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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — August 25, 2022

By August 25, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Trump And His Attorneys Knew He Had Documents Illegally 

  • The Guardian: Trump Appears To Concede He Illegally Retained Official Documents: Donald Trump appeared to concede in his court filing over the seizure of materials from his Florida resort that he unlawfully retained official government documents, as the former president argued that some of the documents collected by the FBI could be subject to executive privilege. The motion submitted on Monday by the former president’s lawyers argued that a court should appoint a so-called special master to separate out and determine what materials the justice department can review as evidence due to privilege issues. “The documents seized at Mar-a-Lago … were created during his term as President. Accordingly, the documents are presumptively privileged until proven otherwise,” the filing said. “Only an evaluation by a neutral reviewer, a Special Master, can secure the sanctity of these privileged materials.” But the argument from Trump that the documents are subject to executive privilege protections suggests those documents are official records – which he is not authorized to keep and should have turned over to the National Archives at the end of the administration.
  • Washington Post: Archives Asked For Records In 2021 After Trump Lawyer Agreed They Should Be Returned, Email Says: About two dozen boxes of presidential records stored in then-President Donald Trump’s White House residence were not returned to the National Archives and Records Administration in the final days of his term even after Archives officials were told by a Trump lawyer that the documents should be given back, according to an email from the top lawyer at the record-keeping agency. “It is also our understanding that roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the Residence of the White House over the course of President Trump’s last year in office and have not been transferred to NARA, despite a determination by Pat Cipollone in the final days of the administration that they need to be,” wrote Gary Stern, the agency’s chief counsel, in an email to Trump lawyers in May 2021, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post. The email shows NARA officials were concerned about Trump keeping dozens of boxes of official records even before he left the White House — concerns that only grew in the coming months as Trump repeatedly declined to return the records. It also showed that Trump’s lawyers had concerns about Trump taking the documents and agreed that the boxes should be returned — at least according to the top Archives officials — while Trump kept the documents.

Lindsey Graham And Scott Perry Continue Efforts To Resist Accountability And Transparency  

  • CNN: Sen. Graham Tells Judge That Grand Jury Should Not Be Allowed To Question Him On Any Topics Laid Out In Subpoena: Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday told a federal court that it should bar a grand jury’s questioning of the South Carolina Republican “on all the topics” sought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in the subpoena for Graham’s testimony as part of an investigation into plots to illegally influence Georgia’s 2020 election results. Graham also asked the court to block questioning of him on “other topics” suggested by outside groups that have weighed in on the dispute over the subpoena in friend-of-the court briefs. The litigation over the subpoena is back before US District Judge Leigh Martin May of the Northern District of Georgia after an appeals court on Sunday paused her ruling requiring that Graham appear before the grand jury. May had previously rejected Graham’s request that she quash the subpoena outright. The appeals court has since instructed her to consider whether the subpoena should be partially quashed or modified in accordance with the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, which shields lawmakers from some law enforcement actions when it covers certain conduct that is part of lawmakers’ legislative duties.
  • Politico: Rep. Scott Perry Suing To Block DOJ Access To His Cell Phone: Rep. Scott Perry is suing to block the Justice Department from reviewing the contents of his cell phone, which was recently seized as part of an apparent investigation into the Pennsylvania Republican’s connections to former President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. FBI agents seized Perry’s phone on Aug. 9 and transported it to the custody of DOJ’s inspector general, which has helped lead the inquiry into the push by Trump and his allies to replace department leadership as part of a broader drive to keep Trump in power. Investigators have cited Perry as a key participant in that effort given his help connecting Trump with Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ official whom Trump viewed as an ally in his push. But Perry indicated in his recent filing that DOJ has not yet accessed materials on his phone and is in the process of obtaining a second search warrant that would guide its review, including a process to screen out potentially privileged materials. Perry is objecting to that bid, demanding that the government be blocked from scouring his phone and that it return any data in its possession.

“Constitutional Sheriffs” Promote Election Lies With A Badge And A Gun 

  • Bolts: The Big Lie Messengers Who Carry a Badge and Gun: Big Lie messengers have looked to far-right sheriffs for a veneer of credibility as both Democratic and Republican election officials, prosecutors, judges and state attorneys general across the country reject every baseless lawsuit blaming Trump’s loss on voter fraud. True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht—who, as Reveal has reported, helped turn election conspiracies into a lucrative enterprise for conservative activists and lawyers—has said she turned to sheriffs for help after federal and state law enforcement dismissed her group’s claims.  True the Vote’s partnership with Lamb and a coalition of right-wing sheriffs he leads and helped found called Protect America Now—which includes sheriffs from states as politically diverse as California, New Mexico, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Florida—is part of a nationwide attempt to police elections by emboldening sheriffs to surveil ballot drop boxes and chase down tips from anonymous hotlines that will report alleged fraud.  Last month, Engelbrecht also announced that her group would partner with the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), a group of so-called constitutional sheriffs who believe that their office is uniquely endowed with the power to enforce only those laws they deem constitutional and who have promoted the Big Lie in rallies and training sessions. Sheriffs affiliated with the CSPOA have promised to monitor future elections and hunt down lingering claims of fraud from the 2020 presidential election. These partnerships highlight the uniquely aggressive role of sheriffs in efforts to police the vote leading up to the 2022 and 2024 elections. Politicians with badges and guns, sheriffs have extensive powers to launch criminal investigations, seize evidence and even threaten violence or jail to force compliance, making them uniquely potent as compared to judges or prosecutors or legislators. 

In The States 

MARYLAND: Extremist GOP Candidate For Maryland Governor Attempts Cover His Far Right Tracks And Moderate 

  • Washington Post: Md. GOP Nominee Cox Deletes Account On Gab, Site Known For Hate Speech: Maryland Republican gubernatorial nominee Dan Cox has deleted his account on Gab, a social media platform known as an online hub for hate speech and white nationalists, and his campaign website no longer notes his fight against certifying the 2020 presidential election results. Cox deleted more than 1,000 posts in striking his profile from the site, which welcomes users banned from other platforms. A web archive page of his activity did not preserve any of the posts themselves, and the Cox campaign would not discuss them. The scrubbing of his Gab account and website appears to be an attempt by the campaign — which recently brought in out-of-state staff — to reset after its primary contest against a moderate Republican in a race seen by many as a proxy war between Gov. Larry Hogan, who endorsed Kelly Schulz, and former president Donald Trump, who backed Cox. The Cox campaign deleted and revamped other elements of its website after winning the July primary, including references to “a natural right” to gun ownership, and promises to ban transgender athletes in women’s sports and conduct an audit of the 2020 presidential election, which he has called “stolen.”

TEXAS: Texas AG Ken Paxton Says Ballots Should Be Available For Public Inspection Immediately After Elections 

  • Votebeat: Ken Paxton Bucks Legal Precedent And Secretary Of State’s Advice In Letting Anyone Examine Ballots Right After Elections: A legal opinion released by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last week will almost certainly throw county elections offices into chaos after November, experts say, exposing election clerks to possible criminal charges and materially reducing the security of every ballot cast in the state. Federal and state law require that ballots be kept secure for 22 months after an election to allow for recounts and challenges — a timeframe Texas counties have had set in place for decades. Paxton’s opinion, which doesn’t stem from any change to state law,  theoretically permits anyone —  an aggrieved voter, activist, or out-of-state entity — to request access to ballots as soon as the day after they are counted. Such requests have been used by activists all over the country as a way to “audit” election results. The opinion from Paxton doesn’t carry the force of law, but experts say it will almost certainly serve as the basis for a lawsuit by right-wing activists. The opinion has already impacted election administrators across the state, who told Votebeat that they’ve seen an onslaught of requests since Paxton released it. “[Paxton’s office wants] to throw a monkey wrench into the operations of vote counting, especially if they think they might lose, and Paxton is in a close race as far as I can tell,” said Linda Eads, a professor at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law and a former deputy attorney general for litigation for the state of Texas. She said she was “shocked” by the opinion.

What Experts Are Saying

UPDATED REPORT: States United Democracy Center, Protect Democracy, and Law Forward: A Democracy Crisis In The Making: August 2022 Edition: As of July 31, 2022, with most state legislative sessions having drawn to a close, there have been at least 244 bills introduced in 33 states that would interfere with election administration—and 24 of this year’s bills have become law (or have been adopted) across 17 states. Overview | Report PDF 

Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW):  “After years of fighting and @CREWcrew’s recent appeals court win, the Department of Justice released the legal memo former AG Bill Barr relied on to say there was no basis to charge Donald Trump with obstruction of justice. And it’s a doozy. The memo presents a breathtakingly generous view of the law and facts for Donald Trump. It twists the facts and the law to benefit Trump and does not comport with a serious reading of the law of obstruction of justice or the facts as found by Special Counsel Mueller… The memo is not just wrong; it is dangerous coming from a usually respected office at the Department of Justice. It is clear why Barr did not want the public to see it.” Twitter Thread 

Hakeem Jefferson, political scientist at Stanford University: “‘It’s not by some dent of the universe or some sort of random act that the faces that we see in these photographs and videos from Jan. 6 are a bunch of white people,’ Jefferson says. ‘We were watching, in real time, a racial backlash.’ More precisely, he says, it is part of a white backlash against the very perception of racial progress and the idea, unrealized though it may be, of multiracial democracy. ‘Some white people are really concerned about a loss of power and status in American society,’ Jefferson says.” NPR 

Robert Pape, political scientist and director of the Chicago Project on Security & Threats: “‘What we are really observing are the consequences of the fear of white status decline,’ Pape says. Pape, the director of the Chicago Project on Security & Threats, has been researching those who were arrested for storming the Capitol, digging into the data of who was there that day. The results have surprised him. ‘Of the over 800 people who have been arrested on Jan. 6, we see a striking pattern,’ he says. The pattern? ‘They don’t fit the profile of a far-right extremist.’” NPR 

Norm Eisen, chair of States United Democracy Center (Video): “Elections are big national events, but they’re run by the states. It matters that your governor, attorney general & secretary of state believe in & are committed to defending free, fair & secure elections. They’re the guardians of our democracy.  At @Statesunited we lay it out:” Tweet 

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, NYU professor: “Victimhood cults allow setbacks the leader experiences due to his own incompetence or corruption to be explained away to his faithful supporters. That’s the core intuition of Trump’s Big Lie, which claims his victimization on an unprecedented scale –a whole presidential election stolen from him!– while allowing Trump’s followers to avoid reckoning with his many failures as president.” Lucid 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

ABC: False accusations of election fraud prompt some election workers across the US to quit ahead of Election Day

January 6 And The 2020 Election

NBC: Feds arrest five members of ‘B Squad’ militia allegedly run by former GOP House candidate in Jan. 6 case

New York Times: For Lindsey Graham, a Showdown in Georgia

USA Today: Cursing, Fox and politics: Why the Jan. 6 committee hearings drew a few FCC complaints

Washington Post: Some records sent to Jan. 6 committee were torn up, taped back together — mirroring a Trump habit

Other Trump Investigations

Mediaite: Congressman-Elect Deems Trump ‘Essentially Traitorous,’ Says ‘If I Had Done What He Did, I Would’ve Been in Jail’

Opinion

Washington Post (Greg Sargent): A surprise win for Democrats hints at a big shift for 2022

Washington Post (Joe Davidson): GOP attacks go beyond FBI and elections to delegitimize government

Political Violence 

Daily Beast: DeSantis Rages About ‘Little Elf’ Fauci: ‘Grab Him and Chuck Him Across the Potomac’

Rome News Tribune: Police investigating faked shooting report at Rep. Greene’s home early Wednesday

In The States 

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Minnesota GOP governor nominee Scott Jensen triples down on comparing COVID policies to Nazi Germany

Mississippi Free Press: ‘A Wrong Never Righted’: Court Upholds Mississippi’s 1890 Jim Crow Voting Law