After years of legal battles, internet troll Douglass Mackey has finally been vindicated. A federal appeals court — led by a George W. Bush appointee and joined by another Bush judge, as well as, remarkably, a Biden appointee — overturned his wrongful conviction, finding there was never any evidence he conspired to deprive anyone of his or her right to vote.
As the 2nd Circuit noted, “the government failed to offer sufficient evidence that Mackey even viewed — let alone participated in — any of these exchanges” with his alleged co-conspirators. The ruling stands as a sobering reminder of how easily a venue-shopped, politically charged jury can convict without proof of harm, victims, intent, or even the most basic evidence.
Remarkably, when President Trump was sworn in earlier this year, Mackey publicly stated that he did not want a pardon. Instead, he was determined to fight his case all the way through to set a precedent protecting political expression online. That decision came at great personal cost, making his acquittal all the more significant.
Most disturbing is what this case reveals about the American political and legal system. Contrary to widespread claims — including from Sen. Tom Cotton — Mackey was not targeted by an overreaching Biden administration. The case was built and set in motion by Trump-era appointees who simply waited until Biden took office to pull the trigger.
In fact, the 22-page sealed charges were filed on January 22, 2021, making it impossible to blame Biden’s team for initiating it. This was the ultimate swamp co-production: a coordinated effort by an entrenched political class spanning both parties, working together to punish someone over a meme. The very system meant to protect free speech was weaponized to silence it instead.
In 2016, Mackey tweeted under the pseudonym Ricky Vaughn to roughly 60,000 followers. His content was pro-Trump and often provocative, including the meme that became the centerpiece of the government’s case against him — an image encouraging Hillary Clinton voters to vote by text. It was an obvious joke, but prosecutors later treated it as a federal crime.
After his account was suspended by Twitter, Mackey moved on with his life, unaware that years later he would be prosecuted by his own government. Though his arrest came just days after Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021, the investigation and groundwork for the case were carried out by Trump appointees.
Key figures included Trump appointees Seth DuCharme, then head of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, and Richard Donoghue, who served as the U.S. attorney for the same district. Both rose through the ranks under Trump’s second attorney general, Bill Barr, with Donoghue becoming principal associate deputy attorney general and later deputy attorney general, and DuCharme becoming principal associate deputy attorney general.
While Ducharme was falsely portrayed by the media as a Trump loyalist, his actions aligned seamlessly with the institutional priorities of his Democrat counterparts. He ultimately orchestrated Mackey’s arrest, deliberately timing it to occur after Trump left office, ensuring there would be no chance for a pardon.
Notably, Ducharme had earlier been dispatched by Barr to assist John Durham in his investigation of the Russiagate hoax. But given Durham’s abysmal failure — and DuCharme’s underhanded orchestration of Mackey’s arrest after Trump left office — it’s hard not to wonder whether his real role on the Durham team was to quietly sabotage that investigation from within.
The decision to prosecute Mackey in New York rather than in his home state of Florida also speaks volumes. It allowed prosecutors to empanel a jury far more likely to be hostile to a MAGA internet troll. The judge’s ruling further expanded jurisdiction by claiming Mackey’s tweets were “viewed” in New York, opening the door for political speech to be criminally prosecuted anywhere in the country.
Equally troubling was the charge itself, drawn from the Enforcement Act of 1870 — a law passed to stop the Ku Klux Klan from physically intimidating black voters. The law had never before been used to criminalize satirical online speech. Federal prosecutors, Republican and Democrat alike, twisted it into a weapon to silence political expression. Despite extensive efforts to find a victim — anyone who genuinely believed they could vote by text — none was found.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton supporter Kristina Wong, who sent a nearly identical tweet encouraging Trump voters to vote by text, was never charged. The only meaningful difference was that Mackey’s tweet included a phone number while hers did not. But no reasonable person believed either message was real. The disparity highlights the system’s selective enforcement: one standard for critics of the regime, another for its defenders.
The abuse of the 1870 statute didn’t end with Mackey. Special Counsel Jack Smith later charged Donald Trump under the same law, citing efforts to interfere with vote counting in 2020. That a meme case and a president’s indictment share the same legal footing shows how these once-obscure statutes are being stretched far beyond their original intent.
And while Mackey faced prison time over a meme, 51 former intelligence officials who signed the false letter dismissing Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation have never faced any accountability. Unlike anything Mackey did, their disinformation inarguably changed the course of a presidential election, yet the government has never lifted a finger against them.
This is the real scandal — a justice system so nakedly politicized that a satirical tweet is treated more seriously than an intelligence community lie that helped swing a national election.
Douglass Mackey’s acquittal is a long-overdue win for free speech. He didn’t take the easy way out. He stood his ground to challenge the weaponization of the legal system and, in doing so, exposed the cynical, bipartisan machine behind it. If there’s a way forward, it begins with the reminder that individuals, no matter how outmatched, can fight back and win. Mackey’s case shows that persistence, principle, and the courage to see a fight through can still make a difference.