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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — January 12, 2023

By January 12, 2023No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Trump Officials Subpoenaed With New Questions About January 6 

  • Washington Post: Trump Campaign Officials Got Subpoena Asking New Questions About Jan. 6: A wide-ranging subpoena sent to Trump campaign officials last month shows new areas of investigative interest as part of the Justice Department’s extensive Jan. 6 criminal probe, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post, and lawyers say a grand jury focused on the day’s events and related fundraising has increased its activities in recent months. The subpoena was received in early December, according to a former Trump campaign official who provided the document to The Post on the condition of anonymity because a criminal investigation is ongoing. The document seeks more than two dozen categories of information, and includes some questions that were not part of a series of similar subpoenas reviewed by The Post that were sent to several dozen people in September. One part of the four-page legal document asks recipients to reveal if anyone other than themselves are paying for legal representation — and if so, to provide a copy of the retention agreement for that legal work. At least one other former campaign official also received the subpoena, according to that person’s lawyer, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid drawing attention to his client. The subpoena seeks any communications or information about Dominion and Smartmatic, two voting technology companies that were subjected to a barrage of false conspiracy theories floated by advisers to President Donald Trump. That request seems designed to gather what campaign officials might have been saying privately at the time Trump backers were publicly disparaging those firms in the wake of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

Radical Challenge To The Voting Rights Act Could Reach Supreme Court 

  • CNN: Another ‘Radical’ Change To The Voting Rights Act Could Reach The Supreme Court:  A federal appeals court appears open to further shrinking the scope of the Voting Rights Act in a case that could lead to another major Supreme Court showdown over voting rights. The 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals at a hearing on Wednesday considered whether private entities – and not just the US Justice Department – can bring lawsuits under a key provision of the law. Two of the three members of the appellate panel asked questions suggesting they were leaning against the idea that the provision, known as Section 2, could be enforced with private lawsuits. If those seeking a narrowing of the VRA are successful, it would significantly diminish the use of the law to challenge ballot regulations and redistricting maps that are said to be racially discriminatory.

Judge Allows Prosecutors To Highlight Trump Comments In Proud Boys Trial  

  • CNN: Judge Will Allow Prosecutors To Use Trump’s ‘Stand Back And Stand By’ Comment In Proud Boys Trial:  A federal judge ruled Wednesday that prosecutors can use video of then-President Donald Trump telling the far-right group the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” in the trial against several of the group’s leaders charged with seditious conspiracy. District Judge Timothy Kelly said that the former president’s comments showed “an additional motive to advocate for Mr. Trump (and) engage in the charged conspiracy” to keep Trump in power. During a presidential debate in 2020, Trump was asked by moderator Chris Wallace if he would condemn white supremacists and militia groups. Democratic candidate Joe Biden interjected and specifically mentioned the Proud Boys. “Proud Boys – stand back and stand by,” Trump responded. “But I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem.” The comment, according to prosecutors and members of the Proud Boys who testified publicly to the House select committee investigating January 6, was celebrated by the far-right group and was used as a recruiting tool.

January 6 Committee Chair Offers Help To Brazil’s Investigation Of Its Own Capitol Attack 

  • Reuters: U.S. And Brazil Lawmakers Seek To Cooperate On Investigation Of Brasilia Riots: U.S. and Brazilian lawmakers are looking for ways to cooperate on an investigation into violent protests that rampaged through Brasilia this weekend, sharing lessons from inquiries into the attack on the U.S. Capitol, people familiar with the talks said. The initial discussions occurred as more than 70 lawmakers in the two countries signed a joint statement denouncing “anti-democratic” forces trying to overturn recent elections in their nations with political violence. Supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro ransacked Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace on Sunday, calling for a military coup to overturn the October election won by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the recently dissolved House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, is one lawmaker whose office is discussing collaboration, according to one of the sources. “I am extremely proud of the January 6 Select Committee’s work and final report. If (it) serves as a model for similar investigations, I will help out in any way possible,” Thompson said in a written statement.

In The States 

FLORIDA:  New Video Shows Voter Being Arrested At Gunpoint In DeSantis Crackdown 

  • The Guardian: Man Arrested At Gunpoint In Desantis Voter Fraud Crackdown, Video Shows: Heavily armed Florida police officers descended on the homes of two men accused of illegally voting and arrested one of them at gunpoint as part of Ron DeSantis’s crackdown on voter fraud, new body-camera footage obtained by the Guardian can reveal. Both men were in their underwear, unarmed, and placed in handcuffs as police arrested them in front of their Miami-Dade county homes on 18 August. “Let me put on my pants,” Ronald Miller, 58, said shortly before noon, when he opened the door to find police officers surrounding his home, their guns pointed at him. “What happened?” he asked as officers instructed him to come outside, their guns still trained on him. As they placed him in handcuffs, agents noted that Robert Wood had taken a long time to answer the door when they knocked on it. “I was asleep,” he said.

WISCONSIN:  Elections Commissioner Brags About Suppressing Minority Votes 

  • Associated Press: Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Stands By Voting Comments: A Republican member of Wisconsin’s bipartisan elections commission on Wednesday stood by comments he made crowing about depressed turnout among Black and Hispanic voters in heavily Democratic Milwaukee, saying he won’t resign as a fellow commissioner and others have called on him to do. Commissioner Robert Spindell, who also served as a fake elector for former Republican President Donald Trump, said his comments sent in an email to about 1,700 people in December were not bragging about voter suppression. “I will not stand for that,” Spindell said in an interview. “The last thing I want to do is suppress votes.” Spindell said his email was an attempt to detail positive steps Republicans did to counter the Democratic message in Milwaukee. That was thanks to what Spindell called a “well thought out multi-faceted plan” that included recruiting strong Republican candidates, efforts to boost them, a presence on Black talk radio shows along with “Negative Black Radio Commercials.” Spindell provided the email, first reported on Tuesday by Urban Milwaukee, to The Associated Press on Wednesday. He also provided the AP with a similar message titled “Republicans Did Exceptionally Well!” that he said he handed out to supporters at his Christmas party and other Republican events. Spindell, who is white, says in the email that Republicans “can be especially proud of the City of Milwaukee (80.2% Dem Vote) casting 37,000 less votes than cast in the 2018 election with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas.”

What Experts Are Saying

Democracy Docket: “Over the course of 2022, Democracy Docket covered and tracked activity in the courts pertaining to voting rights, elections, redistricting and democracy. As the year progressed, we saw a steep jump in lawsuits filed by anti-voting advocates. When the fight over voting rights shifted from legislative chambers to courtrooms this year, courts overwhelmingly protected the right to vote, particularly in advance of the midterm elections.Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2022, we tracked: 175 new democracy-related lawsuits filed across 31 states. 175 court orders that impacted voters across 28 states.” 2022 Litigation Report: How Republicans Lost and Voters Won in Court

Anne Applebaum, senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Agora Institute: “The Brazil event was, in many ways, a kind of copycat riot. Look at what happened in the run-up to the Brazilian election: Bolsonaro essentially said, as Trump did, If I lose, it’s because the results have been falsified. And after the election, like Trump, he refused to [concede defeat]. He refused to attend the inauguration; in fact, he left the country. He’s now in Florida, at least as far as we know, not too far from Trump, and conceivably even in touch with him. And some of the language that he’s used, and some of the language that his followers have used, is clearly an imitation of what they read in the United States. The most important hashtag that was circulating in Brazil last week was #BrazilianSpring, in English, as if this were an Arab Spring–style uprising against dictatorship—whereas, in fact, it’s an uprising against an elected leader. Public buildings have been attacked in Brazil before, so it’s not the first time this has happened. But the comprehensive nature of it—that it was the Congress as well as the Presidential Palace as well as the Supreme Court, that it involved using security barriers to break windows—this is, again, an imitation of what happened on January 6. That date, in the U.S., had an additional significance, which was that it was supposed to block the process of the change of presidential power. The Brazil attacks didn’t have that element but instead seem to have been timed to the anniversary of January 6.” The Atlantic 

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history and Italian studies at New York University: “Jan. 6, 2021, and Jan. 8, 2023, are parts of a global attempt to subvert democracies and install authoritarian rule. We must be vigilant in calling out the new far-right networks that stretch from Moscow to Budapest, Rome, Brasilia and Washington and prosecute the instigators promptly, as Lula is doing in Brazil.” MSNBC Op-Ed: Trumpism is no longer just America’s problem

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

NBC: In Mexico, Jill Biden makes case for democracy — as Joe tackles other priorities

New York Times: George Santos Faces Calls to Resign From 4 G.O.P. Congressmen

New York Times: Lawyers Who Investigated Trump Start Firm to Combat Threats to Democracy

Trump 2024

Politico: Trump prepares to open next phase of 2024 campaign in South Carolina

January 6 And The 2020 Election

NBC: Far-right internet personality gets 60 days for taking part in Capitol riot

Other Trump Investigations

The Guardian: DoJ seeks to question Trump team that found more classified documents

New York Times: The Special Counsel Investigating Trump Faces Headwinds Few Others Have

In The States

New York Times: Former New York Election Official Admits to Vote Fraud Scheme