Driving the Day:
NEW: The @January6thCmte is expected to zero in on two overlapping areas of its probe in coming hearings: the extremist groups that participated in the attack and a minute-by-minute account of what took place inside the White House that day. https://t.co/jyQkftneCu
— Defend Democracy Project (@DemocracyNowUS) July 5, 2022
Must Read Stories
More Witnesses, Evidence Emerges As January 6 Committee Turns Its Attention To Extremist Groups That Attacked The Capitol
- Associated Press: GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger: More Witnesses, Evidence Surface In Jan. 6 Probe: More evidence is emerging in the House’s Jan. 6 investigation that lends support to recent testimony that President Donald Trump wanted to join an angry mob that marched to the Capitol where they rioted, a committee member said Sunday. “There will be way more information and stay tuned,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. The committee has been intensifying its yearlong investigation into the attack on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the committee’s vice chair, is making clear that criminal referrals to the Justice Department, including against Trump, could follow. At least two more hearings are scheduled this month that aim to show how Trump illegally directed a violent mob toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, and then failed to take quick action to stop the attack once it began.
- Wall Street Journal: Jan. 6 Hearings to Examine Role Extremist Groups, White House Played in Capitol Attack: The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to zero in on two overlapping areas of its probe in coming hearings: the extremist groups that participated in the attack and a minute-by-minute account of what took place inside the White House that day. The committee in its previous hearings has largely focused on efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election by pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence, senior officials in the Justice Department and state officials to take actions that would reverse the results. In the coming weeks, the committee will turn its attention to Jan. 6 itself and the alleged ways that extremist groups planned for and executed the attack on Congress as it met to count the Electoral College votes, committee members have said. Members of two of those groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, both far-right organizations, have been charged with seditious conspiracy in federal courts. Most have pleaded not guilty.
Egged On By Conservative Media, Republicans Are Refusing To Concede Races They Lost Badly
- NPR: These Candidates Lost Badly, But Now Are Claiming Fraud: While Trump has most notably spent the last 18 months denying his 2020 election defeat, despite clear evidence he lost, he’s not the only one. During this election cycle, candidates across the country have refused to concede – even in races that are not remotely close. This week, a Colorado county clerk indicted on charges including election tampering finished last in the GOP Secretary of State race, refused to acknowledge her loss and accused officials of cheating. “We didn’t lose. We just found more fraud,” Mesa County clerk Tina Peters told supporters at an Election Night party.” In South Carolina, a pair of Republican primary challengers said their blowout losses were tainted by serious problems. Both gubernatorial candidate Harrison Musselwhite and attorney general candidate Lauren Martel lost by double digits against popular incumbents, but sent nearly-identical letters to state officials claiming a plethora of concerns with the election. The South Carolina Republican Party’s executive committee rejected the claims. And in Nevada, GOP gubernatorial primary runner-up Joey Gilbert told supporters in a video message he could not have been defeated. “It is impossible for me to concede under these circumstances,” Gilbert said. “I owe it to my supporters. I owe it to all Nevadans of all parties to ensure that every legal vote is counted legitimately.” Gilbert, who was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 though he denies it was for the insurrection, has paid close to $200,000 for all 17 counties to recount the governor’s race that saw him lose by about 11 percentage points. State and local officials reject Gilbert’s claims. In all of these cases, there is no evidence to back up claims of fraud that could reverse defeats, and most of these elections were not remotely close. But Matthew Weil with the Bipartisan Policy Center said, unfortunately, that doesn’t matter to those who push the narrative of fraud. “There is a very strong segment of the electorate that believes strongly if their candidate had lost, and they were doing well in the polls – even if they weren’t doing well in the polls – it was the election machinery that caused their loss,” he said
- New York Times: On Conservative Radio, Misleading Message Is Clear: ‘Democrats Cheat’: November’s midterm elections are still months away, but to many conservative commentators, the fix is already in. Democrats have cheated before, they say, and they will cheat again. Never mind that the claims are false. In Lafayette, La., Carol Ross, host of “The Ross Report,” questioned how Democrats could win a presidential election again after a tumultuous few years in power. “They’re going to have to cheat again,” she said. “You know that. There will be rampant cheating.” In Greenville, S.C., Charlie James, a host on 106.3 WORD, read from a blog post arguing that “the Democrats are going to lose a majority during the midterm elections unless they’re able to cheat in a massive wide-scale way.” And on WJFN in Virginia, Stephen K. Bannon, the erstwhile adviser to former President Donald J. Trump who was indicted for refusing to comply with subpoenas issued by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, summed it up this way: “If Democrats don’t cheat, they don’t win.” Mr. Trump introduced the nation to a flurry of false claims about widespread voter fraud after his electoral loss in 2020. The extent of his efforts has been outlined extensively in the past couple of weeks during the hearings on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — including a speech that day in which he falsely said Democrats changed voting laws “because they want to cheat.” Republican politicians and cable outlets like Fox News have carried the torch for Mr. Trump’s conspiracy theories ever since. But the loudest and most consistent booster of these unfounded claims has been talk radio, where conservative hosts reduce the jumble of false voter fraud theories into a two-word mantra: “Democrats cheat.”
Trump’s Legal Team That Tried To Overturn The Election Largely Remains In Good Standing And Continues To Represent Far Right Extremists
- Politico: Despite Rebukes, Trump’s Legal Brigade Is Thriving: Juli Haller was part of Donald Trump’s legal brigade in Michigan, filing a lawsuit alongside the ubiquitous Sidney Powell that claimed absentee vote counts were likely manipulated by a computer algorithm developed by allies of deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. The lawsuit was quickly deemed baseless, and she was among nine attorneys ordered by a federal judge to pay the city of Detroit and state of Michigan’s legal fees and referred for possible disbarment. In a blistering rebuke, Judge Linda V. Parker called it a “historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.” But unlike Rudy Giuliani, whose law license was suspended in New York and Washington, D.C., for championing similar cases, or Haller’s own co-counsel, Powell, whose law license is at risk in Texas, Haller is going strong. She has gained a robust client roster that includes two alleged members of the far-right vigilante group the Oath Keepers who are accused of fueling the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Haller’s trajectory — from rebuked purveyor of baseless claims to a go-to attorney for MAGA extremists — infuriates many liberal activists, including some groups who are targeting the lawyers for discipline, and alarms some nonpartisan specialists in legal ethics. They say those who helped legitimize the former president’s lies should not be allowed to use it as a foundation to build their legal practices, lest it serve as an incentive to profit from ever more outlandish claims that shake the confidence of Americans in the integrity of U.S. elections and endanger democracy. In total, at least 16 lawyers who represented plaintiffs in five federal lawsuits promoting Trump’s baseless election fraud claims in the key battlegrounds of Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona remain in good standing or have no record of disciplinary action with their respective bar associations or licensing authorities, according to a POLITICO review. Fourteen of them have since engaged in additional work in support of the election fraud conspiracies or conspiracists behind Trump’s attempt to remain in power despite losing the election to President Joe Biden. These include defending accused Jan. 6 rioters, consulting for partisan election “audits” or partaking in advocacy or legal cases sowing doubts about the integrity of the nation’s elections, POLITICO found.
In The States
ARIZONA: Two Arizona State Senators Subpoenaed By DOJ While Gubernatorial Frontrunner Kari Lake Calls It “Disqualifying” To Deny That The 2020 Election Was “Stolen”
- Washington Post: Justice Dept. Subpoenas Two Arizona State Senators In Jan. 6 Probe: The Justice Department has subpoenaed two Republican Arizona state senators for information tied to possible correspondence with President Donald Trump’s attorneys as attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election were underway. Arizona Senate President Karen Fann and Sen. Kelly Townsend received subpoenas last week, according to Kim Quintero, a spokeswoman for Senate Republicans in Arizona. The subpoenas came as the Justice Department deepened its investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to include key Republican players in battleground states. Fann and Townsend are the first state legislators known to have received subpoenas as part of that push.
- CNN: Lie As Litmus Test: Arizona Governor Candidate Kari Lake Calls It ‘Disqualifying’ For Rival Not To Declare 2020 Election ‘Stolen’: A leading Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, Kari Lake, continues to put lies about the 2020 presidential election at the center of her campaign — this week calling it “disqualifying” and “sickening” for a rival candidate not to say that the election was stolen, though it wasn’t stolen. Lake’s strong performance in the Republican primary so far means that an aggressively dishonest promoter of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election could potentially have a prominent role in the 2024 presidential election in a key swing state. Lake said at a televised Republican debate on Wednesday that she would not have certified Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona, which was certified by term-limited Republican Gov. Doug Ducey as required by law. Lake, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, falsely said of Biden: “He lost the election, and he shouldn’t be in the White House.”
MICHIGAN: Trump’s Candidate For Secretary Of State Said Abortion Was “Child Sacrifice”
- CNN: Trump-Backed Michigan Secretary Of State Nominee Said Abortion Is ‘Child Sacrifice’: Before becoming the Trump-backed Republican nominee for Michigan secretary of state, Kristina Karamo said that abortion is “child sacrifice” and a “satanic practice.” “Abortion is really nothing new. The child sacrifice is a very satanic practice, and that’s precisely what abortion is. And we need to see it as such,” Karamo, a community college professor, said in an October 2020 episode of her podcast “It’s Solid Food,” which CNN’s KFile reviewed. “When people in other cultures, when they engage in child sacrifice, they didn’t just sacrifice the child for the sake of bloodshed,” Karamo said later in the episode. “They sacrificed the child cuz they were hoping to get prosperity and that’s precisely why people have abortion now. ‘Because I’m not ready. I don’t wanna have a baby. I don’t feel like it. I don’t have time. I wanna make more money. I want my freedom.’ So you’re sacrificing that child hoping to get something out of their death, which is your freedom, your happiness, your prosperity.” In another comment, Karamo called abortion the “the greatest crime of our nation’s history.”
WISCONSIN: “An Incompetent Circus”: Election Audit Reaches One Year Mark With Nothing To Show
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: ‘An Incompetent Circus’: Michael Gableman’s 2020 Election Review Reaches 1 Year And The $1 Million Mark With Little To Show: A year ago, Robin Vos was unequivocal. “We give you our word that we are doing everything we possibly can to uncover what occurred in 2020,” the Assembly Speaker told a conference center full of Republicans meeting in Wisconsin Dells for their first state party convention since Donald Trump began tying make-believe voter fraud to his loss in the Badger State, contributing to losing his presidency. But since Vos announced his hire of former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to probe the 2020 election completely and Assembly Republicans’ intent to pass bills based on Gableman’s findings, the review has failed to accomplish those goals. Lawmakers did not receive any recommendations from Gableman before wrapping up their work for the year. And the review has turned up little information not previously known, and has not found evidence showing the 2020 election outcome was incorrectly called. But Gableman’s efforts, which officially began on July 1, 2021, have resulted in a real cost to taxpayers of $1 million — more than $300,000 over his budget — and a steady drumbeat of explosive court hearings and rulings in lawsuits over Gableman’s desire to jail election officials and mayors who refused to be interviewed behind closed doors, and his decision to ignore requests from the public for records related to his probe. The probe has been fraught with mishaps, like a botched deposition after an attorney tasked with conducting an interview with a local official subpoenaed by Gableman was not licensed to practice law in Wisconsin. And at times Gableman has been at the center of its controversy by making misogynistic comments about women he sees as adversaries.
What Experts Are Saying
Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus at Harvard Law: “The ‘theory’ wielded by Trump attorney John Eastman as he sought to ‘overturn the last presidential election’ was in fact even whackier and more destructive than the nutty Independent State Legislature theory SCOTUS has agreed to take up this Fall.” Tweet
Nathan Kalmoe, professor of political science and communications at Louisiana State University, re: SCOTUS and 2024 elections nightmare scenarios: “Too many ppl who should know better think the constitution will save us, not seeing that Reps will use it to put us into full-blown autocracy. Reps+constitution will kill any semblance of democracy, far beyond current violations.” Tweet
Noah Bookbinder, president of CREW, re: criminal case against Donald Trump: “This is absolutely right: there is now so much evidence of criminal conduct by Donald Trump that there is simply no excuse for the Justice Department not conducting a serious criminal investigation of him, regardless of all of the good reasons for caution.” Tweet
Jason Stanley, Yale expert on authoritarianism (video): U.S. Headed to a One-Party State Unless “Americans Wake Up” PBS’ Amanpour and Company
Jeffrey C. Isaac, James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington: “Donald Trump, many people now seem to think, is in trouble. But the purpose of the House January 6th Committee is not merely to hold Donald Trump accountable. It is to hold the entire project of Trumpism to account…The Republican party which aided, abetted, and participated in this crisis must be held responsible by voters for its ongoing efforts to undermine constitutional democracy. It must be fought from top to bottom in the upcoming November election and in the one to follow in 2024. And it must be defeated.” The Bulwark
Katherine Stewart, expert on Christian nationalism: “The shape of the Christian nationalist movement in the post-Roe future is coming into view, and it should terrify anyone concerned for the future of constitutional democracy.” The New York Times
Headlines
The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections
Associated Press: Trump’s vulnerabilities for 2024 mount after new testimony
Jewish Insider: Neo-Nazi publisher Andrew Anglin gives ‘forceful endorsement’ of Blake Masters’ Senate bid
NBC: Trump’s ‘fear factor’ shows signs of waning as 2024 Republican hopefuls jockey
New York Times: Trump Eyes Early 2024 Announcement as Jan. 6 Scrutiny Intensifies
Politico: State Department offers up to $10M reward for info on foreign election interference
Politico: Dems meddle in Trump-Hogan proxy war in Maryland
Wall Street Journal: Liz Cheney Goes All In on Jan. 6 Probe as GOP Primary Looms
Washington Post: Democracy advocates raise alarm after Supreme Court takes election case
Washington Post (Analysis): He was prepared to kill Jan. 6 rioters. Now MAGA voters may give him a Senate seat
January 6 And The 2020 Election
CNBC: Trump media company subpoenaed in federal criminal probe of SPAC deal
CNBC: It’s possible the Jan. 6 committee refers a criminal case against Trump, Liz Cheney says
CNN: Accounts of Trump angrily demanding to go to Capitol on January 6 circulated in Secret Service over past year
Daily Beast: The Sleeper ‘Wire Fraud’ Scheme That Could Nail Trumpworld
The Guardian: Mark Meadows’ associate threatened ex-White House aide before her testimony
HuffPost: Donald Trump Admits He’s The One ‘On Trial’ In Jan. 6 Hearings
New York Times: An American’s Murky Path From Russian Propagandist to Jan. 6
New York Times (Analysis): New Insights Into Trump’s State of Mind on Jan. 6 Chip Away at Doubts
New York Times: Jan. 6 Witness Anthony Ornato Is at the Center of a Battle Over Credibility
Washington Post: The Jan. 6 committee bet big with Cassidy Hutchinson. Did it pay off?
Washington Post: ‘Take me up to the Capitol now’: How close Trump came to joining rioters
Washington Post: Jan. 6 showed two identities of Secret Service: Gutsy heroes vs. Trump yes-men
Opinion
The Atlantic (Mitt Romney): America Is in Denial
The Hill (Philip Allen Lacovara And Dennis Aftergut): Pat Cipollone can aid or impede Jan. 6 Committee’s search for truth
New York Times (Norm Eisen): Cassidy Hutchinson Changes Everything
Wall Street Journal (Peggy Noonan): The Courage of Jan. 6 Witness Cassidy Hutchinson
Washington Post (Leah Litman, Kate Shaw and Carolyn Shapiro): A new Supreme Court case threatens another body blow to our democracy
Washington Post (Greg Sargent): Liz Cheney’s harsh new attack on Trump is a plea for GOP sanity
Washington Post (Editorial): We can no longer avoid a criminal investigation into Donald Trump
Political Violence
Boston Herald: Boston mayor condemns ‘white supremacist’ march through city; civil rights probe launched
KNXV: ‘AZ Patriots’ leader bear sprays protesters, police investigating
In The States
Associated Press: Top election officials in Yavapai County leave amid threats
Houston Chronicle: Harris County looking into GOP-connected group asking residents to confirm voter addresses
NBC: Voter fraud claims are heating up a battle for political control in an oil-rich Texas county
