The founder of a tea party group in Oklahoma was charged with two felonies on Tuesday for allegedly sending threatening emails to a Republican lawmaker after he refused buy in to the notion that the United Nations was conspiring to transform the country into a communist dictatorship.
According to the Oklahoman, 54-year-old Sooner Tea Party founder Al Gerhart faces up to five years in prison for blackmail and violating the state computer crimes act.
I don't care at all for the Teabaggers, but this is some pretty weak sauce. Reading the e-mail, I don't find anything terribly threatening about it, unless you consider the ranting of loon to an elected official to be "threatening."
“Branan, Get that bill heard or I will make sure you regret not doing it,” Gerhart wrote in the email. “I will make you the laughing stock of the Senate if I don’t hear that this bill will be heard and passed. We will dig into your past, yoru [sic] family, your associates and once we start on you there will be no end to it. This is a promise.”
I don't see any threat to harm the elected official. The "threat," such as it is, is to do nothing more than what an opposing candidate might do during an election. What is "opposition research" other than an effort to "dig into your past" in order to try an politically wound your opponent? What's next? You'll be charged with a felony by "threatening" to work for an elected official's defeat if said official does things you don't like? Isn't that the very heart of politics? While the tone is belligerant, there is no threat to physically harm anybody. On the other hand, there's Ted Nugent.
I guess some politicians are a bit touchy.