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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — May 3, 2022

Driving the Day: 

What To Watch For Today: 

Primaries in Indiana and Ohio highlight GOP support for Trump and his ongoing conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. 

Must Read Stories

January 6 Committee Seeks Information From At Least Three GOP Members Of Congress

  • NBC: Jan. 6 Committee Seeks Info From GOP Reps. Ronny Jackson, Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks: The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol is requesting interviews with three Republican members of Congress, including one whom members of the Oath Keepers militia group are alleged to have said they needed to protect because he had “critical data.” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., contended in letters sent Monday to Reps. Ronny Jackson of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Mo Brooks of Alabama that the trio have information that could be helpful to the panel’s investigation into “the facts, circumstances, and causes of the January 6th attack.” The panel asked that the lawmakers meet with committee in the next week. All three rejected the request on Monday. One of the issues about which the panel wants to question Jackson, a former White House physician, is text messages members of the Oath Keepers, including the group’s leader, traded about him during the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Election Conspiracy Theorist State Candidates Pose Growing Threat To Democracy 

  • NBC: These Candidates Say Trump Won In 2020 — Now They’re Running To Oversee Future Elections: In pivotal battleground states across the U.S., intensely partisan candidates who falsely claim that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election are running for secretary of state. As contenders to become the top election official in their respective states, these candidates, if they win, would in almost all cases oversee their state office administering the 2024 presidential election — in which Trump might be the Republican candidate. Some experts say that scenario could contribute to an even more robust effort to overturn the next presidential election. “These are the positions that hold the keys to our democracy and the keys to our elections,” said Joanna Lydgate, the CEO of States United Action, a nonpartisan group that tracks secretary of state and gubernatorial races. “We don’t put toddlers in charge of nap time, and we shouldn’t put election deniers in charge of elections,” she added. At least 23 people who deny the results of the 2020 election are running for secretary of state in 19 states across the U.S., according to the group — a number that has alarmed voting and elections experts. Four of those states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada — are ones in which Biden scored his narrowest victories in 2020.
  • Opinion: Washington Post (Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman): A Growing Threat To Democracy: Trumpist Gubernatorial Candidates: The threat that Republicans pose to democracy is usually thought to emanate from Donald Trump and his allies, or from the House Republicans who regularly dabble in insurrectionism and flirtations with political violence. But far too little attention is paid to the threat posed by potential future Republican governors. This is underscored by a bizarre story out of Minnesota. The Star-Tribune reports that one of the leading GOP candidates, former state senator Scott Jensen, seemed to threaten the Democratic secretary of state with imprisonment. At a recent party convention, Jensen railed that the GOP’s attitude toward voting is that “if you cheat, you’re going to jail.” He then added that Secretary of State Steve Simon should “check out to see if you look good in stripes.” Under Republican rule, Jensen added, “the hammer’s coming down.” Whatever that was supposed to mean, if any state were immune from the Republican attempt to turn voting into a venomous culture war issue, it might have been Minnesota. It’s often considered the most civic-minded state in the county, and usually has very high rates of voter turnout. That this ugliness has now come to Minnesota is a reminder that if some of the Republicans running for governor around the country win their races, they could pose a threat to democracy, either through voter suppression efforts or even possibly via an effort to overturn the 2024 election. Alternatively, defeating them could protect against just such attacks on our system.

What Experts Are Saying 

  • Heather Cox Richardson, Professor of American History at Boston College: “And so here we are. A minority, placed in control of the U.S. Supreme Court by a president who received a minority of the popular vote and then, when he lost reelection, tried to overturn our democracy, is explicitly taking away a constitutional right that has been protected for fifty years. Its attack on federal protection of civil rights applies not just to abortion, but to all the protections put in place since World War II: the right to use birth control, marry whomever you wish, live in desegregated spaces, and so on. The draft opinion says the state legislatures are the true heart of our democracy and that they alone should determine abortion laws in the states. But Republican-dominated legislatures have also curtailed the right to vote. When Democrats in Congress tried to protect voting rights, Senate Republicans killed it with the filibuster. Tonight’s news is an alarm like the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which gave a few white men who controlled state legislatures power over the American majority.” Letters from an American 
  • Joyce Vance (@JoyceWhiteVance), Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at the University of Alabama: “.@January6thCmte has asked GOP Reps, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs & former WH Doc Ronny Jackson to provide info they have regarding 1-6, admonishing that it’s their patriotic duty. The reps run the risk that others will tell their story for them if they don’t comply.” Tweet 

Headlines

In The States 

Vox: Florida’s new election police unit is the scariest voter suppression effort yet

The January 6 Conspiracy

CNN: Ivanka Trump talked to January 6 committee about what was happening inside White House that day, panel chairman says

Washington Post (Analysis): Judge issues big rebuke of GOP effort to delegitimize Jan. 6 committee

January 6 Trials

Associated Press: NYPD veteran convicted of assaulting officer in Capitol riot

Opinion

New York Times (Norm Eisen and Donald Ayer): Will Trump Face a Legal Reckoning in Georgia?