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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — July 20, 2022

By July 20, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day:

 

What To Watch For Today:

Steve Bannon’s criminal contempt trial continues as prosecutors argue that he thumbed his nose at the law. 

Must Read Stories

A Trump-Backed Election Denier And A Neo-Confederate Win Maryland GOP Primaries 

  • NBC: Trump-Backed Election Denier Dan Cox Wins Maryland’s GOP Primary For Governor: Another Republican who has sowed false doubt about the 2020 election is a step closer to a governor’s mansion and the power to certify results of the 2024 presidential race. Dan Cox, a state delegate in Maryland, won his state’s GOP primary Tuesday, NBC News projects, beating Kelly Schulz, a former state secretary of commerce backed by the state party’s establishment. Cox — who was at the rally that preceded the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and scored former President Donald Trump’s endorsement — likely owes his win at least in part to national Democrats who aired TV ads reinforcing his right-wing views. While the strategy could pay longer-term dividends in a state where voters lean more toward the center and left, efforts to elevate a presumably weaker opponent risk backfiring in the general election.
  • Washington Post: Brown and Peroutka win Maryland AG primaries: Rep. Anthony Brown will take on Michael Peroutka who defeated Jim Shalleck in the Republican primary, according to projections by the Associated Press. […] Peroutka ran on a conservative platform that highlighted five key issues including opposing abortion rights, protecting gun rights and prosecuting “public officials who have exceeded their lawful authority and have violated the God-given, constitutionally protected, liberties of Marylanders.” In 2004, Peroutka ran for president under the Constitution Party, which promotes conservative religious views. Peroutka is the founder of the Pasadena, Md.-based Institute on the Constitution which advocates on its website for an “American view of government” which is composed of three tenets: “There is a God. Our rights come from Him. The purpose of civil government is to secure and protect our God-given rights.”

Secret Service Can’t Recover Texts Deleted After January 6 

  • Washington Post: Secret Service Cannot Recover Texts; No New Details For Jan. 6 Committee: The U.S. Secret Service has determined it has no new texts to provide Congress relevant to its Jan. 6 investigation, and that any other texts its agents exchanged around the time of the 2021 attack on the Capitol were purged, according to a senior official briefed on the matter. Also, the National Archives on Tuesday sought more information on “the potential unauthorized deletion” of agency text messages. The U.S. government’s chief record-keeper asked the Secret Service to report back to the Archives within 30 days about the deletion of any records, including describing what was purged and the circumstances of how the documentation was lost. The law enforcement agency, whose agents have been embroiled in the Jan. 6 investigation because of their role shadowing and planning President Donald Trump’s movements that day, is expected to share this conclusion with the Jan. 6 committee in response to its Friday subpoena for texts and other records. The agency, which made this determination after reviewing its communication databases over the past four days, will provide thousands of records, but nearly all of them have been shared previously with an agency watchdog and congressional committees, the senior official said. None is expected to shed new light on the key matters the committee is probing, including whether Trump attacked a Secret Service agent, an account a senior White House aide described to the Jan. 6 committee.
  • CNN: Secret Service Provided A Single Text Exchange To IG After Request For Many Records: The Secret Service was only able to provide a single text exchange to the DHS inspector general who had requested a month’s worth of records for 24 Secret Service personnel, according to a letter to the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, and obtained by CNN. The revelation provides insight into the concern raised in a recent letter to Congress by the inspector general, who accused the agency of not retaining records needed for the January 6 investigation. Inspector General Joseph Cuffari — having already received an initial batch of documents including “hundreds of thousands of disclosures of agency documents, policies, radio communications, emails, briefings and interviews” — requested in June 2021 text messages sent and received by 24 Secret Service personnel between December 7, 2020 and January 8, 2021, according to the letter, the details of which had not been previously reported. The letter does not identify the 24 personnel. […] Beyond the inspector general requests, the Secret Service was also sent a broad preservation and production request by Congress on January 16, 2021, which asked for documents and materials related to January 6. A second request in March from several House committees specifically requested communications “received, prepared or sent” between January 5 and January 7. The agency explained that it was up to employees to conduct the necessary preservation of records from their phones. 

Georgia Fake Electors Are Now Targets Of Criminal Probe 

  • New York Times: Trump Electors Targeted in Georgia Criminal Inquiry: Prosecutors in Atlanta have informed 16 Trump supporters who formed an alternate slate of 2020 presidential electors from Georgia that they could face charges in an ongoing criminal investigation into election interference, underscoring the risk of criminal charges that Donald J. Trump and many of his allies may be facing in the state. The revelations were included in court filings released on Tuesday in an investigation being led by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County. They showed that while much attention has been focused on the House hearings in Washington into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and the extent to which the Justice Department will investigate, it is a local prosecutor in Atlanta who may put Mr. Trump and his circle of allies in the most immediate legal peril.

A Top Staffer For Adam Laxalt’s Senate Campaign Marched With The Oath Keepers on January 6 

  • CNN: Top Spokeswoman For Nevada Republican Senate Nominee Marched On Jan. 6 With Oath Keepers, Including One Charged With Sedition:  The new communications director for the Republican Senate nominee in Nevada — a key state that could determine control in Washington — marched to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, with two members of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers including one who was later charged with sedition and another with breaking into the Capitol and at least two others who were charged for illegally entering the building, according to videos reviewed by CNN’s KFile. Courtney Holland, a Nevada-based political activist who does not appear to have entered the Capitol building herself and has not been charged with crimes related to January 6, was named Adam Laxalt’s top spokeswoman in early July. Laxalt is running against Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and the race is considered a toss up. Holland traveled to Washington, DC, for the January 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally where she was listed as a speaker for a rally to be held near the Capitol following then-President Donald Trump’s speech near the White House. That second rally did not take place as scheduled. She had previously spoken at a November event in Washington, DC, and was photographed with several “Stop the Steal” organizers who also spoke. 

Trump Called Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos Last Week To Continue To Pressure Him To Overturn The 2020 Election 

  • Insider: A Top Wisconsin Election Official Says Trump Called Him Last Week Urging Him To Decertify Biden’s 2020 Election Win In The State: A Wisconsin election official says Donald Trump is still trying to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat in the battleground state. Robin Vos, the speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, said in a Tuesday interview that the former president called him last week and encouraged him to decertify Joe Biden’s win in the state — 20 months after the 2020 election. Vos told WISN-TV 12 News in Milwaukee that Trump broached the topic in the days after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled absentee-ballot drop boxes in the state illegal on July 8. “It’s very consistent. He makes his case, which I respect,” Vos told the news outlet. “He would like us to do something different in Wisconsin. I explained that it’s not allowed under the Constitution.”

More Than 120 Republican Election Deniers Are Already On The Ballot This Fall 

  • FiveThirtyEight: At Least 120 Republican Nominees Deny The Results Of The 2020 Election: Since the 2020 election, millions of Republican voters have accepted former President Donald Trump’s false claim that the presidential election was stolen from him. And now, here in 2022, many Republican politicians have capitalized on this lie and have won elections of their own. This election cycle, FiveThirtyEight is tracking the views of every Republican candidate for Senate, House, governor, attorney general and secretary of state on the legitimacy of the 2020 election. And now that we’re halfway through the primary season, we can say definitively that at least 120 election deniers have won their party’s nomination and will be on the ballot in the fall. 

In The States 

ARIZONA:  Arizona Is The Next Stop On Trump’s “Revenge Tour” As The AZ GOP Censures Rusty Bowers 

  • KPNX: Republican Speaker Rusty Bowers censured by Arizona GOP: The Arizona GOP Executive Committee formally censured Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers Tuesday night, saying “he is no longer a Republican in good standing.” In a tweet Tuesday night, Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward cited numerous reasons for the censure, including: Bowers’ support of a bill giving tax-payer-funded in-state tuition to “illegal aliens” at state universities. His support of a billion-dollar education spending bill. His opposition to a bill stating only two genders should be named on government documents, and His sponsoring of a bill that makes sexual orientation and gender identity a protected class. Ward went on to say that Bowers has not been forthright in his interactions with others in legislative leadership and, in doing so, has lost the confidence of the majority of the Republican Party of Arizona. The move comes after Bowers, along with other state election officials, testified before the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection where Trump backers tried to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
  • Daily Beast: Trump’s Next Stop on the 2022 Revenge Tour: Arizona: Arizona’s primary election, slated for Aug. 2, will be one of the most important tests yet of whether or not GOP voters are truly tired of Trump and his acolytes’ relentless focus on litigating, and re-litigating, his defeat in November 2020. It would be hard to find two better distillations of the dueling factions of today’s GOP than the two leading candidates in this primary. Robson is a lifelong Republican who has hardline conservative views on everything from taxes and abortion to the hot-button culture war issues of the moment. But like her two most important backers—incumbent Gov. Doug Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence—she has backed away from Trump amid his 2020 election obsession. Lake is a longtime TV anchor in Phoenix and a former liberal who once spoke gushingly about Barack Obama. But she remade herself into a Trump-loving crusader for the issues nearest and dearest to the MAGA base—chiefly, 2020 election conspiracies—while calling her critics “demonic” and advocating for the Arizona secretary of state to be thrown in prison.

What Experts Are Saying

Katherine Clayton, a PhD candidate in political science at Stanford University, and Robb Willer, professor of sociology, psychology and organizational behavior at Stanford University: “Could the hearings, by spotlighting messages from Republicans who accept the election results, help restore faith in the legitimacy of American elections? Our research suggests they can…Perhaps our best hope for restoring bipartisan faith in elections is if events like the hearings encourage more Republican leaders to step up and dissent from Trump’s lies. If enough additional Republicans stand up, there is potential for a cascade of others to follow, creating a critical mass of Republican leaders endorsing the election results.

A recent analysis found that 37% Republican primary candidates and 25% of Republican nominees have not yet taken a stance on the legitimacy of the 2020 election, suggesting that there are many leaders who still hold the potential to make a difference. If these and other Republicans take a stand affirming the election results, there is reason to expect that a significant number of Republican voters will come to trust in elections once again.” CNN Op-Ed: Why the January 6 hearings could be a game changer

Noah Bookbinder, president of CREW: “It is incredibly dangerous that at least 120 candidates who deny the results of the 2020 election will be on the ballot this November. If cries of fraud become the norm when Big Lie candidates lose elections, it will destabilize our democracy even further.” Tweet 

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, NYU history professor: “The campaign of 2016 was a watershed in terms of the beginning of a systematic attempt by Trump and people around him to shift our political culture from a democracy to an authoritarian one. And what that meant was, he was speaking about violence as something positive.” PBS NewsHour

Dennis Aftergut, former federal prosecutor, Norm Eisen, senior fellow at Brookings, and William F. Weld, former Massachusetts governor: “The target letters show that Willis appears to be ahead of the U.S. Department of Justice on this front. While Merrick Garland’s DOJ has subpoenaed Shafer, as well as Brad Carver, another one of the fake electors in Georgia, as part of its general Jan. 6 investigation and has also asked the House January 6 Select Committee for its witness interviews regarding the fake elector scheme, target letters signal a more advanced step. Such letters generally go to individuals to notify them that there is substantial evidence that they have committed a crime, and there is potential for indictment.” Slate 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

NPR: Democrats say voters are watching the Jan. 6 hearings, but it’s not their top issue

January 6 And The 2020 Election

Associated Press: Jan. 6 panel chairman has COVID, prime-time hearing still on

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Georgia congressman fights subpoena from Fulton grand jury

Bloomberg: Bannon Was ‘Thumbing His Nose’ at Jan. 6 Subpoena, Prosecutor Says

CNN: Ex-Trump aide tied to ‘unhinged’ December 2020 White House meeting speaks with January 6 committee

Insider: US military leaders followed the January 6 attack through news reports and journalists’ tweets, according to new Pentagon emails released to Insider under the Freedom of Information Act

Talking Points Memo: Graham Accepts Fulton County Subpoena, Moving Potential Disputes To Georgia

Talking Points Memo: Former North Carolina Chief Justice Advised Trump On Election Overthrow Suit, Memo Says

Opinion

New York Times (Brian Beutler): Why Are Democrats Spending Millions to Boost the Far-Right Fringe?

Slate (Dennis Aftergut, Norm Eisen, and William Weld): Why the “Target Letters” Fani Willis Sent Out in Her Trump Probe Are Such a Big Deal

Washington Post (Greg Sargent): A new Jan. 6 witness shows why Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet is letha

In The States 

Austin American Statesman: State Bar: Paxton ‘Knew Or Should Have Known’ Claims Of 2020 Election Fraud Were False: 

Columbus Dispatch: Redistricting: Ohio Supreme Court rejects congressional map used in May, orders new one

KCTV: ‘This is an active criminal investigation:’ JoCo sheriff declines to discuss his voter fraud concerns

Seattle Times: King County Elections asks sheriff to investigate GOP activists’ ballot-box ‘surveillance’ as potential voter intimidation