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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — July 26, 2022

By July 26, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

What To Watch Today: 

Donald Trump makes his first appearance in Washington, DC since leaving office in a 3:00 PM speech at the America First Agenda Summit 

Must Read Stories

Top Pence Aides Appear Before Grand Jury Investigating January 6

  • ABC: Former Pence Chief Of Staff Appeared Before Grand Jury Probing Jan. 6:  Marc Short, the former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, appeared before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Short confirmed to ABC News. Short, in an interview Monday night with ABC News’ Linsey Davis, said he was subpoenaed by a grand jury and complied with the subpoena, adding he “really can’t comment further than that” upon the advice of his legal counsel. ABC News first reported early Monday that Short had appeared last week before the grand jury. Short was caught by an ABC News camera departing D.C. District Court on Friday alongside his attorney, Emmet Flood. Short is the highest-ranking Trump White House official known to have appeared before the grand jury. “I think that having the Capitol ransacked the way that it was, I think did present liability and danger,” he told Davis in the interview. “And I think the Secret Service did a phenomenal job that day. I think that the bigger risk and despite the way perhaps it was characterized in the hearings last week, candidly, is that if the mob had gotten closer to the vice president, I do think there would have been a massacre in the Capitol that day.”
  • Wall Street Journal: Justice Department Questions Top Pence Aides Over Trump Bid to Overturn Election: The Justice Department has pressed top advisers to Mike Pence in recent weeks about efforts by several lawyers for former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election results, according to people familiar with the matter, as prosecutors escalate their 18-month Capitol riot probe. Two senior advisers to the former vice president, Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, and legal counsel Greg Jacob, appeared before a grand jury under subpoena in Washington in connection with the investigation, the people said. One area of interest to prosecutors was a Jan. 4, 2021, Oval Office meeting where conservative lawyer John Eastman pushed Mr. Pence, in Mr. Trump’s presence, to either reject the electoral votes outright or suspend the proceedings and ask several state legislatures to re-examine the results. Last month, Mr. Jacob testified at length before the Jan. 6 congressional committee about that meeting, which included Messrs. Trump, Pence, Short, Eastman and Jacob. During the meeting, Mr. Eastman admitted his proposals would violate the law but wanted to proceed anyway, Mr. Jacob said. “During that meeting on the Fourth, I think I raised the problem that both of Mr. Eastman’s proposals would violate several provisions of the Electoral Count Act. Mr. Eastman acknowledged that that was the case, that even what he viewed as the more politically palatable option would violate several provisions,” Mr. Jacob told the committee.

President Biden Castigates Trump For Failing To Act During January 6 Attack 

  • CNN: Biden Castigates Trump For Failing To Act During January 6 Insurrection: ‘Donald Trump Lacked The Courage’: President Joe Biden castigated his predecessor Monday for failing to respond to the January 6, 2021, insurrection, contrasting Donald Trump’s lack of action with the heroics of police officers responding to the Capitol riot. “Every day we rely on law enforcement to save lives. Then, on January 6, we relied on law enforcement to save our democracy,” Biden said in remarks delivered virtually to a conference for Black law enforcement officials being held in Florida. “We saw what happened: the Capitol Police, the DC Metropolitan Police, other law enforcement agencies were attacked and assaulted before our very eyes. Speared. Sprayed. Stomped on. Brutalized. Lives were lost,” Biden went on. “And for three hours, the defeated former President of the United States watched it all happen as he sat in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office. While he was doing that, brave law enforcement officers were subject to the medieval hell for three hours, dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage,” Biden said.

New Subpoena Details Emerge Showing Breadth Of DOJ’s January 6 Investigation 

  • Washington Post: Arizona Fake-Electors Subpoenas Show Breadth Of DOJ Jan. 6 Probe: Grand jury subpoenas issued last month to two Arizona state lawmakers show the breadth of the criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington into efforts by supporters of Donald Trump to use “false electors” to try to undo Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Copies of two subpoenas issued to Republican state senators from Arizona were released Monday via a public-records request, confirming what has been previously reported about the June demands for records related “to the signing or mailing of any document purporting to be a Certificate certifying Elector votes in favor of Donald J. Trump and/or Michael R. Pence.” The subpoenas issued to Karen Fann, president of the Arizona Senate, and Sen. Kelly Townsend also seek communications “relating to any effort, plan, or attempt to serve as an Elector” in favor of the then-president and then-vice president. A subpoena is not an accusation but rather a demand for information that investigators believe may help them solve a crime. The documents released Monday cast a wide net for any communications that Fann and Townsend may have had with any member of the executive or legislative branch of the federal government; any representative or agent of Trump or his campaign; or Trump boosters Jenna Ellis, Bernard Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, Boris Epshteyn, James Troupis, Joe DiGenova, John Eastman, Joshua Findlay, Justin Clark, Kenneth Chesebro, Mike Roman or Victoria Toensing. The subpoenas are just one part of a significant escalation and expansion of the Justice Department’s criminal probe of the events of and leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the election results. 

New Video Released By January 6 Committee Shows Trump Downplaying Attack, Refusing To Call For Rioters Prosecution 

  • Washington Post: Trump Didn’t Want To Call For Jan. 6 Rioters’ Prosecution, New Video Shows: President Donald Trump didn’t want to disavow the rioters who had stormed the U.S. Capitol in his name on Jan. 6, 2021, and he removed lines from prepared remarks the following day calling for their prosecution, according to new evidence released by a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) posted a video Monday on Twitter showing previously unpublicized testimony from several people close to Trump, centered on a speech he was supposed to give Jan. 7, 2021. “It took more than 24 hours for President Trump to address the nation again after his Rose Garden video on January 6th in which he affectionately told his followers to go home in peace,” Luria tweeted. “There were more things he was unwilling to say.” According to video testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Trump’s aides were pushing him to record another speech the day after the attack to quell talk of his impeachment or removal from office via the 25th Amendment. In one part of the video Luria posted, Jan. 6 committee investigators showed Ivanka Trump — Trump’s eldest daughter and a former senior presidential adviser — a draft document titled “Remarks on National Healing.” On the document were handwritten edits that Ivanka Trump identified as her father’s. He had apparently deleted any mention of the Justice Department prosecuting the rioters. Crossed out from the prepared remarks were these lines: “I am directing the Department of Justice to ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We must send a clear message — not with mercy but with JUSTICE. Legal consequences must be swift and firm.” Also crossed out was this message to those who had committed the violence: “I want to be very clear: you do not represent me. You do not represent our movement.” At the beginning of the document, Trump had apparently also crossed out that he was “sickened” by the violence.

In The States 

GEORGIA: The RNC Is Training Thousands Of Poll Watchers In Georgia 

  • Atlanta Journal Constitution: Inside The Rnc’s Effort To Train Thousands Of Poll Watchers In Georgia: Democrats and voting rights activists have voiced fears that Republicans were training an army of partisans intent on disrupting elections. Their concerns are not unfounded. After the 2020 election, Trump supporters used reports from some observers to amplify false claims. Now Republicans seem intent on reframing efforts to recruit volunteers to monitor the polls, a process embraced by both parties that’s deeply rooted in the state’s election system. At the session observed by The Atlanta Journal Constitution, trainer Jonny Moseley walked observers through a presentation that included no mention of voting fraud claims but provided detailed instructions on how to handle perceived problems.

NEVADA: Nevada Republicans Cross Aisle To Endorse AG Aaron Ford Over The GOP’s Conspiracy Theorist Candidate 

  • Las Vegas Review Journal: Republicans Cross Aisle To Endorse Ford For AG: More than a dozen Nevada Republicans are crossing the aisle to support Democratic incumbent Attorney General Aaron Ford by forming a “Republicans for Ford” organizing committee, the group announced Monday. The group, headlined by former state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson and former state GOP chairwoman Amy Tarkanian, is throwing its support behind Ford in his re-election fight against attorney Sigal Chattah. “It is unacceptable that Sigal Chattah — an unprepared, dangerous candidate who lacks the experience, foresight, and temperament to be able to do right by Nevadans — is the Republican nominee for Attorney General,” Tarkanian said. “I’m proud to be voting for (Attorney) General Ford this November, and I implore fellow Republicans who value commonsense public servants to do the same.” Chattah stirred waves in the Republican primary last month after defeating her more moderate opponent, Tisha Black, by 11 percentage points. Her victory was one of a group of right-wing candidates who defeated more moderate voices in the party primary.

PENNSYLVANIA: PA GOP Warms To Insurrectionist Gubernatorial Candidate Doug Mastriano 

  • Associated Press: GOP Warms To Far-Right Gubernatorial Nominee In Pennsylvania:  Republicans are warming up to Doug Mastriano. When he crushed a nine-person field to win the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania governor in May, some in the party warned that Mastriano’s far-right views on everything from abortion to the 2020 presidential election would squander an otherwise attainable seat in a critical battleground state. But now, as the general election season intensifies, the GOP machinery is cranking up to back Mastriano’s campaign and attack his Democratic rival, Josh Shapiro. Mastriano spoke in Aspen, Colorado, last week at an event with donors sponsored by the Republican Governors Association. At the GOP’s “Rally at the Rock” campaign event in northern Pennsylvania earlier this month, the independently elected state treasurer, Stacy Garrity, introduced Mastriano as “our next governor.” County offices and booths are festooned with his campaign signs and he spoke at this month’s closed-door state party meeting. And on Wednesday, a pair of top party officials are hosting a fundraiser for Mastriano. In one of America’s most politically divided states, the GOP’s embrace of a candidate who opposes abortion rights with no exceptions, spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and was outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection risks alienating moderate party members. But some Republicans say they’re duty bound to get behind their party’s nominee.

WISCONSIN: Disabled Wisconsinites Sue For Voting Access 

  • Washington Post: After Wis. Supreme Court Absentee Ballot Decision, Disabled People Sue:  Four disabled people are asking a federal judge to ensure they can vote this fall after the Wisconsin Supreme Court limited how absentee ballots can be cast. In a 4-3 ruling this month, the state’s high court ruled voters could not give their completed absentee ballots to someone else to turn in for them. That policy will make it impossible or extremely difficult for some voters to cast ballots, according to the lawsuit filed Friday in a federal court in Madison. The lawsuit asks the federal court to allow disabled voters to give their ballots to others to return for them, arguing that the new regimen in Wisconsin violates the U.S. Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. The lawsuit reignites a dispute over how ballots are returned in a battleground state in the run-up to elections for governor and U.S. senator. Absentee ballots have already been sent to voters for the Aug. 9 primaries.

What Experts Are Saying

Dennis Aftergut, former federal prosecutor, and Eugene R. Fidell, an adjunct professor of law at New York University and a senior research scholar at Yale Law School: “There’s an aspect of Donald Trump’s post-election actions — thus far not mentioned publicly by the Jan. 6 Select Committee — that should not be overlooked as the country absorbs the wealth of evidence the committee has released thus far. That aspect of Trump’s post-election conduct suggests that his intent from the beginning was to overturn the results of the election.” The Hill Op-Ed: Transition obstruction and recent pressure to overturn Wisconsin results should be part of the record

Neal Katyal, former US acting solicitor general (MSNBC Video): “‘I think one of the things the committee has done very well in these eight hearings is to demonstrate how Donald Trump’s choices…enabled Jan. 6th to happen.’ @neal_katyal on revelations from the hearings of what Trump was doing during the Jan. 6 insurrection #SundayShow” MSNBC’s The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart Tweet 

Joyce Vance, former US attorney, re: outtakes in Donald Trump’s January 7 speech: “This doesn’t sound like someone who truly believes he won the election. Trump is calmly making deliberate, strategic choices about what to say & what not to say. And prosecutors can ask jurors to draw that inference.” Tweet 

Ryan Goodman, former special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense: “Looks like a significant development. Justice Dept January 6th investigation reaches into White House witnesses. Former VP Pence chief of staff Marc Short highest official known to appear before grand jury. His appearance doesn’t fit neatly with prior known scope of probe.” Tweet 

Dr. Garen J. Wintemute, MD, MPH, the Baker-Teret Chair in Violence Prevention and Distinguished Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Davis: “You’re not going to like what you see. Our research group just completed a nationwide survey measuring support for — and willingness to engage in — violence to advance political objectives…More than 40 percent of Americans agree (19 percent strongly or very strongly) that ‘having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy.’…Perhaps the most concerning findings pertain to political violence (defined in the survey as ‘physical force strong enough that it could cause pain or injury to a person’ in order to ‘advance an important political objective that you support’). One in five (22 percent) thought that political violence was at least sometimes justified ‘in general.’” The Hill Op-Ed: Political violence and the future of democracy: Take a look in the mirror, America

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

Axios: Hungary’s Viktor Orbán under fire for “race-mixing” comments

Bloomberg: When Trump Declares for 2024 He Loses Control of $103 Million

Boston Globe: The white-nationalist Patriot Front is getting bigger, and more visible, in New England

Chicago Tribune: Conservative downstate GOP lawmakers seek party censure of U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger for his role on Jan. 6 committee investigating Trump

Daily Beast: Trump Returns to D.C. and His Minions Can’t Wait to Knife Each Other

Politico: Trump returns to D.C. this week. These former advisers are plotting the comeback.

Politico: House Dems try to sink pro-impeachment Republican in primary

January 6 And The 2020 Election

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Judge blocks Fulton DA from examining GOP senator in Trump probe

Politico: Jan. 6 panel Dems throw shade at Senate bipartisan effort

Washington Post: More than 840 suspects have been charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot

Washington Post (Analysis): Why two Democratic lawyers are concerned about the Electoral Count bill

WJCL: Kemp testifies in front of grand jury investigating Trump: the possible impact on his campaign

Opinion

Bloomberg (Jonathan Bernstein): Trump Is Plotting to Blow Up the Constitution

The Hill (Dennis Aftergut and Eugene Fidell): Transition obstruction and recent pressure to overturn Wisconsin results should be part of the record

New York Times (Paul Krugman): The Dystopian Myths of Red America

Washington Post (Max Boot): I used to be optimistic about America’s future. Not anymore.

In The States 

Associated Press: Report: Need tighter security for Wisconsin election workers

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Grievance filed with oversight board over Michael Gableman’s handling of 2020 election review