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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — August 2, 2022

By August 2, 2022August 10th, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

What To Watch For Today: 

Primary elections in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington 

Must Read Stories

Final Stretch Of Primaries Starts Today, Highlighting GOP Extremism And Chaos 

  • Washington Post: Final Stretch Of Primaries Will Showcase A Divided GOP: A final stretch of primaries for state and federal offices kicks off Tuesday, setting the stage for a six-week battle inside a divided Republican Party pitting candidates loyal to former president Donald Trump and his false election claims against rivals looking to move past those fights in this fall’s midterm elections. Two gubernatorial candidates in Arizona and Wisconsin backed by Trump will face off this month against those endorsed by former vice president Mike Pence, who split with Trump after refusing pressure to reject the results of the 2020 presidential race. Four members of Congress who voted to impeach Trump after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol are also trying to beat back challengers who embrace Trump’s false claims that he won. And an Arizona lawmaker who led calls to “decertify” the 2020 results and wants to ban the use of voting machines may win the GOP nomination Tuesday to oversee elections in a key battleground for 2024. With less than 100 days to go until the November midterms, lasting rifts over the past election will take center stage as some Republicans hope to focus on unifying concerns such as inflation to regain control of Congress. Trying to overcome those economic head winds and low approval ratings for President Biden, Democrats argue the GOP’s candidates — and their campaigns against the democratic process itself — will prove too extreme for general-election voters. Some Republicans also worry about nominating divisive candidates in the coming weeks.
  • NBC: Trump Baffles GOP By Endorsing ‘Eric’ In The Missouri Senate Primary — A Race With Three Erics: Former President Donald Trump injected some last-minute confusion ahead of Missouri’s Senate primary on Tuesday by endorsing “ERIC” in a Monday night statement. Eric who? Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens? State Attorney General Eric Schmitt? Or maybe even little-known Eric McElroy? “I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” Trump said in a statement after emphasizing voters “must send a MAGA Champion and True Warrior to the U.S. Senate, someone who will fight for Border Security, Election Integrity, our Military and Great Veterans, together with having a powerful toughness on Crime and the Border.” When reached for comment, Trump’s team did not provide any clarity, saying only that the “endorsement speaks for itself.” Allies of Greitens and Schmitt separately argued that their candidate was the true recipient of the endorsement, or that the other guy wasn’t MAGA enough to win Trump’s approval. One Trump adviser said the internal bickering demonstrated the former president’s enduring power and influence in the party. “Instead of talking about Missouri, the Erics are debating what Trump’s endorsement means,” said the adviser. “Yes, it’s an epic troll.”
  • The Guardian: Alarm As Arizona Republicans Set To Nominate Election Deniers For Top Posts: Arizona Republicans are on the verge of nominating two of America’s most prominent election deniers for governor and secretary of state, the latest in a series of primary contests with serious consequences for America’s democracy. Kari Lake, a former news anchor, and Mark Finchem, a state lawmaker, are running for governor and secretary of state, respectively. Both have built their campaigns around the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Both are frontrunners in their races and if elected, would take over roles with considerable power over how elections are run and certified in a key battleground state. The Arizona primary on Tuesday is the latest in a series of contests where candidates who have questioned the election results stand a strong chance of winning the GOP nomination for statewide office. It’s a trend that is deeply alarming, experts say, and could pave the way for Republicans to reject the result of a future election.
  • CNN: They Voted To Impeach Trump. Voters In Washington State Will Decide Whether That Matters: Two of Tuesday’s primaries in Washington state represent a key question for the Republican Party: 18 months removed from Donald Trump’s second impeachment, has the GOP anger at party lawmakers who backed the effort subsided? Primary voters will answer that question for Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse, two of the 10 House Republicans who joined Democrats to impeach Trump after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. In the months since their votes, both have paid the price at home. They have been criticized by their state party, censured by local leaders and challenged by handfuls of Republican challengers. But heading into Tuesday, Republicans in Washington state acknowledge that there is considerable uncertainty in both primaries, leading many in the state to believe it is possible — if not likely — that they could survive.

House Committee Chairs Seek Testimony On Missing Secret Service Texts While DHS IG Attacks “Onslaught Of Meritless Criticism”  

  • New York Times: Top Democrats, Alleging Cover-Up, Seek Testimony on Secret Service Texts: Two influential House Democrats called on Monday for two officials at the Department of Homeland Security’s independent watchdog to testify to Congress about the agency’s handling of missing Secret Service text messages from the day of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, accusing their office of engaging in a cover-up. In a letter sent Monday to Joseph V. Cuffari, the agency’s inspector general, the heads of two congressional committees said they had developed “grave new concerns over your lack of transparency and independence, which appear to be jeopardizing the integrity of a crucial investigation run by your office.” The letter from Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and the chairwoman of the Oversight Committee, and Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, renewed a demand the pair made last week that Mr. Cuffari step aside from the investigation. It also called for two of his office’s top employees to testify this month.
  • Politico: DHS Watchdog Decries ‘Onslaught Of Meritless Criticism’ Amid Jan. 6 Secret Service Texts Flap: As he faces intensifying scrutiny over his office’s inquiry into text messages sent surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general struck a defiant tone in a Monday email to his workforce. In a note that cited “a tremendous amount of public speculation” regarding the office’s work related to Jan. 6, DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari used language that suggests he’s prepared to push back on growing concerns from Congress on the matter. “Because of the U.S. Attorney General guidelines and quality standards, we cannot always publicly respond to untruths and false information about our work,” Cuffari wrote in an email sent Monday, which was reviewed by POLITICO. “I am so proud of the resilience I have witnessed in the face of this onslaught of meritless criticism.” Cuffari didn’t specify which criticisms were, in his view, without merit. But two hours after he sent his note, a pair of House committee chairs blasted out a letter saying they’d obtained evidence showing Cuffari’s office “may have secretly abandoned efforts to collect text messages from the Secret Service more than a year ago.”

The RNC Is Working With “Stop The Steal” Organizers To Train Poll Workers For 2022 

  • Politico: RNC Links Up With ‘Stop the Steal’ Advocates To Train Poll Workers: The Republican National Committee has been relying on a stable of the party’s most prolific spreaders of false stolen-election theories to pilot a sweeping “election integrity” operation to recruit and coach thousands of poll workers in eight battleground states, according to new recordings of organizing summits held this spring in Florida and Pennsylvania obtained by POLITICO. On the tapes, RNC National Election Integrity Director Josh Findlay repeatedly characterizes the committee’s role as supporting in-state coalitions — delivering staff, organization and “muscle” in key states to the person they identify as the quarterback of the effort to create a permanent workforce: Conservative elections attorney Cleta Mitchell, who was a central figure in former President Donald Trump’s legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election. “Cleta Mitchell, she’s like the best election and election law expert out there. We’re not going to tell her what to do,” Findlay told a March 31 Pennsylvania session organized by Mitchell. Publicly, the RNC has insisted its goal is to ensure there are enough trained poll workers to protect the electoral process and ensure partisan parity at polling centers. The recordings, however, indicated that the RNC is relying heavily on people who have spread false or unproven claims of irregularities and conspiracies. 

In The States 

ARIZONA:  Arizona AG Finds No Proof For Claims Dead People Voted In 2020 

  • Arizona Republic: They’re Alive! Arizona Attorney General Unearths No Proof For Claims Of Dead Voters In 2020 Election: Claims that 282 Arizona voters cast their ballots from beyond the grave in 2020 are unfounded, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich said, in response to the state Senate’s request for a criminal investigation into alleged deceased voters. Only one dead voter was identified after “hundreds of hours” of research by the attorney general’s Election Integrity Unit, Brnovich wrote Monday in a letter to Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott. “All other persons listed as deceased were found to be current voters,” he wrote. Fann provided the list to the Attorney General’s Office as part of the Senate’s ballot review of the 2020 presidential and U.S. Senate races.

MICHIGAN:  Michigan Secretary Of State Warns That Republican Attempts To Block Certification Of The Election Will Be “Futile”

  • Detroit News: Michigan secretary Of State: Attempts To Block Election Certification Will Be ‘Futile’: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson says her office will not tolerate any effort to obstruct the certification of Tuesday’s primary election based on “partisan games” or “baseless lies.” “Any attempts to block the certification of our elections, regardless of the results, will be futile,” Benson said during an interview with The Detroit News. “We are confident that the courts will swiftly enforce the law and that at the end of the day, the will of the people will stand.”

What Experts Are Saying

Thomas Zimmer, visiting history professor at Georgetown University: “The current situation necessarily marks a turning point. It is a veritable crisis because it will have to be resolved, one way or the other. America will either overcome this reactionary counter-mobilization and make the leap to multiracial, pluralistic democracy – or the country will regress, and let democracy perish before it’s ever been fully achieved in this land.” Guardian Op-Ed: This summer may be one of the most consequential in US democracy 

Joyce Vance, former US attorney, on investigating Jan. 6-related Secret Service texts after DHS IG halted recovery plan: “The important thing is to move this investigation out of the hands of the DHS IG and into the hands of the FBI.” Tweet of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports

Dan Barr, legal expert based in Arizona, re: AZ Senate’s partisan “audit”: “Mark Brnovich cannot investigate his way out of a paper bag. Even Inspector Clouseau would have figured out that these allegations were total nonsense at least 10 months ago.” Tweet 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

New York Times: Trump-Backed Conspiracy Theorist Vies to Take Over Arizona Elections

Politico: Inside the wild Bedminster lobbying spree that led to Trump’s double Missouri endorsement

Politico: Former Democratic leaders blast party’s ‘risky and unethical’ meddling in GOP primaries

January 6 And The 2020 Election

Associated Press: Sen. Graham challenges 2020 Georgia election probe subpoena

Insider: Cassidy Hutchinson kept working for Donald Trump for nine weeks after he left the White House, government records sho

NBC: Capitol rioter Guy Reffitt gets longest Jan. 6 sentence, but no terrorism enhancement

Washington Post (Analysis): How Trump’s effort to overturn 2020 is sanitized for the general public

Opinion

The Guardian (Thomas Zimmer): This summer may be one of the most consequential in US democracy

In The States 

Axios: Election denial drives spending spree in AZ secretary of state race

Wisconsin State Journal: Have Wisconsin’s fake electors been subpoenaed? If not, ‘it would be surprising’