Former Buzzfeed employee known as “Baked Alaska” who participated in the Capitol insurrection also allegedly participated in a vote fraud scheme in 2016 that tricked thousands of people into thinking they could cast vote for Hillary by phone nytimes.com/2021/01/27/nyr…
“As a result of the misinformation campaign, prosecutors said, at least 4,900 unique phone numbers texted the number in a futile effort to cast votes for Mrs. Clinton.”
“The co-conspirators were not named in the complaint, but one of them was Anthime Gionet, a far-right media personality known as ‘Baked Alaska,’ who was arrested after participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to a person briefed on the investigation”
“in what appeared to be the first criminal case in the country involving voter suppression through the spread of disinformation on Twitter”
“Mr. Mackey...faces an unusual charge: conspiracy to violate rights, which makes it illegal for people to conspire to ‘oppress’ or ‘intimidate’ anyone from exercising a constitutional right, such as voting. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.”
“The case will test the novel use of federal civil rights laws as a tool to hold people accountable for misinformation campaigns intended to interfere with elections, a problem that has recently become an urgent priority for social media platforms and law enforcement officials”
From this piece about Baked Alaska by @benyt it appears he might have still been working at Buzzfeed when he participated in scheme to trick voters (says he left Buzzfeed later in 2016 to work as “tour manager” for Milo Yiannopoulos but doesn’t say when) nytimes.com/2021/01/10/bus…
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