An Alabama man has been indicted on federal charges that he threatened violence against a Georgia prosecutor and sheriff related to an investigation into former President Donald Trump.

An Alabama man has been indicted on federal charges that he threatened violence against a Georgia prosecutor and sheriff related to an investigation into former President Donald Trump.

The indictment returned Oct. 25 and unsealed Monday accuses Arthur Ray Hanson II of Huntsville of leaving threatening voicemails for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat on Aug. 6. Reached by phone Monday, Hanson, 59, said he is not guilty of the charges.

Willis on Aug. 14 obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 other people, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to try to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. The indictment — the fourth criminal case filed against Trump in a matter of months — had been widely anticipated.

Shortly before the indictment was returned, Labat was asked during a news conference whether Trump would have a mug shot taken if he was indicted. Labat responded, “Unless someone tells me differently, we are following our normal practices and so it doesn’t matter your status, we’ll have a mug shot ready for you.”

  • aelwero@lemmy.world
    125·
    1 year ago

    Indicted for saying things…

    Call me not a fan of this trend. I think it’s being commonly accepted because certain people think anyone in that party is a racist homophobic fascist Nazi, so it’s ok to ignore the fact that speech isn’t a crime, but at some point, this common acceptance is going to be abused by the ones it’s currently being directed at, and they will direct it back, likely a hundred fold.

    For a specific example of what I’m talking about, id point out the infamous “N word”, and the banning of Samuel Clemens from school libraries. Not an unreasonable thing to do, but the fact that book bans were acquiesced to in the name of political correctness paved a road to the current hell that is going on with very broad concepts being put under the same crosshairs, which isn’t reasonable at all, but bears enough similarity to be viable (and I’m not saying that as a matter of opinion, these bans are being implemented in reality)

    • FoundTheVegan@kbin.social
      18·
      1 year ago

      Free speech does not cover threats.

      I know you are just trying to cope, but come on. This is never how free speech worked. How would hate speech laws work? How would harassment laws work? How would restraining order work? Planning a robbery isn’t free speech.

      It’s beyond frustrating that so often the people using free speech don’t even understand the principle. Please actually educate yourself and stop listening to Trumps rants abiut “perfect phone calls”.

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
        1·
        1 year ago

        The reason why threatening speech isn’t really covered in the Constitution is because that was taken care of privately with duels at the time. But if you threatened a District Attorney or Attorney General, you might get a visit from their armed extra-legal friends. Judicial authorities can’t be seen dueling.

        Freedom of speech has never meant freedom from consequences.

    • mrbubblesort@kbin.social
      10·
      1 year ago

      Dude come on, read the article. He called up the sheriff’s office and made thinly veiled death threats. There’s no free speech claim to be made here, and there’s no fucking way the cops would let that go.