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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — July 21, 2022

By July 21, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

What To Watch For Today:

The January 6 committee will hold a primetime hearing at 8:00 PM focused on Trump’s inaction on the day of the insurrection. Steve Bannon’s criminal contempt trial continues as the prosecution rests its case. 

Must Read Stories

Dereliction of Duty: Tonight’s January 6 Hearing Will Focus On Trump’s Failure To Act 

  • Axios: 187 Minutes: Jan. 6 Hearing To Show Trump’s Deliberate Inaction: The Jan. 6 committee on Thursday will walk through, in detail, former President Trump’s reported inaction during the 187 minutes that a violent mob attacked the Capitol, aiming to show that he deliberately chose not to intervene. The big picture: Using recorded and in-person testimony, the committee will highlight evidence that Trump was fully briefed and aware of the events that were unfolding in real time on Jan. 6, and despite pleas from people inside and out of the White House, he waited several hours to intervene. “One of the main points that we’re going to make here is that President Trump … was the sole person who could call off the mob, and he chose not to,” a select committee aide told reporters. What to expect: During the primetime 8 p.m. hearing, the committee will “demonstrate who was talking to [Trump] and what they were urging him to do in that time period,” the committee said. “We’re going to talk about when he was made aware of what was going on in the Capitol. We’re going to hear testimony from individuals who spoke to the president.” In-person testimony from those in the West Wing, including from former deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger and deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, will detail what the president, his aides, his allies and his family were doing while the rioters were inside the Capitol. The committee says they also have evidence showing how around the time Trump released a recorded video telling his supporters to finally “go home,” it was clear the insurrection would fail.
  • New York Times: Jan. 6 Panel to Sum Up Its Case Against Trump: Dereliction of Duty:  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol plans to return to prime time on Thursday to deliver what amounts to a closing argument in the case it has made against former President Donald J. Trump, accusing the former commander in chief of dereliction of duty for failing to call off the assault carried out in his name. To do so, the panel will put two military veterans — Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia and Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois — front and center in leading its presentation and questioning. Ms. Luria, the only Democrat on the panel involved in a competitive re-election race, served in the Navy for more than 20 years and achieved the rank of commander. Mr. Kinzinger is an Air Force veteran who flew missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the witnesses they plan to question in person, Matthew Pottinger, who was deputy national security adviser under Mr. Trump and the highest-ranking White House official to resign on Jan. 6, 2021, is a Marine Corps veteran. In an interview previewing the hearing, which is scheduled for 8 p.m. on July 21, Ms. Luria said the panel planned to document in great detail how Mr. Trump did nothing for more than three hours while his supporters stormed the Capitol, raising ethical, moral and legal questions around the former president.
  • Washington Post: Even A Day After Jan. 6, Trump Balked At Condemning The Violence: One day after the last rioter had left the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald Trump’s advisers urged him to give an address to the nation to condemn the violence, demand accountability for those who had stormed the halls of Congress and declare the 2020 election to be decided. He struggled to do it. Over the course of an hour of trying to tape the message, Trump resisted holding the rioters to account, trying to call them patriots, and refused to say the election was over, according to individuals familiar with the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. The public could get its first glimpse of outtakes from that recording Thursday night, when the committee plans to offer a bold conclusion in its eighth hearing: Not only did Trump do nothing despite repeated entreaties by senior aides to help end the violence, but he sat back and enjoyed watching it. He reluctantly condemned it — in a three-minute speech the evening of Jan. 7 — only after the efforts to overturn the 2020 election had failed and after aides told him that members of his own Cabinet were discussing invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

Trump Set The Nation On The Path To Violence On January 6 

  • Washington Post: Trump’s Choices Set Nation On Path To Jan. 6 Violence, Committee Shows:  That account came from a White House aide who testified to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which over seven public hearings this summer has laid out an elaborate case with a stark conclusion: It was Donald Trump himself who repeatedly set the nation on the path to violence in the weeks after he lost reelection.At each moment when Trump could have soothed an agitated nation, he escalated tensions instead, the committee has illustrated through its presentation of 18 live witnesses, scores of videotaped depositions and vast documentary evidence. At each moment when longtime loyal advisers offered their view that his election loss was real, he refused to listen and found newcomers and outsiders willing to tell him otherwise. On at least 15 different occasions, the president barreled over those who told him to accept his loss and instead took actions that sought to circumvent the democratic process and set the nation on the path to violence, according to the committee’s evidence.
  • NBC: In Harvard Study Of Jan. 6 Rioters, Top Motivation Is Clear: Trump:  Researchers at Harvard University who conducted the largest study yet of what motivated Jan. 6 rioters say the data is clear: The most common responses focused on former President Donald Trump and his lies about the election. The study, which was shared with NBC News ahead of its publication, logged and analyzed the motives of 417 Capitol rioters, all of whom have been charged in relation to Jan. 6. The motives were derived from 469 documents filed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, including charging documents and sentencing memoranda. The researchers from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University wrote that the documents make clear that Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., “was mostly correct in her assessment” that “Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.” “Far and away, we find that the two most commonly-cited reasons for breaching the US Capitol were a desire to support Trump on January 6th in DC and concerns about election integrity,” the report reads.

Trump Is Not Above Accountability  

  • ABC: AG Garland Reiterates ‘No Person’ — Not Even Trump — Is Above The Law Over Jan. 6:  Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday reiterated that “no person,” not even a former president, was above the law amid calls from some congressional Democrats to charge Donald Trump after last year’s Capitol riot. During a press conference, a visibly animated Garland twice said that “no person” was above the law when pressed specifically about Trump, whom Democrats say incited the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection over his unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020. Democrats also cite Trump’s larger, months-long campaign to try and reverse his election loss. (Trump insists he did nothing wrong.) The Department of Justice has been prosecuting various cases related to the rioting last January. “There is a lot of speculation about what the Justice Department is doing, what’s it not doing, what our theories are and what our theories aren’t, and there will continue to be that speculation,” the attorney general said Wednesday. “That’s because a central tenant of the way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenant of the rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in the public.” “We have to hold accountable every person who is criminally responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election, and we must do it in a way filled with integrity and professionalism,” Garland added.
  • Politico: ‘It’s The Accumulation’: The Jan. 6 Hearings Are Wounding Trump, After All: The conventional wisdom about the Jan. 6 committee hearings was that no single revelation was going to change Republican minds about Donald Trump. What happened instead, a slow drip of negative coverage, may be just as damaging to the former president. Six weeks into the committee’s public hearing schedule, an emerging consensus is forming in Republican Party circles — including in Trump’s orbit — that a significant portion of the rank-and-file may be tiring of the non-stop series of revelations about Trump. The fatigue is evident in public polling and in focus groups that suggest growing Republican openness to an alternative presidential nominee in 2024. The cumulative effect of the hearings, according to interviews with more than 20 Republican strategists, party officials and pollsters in recent days, has been to at least marginally weaken his support.

Bipartisan Senators Announce Deal To Reform The Electoral Count Act 

  • USA Today: Bipartisan Group Of Senators Announce Deal To Reform Electoral Count Act: Following months of negotiations, a bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday introduced two new bills meant to install new safeguards for the certification of presidential election results. The reforms to the Electoral Count Act includes new protections for presidential elections and the transition of power, clarifying a contentious question in the White House in the lead-up to the certification of the election by Congress: could the vice president overturn the election? The reforms clarify that the vice president’s role is purely ceremonial, ensuring that no vice president would have the power to overturn the election. Former President Donald Trump and his allies pressured former Vice President Mike Pence to interfere with the counting of electoral votes over objections from White House attorneys, according to testimony given to the House Jan. 6 committee.

New Polling Shows Americans Less Confident In Elections, More Accepting Of Political Violence 

  • CNN: CNN Poll: Americans’ Confidence In Elections Has Faded Since January 6:  Most Americans lack confidence that the results of US elections reflect the will of the people, a sentiment that has grown steadily since January 2021, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. And about half of Americans, 48%, say they think it is at least somewhat likely that in the next few years, some elected officials will successfully overturn the results of a US election because their party did not win. Follow-up interviews with people who participated in the poll suggest that the driving factors behind Republicans’ and Democrats’ views on elections are near-opposite. But there is a common thread: Concern. When asked her outlook on the future of American democracy, Patricia Reasoner, an 83-year-old independent from Vermont, said, “I’m concerned because we came so close this time and we’re not putting enough controls in place to keep it from happening again so far. And if it happens again, I’m afraid it will topple us.” In January 2021, shortly after the attack on the US Capitol, 59% of Americans said they had at least some confidence that US elections reflected the will of the people. That included 36% who were very confident that elections were representative of the public’s wishes. Now, a year and a half later, only 42% have some confidence, and just 16% are very confident.
  • The Guardian: One In Five Us Adults Condone ‘justified’ Political Violence, Mega-Survey Finds:  One in five adults in the United States, equivalent to about 50 million people, believe that political violence is justified at least in some circumstances, a new mega-survey has found. A team of medical and public health scientists at the University of California, Davis enlisted the opinions of almost 9,000 people across the country to explore how far willingness to engage in political violence now goes. They discovered that mistrust and alienation from democratic institutions have reached such a peak that substantial minorities of the American people now endorse violence as a means towards political ends. “The prospect of large-scale violence in the near future is entirely plausible,” the scientists warn. A hardcore rump of the US population, the survey recorded – amounting to 3% or by extrapolation 7 million people – believe that political violence is usually or always justified. Almost one in four of the respondents – equivalent to more than 60 million Americans – could conceive of violence being justified “to preserve an American way of life based on western European traditions”. Most alarmingly, 7.1% said that they would be willing to kill a person to advance an important political goal. The UC Davis team points out that, extrapolated to US society at large, that is the equivalent of 18 million Americans.

Republicans Continue To Plot Revenge On The January 6 Committee, Endless Investigations Of The 2020 Election 

  • Politico: GOP Lawmaker Who Gave Jan. 5 Tour Wants To Investigate Jan. 6 Panel:  The House Republican who led a tour of the Capitol complex on Jan. 5, 2021, that further fueled Democratic worries of pre-riot “reconnaissance” could end up leading the GOP’s investigation of the Jan. 6 select committee. Rep. Barry Loudermilk found himself in the select panel’s crosshairs over his Jan. 5 tour, where participants took photos of stairwells and other elements of the Capitol complex not typically of interest to visitors. The Georgia Republican denied any connection between the tour and the following day’s riot — and he may get a chance to offer his side of the story with a gavel in hand if Republicans take back the House next year, as expected. Loudermilk told POLITICO that he is interested in chairing the House Administration Committee in a future GOP majority, using it to dig into the Jan. 6 panel and Capitol security. That chairmanship is wide open and Loudermilk is the most senior Republican on the committee after Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, who lost his primary last month. In a brief interview, Loudermilk dinged the select committee as giving Capitol security a short shrift in service of “some narrative of pushing blame somewhere.” He added that members of the administration committee, which has jurisdiction over the Capitol complex, “also need to look at things like the false allegations they’ve made against people … because when you make false allegations, that’s in violation of the House rules.”
  • The Hill: Eyeing Majority, House Gop Mulls Election Investigations: House Republicans planning to take control of the chamber in this year’s midterms are weighing how much of a priority to make examining election systems and laws.  Some conservatives, particularly the most vocal of Trump supporters, are pointing to perceived issues in the 2020 election that they think deserve attention.  

Far Right Group Of Sheriffs Vow To Investigate Voter Fraud In Their Jurisdictions 

  • Reuters: Right-Wing U.S. Sheriffs Vow To Probe 2020 Voter-Fraud Claims: A coalition of rightwing “constitutional sheriffs,” who claim legal power in their jurisdictions that exceeds U.S. federal and state authorities, has a new calling: investigating conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was rigged against former President Donald Trump. The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association has teamed with True the Vote, a Texas nonprofit and purveyor of debunked voter-fraud claims, to recruit like-minded sheriffs nationwide to investigate 2020 stolen-election allegations and to more aggressively police future voting. The partnership, detailed last week at the association’s annual gathering in Las Vegas, aims to intensify a movement already underway. At least four ideologically aligned county sheriffs in Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas and Arizona have launched election-fraud probes since the 2020 vote. None has established evidence of systemic fraud.

In The States 

MICHIGAN:  Michigan Democrats Seek Probe Of Their Colleagues For “Seditious Conspiracy” To Overturn Election 

  • Detroit News: Michigan Dems Seek Probe of 11 GOP Lawmakers For ‘Seditious Conspiracy’ To Overturn The 2020 Election: Michigan House Democrats introduced a resolution Wednesday asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate 11 of their Republican colleagues for attempting “to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election.” Sponsored by Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit, the proposal is extremely unlikely to gain traction in the GOP-controlled House but underscores Democrats’ beliefs that federal authorities should probe the actions that high-ranking Michigan Republicans took in the wake of Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden.

WISCONSIN: Wisconsin GOP Blocks Clerks From Assisting Voters 

  • Associated Press: Wisconsin GOP Blocks Clerks From Fixing Ballot Addresses: Wisconsin Republicans erased regulations Wednesday allowing local election clerks to fill in missing information on absentee ballot envelopes, the latest move in the GOP’s push to tighten voting procedures in the crucial swing state. The Wisconsin Elections Commission developed an emergency rule earlier this year that permits local clerks to fill in missing witness address information on absentee envelopes without contact the witness or the voter. The rule reflected guidance the commission issued to clerks in October 2016. The guidance was in effect during the 2020 presidential election, which saw Joe Biden narrowly defeat then-President Donald Trump. The Republican-controlled Legislature’s rules committee voted 6-4 to suspend the emergency rule. The guidance remains in place, but it’s unclear how many clerks might follow it in light of the committee vote and a court could soon erase it as well.

What Experts Are Saying

Retired Four-Star U.S. Generals and Admirals: Steve Abbot, Peter Chiarelli, John Jumper, James Loy, John Nathman, William Owens and Johnnie Wilson: “The inquiry by the House’s Jan. 6 committee has produced many startling findings, but none to us more alarming than the fact that while rioters tried to thwart the peaceful transfer of power and ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the president and commander in chief, Donald Trump, abdicated his duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” NYT Op-Ed: We Are Retired Generals and Admirals. Trump’s Actions on Jan. 6 Were a Dereliction of Duty.

Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus at Harvard Law: “WI GOP Assembly Speaker says Trump called him within the last week trying to get him to overturn the 2020 election. As recently as this past week! The former guy is incorrigible. This helps prove he fully intended to undo his loss, not just to argue he had won.” Tweet 

American Historian Heather Cox Richardson, re: Trump administration’s attempt to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census: “This is a stark example of the dangers of turning our government over to an authoritarian leader who will use our fundamental governmental systems to draw power to himself. This census question had the potential to affect our governmental system profoundly…This is just the latest example of Trump and his allies trying to use our government to cement their power[.]” Letters from an American 

Eugene R. Fidell, adjunct professor at Yale Law School and NYU Law School, and Dennis Aftergut, a former assistant U.S. attorney: “‘Dereliction of duty’ is a serious accusation, and based on what has already emerged in the committee’s hearings, one that fits. Without even getting into what Trump did before Jan. 6th, it is beyond question that he was aware in real time of the violence at the Capitol, that he could have given orders to quell the disorder, that he did nothing for hours on end to call off the mob he had helped to summon, and that he had only kind things to say to his violent supporters. Given every American president’s constitutional obligation to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ there is no escaping the fact that Trump was derelict.” The Bulwark

Norm Eisen, senior fellow at Brookings Institution, Frederick Baron, a former Justice Department associate deputy attorney general, and Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor: “The Secret Service deserves an opportunity to fully explain the process by which the texts came to be deleted. But it is clear that this most important chapter in the history of our republic can only be fully and accurately written with access to those missing texts or truthful testimony about what they would have revealed.” Salon  

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

New York Times: With Democrats’ Help, a Far-Right Candidate Rose in Maryland

Raw Story: ‘It’s the Murder Of Our Country’ Mike Lindell Says ‘Billion’ Will Watch His Election Fraud ‘Summit’  

Vice: The GOP Just Nominated a ‘QAnon Whackjob’ and a ‘True Confederate’ in Maryland

Washington Post: Arizona Senate candidate embraces Trump’s extreme style

January 6 And The 2020 Election

Axios: House Republicans praise Mike Pence for “courage” on Jan. 6

CNN: Jan. 6 committee has outtakes of Trump’s message to supporters day after riot

CNN: Former Trump White House aide who met with January 6 panel attacks witnesses, lawmakers in profane and sexist rant

Insider: 11 pro-Trump ‘fake electors’ in Georgia gave interviews for an investigation before realizing they were the targets of the prosecution

NBC: Judge orders Rudy Giuliani to testify before grand jury in Trump election probe

New York Times: Liz Cheney, Front and Center in the Jan. 6 Hearings, Pursues a Mission

NPR: A majority thinks Trump is to blame for Jan. 6 but won’t face charges, poll finds

USA Today: Feds rest in Steve Bannon contempt case. Jan. 6 committee repeatedly warned of possible prosecution

Washington Post: Elaine Luria prepares to lead Jan. 6 hearing, connect Trump to violence

Washington Post: Secret Service watchdog knew in February that texts had been purged

Washington Post: Trump called ‘within the last week’ to overturn Wis. election results, speaker says

Other Trump Investigations

New York Times: New Findings Detail Trump Plan to Use Census for Partisan Gain

New York Times: Democratic Group Sues the Federal Election Commission Over Trump’s 2024 Hinting

Opinion

New York Times: We Are Retired Generals and Admirals. Trump’s Actions on Jan. 6 Were a Dereliction of Duty.

Washington Post (Editorial): A bill to prevent Trump’s attempted coup is finally ready — and must pass

Washington Post (Greg Sargent): How tech billionaire Peter Thiel is scaring Republicans about 2022

Political Violence

Kansas City Star: Members of Congress Ask Department of Defense To Investigate Greitens Campaign Video 

In The States 

Baltimore Sun: Maryland Gov. Hogan won’t support Republican nominee Cox to replace him

Colorado Springs Independent: Two conspiracy theorist GOP candidates allege fraud in primary election, seek recounts

Insider: How a fight over Trump’s endorsement, white nationalist online trolls, and a Holocaust denier has upended an Arizona GOP state Senate primary

Investigate West: In Washington, County Auditor Elections Become Battleground For Far-Right Election Deniers