DETROIT (NewsNation Now) — Two conservative political operatives were charged Thursday with felonies in connection with false robocalls that aimed to dissuade residents in Detroit and other U.S. cities from voting by mail, Michigan’s attorney general announced.
Jacob Wohl, 22, and Jack Burkman, 54, each face four felony counts in Detroit, including conspiring to intimidate voters in violation of election law and using a computer to commit crimes, Attorney General Dana Nessel said.
The calls falsely warned residents in majority-Black Detroit and urban areas in at least four other states that voting by mail in the Nov. 3 election could subject people to arrest, debt collection and forced vaccination, Nessel said.
A copy of Burkman and Wohl’s charging document is below.
“Any effort to interfere with, intimidate or intentionally mislead Michigan voters will be met with swift and severe consequences,” Nessel said. “This effort specifically targeted minority voters in an attempt to deter them from voting in the November election. We’re all well aware of the frustrations caused by the millions of nuisance robocalls flooding our cell phones and landlines each day, but this particular message poses grave consequences for our democracy and the principles upon which it was built. Michigan voters are entitled to a full, free and fair election in November and my office will not hesitate to pursue those who jeopardize that.”
The men, who have a history of staging hoaxes and spreading false smears against prominent Democrats and government officials, are not in custody and no date for their arraignments has been set.
Last year, a Michigan college student said the duo recruited him to falsely claim he was raped by Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and then published the smear without the student’s permission.
Michigan is a key battleground state that Trump narrowly won in 2016 in part due to a drop in turnout for Hillary Clinton in heavily Democratic Detroit. In Michigan, voters can cast an absentee ballot for any reason, either by mailing it in, dropping it off or filling one out at a clerk’s office.
A full transcript of the call and the audio are below.
Hi. This is Tamika Taylor from Project 1599 — the civil rights organization founded by Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl. Mali-in voting sounds great, but did you know that if you vote by mail your personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used for credit card companies to collect outstanding debts? The CDC is even pushing to use records for mail-in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines. Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man. Stay safe and be aware of vote by mail.