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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — February 2, 2023

By February 2, 2023No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Republicans To Ramp Up Focus On Election Fraud Claims 

  • Washington Post: GOP Report Shows Plan To Ramp Up Focus On Disproven Election Fraud Claims: A new internal report prepared by the Republican National Committee proposes creating a permanent infrastructure in every state to ramp up “election integrity” activities in response to perceptions within GOP ranks of widespread fraud and abuse in the way the country selects its leaders. The report, prepared by the RNC’s “National Election Integrity Team” and obtained by The Washington Post, reveals the degree to which Republicans continue to trade on former president Donald Trump’s false claims that Democrats and their allies rigged his defeat in 2020. The report suggests building a massive new party organization involving state-level “election integrity officers” and intensive new training models for poll workers and observers — all based on unsubstantiated claims that Democrats have implemented election procedures that allow for rigged votes. Yet the report also acknowledges that the GOP’s obsession with election fraud has cost the party, most notably in 2021, when mistrust in elections contributed to a drop in Republican turnout in two U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia, costing the party its Senate majority. The report concludes that the party must continue building on efforts begun after that electoral disaster to restore Republican faith in their elections. But instead of combating misinformation about fraud, the report encourages the recruitment of staff and volunteers to monitor elections and the development of more aggressive legal strategies to “hold election officials accountable for violating the law.”

Election Officials Brace For The Next Wave Of Trump Followers 

  • Politico: Election Officials Ready Themselves For The Next Wave Of Trump Followers: Hundreds of local election officials across the country are about to confront a political challenge putting their management skills and their campaign chops to the test: Administering the 2024 presidential vote while running for reelection themselves. Donald Trump acolytes galvanized by the former president’s false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from him piled into last year’s campaigns for state election officer positions. And although Democrats and mainstream Republicans defeated all of those candidates in key battleground states like Michigan, Arizona and elsewhere, far more races for local election positions there and in other states will be up for grabs next year. The slate of below-the-radar campaigns will test how much money and attention will be available for these critical roles in the midst of a presidential race.

The GOP-Run House Put An Election Denier In Charge Of The Ethics Committee 

  • HuffPost: The GOP’s House Ethics Committee Will Be Led By An Election Denier: Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday announced his picks for the new GOP-led House Ethics Committee: Republicans who lied to the public about the results of the 2020 presidential vote and tried to throw the election to its loser, Donald Trump. “House Republicans are working to restore integrity, accountability, and transparency to the halls of Congress,” said McCarthy, who also tried to subvert the results of that election, in a statement. “The Members on this committee will work to build trust among the American people and will ensure Members of Congress are held to a standard worthy of their title.” Of the five Republicans McCarthy named to the ethics panel, three voted to overturn the presidential election by fueling the lie that it was stolen from Trump. They are the committee’s new chair, Rep. Michael Guest (Miss.), along with Reps. John Rutherford (Fla.) and Michelle Fischbach (Minn.). The other two GOP members are Reps. Dave Joyce (Ohio) and Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.).

In The States 

ARIZONA:  Arizona Republicans Fear A Repeat Of 2022 As Election Denying Extremists Gear Up For New Campaigns 

  • Politico: Arizona Republicans Fear They May Blow It Again: Kyrsten Sinema’s defection from Democrats should be a golden opportunity for the GOP. But two high-profile 2022 election losers in Arizona are eyeing Senate runs in 2024, sparking angst among Republicans that they will blow an increasingly winnable race. Republican Blake Masters, who lost his Senate bid last year by 5 percentage points, is setting himself up for another potential run, talking to consultants and making calls about the contest. Some Arizona GOP strategists are treating it as a foregone conclusion that he’ll jump in, although a person familiar with his moves said he is truly undecided at this point and just testing the waters. Kari Lake, the unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate, is also considering a Senate campaign, but any decision is expected to come after her legal challenge alleging false claims that her 2022 election was stolen is completed, according to a person close to her. The possibility of Lake and Masters entering the political waters once more is complicating the newfound optimism GOP officials felt about capitalizing on Sinema’s recent party switch to independent.

What Experts Are Saying

Joyce Vance, former US attorney: “It’s still astonishing that so many Americans were taken in by a man whose possible crimes are so numerous that when we learn the Manhattan DA has a new grand jury investigation, we have to stop and figure out which of them is involved. In April, Trump faces a civil trial over allegations he defamed former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll when he denied raping her. This fall, Trump faces a trial over financial fraud charges brought by New York’s Attorney General. Trump is under criminal investigation in Georgia, and a special counsel is considering federal charges related to both his refusal to return classified material to the federal government and his role in the Big Lie/January 6. He is facing 2024 primary challenges from Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, and that list is certain to grow. Trump is increasingly going to be fighting for his company’s survival and his political future with his back against the wall. The last time he was in a similarly precarious position was on January 6, when, having exhausted all possible lawsuits and even an attempted effort to subvert DOJ, Trump was out of options for holding onto power after losing the election. We all know how that went.” Civil Discourse

Miles Taylor, chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security (MSNBC Video): “I think what’s on [Scott Perry’s] phone is probably digital smoking gun evidence of his close involvement to this plot… He’s clearly one of the key players fanning the flames of the conspiracy theory that led to the attack” Tweet 

Kathleen Belew, associate professor of history at Northwestern University: “The reference to the tree of liberty is white power rhetoric that connects to the Oklahoma City bombing, among other domestic terrorist actions. This should not be treated as an isolated actor. The Pelosi suspect here is using ideological content from the white power movement.” Tweet 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

HuffPost: Marjorie Taylor Greene Compares Tyre Nichols To Capitol Rioter Ashli Babbitt

Washington Post (Analysis): Republican Party Brings Election Fraud Allegations Back Into The Fold: 

Trump 2024

Washington Post: How Trump’s legal expenses consumed GOP donor money

January 6 And The 2020 Election

NBC: Top Jan. 6 investigator says FBI, other agencies could have repelled Capitol mob had they acted on intel already collected

New York Times: Bias and Human Error Played Parts in F.B.I.’s Jan. 6 Failure, Documents Suggest

Politico: Jan. 6 defendant who sprayed line of police sentenced after tearful apology

Political Violence

Axios: Dems raise alarms about Capitol security ahead of State of the Union

Opinion

New York (Jon Chait): Debt Ceiling Extortion Is an Attack on Democracy