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Earlier this week, some voters in Gainesville reported receiving bizarre and threatening emails demanding that they vote for President Donald Trump in the next general election – « or » The emails, which were supposed to come from of the far-right group Proud Boys, are currently under investigation by local, state and federal authorities
« You’ll vote for Donald Trump on Election Day or we’ll come after you, » one email reads « Change your Republican Party affiliation to let us know you’ve received our message and you comply We will know which candidate you voted for I would take it seriously if I were you «
Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, who lives in Miami, says his group is not behind the emails Last night, the US Department of Homeland Security singled out Iran, accusing the nation to send « fraudulent emails intended to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and harm President Trump »
Tarrio tells the New Times that if the Proud Boys are Trump supporters, no one should be intimidated about voting, regardless of party affiliation
« The truth is, we’ll never do that, » Tarrio tells the New Times « We don’t care enough to intimidate anyone And we never will, period »
Voters are voting this year amid online disinformation campaigns, concerns over voter suppression and intimidation and a president who has cast doubt on all aspects of the election The threatening emails – which have been reported in Florida, Alaska, Arizona and Pennsylvania – only fuel these fears
The emails came from info @ proudboysofficialcom Several media reported that they came from IP addresses linked to servers in Estonia and Saudi Arabia
Tarrio says the Proud Boys at one point had two websites – proudboysofficialcom and proudboysusacom The first had not been updated for about a year and a half and was recently taken down by the hosting company, according to Tarrio
Trevor Davis, CEO of digital intelligence firm Counteraction, told the Washington Post that after the hosting service took down the site, the domain was not secure, which meant anyone on the Internet could take control and send the messages Tarrio claims that if anyone received an authentic email from the Proud Boys, it would be from proudboysusacom
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Tarrio says an imitation of the Proud Boys website has emerged in recent weeks and lawyers for the group have ordered it removedThis website, which is archived on the Wayback Machine, announced an « assault weapon » giveaway
« If you signed up they were offering an AR [ArmaLite], » said Tarrio « Which I thought was pretty cool, but we’re probably too cheap to do shit like that It was probably an operation data collection My lawyers have sent a withdrawal [notice] «
The Proud Boys bill themselves as a right-wing men’s club that opposes political correctness and supports gun rights, free speech and traditional gender roles But the FBI at one point given classified the Proud Boys as « an extremist group linked to white nationalism »
The group’s website claims its members are anti-racist and come from all walks of life, but members attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, organized by white supremacists and neo-Nazis
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Proud Boys
World News – US – Proud Boys frontman responds to emails: « We don’t care enough about bullying anyone »
