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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — February 14, 2023

By February 14, 2023No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Mike Pence to Fight Special Counsel Subpoena On The 2020 Plot To Overturn The Election 

  • Politico: Pence To Fight Special Counsel Subpoena On Trump’s 2020 Election Denial: Mike Pence is preparing to resist a grand jury subpoena for testimony about former President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the former vice president’s thinking. Pence’s decision to challenge Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request has little to do with executive privilege, the people said. Rather, Pence is set to argue that his former role as president of the Senate — therefore a member of the legislative branch — shields him from certain Justice Department demands. Pence allies say he is covered by the constitutional provision that protects congressional officials from legal proceedings related to their work — language known as the “speech or debate” clause. The clause, Pence allies say, legally binds federal prosecutors from compelling Pence to testify about the central components of Smith’s investigation. If Pence testifies, they say, it could jeopardize the separation of powers that the Constitution seeks to safeguard.

Special Counsel Jack Smith Accelerates The Pace Of Trump Investigations 

  • New York Times: Jack Smith, Special Counsel for Trump Inquiries, Steps Up the Pace: Did former President Donald J. Trump consume detailed information about foreign countries while in office? How extensively did he seek information about whether voting machines had been tampered with? Did he indicate he knew he was leaving when his term ended? Those are among the questions that Justice Department investigators have been directing at witnesses as the special counsel, Jack Smith, takes control of the federal investigations into Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss and his handling of classified documents found in his possession after he left office. Through witness interviews, subpoenas and other steps, Mr. Smith has been moving aggressively since being named to take over the inquiries nearly three months ago, seeking to make good on his goal of resolving as quickly as possible whether Mr. Trump, still a leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, should face charges. Last week, he issued a subpoena to former Vice President Mike Pence, a potentially vital witness to Mr. Trump’s actions and state of mind in the days before the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. His prosecutors have brought a member of Mr. Trump’s legal team, M. Evan Corcoran, before a federal grand jury investigating why Mr. Trump did not return classified information kept at his Mar-a-Lago residence and private club in Florida. Justice Department officials have interviewed at least one other Trump lawyer in connection with the documents case.

Parts Of Georgia Grand Jury Report On 2020 Election Aftermath To Be Made Public 

  • CNN: Parts Of Georgia Grand Jury Report On Trump And 2020 Election Aftermath To Be Made Public: A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, will make public some parts of a report from a special grand jury that investigated Donald Trump’s actions after the 2020 election in the state, but not specific charging recommendations. In his order on Monday, Judge Robert C.I. McBurney said that the special grand jury’s introduction and conclusion as well as concerns the panel had about witnesses lying under oath will made be public on Thursday. Some of the information in those sections still may be redacted, the judge noted. Prosecutors in Georgia have aggressively investigated whether Trump or any of his associates broke the law while trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the closely contested state. The special grand jury, barred from issuing indictments, penned the highly anticipated final report as a culmination of its seven months of work, which included interviewing 75 witnesses from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham. No one has been charged in the case yet, and another grand jury would make those decisions now that the special grand jury has presented its findings.

Despite Their 2022 Losses Election Deniers Continue To Foment Conspiracies 

  • Washington Post: Defiant Kari Lake Carries Election Denier Banner Across Iowa Amid Divided GOP: For two days, Kari Lake traversed this state with a clear message. She falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. She baselessly insisted that votes were rigged against her in her run for Arizona governor last year. And she warned without evidence that future races will be compromised. “If you lose, lose with dignity. You shake the other person’s hand and walk away,” she told a crowd of approximately 200 at a reception hall on Friday, describing advice from her father on how to gracefully accept defeat. “I didn’t lose, so I’m not doing that.” Lake, who lost in November by more than 17,000 votes to now-Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), is waging a new campaign without conceding the last one. The former television news anchor is traveling the country as one of the most vocal standard-bearers of an animated if wounded election denialism movement as she weighs a run for U.S. Senate and hears encouragement from some to set her sights on national office.
  • HuffPost: Doug Mastriano Makes Dan Cox, QAnon-Sympathizing Insurrectionist, Chief Of Staff:  Doug Mastriano, the far-right Pennsylvania state senator who lost the governor’s race in November, has tapped another failed gubernatorial candidate to be his chief of staff. Dan Cox, who was defeated in the race for Maryland governor, will commute to Pennsylvania to work for Mastriano. “I’m very honored to have the opportunity to continue on with a lot of the work we’ve been doing,” Cox told The Baltimore Banner on Thursday, confirming his appointment. Mastriano and Cox are friends who counted each other as close allies during their respective bids for governor. Their legislative districts — when Cox still served in the Maryland House of Delegates — shared a border along the Mason-Dixon Line. Both organized buses on Jan. 6, 2021, to send supporters to the “Stop the Steal” rally that exploded into a violent attack on the Capitol. Both men attended an April 2022 gathering in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, hosted by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory. And both men are ardent election deniers who earned endorsements from former President Donald Trump last year. Mastriano lost to Democrat Josh Shapiro by 15 points in his governor’s race, and Cox lost to Democrat Wes Moore by 32 points.

Proud Boys Trial Shows The Group Acted In Response To Trump’s Comments 

  • Politico: Proud Boys Sedition Trial Shows Group Keying Off Trump Comments: As Donald Trump fought for his political life in the fall of 2020 — and then attempted to subvert an election he lost — the Proud Boys confronted an identity crisis, fueled at every turn by Trump’s words and actions. In private messages, revealed Thursday by prosecutors at a seditious conspiracy trial stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, members of the group discussed Trump’s Sept. 29 debate-stage exhortation to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” ahead of the November election. Some Proud Boy leaders, like Joe Biggs — one of five seditious conspiracy defendants — saw Trump’s comment as a command to prepare to violently confront antifa. “Trump basically said to go fuck them up,” Biggs said on Parler, the social media platform popular with conservatives. “This makes me so happy.”

Trump Campaign Hired Researchers Who Couldn’t Find Fraud In The 2020 Election, But Kept Findings Secret 

  • Washington Post: Trump Campaign Paid Researchers To Prove 2020 Fraud But Kept Findings Secret: Former president Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign commissioned an outside research firm in a bid to prove electoral-fraud claims but never released the findings because the firm disputed many of his theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election, according to four people familiar with the matter. The campaign paid researchers from Berkeley Research Group, the people said, to study 2020 election results in six states, looking for fraud and irregularities to highlight in public and in the courts. Among the areas examined were voter machine malfunctions, instances of dead people voting and any evidence that could help Trump show he won, the people said. None of the findings were presented to the public or in court.

In The States 

KANSAS:  Kansas GOP Picks Election Denier As New Leader 

  • Associated Press: Kansas GOP Picks Election Conspiracy Promoter As New Leader: Republicans on Saturday narrowly picked an activist who has promoted unfounded election conspiracies and promised a shakeup to lead the Kansas GOP for the next two years, following weeks of infighting that mirrors the acrimony in the party across the U.S. Within 30 minutes of the change in the Kansas Republican Party’s leadership, its state committee reviewed a resolution demanding that the U.S. House impeach President Joe Biden for “tyranny” over comments he and his aides made in the summer of 2021 decrying misinformation about coronavirus vaccines spreading within the GOP. The committee tabled the resolution until its next meeting. The Kansas state committee elected Mike Brown, who has long been active in the GOP in the Kansas City area, as its new chair through the 2024 elections. The vote came three months after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly won reelection and the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, won another term handily in her Kansas City-area district.

TEXAS:  Texas Election Overhaul Could Cost $100 Million

  • Votebeat: Texas’ Election Law Overhaul Could Cost $100 Million — And Trash The State’s Voting Machines:  When state lawmakers passed a sweeping and controversial new election law in 2021, they quietly included a provision that drew little notice or debate.  But election administration experts say the measure is unprecedented, it mandates the purchase of voting technology that doesn’t currently exist — and it’s on the verge of costing taxpayers more than $100 million. Sponsors of the provision said they aimed to prevent cheating in elections by prohibiting the use of modern technology to count votes and store cast ballot data. It passed without debate on a voice vote, and goes into effect just before the November 2026 general election.  When it does, millions of dollars’ worth of voting equipment will immediately be prohibited by the new law, a situation that could force at least some counties to hand-count ballots for lack of a legal alternative. Election officials across the state are worried they’ll be left without the tools necessary to safely deliver accurate and timely election results.

WISCONSIN:  Early Voting Begins In 2023’s Most Consequential Election For Democracy 

  • The Guardian: ‘Stakes Are Monstrous’: Wisconsin Judicial Race Is 2023’s Key Election: Voting is under way in an under-the-radar race that could wind up being the most important election in America this year. At stake is control of the Wisconsin supreme court. Because control of state government in Wisconsin is split between Democrats and Republicans, the seven-member body has increasingly become the forum to get a final decision on some of the most consequential issues in the state – from voting rights to abortion. Since Wisconsin is one of the most politically competitive states and a critical presidential battleground, these decisions have national resonance. Millions of dollars have already begun to pour into the race, which is widely expected to become the most expensive supreme court election in state history. The state primary is on 21 February and the top two finishers will advance to a general election in April. Conservatives currently have a 4-3 majority on the court. One of the conservative justices, Patience Roggensack, is retiring, giving liberals a chance to flip the court. The outcome of that race in April will determine control of the court through the 2024 presidential elections.

What Experts Are Saying

Debra Perlin, policy director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW): “January 6th was an attack on the very foundations of our democracy. Individuals who engaged in insurrection should not be permitted to hold positions of public trust in the government that they tried to overthrow,” said Debra Perlin, Policy Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Delegate [Dan] Helmer’s legislation barring insurrectionists from positions of public trust is a necessary step towards protecting our democracy.” ABC 13 News

Lilliana Mason, political science at Johns Hopkins’ SNF Agora Institute: “[M]ost Americans do not have an accurate view of the beliefs held by members of the opposing political party, Mason said. Research has shown, for example, that Republicans far overestimate the portion of the Democratic Party that is Black. Meanwhile, Democrats far overestimate the portion of the Republican Party that earns more than $250,000 a year. ‘We’re also overestimating the degree to which we think they disagree with us on policy,’ Mason said, pointing to polling data that suggest the American public could compromise on many issues. ‘That makes us hate each other more.’…Eliminating that stress will be difficult, because Mason points out that any effort now to collaborate, or acknowledge the correctness of a political belief different than our own, feels like an attack on our identity. That’s painful, and something Americans – particularly those in positions of power – don’t want, Mason said. ‘The closer we come to being a fully egalitarian, pluralistic, multiethnic democracy, the worse all of this gets,’ Mason said. ‘Yet, that’s what we need to do. That’s what, literally, the Constitution – the 14th Amendment – we haven’t lived up to it yet. Our Constitution requires that we become a pluralistic, multiethnic democracy.’” The Spokesman-Review

Joyce Vance, former US attorney: “Pence has given interviews and written a book about the end of the Trump administration. But so far, he’s only revealed the information that he wanted to. Prosecutors will want to know about everything else, including the details of all of his interactions with Trump that connect to the outcome of the election and what followed. And why wouldn’t Pence testify, unless he believes there are details that would taint Trump and, by implication, his political future if he revealed them? Pence ducked testimony before the January 6 committee with the ridiculous assertion that it was enough to “let” his advisors testify. If a CEO tried to send over his assistant to testify before a grand jury after the CEO observed a bank robbery in progress, there’s no way the assistant would be accepted as a substitute witness. That would be true even if they saw part of the crime, but not the entire course of conduct the CEO observed. And if the criminals had tried to enlist the CEO to join their conspiracy to rob the bank beforehand, but the CEO declined, there would be no question they were an essential witness. That’s Mike Pence. Trump tried to convince him to join his conspiracy to obstruct certification of the 2020 election. Pence needs to answer the questions prosecutors want answered, not just the ones that helped him sell his book. Prosecutors can’t make a decision about indictments until they speak to Pence.” Civil Discourse 

Heather Cox Richardson, American historian: “Over all the torrent of news these days is a fundamental struggle about the nature of human government. Is democracy still a viable form of government, or is it better for a country to have a strongman in charge? Democracy stands on the principle of equality for all people, and those who are turning away from democracy, including the right wing in the United States, object to that equality. They worry that equal rights for women and minorities—especially LGBTQ people—will undermine traditional religion and traditional power structures. They believe democracy saps the morals of a country and are eager for a strong leader who will use the power of the government to reinforce their worldview. But empowering a strongman ends oversight and enables those in power to think of themselves as above the law. In the short term, it permits those in power to use the apparatus of their government to enrich themselves at the expense of the people of their country. Their supporters don’t care: they are willing to accept the cost of corruption so long as the government persecutes those they see as their enemies. But that deal is vulnerable when it becomes clear the government cannot respond to an immediate public crisis. That equation is painfully clear right now in Turkey and Syria[.]” Letters from An American 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

New York Times: Steve Bannon’s Podcast Is Top Misinformation Spreader, Study Says

Politico: Republicans clash with prosecutors over enforcement of abortion bans

January 6 And The 2020 Election

ABC: Mike Pence subpoenaed by special counsel overseeing Trump probes: Sources

NBC: Man who carried a Confederate flag in the Capitol on Jan. 6 is sentenced to 3 years

New York Times: Biden Removes the Top Capitol Facilities Official Amid Allegations of Wrongdoing

Politico: Capitol building’s top manager prompts fury with admission he avoided Hill on Jan. 6

Talking Points Memo: How The Fake Electors Scheme Explains Everything About Trump’s Attempt To Steal The 2020 Election

Other Trump Investigations.

CNN: Trump team turns over additional classified records and laptop to federal prosecutors

The Guardian: Trump was issued subpoena for folder marked ‘Classified Evening Briefing’ discovered at Mar-a-Lago

New York Times: Trump Lawyer in Mar-a-Lago Search Appeared Before Grand Jury

Washington Post: After helping prince’s rise, Trump and Kushner benefit from Saudi funds

In The States

Associated Press: GOP election tactics no surprise to Wisconsin’s Black voters

Bolts: Mississippi Power Grab Heightens Focus on State’s Punitive Court System