The Clintons have been skirting the law for decades. Now it’s all crashing down.
And Hillary Clinton is losing sleep over this devastating loss in court.
A federal judge decided in favor of a man who created satirical memes mocking then-candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.
The ruling suspended conservative social media user Douglass Mackey’s seven-month prison sentence for “election interference,” pending appeal.
“The District Court is ordered to determine the appropriate terms of release, without prejudice to the government’s making a future request for detention, on behalf of Appellant Douglass Mackey,” stated the court’s Motion Order.
“It is further ordered that this appeal is expedited.”
Federal District Court Judge Omar A. Williams of Connecticut signed the order, which further stated:
Mackey’s initial brief will be due on or before January 5, 2024. The government’s response will be due on or before February 5, 2024. Mackey’s reply brief will be due on or before February 20, 2024. The Clerk is directed to calendar this appeal as soon as practicable after February 20, 2024.
Mackey made a public statement about the directive on Monday. “This ruling is huge because it means that the appeals court decided that my appeal presents ‘substantial’ and ‘debatable’ issues of law that, if resolved in my favor, will result in my conviction being vacated,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“The prosecution, on the other hand, argued that my appeal was frivolous and that this was a typical election crime case like any other in U.S. history,” he added. “This is a very encouraging step towards vindication.”
BREAKING NEWS: Second Circuit Court of Appeals grants bond pending appeal in the Douglass Mackey meme case
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals just overruled the District Court in granting our motion for bond pending appeal. This ruling is huge because it means that the appeals…
— Douglass Mackey (@DougMackeyCase) December 4, 2023
“Mackey said if he loses the appeal in the Second Circuit, he intends to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court,” reported The Daily Wire.
Mackey was sentenced in October by federal District Court Judge Ann M. Donnelly in New York. According to The Daily Wire, in addition to prison time, Mackey was sentenced to “a $15,000 fine and two years probation.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ) of the Biden administration noted the 34-year-old Florida man’s alleged “role in a conspiracy to interfere with potential voters’ right to vote in the 2016 election for the Office of the President of the United States.”
The DOJ went on to label Mackey’s meme as “deceptive” and an “ad,” stating:
On November 1, 2016, in or around the same time that Mackey was sending tweets suggesting the importance of limiting “black turnout,” the defendant tweeted an image depicting an African American woman standing in front of a “African Americans for Hillary” sign.
The ad stated: “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home,” “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925,” and “Vote for Hillary and be a part of history.” The fine print at the bottom of the deceptive image stated: “Must be 18 or older to vote. One vote per person. Must be a legal citizen of the United States. Voting by text not available in Guam, Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii. Paid for by Hillary For President 2016.” The tweet included the typed hashtag “#ImWithHer,” a slogan frequently used by Hillary Clinton.
“On or about and before Election Day 2016, thousands of unique telephone numbers texted ‘Hillary’ or some derivative to the 59925 text number, which had been used in multiple deceptive campaign images tweeted by Mackey and his co-conspirators,” the DOJ claimed.
According to The Daily Wire, “it’s unclear how many people, if anyone, fell for the meme and did not cast the vote they intended to cast; or were merely participating in the joke.”
According to The Post Millennial, Mackey was arrested for the first time approximately a week after President Biden took office, more than four years after posting the viral meme.
Hillary Clinton hailed his detention, claiming that the image was not “free speech.” Clinton, on the other hand, said that the meme creator was “running a very deliberate effort to mislead people about where and how to vote.”
“It went from speech to action meant to subvert the election, because thousands of people who they targeted through their algorithms [said] ‘oh I could text my vote for Hillary Clinton,'” the loser of the election stated at the time.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
