Elections Task Force Prosecutes 2020 ‘Vigilantes,’ Seeks More Civic Dialogue

PHOENIX, Ariz. — A 46-year-old Ohio man has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for sending death threats to an Arizona election official.

The sentencing of Joshua Russell, of Bucyrus, Ohio, came after he pleaded guilty to one count of making a threatening interstate communication.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, Russell began leaving threatening voicemails for the official shortly after the 2020 presidential election.

In the first of these calls, Russell accused the official of failing to prevent election fraud, called the official “a traitor to this country,” and then warned that the official “better put their affairs in order, because [their] days are extremely numbered.”

The calls continued, sporadically for two years, culminating in a Nov. 15, 2022, voicemail in which Russell said, “We will not wait for you to be [dragged] through the court. A war is coming for you … We will [not] stop until you are in the ground.”

Russell’s sentencing comes just two weeks after James W. Clark of Falmouth, Massachusetts, was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for sending a message through the Arizona Secretary of State’s website, threatening to ignite an explosive device in an election worker’s “personal space” if she did not resign by a specific date.

In the message, which was sent through the site’s “Contact Us” page, Clark addressed the target of his threat by her first name.

A subsequent investigation found that shortly after transmitting his threat, Clark conducted online searches that included the full name of the election official along with the words “How to kill” and “address.”

A few days later, the authorities said, Clark conducted additional searches seeking information on the Boston Marathon bombing.

Chillingly, these are but two of seven federal cases, some still pending, in which an individual living outside of Arizona — one of a handful of states that were ground zero for fake claims about election fraud in 2020 — made threats against election officials within the state.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Gary Restaino, U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona said all these cases also have two other things in common.

In each, Restaino said, the alleged or convicted perpetrator is an “election denialist” who has announced their intention to violently punish those who they believe have wronged them.

“Often these communications involve the threat of the victim’s arrest, followed by their execution for treason,” he said.

The other thing all of these cases have in common is that they fall under the investigative purview of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force. 

Announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland and launched by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in June 2021, the task force has since led the federal government’s efforts to address threats of violence against election workers, and to ensure that all election workers — whether elected, appointed, or volunteers — are able to do their jobs free from threats and intimidation.

From the very beginning of its prosecutions, certain key themes have emerged, Restaino said.

“The first is that there is no constitutional right to vigilantism,” he said. “Let these cases be a lesson not to take, or attempt to take, the rule of law into one’s own hands. 

“The other observation that can be drawn from these investigations is that not all nasty or cruel emails, direct messages and phone calls are what we call true threats,” Restaino continued.

“Criminalizing a communication under federal law requires a serious expression that a speaker means to commit an act of violence,” he said.

“This means that not all [harsh] comments are crimes. And importantly, it also means that it often takes additional context for us, the FBI agents and prosecutors involved in these matters, to establish the speaker’s understanding and the recipient’s reaction. 

“Third, also importantly, this is an evolving standard. We continue to look at recent court decisions to evaluate and reevaluate threat complaints,” Restaino said.

John Keller, principal deputy chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity section and head of the Election Threats Task Force, also participated in the news conference.

Keller’s office oversees the investigation and prosecution of all federal crimes affecting government integrity, including bribery of public officials, election crimes and other related offenses. 

Speaking with Russell’s sentencing serving as context, Keller noted that election officials in the Arizona Secretary of State’s office, as well as their counterparts in election offices across the country, “have faced an onslaught of unfounded hostility for nothing more than dutifully and reliably doing their jobs.”

“Attacks on these officials are attacks on the very foundation of our democracy, our elections,” Keller said. 

He described Russell’s sentencing as “an outstanding example” of the ongoing work being done by the Elections Threats Task Force in partnership with U.S. Attorneys offices and other local, state and federal law enforcement partners.

“[We] will not tolerate any unlawful efforts to intimidate or harm the thousands of civil servants who toil day in and day out, one election cycle to the next, to ensure that every qualified individual has the opportunity to exercise their most fundamental right, the right to vote,” Keller said. 

“This country was founded not only on the premise of free and fair elections, but also on the idea that public scrutiny of government authority is not only desirable, it is necessary,” he continued. 

“Debate on public issues should be robust, and may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government officials,” Keller said.

“But death threats are not debate. Death threats do not contribute to the marketplace of ideas. Death threats are not First Amendment protected speech. Death threats and any threats of violence are criminal acts that will be met with the full force of the Department of Justice.” 

Like Restaino, Keller acknowledged that the vast majority of communications reported to the task force have not met the legal definition of a true threat.

Nevertheless, “every single communication is thoroughly reviewed and assessed. And where a potential true threat is identified, the task force and our partners aggressively investigate,” he said.

At the same time, because so much of the expressed hostility does not cross the line into criminal threat, Keller said prosecution alone is not the answer for curbing divisive and hateful rhetoric.

“We must do better as a society,” he said. “The normalization of personal threats and attacks on government officials and their families is contributing to an election environment in which people are committing previously unthinkable crimes and the violence is not just hypothetical.”

Keller pointed to an incident in New Mexico in which a child was awakened from her sleep and called to her mother, telling her a spider was crawling on her face.

In reality, the Justice Department officials said, what was touching her face was debris falling from where bullets had landed after flying through her bedroom.

“Election officials and their families are not villains,” Keller said. 

“Throughout most of our history, they have been unsung heroes, largely anonymous figures doing the essential work of preparing for and administering our elections,” he said.

“This new era in which the election community is scapegoated, targeted and attacked, is unconscionable.

“In addition to the obvious toll taken on individual victims, it risks depleting the ranks of experienced election officials vital to the effective administration of our elections,” Keller said. 

Akil Davis, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix field office, said while the agency’s jurisdiction when it comes to elections is broad — it investigates everything from voter and ballot fraud, to campaign finance crimes, cyber interference and civil rights violations — election security and investigating threats against election officials is and will remain “one of the FBIs highest national security priorities.”

“Arizonans have a right to expect free and fair elections. While responsibility to ensure a fair election process lies with our state and local counterparts, the FBI takes all allegations of election-related violations of federal law, and all threats of violence, very seriously,” he said.

“It cannot be overstated. The work of election officials, their staff and volunteers is essential to our democracy. And a threat to these public servants is completely unacceptable,” Davis said.

In addition to the Arizona cases noted above, the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force has opened dozens of threat investigations nationwide since its founding, and charged at least 20 individuals with making serious threats to election workers.

Of these cases,13, including those of Russell and Clark, have resulted in convictions.

“That’s a sign of how seriously the federal courts are taking this conduct,” Keller said.

“That said, our work is far from done. This behavior is insidious, with potentially grave consequences for individual victims and the institution of election administration as a whole. For these threats to stop, the public must know that any criminal threats to the election community will be prosecuted to the full,” he said.

While law and order was at the forefront of their remarks, all three men stressed that combating threats and hostility toward election workers is a whole of community effort.

“When we level charges consistently and transparently, we bolster and safeguard the rule of law,” Restaino said. “But prosecution isn’t the only tool to protect our democracy.

“We as prosecutors are determined to get out of the courthouse and into the communities that surround it,” he continued. “And we need that same commitment from community leaders and community elders and influencers.

“We need an increased focus on civic education and civil dialogue to intervene with the vigilantes that threaten our democracy, and we look to the community to call out their friends and neighbors who are going down the rabbit hole of misinformation to help people not fall victim to it,” Restaino said.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue