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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — August 17, 2022

By August 17, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Liz Cheney Defeated, Vows To Continue Fight Against Trump And Threats To Democracy 

  • Vox: Liz Cheney Pays The Price For Taking On Trump: Liz Cheney lost on Tuesday night. The question is whether it was a battle or a war. The immediate political fate of the three-term Wyoming Congress member had been a foregone conclusion; public polling consistently had Cheney lagging her Donald Trump-backed opponent Harriet Hageman, and the big margins — 66 to 30 percent with 93 percent of the votes reporting — also came as no surprise. Instead, Cheney had sought to characterize her race as part of an existential struggle for American democracy that pitted her against Trump. Her closing ad featured her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking straight to camera and insisting that “in our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.” In her remarks after her defeat on Tuesday, Cheney returned to this message, showing her willingness to target Trump and the Republicans who abet him. “Two years ago, I won this primary with 73 percent of the vote,” she said. “I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. But it would’ve required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election. It would’ve required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take.”
  • Politico: In Defeat, Cheney Chides Trump And Invokes History: Liz Cheney closed one chapter of her public life and opened another with a history-heavy speech Tuesday night that made clear that she’s at peace with losing her congressional seat — and ready to continue her fight against Donald Trump.“This primary election is over,” Cheney told a crowd of supporters at a picturesque ranch outside Jackson, Wyo., saying she’d called her Trump-backed opponent, Harriet Hageman, to concede the race. “But now the real work begins.” Cheney made no apologies for the decisions that led to her election loss. And she contrasted her quick concession to Trump’s prolonged refusal to acknowledge his own electoral loss, a refusal that led to the violence of Jan. 6, 2021 and the rise of election deniers within the Republican Party. What Cheney’s next chapter will be remains uncertain, but the Republican made one thing clear about her political future in the speech: Her fight to protect American democracy is just beginning, and she meant what she said about doing everything in her power to make sure Donald Trump never steps foot near the Oval Office again.
  • New York Times (Analysis): What Liz Cheney’s Lopsided Loss Says About the State of the G.O.P.: Representative Liz Cheney’s martyr-like quest to stop Donald J. Trump has ensured her place in Republican Party history. But her lopsided defeat in Wyoming on Tuesday also exposed the remarkable degree to which the former president still controls the party’s present — and its near future. Ten House Republicans voted to impeach Mr. Trump in early 2021 for his role inciting the mob that stormed the Capitol. Only two have survived the 2022 Republican primaries, a breathtaking run of losses and forced retirements in a chamber where incumbents typically prevail with ease. No single defeat was as freighted with significance as Ms. Cheney’s, or as revealing of the party’s realignment. The sheer scope of her loss — the daughter of a former vice president was defeated in a landslide — may have only strengthened Mr. Trump’s hand as he asserts his grip over the Republican Party, by revealing the futility among Republican voters of even the most vigorous prosecution of the case against him.

Rudy Giuliani And Jenna Ellis Set To Testify In Fulton County Investigation 

  • Associated Press: Rudy Giuliani Set to Testify in Georgia 2020 Election Probe:  Rudy Giuliani is scheduled to appear in an Atlanta courthouse to testify before a special grand jury that is investigating attempts by former President Donald Trump and others to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia. It’s unclear how much the former New York mayor and attorney for Trump will be willing to say now that his lawyers have been informed he’s a target of the investigation. Questioning will take place behind closed doors Wednesday because the special grand jury proceedings are secret. Yet Giuliani’s appearance is another high-profile step in a rapidly escalating investigation that has ensnared several Trump allies and brought heightened scrutiny to the desperate and ultimately failed efforts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. It’s one of several investigations into Trump’s actions in office as he lays the groundwork for another run at the White House in 2024.
  • CNN: Colorado Judge Says Jenna Ellis Must Appear Before 2020 Election Scheme Grand Jury Probe: A judge in Colorado said on Tuesday that Jenna Ellis, an attorney who represented Donald Trump during and after the 2020 election, must appear before the Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury investigating the former President’s election schemes. In issuing the order, 8th Judicial District Judge Gregory Lammons stressed the limited role he was being asked to play. This is “one witness in this state testifying in another state,” he said at the end of an hour-long hearing on the matter, which had been initiated by local prosecutors in Colorado on behalf of the Atlanta prosecutors leading the probe.

DHS IG Accused Of Obstructing Investigation Into Missing Text Messages 

  • CNN: Top House Democrats Accuse DHS Watchdog Of Obstructing Investigation Into Missing Secret Service Text Messages: Two top House Democrats are accusing the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General of obstructing their investigation into missing Secret Service text messages related to the January 6 Capitol attack, escalating tensions between Congress and the watchdog agency. In a letter on Tuesday, House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson, who also chairs the House January 6 committee, wrote to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, detailing claims of how Cuffari has not cooperated with their previous requests to provide documents or make his employees available for transcribed interviews in their ongoing investigation. Maloney and Thompson have previously called for Cuffari to recuse himself from the investigation, saying they had lost confidence in him after he waited months to inform Congress that Secret Service text messages from January 6 had been erased.

Trump Is Laying Out Plans For A Second Term, Including Radical Restrictions On Voting  And Democracy 

  • Washington Post: Six Drastic Plans Trump Is Already Promising For A Second Term: For the first time since leaving office, former president Donald Trump has started getting specific about what he would do if he wins a second term in the White House. The pitches he’s made onstage over the past month in speeches from D.C. to Dallas to Las Vegas are a stark contrast from ordinary stump speeches. He promises a break from American history if elected, with a federal government stacked with loyalists and unleashed to harm his perceived enemies. There has never been a potential candidate like Trump: a defeated former president whose followers attacked the Capitol, who still insists he never lost, and who openly pledges revenge on those he views as having wronged him. As his 2016 campaign and administration showed time and again, from the border wall to the Muslim ban, he and his aides worked furiously to translate rally slogans into official policy — whether or not there were legal or political barriers to overcome. And if Trump does return to the White House in 2025, this time he will be surrounded by fewer advisers interested in moderating or restraining his impulses. Instead, his administration would probably be staffed by dedicated loyalists, and would have the advantage of an emboldened conservative majority on the Supreme Court. He and his advisers would also have more experience in how to exert power inside the federal bureaucracy and exploit vulnerabilities in institutions and laws.

In The States 

ARIZONA:  Arizona GOP Secretary of State Nominee Mark Finchem Kept Violent Right Wing Pinterest Account

  • CNN: Arizona Republican Secretary Of State Nominee Kept ‘treason Watch List’ And Posted About Stockpiling Ammunition On Pinterest: The Republican nominee for secretary of state in Arizona is a self-proclaimed member of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers who repeatedly shared anti-government conspiracies and posts about stockpiling ammunition on social media. CNN’s KFile team uncovered previously unreported posts from Mark Finchem, an Arizona state representative who won his party’s nomination with the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, on several social media websites linked from his since-deleted former Twitter account. The posts included a Pinterest account with a “Treason Watch List,” and pins of photos of Barack Obama alongside imagery of a man clad in Nazi attire making a Nazi salute; Finchem also shared photos of the Holocaust claiming it could happen in the United States.

GEORGIA: Poll Worker Shortage Looms In Georgia 

  • Atlanta Journal Constitution: Poll Worker Shortage Looms Ahead Of Georgia Election: Poll workers, the essential employees needed to run elections, are in short supply in Georgia as early voting is set to begin in just over two months. “Help wanted,” say election officials who are struggling to find thousands of personnel amid a tight labor market and a contentious political environment. They’re pushing to hire more people before a worker deficiency turns into a bigger problem, though there’s still time to meet recruitment goals and avoid the risk of short-staffed polling places in Georgia’s midterm elections. […] Poll worker shortages at this point before a major election aren’t unusual, but they could turn into a bigger problem, as they did when health concerns about the coronavirus led many people to abandon plans to work the 2020 election.

WYOMING:  An Election Denier Will Be The Next Secretary Of State In Wyoming 

  • The Hill: Trump-Backed Candidate Wins Wyoming Secretary Of State Nomination: State Rep. Chuck Gray, a Trump-backed vocal proponent of the false claim that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud, is projected to win the Republican primary for Wyoming secretary of state, according to The Associated Press. Gray’s primary win on Tuesday virtually guarantees that he will go on to replace retiring Secretary of State Ed Buchanan (R) next year. No Democrat filed to run for the office, giving Gray a glidepath to victory in November.  Wyoming has no lieutenant governor, making secretary of state the second most powerful statewide office and first in the line of succession. The secretary of state of state also oversees elections in Wyoming, as well as business licenses.

What Experts Are Saying

Norm Eisen, senior fellow at Brookings Institution and former White House special counsel, re: Donald Trump reportedly asking: “The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?”: “Former President Donald Trump is ‘dripping with crocodile tears’ as he offers to help reduce the country’s temperature, all while attacking law enforcement for searching his Mar-a-Lago home, Norm Eisen, a former White House special counsel, told Insider…’This is no genuine offer to help’…’If it were he would not be fanning the flames simultaneously. It is pure malice and a threat that he has the power to unleash more violence,’ Eisen said.” Business Insider 

Joyce Vance, former US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, re: Trump’s reported “offer” to DOJ: “‘I view those as threats, not offers of help,’ said Vance. Given Trump’s communications in the past, she said, ‘this really smacks of the suggestion that DOJ should back off if it wants him to tamp down on the violence that’s developing.’” Business Insider

Julian Zelizer, professor of history at Princeton University (Listen): Here & Now’s Scott Tong speaks with Julian Zelizer, professor of history at Princeton University, about former President Donald Trump’s strategy in the wake of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. Here & Now – WBUR

Barbara McQuade, former US attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan: “[T]here are any number of paths this investigation could take now that Giuliani is a target. But all of them point to danger for Trump.” MSNBC Op-Ed: Why Rudy Giuliani’s Georgia woes are bad news for Trump

Albert W. Alschuler, the Julius Kreeger Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology Emeritus at The University of Chicago Law School: “This article will (1) review Trump’s acts and omissions on January 6; (2) describe the crime of insurrection; (3) consider the legal significance of Trump’s refusal to ask his supporters to end their violence; (4) consider the significance of his mid-riot tweet denouncing Mike Pence; (5) explain why prosecution for insurrection wouldn’t pose the same difficulties as prosecution for seditious conspiracy; and (6) explain why convicting Trump of insurrection would clarify his responsibility for the violence of January 6.” Just Security: Trump and the Insurrection Act: The Legal Framework

Aziz Z. Huq, Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School: “Make no mistake: Mishandling classified documents, particularly ones with allegedly sensitive details, shouldn’t be at all acceptable. No president gets to just filch confidential national security files after he loses. But these are not ordinary times. It is not only the Justice Department but also the president who needs to move with extraordinary care and precise judgment if American democracy is to thrive once again.” Politico Magazine Op-Ed  

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

Associated Press: Trump’s angry words spur warnings of real violence

Politico: How Team Trump systematically snuffed out Liz Cheney’s reign in Congress

Politico: Facebook has a midterm strategy. Trump won’t be part of it.

Washington Post (Analysis): Liz Cheney’s loss is suddenly an afterthought in the GOP embrace of Trump

Washington Post: Youngkin plans trip to Michigan, repeats criticism of Justice Department

January 6 And The 2020 Election

Washington Post: Homeland Security watchdog Cuffari faces rebukes from lawmakers in missing texts case

Other Trump Investigations

Bloomberg: Trump Asks Appeals Court to Scrap New York Probe of His Assets

New York Times: F.B.I. Interviewed Top White House Lawyers About Missing Trump Documents

Politico: Inside the frantic, final days of record-keeping that landed Trump in hot water

Washington Post: Trump is rushing to hire seasoned lawyers — but he keeps hearing ‘No’

Opinion

MSNBC (Barbara McQuade): Why Rudy Giuliani’s Georgia woes are bad news for Trump

In The States 

Associated Press: Abortion foes tap credit cards to get partial Kansas recount

Axios: Anti-Trump Republican Accountability PAC targets Kari Lake

Bloomberg: Ohio Raises a Volunteer Army to Fight Election Hacking

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Robin Vos says Michael Gableman could lose his law license over 2020 election review, records violations

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ron Johnson praises Racine County man who fraudulently sought absentee ballots to prove voter fraud

San Antonio Express News: Texas county’s entire election staff steps down, citing death threats and stalking