Election denier indicted for Trump aide death threat as MAGA turns on itself
Three years ago, Jonathan Cagle was a MAGA loyalist, part of a messaging machine that sowed doubts about the outcome of elections and helped build an air of inevitability around Donald Trump’s return to power.
Last week in Alabama, a federal magistrate judge ordered Cagle held without bond, for allegedly cyberstalking U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, the top civil rights official in Trump’s Department of Justice.
As Trump enters the second year of his tempestuous second term, Cagle’s story offers a signpost to growing disillusionment and division on the U.S. far right.
‘Data guy’
In December 2022, following midterm elections that saw Trump-endorsed candidates defeated, Cagle appeared on the Charlie Kirk Show.
The lineup for the three-hour podcast also included Richard Grenell and David Sacks, who would serve in Trump’s second administration: Grenell as presidential envoy for special missions, Sacks as chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Kirk — the conservative influencer who was killed in Utah last September — introduced Cagle as a “financial analyst” and “data guy” who “has had some very interesting tweets and data analysis about what happened in Arizona.”
Kirk’s questions concerned Cagle’s theory that insufficient election infrastructure in Maricopa, Arizona’s most populous county, cost Kari Lake the gubernatorial race by discouraging voters.
“So, Jonathan, is it fair to say that Maricopa County intentionally did not have the infrastructure to be able to facilitate what Kari Lake needed on Election Day?” Kirk asked.
“It would be 100 percent accurate to say that,” Cagle said.
Lake promoted Cagle’s Twitter account, writing that “Jonathan is worth following,” and linking to his account under the username @DecentFiJC.
Later that month, Lake made a personal appeal to Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter (now X), linking to Cagle’s account and posting, “The most Shadow-banned profile on Twitter?? … why is Jonathan being censored? / It is because he is exposing corruption in our Elections and in the ranks of those who run them?”
Now, the @DecentFiJC account is listed as a Cagle alias in an indictment alleging that from Dec. 28, 2025 to Jan. 3, 2026, “with the intent to kill, injure, harass and intimidate Individual-1,” Cagle used the internet “to engage in a course of conduct through which he caused “substantial emotional distress” to the victim — Harmeet Dhillon.
Lake now runs Voice of America for the Trump administration. She could not be reached for comment.
‘My country matters more to me’
During Cagle’s Jan. 28 bond hearing, federal prosecutors identified the victim, “Individual-1,” as Dhillon.
A month prior, on Dec. 28, Cagle directly named Dhillon in an angry, expletive-laced rant on an X space, insinuating without evidence that she was promoting immigration while acting as an agent for Israel.
“Harmeet Dhillon — all of you can get f---ed,” Cagle said, according to a recording reviewed by Raw Story. “My country matters more to me than you do. Promise. Don’t make me prove it to you.
“If you press back on me pressing back on the H-1B issue, your front door, your families and their addresses and contact info are gonna end up on this f---ing platform.”
That was a reference to a visa program that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers to fill specialized jobs that cannot be filled by domestic workers.
“Then you’re gonna have to run your little subversion operation… with everybody f---ing knowing where you live,” Cagle said.
An Indian-American immigrant, Dhillon grew up in rural North Carolina, the daughter of an orthopedic surgeon.
‘Hanky-panky in the urban districts’
Dhillon has cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.
In an October 2024 interview with Nicole Shanahan, running-mate to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his unsuccessful independent presidential run, Dhillon promoted a debunked claim that in 2020, Republican observers were prevented from monitoring vote-counting in critical counties.
“The hanky-panky occurs in the urban districts — the urban counties of these swing states,” Dhillon said. “It occurs in Maricopa County. It occurs in Detroit. It occurs in the Wisconsin cities. It occurs in the Pennsylvania cities.
“That’s where the distortion occurs. That’s where you see people in the 2020 election putting up physical barriers and not allowing statutory observation of the ballot counting.”
Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told Raw Story the problem with such conspiracy theories is that they rarely remain contained.
“It’s more than ironic that the election denying conspiracies Dhillon unleashed have resulted in unhinged cyberstalking by an election denier motivated by the same ideas,” Beirich said.
“Once conspiracies are unleashed, which many in the current administration have done, it can lead to more and more extremism. In this case, Cagle appears to have wedded antisemitism that is found on the far right with these conspiracies.
“Dhillon and others in the administration should stop spreading conspiracies that can lead to incidents like this and further violence.”
Dhillon could not be reached for comment. But the assistant attorney general did respond to an email from an anonymous researcher who archived Cagle’s social-media comments and brought them to her attention.
“Thank you for flagging this,” Dhillon wrote, in a message seen by Raw Story. “We are following up.”
‘They need to be terrified’
Cagle’s antisemitic tirades have also targeted Secretary of State Marco Rubio, other Trump officials, and pro-Israel activists.
“Jews are taught from a young age to never admit to what the Jews teach about non-Jews, because we would kill them openly,” Cagle wrote in one post reviewed by Raw Story.
“Instead of ‘impeaching’ Jew judges who aid and abet Jewish blackmail/extortionist pedophile rings and think they have the right to ‘refuse to testify,’ you could always just kill them,” another post reads. “It’s basically how Jews got a ‘homeland,’ except this is 100% righteous.”
“Shut the f--- up, and get back in the oven, Jew,” another post said.
Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Raw Story that as social movements gain power, as is the case with the far right, “fissures and fractures begin to emerge.”
Antisemitism is a notable point of disagreement in the coalition that brought Trump to power.
“It’s underpinned so much of the right,” Carroll Rivas said. “But some of that is highly coded, and some is very explicit.”
In his X tirade on Dec. 28, Cagle raged that the federal government needs “to be f---ing terrified of the American people. And every time they log in, they need to have second f---ing thoughts before every time they post some subversive horses---, some lies, and work for foreign interests against Americans.
“They need to be terrified to come into the office. The whole day of wake up in the morning, kiss your spouse, you know, and kids, and have a nice breakfast, and then put on the f---ing ‘subvert America’ uniform you wear to f---ing drive on to the security clearance lot and go subvert the United States for Israel, or for the UK, or for any other f---ing country, including China, or Ukraine, or France — those days are over.
“I guarantee that I’m ten times smarter than you on your best day, and a hundred times more dangerous,” Cagle added. “Like, you need to realize that being a f---ing traitor to the United States has f---ing consequences, badge or no f---ing badge.”
Inmate booking photo of Jonathan CagleMorgan County (Ala.) Detention Center
‘I get to ask for that information’
While Cagle faces prosecution, Dhillon has used her authority as the top civil rights official to demand that states turn over voter rolls — moves some critics say sets the stage for the administration to question the results of elections Trump allies do not win.
The FBI’s recent seizure of 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, despite investigations finding no evidence of wrongdoing, only heightened the fear that Trump intends to use the federal government to undermine the forthcoming midterm elections.
“The attorney general doesn’t have to show her homework as to what she’s going to do with [the voter rolls],” Dhillon told the Independent Institute in December, referring to AG Pam Bondi.
“And I’m her designee, so I get to ask for that information, and they have to give it.”