycle and in its immediate aftermath, election workers “came under unprecedented verbal assault for doing nothing more than their jobs,” Polite told reporters, according to the report. “As the attorney general and deputy attorney general have both emphasized previously: We will not tolerate the intimidation of those who safeguard our electoral system,” he added.
