U.S. Department of Justice
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: David McNew / Getty
An influencer and avid supporter of Donald Trump has been sent to prison for attempting to stop Black people from voting in 2016.
On Wednesday (Oct. 18), the Department of Justice announced that Douglass Mackey, a rabid supporter of former President Donald Trump was sentenced to seven months in prison for election interference in Brooklyn, N.Y. Mackey, who went by the username “Ricky Vaughn” on X, formerly known as Twitter, had been found guilty of using his account to spread misinformation geared to specifically trick Black people into believing that they could vote by text message. This came shortly after he sent messages to his 58,000 followers about the need to “limit Black turnout” in the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
An example of Mackey’s misconduct found him tweeting a photo of a woman standing in front of an “African Americans For Hillary” sign. “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home,” the tweet read. “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925.” The tweet was also accompanied by the hashtag that Clinton’s campaign used at the time – #ImWithHer. The tweet was reportedly sent out November 1, 2016. A further investigation by the FBI found that Mackey also sent out a tweet featuring a font similar to that used by Clinton’s campaign team with a woman sitting at a desk typing on a phone. The message was in Spanish and used the same hashtag and a copy of Clinton’s campaign logo. That tweet was sent out around Election Day.
“The defendant weaponized disinformation in a dangerous scheme to stop targeted groups, including black and brown people and women, from participating in our democracy,” said United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace in the press release. “This groundbreaking prosecution demonstrates our commitment to prosecuting those who commit crimes that threaten our democracy and seek to deprive people of their constitutional right to vote.” Mackey had also written at length saying Black voters were “gullible,” and was outed by the M.I.T. Media Lab as a top election influencer.
Andrew Frisch, Mackey’s attorney, had written to U.S. District Judge Ann M. Donnelly that Mackey was a changed man after beginning psychotherapy in 2018. “The Douglass Mackey who stands before the court for sentencing is not Ricky Vaughn of seven years ago,” the memorandum said. Judge Donnelly denied Frisch’s request for leniency, saying that Mackey’s actions were “nothing short of an assault on our democracy.”
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: PETER DEJONG / Getty
The Department of Justice has unsealed its indictment against former President Donald Trump, revealing lurid details of the federal government’s allegations that he withheld classified documents and obstructed attempts to retrieve them.
On Friday afternoon (June 9th), prosecutors for the government unsealed the 49-page indictment covering their allegations against Trump and his aide, Walter Nauta taking classified documents when he left the White House on January 20th, 2021. It stated that the documents contained information on “United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.” The actual number of counts in the indictment amount to 38 in number, with the first 31 covering each document as charges of willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act.
The indictment alleges that Trump kept those documents in plain sight throughout his Mar-A-Lago golf estate, including in a bathroom, a shower, and a ballroom. One photo in the indictment shows a box of highly classified documents that had spilled onto the floor of one of the storage rooms at the Palm Beach estate. It also contains details of evidence that the former president shared a “highly sensitive” plan of attack against Iran with guests at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club last July, including a recording where he described the information as “highly confidential” while admitting that it was not declassified.
Adding to the mounting evidence are the allegations of Trump’s activities in obstructing the Department of Justice, including “providing to the F.B.I. and grand jury just some of the documents called for by the grand jury subpoena, while claiming that he was cooperating fully.” Nauta’s involvement was the source of a heavy federal investigation, particularly as it was discovered that he was caught on camera moving the boxes of sensitive information out of Mar-A-Lago with a maintenance worker before the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search there last August.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is slated to release a statement concerning the unsealing of the indictment at 3 P.M. from his office in Washington D.C. Trump, meanwhile, is expected to attend campaign events in Georgia and North Carolina on Saturday (June 10th). He is slated to appear in federal court in Miami, Florida next Tuesday, marking the first time an American president has appeared in court in such a situation.
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Consolidated News Pictures / Getty
Donald Trump has been officially indicted by the Department of Justice on seven charges relating to the mishandling of classified government documents.
On Thursday evening (June 8th), news broke that Trump would be the first American president ever to be indicted by a grand jury on federal charges related to his mishandling of classified documents and attempts to block their retrieval. Observers had noted that an indictment was forthcoming after his legal team met with Special Counsel Jack Smith and other Department of Justice officials on Monday (June 5th) in Miami, Florida.
The exact details of the charges have not been disclosed as the indictment is still sealed, but a lawyer for Trump has said that they include obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy, and false statements. The lawyer, Jim Trusty, did say that one of those charges is filed under the Espionage Act. Trump is expected to appear in federal court in Miami next Tuesday.
News reports have also detailed how Jack Smith has led an aggressive and highly intricate probe into Trump’s actions, with two grand juries in Miami and Washington, D.C. being convened as well as receiving testimony from former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. A CNN report of a possible attempt to damage classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate by draining a swimming pool has also weighed heavily in the case.
The former president is currently facing 30 counts of business fraud in New York related to improper payments meant to cover up an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels. He is also under investigation in the state of Georgia due to allegations of his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election by attempting to coerce state officials to award him the electoral college results.
Trump shared the news with followers on his TruthSocial social media platform. “I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM,” he wrote. “I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: LUKE SHARRETT / Getty
A new review of the Louisville Police Department by the Department of Justice revealed a damning pattern of racial abuse by its officers for years.
In a report made public on Wednesday (March 8th), the Department of Justice found that both the Louisville, Kentucky Metro Police Department and the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro government routinely engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional behavior against Black citizens and those with behavioral issues. This was done through police conducting searches using invalid warrants and excessive force on multiple occasions.
Attorney General Merrick Garland discussed the findings at a press conference in Louisville, saying the police department and local government “has undermined its public safety mission and strained its relationship with the community it is meant to protect and serve,” as the city’s acting police chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel and Mayor Craig Greenberg stood nearby.
The 90-page report of the investigation conducted by the Civil Rights Division of the department goes into graphic detail about these abuses initiated by police officers. ”Some officers have videotaped themselves throwing drinks at pedestrians from their cars; insulted people with disabilities; and called Black people ‘monkeys,’ ‘animal,’ and ‘boy,’” the report stated. “This conduct erodes community trust, and the unlawful practices of LMPD and Louisville Metro undermine public safety.”
Further details show how political bias was a major component of the behavior of Louisville Police as well, with a department document from 2018 showing the adoption of the beliefs of the extremist Three Percenters. Another startling discovery was the use of excessive force involving dogs, with 71 bites being recorded over a span of 2016 to 2021. And evidence of excessive force against protesters decrying the death of Breonna Taylor in 2020 was also detailed, with people responding how police used “used riot sticks, less-lethal munitions, or chemical agents” against them. A police officer stated in an interview with DOJ officials that Taylor’s death “was a symptom of problems that we have had for years.”
Mayor Greenberg said of the report, “We will not make excuses, we will make changes.” The city has already paid out $12 million to Taylor’s family in a wrongful-death lawsuit, and council members have begun work towards the 36 recommended reforms from the report. The news from the DOJ comes after it announced a similar investigation into the Memphis, Tennessee police special units after the death of Tyre Nichols in January as well as investigations in Minneapolis, New York and Louisiana among other cities and states.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Pete Marovich / Getty
The Department of Justice is now moving to right a historic wrong by instructing prosecutors to eliminate racial disparities in drug cases at the behest of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
On Friday (Dec. 16), Garland issued directives to federal prosecutors to pursue the same charges and establish equivalent sentencing for both cocaine powder and crack cocaine. The current law sees people who are convicted of possessing 28 grams of crack cocaine receive a mandatory sentence of five years in prison. That same sentence is only given to those who are convicted of possessing nearly twenty times that amount in the powdered form of cocaine. The previous situation highlighted how Black and Latinx defendants were unfairly given heavier sentences under those guidelines which began under President Ronald Reagan’s “War on Drugs” in 1986.
Related Stories
Garland’s move to step in and issue these new guidelines comes after the Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law Act, or EQUAL Act, was passed by the Democratic-led House of Representatives last year with Republican support. But despite 11 GOP Senators backing it, the bill was ultimately stalled once it was presented to the Senate for a vote due to lacking the 60 votes needed for its advancement. The ratio at the heart of the act was lowered in 2009 from 100-to-1 under the Fair Sentencing Act which was passed by Congress while President Barack Obama was in office in 2010.
The attorney general sent out his directives in a memo. “In such cases, prosecutors should consider supporting a downward departure or variance,” Mr. Garland wrote. The memo also outlines that these new guidelines should also cover sentences that result from plea agreements. Individual prosecutors still have the leeway to use discretion on this matter from case to case.
The directive prompted some concern from Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa who claimed in a statement that “it undermines legislative efforts to address this sentencing disparity.” He continued: “That hard-won compromise has been jeopardized because the attorney general inappropriately took lawmaking into his own hands.”
The move is something that President Joe Biden and his administration have been agitating for since entering office. Garland had issued a memo early last year stating that attorney general’s offices across the country should expect new guidelines to be released. The timing of the move is significant as well, as Congress is in a lame-duck session before the Republicans regain control of the House next year while the Democrats have a firmer control of the Senate.
-
Pages