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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — June 28, 2022

By June 28, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

What To Watch Today: 

The House Select Committee investigating January 6 holds a previously unscheduled hearing at 1:00 PM.  

Primary elections in Colorado, Illinois, Oklahoma, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma, and Utah 

Must Read Stories

Former Mark Meadows Aide Cassidy Hutchinson To Testify At Surprise January 6 Committee Hearing at 1:00 PM 

  • Politico: Former Meadows Aide To Testify In Surprise Jan. 6 Committee Hearing: The Jan. 6 select committee is set to hear from a onetime top aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Tuesday, an abruptly scheduled hearing whose announcement riveted Washington. Cassidy Hutchinson will testify publicly, according to two people familiar with the committee’s plans, after providing crucial testimony to the panel about significant exchanges among top Donald Trump’s inner circle in the weeks before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Hutchinson replaced her attorney earlier this month as the select committee’s hearings began; her former attorney was the Trump White House’s chief ethics lawyer, and her new attorney is a longtime ally of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Earlier Monday the select panel announced a surprise hearing, with about 24 hours’ notice, “to present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.” That statement included no details on the testimony or witnesses — and the sudden schedule change intensified intrigue in Washington, where the panel has mounted a carefully choreographed set of hearings about the former president’s election subversion. It’s unclear why the panel expedited Hutchinson’s hearing, or whether she will appear alongside other significant witnesses. Hutchinson was present during meetings between Meadows and multiple House Republicans who aided Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. Snippets of her video deposition supported the committee’s contention that several of those Republicans later sought presidential pardons.

Federal Agents Execute Search Warrant, Seize John Eastman’s Phone 

  • New York Times: Federal Agents Seized Phone of John Eastman, Key Figure in Jan. 6 Plan: Federal agents armed with a search warrant have seized the phone of John Eastman, a lawyer who advised former President Donald J. Trump on key elements of the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to a court filing by Mr. Eastman on Monday. The seizure of Mr. Eastman’s phone is the latest evidence that the Justice Department is intensifying its sprawling criminal investigation into the various strands of Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in power after he was defeated for re-election. In the past week alone, the department has delivered grand jury subpoenas to a variety of figures with roles in backing Mr. Trump’s efforts and it carried out at least one other search of a key figure. The filing by Mr. Eastman, a motion to recover property from the government, said that F.B.I. agents in New Mexico, acting on behalf of the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, stopped Mr. Eastman as he was leaving a restaurant last Wednesday and seized his iPhone.

Republican Primaries Feature MAGA Conspiracy Theorists In Races Across The Country Today 

  • FiveThirtyEight: 21 Republican Primaries And A Special Election To Watch On June 28:  We’re back with the 21 GOP contests to watch tonight, plus a bonus special election. As with most Republican primaries this cycle, almost all the GOP contenders are favorably inclined toward former President Donald Trump, but they vary in just how much they support Trump or his false claims about fraud in the 2020 election. But importantly, Democrats are also meddling in many GOP primaries by spending money to boost the most extreme Republican candidates, aiming to make it easier for Democrats to win in November. 

January 6 Committee Focuses On Role Of Trump Children In Examination Of New Documentary Footage 

  • The Guardian: January 6 Committee Focuses On Phone Calls Among Trump’s Children And Aides Weeks Before Election:  The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is closely focused on phone calls and conversations among Donald Trump’s children and top aides captured by a documentary film-maker weeks before the 2020 election, say sources familiar with the matter. The calls among Trump’s children and top aides took place at an invitation-only event at the Trump International hotel in Washington that took place the night of the first presidential debate on 29 September 2020, the sources said. The select committee is interested in the calls, the sources said, since the footage is understood to show the former president’s children, including Donald Jr and Eric Trump, privately discussing strategies about the election at a crucial time in the presidential campaign.
  • The Independent: Filmmaker Subpoenaed By Jan 6 Committee Says Eric Trump Thought Inciting Violence Was ‘Fair Game’:  The British documentarian whose footage of former president Donald Trump and his family in the days leading up to the January 6 insurrection prompted a pause in the House January 6 select committee’s hearings says Mr Trump’s son Eric was unconcerned by the possibility that his father’s supporters would react violently to his lies alleging that the 2020 election was stolen. Last week, filmmaker Alex Holder appeared to give evidence before the committee in an interview after turning over a copy of raw footage captured between September 2020 and mid 2021 for a documentary which will air this summer on Discovery+. In an interview with The Independent, Mr Holder said Trump family members — and Eric Trump in particular — were unbothered by the idea that the often violent rhetoric they and their patriarch espoused after his loss to now-president Joe Biden would inspire his supporters to act out. “When I asked Eric about the potential danger of sort of rhetoric and the sort of the belligerence, he felt that it was … fair game in that it … was sort of the equivalent on the other side of the political discourse, or he felt that it was the right thing to do … because the election was stolen,” he said.

In The States 

COLORADO:  Election Conspiracy Theorists Are Running To Take Over County Clerk Operations In Key Counties 

  • Bolts: Election Deniers Are Running to Take Over Colorado Election Offices: A Colorado county clerk who espouses Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election was indicted in March for tampering with voting equipment. Tina Peters is alleged to have given an unauthorized person access to voting-machine data and leaked passwords in an effort to promote Trump’s bogus claims that the presidential election was stolen from him. But Peters was far from deterred: She is now challenging the Democratic secretary of state and running to become Colorado’s chief elections official. Peters, who faces her first test in Tuesday’s Republican primary, is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to election deniers running in Colorado this year. Further down the ballot, Republicans who echo the same conspiracy theories are now seeking positions as county clerks across the state, a Bolts survey of local elections shows.  If they are successful, these candidates would gain power over critical offices that run elections in Colorado. They are part of a movement of election deniers attempting to seize election offices nationwide. Some have already secured the Republican nomination in high-profile statewide elections, from Pennsylvania governor to Nevada secretary of state.  The thousands of local officials who run elections at the local and county levels have become a crucial though less visible battleground given their authority over registration, counting, canvassing, and other processes. And no state is more emblematic of this battle than Colorado, given Peters’s willingness to use her platform as clerk to combat the 2020 results and her attempt to now seek higher office. 

MICHIGAN: Ryan Kelly Was Arrested For His Activities On January 6, Now He’s The GOP Frontrunner For Michigan Governor 

  • NBC: Ryan Kelley Was Arrested For His Role In Jan. 6. Now He’s A Front-Runner In Michigan’s Gop Primary For Governor:  Ryan Kelley was an afterthought in Michigan’s Republican primary for governor — a real estate broker who served on a local planning commission while cultivating a following on the far-right fringe. But since the FBI arrested him on misdemeanor charges for his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, he has emerged as a front-runner. Maybe the front-runner.  No one else in the race, Kelley bragged here last week, showed the devotion he did by being on the scene of what turned into a deadly riot aimed at keeping then-President Donald Trump in power. In a GOP field scrambled first by the disqualification of two leading candidates and then by the FBI raid on his home on the day the House Jan. 6 committee began its nationally televised hearings, circumstances have conspired to catapult Kelley to the front of the pack. “They talked about it all over the nation, all over the state of Michigan,” Kelley, 40, said in an interview. “It boosted my name. There’s been a ton of support.”

What Experts Are Saying

Just Security’s Criminal Tracker: In Advance of the Snap Hearing … the Jan. 6 Criminal Evidence Tracker Fifth Edition LINK 

Asha Rangappa, former FBI special agent: “What to watch out for tomorrow wrt Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony: Can she tie Trump, Meadows and/or members of Congress to foreknowledge or even an intention for violence to occur on Jan. 6 in order to pressure Pence. If so, it brings them into crosshairs of seditious conspiracy” Tweet 

Jason Stanley, expert on fascism and Yale University professor: “The constant mockery of alarmism about American democracy is every bit a part of its utter destruction. I hope history is merciless in this regard. It depends of course on who wins.” Tweet 

Nancy MacLean, American historian at Duke University: “Finally, a perfect metaphor for why we should all be watching and talking about the hearings: “American democracy’s dying. …. Want to understand why the January 6th Committee and its findings matter? They’re the crash cart.” @January6thCmte LINK” Tweet 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections 

New York Times: In California, a Republican congressman who voted to impeach Trump survives his  primary.

New York Times: In Illinois, MAGA Congresswoman Rallies to Oust Her G.O.P. Colleague

January 6 And The 2020 Election

Axios: Subpoenas issued to directors of SPAC taking Trump’s social network public

The Guardian: ‘Watergate for streaming era’: how the January 6 panel created gripping hearings

Politico: What The Jan. 6 Committee’s Star Witness Knows

Wisconsin State Journal: Ron Johnson calls attorney behind Wisconsin Republican elector scheme a victim of ‘radical left’

Opinion 

New York Times (Paul Krugman): Why Did Republicans Become So Extreme?

Washington Post (Wendy Brown): Alito’s Dobbs decision will further degrade democracy

Political Violence 

New York Times: Man Accused of Hitting Giuliani Faces Lesser Charges After Video Emerges

New York Times: A Rhode Island candidate was charged after a video showed him punching an opponent at an abortion protest.

In The States 

Votebeat: GOP poll watcher training casts unfounded suspicion on Arizona elections