The US Department of Justice announced on Friday January 21 the arrest of a man accused of threatening to kill election officials in Georgia, one of the states where Joe Biden's 2020 presidential victory was contested by Donald Trump.
This is the first arrest made by a group of investigators set up in June 2021 to combat threats of violence against elected, appointed or volunteer election officials, the ministry said in a statement.
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Chad Stark, a 54-year-old man from near Austin, Texas, was charged with making death threats and faces up to five years in prison. On January 5, 2021, on the eve of the assault by supporters of the former Republican president on the Capitol in Washington, he posted a message on the classifieds site Craigslist offering $ 10,000 in rewards to "
patriots of Georgia
to "
put a bullet
" to an electoral agent qualified as a "
Chinese agent
". “
It is our duty as patriotic Americans to put an end to the lives of these traitors
,” he continued, quoting another election official and “
corrupt local and federal judges
". Referring to a third Georgia election official, he added "
we also have to visit him and his family and put a bullet between his ears
". These officers are only identified as “
A
”, “
B
” and “
C
” officials by the ministry.
Georgia, one of the disputed conservative states for the November 2020 presidential election, had fallen into Joe Biden's Democratic handshake thanks to the mobilization of African-American voters.
Donald Trump unsuccessfully challenged the results, accusing state election officials of having organized a "
rigged and corrupt
" ballot, baseless allegations.
"
The Department of Justice has a responsibility to not only protect the right to vote, but also to protect those who manage our electoral systems from violence and unlawful threats of violence
," Minister Merrick Garland said in the statement. .
