{"id":147743,"date":"2025-07-09T14:12:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T19:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldtribune.com\/?p=147743"},"modified":"2025-07-09T14:12:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T19:12:23","slug":"court-tosses-biden-era-conviction-of-meme-maker-who-mocked-hillary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/court-tosses-biden-era-conviction-of-meme-maker-who-mocked-hillary\/","title":{"rendered":"Court tosses Biden-era conviction of meme-maker who mocked Hillary"},"content":{"rendered":"

by<\/em><\/span> WorldTribune<\/strong> Staff<\/em><\/span><\/span>, July 9, 2025 <\/em>Real World News<\/span><\/a>
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Left’s political persecution of a conservative meme-maker apparently is over.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Second Circuit appeals court on Tuesday tossed out the conviction of Douglass Mackey, who was sentenced in October 2023 to 7 months in prison for what Biden-era Justice Department prosecutors aid was \u201chis role in a conspiracy to interfere with potential voters\u2019 right to vote\u201d in the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n

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Douglass Mackey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A meme Mackey posted on Twitter in 2016, that struck most as satire, urged supporters of Hillary Clinton to vote by text.<\/p>\n

The DOJ charged that Mackey\u2019s meme constituted election interference but no evidence was presented at trial showing any voters were deceived by the meme.<\/p>\n

Mackey said Clinton supporters had posted similar memes encouraging Trump supporters to vote by text without consequence.<\/p>\n

The Second Circuit wrote that “the mere fact that Mackey posted the memes, even assuming that he did so with the intent to injure other citizens in the exercise of their right to vote, is not enough, standing alone, to prove a violation of Section 241. The government was obligated to show that Mackey knowingly entered into an agreement with other people to pursue that objective.”<\/p>\n

The court continued: “This the government failed to do. Its primary evidence of agreement, apart from the memes themselves, consisted of exchanges among the participants in several private Twitter message groups\u2014exchanges the government argued showed the intent of the participants to interfere with others\u2019 exercise of their right to vote. Yet the government failed to offer sufficient evidence that Mackey even viewed\u2014let alone participated in\u2014any of these exchanges. And in the absence of such evidence, the government\u2019s remaining circumstantial evidence cannot alone establish Mackey\u2019s knowing agreement. Accordingly, the jury’s verdict and the resulting judgement conviction must be set aside.”<\/p>\n

The ruling states: “Mackey was convicted of conspiring to injure citizens in the exercise of their right to vote in violation of 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 241 based on three memes he posted or reposted on Twitter shortly before the 2016 presidential election. These memes falsely suggested that supporters of then-candidate Hillary Clinton could vote by text message. On appeal, Mackey argues, inter alia, that the evidence was insufficient to prove that he knowingly agreed to join the charged conspiracy. We agree.”<\/p>\n

The court stated that “At various times throughout 2016, Mackey was a member of several direct message groups, three of which are particularly relevant here: the ‘War Room,’ ‘Micro Chat,’ and ‘Madman #2.’ In these groups, members shared pro-Trump and anti-Clinton messages and memes and discussed strategies to make their posts trend and go viral on Twitter. … Like most of Mackey\u2019s tweets, the exchanges in these groups generally fell within the scope of lawful\u2014albeit sometimes ‘outrageous’ or ‘silly’\u2014political speech.”<\/p>\n

In a post to X, Mackey wrote: “I would like to thank God, thank my family, thank my beautiful wife, attorney Andrew Frisch, the incredible attorneys at Jones Day, and YOU\u2014the friends who prayed and donated and spread the word since day one.”<\/p>\n

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HE POSTED IT AGAIN https:\/\/t.co\/fmqUjNosN3<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jack Poso \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@JackPosobiec) July 9, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n