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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — November 21, 2022

By November 21, 2022No Comments

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Nearly Two Weeks After The Entire Statewide Slate Of Election Deniers Was Defeated, Conspiracy Theories And Threats Continue To Roil Arizona

  • KSAZ: Maricopa County Chairman Moved To ‘Undisclosed Location’ For Safety After Midterm Elections: Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates has confirmed that he moved to an undisclosed location for his safety after security concerns connected to the 2022 midterm elections. Deputies from the sheriff’s office are also providing a security detail, officials said. Gates, a Republican and one of the leaders of the Maricopa County Elections Department, has been a fierce defender of the county’s election system and an outspoken critic of false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
  • KPNX: Recently Elected Arizona House Republican Says She Will Not Do Her Job Unless The 2022 Election Is Redone: A Chandler Republican recently elected to the Arizona House of Representatives says that she will not cast her vote on any bill unless the 2022 election is redone. Liz Harris, recently elected to represent Legislative District 13 which encompasses much of Chandler, issued the statement on Instagram and her campaign website saying in part “it has become obvious that we need to hold a new election immediately.” Despite winning her own election, Harris alleges that there were “clear signs of foul play” which necessitated her demands. There has been no evidence of this.  “Machine malfunctions” were cited as one such sign. On election day, 60 of the 223 polling places in Maricopa County saw issues with their ballot printers, leading to some ballots not being counted immediately. The issue was resolved within a few hours, and election officials say that they were able to ensure that every legal ballot was successfully counted. Harris also questioned the fact that Treasurer Kimberly Yee (R) won her election with a greater count of votes than any other candidate. “How can a Republican State Treasurer receive more votes than a Republican Gubernatorial or Senate candidate?” Harris asked.
  • Washington Post: Leaked Call Shows Clash Between Kari Lake Campaign And Maricopa County:  Hours before Kari Lake was projected to lose her race for Arizona governor, attorneys for her campaign and for the Republican National Committee spoke by phone Monday to a lawyer for Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and more than half the state’s voters. The Lake representatives posed a series of questions about voting problems on Election Day, nearly a week earlier. Then, toward the end of the phone call, an attorney for the RNC stressed the importance of rapid answers, according to the Maricopa attorney, Tom Liddy, a lifelong Republican who heads the county’s office for civil litigation. Liddy recalled that the RNC attorney, whom he and others identified as Benjamin Mehr, told him that there were “a lot of irate people out there” and that the campaign “can’t control them.” Liddy said in an interview Friday that he considered those words a threat. On Friday night, a Twitter account associated with Lake’s campaign posted a video of a portion of the call that captures Liddy cursing and raising his voice. The Lake campaign did not respond to a request for the full video, which was taken from inside the GOP’s war room at a Scottsdale resort. County officials said they were blindsided that the conversation had been recorded and then posted publicly with the names of only one side bleeped out.
  • Associated Press: Cochise County Board Delays Certifying Election Results:  The board overseeing a southeastern Arizona county whose Republican leaders had hoped to recount all Election Day ballots on Friday delayed certifying the results of last week’s vote after hearing from a trio of conspiracy theorists who alleged that counting machines were not certified. The three men, or some combination of them, have filed at least four cases raising similar claims before the Arizona Supreme Court since 2021 seeking to have the state’s 2020 election results thrown out. The court has dismissed all of them for lack of evidence, waiting too long after the election was certified or asking for relief that could not be granted, in increasingly harsh language. But Tom Rice, Brian Steiner and Daniel Wood managed to persuade the two Republicans who control the Cochise County board of supervisors that their claims were valid enough for them to delay the certification until a Nov. 28 deadline. They claimed the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission allowed certifications for testing companies to lapse, and that voided the certifications of vote tabulation equipment used across the state. That came despite testimony from the state’s elections director that the machines and the testing company were indeed certified. “The equipment used in Cochise County is properly certified under both federal and state laws and requirements,” state Elections Director Kori Lorick told the board. “The claims that the SLI testing labs were not properly accredited are false.”

Donald Trump Says He “Won’t Partake” In Special Counsel Investigation And Rallies GOP to Attack The DOJ 

  • Fox News: Trump Says He ‘Won’t Partake’ In Special Counsel Investigation, Slams As ‘Worst Politicization Of Justice’:  Former President Donald Trump blasted the Justice Department’s appointment of a special counsel to take over investigations related to presidential records and Jan. 6, telling Fox News he “won’t partake in it” and calling it “the worst politicization of justice in our country,” while urging the Republican Party to take action. “I have been going through this for six years — for six years I have been going through this, and I am not going to go through it anymore,” Trump told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview Friday shortly after the announcement. “And I hope the Republicans have the courage to fight this.” “I have been proven innocent for six years on everything — from fake impeachments to [former special counsel Robert] Mueller who found no collusion, and now I have to do it more?” Trump said. “It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political.”
  • NBC: Trump Encourages GOP To ‘fight’ Special Counsel Decision As Republicans Attack DOJ: Former President Donald Trump lashed out Friday at the Department of Justice after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced he was appointing a special counsel to oversee the investigations into Trump’s handling of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home and his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In remarks at his Florida resort Friday night, Trump called the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith “appalling” and a “horrendous abuse of power.” “This is a rigged deal,” he said, referring to Smith, a highly respected career prosecutor, as the “super radical left special counsel.” “They want to do bad things to the greatest movement in the history of our country but in particular bad things to me,” he said. Echoing language from his speech before the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, he told attendees, “You people have to fight. You have to fight. You have to be strong.” 
  • Washington Post: Trump Seizes On Special Counsel As A Rallying Cry For 2024:  Former president Donald Trump declared this week in his 2024 campaign announcement that the single gravest threat to “our civilization” was the Justice Department, which has been investigating his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his role in the effort to prevent his successor from taking office. When Attorney General Merrick Garland responded Friday by appointing a special counsel to take over the Trump investigations — an effort to put to rest claims that they were politicized — the former president simply doubled down. He described Garland’s announcement to Fox News as “the worst politicization of justice in our country” and called on the Republican Party to “stand up and fight” on his behalf. The decision by Trump to conflate his political ambitions and potential criminal exposure — elevating the issue as a central plank of his campaign — has created a dramatic and bizarre beginning to the 2024 presidential race, in which Trump appears likely to face a large and energized field of rivals for the Republican nomination. Rather than a contest over policy or the direction of the country, Trump’s anger at the investigations of his conduct have framed the first arguments of the race as a debate over his own behavior and the response of federal investigators.

January 6 Committee To Release “All The Evidence” Within A Month 

  • CBS: Jan. 6 Committee To Release “All The Evidence” Within A Month, Lofgren Says:  Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, said Sunday that the panel will release “all the evidence” it has collected over the course of its probe “within a month,” before Republicans take control of the House. In an interview with “Face the Nation,” Lofgren stressed that the House select committee is conducting its own investigation and not sharing information with the Justice Department. But, with the committee set to dissolve at the end of this Congress, the California Democrat said the panel will make public all evidence it assembled along with a report of its findings. “Within a month, the public will have everything that we’ve found, all the evidence. For good or ill,” Lofgren told “Face the Nation.” “And I think we’ve, as we’ve shown in our hearings, made a compelling presentation that the former president was at the center of the effort to overturn a duly elected election, assembled the mob, sent it over to Congress to try and interfere with the peaceful transfer of power. It’s pretty shocking.”

In The States 

ARIZONA:  Arizona AG Demands Information About Printer Issues In Maricopa County, But Offers No Findings That Would Change The Outcome Of The Election

  • Washington Post: Arizona Attorney General Demands Answers On Election Day Printer Issues: Arizona’s Republican attorney general has demanded answers from Maricopa County about widespread issues with printers that plagued voting on Election Day, injecting new uncertainty into a fraught post-election dynamic just days before the county is required to certify the results. The inquiry heightens tensions between Maricopa County and the outgoing Republican attorney general, Mark Brnovich, who placed county officials under investigation after the 2020 election. Brnovich’s office wants answers from county officials before they submit their final election results later this month. His office did not respond to a request for comment. A four-page document, issued Saturday on letterhead from Brnovich’s office, includes criticism of the county’s administration of the election but no findings that would call the outcome into question. Republican candidates lost the state’s most critical contests, including those for senator and governor.

ARIZONA: Kari Lake Says Her Voters Were Disenfranchised.  The Voters Themselves Tell A Different Story. 

  • New York Times: Kari Lake Claims Her Voters Were Disenfranchised. Her Voters Tell a Different Story: When he stepped inside a Phoenix polling place on the morning of Election Day on the way to work, Kevin Bembry was told that the tabulation machines were not functioning properly and he might want to vote somewhere else. “I’ve never had that happen before,” Mr. Bembry, 57, a security officer, said in a video later posted online. His testimony was one of many circulated on social media by activist groups, right-wing media outlets and Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor, whose campaign posted Mr. Bembry’s video along with several others on Thursday. Ms. Lake has vowed to keep fighting the election after her race was called by The Associated Press for her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs. Ms. Lake has claimed her defeat was the result of the “disenfranchisement” of her supporters in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and where technical problems on Election Day introduced delays, confusion and conspiracy theories. On Twitter, Ms. Lake’s campaign has claimed that the election was compromised and said that “the appropriate thing to do would be to let Maricopa County cast their votes again.” But a crucial element has been missing so far in all of these accounts: clear claims that any eligible voters in Maricopa County were actually denied the chance to vote.

GEORGIA:  Judge Allows Saturday Voting Before The US Senate Runoff Next Month 

  • Atlanta Journal Constitution: Judge Allows Saturday Voting Before U.S. Senate Runoff In Georgia:  A judge ruled that Georgia law allows Saturday voting before the runoff for the U.S. Senate, finding that polling places can open even though they follow state holidays on Thanksgiving and the day afterward that years ago honored Robert E. Lee’s birthday. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox decided Friday that state law permits counties to offer voting Nov. 26, finding in favor of Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign. County governments may now choose to offer residents an opportunity to vote on that Saturday in addition to five mandatory weekdays of early voting the following week. The judge’s order reversed Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s interpretation that state law barred Saturday voting before the Dec. 6 runoff between Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker.

OHIO:  GOP Moves To Strip Powers From The Board Of Education After Losing Control To Democrats 

  • WEWS: Ohio GOP Moves Forward Bill To Strip Powers From Board Of Ed. After Losing Control To Democrats: Democratic-affiliated candidates won control over the State Board of Education in Ohio, and one week later, the Republican lawmakers moved a bill forward to strip their powers. For the first time in years, progressive candidates will control the elected seats on the executive agency, regulating if a resolution is able to pass or not. Candidates are voted on as nonpartisan candidates, however, each leans conservative or progressive and will be endorsed by a party. School board candidates tend to share their beliefs publically. Three of the five seats up for grabs were taken by liberal candidates. Tom Jackson, of Solon, beat out incumbent Tim Miller by about 50,000 votes. Teresa Fedor, a now-former state senator from Toledo, beat opponent Sarah McGervey by more than 30,000 votes. Katie Hofmann, of Cincinnati, beat out incumbent Jenny Kilgore by around 30,000 votes. “We’re just looking forward to getting back to Columbus and doing the people’s work,” Jackson told News 5. Now, seven of the 11 elected seats are held by Democrats. The elected seats ensure that the total board can’t pass all resolutions it wants, since it needs a 2/3 majority. Of the 19 total seats, eight were appointed by Gov. DeWine. Now, with 12 GOP seats, a Democrat would need to switch over for policy to pass. This could change depending on attendance. This excitement of winning was short-lived for Jackson. Right now, the board is currently responsible for what K-12 public education looks like in the state. But a newly-revived bill would strip the members from developing education policy, establishing financial standards and implementing programs.

WISCONSIN: Wisconsin Republicans Were Blocked From Gaining A Supermajority In The Legislature, But They Now Hold Enough Votes To Impeach State Officials 

  • Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Wisconsin Republicans Fell Short Of A Legislative Supermajority, But They Now Have Enough Senators To Impeach State Officials, Speed Up Bills:  Wisconsin Republicans fell short this month of creating a veto-proof majority in the state Legislature but GOP lawmakers have unlocked new powers by adding enough members in the state Senate to be able to expedite legislation and remove state officials for crimes or corruption. Voters in the Nov. 8 midterm elections chose another four years of split state government with Republicans controlling the state Legislature and a Democrat in the governor’s office. Voters also elected Republicans to new seats previously held by Democrats, expanding their power in the state Legislature. The new class of Republican lawmakers now have the ability to suspend Senate rules, or utilize a power to impeach and remove state officials ranging from the governor to cabinet secretaries to judges — a move that has only been made once in state history, 169 years ago, and was not successful. “It’s Groundhog Day, unfortunately,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a recent interview on WISN-AM about the GOP-controlled Legislature contending with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ veto authority for another four years following his reelection. “But the state Senate does have the ability now with the two-thirds majority, they can take out people who aren’t doing their job. They have the ability to impeach officials if they are not following constitution and the law. So that is a new power that we did not have a week ago.”

What Experts Are Saying

Joyce Vance, former US attorney, re: concerns that a special counsel will delay ongoing investigations into Donald Trump (MSNBC Video): “All signs right now are very positive that this will move forward as quickly as possible.” Yasmin Vossoughian Reports Tweet 

Barbara McQuade, former US attorney: “By all accounts, [Jack] Smith is a hard-working, apolitical prosecutor, who once led the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which prosecutes corruption public officials. Most recently, he has been working as a war crimes prosecutor in the Hague. Dwight Holton, a former colleague at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, called Smith “a scrappy, no nonsense prosecutor who cuts through bullshit like a knife through hot butter.” All sounds like good preparation to investigate the former president.” MSNBC Column 

Yphtach Lelkes, associate professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and Sean Westwood, associate professor of government at Dartmouth College: “The fact that there have been markedly fewer accusations of election fraud in 2022 and few incidents of violence around the polls also aids in the feeling that the nation’s democratic norms are holding. Election deniers who lost their 2022 races have, with a few exceptions, conceded to their opponent.” The Hill Op-Ed: We study political polarization. The midterm election results make us hopeful.

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

Associated Press: Election conspiracists claim some races for local offices

Bloomberg: Did the Televised Hearings on Jan. 6 Assault Tip Some Midterm Races to Democrats?

Special Counsel

Axios: William Barr says it’s “increasingly more likely” DOJ indicts Trump

Fox News: Pence calls appointment of special counsel to investigate Trump ‘very troubling’

New York Times: Garland Names Special Counsel for Trump Inquiries

January 6 And The 2020 Election

New York Times: Ohio Man Who Blamed Trump for Storming of Capitol Gets 3 Years in Prison

Washington Post: ‘Democracy is fragile,’ prosecutor says at close of Oath Keepers trial

Other Trump Investigations 

Bloomberg: Trump Ordered His Companies to Fight Criminal Tax Fraud Case

New York Times: Trump Family’s Newest Partners: Middle Eastern Governments

Opinion

New York Times (Ross Douthat): Did the Midterms Save American Democracy?

Political Violence

New York Times: How the Pelosi Attack Suspect Plunged Into Online Hatred

Washington Post: Club Q shooting follows year of bomb threats, drag protests, anti-trans bills

In The States 

Daily Mail:  ‘I WILL become governor!’: Arizona GOP Hopeful Kari Lake Insists She’s Still On Track To Overturn Dem Rival’s Election Win, As Ag’s Office Demands Explanation For Polling Day Issues Before Certifying The Result

New York Times: Lauren Boebert’s Rival, Adam Frisch, Concedes Their Colorado House Race

Washington Post: Georgia counties scramble to meet new deadlines as Senate runoff looms