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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — December 19, 2022

By December 19, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

The January 6 Committee Will Vote On Criminal Referrals For Donald Trump And Others At Its Final Meeting Today

  • Politico: Jan. 6 Panel To Vote On Urging DOJ To Prosecute Trump On At Least Three Criminal Charges: The Jan. 6 select committee is preparing to vote on urging the Justice Department to pursue at least three criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, including insurrection. The report that the select panel is expected to consider on Monday afternoon, described to POLITICO by two people familiar with its contents, reflects some recommendations from a subcommittee that evaluated potential criminal referrals. Among the charges that subcommittee proposes for Trump: 18 U.S.C. 2383, insurrection; 18 U.S.C. 1512(c), obstruction of an official proceeding; and 18 U.S.C. 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States government. It’s unclear whether the select committee’s final report will recommend additional charges for Trump beyond the three described to POLITICO, or whether it will urge other criminal charges for other players in Trump’s bid to subvert his 2020 loss. The document, according to the people familiar, includes an extensive justification for the recommended charges.

Donald Trump Faces Growing Legal Peril On Multiple Fronts 

  • New York Times: Trump Faces a Week of Headaches on Jan. 6 and His Taxes:  After more than five years of dramatic headlines about controversies, scandals and potential crimes surrounding former President Donald J. Trump, the coming week will be among the most consequential. On Monday, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol by Mr. Trump’s supporters will hold what is almost certainly its final public meeting before it is disbanded when Republicans take over the majority in the new year. The committee’s members are expected to debate criminal referrals to the Justice Department in connection with the riot and Mr. Trump’s efforts to cling to power, which culminated on Jan. 6 as the pro-Trump mob tried to thwart the certification of his successor’s 2020 electoral victory. The biggest topic is whether to recommend that Mr. Trump face criminal charges. On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee will meet privately to discuss what to do with the six years of Mr. Trump’s tax returns that it finally obtained after nearly four years of legal efforts by Mr. Trump to block their release. The committee could release them publicly, which would most likely be done in the final days of Democratic control of Congress. And on Wednesday, the Jan. 6 committee is expected to release its report on the attack, along with some transcripts of interviews with witnesses. Taken together, this week will point a spotlight on both Mr. Trump’s refusal to cede power and the issue that he has most acutely guarded for decades, the actual size of his personal wealth and his sources of income.
  • Washington Post: How Trump Jettisoned Restraints At Mar-A-Lago And Prompted Legal Peril: From almost the instant it became clear he had lost the 2020 election, Trump refused to accept the results, creating a disorganized transition process during which he rebuffed efforts to prepare for his post-presidency. In the two years since he left office, Trump has re-created the conditions of his own freewheeling White House — with all of its chaos, norm flouting and catering to his ego — with little regard for the law. With this behavior, Trump prompted a criminal investigation into his post-presidential handling of classified documents to compound the ongoing one into his and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election results — which presents potential legal peril and risks hobbling his nascent bid to be elected president again in 2024. Even as he works to convince supporters that the documents probe is the result of an overblown paperwork dispute, and that the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of his Mar-a-Lago Club was an abuse of power, the investigation is in fact a product of how Trump has approached post-presidential life. Though few rules guide the life of a former president, Trump has exhibited a characteristic disinterest in following any of them. These days, he is served almost exclusively by sycophants, having replaced successive rounds of loyal yet inexperienced aides with staffers even more beholden and novice.

Kari Lake Hints At Election Violence At Right Wing Conference

  • HuffPost: Trump-Backed Election Loser Kari Lake Hints At Violence At Conservative Gathering:  Former television newscaster and failed Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake hinted at violence to a crowd of thousands of conservative activists Sunday, continuing her claim that she had really won last month. “On Nov. 8, they committed highway robbery,” she said, to chants of “Kari! Kari!” Lake, who has sued elections administrators alleging fraud, called the Maricopa County elections system a “house of cards” that she promised to take down. “I’m not just going to knock that house of cards over. We’re going to burn it to the ground,” she said. “They messed with the wrong woman. They messed with the wrong movement, of ‘we the people.’ And we’re not going to take it anymore.” She then told the crowd that the Second Amendment – the right to bear arms – was in danger because of current leadership, and that that amendment protected all the others. “You do not steal our vote and get away with it. You don’t,” she added.

New Evidence Sheds Light On Trump Lawyers And Michael Flynn’s Involvement In The Plot To Overturn The 2020 Election 

  • New York Times: Justice Dept. Examines Emails from Trump Lawyers in Fake Elector Inquiry: Federal prosecutors have examined more than 100,000 documents seized from the email accounts of three lawyers associated with former President Donald J. Trump in a continuing investigation into the roles they played in a wide-ranging scheme to help Mr. Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to court papers released on Friday. The material came from email accounts belonging to John Eastman, who helped devise and promote a plan to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., and two former Justice Department lawyers, Jeffrey Clark and Ken Klukowski, who have faced scrutiny for their own roles in the fake electors scheme, the papers say. As part of their inquiry, federal investigators in Washington obtained a search warrant for the three men’s email accounts in May and the following month seized their cellphones and other electronic devices. The court papers, unsealed by Beryl A. Howell, the chief judge in Federal District Court in Washington, revealed for the first time the extent of the emails that investigators had obtained. 
  • CBS: Flynn Deposition Reveals Questions About Pressure On U.S. Intelligence Ahead Of Jan. 6: New audio files obtained by CBS News reveal how a congressional investigator pushed retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, to testify about his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and questioned Flynn about whether he pressured military and intelligence officials to assist him with that endeavor. The audio files are the latest window into the work of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol and its attempt to learn more about the extent of Flynn’s contacts with defense and intelligence officials. Flynn’s activity has long been a point of interest for the committee, according to two people familiar with the Jan. 6 panel who were not authorized to speak publicly, and it has probed witnesses about whether Flynn pressured people working inside the government as he supported Trump on the outside.  

In The States 

ARIZONA:  Lawsuit Seeing To Overturn The AZ Secretary Of State Election Dismissed With Prejudice 

  • KNXV: Judge Dismisses Finchem Lawsuit With Prejudice: A judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Mark Finchem with prejudice and confirmed the election of Adrian Fontes as Arizona Secretary of State-Elect. The lawsuit focused on issues in the 2022 election, as well as the fact that Secretary of State Katie Hobbs did not recuse herself despite the fact she was running for governor. Finchem’s lawsuit called to take back the certification of Adrian Fontes and Ruben Gallego and reconduct a state-wide election. The election would be conducted without the use of electronic tabulation machines and no mail-in ballots. Each ballot would be counted by hand. The judge also ordered that within 10 days, Hobbs and Fontes may file for sanctions.

NORTH CAROLINA:  NC Supreme Court Strikes Down Voter ID Law 

  • Washington Post: N.C. Court Strikes Down Voter ID Law As Intentional Racial Discrimination:  The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday struck down a state voter identification law, ruling that Republican lawmakers acted unconstitutionally to minimize Democratic voters’ power with a law that intentionally discriminated against Black voters. “We hold that the three-judge panel’s findings of fact are supported by competent evidence showing that the statute was motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose,” Associate Justice Anita Earls wrote for the majority in the 89-page ruling. “The provisions enacted … were formulated with an impermissible intent to discriminate against African American voters in violation of the North Carolina Constitution.” Senate Bill 824 required every voter to present one of a few specific forms of photo identification, a measure the justices ruled was passed in part to discriminate against Black voters. Despite most voters having at least one of the forms of identification, the risk of having voters suppressed was very real, they said.

What Experts Are Saying

Norm Eisen, counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment: “believes the Jan. 6th committee would be on solid ground with a criminal referral of Trump, as they have helped uncover plenty of evidence of the former President’s alleged role in two main criminal acts: conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to use force to prevent an official proceeding…Those who helped Trump allegedly violate the law could also face criminal referrals, Eisen says. ‘The Mount Rushmore of election denial criminality’ is Trump, the ‘inside coup lawyer’ Jeffrey Clark, the ‘outside coup lawyer John Eastman’ and Meadows, ‘whose fingerprints are all over this’ says Eisen.” TIME 

Debra Perlin, policy director for CREW: “‘Symbols are hugely important,’ says Debra Perlin, the policy director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who argues a criminal referral of Trump would ‘frame a discussion’ around the deadly attack on the Capitol and the events that preceded it. ‘It can help prevent and counteract misinformation and disinformation in the society that we thrive in,’ Perlin says, ‘because you can point to something authoritative, coming from Congress, that says that this happened, that there needs to be accountability, and that says that criminal prosecution is the path that needs to be taken moving forward.’” TIME 

Harry Litman, former US attorney: “Insurrection (€2383)is the wild card among the three charges under discussion by J6C. It’s righteous, but requires tying Trump to the actual violence and dealing with his bogus contrived ‘peacefully’ comment. Also, not a conspiracy so aiding and abetting liability.” Tweet 

Ruth Ben–Ghiat, professor of history and Italian studies at New York University: “Authoritarians love coups, and the attendees of the recent New York Young Republicans Club’s (NYYRC) annual gala are no exception. Many extremists who prepared and supported the coup attempt former president Donald Trump instigated on Jan. 6 to remain in office illegally were present. They are mentoring a new generation of Republican operatives who welcome the GOP’s transformation into a Fascist party, are immersed in far-right international networks, and believe, in the words of their leader Gavin Wax, that a ‘total war’ on our democracy is long overdue.” Lucid

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

New York Times: Who Is Rep.-Elect George Santos? His Résumé May Be Largely Fiction.

January 6 And The 2020 Election

Axios: GOP shadow committee re-emerges for Jan. 6 report

Axios: Ex-House members demand probe into sitting lawmakers linked to Jan. 6

NBC: Capitol riot defendant planned to kill FBI agents who investigated him, unsealed filing alleges

New York Times: Proud Boys Trial Is Set to Open, Focusing on Role in Jan. 6 Violence

Opinion

New York Times (Caroline Edwards): I Was Caught in the Capitol Riot, and I Still Feel the Pain of That Day

New York Times (Lydia Polgreen): How Will History Remember Jan. 6?

In The States

KPHO: Judge rules Republican Kari Lake has the right to inspect ballots in lawsuit