Driving the Day:
Preparations for the election are being hampered by onerous public information requests, ongoing threats against election workers, and dangerous misinformation campaigns being waged by activists still intent on contesting the 2020 presidential election. https://t.co/A29zZKlxNM
— Defend Democracy Project (@DemocracyNowUS) August 31, 2022
Must Read Stories
Highly Classified Documents At Mar-A-Lago Were Moved And Hidden As The Government Sought To Recover Them
- New York Times: Documents at Mar-a-Lago Were Moved and Hidden as U.S. Sought Them, Filing Suggests: The Justice Department sought a search warrant for former President Donald J. Trump’s residence in Florida after obtaining evidence that highly classified documents were likely concealed and that Mr. Trump’s representatives had falsely claimed all sensitive material had been returned, according to a court filing by the department on Tuesday. The filing came in response to Mr. Trump’s request for an independent review of materials seized from his home, Mar-a-Lago. But it went far beyond that, painting the clearest picture yet of the department’s efforts to retrieve the documents before taking the extraordinary step of searching a former president’s private property on Aug. 8. Among the new disclosures in the 36-page filing were that the search yielded three classified documents in desks inside Mr. Trump’s office, with more than 100 documents in 13 boxes or containers with classification markings in the residence, including some at the most restrictive levels. That was twice the number of classified documents the former president’s lawyers turned over voluntarily while swearing an oath that they had returned all the material demanded by the government.
Stoked By Trump, The Right Wing Escalates Calls For Violence In Days Since Mar-A-Lago Search
- New York Times: Hard Right Stokes Outrage After Search of Mar-a-Lago: One week after a team of F.B.I. agents descended on his private club and residence in Florida, former President Donald J. Trump warned that his followers were enraged by the search — and that things could get out of hand if the Justice Department kept the heat on him. “People are so angry at what is taking place,” Mr. Trump told Fox News. “Whatever we can do to help because the temperature has to be brought down in the country. If it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen.” This week, one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, issued a similar warning that Mr. Trump quickly reposted on his social media platform. Mr. Graham, in a Fox News appearance on Sunday, predicted that if the search of Mar-a-Lago led to a prosecution of the former president, there would be “riots in the streets.” The assessments by both men were worded carefully enough that they could be defended as efforts to spare the nation unnecessary strife, and on Monday, Mr. Graham tried to walk back his remarks, saying, “I reject violence.” But the statements could also be perceived as fanning the same flames of outrage they claimed to be trying to avert. They carried a distinct echo of Mr. Trump’s calls after the 2020 election to do what was needed to keep him in office, signals that contributed to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol soon after he urged his supporters to “fight like hell.”
- NBC: Trump Shares Barrage Of QAnon Content And Other Conspiracy Theories On His Social Media Platform: Former President Donald Trump spent Tuesday morning posting inflammatory messages on social media, including many explicitly promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory. While Trump has in the past promoted QAnon-inspired accounts and theories, the posts on his Truth Social account were his most explicit, unobscured, QAnon-promoting and QAnon-baiting posts to date. In one, he reposted the QAnon slogan — “Where We Go One We Go All.” In another, he re-posted a 2017 message from “Q” that’s critical of the intelligence community. The QAnon conspiracy theory was built around Q, an anonymous account that posts periodically on 8kun, often with vague or symbolic language that is then interpreted by followers. The account claims to document a secret battle being waged by Trump against the Democratic Party, which followers of the theory contend is run by satanic, child-eating cannibals who run a pedophile ring filled with celebrities and political elites who have been covertly running the United States government for decades. None of the posts’ concrete predictions have come to fruition. Users of QAnon forums rejoiced at Trump’s apparent endorsement of the conspiracy theory and its mythology. The top response on the most visited QAnon forum to one of Trump’s posts about the conspiracy theory read simply, “Wipe them out sir.” Others pleaded with Trump to “nuke them from orbit” and to “sir, please finish them off,” referring to QAnon enemies such as Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden.
Biden Condemns “Sickening” Attacks On The FBI And Slams GOP On January 6
- CNN: Biden Condemns ‘Sickening’ Attacks On FBI Following Mar-a-Lago Search and Slams GOP Over January 6: President Joe Biden on Tuesday delivered a forceful speech in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania that demonstrated his escalated rhetoric against “MAGA Republicans” in Congress months before the midterm elections. During another amped up speech, Biden delivered a strong defense of the FBI amid increased threats following the agency’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. “It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI, threatening the lives of law enforcement agents and their families for simply carrying out the law and doing their job,” Biden told a crowd in Wilkes-Barre. Biden continued, “Look, I want to say this clear as I can: There’s no place in this country, no place, for endangering the lives of law enforcement. No place. None, never, period. I’m opposed to defunding the police. I’m also opposed to defunding the FBI.”
In A Coordinated Effort, Election Deniers Are Derailing Election Preparations With Only Two Months Left Until The Midterms
- ABC: With 10 Weeks Until Midterms, Election Deniers Are Hampering Some Election Preparations: In Colorado, supporters of Donald Trump seeking evidence of 2020 election fraud have flooded some county offices with so many records requests that officials say they have been unable to perform their primary duties. In Nevada, some election workers have been followed to their cars and harassed with threats. And in Philadelphia, concerns about the potential for violence around Election Day have prompted officials to install bulletproof glass at their ballot-processing center. With ten weeks to go until the 2022 midterms, dozens of state and local officials across the country tell ABC News that preparations for the election are being hampered by onerous public information requests, ongoing threats against election workers, and dangerous misinformation campaigns being waged by activists still intent on contesting the 2020 presidential election. The efforts, many of which are being coordinated at both the national and local level, range from confronting election officials at local government meetings to training volunteers to challenge the vote-counting process on Election Day, according to election officials.
In The States
NEVADA: Adam Laxalt Pushed For 2020 Vote Audit After Launching Senate Campaign
- Nevada Independent: Email: Laxalt Pushed For 2020 Election Audit In Douglas County After Launching Senate Bid: As late as last September, former attorney general and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt had urged a rural county election official to pursue an audit of the 2020 presidential election results, according to an email from that election official sent at the time. Douglas County Clerk-Treasurer Amy Burgans told a top state elections official in a September 2021 email that Laxalt had approached her during a local event with a request for the county to audit ballot signatures, saying that “he felt that Douglas County should take the lead.” The email was first obtained in February by the left-leaning watchdog group American Oversight. Burgans recounted telling Laxalt that the signatures could not be released under state law. Laxalt then, per the email, said he had not heard of such a provision, and declined an offer by Burgans to later receive the relevant statute over email.
What Experts Are Saying
Harry Litman, former US attorney: “DOJ filing at 30,000 feet:
- Facts (11 pages): Trump’s assertion he cooperated is a joke; in fact he delayed access repeatedly.
- Law: (20 pages): first principles: THESE ARE NOT HIS RECORDS. He has no legal entitlement to challenge anything.” Tweet
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University: “The Big Lie has traction because it lets any GOP politician become a mini-Trump, denying certified election results to get to power or to try to stay there illegally. No wonder election deniers now make up nearly two-thirds of Republican candidates for state and federal jobs that have authority over voting contests.” LA Times Op-Ed: Look to authoritarian parties abroad to see where the GOP is headed
Joyce Vance, former US attorney (Podcast Episode): “Serious concerns about witness safety are being made by DOJ in a matter that involves the former President of the United States. @PreetBharara and I discuss DOJ’s unsealed Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit on a new episode of @cafedotcom Insider. Listen: bit.ly/3QYhlro” Audio Link | Tweet
Austin Sarat, professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, and Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor: “Today Republicans are still falling over themselves to prove their loyalty to [Donald Trump] by outdoing each other in extremism…Democracy won’t save itself… There is much to be done by Americans committed to preserving our republic and to saying “no” to Trump.” Guardian Op-Ed: Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in office
Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, and Norm Eisen, senior fellow at Brookings Institute: “Judge McBurney‘s even-handed approach demonstrates a key advantage of the Fulton County litigation, and part of the reason that it has emerged as the leading-edge accountability vehicle for the anti-democratic crimes of Trump and his cronies. You have a driven and effective DA who’s matched by a capable and fast supervising judge. That’s how the judicial system is supposed to work, which in this case is very bad news for the former president.” Slate Op-Ed: Brian Kemp’s Looming Testimony Is a Big Problem for Donald Trump
Stephen Vladeck, Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at University of Texas School of Law, in conversation with former US attorney Preet Bharara: “And so I think the question for everyone listening to this, the question for the courts, ultimately, in the Lindsey Graham dispute is, do we actually think Lindsey Graham was making these phone calls because he was thinking about election reform legislation, or do we think he was making these phone calls because he was trying to exert political influence? And if it’s the latter, then that’s not supposed to be protected by the [Constitution’s Speech or Debate] clause.” Stay Tuned With Preet Transcript
Headlines
The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections
The Hill: House conservatives prep plans to impeach Biden
Washington Post: Republicans in key races scrap online references to Trump, abortion
Washington Post (Analysis): The new debate over ‘fascist’ becomes the old debate over victimhood
Washington Post (Analysis): How concerns about racial disparities become allegations of voter fraud
January 6 And The 2020 Election
New York Times: L. Lin Wood, a Trump Ally, Is Called to Testify in Election-Meddling Inquiry
NBC: D.C. Officer Daniel Hodges testifies against Capitol rioter who ‘crushed’ him with shield
Other Trump Investigations
NBC: Trump hires former Florida solicitor general in criminal probe of Mar-a-Lago documents
Opinion
The Guardian (Austin Sarat and Dennis Aftergut): Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in office
Washington Post (Greg Sargent): Rising GOP anger at Trump shows a deeper problem for the party
Political Violence
Boston Globe: Bomb threat at Boston Children’s Hospital was false alarm, police say
In The States
Arizona Republic: TV host who promoted AZ ‘audit’ a key figure in search for documents at Trump residence
New York Times: The Extremely Online Rise of Doug Mastriano
