Man who sent bomb threat to Arizona election officials jailed for 42 months

James Clark, 38, gets prison time and three years on probation as judge says he inflicted trauma on government employees

A Massachusetts man who threatened to blow up the secretary of state of Arizona in 2021 has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison, one of the most severe federal punishments yet handed down for the wave of violent threats against election officials unleashed by Donald Trump's stolen election lie.

James Clark, 38, was sentenced in federal district court in Phoenix on Tuesday to 42 months of imprisonment, to be followed by three years on probation. Judge Michael Liburdi said that his online bomb threat had inflicted emotional and psychological trauma" on government employees and required a deterrent sentence to protect democracy.