Skip to main content
Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — July 15, 2022

By July 15, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day:

Must Read Stories

Secret Service Deleted Key Text Messages After Oversight Officials Requested Them; DC Police Corroborate Details Of Heated Exchange Between Trump And USSS On January 6 

  • The Intercept: Secret Service Deleted Jan. 6 Text Messages After Oversight Officials Requested Them:  The Secret Service erased text messages from January 5 and January 6, 2021, according to a letter given to the January 6 committee and reviewed by The Intercept. The letter was originally sent by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General to the House and Senate homeland security committees. Though the Secret Service maintains that the text messages were lost as a result of a “device-replacement program,” the letter says the erasure took place shortly after oversight officials requested the agency’s electronic communications. The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Secret Service has emerged as a key player in the explosive congressional hearings on former President Donald Trump’s role in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to prevent the 2020 election results from being certified. That day, then-Vice President Mike Pence was at the Capitol to certify the results. When rioters entered the building, the Secret Service tried to whisk Pence away from the scene.  “I’m not getting in the car,” Pence reportedly told the Secret Service detail on January 6. “If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off.” Had Pence entered the vice presidential limo, he would have been taken to a secure location where he would have been unable to certify the presidential election results, plunging the U.S. into uncharted waters. “People need to understand that if Pence had listened to the Secret Service and fled the Capitol, this could have turned out a whole lot worse,” a congressional official not authorized to speak publicly told The Intercept. “It could’ve been a successful coup, not just an attempted one.”
  • Insider: The Jan. 6 Committee Wants To Reconstruct Deleted Secret Service Texts From The Day Of The Riot: Messages by agents on the day of the riot turned out to have been wiped from devices.The messages could contain important information about Donald Trump’s actions that day. The House Jan. 6 committee said it would try to reconstruct text messages by Secret Service agents on the day of the Capitol riot that were mysteriously deleted. On Thursday, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security said messages from Secret Service agents on January 5 and January 6, 2021, had been deleted in a “device-replacement program.” The IG’s office noted that the messages vanished after it requested records from the Secret Service as part of its investigation into the riot at the US Capitol. Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson told Axios that it had asked the IG to investigate how the messages were lost. Thompson said he wanted to get the texts back if possible, but was not clear on a means to do so. “It’s concerning, obviously,” he said. “If there’s a way we can reconstruct the texts or what have you, we will.”
  • CNN: DC Police Officer In Trump Jan. 6 Motorcade Corroborates Details Of Heated Secret Service Exchange To Committee: A Washington, DC, police officer has corroborated to the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, details regarding a heated exchange former President Donald Trump had with his Secret Service detail when he was told he could not go to the US Capitol after his rally, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN. The officer with the Metropolitan Police Department was in the motorcade with the Secret Service for Trump on January 6 and recounted what was seen to committee investigators, according to the source. A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment. A spokesperson for Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately respond to comment. The description of the angry exchange between Trump and his Secret Service detail was a striking moment during the June testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Hutchinson said that she heard a secondhand account told to her by then-White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato that Trump was so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol on the day of the insurrection that “he reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel” and “then used his free hand to lunge towards” his Secret Service lead agent Robert Engel. Hutchinson testified that Ornato told her the story in front of Engel and he did not dispute the account.

Next Week’s Primetime Hearing To Focus On Trump’s Hourslong Failure To Stop The Riot On January 6 

  • CNBC: Jan. 6 Panel’s Next Hearing Will Focus On Trump’s Hourslong Failure To Stop The Capitol Riot: The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot said its next hearing will focus on how former President Donald Trump’s failure to quell the violent mob for several hours showed a “supreme dereliction of duty.” The committee’s eighth public hearing, expected to air in prime time July 21, marks its last scheduled presentation of evidence implicating Trump in a multi-pronged conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss that culminated in the deadly invasion. The final hearing will highlight the more-than-three-hour gap between Trump’s departure from a rally that preceded the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and his eventual call for the mob to go home, committee members said. The lawmakers “plan to go through that 187 minutes,” said Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., in an ABC News interview Wednesday afternoon. She is set to lead the hearing with Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.
  • Wall Street Journal: Jan. 6 Committee Considers Seeking Testimony From Donald Trump, Mike Pence: Members of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol are discussing the next steps in their investigation, including whether to seek an interview with former Vice President Mike Pence and potentially ex-President Donald Trump, according to one of the Republican members of the panel. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.), the panel member who will be leading some of the questioning at next Thursday’s prime-time hearing, said in an interview ahead of a meeting Thursday that the panel could decide to request a written interview with Mr. Pence. The committee could also discuss whether to issue a subpoena to the former vice president to try to compel him to testify, he said. The committee is also weighing whether it will ask Mr. Trump to testify, Mr. Kinzinger said. Earlier this year, Chairman Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.) had signaled it was unlikely that the panel would call Mr. Trump but other members indicated it was still under consideration. Mr. Thompson told reporters Tuesday that the question of whether to interview Mr. Pence would be part of the discussion at Thursday’s meeting. Late Thursday evening, Mr. Thompson and members of the committee gathered again. Asked if the panel planned to seek testimony from Mr. Pence, Mr. Thompson said: “We haven’t made a decision.”

Steve Bannon’s Contempt Trial Will Begin On Monday 

  • NBC: A Judge Once Again Declined To Delay Steve Bannon’s Trial For Contempt Of Congress: A judge on Thursday once again refused to delay Steve Bannon’s trial on charges of contempt of Congress, which is set to get underway Monday. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said he was “hopeful” they court be able to find a jury that hadn’t been paying close attention to the Jan. 6 committee hearings and didn’t know much about Bannon so it could fairly decide the case. Bannon’s lawyers had once again argued that there was too much pretrial publicity about the case. Their latest motion cited a CNN documentary that is supposed to air Sunday night. “We’re still going to be at trial on Monday,” Nichols said. Bannon was indicted last year after he refused to answer questions from the House Jan. 6 committee.

Prominent Conservatives Issue Report Debunking Trump’s Election Lies 

  • CNN: Prominent Conservatives Issue Report Rebutting Trump Election Claims: A group of conservatives, including prominent lawyers and retired federal judges, issued a 72-page report on Thursday categorically rebutting each of the claims made in court by former President Donald Trump and his supporters over the 2020 election results. The report, “LOST, NOT STOLEN: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election,” looked at more than 60 court cases Trump and his supporters filed and lost in six key battleground states. It reached the “unequivocal” conclusion that the former Republican president’s claims were unsupportable — which Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security as well as election officials nationwide debunked days after the 2020 election.

Trump And His Allies Plot His Return To Power 

  • Washington Post: Donald Trump Looks To Fall Launch For 2024, Potentially Upending Midterms: For nearly a year, a kitchen cabinet of Donald Trump confidants have told the former president not to announce his 2024 comeback candidacy before the midterms, arguing that he could be a drag on 2022 candidates and would be blamed if Republicans underperformed. But Trump has continued to regularly push for an early announcement in private meetings, as potential 2024 rivals become more aggressive amid signs of weakening support among his base. Now an increasing number of allies are urging him to follow his instincts as a way to shore up his standing in the party and drive turnout to help the GOP take over the House and Senate next year. The former president is now eyeing a September announcement, according to two Trump advisers, who like some others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. One confidant put the odds at “70-30 he announces before the midterms.” And others said he may still decide to announce sooner than September. Trump has begun talking with advisers about who should run a campaign, and his team has instructed others to have an online apparatus ready for a campaign should he announce soon, two people familiar with the matter said. He also has begun meeting with top donors to talk about the 2024 race, one of these people said, while on trips to various places across the country.
  • Bloomberg: Trump Allies Line Up Shadow Government as He Weighs Third Run: A group of Donald Trump’s former aides are preparing a turnkey administration for his return to the White House, as the embattled former president hints that he’s preparing to make a third run for the nation’s highest office. America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit led by former Trump cabinet member and World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon, has essentially assembled a shadow government for Trump — or, potentially, any other Republican who takes the White House from Democrats in 2024.  The organization, based a short walk from the White House, is also developing policy proposals for an expected Republican-controlled House in November. The administration-in-waiting includes potential cabinet members, senior White House officials and even political appointees at federal agencies. Trump is scheduled to headline an America First summit in Washington on July 26, his first return to the capital since he departed for Florida the morning of President Joe Biden’s inauguration. The former president has repeatedly suggested that he’s planning another run for the White House, even as polls show Republican voters are increasingly agitating for a new standard-bearer.

In The States 

ARIZONA: Mark Finchem Is One Of The Top Purveyors Of Election Lies, Now He Might Be Arizona’s Next Secretary Of State  

  • The Atlantic: The Bannon Strategy: You’d think that by now, Mark Finchem would be tired of subverting American democracy. For nearly two years, the Arizona state lawmaker has pushed Donald Trump’s stolen-election lies everywhere he possibly can—QAnon talk shows, Steve Bannon’s podcast, outside the U.S. Capitol building on January 6—and all with the dutiful enthusiasm of a Boy Scout. Despite the lack of any evidence, Finchem has continued to assert that Trump, not Joe Biden, won the 2020 election. This claim has been the bedrock of Finchem’s campaign for Arizona secretary of state. Finchem, who wears a cowboy hat and bolo tie despite having spent most of his life in Michigan, is not destined to win. He leads the Republican primary, but the party’s voters are still mostly undecided, and he could be a tough sell for independents in a general election. Still, Finchem’s candidacy is one to watch. He and the dozens of other election-denying candidates running across the country are the electoral legacy of January 6 in America. They present the most significant threat to American democracy in decades. And despite the expected electoral hurdles, this might just be their year.

COLORADO: Another Arrest Warrant Issued For Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters 

  • New York Times: A Judge Issues An Arrest Warrant For Tina Peters, The Colorado County Clerk Under Indictment: A judge in Colorado issued an arrest warrant on Thursday for Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk who is under indictment in relation to a breach of election equipment after the 2020 presidential contest, for violating conditions of her bond that prevented her from traveling without court approval. The judge, Matthew D. Barrett of Colorado’s 21st Judicial District, also revoked her $25,000 cash bond and called for her to be held in jail pending a hearing. Ms. Peters traveled to Las Vegas this week to speak at an event hosted by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a conservative group of county sheriffs and their allies. According to court documents, she did not obtain permission from the judge to travel outside Colorado. Ms. Peters had been deemed a flight risk and was ordered to remain in the state after she was indicted in March on criminal charges, including seven felonies, that stemmed from a scheme to copy sensitive election software from county voting machines in an effort to prove that the 2020 presidential election was tainted by fraud.

What Experts Are Saying

NEW “LOST, NOT STOLEN” REPORT: Authored by Prominent Conservatives, including retired Federal Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig, former Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, and longtime Republican election lawyer Benjamin L. Ginsberg: “This Report takes a hard look at the very serious charges made by Trump and his supporters…We hope that setting out the full record in this Report will help restore faith in the reliability of our elections.” Press Release | CNN | Report | More info available at lostnotstolen.org 

Donald Ayer, principal deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration and deputy attorney general under President George H. W. Bush, Stuart M. Gerson, former assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, and Dennis Aftergut, former federal prosecutor: “Any argument that Donald Trump lacked provable criminal intent is contradicted by the facts elicited by the January 6 committee. And the tradition of not prosecuting a former president must yield to the manifest need to protect our constitutional form of government and to assure that the violent effort to overthrow it is never repeated.” The Atlantic   

Harry Litman, former US attorney: “On videotape, Derek Lyons, former White House staff secretary who was present at the meeting, was asked if he remembered the president saying something along these lines: ‘They [meaning Cipollone] weren’t offering him any solutions, but Sidney Powell and others were, so why not try what Ms. Powell and others were proposing?’ ‘I do,’ Lyons testified. In other words, the criterion at issue for the president was overturning the will of the people and remaining in power. Details such as the law, evidence and truth were beside the point.” LA Times column: The Jan. 6 hearings identify the bad guy in the drama of democracy’s narrow escape — Trump

Barbara McQuade, former US attorney: MSNBC Video: Building on the January 6th Committee’s explanation that Donald Trump did not act to stop the attack on the Capitol when he could have, @BarbMcQuade explains how she arrives as the idea that Trump could be prosecuted for manslaughter. Tweet of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections 

News From The States: Criminalizing the vote: GOP-led states enacted 102 new election penalties after 2020

New York: Donald Trump on 2024: ‘I’ve Already Made That Decision’ The only question left in the former president’s mind is when he’ll announce.

Politico: Bidenworld, fellow Dems, dreaming of a Trump pre-midterm announcement

January 6 And The 2020 Election

The Hill: Jan. 6 panel changed script for star witness — at a steep cost

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Pennsylvania congressman launches internal investigation after Ron Johnson’s claims about false elector paperwork

NBC: Former White House attorney Ty Cobb: ‘Big Lie has been good only for Trump’

NBC: Jan. 6 committee expected to hold next hearing July 21 in prime time

Raw Story: All 50 Senate Republicans Weigh In On Jan 6 Hearings – Only 8 Are Watching 

Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Ex-Overstock CEO: Mark Meadows was present at wild White House meeting about seizing voting machines

Washington Post (Analysis): We have reached the apex of election-fraud debunking

Opinion

New York Times (Susan Stubson): Liz Cheney’s Last Stand

Washington Post (Greg Sargent): Leaked Steve Bannon audio is worse for Trump than it first appears

Political Violence

MyNorthwest: Man accused of threatening to kill Rep. Jayapal released after prosecutors fail to file charges in time

In The States 

Associated Press: Idaho Republicans considers resolution to reject 2020 election results

Baltimore Sun: Settle in for election ‘season’: Delay in start to mail-in ballot counting could lead to lengthy waits for Maryland primary results

HuffPost: Gab Was Key To The Tree Of Life Shooting. Doug Mastriano Seems To Be Paying It For Followers.