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Well, there was apparently a good amount of evidence presented at trial that it wasn't meant as a joke.
Like what? That article actually makes me more convinced of my position:
So they jacked up some other internet troll with the same type of bullshit charges who probably couldn't afford good Federal Defense attorneys to protect himself and forced him to testify against others or face prison time, and conveniently gave him anonymity, which sounds like a Sixth Amendment violation to me.
Sounds like a good argument to me!
It doesn't say exactly what kind of testimony any of these "witnesses" offered, but I can't conceive of how it would be relevant to the case. What do Clinton staffers and text message marketers know about this person's motivation or the results of his campaign?
The only thing that could possibly be vaguely relevant to the case is:
Exactly what did they do to "make them look convincing"? The rest sounds like normal political activism that both sides routinely practice to me. I'd have a pretty high bar against finding anything like this prosecution legitimate, and I have yet to see anything that comes anywhere near that.
Some evidence was included in the complaint, and I excerpted particularly strong points here
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Why does that matter? It is a conspiracy count, which does not require that they were successful.
It actually isn't, because, as I just said, conspiracy does not require the successful completion of the intended crime.
More importantly, I didn't say that there was sufficient evidence that they were guilty, but rather that there was evidence that it wasn't meant as a joke. If, as you say, this is political activism, then doesn’t that imply that it wasn't a joke?
The "political activism" part was referring specifically to:
Which apparently, according to the article, went to prove that they "weren't really joking".
Yes, this was a conspiracy charge. IMO, the large distance between what was actually done and any vaguely plausible claim of actually influencing an election makes this a blatantly partisan hit job. And IMO, the fact that they must have known it would look like this and made no attempt to make themselves and their campaign look more neutral says that they did it on purpose, that the goal was a chilling effect on Conservative activism.
If I start a chat with my 3 best friends where we talk about how funny it would be to trick Democrats into voting wrong, but never actually do anything, is that a crime in your opinion? What if we were all Democrats and we thought it would be funny to trick Republicans into voting wrong?
What happens when the next Republican President is as enthusiastic and skilled at lawfare as the Biden administration seems to be and start making these kinds of charges against Democrats?
I'll believe it when I see it. Modern political life in the U.S. is characterized by the institutional right largely being unwilling to play serious hardball, or even tit-for-tat with leftist political innovation.
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The courts, law firms and legal schools prevent it. Or the national security apparatus steps in.
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If the Biden administration or the deep state are good enough at this sort of thing, there won't be a next Republican president, or at worst, the next Republican president won't have this sort of control, so it won't matter.
If that ever becomes the case, the Constitution would have been entirely subverted, the Government would be no longer legitimate, and I would support the armed overthrow of the government and all institutions participating in or complicit with the maintenance of that power.
But that happened after WW2, so good luck,.
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But you'd be basically alone, because conservatives continue to accept the legitimacy of the institutions even though they're corrupt.
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