MAGA public officials being held accountable? In this economy?

Remember that few weeks when the Party of Free Speech (TM) scoured the internet for any comment mildly critical of Charlie Kirk (or, in some cases, posts that quoted Kirk verbatim) to try to get people fired or on some cases subject to legal sanctions? At least in some cases they’ve shown that even the Trump faction can face some measure of accountability in 2026:

A Tennessee man who was jailed for 37 days over a Facebook post he shared after the killing of Charlie Kirk has agreed to a $835,000 settlement with the sheriff who detained him, his lawyers said on Wednesday.

The fatal shooting of Mr. Kirk, the conservative activist, last September set off an avalanche of social media commentary across the country. With it came firings, resignations and a debate about the boundaries of free speech. But Larry Bushart, the man arrested in Tennessee, was perhaps the only person charged with a felony after his posts about Mr. Kirk’s death.

In the posts, he shared memes that accused Mr. Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, of perpetrating hate and another that included past comments from President Trump about moving past a school shooting. The sheriff’s office in Perry County, Tenn., claimed that with those posts, he had threatened violence.

His bail was set at $2 million and he remained in jail until the charge against him was dropped.

In a statement, Mr. Bushart said he had been vindicated. “The people’s freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy,” he said. “I am looking forward to moving on and spending time with my family.”

Mr. Bushart, a 61-year-old retired law enforcement officer, is not the only person to successfully seek compensation after being penalized for comments about Mr. Kirk’s death.

In January, a professor at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee reached a $500,000 settlement with the school that also gave him his job back. In Iowa, the state recently agreed to rehire and pay $125,000 to a public defender who had been fired.

Mr. Bushart’s settlement appears to be among the largest so far.

“No one should be hauled off to jail in the dark of night over a harmless meme just because the authorities disagree with its message,” Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech legal advocacy group that represents Mr. Bushart, said in a statement. “We’re pleased that Larry has been compensated for this injustice, but local law enforcement never should have forced him to endure this ordeal in the first place.”

In a just universe, the sheriff who threw someone in jail for 37 days over a clearly constitutional protected Facebook post he didn’t like would be at least as famous as the Oberlin undergraduate who politely told a student reporter that it was kind of insulting to call a pulled pork sandwich a “banh mi,” but at this historical moment I’ll take whatever justice one can get.