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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — August 9, 2022

By August 9, 2022August 10th, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

What To Watch For Today: 

Primary elections in Connecticut, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Vermont. Doug Mastriano and Mike Pompeo set to testify before the January 6 committee.  

Must Read Stories

FBI Executes Search Warrant At Mar-A-Lago 

  • CNN: FBI Executes Search Warrant At Trump’s Mar-A-Lago In Document Investigation:  The FBI executed a search warrant Monday at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of an investigation into the handling of presidential documents, including classified documents, that may have been brought there, three people familiar with the situation told CNN. The former President confirmed that FBI agents were at Mar-a-Lago and said “they even broke into my safe.” He was at Trump Tower in New York when the search warrant was executed in Florida, a person familiar told CNN. “My beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said in a statement Monday evening. The extraordinary move to search the home of a former president raises the stakes for the Justice Department and comes as Trump’s legal problems continue on multiple fronts. Trump is also expected in the coming months to announce he will launch another bid for the White House in 2024.
  • Washington Post: Top Republicans Echo Trump’s Evidence-Free Claims To Discredit FBI Search:  Top Republicans on Monday rallied quickly behind Donald Trump’s efforts to discredit the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago Club, embracing his claims, presented without evidence, that it was a political attack intended to impede Trump’s chances if he runs for president again. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a top Trump ally, responded with a threat to the Justice Department, vowing to investigate the agency if the Republicans win back the House in the midterm elections. Claiming without evidence that the department has “reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization,” McCarthy warned, “Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar.” The quick defense of Trump and combative posture by leading Republican officeholders and potential 2024 presidential aspirants underlined the former president’s status as a standard-bearer in the party, even as he was tainted anew by another investigation. With fewer than 100 days before the midterm elections, many Republicans continue to rally around Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, his baseless attacks on a slew of officeholders and his divisive rhetoric.
  • NBC: How the FBI Search At Mar-A-Lago Could Influence Another Trump Run For President: Donald Trump has given every signal that he’s running for president in 2024. The FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Monday may only harden his resolve to jump in the race — and possibly speed up the timetable. “If he wasn’t running before, he is now,” said a person close to the former president, who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record. “It pisses him off that they can do this to him. One way to get it to stop is to control the government again.” As an active candidate, Trump could be in a stronger position to argue that the federal investigation amounts to a politically motivated attempt to damage him in a potential showdown with President Joe Biden.  Another incentive to run would be that, should he win, Trump would be insulated from prosecution owing to the Justice Department’s long-standing practice of never charging a sitting president with a crime. He would also regain power to hire and fire the FBI and Justice Department officials who have great sway over whom to investigate and charge.

Trump Allies Ramp Up Resistance To Testimony As Fulton County Investigation Reaches Trump’s Inner Circle 

  • Associated Press: Rudy Giuliani Won’t Testify Tuesday In Georgia Election Probe:  Rudy Giuliani will not appear as scheduled Tuesday before a special grand jury in Atlanta that’s investigating whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 general election in Georgia, his lawyer said. A judge last month had ordered Giuliani, a Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor, to appear before the special grand jury Tuesday. But Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, told The Associated Press on Monday that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, had excused Giuliani for the day. “Judge Robert McBurney excused him pending a hearing tomorrow on the motion to continue,” Costello wrote in a text message. Nothing in publicly available court documents indicates that Giuliani is excused from appearing, but McBurney has scheduled a hearing for 12:30 p.m. Tuesday to hear arguments on a court filing from Giuliani seeking to delay his appearance. In a court filing Monday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked the judge to deny Giuliani’s request for a delay and to instruct him to appear before the special grand jury as ordered.
  • Washington Post: Trump Allies Resist Testifying As Georgia Election Probe Expands: With Rudy Giuliani just days away from his scheduled Tuesday appearance before an Atlanta grand jury, his lawyer asked for a last-minute delay — providing a doctor’s note saying the 78-year-old was not cleared to fly because of a recent “invasive procedure.” The email response from the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was unyielding. “We do not consent to change the date,” wrote a deputy to Willis, adding: “We will provide alternate transportation including bus or train if your client maintains he is unable to fly.” The dispute, which burst into view Monday amid contentious legal filings and exchanges over Giuliani’s travel schedule and airline ticket purchases, prompted a judge to delay Giuliani’s Tuesday testimony and schedule a hearing with lawyers for each side. It marked the latest sign of tension between prosecutors and potential witnesses in Willis’s burgeoning criminal probe of alleged election interference by former president Donald Trump and his allies. Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer, had already signaled through his legal team that he would cite “attorney-client privilege” and probably refuse to talk about his interactions with Trump. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Atlanta is slated to consider the claim of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) that he should not be compelled to testify to the same grand jury about his calls to Georgia’s secretary of state after the 2020 election. Graham, a close Trump ally, has argued that he made the calls in the ordinary course of his work as a senator, and that such duties are protected by the Constitution. Prosecutors have argued in court filings that Graham’s “unusual activity mirrored the Trump campaign’s own efforts to potentially disrupt the Georgia election certification process.” The legal maneuvering this week comes as Willis’s inquiry has expanded and emerged as a legal threat to the former president and some of his most important allies.

Far Right PA Gubernatorial Candidate Doug Mastriano Set To Testify Before The January 6 Committee Today 

  • New York Times: The House Jan. 6 Panel Is Scheduled To Interview Pompeo And Mastriano On Tuesday: In the wake of the F.B.I. search of former President Donald J. Trump’s property in Florida, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is gearing up to meet with two potentially key witnesses in its separate inquiry on Tuesday. The committee is expected to meet with Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state under Mr. Trump, and Douglas V. Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania who served as a point person in the state for a plan to keep Mr. Trump in power by using slates of “alternative” or “fake” electors. Mr. Pompeo has been in talks with the committee about his appearance for weeks, according to a person familiar with the matter, and could provide testimony about discussions within Mr. Trump’s cabinet about the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office after the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Pompeo’s discussion regarding the 25th Amendment was reported by Jonathan Karl of ABC News in his book “Betrayal.” A spokesman for the Jan. 6 committee declined to comment. A spokesman for Mr. Pompeo did not respond to a request for comment. Tuesday’s virtual interview with Mr. Mastriano is expected to be short, because he plans to object to the panel’s rules about video recording. A lawyer for Mr. Mastriano, currently a state senator, said Mr. Mastriano believed the committee would selectively edit his testimony, and planned to insist on making his own video recording of the interview. The committee has rejected that option for other witnesses, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer.

FL Governor Ron De Santis To Rally For Election Denier Candidates Across The Country 

  • Politico: DeSantis To Headline Rallies For Key GOP Candidates Across The Country: on DeSantis is taking his growing clout among national Republicans on the road, where he’ll be the main attraction at events for Senate and gubernatorial candidates in key races across the country. The Republican Florida governor later this month is hosting a series of rallies with conservative education group Turning Point Action to boost campaigns for Arizona Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters and the state’s GOP nominee for governor, Kari Lake; Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance; and Pennsylvania’s GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who was at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection. Each of the candidates DeSantis is campaigning for has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump. The rallies are being billed by Turning Point Action as a way to help “unite” the Republican Party after a series of brutal and high-profile primary fights that at times pitted Trump’s endorsed candidate with one backed by more establishment Republicans.
  • Politico: The Florida Conservatives Likely Heading To Congress, Thanks To Desantis: Several Florida conservatives who question President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory could be heading to Congress in November, thanks to the state’s contentious redistricting process muscled through the Legislature by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Republicans who have a shot at winning their Aug. 23 primaries include a Trump-backed candidate who alleged her rivals were plotting to kill her, a state legislator who blasted GOP leaders in the Florida House as “RINOs,” and a state senator who sponsored legislation banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and transgender women and girls from competing in women’s sports. This looming influx of new Republicans are coming courtesy of a new congressional map drawn up by DeSantis’ staff that dismantled a seat held by Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat. Florida picked up an extra seat this year due to population growth and the governor pushed through a new map that is expected to help the GOP nationally win back the House. Republicans hold a 16-11 edge over Democrats in Florida’s congressional delegation, but that margin is expected to grow to 20-8 after the November elections. In many of the seats, the primary will decide the winner.

Redistricting Maps In Four States Were Declared Illegal Gerrymanders – Republicans Are Using Them Anyway 

  • New York Times: Maps in Four States Were Ruled Illegal Gerrymanders. They’re Being Used Anyway: Since January, judges in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio have found that Republican legislators illegally drew those states’ congressional maps along racial or partisan lines, or that a trial very likely would conclude that they did. In years past, judges who have reached similar findings have ordered new maps, or had an expert draw them, to ensure that coming elections were fair. But a shift in election law philosophy at the Supreme Court, combined with a new aggressiveness among Republicans who drew the maps, has upended that model for the elections in November. This time, all four states are using the rejected maps, and questions about their legality for future elections will be hashed out in court later. The immediate upshot, election experts say, is that Republicans almost certainly will gain more seats in midterm elections at a time when Democrats already are struggling to maintain their bare majority.

In The States 

MICHIGAN: Michigan Officials Detail Brazen Scheme By Trump Allies, Including The GOP Nominee For Attorney General, To Tamper With Election Machines 

  • New York Times: Michigan Officials Detail a Brazen Voting Machine Scheme by Trump Supporters: In early 2021, with the turmoil of a bitterly contested presidential contest still fresh, several election clerks in Michigan received strange phone calls. The person on the other end was a Republican state representative who told them their election equipment was needed for an investigation, according to documents from the Michigan attorney general’s office. They obliged. Soon, the machines were being picked apart in hotels and Airbnb rentals in Oakland County, outside Detroit, by conservative activists hunting for what they believed was proof of fraud, the documents said. Weeks later, after the equipment was returned in handoffs in highway car-pool lots and shopping malls, the clerks found that it had been tampered with, and in some cases, damaged. The revelations of possible meddling with voting machines have set off a political tsunami in Michigan, one of the most critical battleground states in the country. The documents detail deception of election officials and a breach of voting equipment that stand out as extraordinary even among the volumes of public reporting on brazen attempts by former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters to scrutinize and undermine the 2020 results. But one of the most politically striking elements of the case is the identity of one of the people implicated in the scheme by the office of the attorney general: Matthew DePerno, who is now the presumptive Republican nominee for that very post.

WYOMING:  Liz Cheney Primary Enters Its Final Week 

  • ABC: 2 Democratic Lawmakers Encourage Wyoming Voters: Change Parties And Back Cheney: Two House Democrats — from New Jersey and Minnesota — are appealing to members of their own party in Wyoming to “consider” changing their affiliations ahead of the state’s contentious Republican primary on Aug. 16 in order to back incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney. In separate advertisements from an organization called Wyomingites Defending Freedom And Democracy, Reps. Tom Malinowski and Dean Phillips asked Wyoming Democrats to “consider temporarily switching parties” in order to vote for Cheney, one of Donald Trump’s most vocal critics, over Cheney’s Trump-backed opponent.
  • Axios: Viral Cheney Ad To Air On Fox News: A viral ad in which former Vice President Dick Cheney attacks former President Trump as a “coward” will begin airing on Fox News on Tuesday, a week before his daughter Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) faces a Trump-backed primary challenge, Axios has learned. Driving the news: The ad, which initially aired solely in Wyoming, got so much attention that Cheney’s campaign has decided to take it directly to Trump’s favorite programs. The ad will air twice daily this week during “Fox & Friends” and once daily on Sean Hannity’s prime-time show.

What Experts Are Saying

Joyce Vance, former US attorney: “[O]n the 48th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency, the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s residence, Mar-a-Lago. Not a raid. No crashing in of doors or destruction of property. This is a judicially authorized proceeding, in which a federal judge independently reviews an FBI agent’s sworn affidavit and must conclude they agree that there is probable cause for the search. Probable cause is more than just suspicion, it means a reasonable person reviewing the evidence would conclude a crime has been committed and there is good reason to believe evidence or fruits of it will be recovered from the place to be searched. Trump says the FBI searched his private safe. That, in and of itself, tells us a lot about who the likely target of this investigation is.” Civil Discourse

Harry Litman, former US attorney: “A more straightforward, prosaic answer to why the warrant was served is that the Department of Justice has assembled evidence of probable cause that evidence of a crime would be found at Trump’s Florida home…a charge of mishandling or destroying official documents is no petty offense, not under the federal code (which provides for a prison sentence of up to three years) and not in the culture of the Justice Department, which takes it very seriously.” LA Times Column  

Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket, re: 18 U.S. Code § 2071 – concealment, removal, or mutilation generally: “The media is missing the really, really big reason why the raid today is a potential blockbuster in American politics.👇…Yes, I recognize the legal challenge that application of this law to a president would garner (since qualifications are set in Constitution). But the idea that a candidate would have to litigate this is during a campaign is in my view a ‘blockbuster in American politics.’” Tweet | Tweet 

Dennis Aftergut, former federal prosecutor: “Indeed, despite some naysayers, all signs still point to a Trump run. We ignore them at our peril — doing so means losing precious time both reminding Americans of the ‘clear and present danger’ to our Constitution that he poses and preparing for how best to defeat him.” NBC Op-Ed

Seth Masket, professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver, and Christopher Celaya, postdoctoral researcher at the center: “Although Trump is still the dominant candidate, he is vulnerable in the sense that some of his supporters do not think he can win…Of course, this is only an experiment. The real world is far more complex. But it suggests that even Republicans who are strong supporters of Trump are open to arguments about his ability to win elections, and those supporters seem to see DeSantis as a real option, at least right now.” LA Times: Op-Ed: Here’s one factor that might peel Trump’s diehard supporters away

Rachel Kleinfeld, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, re: recent reporting on Trump administration generals: “Why did none of these men use Article 25 when they knew America was in such dire straits? This is what it is for. The military must take orders from its commander in chief. Why did they wait to write a book on it?” Tweet 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

Axios: Secretary of state races intensify

CNN: She helped Trump win Florida twice. Now she could lead his expected 2024 campaign

New York Times: In Lawsuits, Ex-Employees Offer Harsh Portrait of Project Veritas

New York Times: Trump Asked Aide Why His Generals Couldn’t Be Like Hitler’s, Book Says

Politico: Welcome to the strangest Senate race in America

January 6 And The 2020 Election

CNN: Doug Mastriano, Trump ally and candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, to appear before January 6 committee Tuesday

CNN: Alex Jones’ texts have been turned over to the January 6 committee, source says

Daily Beast: Tucker Carlson ‘Shitting Himself’ Scared That His Alex Jones Texts May Leak

Insider: Sandy Hook lawyer says Alex Jones sent ‘intimate photo’ of his wife to Trump ally Roger Stone

Politico: Georgia DA rejects Giuliani effort to postpone Aug. 9 grand jury appearance

Politico: Former federal prosecutor representing Trump in talks with DOJ

Politico: DOJ pushes back against Eastman effort to reclaim his cellphone

Other Trump Investigations

NBC: Trump real estate appraiser hands over thousands of documents to N.Y. AG in civil probe

New York Times: If Trump broke a law on the removal of official records, would he be barred from future office?

Opinion

Los Angeles Times (Seth Masket and Christopher Celaya): Here’s one factor that might peel Trump’s diehard supporters away

Political Violence

Buffalo News: On fringe social media sites, Buffalo mass shooting becomes rallying call for white supremacists

In The States 

Washington Post: Trump’s pick for Wisconsin governor won’t weigh in on 2020 results