Political provocateurs have had their heyday under the presidency of Donald Trump, with such criminal political instigators as Roger Stone being released from prison and Steve Bannon being pardoned after being charged with serious felonies. That heyday now appears to have ended as the FCC announces the largest ever fine ever imposed at five million dollars, against John Burkman and Jacob Wohl.
The two men who once held a news conference to announce an accusation against Special Counsel Robert Mueller of sexual harassment in which no victim appeared and witnesses later came forward to say the two had solicited them to tell the false story are now facing consequences for actions they took during the 2020 presidential elections when they sent robocalls that included fake information to discourage voting, targeting black communities in the process.
According to The Washington Post:
‘The penalty, which is not final, is the largest proposed by the FCC for this specific violation. The agency has, however, imposed much larger fines for “spoofing” robocalls, where the caller makes it appear as though a call is coming from a different number. This year it fined Texas telemarketers $225 million.’
The pair have faced legal issues before, but robocalls to cellphone numbers without the owners’ consent carries serious penalties, and the disinformation campaign they disseminated in the process is unlikely to help their case.
‘The FCC investigation found that robocall messages sent on Aug. 26 and Sept. 14, 2020, said voting by mail would mean “personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts.’
Twitter had a big response to news of the unanimously decided historic fine against the two. Read some of their comments below:
