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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — July 18, 2022

By July 18, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

What To Watch For Today: 

Jury selection begins in Steve Bannon’s criminal contempt trial. 

Must Read Stories

This Week’s Primetime January 6 Committee Hearing Will Show Trump’s “Dereliction Of Duty” 

  • Associated Press: Panel: Hearing To Show Trump’s Jan. 6 ‘Dereliction Of Duty’: A House committee’s prime-time hearing Thursday will offer the most compelling evidence yet of then-President Donald Trump’s “dereliction of duty” on the day of the Jan. 6 insurrection, with new witnesses detailing his failure to stem an angry mob storming the Capitol, committee members said Sunday. “This is going to open people’s eyes in a big way,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a member of the House committee investigating the riot who will help lead Thursday’s session with Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va. ”The president didn’t do anything.” After a year-long investigation, the House Jan. 6 panel is seeking to wrap up what may be its last hearing, even as its probe continues to heat up. The committee says it continues to receive fresh evidence each day and isn’t ruling out additional hearings or interviews with a bevy of additional people close to the president. One such figure is Steve Bannon, whose trial begins this week on criminal contempt of Congress charges for refusing to comply with the House committee’s subpoena. The committee also issued an extraordinary subpoena last week to the Secret Service to produce texts by Tuesday from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, following conflicting reports about whether they were deleted.
  • Axios: Jan. 6 Committee To Make Case For Trump Crimes:  The House Jan. 6 committee’s prime-time hearing later this week will include none-too-subtle signals to the Justice Department about possible illegal activity by President Trump, congressional sources tell Axios. Why it matters: The committee is continuing its laser focus on Trump and anything he may have done to encourage or prolong the attack on the Capitol. It has assembled a mountain of transcripts and other evidence that could be used in federal prosecutions. Hearing 8 — Thursday at 8 p.m. ET, and possibly the summer finale — is aimed at showing Trump was derelict in his duty as commander-in-chief by not calling off the mob during the attack, and even fanning the flames. The committee will try to make the case that Trump wanted to overturn the election by any means necessary.
  • Washington Post: Committee Has ‘Filled In The Blanks’ On Trump’s Jan. 6 Activities, Kinzinger Says: President Donald Trump did “nothing” to stop the riot at the Capitol as it was unfolding on Jan. 6, 2021, and new witnesses will fill in the gaps in Trump’s activities that day when the House select committee investigating the attack holds its next hearing, members of the bipartisan panel said Sunday. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who is scheduled to lead the prime-time hearing on Thursday, said the session “is going to open people’s eyes in a big way” as they examine Trump’s actions in detail over the hours the Capitol was overrun by a mob seeking to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college win. “We have filled in the blanks,” Kinzinger said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. Trump “didn’t do very much but gleefully watch television during this time frame.” Kinzinger, one of two GOP members of the bipartisan panel who has come under regular attacks from Trump for his role on the committee, implored his fellow Republicans to watch the next hearing with an open mind and ask themselves: “Is this the kind of strong leader you really think you deserve?”

Criminal Probes Intensify:  Justice Department Steps Up Investigation Of Trump Associates, Top Georgia Republicans Named As Targets In Fulton County DA Investigation

  • Wall Street Journal: Justice Department Steps Up Jan. 6 Probe of Those in Trump’s Orbit: The Justice Department is adding prosecutors and resources to its investigation into the actions of former President Donald Trump’s allies to overturn the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the matter, as the related congressional hearings have turbocharged interest in Mr. Trump’s own role in that effort. A Justice Department team focusing on elements of the investigation beyond the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has in recent weeks been given more personnel, office space and an expanded mandate, the people said. Prosecutors have charged around 850 people in connection with the Jan. 6 violence, including more than a dozen members of right-wing groups charged with engaging in a seditious conspiracy against the U.S.
  • Atlanta Journal Constitution: Top Georgia Republicans Informed They’re Targets Of Fulton DA Probe:  At least two high-ranking Georgia Republicans who served as “alternate” presidential electors have been informed they’re targets of the Fulton County district attorney’s criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 elections. GOP Chairman David Shafer and state Sen. Burt Jones, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, recently received letters from the DA’s office informing them they could be indicted, according to two sources with direct knowledge. Yahoo! News, which first reported the letters, said that Republican state Sen. Brandon Beach was also told he is a target.

New Information: Little Known Fringe Attorney Pitched Trump Directly On Most Extreme Plans To Overturn The Election 

  • New York Times: Little-Known Lawyer Pitched Trump on Extreme Plans to Subvert Election:  Around 5 in the afternoon on Christmas Day in 2020, as many Americans were celebrating with family, President Donald J. Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., on the phone with a little-known conservative lawyer who was encouraging his attempts to overturn the election, according to a memo the lawyer later wrote documenting the call. The lawyer, William J. Olson, was promoting several extreme ideas to the president. Mr. Olson later conceded that part of his plan could be regarded as tantamount to declaring “martial law” and that another aspect could invite comparisons with Watergate. The plan included tampering with the Justice Department and firing the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, according to the Dec. 28 memo by Mr. Olson, titled “Preserving Constitutional Order.” “Our little band of lawyers is working on a memorandum that explains exactly what you can do,” Mr. Olson wrote in his memo, obtained by The New York Times, which he marked “privileged and confidential” and sent to the president. “The media will call this martial law,” he wrote, adding that “that is ‘fake news.’” The document highlights the previously unreported role of Mr. Olson in advising Mr. Trump as the president was increasingly turning to extreme, far-right figures outside the White House to pursue options that many of his official advisers had told him were impossible or unlawful, in an effort to cling to power. The involvement of a person like Mr. Olson, who now represents the conspiracy theorist and MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, underscores how the system that would normally insulate a president from rogue actors operating outside of official channels had broken down within weeks after the 2020 election.

AP Investigation: Despite Conspiracy Theories, No Major Problems Seen With Ballot Dropboxes In 2020 

  • Associated Press: No Major Problems With Ballot Drop Boxes In 2020, AP Finds:  The expanded use of drop boxes for mailed ballots during the 2020 election did not lead to any widespread problems, according to an Associated Press survey of state election officials across the U.S. that revealed no cases of fraud, vandalism or theft that could have affected the results. The findings from both Republican- and Democratic-controlled states run contrary to claims made by former President Donald Trump and his allies who have intensely criticized their use and falsely claimed they were a target for fraud. Drop boxes are considered by many election officials to be safe and secure, and have been used to varying degrees by states across the political spectrum. Yet conspiracy theories and efforts by Republicans to eliminate or restrict them since the 2020 election persist. This month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that drop boxes are not allowed under state law and can no longer be widely used. Drop boxes also are a focal point of the film “2,000 Mules,” which used a flawed analysis of cellphone location data and ballot drop box surveillance footage to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election.

With His Criminal Contempt Trial Set To Begin, A New Look At Steve Bannon’s Efforts To Subvert Democracy 

  • CNN: Power In Chaos: Steve Bannon Is Disrupting Democracy. This Is How: As a single mom with a full-time job, Wendy Ahrenkiel had little time for politics. But after the 2020 election, when Joe Biden was declared President, she felt cheated — and found the time. Ahrenkiel, 47, has heard the arguments in the mainstream media about how claims of a stolen election in 2020 are unsupported by credible evidence. But she still doesn’t buy it. “I thought that there’s a lot of funny things that went on with the election,” she told CNN. “That made me just do my own research.” That research led her to talk politics with friends — many of them moms like her — who clued her in to a show called “War Room,” hosted by a man with whom she was only vaguely familiar: Stephen K. Bannon. Bannon doesn’t just touch on the election canard, he pounds it with a sledgehammer day after day on “War Room” — a program that reaches audiences online and on air. The audio version is usually among the top three Apple political podcasts in the United States.  […] Her plunge into politics is precisely what Bannon is asking of his audience, which he has dubbed “the War Room Posse.” Bannon’s hope is they will become foot soldiers in an army of conservatives who will join his mission to torch the establishment wing of the Republican Party, replace it with a new crop of MAGA-minded candidates and crush the Democratic Party by any means necessary. Launched in late 2019 during the run-up to Trump’s first impeachment, “War Room” is a low-budget, high-profile show with Bannon as the host. The format is loose, with Bannon interspersing his interviews with personalities, politicians and conspiracy theorists on the right with his own outbursts of inflamed commentary. The show is a hefty contributor to a grassroots surge that is sending political neophytes to city councils, school boards, and state legislatures, as well as to the polls to oversee voting — largely out of a sense that the nation has turned against them, and out of a baseless suspicion that the election infrastructure is rigged.

In The States 

ARIZONA: GOP Establishment Steps Up Efforts To Block Trump-Aligned Kari Lake From Winning The Gubernatorial Nomination 

  • Politico: Pence Endorses Robson For Arizona Governor, Colliding With Trump In Key Primary: Former Vice President Mike Pence is endorsing Republican Karrin Taylor Robson in the Arizona governor’s race, pitting himself against Donald Trump in a primary that is emerging as a proxy fight between the former president and Republicans who resisted his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. It represents the latest breach in the relationship between Trump and Pence, and it’s the second time the two have collided in a primary. And Pence is slated to campaign for Robson on Friday — creating a dramatic split-screen moment opposite Trump, who is set to hold a rally for his endorsed candidate, former local TV news anchor Kari Lake, the same day.
  • Associated Press: GOP Establishment Steps Up Push To Block Trump Ally In Ariz.:  Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has already helped block one of former President Donald Trump’s allies from winning the Republican nomination for governor in a crucial battleground state. Now he’s hoping for a repeat in his own backyard. Ducey is part of a burgeoning effort among establishment Republicans to lift up little-known housing developer Karrin Taylor Robson against former television news anchor Kari Lake, who is backed by Trump. Other prominent Republicans, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have also lined up behind Robson in recent days. The push is reminiscent of how many leading Republicans rallied around Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in the final stretch of his ultimately successful bid to fend off a Trump-endorsed primary challenger. Few states have been as central to Trump’s election lies as Georgia and Arizona, the two closest 2020 battlegrounds where he pushed aggressively to overturn the results and fumed when Kemp and Ducey refused to go along. Trump has already faced a setback in Georgia, and the Aug. 2 race in Arizona is among his last opportunities to settle scores and install allies to lead states that may prove decisive if he decides to run again in 2024.

What Experts Are Saying

Jill Wine-Banks, former federal prosecutor during Watergate scandal, re: Justice Department statement that former presidential advisors do not have absolute immunity from Congressional testimony: “It’s about time. Justice requires limited immunity to apply to current and former aides and the president as it did in US v Nixon. It also requires that Congress’ need be recognized as being as compelling as the need in a criminal case so that Nixon case would apply to #Jan6Cmtee” Tweet

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, NYU historian: “By the fall of 2022, when the midterm elections take place, at least several GOP state parties will therefore have passed resolutions that no longer recognize Biden as head of state. Given that Biden’s term as president does not end until Jan. 2025, this trend creates a worrying and unsustainable state of exception that could end in a constitutional crisis or in widespread civil strife.” Lucid 

Joyce Vance, former US attorney: MSNBC Video: ‘Trump’s going to turn this into a political witch hunt if he becomes a target of a DOJ investigation no matter what his status as a candidate is,’ says @JoyceWhiteVance about the former president possibly announcing a bid for reelection in order to help him legally. #Velshi” Tweet 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

Associated Press: Parroting Trump, GOP primary losers cast doubt on elections

Casper Star Tribune: For Wyoming Democrats, voting for Cheney is another chance to vote against Trump

The Hill: Poll: Cheney trails Trump-backed challenger in Wyoming by 22 points

Politico: Democrats for Murkowski: Alaska Republican counts her fans across the aisle

January 6 And The 2020 Election

Associated Press: Trial expected to begin for ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon

Axios: Focus groups: Wisconsin swing voters say Trump guilty for Jan. 6

Axios: Former Pence aide: Testifying to Jan. 6 panel could set “very risky precedent”

CBS: Top Trump aide Peter Navarro rejects plea deal from prosecutors

CNN: DHS inspector general told Jan. 6 panel he went to Mayorkas about Secret Service cooperation

CNN: House Republicans plot investigative revenge on January 6 panel as Trump itches for payback

The Hill: Kinzinger says Trump would probably lie under oath to Jan. 6 committee

NBC: An Army veteran who re-enlisted after assaulting police on Jan. 6 was sentenced to more than 3 years

NBC: The FBI hasn’t arrested hundreds who joined the Capitol mob on Jan. 6. Just ask this MAGA comedian.

NBC: DOJ seeks longer sentence for Capitol rioter they labeled as a domestic terrorist

Politico: A criminal probe of Trump could complicate Jan. 6 cases

Politico: Justice Dept. backs House over Jan. 6 subpoena to Meadows

Politico: Trump campaign operative who delivered Jan. 6 false elector lists is identified

Rolling Stone: Trump Tells Team He Needs to Be President Again to Save Himself from Criminal Probes

USA Today: Jan. 6 committee expects Secret Service to meet Tuesday deadline on text messages

Washington Post: Facing trial, Bannon vows to go ‘medieval,’ but judge says meh

Washington Post: N.Y. men who pepper-sprayed officers on Jan. 6 sentenced to 44 months

Other Trump Investigations

Associated Press: Deposition of Trump, 2 children delayed after Ivana’s death

Opinion

CNN (Fred Wertheimer and Norm Eisen): The next January 6 panel’s hearing will be another blockbuster

The Hill (Larry Garber and Edward McMahon): US election deniers promoting democracy abroad defies reason

In The States 

Arizona Republic: US House candidate Kathleen Winn withdraws lawsuit over Pinal County’s ballot blunders

Wisconsin State Journal: Judge orders Robin Vos to produce election review records, citing ‘ineffectual records practices’