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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — May 26, 2022

By May 26, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Trump Reportedly Approved Of Calls To “Hang Mike Pence” On January 6 

  • New York Times: Trump Said to Have Reacted Approvingly to Jan. 6 Chants About Hanging Pence: Shortly after hundreds of rioters at the Capitol started chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” on Jan. 6, 2021, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, left the dining room off the Oval Office, walked into his own office and told colleagues that President Donald J. Trump was complaining that the vice president was being whisked to safety. Mr. Meadows, according to an account provided to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, then told the colleagues that Mr. Trump had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hanged. It is not clear what tone Mr. Trump was said to have used. But the reported remark was further evidence of how extreme the rupture between the president and his vice president had become, and of how Mr. Trump not only failed to take action to call off the rioters but appeared to identify with their sentiments about Mr. Pence — whom he had unsuccessfully pressured to block certification of the Electoral College results that day — as a reflection of his own frustration at being unable to reverse his loss.
  • Washington Post (Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman): Why Trump’s Private Comment About Hanging Mike Pence Really Matters:  Richard Ben-Veniste, a prominent member of the 9/11 Commission, says the new revelations shed additional light on Trump’s state of mind as he sought to utilize the mob’s insurrection to pressure Pence and others. “It was one more thing, in conjunction with all the other things that he was desperately trying at the same time, to avoid and prevent the inevitable,” Ben-Veniste told us. The key point is that this use of the mob appeared aimed at carrying out the strategy that Trump and his allies had pursued for weeks. This included pressuring the Justice Department to create a pretext for a delay in the electoral count and pressuring state officials and lawmakers to corrupt the vote count or to be ready to step in and certify sham electors for Trump. “This was the last step,” Ben-Veniste told us. Whether this helps build a criminal case against Trump related to Jan. 6 remains to be seen. But the latest revelations again suggest the final picture of what really happened will be much worse than we know.

Inquiry Into Fake Electors Intensifies 

  • New York Times: Intensifying Inquiry Into Alternate Electors Focuses on Trump Lawyers:  The Justice Department has stepped up its criminal investigation into the creation of alternate slates of pro-Trump electors seeking to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the 2020 election, with a particular focus on a team of lawyers that worked on behalf of President Donald J. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. A federal grand jury in Washington has started issuing subpoenas in recent weeks to people linked to the alternate elector plan, requesting information about several lawyers including Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and one of his chief legal advisers, John Eastman, one of the people said. The subpoenas also seek information on other pro-Trump lawyers like Jenna Ellis, who worked with Mr. Giuliani, and Kenneth Chesebro, who wrote memos supporting the elector scheme in the weeks after the election.

Jim Jordan And Other GOP House Members Push Back On January 6 Committee Subpoenas 

  • CNN: GOP Rep. Jim Jordan Contests Constitutionality Of January 6 Committee’s Subpoena And Issues List Of Demands: Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio is pushing back on a subpoena issued to him by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, contesting the constitutionality of the request and outlining a list of demands the committee must meet in order for him to even consider moving forward. In a new letter obtained by CNN, Jordan is asking the committee to provide him with all of the materials it plans on using to question him ahead of any deposition, all of the documents and testimony in the committee’s possession that reference him and an explanation of the legal authority upon which the committee relied in issuing a subpoena. “I write to strongly contest the constitutionality and validity of the subpoena in several respects,” Jordan wrote. A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment to CNN. Jordan is one of five House Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, that the committee subpoenaed earlier this month as part of its investigation. Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Mo Brooks of Alabama have also been subpoenaed. All have deposition dates scheduled over the next two weeks.

In The States 

Election Integrity Supporting Member Of Wisconsin Elections Committee Abruptly Resigns 

  • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Republican Elections Commissioner Abruptly Resigns: A Republican member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission under fire from members of his own party for refusing to entertain 2020 election distortions stunned his colleagues Wednesday by announcing his resignation from the oversight board and blasting the GOP’s continued focus on former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. Dean Knudson, a former state lawmaker who helped design the commission in 2015, said he was leaving the commission because it has become clear “I cannot be effective in my role representing Republicans on the commission.” His announced departure pushed the commissioners to delay the election of their next chair.  “I’ll put my conservative record up against anyone in the state of Wisconsin, and yet, now I’ve been branded a RINO,” Knudson said at a meeting Wednesday, referring to an acronym that represents “Republicans In Name Only” — a nickname applied by 2020 election deniers to Republicans who acknowledge Trump lost to President Joe Biden.  “Two of my core values are to practice service above self and to display personal integrity. And to me, that integrity demands acknowledging the truth even when the truth is painful. In this case, the painful truth is that President Trump lost the election in 2020 — lost the election in Wisconsin in 2020. And the loss was not due to election fraud.”

Texas State Bar Files Personal Misconduct Suit Against State Attorney General Ken Paxton Over His Attempts To Overturn The 2020 Election 

  • Texas Tribune: Texas State Bar Files Professional Misconduct Lawsuit Against Ken Paxton For Attempt To Overturn 2020 Presidential Elections:  A disciplinary committee for the State Bar of Texas on Wednesday filed a professional misconduct lawsuit against Attorney General Ken Paxton for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections in four battleground states won by President Joe Biden. The filing in Collin County by the Commission for Lawyer Discipline, a standing committee of the state bar, is an extraordinary move by the body that regulates law licenses in the state against the sitting attorney general. It stems from complaints against Paxton for a lawsuit that the U.S. Supreme Court threw out, saying Texas lacked standing to sue and that Paxton’s political opponents called “frivolous.” It seeks a sanction against Paxton, which will be determined by a judge, that could range from a private reprimand to disbarment. 

What Experts Are Saying

Harry Litman, former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General: “Concrete problem for Meadows and the other recalcitrant witnesses: the Jan 6 committee will tell the story w/o their input. Eg these apparent latest bombshells: 1) Meadows told witnesses that Trump said maybe Pence should be hanged & 2) Meadows burned docs in his office fireplace” Tweet 

Yphtach Lelkes, University of Pennsylvania Associate Professor of Communication and Political Science, on recent study measuring partisan hatred and party affinity: “If there’s this gap in how much you like your side and dislike the other side, and it’s all motivated by emotions, you’re less likely to hold presidents accountable for things and more likely to vote for your side no matter what they do, even when it’s corrupt,” Lelkes says. “If it’s just driven by hatred, then it’s not about interest groups and coming together and fighting for your group. It’s much more toxic.” Study Abstract | Press Release 

Duke Historian Nancy MacLean: “‘Republican politicians and their strategists,’ Nancy MacLean told Jacobin, have seen . . . culture-war tactics help Jair Bolsonaro get elected in Brazil and Viktor Orbán get reelected in Hungary this spring. And, lo, the CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Committee) is traveling to Hungary . . . to learn from Orbán how to use the tools of democracy to rig the rules to achieve autocracy.’” Jacobin 

Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University, and Federico Finchelstein, a professor of history at the New School: “The link between WRT [White Replacement Theory] and fascism is not accidental. WRT is a relatively recent label for old fascism. In terms of propaganda, it is a rebranding of the same thing, namely long-standing fascist paranoias and lies about invasion and racial and political replacement. WRT’s logic justifies mass violence. When it is normalized, it poses an existential threat to democracy and its ideals. It targets the very idea of common humanity that underlies them.” Los Angeles Times 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections 

Bloomberg: These Are the Trump-Aligned Election Deniers Winning Key State Primaries

New York Times (Audio): The Big Lie And The Midterms 

Politico: How Raffensperger went from Trump outcast to MAGA vanquisher

January 6 And The 2020 Election 

Wall Street Journal: Jan. 6 Probe Enters Uncharted Territory With Subpoenas for GOP Lawmakers: 

Opinion 

New York Times (Gail Collins): At Least Trump Didn’t Get What He Wanted This Week

Washington Post (Henry Olsen): Georgia’s primaries were a victory for democracy