The Justice Department charged a Texas man with threatening election and other government officials in Georgia, in the first case brought by a new task force to combat such threats, the Washington Post reports. Prosecutors alleged that Chad Christopher Stark posted a message on Craigslist on Jan. 5, 2021, saying it was “time to kill” an elections official. “Georgia Patriots it’s time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors. It’s time to invoke our Second Amendment right it’s time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges,” Stark wrote, according to the indictment.
Georgia officials were targeted by a flood of hostile messages after officials there refused to back then-President Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud. Trump himself called Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger the “enemy of the people”, and urged Raffensperger in a phone call to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat. Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions that the election was rigged. Election officials across the U.S. have warned about an ongoing barrage of criticism and personal attacks, which are prompting some staffers to leave. The indictment alleges Stark, of Leander, Tx., referenced three government officials, all of whose names prosecutors obscured. “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. If we want our country back we have to exterminate these people,” he allegedly wrote.