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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — May 5, 2022

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Trump’s Power Over The GOP Increases As Big Lie Supporters Rise To Power In Swing States 

  • New York Times: In Arizona, a Swing State Swings to the Far Right: Republicans in many states have grown increasingly tired of the Stop the Steal movement and the push by Mr. Trump to reward election deniers and punish those who accept President Biden’s victory. At a time when Mr. Biden’s approval ratings are sinking, leaders in the party are urging candidates to focus instead on the economy, inflation and other kitchen-table issues. But 12 weeks before its Republican primary in August, Arizona shows just how firm of a grasp Mr. Trump and his election conspiracy theories still have at every level of the party, from local activists to top statewide candidates. And this week’s victory for J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author who received the former president’s endorsement in the Republican primary for an Ohio Senate seat, shows that loyalty to Trumpism goes a long way in battleground states. […] Two forces have helped ensure election denialism remains a core issue in Arizona: the Republican-sponsored and widely derided review of the presidential vote in the state’s largest county, and Mr. Trump’s continued attacks on the Republican governor, Doug Ducey, for rebuffing his efforts to block election certification. More than three dozen Republicans running for office in Arizona — including six candidates for statewide posts — have made denying the 2020 results a centerpiece of their campaigns, according to two groups tracking candidates, States United Action and Pro-Democracy Republicans. States United Action is nonpartisan; Maricopa County’s top elections official, a Republican, began Pro-Democracy Republicans earlier this year.
  • Daily Beast: Republicans Running in Moderate Districts Still Have Extreme Jan. 6 Views: In at least nine of the swing districts that are at the top of the GOP’s target list, top recruits and leading candidates have amplified voter fraud conspiracies, denied the outcome of the 2020 election, and touted their own trips to the Capitol on Jan. 6. One candidate in Virginia called for the “execution” of people convicted of voter fraud; one in Nevada called for the execution of General Mark Milley; another in Nevada contacted former “Kraken” lawyer Sidney Powell to help her overturn her own 2020 election loss. Republican voters have already anointed a far-right figure as their chosen candidate in one of them: Ohio’s 9th District, where J.R. Majewski won a primary on Tuesday night.
  • Politico: Trump Reasserts Dominance Over GOP:  Though Tuesday was just one night in a crowded spring primary calendar, Trump’s romp in Ohio signals that — for all the talk of his waning influence after losing in 2020 and getting impeached for inciting an insurrection — the GOP is still in his thrall. He’s unlikely to topple several sitting governors he’s gone after. But when it comes to federal primaries, Trump far overshadows every other GOP figure, from the establishment to party gadflies, according to interviews with nearly a dozen GOP lawmakers.

President Biden Warns That MAGA Is The “Most Extreme Political Organization”  

  • Politico: Biden: MAGA Is The ‘Most Extreme Political Organization’ In Recent U.S. History:  President Joe Biden on Wednesday escalated his rhetorical attacks on the Republican Party and rebuked former President Donald Trump’s enduring grip on the GOP. “This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history, in recent American history,” Biden told reporters at the White House, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

Oath Keepers Founder Had Connections To White House, Tried To Phone Trump On January 6

  • NBC: Oath Keepers Founder Tried To Phone Trump On Jan. 6, Group Member Tells Court:  The Oath Keepers founder facing seditious conspiracy charges tried to speak directly with President Donald Trump on the night of Jan. 6, 2021, and implored an intermediary to tell the president to use militia groups to stop the transfer of power, a fellow Oath Keepers member said in court Wednesday. William Todd Wilson, a member of the far-right militia group who pleaded guilty Wednesday to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, said in federal court that he joined Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes in a suite at the Phoenix Park Hotel not far from the Capitol shortly after the attack and listened as Rhodes called an unnamed Trump intermediary on speakerphone. As he listened, he heard Rhodes “repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose a transfer of power,” Wilson and prosecutors said. The person on the line “denied Rhodes’ request to speak directly with President Trump,” according to the agreed-upon statement of offense in Wilson’s case. Such a phone call, which Wilson said was made just after 5 p.m., would have taken place when rioters were still being cleared on the grounds of the Capitol, after Trump tweeted a video calling the rioters “very special” but before he tweeted, at 6:01 p.m., “Remember this day forever!”

In The States

Michigan Republicans Have Replaced Election Officials Who Certified Joe Biden’s Win 

  • NPR: Republicans In Michigan Have Replaced Election Officials Who Certified Biden’s Win: Bipartisan members who serve on state and county boards of canvassers in Michigan have an important job: certifying the results of elections, making them official. In 2020, Former President Trump and his allies urged them not to certify as part of his campaign to undermine and overturn the presidential election, even though Joe Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes. Since then, local GOP leaders have replaced many of the canvassers who upheld their oaths and voted to certify the results for Biden — even canvassers who are members of their own party.

Headlines

The Ongoing Threat To Elections 

CNN: Fact check: Jody Hice, running to oversee Georgia elections, makes yet more false 2020 claims

Daily Beast: Could This Ohio Man Be The Next QAnon Congressman?

Politico: Here are the Trump-backed candidates who won Tuesday’s primaries

PolitiFact: The faulty premise of the ‘2,000 mules’ trailer about voting by mail in the 2020 election

January 6 Investigation 

ABC: DOJ, Jan. 6 committee staff clash in interview with former U.S. attorney: Sources

Buzzfeed: Republicans Don’t Have To Win Jan. 6 Subpoena Challenges To Run Down The Clock

CNN: McCarthy said 25th Amendment ‘takes too long’ and wanted to reach out to Biden after January 6 attack

Politico: Donald Trump Jr. interviews with Jan. 6 select panel

Opinion

New York Magazine (Jonathan Chait): J.D. Vance Is a Dangerous Authoritarian

Washington Post (Greg Sargent): An upset win over the ‘enjoy rape’ MAGA candidate speaks volumes