Driving the Day:
This new Supreme Court case is perhaps the gravest threat to American democracy since the #January6th attack. https://t.co/R7GucTlVho
— Defend Democracy Project (@DemocracyNowUS) July 1, 2022
Must Read Stories
Supreme Court Takes Case That Could Grant Vast Powers To State Legislatures To Control Elections
- Washington Post: Supreme Court To Review State Legislatures’ Power In Federal Elections: The Supreme Court on Thursday said it will consider what would be a fundamental change in the way federal elections are conducted, giving state legislatures sole authority to set the rules for contests even if their actions violated state constitutions and resulted in extreme partisan gerrymandering for congressional seats. The case, from North Carolina, could have enormous impact on the 2024 election, and it is the second major election law case the justices will review in the term that begins in October. They have already taken a case from Alabama that will allow them to reconsider the scope of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race.
- Vox: A New Supreme Court Case Is The Biggest Threat To Us Democracy Since January 6: The Supreme Court’s announcement on Thursday that it will hear Moore v. Harper, a case that could concentrate an unprecedented amount of power in gerrymandered state legislatures, should alarm anyone who cares about democracy. The case is perhaps the gravest threat to American democracy since the January 6 attack. It seeks to reinstate gerrymandered congressional maps that were struck down by North Carolina’s highest court because they “subordinated traditional neutral redistricting criteria in favor of extreme partisan advantage” for the Republican Party. The plaintiffs argue that the state supreme court didn’t have the authority to strike down these maps, and rest their claim on legal arguments that would fundamentally alter how congressional and presidential elections are conducted. Moore involves the “independent state legislature doctrine,” a theory that the Supreme Court has rejected many times over the course of more than a century — but that started to gain steam after Republican appointees gained a supermajority on the Supreme Court at the end of the Trump administration. Under the strongest form of this doctrine, all state constitutional provisions that constrain state lawmakers’ ability to skew federal elections would cease to function. State courts would lose their power to strike down anti-democratic state laws, such as a gerrymander that violates the state constitution or a law that tosses out ballots for arbitrary reasons. And state governors, who ordinarily have the power to veto new state election laws, would lose that power.
New Details Emerge About How Trump World Is Pressuring January 6 Witnesses
- Politico: New Details Of Jan. 6 Panel’s Mystery Messages Emerge: The Jan. 6 select committee publicly pointed to two communications this week as potential evidence of Trump-world’s efforts to influence witness testimony — without revealing their origin. Both were detailed to the panel by Cassidy Hutchinson, according to a person familiar with the last of her four depositions. Both of the two slides that the panel revealed at the end of its live hearing with Hutchinson reflected conversations she described to the committee in her final closed-door deposition, this person said. Hutchinson told the committee at the time that, on the eve of her earlier March 7 deposition, an intermediary for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows contacted her to say that her former boss valued her loyalty. “[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow,” read a slide that the Jan. 6 committee broadcast at the end of Hutchinson’s hearing, which Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) characterized as pressure on a key witness. “He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.” Meadows is the person whose name was redacted in that slide. Contents of that final deposition were described to POLITICO, which could not independently corroborate the identity of the intermediary or that Meadows directed any message be delivered to Hutchinson before her second deposition.
- New York Times: Trump Group Pays for Jan. 6 Lawyers, Raising Concerns of Witness Pressure: Former President Donald J. Trump’s political organization and his allies have paid for or promised to finance the legal fees of more than a dozen witnesses called in the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, raising legal and ethical questions about whether the former president may be influencing testimony with a direct bearing on him. The arrangement drew new scrutiny this week after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide in his White House, made an explosive appearance before the House panel, providing damning new details about Mr. Trump’s actions and statements on the day of the deadly riot. She did so after firing a lawyer who had been recommended to her by two of Mr. Trump’s former aides and paid for by his political action committee, and hiring new counsel. Under the representation of the new lawyer, Jody Hunt, Ms. Hutchinson sat for a fourth interview with the committee in which she divulged more revelations and agreed to come forward publicly to testify to them. It is not known whether Ms. Hutchinson’s change in counsel led directly to her willingness to appear at a televised hearing and provide a more detailed, wide-ranging account of what she witnessed, but some members of the panel believe that it played a role, according to two people familiar with the committee’s work. Mr. Trump claimed that Ms. Hutchinson’s new lawyer could have prompted her to make false statements. “Her story totally changed!” he complained on his social media site, Truth Social. The episode raised questions about whether Mr. Trump and his allies may, implicitly or explicitly, be pressuring witnesses to hold back crucial information that might incriminate or cast a negative light on the former president. Mr. Trump and his advisers have been accused before of trying to influence witnesses in past investigations involving him. The committee is known to ask witnesses frequently during closed-door interviews whether anyone has tried to influence their testimony.
- Washington Post: How Trump World Pressures Witnesses To Deny His Possible Wrongdoing: Evidence across multiple state, federal and congressional investigations points to a similar pattern: Trump and his close allies privately shower potential witnesses with flattery and attention, extending vague assurances that staying loyal to Trump would be better than crossing him. Meanwhile, Trump publicly blasts those who offer testimony against him in bluntly personal terms, offering a clear example to others of the consequences of stepping out of line. “Donald Trump never changes his playbook,” Michael Cohen said in an interview. “He behaves like a mob boss, and these messages are fashioned in that style. Giving an order without giving the order. No fingerprints attached.”
Poll: Half of Americans Think Trump Should Be Charged With Crimes For January 6
- Associated Press: About Half Say Trump Should Be Charged For 1/6: AP-NORC Poll: About half of Americans believe former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, a new poll shows. The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 48% of U.S. adults say the Republican former president should be charged with a crime for his role, while 31% say he should not be charged. An additional 20% say they don’t know enough to have an opinion. Fifty-eight percent say Trump bears a great deal or quite a bit of responsibility for what happened that day. The poll was conducted after five public hearings by the House committee investigating Jan. 6, which has sought to paint Trump’s potential criminal culpability in the events that led to deadly insurrection. But it was taken before Tuesday’s surprise hearing featuring former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Her explosive testimony provided the most compelling evidence yet that the former president could be linked to a federal crime, experts say.
- HuffPost: Bush Attorney General Lists Crimes Trump Could Be Prosecuted For Over Jan. 6: Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Thursday that former President Donald Trump and his allies could be prosecuted for a number of crimes over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including seditious conspiracy and obstruction of Congress. “He knew the crowd was dangerous. He encouraged the crowd to go to the Capitol. And he knew the crowd was armed. And he knew the purpose of what was going on in Congress, which is to certify the Electoral College count,” Gonzales told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “I think one might make the argument that there’s certainly the beginnings of a case for seditious conspiracy, obstruction of Congress.” Gonzales, who served during George W. Bush’s administration, said current Attorney General Merrick Garland could consider prosecuting a number of crimes. “So there are some things here that I think certainly Merrick Garland is going to look at in addition to witness tampering, that’s something that’s also a crime. So there’s there is a lot there, Jake,” he said.
In The States
Election Conspiracy Events Held In Nearly Every State
- NPR: Election Deniers Have Taken Their Fraud Theories On Tour — To Nearly Every State: On a quiet Tuesday night in Howard County, Md., dozens of people gather in a community center and listen to Seth Keshel’s 10-point plan. “Captain K,” as he’s known in election fraud circles, is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, and he is walking through his go-to presentation: comparisons of vote totals from the past few election cycles, which he falsely claims prove President Biden’s win in 2020 was illegitimate. His 10-point plan to “true election integrity” includes banning all early voting and requiring all American voters to re-register. The next night, more than a thousand miles away in Minneapolis, in a small building across from a popular garden shop, roughly 60 people wait for David Clements to take the stage. Clements, professorial in a tan blazer with a graying beard and unruly curly hair, begins his presentation with a prayer. Then he goes to the slideshow. The audience, which appears to be all white and mostly middle-aged, occasionally gasps as he shows charts and graphs, which he claims contain evidence of widespread election fraud. Clements ends his talk with a request to the people in the audience: Go to the offices of your local officials. “They respond to fear,” he says. “You need to hold these institutions with the contempt they deserve.” An NPR investigation found that since Jan. 6, 2021, the election denial movement has moved from Donald Trump’s tweets to hundreds of community events like these — in restaurants, car dealerships and churches — led by a core group of election conspiracy influencers like Keshel and Clements. These local gatherings may reach fewer people than viral internet posts, but they seem to effectively spur action by regular people, who are motivated by their almost evangelical intimacy.
What Experts Are Saying
Richard L. Hasen, professor at University of California, Irvine School of Law, on Moore v. Harper, an “independent state legislature” theory case from North Carolina: “This case has the potential to fundamentally rework the relationship between state legislatures and state courts in protecting voting rights in federal elections. It also could provide the path for election subversion in congressional and presidential elections.” Slate
Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket, on the Supreme Court taking up the North Carolina voting map case: “Shorter: The future of our democracy is on the docket.” Tweet
Don Moynihan, McCourt Chair at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University: “The January 6th hearings have illustrated the deep threats to American democracy such that only the most die-hard Trumpists can deny them. One categorical error we cannot make is assuming the threats to democracy are purely, or even primarily, a reflection of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies…The Prehn case in Wisconsin offers a telling data-point about democratic erosion in the states, where gerrymandered state legislatures can effectively maintain their policy control of the executive even when they lose the only elections they have not rigged.” Can We Still Govern?
Jake Grumbach, a political scientist at the University of Washington: “The United States is becoming more polarized, with a ‘red America’ and ‘blue America’ clearly emerging. But my research also shows another, more worrisome dynamic beneath that split: This version of America is also becoming less democratic.” Politico Magazine
Norm Eisen @NormEisen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution: “NEW: Wanna know why I think Trump’s gonna be prosecuted? Our @just_security evidence tracker, that’s why! Sixth Ed. just up 👇LINK” Tweet
Harry Litman, former US attorney: “How much have the 1/6 committee hearings effected Republican elites’ loyalty to Trump? I talked with Talking Feds regular @juliettekayyem about what she believes to be the best measure of success for the committee and their effectiveness so far. Listen at LINK” Tweet
Maria J. Stephan, Co-Lead and Chief Organizer for The Horizons Project: “The January 6th hearings have exposed a fundamental truth about authoritarianism: that it ultimately depends on the consent and acquiescence of individuals. The failure of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election wasn’t inevitable. There was nothing ironclad about the U.S. Constitution, courts, legislatures (including Congress), or electoral bodies to prevent Trump from remaining in power if enough people had gone along with his scheme. Instead, it took Republican officials, senior Trump advisors, conservative lawmakers, media personalities, and others — combined with significant grassroots pressure — to prevent an orchestrated subversion of the American people’s freedom to choose their leaders.” Just Security
Headlines
The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections
Bloomberg: Trump’s 2024 Prospects Dented by Jan. 6 Probe, GOP’s Toomey Says
CNBC: GOP megadonors turn on Trump after Jan. 6 hearings, set sights on DeSantis, Pence and other 2024 hopefuls
CNN (Analysis): Jan. 6 committee revelations may give Republicans opening to take on Trump in 2024
CNN: Cheney defends Trump criticism and January 6 committee work in Wyoming debate
Politico: Dems unite Jan. 6 and Roe for new battleground target: ‘MAGA’ Republicans
January 6 And The 2020 Election
Bloomberg: Jan. 6 Surprise Witness Is Biggest TV Draw of Daytime Hearings
NBC: Biden plans to deliver major Jan. 6 speech when House probe ends
Politico: Jan. 6 committee rallies around Hutchinson amid Trump World onslaught
Talking Points Memo: Ex-Trump WH Aide Details Why Hutchinson Switched Lawyers Weeks Before Damning Testimony
Opinion
Politico (Jacob Grumbach): The Supreme Court Just Rolled Democracy Back. You Can Measure How Much.
Slate (Rick Hasen): It’s Hard to Overstate the Danger of the Voting Case the Supreme Court Just Agreed to Hear:
Wall Street Journal (Karl Rove): The Trump 2024 Test Runs
Washington Post (Greg Sargent): Trump faces new danger in subpoena of White House counsel
In The States
The Bulwark: Texas Republicans Get Deadly Serious About Secession
KCUR: As he faces GOP attacks, Eric Greitens takes campaign against ‘RINOs’ to Jefferson County
