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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest – July 27, 2023

By July 27, 2023No Comments

Driving the Day

Must Read Stories

Trump’s former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, concedes to making false statements about Georgia election workers after the 2020 election

  • Washington Post: Trump attorneys again push to block Georgia 2020 election investigation: Attorneys for former president Donald Trump continued their last-minute push to block an Atlanta-area investigation into whether he and his allies broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia — a motion that will now be decided by a judge based outside Fulton County. In an order issued Thursday but made public Friday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville recused the entire judicial bench in Fulton County from hearing Trump’s motion to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) and her office from further probing Trump. The motion also calls for throwing out evidence and a final report gathered by a special grand jury that investigated the case.
  • CNN: Trump’s legal team continues effort to disqualify Georgia DA as possible state indictments loom: Former President Donald Trump’s legal team in Georgia is continuing its efforts to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from pursuing her 2020 election interference investigation, as possible indictments in the state loom. In a new, 650-page filing in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Trump’s lawyers stepped up attacks on Willis, a Democrat. CNN has previously reported that Willis is considering bringing racketeering and conspiracy charges in connection with Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. The district attorney’s office declined to comment. In the filing, Trump’s lawyers argue that due to Willis’ “conflict of interest” as a political candidate, she should not be allowed to continue to pursue the case. “The District Attorney personally retweeted requests for followers and campaign donations which referenced her prosecution of this investigation,” Trump’s attorneys argued in the lengthy petition. 
  • New York Times: For Trump and Allies, a Waiting Game as Georgia Indictment Decisions Loom: Two indictments of Donald J. Trump are already in the books, but the outcome of a Georgia investigation into the former president and a number of his allies promises to be strikingly different. While the cases filed by the Manhattan district attorney and the Department of Justice have focused mostly on Mr. Trump himself, a long-running investigation into election interference by prosecutors in Atlanta has cast a far broader net, with nearly 20 people already warned that they could face charges. Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., is leading the investigation and has indicated she will seek charges by mid-August. A special grand jury that heard evidence for roughly seven months recommended more than a dozen people for indictments, and its forewoman strongly hinted in an interview in February that Mr. Trump was among them.
  • The Guardian: Fulton county prosecutors prepare racketeering charges in Trump inquiry: The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia has developed evidence to charge a sprawling racketeering indictment next month, according to two people briefed on the matter. The racketeering statute in Georgia requires prosecutors to show the existence of an “enterprise” – and a pattern of racketeering activity that is predicated on at least two “qualifying” crimes. In the Trump investigation, the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has evidence to pursue a racketeering indictment predicated on statutes related to influencing witnesses and computer trespass, the people said.

Special Counsel continues to gather evidence and interview key witnesses in 2020 election and Jan. 6 probe as case against Trump takes shape

  • New York Times: Prosecutors Follow Multiple Strands as Jan. 6 Indictment Decision Looms: Even as the special counsel, Jack Smith, appears to be edging closer toward bringing charges against former President Donald J. Trump in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, prosecutors have been continuing to investigate multiple strands of the case. In recent weeks, Mr. Smith’s team has pushed forward in collecting new evidence and in arranging new interviews with witnesses who could shed light on Mr. Trump’s mind-set in the chaotic postelection period or on other subjects important to the inquiry. At the same time, word has emerged of previously undisclosed investigative efforts, hinting at the breadth and scope of the issues prosecutors are examining. In the past few days, a lawyer for Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who worked closely after the election with Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, gave hundreds of pages of documents to prosecutors working with Mr. Smith.
  • NBC News: Special counsel examines 2020 meeting where Trump was briefed on U.S. election system’s integrity: The special counsel’s office has inquired about a White House briefing on Feb. 14, 2020, at which federal officials assured then-President Donald Trump of the security and integrity of the U.S. election system, according to people familiar with the matter. Three sources said they were interviewed by the special counsel’s office about the White House meeting with Trump. Two of those sources were at the White House meeting. In the briefing, officials from multiple agencies — including the FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — laid out why it’s extraordinarily difficult for hacking or fraud to change the results of a U.S. election.
  • CNN: Top election security expert fired by Trump confirms he spoke with special counsel: A top election security official who was fired by President Donald Trump weeks after the 2020 election has confirmed to CNN that he was interviewed in recent months by the special counsel investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. Chris Krebs confirmed to CNN publicly for the first time Tuesday that he has spoken with investigators. Krebs sat down with special counsel Jack Smith’s team in early May. The New York Times previously reported that according to a source Krebs had been among those interviewed by Smith’s office. Confirmation that Krebs spoke with Smith’s team comes as CNN has learned that the special counsel has also asked witnesses about Trump’s knowledge of election security, including a February 2020 Oval Office meeting where the former president praised improvements to the security of US elections, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, before attacking those systems months later.
  • NBC News: Former Trump DOJ official Richard Donoghue has met with the special counsel’s office: Former senior Justice Department official Richard Donoghue says he has been interviewed by special counsel Jack Smith’s office, but has not been called to testify before the federal grand jury investigating Jan. 6 and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Donoghue, who confirmed the meeting with Smith’s office to NBC News on Monday, served as acting deputy attorney general near the end of the Trump administration. He later testified before the House Jan. 6 committee that investigated the Capitol riot. The special counsel’s office declined to comment to NBC News. In his testimony to the House panel last year, Donoghue said that weeks before the attack on the Capitol, Trump had urged Justice Department officials, including then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
  • CBS News: Trump ally Bernard Kerik turned over documents to special counsel investigating events surrounding Jan. 6: Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has turned over thousands of pages of records to special counsel Jack Smith as part of the federal investigation into efforts to stop the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News. The documents were submitted to Smith on Sunday. A source close to Kerik’s legal team said they believe the records, which include sworn affidavits from people raising concerns about the integrity of the 2020 presidential contest, show there was a genuine effort to investigate claims of voter fraud in the last election.

In The States

TENNESSEE: State makes it even harder for former felons to vote, despite already having the second highest rate of felony disenfranchisement in the U.S.

  • New York Times: Voting by Formerly Imprisoned in Tennessee, Already Hard, Gets Harder: Tennessee has sharply restricted the conditions under which it will restore voting rights to people who have completed prison sentences for felonies, joining a growing list of Republican-controlled states that have rolled back access to the ballot by former felons. The state has for years permitted most people with completed felony sentences to restore their voting rights through an administrative process established in 2006 that is ostensibly automatic, but in practice almost unnavigable. Only 3,400 people, or less than 1 percent of all disenfranchised Tennesseans, have had their voting rights restored under the program, said Blair Bowie, the director of the Restore Your Vote initiative at the Campaign Legal Center, a voting-rights advocacy group in Washington.
  • The Guardian: Tennessee toughens voting rules for people with felony convictions: Tennessee, already one of the strictest and most complicated states in the country for voting rights restoration, has enacted a new policy that makes it nearly impossible for people with felony convictions to regain their right to vote. Tennessee has one of the highest rates of disenfranchisement in the United States. More than 9% of the voting age population, or about 471,600 Tennesseans, cannot vote because of a felony conviction, according to a 2022 estimate by the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice non-profit. More than 21% of Black adults are disenfranchised. The vast majority of people who can’t vote have completed their criminal sentences but have outstanding court debt, including unpaid child support payments.

NEW YORK: Republicans appeal New York redistricting decision that could give Democrats advantage in 2024

  • Spectrum News 1: Republicans file formal appeal in New York redistricting case: A group of Republicans filed a formal appeal Tuesday to an appellate court’s ruling earlier this month that ordered New York’s congressional lines be redrawn by the state’s redistricting commission. The appeal sets up what could be a key showdown in New York’s top court, the state Court of Appeals, in the coming weeks. The outcome could ultimately determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives, now narrowly led by Republicans. Democrats scored a victory in July with the Appellate Court ruling that found the boundaries for New York’s U.S. House districts should be redrawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission, a panel composed of appointees of both parties. Democrats had hailed the ruling; Republicans vowed to fight to the highest court in the state. A deadlocked redistricting commission could once again throw the process to the state Legislature, which is controlled by Democratic supermajorities. Last year, New York’s top court sided with a Republican-backed lawsuit that led to the lines being drawn by a special master appointed by a lower-court judge. 

ARKANSAS: Federal judge dismisses lawsuit challenging the methods used to elect judges and justices that dilute strength of Black voters 

  • Arkansas Democrat Gazette: Judge tosses lawsuit aimed at strengthening Black vote in races for seats on Arkansas appellate courts: A judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas on Tuesday dismissed with prejudice a case that sought to change the way Arkansas voters elect judges in a way that, the plaintiffs claimed, would better represent the racial makeup of the state. Judge James Moody Jr. found the plaintiffs’ arguments unconvincing, writing in a 48-page decision that their proposed remedy would enable the election of Black judges purely for the purpose of electing judges of a certain race instead of favoring linkage or the matching of a district’s boundaries to the judge’s electoral base. “The particular remedy that Plaintiffs propose that this Court devise — a supreme court district designed to elect a justice of a particular race — would uniquely harm the accountability and judicial independence that linkage serves, because the ‘announced purpose’ of this system ‘would be to assist a predominantly black section of the [State] in electing black judges,'” Moody wrote. The lawsuit, brought by the Christian Ministerial Alliance, the Arkansas Community Institute, former Pulaski County Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey Sr. and Kymara Seals of Jefferson County against the state of Arkansas, alleges that the state’s system of at-large voting for members of the Arkansas Supreme Court and the state Court of Appeals under-represents Black voters in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.

What Experts Are Saying

Margaret Sullivan, former New York Times public editor: “The ‘impeach Biden’ movement should be seen for what it is: a maneuver to distract from Trump’s own legal troubles, as investigations mount over election meddling, misuse of classified documents and his role in fomenting the January 6 insurrection.” The Guardian 

Andrew Weissmann, lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office, re: Rudy Giuliani court filing admitting to false statements about GA election worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman: “Big concession: Rudy’s conceding facts that prove ‘intentional infliction of emotional distress’ means he is conceding BOTH falsity and his bad intent at the time. This won’t forestall more discovery to plaintiffs, tho, which was Rudy’s goal.” Tweet 

Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket: “In state after state, Republican-controlled states are using time as a weapon to discriminate against minority voters. Justice delayed is, indeed, justice denied. And we know from Alabama that even when justice is served, states will drag their feet to comply.” Democracy Docket 

Dennis Aftergut, former federal prosecutor, and Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor emeritus and a professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School: “As we await a likely federal grand jury indictment of Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a June 27 Supreme Court decision has created an intriguing possibility—that one key set of criminal charges could rest on Trump’s threat-by-tweet to his vice president while the violent mob was inside the Capitol: ‘Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to … protect our Country.’…‘Let’s focus now on how the June 27 Supreme Court ruling bears on this potential way to charge the civil rights statute. In Counterman v. Colorado, the court held 7–2 that ‘a mental state of recklessness’ for threatening violence is sufficient to prove ‘true threats,’ words that ‘lie outside the bounds of the First Amendment’s protection.’ Recklessness means that the person issuing the threat ‘consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence.’” Slate

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

Fox News: Hillary Clinton blames ‘MAGA Republicans’ for making it hot outside 

Trump Investigations 

Washington Post: How often was Trump told that his fraud claims were wrong?

NBC News: Eight search warrants issued in Trump classified documents case, new filings show

The Washington Post: Giuliani declines to defend the indefensible. And he’s got company.

January 6 And The 2020 Election

Politico: A big lie, an attack on the Capitol — and soon, another indictment

The Guardian: Georgia prosecutors eye criminal solicitation charges in Trump inquiry

Huffington Post: Ex-DOJ Official Predicts When To Expect Third Trump Indictment

Slate: The Trump Tweet That Could Feature Prominently in Jack Smith’s Next Indictment

The Daily Beast: The Fulton County Case Against Trump May Be the Most Serious—and Imminent

USA Today: ‘Somewhat dicey’ and ‘problematic’: Inside Trump’s bid to have fake electors overturn 2020 election

Associated Press: Trump once condemned the Jan. 6 rioters. Now he’s become one of their biggest supporters

Opinion

Washington Post: If Trump is indicted for Jan. 6, it will be clear why

New York Times: How to Know When a Prosecution Is Political

The Atlantic: The 2024 Election Could Be the End of the Cases Against Donald Trump

The Hill: The Supreme Court codified discrimination against me, and possibly you

Washington Post: Nice try, Florida. Slavery was not an awesome skill-building exercise.

In the States

Washington Post: Alabama dusts off an old playbook for diluting the Black vote

Courthouse News Service: Judge juggles competing motions in Arizona voting rights lawsuit

Politico: Florida loses bid to lock DOJ out of voting case

WJSU: Texas trial to be first major test of Voting Rights Act since Supreme Court decision