High-Profile Arrests For Threats Against Election Workers, School Board Members

     Tomorrow, I will have more big news on the fake elector scheme spanning at least seven states. Today, there is a little less significant but still satisfying news: the University of Rhode Island officially revoked the honorary degrees they had bestowed to Rudy Giuliani and Michael Flynn years ago. This is not the first time Rudy Giuliani has lost an honorary degree. In 2021, Drexel University and Middlebury College revoked the honorary degrees they had given Giuliani. While awards can't be rescinded, honorary degrees can, and this should serve as a template: in spite of Giuliani having three degrees revoked and Flynn losing one, they still have two and one, respectively. If you have time, please email The Citadel Military College in South Carolina and Loyola University in Illinois urging them to revoke the honorary degrees they gave Giuliani and The Institute of World Politics to urge them to revoke the honorary doctorate they gave Michael Flynn. On the same day this story broke, it was revealed that Lauren Boebert made an inappropriate remark to a group of rabbis touring the Capitol. Enough is enough: after the Build Back Better Act is passed, Boebert should be stripped of her committee assignments for this as well as her prior anti-Muslim remarks. 

     Meanwhile, there are two important developments. Since 2020, there have been spikes in hate crimes, assaults on airplanes, fights over masks, threats directed at election workers, and violence in school board meetings. The Biden administration is tackling the hate crime problem and the DOJ is prioritizing the airline safety issue with the announcement of dozens of arrests on federal felony charges. Today, on the issues of threats against election workers and school board members, two arrests were made.

     Chad Christopher Stark, a Texas man, was charged for sending threats to Georgia election officials as well as saying high-ranking Georgia elected officials and state and federal judges should be killed. If convicted, he faces up to five years in federal prison. This is the first arrest the DOJ has made for threats against election workers, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has indicated that nearly 1,000 cases are currently under investigation, with more indictments likely to be announced in the coming weeks.

     Meanwhile, a viral video seen by millions led to the arrest of a Virginia woman on state charges. During a school board meeting, Amelia Ruffner King threatened to "bring every gun loaded and ready" if the school enforced a mask mandate. She later sent an email apologizing and claiming she did not mean a literal gun; the threat, however, was enough to force the school to implement security protocols during the next day's classes. King would be arrested by Luray, Virginia, police and released on $5,000 bond. She was charged with making a verbal threat on school property, a class one misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. 

     Two pieces of advice: Virginia legislators should snap back at the anti-mask rhetoric by Governor Glenn Youngkin that has led to this sort of violence and introduce legislation making threats on school property a class four felony, which would force the GOP in the state to take a position on whether they believe in violence against school officials and teachers. Secondly, any school employees or election workers should note that being convicted of charges for threatening someone allows the victim to file a civil lawsuit for emotional damages that could bankrupt the perpetrator. 

     It's been over a year since these issues have come to light, and we're finally starting to see some arrests!