Letitia James Scores Again, Nails Notorious MAGA Election Fraudsters

Far-right provocateur Jacob Wohl and lobbyist Jack Burkman have a history of promoting conspiracy theories, unsuccessfully trying to frame public figures for made-up sexual assaults, and saying fraudulent things. Now they have to pay more than $1 million for a robocall scheme meant to discourage Black voters during the 2020 election.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has reached a settlement with the pair, who were found to have violated the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act by a New York federal judge in 2023. Wohl and Burkman have been ordered to pay “up to $1.25 million” in the deal.

“The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, and it belongs to everyone,” James said in a statement released on Tuesday. “We will not allow anyone to threaten that right. Wohl and Burkman orchestrated a depraved and disinformation-ridden campaign to intimidate Black voters in an attempt to sway the election in favor of their preferred candidate.”

The calls, directed at areas with predominantly Black populations, made wild claims during the summer of 2020 about how voting by mail was unsafe. The robocalls insisted that voting by mail would put people’s personal data at risk of being used by local law enforcement to track old warrants, used by credit card companies to collect debts, and even used to make a database for “mandatory vaccines.” The robocalls mentioned Burkman and Wohl by name, making it easy for authorities to connect the effort to the pair.

Tuesday’s settlement is not the only legal consequence the two face for their voter intimidation efforts, which also affected Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and several other states. In June 2023, the Federal Communications Commission fined Burkman and Wohl $5,134,500 for the scheme, the largest penalty ever at the time it was proposed under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. In Ohio, Burkman and Wohl were each sentenced to community service, $2,500 fines, and probation. In Michigan, the case is pending before the state Supreme Court.

If the pair fail to pay at least $105,000 of the fine to the New York attorney general’s office, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and people harmed by the scheme by December 31, 2024, the fine’s amount will increase to $1.25 million.