在联邦检察官之后未密封的费用周三，针对一名据称去年向亚利桑那州选举官员发送语音邮件威胁的密苏里州男子，马里科帕县记录员斯蒂芬·里奇(Stephen Richer)证实了死亡威胁，并表示对司法部选举工作队(Justice Department task force on elections)有信心，尽管该组织成立一年多后，起诉数量仍保持在个位数。
“现实情况是，所有检察机关收到的移交案件比它们的调查能力多得多。所以，这可能是该部门内部优先事项转变的结果，”里奇在周三的电话采访中告诉ABC新闻。“这是一种资源分配收益，这并不是说他们以前不关心它，但这可能标志着优先事项的转变。”
该工作组于去年成立，旨在应对针对选举工作人员和官员的威胁增加的情况，截至8月1日，该工作组仅起诉了四起联邦案件，并加入了另一起在其成立前被起诉的案件。里奇的案件使总数达到六起，其中一起被定罪。
助理司法部长Kenneth pleat Jr .在八月初特工审查了1000多起所谓的敌对接触，其中只有一小部分，大约11%，达到了联邦刑事调查的门槛，相当于大约100次调查。尽管工作小组因没有更积极地起诉对选举官员的威胁而受到批评，但Richer建议保持耐心。
“我非常尊重和耐心，甚至钦佩执法部门，他们小心翼翼，不会带来任何东西，除非这样做有利于正义，”里奇说。“在这里，我们抱怨人们不在法律的范围内操作。他们必须在法律范围内运作。”
在涉及里奇的案件中，密苏里州50岁的沃尔特·霍恩斯特拉(Walter Hoornstra)面临一项传达州际威胁的指控，以及另一项打威胁电话的指控，这些指控加上最高七年的监禁和50万美元的罚款。
“当法庭审计正在进行时，你称之为精神错乱和疯狂的谎言。你需要检查一下自己，”据说Hoornstra在2021年5月19日针对Richer的语音邮件中说。“你需要做好你的工作，因为其他州的人在盯着你。你[咒骂]违背这笔交易或给他们任何更多的麻烦，你的屁股永远不会让你的下一个小董事会会议。”
Hoornstra的律师没有立即回应ABC新闻的置评请求。
2020年当选为马里科帕县记录员的共和党人里奇表示，当他开始反击被前总统唐纳德·特朗普和亚利桑那州参议院主席卡伦·范放大的选举欺诈指控时，威胁成倍增加。值得注意的是，范氏聘请佛罗里达州的网络安全公司Cyber Ninjas监督马里科帕县广受批评的选举结果审查，因为特朗普的错误主张在亚利桑那州的支持者中受到欢迎。
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, speaks to reporters while other members of the Board and county Recorder Stephen Richer, third from right, listen, May 4, 2022 in Phoenix.
乔纳森·j·库珀/美联社
“这是第一个狂热的时刻之一，”他告诉美国广播公司新闻，回忆起收到语音邮件。"这是因为郡政府开始反驳一些指控."
去年5月，在Hoornstra所谓的威胁前几天，Richer声称一个“作战室”帐户由网络忍者公司运营，并在没有证据的情况下公开错误地声称马里科帕县非法删除了选举文件。当特朗普放大里奇在一份书面声明中向他的基地谎称文件被删除，他在推特上指责他——称前总统针对该州选举的评论“精神错乱”。
“我们不能再纵容这些疯狂的谎言了。作为当事人。作为一个州。作为一个国家，”里奇在一篇文章中说自录音再现装置发出的高音。
“我们决定是时候开始反击了，因为这超出了我们所看到的疯狂政治的正常进程，”Richer对ABC新闻回忆道。“有人真的在呼吁我们的一些IT成员下台，而我们却无所作为。”
里奇远不是唯一一个被针对的亚利桑那州选举官员。
国务卿凯蒂·霍布斯，民主党州长候选人，是38岁的马萨诸塞州男子詹姆斯·w·克拉克所谓的炸弹威胁的目标。DOJ特别工作组的检察官在7月份指控Clark犯有一项制造炸弹威胁罪、一项制造炸弹骗局罪和一项传播州际威胁罪。他面临长达20年的监禁。
霍布斯上个月在一份声明中说:“全国各地的选举官员经常因为他们的工作而受到威胁。”这份声明证实了她是威胁的目标。“这是不合理的，破坏了我们的民主。这种骚扰不会被容忍，也无法常态化。我们感谢联邦调查局坚持进一步调查这一事件。”里奇继续批评所谓的审计及其支持者挖掘“对我、对董事会、对我们的集体办公室来说非常现实的后果”，因为一项指控“表面上很可笑”。
“整个努力应该是为了提高信心，但我认为事实上它已经损害了信心，”他说。
他说他每天仍会收到数千条负面信息。
尽管如此，他称他的工作是“值得的”
“大多数人不会去工作，醒来后说，‘我现在就要成为世界上最有意义的对话之一的一部分。’我要和我喜欢的人一起做这件事。所以，是的，那很幸运。"
Arizona election official reacts to man facing federal charges for allegedly threatening him
After federal prosecutorsunsealed chargesWednesday against a Missouri man who allegedly sent a voicemail threat to an Arizona election official last year, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer confirmed the death threat and expressed confidence in the Justice Department task force on elections, despite the group's indictments remaining in the single digits more than a year after it was formed.
"The reality is that all prosecution agencies receive gazillions more referrals than they have the capacity to investigate. So it is, perhaps, a result of shifting priorities within the department," Richer told ABC News in a phone interview Wednesday. "It is an allocation of resources gain, and that's not to say that they didn't care about it previously, but this could signal a shift in priorities."
Launched last year to address the rise in threats against election workers and officials, the task force, as of Aug. 1, has charged just four federal cases and joined one other case that was charged prior to its establishment. Richer's case brings the total to six, with one conviction.
Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. said at thebeginning of Augustthat agents have reviewed over 1,000 so-called hostile contacts, and only a fraction of those, approximately 11%, met the threshold for a federal criminal investigation, amounting to roughly 100 probes. Though the task force has faced criticism for not more aggressively prosecuting threats against election officials, Richer advised patience.
"I have great respect and patience, and even admiration for law enforcement that treads carefully and doesn't bring something unless it is in the interest of justice in doing so," Richer said. "Here, we're complaining about people not operating within the confines of the law. They have to operate within the confines of the law."
In the case involving Richer, Walter Hoornstra, 50, of Missouri, faces one charge of communicating an interstate threat and another count of making a threatening phone call, with the charges coupled carrying out a maximum of seven years in prison and $500,000 in fines.
"You call things unhinged and insane lies when there's a forensic audit going on. You need to check yourself," Hoornstra allegedly said on May 19, 2021, in a voicemail targeting Richer. "You need to do your [expletive] job right because other people from other states are watching your ass. You [expletive] reneg on this deal or give them any more troubles, your ass will never make it to your next little board meeting."
A lawyer for Hoornstra did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Richer, a Republican who was elected as Maricopa County Recorder in 2020, said threats multiplied when he started pushing back on election fraud claims amplified by former President Donald Trump and Arizona State Senate President Karen Fann. Fann, notably, hired the Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based cybersecurity firm, which had no experience auditing elections, to oversee a widely-criticized review of results in Maricopa County as Trump's false claims gained popularity with Arizona supporters.
"This was one of the first fever pitch moments," he told ABC News, recalling receiving the voicemail. "And it was because the county started pushing back against some of the allegations."
Last May, days before Hoornstra's alleged threat, a "war room" account Richer alleges was run by the Cyber Ninjas Firm publicly and falsely claimed, without evidence, that Maricopa County had deleted election files unlawfully. When Trumpamplifiedthe false claim of deleted files to his base in a written statement, Richer rebuked him on Twitter -- calling the former president's comments targeting the state's election "unhinged."
"We can't indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country," Richer said in atweet.
"We decided it was time to start pushing back against this because this was spilling over outside of what we had seen as the usual course of crazy politics," Richer recalled to ABC News. "We had people quite literally calling for the heads of some of our IT members, for doing nothing."
Richer is far from the only Arizona election official to be targeted.
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democratic nominee for governor, was the target of an alleged bomb threat from Massachusetts man James W. Clark, 38. Prosecutors on the DOJ task force charged Clark in July with one count of making a bomb threat, one count of perpetrating a bomb hoax and one count of communicating an interstate threat. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
"Election officials across the country are being threatened regularly for doing their jobs," Hobbs said in a statement last month confirming she was the target of the threat. "It's unconscionable and undermines our democracy. This harassment won't be tolerated and can't be normalized. We thank the FBI for their persistence on further investigating this incident."
Richer continues to criticize the so-called audit and its supporters for dredging up "very real-world consequences for me, for the board, for our collective offices," over an allegation that was "facially ludicrous."
"The whole endeavor was supposed to be towards improving confidence, but I think it has damaged it, in fact," he said.
He said he still gets thousands of negative messages a day.
Still, he called his job "worthwhile."
"Most people don't get to work, wake up and say, 'I'm going to be part of one of the most meaningful conversations in the world right now.' And I'm going to do it with people I like," he said. "So yeah, that's pretty lucky."
