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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — January 9, 2024

By January 9, 2024No Comments

Driving the Day

Must Read Stories

Division and denial: America three years after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack

  • Washington Post: Three years after the Jan. 6 attack, the political divide is even wider: “Three years on, there is no escaping the impact on American politics of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The passage of time has not moved the country toward any sort of consensus on what happened that day. It has done the opposite, with the cleavages that existed then now wider than they once were. This is one major reason that, beyond the issues of inflation, the border, or abortion, the 2024 election is viewed around the world as enormously consequential.”
  • New York Times: On Jan. 6 Anniversary, Trump Repeats Lie That 2020 Election Was Stolen: “Three years to the day that supporters of Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory, Mr. Trump said yet again that the mob had been acting ‘peacefully and patriotically.’ He called for the release of people imprisoned for their actions that day, and he criticized the congressional committee that investigated the attack as ‘fake.’ Speaking to crowds of several hundred people at two events on Saturday in Iowa, Mr. Trump, who faces criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, made only passing references to the riot, focusing much of his speeches instead on criticizing President Biden’s policies. But at his second event, Mr. Trump — who has repeatedly referred to the people serving sentences in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack as ‘hostages’ — called on Mr. Biden to free them. More than 1,200 people have been arrested in connection with the attack, 170 have been convicted of crimes at trial and more than 700 have pleaded guilty.”
  • Washington Post: Google location data was used to find Jan. 6 rioters. It’s disappearing: “Special counsel Jack Smith has a plan for how to illustrate Donald Trump’s influence over the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors will show a map of people gathered around the Ellipse to hear Trump say, “We’re going to the Capitol” to ‘fight like hell,’ then follow those supporters in real-time as they head down Pennsylvania Avenue to where lawmakers were certifying President Biden’s victory. That visualization, detailed in court filings in Trump’s federal election subversion case in D.C., was created with data from Google. But the tool that has pitted law enforcement investigative priorities against personal privacy concerns soon won’t be so accessible. The company will no longer store location history that was used to identify hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and to prosecute the man those rioters hoped to keep in power.”
  • New York Times: Book-Signing for Marjorie Taylor Greene on Jan. 6 Stirs a Backlash: “A Florida venue canceled an event on Saturday featuring Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia congresswoman and acolyte of Donald J. Trump, after materials promoting the event advertised it, in part, as an occasion marking the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The gathering was being organized by the Osceola County Republican Party in central Florida as a book-signing event for Ms. Greene. It was supposed to take place on Saturday at the Westgate Resorts in Kissimmee, Fla. But backlash ensued after State Representative Anna V. Eskamani, a Democrat, posted on social media a screenshot of a text that advertised the event as being on the ‘3rd Anniversary of Jan 6.’”
  • Washington Post: Trump’s promotion of debunked election report reveals divisions in his circle: “Former president Donald Trump took to his social media website one day this past week to post a report ridden with falsehoods about fraud in the 2020 election. His legal team cited Trump’s post in a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where he faces charges of obstructing the election. Yet that same day, as Trump and his lawyers promoted the report — which one of his campaign aides wrote, according to people familiar with the matter — others in his campaign started distancing themselves from it. A campaign spokesperson declined to comment, and another campaign aide referred questions to the legal team. ‘This was not posted to the campaign’s website, and we’re not lawyers,’ said the aide, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter more freely. Trump’s legal team, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.”
  • New York Times: How Hillsdale Got Mixed Up in the 2020 Election Plot: “Just hours after the final polls closed on election night, in a televised speech from the White House, the president declared the election ‘a fraud on the American public’; he and his allies proceeded to spread the lie of a rigged election on Fox News, on conservative talk radio, and on Twitter. Giuliani had held his infamously unhinged news conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, where he floated the idea that ‘ballots have been manufactured in advance’ by Democrats. On Nov. 17, according to The Detroit News, the president called two members of the Board of Canvassers of heavily Democratic Wayne County and pressed them not to certify. Three days later, he brought a delegation of the state’s Republican legislative leaders to the White House to hear out his fraud claims. It is unclear precisely how the Hillsdale contingent was brought into this widening conspiracy-seeking swirl. But the college was nothing if not well connected.”
  • Washington Post: How the GOP’s rewriting of Jan. 6 paved the way for Trump’s comeback: “Donald Trump spent the days after Jan. 6, 2021, privately fuming about the election and his media coverage. Leaving office with an approval rating below 40 percent, he skipped Joe Biden’s inauguration and retreated to Mar-a-Lago. He was banned from posting on Twitter and avoided public appearances. The next month, he accepted an invitation to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, his first post-presidential speech. On the drive, Trump seemed surprised that the roads again closed for his motorcade, an adviser said. A rapturous reception appeared to lift his spirits, the adviser said. Still, his speech made no mention of the event that prompted his isolation: the deadly attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol. In those early months of lying low, Trump himself was not the main driver in rewriting Republicans’ collective memory of Jan. 6.”

Prosecutors counter Trump’s contempt accusations

  • The Hill: Smith slams Trump’s request for contempt charge against him as ‘recycled allegations’: “Special counsel Jack Smith denounced former President Trump’s request for contempt charges against him on Friday, saying the effort is just bringing up ‘recycled allegations.’ Trump’s attorneys filed a contempt claim Thursday due to a dispute over how Judge Tanya Chutkan has paused activity in the case. The legal team claimed that due to a stay in the case, prosecutors should have halted all activity, including new filings. ‘The defendant claims that the Government intentionally violated the Court’s stay order, and promoted a political agenda, by fulfilling its continuing discovery obligations and voluntarily complying with otherwise suspended deadlines. That is false,’ federal prosecutors wrote in the Friday court filing.”
  • New York Times: Prosecutors Push Back on Trump’s Contempt Claims in Election Case: “Federal prosecutors pushed back on Friday night against former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to hold them in contempt of court for continuing to file motions while the case accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election is paused. The filing by the prosecutors, who work for the special counsel, Jack Smith, was the latest salvo in a tit-for-tat battle over the unusual freeze in the election interference case, which is central to the government’s attempts to hold Mr. Trump accountable for seeking to reverse his electoral defeat to Joseph R. Biden Jr.”

In the States

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey governor signs bill allowing 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections

  • Associated Press: New Jersey to allow teens who’ll be 18 by a general election to vote in primaries: “Seventeen-year-olds in New Jersey will be able to vote in primaries if they’ll be 18 by the next general election under legislation signed by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. New Jersey will join 19 other states and the District of Columbia with similar laws on the books, according to a tally by the National Conference of State Legislatures, though its new law won’t take effect until 2026. Murphy cast the bill signed Thursday as a bolster to democracy. ‘We see how the decisions we make today impact future generations. I am proud to sign legislation that expands access to the ballot box while engaging and empowering a new generation of voters,’ he said in a statement. The state previously allowed 17-year-olds to register to vote if the person would be 18 at the general election, but the law considered those teens ineligible to vote until they reached their 18th birthday.”

MICHIGAN: Michigan redistricting commission to appeal court decision

  • Michigan Advance: As time runs short, federal judges weigh process to redraw some Michigan legislative districts: “It would be a “foolhardy” gamble for the court to put all its chips on the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) fixing its legislative maps given current circumstances, U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond M. Kethledge said Friday as he and two other federal judges attempted in a Kalamazoo court to chart the best path forward as another statewide election looms. In a unanimous decision last year, Kethledge and U.S. District Court Judges Paul L. Maloney and Janet T. Neff sided with a group of Black metro Detroit voters who raised legal action against the new voting districts the commission drew in 2021. On Dec. 21, the judges found that the MICRC had drawn several of its voting districts based primarily on race, leading to Black voting power in metro Detroit being diluted. The judges ruled that 13 state House and Senate districts in the Detroit area be redrawn. Now the judges, commission, and plaintiffs who brought the legal action are trying to work out solutions alongside the Secretary of State’s Office to ensure maps can be redrawn and ready for elections this year.”
  • MLive: Michigan’s redistricting panel votes to appeal federal ruling that tossed 13 legislative districts: “Michigan’s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission voted Thursday evening to appeal a federal court ruling that invalidated a series of state legislative districts in metropolitan Detroit. The vote came less than a day before attorneys representing the commission are scheduled to argue in federal court that they are best suited to take on the redrawing of the 13 legislative districts around Detroit, which a three-judge panel found violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the representation of Black voters in Detroit. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, instead, argued an outside expert should lead the additional redistricting, allowing the commission to weigh in alongside the Detroiters who initially sued the state in 2022 over the commission’s maps.”

OHIO: Voting rights group filed a lawsuit over whether Ohio’s photo ID law violates the ADA

  • Ohio Capital Journal: Voting, disability rights advocates claim Ohio photo voter ID law violates federal disabilities law: “Starting last year, Ohioans had to present a photo ID to cast a vote. That change was part of a sweeping piece of legislation known as House Bill 458. In addition to requiring photo identification, the measure reduced the number of days available for early voting and for returning absentee ballots. Despite Republican lawmakers’ decision to renege a few months after passage, the bill also eliminated August special elections. But now, the League of Women Voters is challenging that law over a different set of provisions. HB 458 imposes a limited list of individuals ‘authorized’ to return absentee ballots on behalf of someone else. Eligible relatives include a spouse, immediate family members, in-laws, grandparents, aunts and uncles, or nieces and nephews. Notably, grandchildren and cousins don’t make the cut. Other trusted non-family members like friends, neighbors, caregivers, or even domestic partners could also face felony charges for returning a loved one’s ballot.”

What Experts Are Saying

Norm Eisen, regarding Trump’s presidential immunity case, on X (Twitter): “100% Under DC Cir law the panel can BOTH find that Trump, of course, does not have absolute immunity— & that the question should not have been taken up on interlocutory appeal but should’ve waited until the normal course post-trial. The stay should be lifted & trial prep resume ASAP.”

Andrew Weissmann, Heather Sawyer, and Joshua Kolb, on a potential trial delay in the Jan. 6 trial against Trump, for MSNBC: “Trump also claims that ‘double jeopardy principles’ are implicated by the Impeachment Judgment Clause. But Trump was never in jeopardy: the impeachment wasn’t a criminal trial, and the Double Jeopardy Clause only applies to criminal trials. Moreover, the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits successive prosecutions regardless of whether the prior one resulted in acquittal or conviction. And the clause applies only when the same crime is charged successively, which is not true here.  Does that mean the D.C. Circuit cannot also address the underlying immunity questions if it rules that Trump is not entitled to appeal his immunity claim before trial? Absolutely not. Indeed, in order to preserve the March 4 trial date, and because the circuit court does not know how the Supreme Court may rule on the Midland issue, it should reach the merits of the immunity claim now. It can do so under D.C. law — the court has previously exercised hypothetical jurisdiction, which simply allows the court to rule on both the threshold jurisdiction question and consider the underlying merits of an appeal.”

Norm Eisen, at a January 4 press briefing refuting Trump’s claims to immunity: “If Donald Trump were to be afforded the form of immunity that he seeks as a former President, the election to the presidency would serve as a ’get out of jail free’ card … that would allow the Oval Office to become the setting for a crime spree. … It cannot be right that any fig leaf of connection to official duties allows a President to have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution.”

Olivia Troye, former special advisor to Vice President Pence, at the January 4 press briefing: “Should [Trump] be granted immunity, the lesson that we will be teaching not only him, but others of opposing parties that we may not necessarily agree with, is that they can get away with pretty much anything. … [T]here won’t be any guardrails. … And that will be the lesson that we will be teaching other potential future leaders of our country and that is also the lesson that we are telling the entire world and the international community, which to me is incredibly dangerous, and undermines the beacon of democracy that America stands for.”

Andrew Weissman, on Trump’s immunity case, on X (Twitter): “Yes, of course, Trump was engaged in a dispassionate search for voting fraud, regardless of whether it helped or hurt his election cause, which he viewed as a fait accompli. That’s why he was so interested in his many experts alerting him to the lack of election fraud.”

Headlines

Extremism

Washington Post: Trump says Civil War ‘could have been negotiated.’ Historians disagree

The Atlantic: Extremism in the Military Is a Problem

The Daily Beast: ‘Qanon Shaman’ Demands the FBI Return the Horns He Wore During Riot

Rolling Stone: MAGA Conspiracy World Is Flooding the Zone With Epstein Garbage

The Guardian: Election denier Kristina Karamo voted out as Michigan Republican party chair

Trump investigations and cases

Washington Post: Trump allies seek to co-opt coming election-security case to bolster 2020 lie

Roll Call: Appeals panel to hear oral arguments on Trump immunity

January 6 and the 2020 Elections

Axios: Nearly 1,300 arrests made since Jan. 6 attack

Politico: Court says even passive members of Jan. 6 mob can be convicted of disorderly conduct

ABC: Multiple Jan. 6 fugitives arrested at Florida ranch 3 years after Capitol attack: FBI

Politico: Pence says he believes the FBI didn’t contribute to the Jan. 6 riot

Opinion

New York Times: Jamelle Bouie: If Trump Is Not an Insurrectionist, What Is He?

New York Times: Ross Douthat: Is Trump an Agent or an Accident of History?

The Hill: David Skaggs: The legal case for Trump’s disqualification is clear

New York Times: New York Times Editorial Board: A Warning About Donald Trump and 2024

Newsweek: Annie Kuster: On January 6, All That Separated Me From the Rioters Was 30 Seconds

New York Times: Jamelle Bouie: Trump Doesn’t Actually Speak for the Silent Majority

In the States

NPR: 3 novel legal arguments by Republicans that threaten the Voting Rights Act in 2024

KAAL: Election year brings new opportunity for convicted felons in Minnesota

WDAY: ND lawmakers meet and continue discussions after judge finds voting map violates the Voting Rights Act