Driving the Day:
"The information being requested centered around U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., and the effort to seek alternate electors as part of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in office after the 2020 election…" 👀 https://t.co/MFh5exxMGx
— Defend Democracy Project (@DemocracyNowUS) August 11, 2022
Must Read Stories
FBI Subpoenas In Pennsylvania Indicate An Expanding Election Probe
- Harrisburg Patriot-News: FBI Delivers Subpoenas To Several Pa. Republican Lawmakers: Sources Say: Federal investigators delivered subpoenas or paid visits to several House and Senate Republican offices in the Pennsylvania Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to multiple sources. At least some of the individuals receiving subpoenas were told they were not targets of an investigation, according to at least six sources reached by PennLive, but that they may have information of interest to the FBI. All of the sources had been briefed on the investigative moves in some way, but demanded anonymity in order to discuss them. The information being requested centered around U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., and the effort to seek alternate electors as part of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in office after the 2020 election, several sources said.
- New York Times: Seizure of Congressman’s Phone Is Latest Sign of Escalating Election Inquiry: The F.B.I.’s seizure of Representative Scott Perry’s phone this week was at least the third major action in recent months taken in connection with an escalating federal investigation into efforts by several close allies of former President Donald J. Trump to overturn the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the matter. The inquiry, which was begun last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office, has already ensnared Jeffrey Clark, a former department official whom Mr. Trump wanted to install atop the agency to help him press his baseless claims of election fraud, and John Eastman, an outside lawyer who advised Mr. Trump on brazen proposals to overturn the vote result. In June, federal agents acting on search warrants from the inspector general’s office seized phones and other electronic devices from Mr. Clark and Mr. Eastman. That same tactic was used on Tuesday to seize the phone of Mr. Perry, a Republican of Pennsylvania.
- Politico: Why Scott Perry Stands Out In The FBI’s Investigations Of Trump Allies: Scott Perry, who said this week that the FBI had seized his cell phone, has publicly tied the agency’s actions to its search of Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago. There’s no evidence the two are directly connected — and more details suggest they’re part of two separate investigations. The FBI’s handling of the Pennsylvania Republican represents a rare step against a sitting member of Congress. But the seizure follows months of growing evidence of Perry’s deep involvement in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election — just as investigators are taking more overt steps to investigate Trump allies’ efforts to deploy the Justice Department in service of disrupting the transition of power. Evidence doesn’t point to his troubles being related to the FBI’s effort to reclaim presidential records that may have been improperly stowed at Trump’s private estate. Perry’s attorney John Irving said in a statement later Wednesday the Justice Department informed them the congressman was “not a target of its investigation.” “Representative Perry has directed us to cooperate with the Justice Department in order to ensure that it gets the information it is entitled to, but to also protect information that it is not entitled to, including communications that are protected under the Speech and Debate Clause of the United States Constitution and communications with counsel,” Irving said.
Lindsey Graham Resists Subpoena In Fulton County Investigation
- Atlanta Journal Constitution: Fulton DA Seeks To Question Graham About Any Coordination With Trump: Prosecutors with the Fulton County District Attorney’s office, who are leading the special purpose grand jury investigation into Georgia’s 2020 election, are interested in questioning U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham about any coordinated effort there may have been between the South Carolina Republican and officials from the Trump campaign. That became apparent Wednesday, as a federal judge heard a request from Graham’s attorneys to kill a grand jury subpoena. More broadly, jurors and prosecutors are interested in discussing two phone conversations that Graham had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his office in the weeks following the 2020 elections, according to his subpoena. During those conversations, Graham asked about procedures related to mail-in absentee ballots, though he and Raffensperger disagree about what the senator was implying. During a two-hour hearing, Brian Lea, an attorney for Graham, argued the senator is shielded from testifying about the phone calls because of the U.S. Constitution’s “Speech or Debate” clause, which protects members of Congress from being questioned in court about issues that fall within their legislative purview. But Fulton prosecutor Donald Wakeford said “there’s nothing legislative” — or normal — about a U.S. senator calling a secretary of state from a different state in the middle of a recount, and that such conversations are not protected by the Constitution. Wakeford indicated that Graham’s calls might have been interconnected with similar efforts that were undertaken by Trump and his allies during the same time period, since several placed phone calls to high-ranking Georgia officials to pressure them to revisit election results.
- Associated Press: Sen. Graham Fights Subpoena In Georgia Election Probe: Prosecutors in Atlanta said they need a special grand jury to hear from U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham because he may be able to provide insight into the extent of any coordinated efforts to influence the results of the 2020 general election in Georgia. Fulton County Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney Donald Wakeford made that argument Wednesday during a federal court hearing on a request by Graham to quash his subpoena. Brian Lea, an attorney for Graham, argued that Graham’s position as a senator protects him from having to appear before the special grand jury in the investigation into whether former President Donald Trump and his allies committed crimes as they sought to overturn his narrow election loss in Georgia. Graham’s attorneys — including Don McGahn, who served as White House counsel under Trump — successfully moved the issue of whether the subpoena should be quashed from Fulton County Superior Court to federal court. U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May said she hopes to issue a ruling Friday but that it may take her until Monday to decide whether Graham should have to testify.
In The Middle Of A Tumultuous Week Of Investigations On Several Fronts, Trump Takes The Fifth Hundreds Of Times In New York Deposition
- Washington Post: Amid Tumultuous Week, Trump Takes The Fifth: Donald Trump spent hours in a deposition Wednesday with the New York attorney general and repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions, the latest in a series of ominous legal developments that would have once been considered devastating for a former president considering another run for the White House. Trump emerged from the question-and-non-answer session with praise for the “very professional” way Attorney General Letitia James’s team handled the meeting, in which he refused more than 400 times to answer questions about his businesses, property valuations and loans, according to a person with knowledge of the discussion. This person, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the closed session, said Trump stated his name, formally declared his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, and from then on replied to many questions with two words: “Same answer.” Less than two years after leaving office, Trump faces legal jeopardy from multiple directions, with criminal probes into his possible withholding of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results; James’s civil probe; and congressional inquiries into his taxes and his conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. In a lengthy statement on Wednesday, the former president denied any wrongdoing and accused the U.S. government of unfairly targeting him in multiple ways. Incredibly, his deposition marked just the halfway point of what has been a frenetic week for Trump and his lawyers.
Right Wing Threats Against Law Enforcement Continue To Escalate
- Vice: Far-Right Extremists Are Violently Threatening the Trump Search-Warrant Judge: Far-right extremists on pro-Donald Trump message boards and social networks are making violent, antisemitic threats against the judge who reportedly signed the warrant that allowed the FBI to search the former president’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. Multiple members of these toxic online communities are even posting what appears to be Judge Bruce Reinhart’s home address, phone numbers, and names of his family members alongside threats of extreme violence.
- Fox News: FBI Agents, Garland And Wray See Increased Death Threats After Trump Mar-A-Lago Raid: Sources: FBI agents, as well as U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Chris Wray, are experiencing an uptick in death threats in the wake of the raid at former President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, according to sources speaking with Fox News. Authorities monitoring social media posts are spotting a significant increase in death threats aimed towards agents, Wray and Garland. These threats are reported to continue at a steady pace online. The FBI/DOJ security procedures are not made public, and both Garland and Wray travel with armed security. Still, Fox News is told there are discussions to potentially increase their security.
Historians Warn President Biden That American Democracy Is In Danger
- Washington Post: Historians Privately Warn Biden That America’s Democracy Is Teetering: President Biden paused last week, during one of the busiest stretches of his presidency, for a nearly two-hour private history lesson from a group of academics who raised alarms about the dire condition of democracy at home and abroad. The conversation during a ferocious lightning storm on Aug. 4 unfolded as a sort of Socratic dialogue between the commander in chief and a select group of scholars, who painted the current moment as among the most perilous in modern history for democratic governance, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting. Comparisons were made to the years before the 1860 election when Abraham Lincoln warned that a “house divided against itself cannot stand” and the lead-up to the 1940 election, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt battled rising domestic sympathy for European fascism and resistance to the United States joining World War II.
In The States
NEW YORK: Racist Extremist Carl Paladino Could Be Heading To Congress In New York
- New York Times: Could Carl Paladino and His ‘3-Ring Circus’ Be Headed for Congress?: During his decade-plus in New York politics, Carl Paladino has had no problem making headlines, usually for all the wrong reasons. There was the time he spoke highly of Hitler. Or the occasion when he made grossly racist remarks about Michelle Obama. Not to mention his suggestion that children have been brainwashed into accepting homosexuality. The ensuing criticism, however, has had little effect on Mr. Paladino, 75, a die-hard Republican and a Buffalo-area developer, or on his political aspirations: After a fleeting career as a member of the city’s school board — he was effectively deposed — he has now launched a campaign to be the next duly elected representative of the 23rd Congressional District in western New York. Mr. Paladino’s main claim to fame is a failed 2010 run for governor that was equal parts carnival ride and train wreck: He threatened a State Capitol reporter during the campaign and forwarded a series of pornographic emails. His latest attempt at a comeback involves an ugly primary battle that has caused a deep schism in his own party. His opponent is Nick Langworthy, the state Republican Party chairman. Mr. Langworthy, a onetime ally of Mr. Paladino, is trying to steer New York Republicans away from the crassest elements fueling former President Donald J. Trump’s MAGA following, saying that the party has “come too far” to be undone by Mr. Paladino’s antics. Crucially, he says, Mr. Paladino could damage the campaign for governor by Representative Lee M. Zeldin, the Long Island Republican who is considered by many to have the party’s best chance of winning the governor’s mansion in two decades.
What Experts Are Saying
Harry Litman, former US attorney: “No surprise: after maneuvering and dodging, Trump takes fifth in New York AG inquiry with phony and improper statement about how it’s a witchhunt. Important point: it can be used against him because it’s a civil action.” Tweet
Eric Holder, former U.S. attorney general, and Lanny Breuer, former head of the criminal division at DOJ: “Ms. Smith then asked Mr. Holder if he would charge Donald Trump and his allies for their role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. To answer that question, Mr. Holder turned to Lanny Breuer, the former head of the criminal division at the DOJ, who was sitting in the crowd. ‘So Lanny, would we bring this case?’ Mr. Holder asked[.] ‘We would bring it in a minute,’ Mr. Breuer responded…’You end up with indict, divide [the country], don’t indict, divide [the country], so just do the damn right thing. Enforce the rule of law,’ Mr. Holder said. ‘You broke the law, you tried to subvert our democracy, you got caught, we’ve got proof, so let’s charge it.’” Vineyard Gazette
Kathleen Belew, associate professor of history at Northwestern University: “To everyone tweeting +/- ‘It’s almost like they’ve been waiting for a reason to declare civil war and turn to violence’–YES, they HAVE BEEN waiting for a moment like this. White power groups and the militant right are opportunistic. They don’t waste chances like this one.” Tweet
Joyce Vance, former US attorney: “’Play that out a little bit: What do these people want?’ said Vance, an Obama appointee. ‘Do they want Merrick Garland to come out and say, ‘Here’s all our evidence against Donald Trump’? Do they really think that DOJ should try its cases in the press? That’s not what we want in a functioning, rule-of-law country from our Justice Department.’ Vance said the Justice Department’s handling of the matter shows the emphasis by Garland, the attorney general, on doing things by the book. ‘‘Merrick Garland’s goal is to restore the department to a place where that’s the way normal business is conducted: in a court, with the rules,’ Vance said. ‘I think Merrick Garland understands that DOJ bets its future on every case, and his role was to restore DOJ’s integrity so that in the tough cases like this one, where he can’t talk about the substance of a search warrant, the public knows that they can have confidence that the leadership at DOJ is following the rules and doing things the right way,’ Vance said.” NBC News
Asha Rangappa, senior lecturer at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and FBI counterintelligence agent, Norman L. Eisen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Bradley P. Moss, national security attorney and partner at the law office of Mark S. Zaid, PC: “[T]he Mar-a-Lago search indicates that DOJ does believe that a crime has been committed or was being committed and that evidence of that crime was present on the premises. That much is clear, although we are still at the earliest stages of understanding this development and do not have the search warrant and attachments, much less the supporting affidavit. While DOJ and judicial approval of the search warrant doesn’t necessarily mean that Trump himself is suspected of a crime, it is highly likely that he is the focus of the investigation.” Just Security’s Expert Explainer: Criminal Statutes that Could Apply to Trump’s Retention of Government Documents
Headlines
The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections
Axios: House incumbents face historic primary peril
NBC: FBI’s Wray denounces threats to law enforcement after agency searches Trump’s home
New York Times (Analysis): Trump Claims He’s a Victim of Tactics He Once Deployed
New York Times: How a New Class of Republicans Could Push America to the Right
Politico: Meet the GOP’s future king of Biden investigations
Washington Post: Facebook bans hate speech but still makes money from white supremacists
January 6 And The 2020 Election
WGCL: Sen. Lindsey Graham a no-show at scheduled Fulton County court appearance
WUSA: Aspiring Proud Boy sentenced to 4 months for entering Capitol on Jan. 6
Other Trump Investigations
Daily Beast: Hell Week: How Trump’s Problems All Converged at Once
Insider: Trump used an obscure taxpayer-funded office to attack New York Attorney General Tish James on the morning her office deposed him
Newsweek: An Informer Told the FBI What Docs Trump Was Hiding, and Where
Rolling Stone: With Feds Circling, Trump Asks Allies: Who’s ‘Wearing a Wire’?
Wall Street Journal: FBI Quest for Trump Documents Started With Breezy Chats, Tour of a Crowded Closet
Washington Post (Analysis): Citizen Trump may have broken a law that President Trump made a felony
Opinion
Washington Post (Henry Olsen): Trump’s primary winning streak shows he’s still king of the GOP
In The States
Associated Press: Joe Arpaio loses 3rd comeback bid in town mayoral race
Associated Press: Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law fuels anti-LGBTQ hate online
Detroit News: Kristina Karamo says her Twitter was ‘hacked’ after post on Trump returning to office
New York Times: Prosecutors Face Distrust in Second Try to Prove Plot to Kidnap Michigan’s Governor
NPR: A Florida license plate has reopened the debate over the ‘Don’t tread on me’ flag
