Vermonter Harry Anzbock once supported Obama. He eventually came to embrace Trump’s false rigged-voting claim – and threatened to kill election officials over it. Reuters traces one man’s journey from counterculture youth to rightwing extremism and a dark family tragedy.
This story contains profane and violent language throughout.
POWNAL, Vermont
Before Harry Anzbock started threatening to kill election workers, he did his own research.
The Vermont barn restorer went online after the 2020 presidential vote and watched a stream of videos. He saw plenty of evidence of voter fraud, he later recalled, including footage of people “obviously doing shady things” at polling places. He said he learned that balloting machines switched votes from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden – and that Biden took money from China to manipulate the U.S. election.
All of these claims were bogus conspiracy theories, promoted by Trump’s political allies and attorneys as they sought to overturn Biden’s victory. Anzbock embraced them as fact. The videos enraged him. He believed Trump’s voters had been robbed. Democracy was on the line. Someone needed to save America. So, a few weeks after the election, Anzbock picked up a hard-to-trace prepaid mobile phone and started making anonymous calls.
He called Vermont’s election-administration office and left a message telling officials their days were numbered: “This might be a good time to put a fucking pistol in your fucking mouth and pull the...
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