- A Texas man is accused of posting on Craigslist a call for Georgia elections officials to be killed.
- The Justice Department previously warned of an increase in threats to elections officials.
- This is the first time a DOJ task force focused on the topic has charged someone.
The Justice Department has charged a Texas man with making threats against Georgia election officials after the 2020 presidential election, The Washington Post reports.
Chad Christopher Stark posted on Craiglist that it was "time to kill" an elections official on January 5, 2021, according to an indictment.
"It's our duty as American patriots to put an end to the lives of these traitors and take back our country by force we can no longer wait on the corrupt law enforcement in the corrupt courts," Stark, according to the indictment, wrote in his message. "If we want to take this country back we must exterminate these people."
Stark is facing a charge for making interstate threats for threatening to kill multiple election officials.
According to The Post and CNN, this is the first time a Justice Department task force focused on threats to election workers has filed charges. The DOJ formed the group last summer based on what Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said was a "significant increase in the threat of violence against Americans who administer free and fair elections."
"For this vital right to be effective, election officials must be permitted to do their jobs free from improper partisan influence, physical threats, or any other conduct designed to intimidate," Monaco wrote in a message to federal prosecutors.
Gabriel Sterling, a top official in Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office, grew emotional when he warned reporters in December 2020 that "someone's going to get shot" as he described the level of threats flowing into Georgia after President Joe Biden narrowly won the state.
"Someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get shot, someone's going to get killed," Sterling told reporters. "It's not right."