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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — June 17, 2022

By June 17, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Top Takeaways From Yesterday’s January 6 Committee Hearing 

  • New York Times: Trump, Told It Was Illegal, Still Pressured Pence to Overturn His Loss: President Donald J. Trump continued pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to go along with a plan to unilaterally overturn his election defeat even after he was told it was illegal, according to testimony laid out in extensive detail on Thursday by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. The committee showed how Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign — aided by a little-known conservative lawyer, John Eastman — led his supporters to storm the Capitol, sending Mr. Pence fleeing for his life as rioters demanded his execution. In the third public hearing this month to lay out its findings, the panel recounted how Mr. Trump’s actions brought the nation to the brink of a constitutional crisis, and raised fresh questions about whether they were also criminal. It played videotaped testimony in which Mr. Pence’s top White House lawyer, Greg Jacob, said Mr. Eastman had admitted in front of Mr. Trump two days before the riot that his plan to have Mr. Pence obstruct the electoral certification violated the law. Following the riot, Mr. Eastman sought a pardon after being informed by one of Mr. Trump’s top White House lawyers that he had criminal exposure for hatching the scheme, according to an email displayed by the committee during the session.
  • Washington Post: Jan. 6 Committee Reveals New Details About Pence’s Terrifying Day: Before heading to the U.S. Capitol to preside over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence undertook one last unpleasant task from his Naval Observatory home: a phone call with Donald Trump, the president to whom he had always been loyal. Pence had told Trump repeatedly he would not use his ceremonial role overseeing the counting of electoral college votes that day to overturn Joe Biden’s election, but Trump had not listened. The call was “heated,” in the words of Trump’s daughter Ivanka, in new testimony revealed Thursday by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump called Pence a “wimp,” Trump aide Nicholas Luna testified. Trump’s badgering of his own vice president so distressed his daughter that she walked the halls of the White House, expressing her displeasure to multiple aides, several testified. She told her chief of staff that “her dad had just had an upsetting call with the vice president,” the aide testified, noting that Trump had called Pence the “p-word.” The day that began with the vice president being called a “p—-” by his boss ended with him huddled in a parking garage with his family, as a violent mob intent on doing him physical harm rampaged through the seat of American democracy and a top aide read from a Bible nearby. The Democratic-led committee unspooled new details of Pence’s terrifying day on Jan. 6, as it sought to explain how easily democracy could have fallen if the Republican vice president had not resisted an unrelenting campaign from Trump to ignore his legal advisers and his own conscience and use his role to give Trump a second term.
  • Politico: The Jan. 6 Select Committee Makes A Criminal Referral — Its Own Way: The Jan. 6 select committee made its most forceful case Thursday that Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election was more than an affront to the democratic process — it was a crime. For all the panel’s public quibbling over whether to vote on referring Trump to the Justice Department for a possible criminal case, members did it their own way. They used Thursday’s public hearing to present what they see as some of their most compelling evidence and thereby mount a case, with Attorney General Merrick Garland watching, that Trump broke the law in his effort to make former Vice President Mike Pence single-handedly overturn the election. “It was clear that the president was upset with the vice president not agreeing to do something that was clearly illegal, and so he wanted to put as much pressure on Mike Pence as he could,” committee chair Bennie Thompson told reporters Thursday. “What the president wanted the vice president to do was not just wrong. It was illegal and unconstitutional,” panel vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said.

January 6 Committee Calls Ginni Thomas To Testify 

  • Politico: Jan. 6 Panel Calls Ginni Thomas To Testify:  The Jan. 6 committee has invited Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to testify about her connections to Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election, panel chair Rep. Bennie Thompson told reporters Thursday. “We have sent Ms. Thomas a letter asking [her] to come and talk to the committee,” Thompson (D-Miss.) said. Thompson’s comments come after he and Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) agreed Thursday that the committee needed to delve into Thomas’ role. Thompson’s remarks and Cheney’s agreement — confirmed to POLITICO by an aide — coincided with news reports suggesting Thomas had been in touch with at least one key architect of Trump’s bid to cling to power: Attorney John Eastman. The emails might come up “at some point” in their hearings, Thompson said earlier Thursday, though they were still in the “discovery phase.” Thomas told the conservative-leaning Daily Caller later Thursday she was open to testifying.
  • Washington Post: John Eastman Says Ginni Thomas Invited Him To Speak On ‘Election Litigation’: John Eastman, the lawyer who played a key role in efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election, confirmed Thursday that the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas invited him a month after the election to speak at a meeting she was helping to organize. Eastman’s disclosure came a day after The Washington Post reported that the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol had obtained email correspondence between him and Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist and staunch supporter of former president Donald Trump. Individuals involved in the investigation said the emails — which have not been made public — showed that Thomas’s efforts to help overturn the election were more extensive than previously known, The Post reported. On Thursday afternoon, during a hearing largely devoted to outlining Eastman’s role in what the committee described as a scheme to steal the presidency, he posted online a copy of an email that he said Thomas sent him on Dec. 4, 2020. The email showed Thomas inviting him to speak on Dec. 8 to Frontliners, which she described as “a group of grassroots state leaders.” In an accompanying statement posted to Substack, the online newsletter site, Eastman sought to downplay the significance of the invitation, saying Thomas had asked him to give an “update about election litigation to a group she met with periodically.” He wrote that he did not discuss with Thomas or her husband “any matters pending or likely to come before the court.”

New Details Emerge On Trump’s Fruitless Quest To “Prove” Voter Fraud 

  • Los Angeles Times: Inside the MAGA World Scramble To Produce Findings Suggesting The 2020 Election Was Stolen: Days after the 2020 presidential election, before all votes were counted and Joseph R. Biden was declared the winner, cyber experts and analysts piled into suites at the Trump Hotel in Washington and other hotel rooms in the area. The plan was urgent: Crowdsource evidence of electoral fraud to secure a Trump victory with the assistance of his legal team and White House staff. Weeks later, former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn urged leaders of the effort to move to a more remote location, an isolated South Carolina plantation owned by conservative attorney L. Lin Wood. There, they planned weeks of lawsuits, attempts to access voting machines and ways to convince lawmakers to reject key state election results, driven by a frantic mission whose goal was to keep then-President Trump in office after an election he lost. Since the violent attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop certification of the 2020 election results, much of the scrutiny has been trained on what Trump knew, as well as the involvement of those closest to him, including his chief of staff, Mark Meadows. But it was dozens of true believers gathered in hotels in Washington and at the South Carolina plantation who collected the information upon which the Trump campaign based its unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen, information also used to enlist state and federal lawmakers to assist in a bid to overturn the election results. The House Jan. 6 select committee is making its case in hearings this month of a coordinated, multistep effort with Trump at the center to subvert the will of voters and keep himself in power — even though he had been repeatedly told there was no credible evidence of fraud that could overturn the election. Much of the proof offered in crafting the “Big Lie” came from a motley crew of both big players and people unfamiliar to the public, who left their daily lives, families and jobs for weeks to travel to Washington or submit affidavits to support the Trump campaign’s widely debunked claims of fraud. Using public records, months of interviews with people behind the scenes and hundreds of never-before-seen documents, The Times assembled accounts of how the group came together and what it did in the frenetic weeks between election day in 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, to help Trump and his circle push the false theory that the election was stolen.
  • Mother Jones: A Fugitive Chinese Mogul Spent Big to Overturn the 2020 Election:  A fugitive Chinese mogul who has worked closely with Steve Bannon—and who is under federal investigation for fraud—spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to support efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Through a series of opaque financial transactions, a company controlled by the exiled businessman Guo Wengui spent more than $400,000 for hundreds of his supporters to take part in a November 14, 2020, rally in Washington promoting Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud. The company also gave $100,000 to an organization run by prominent pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood—apparently to finance litigation that was aimed at reversing Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia. These payments are detailed in receipts, wire transfer records, and WhatsApp messages obtained by Mother Jones. Wood said in interviews that the $100,000 donation to his nonprofit, the Fightback Foundation, was arranged by Bannon, the former Trump adviser and influential right-wing media figure. According to Wood, Bannon claimed the money came from a donor in Illinois. Documentation obtained by Mother Jones indicates that the funds came originally from Guo. 

In The States 

Michigan GOP Descends Into Chaos 

  • Politico: ‘It Won’t Let Up’: Michigan GOP Plunges Into Chaos: Michigan Republicans have been waiting for years for the chance to beat Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Then, they spent the last month doing virtually everything to blow the opportunity. Five candidates — including longtime GOP frontrunner James Craig, the former Detroit police chief — were knocked off the ballot after election officials in the state discovered fraud in their petition signatures. Weeks later, candidate Ryan Kelley was arrested by the FBI on charges stemming from his presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 — just after he was confirmed as the new polling leader in the shrunken Republican primary, plunging the race into a new level of chaos. “Just when you think everything is settled, something new comes along and washes onto shore,” said Jason Watts, who was removed from his post as a district party treasurer in Michigan after publicly breaking with former President Donald Trump.
  • Detroit Free Press: Free Press Poll: Kelley Leading GOP Gubernatorial Field After Arrest:  Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley’s recent arrest by the FBI for his suspected involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol appears to have boosted his name recognition and favorability among GOP voters in Michigan, new polling conducted in the days following his arrest indicates. Kelley was arrested June 9. In a June 10-13 poll conducted for the Detroit Free Press and our outstate polling partners by EPIC-MRA of Lansing, 17% named Kelley as their preferred candidate for the August primary to determine which Republican candidate challenges Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November. Other Republicans vying for the party’s nomination garnered varying enthusiasm — 13% of respondents picked Kalamazoo-area chiropractor Garrett Soldano as their preferred candidate, 12% named Bloomfield Hills businessman Kevin Rinke, 5% touted Norton Shores businesswoman Tudor Dixon and 1% selected Farmington Hills pastor Ralph Rebandt.

Man Pleads Guilty To Making Threats Against Colorado Election Official In First Conviction For DOJ Task Force To Protect Poll Workers 

  • Washington Post: Justice Dept. Secures First Guilty Plea For Threats To Election Workers: A Nebraska man pleaded guilty Thursday on charges that he threatened an election official over social media last year, marking the first conviction for a Justice Department task force charged with protecting poll workers. Federal authorities said Travis Ford, 42, of Lincoln, Neb., posted multiple hostile messages on an Instagram page associated with the official, who was not named in a Justice Department news release. “Do you feel safe? You shouldn’t. Do you think Soros will/can protect you?” Ford wrote in one August 2021 message, apparently referring to Democratic megadonor George Soros, who has long been the subject of false conspiracies from far-right and anti-Semitic groups. In another posting, Ford wrote: “Your security detail is far too thin and incompetent to protect you. This world is unpredictable these days … anything can happen to anyone.” He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 6 and faces up to two years in prison, the Justice Department said. “The Justice Department will not tolerate illegal threats of violence against public officials,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Threats of violence against election officials are dangerous for people’s safety and dangerous for our democracy.”

What Experts Are Saying

Insurrection Index: Public Wise: ICYMI: Explainer Video:The people and organizations involved in the January 6, 2021 Insurrection must be held accountable LINK | Insurrection Index  

Noah Bookbinder, president of CREW: “This hearing is in the weeds, but here’s the bottom line, which is important: everyone involved knew that the strategy John Eastman and Donald Trump were pushing was against the law. They went ahead with it anyway. That goes to criminal intent and a naked desire to retain power.” Tweet 

Laurence Tribe, constitutional law scholar and professor emeritus at Harvard University: “Today’s hearing is leaving no doubt that Trump was pressuring Pence up to and including Jan 6 to do what Trump and everyone around him KNEW would have violated federal law. No doubt. Zero. And Trump deliberately put his own VP’s life in danger in grasping for dictatorial power.” Tweet 

Harry Litman, former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General: “This scheme, among the 7, may seem a little dry and lawyerly to many — although there is pretty high drama and dastardliness in Trump’s many-pronged pressure campaign–but for lawyers this is maybe the most breathtaking and offensive, b/c it’s a straight up constitutional coup” Tweet 

Jason Stanley, Yale University philosophy professor: “The Jan 6 Committee showed that everyone in DC, including all those close to Trump, knew that Biden won the election. So, all those GOP Senators and Congresspeople who voted not to certify the election knew they were attempting to overthrow US democracy. This is about them too.” Tweet 

Julian Zelizer, professor of political history at Princeton University: “The hearings keep confirming how much agreement there was internally in the White House about the reality that Trump lost the election to Biden and how many high level advisors understood that there was a dangerous effort underway to overturn the 2020 election.” Tweet 

Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center: “I think they’ve made an incredibly compelling case that Trump knew that he had lost the election and yet continued to say that he had won..even more compelling testimony about how he tried to disrupt that constitutional transfer of power—that most sacred peaceful transfer of power—which has never been disrupted in our nation’s history, by pressuring his own Vice President.” Cheddar News 

Ryan Goodman, co-editor-in-chief of Just Security and NYU law professor: “Devastating #January6thHearings

Trump knew Pence had no legal authority

Trump knew was a powder keg

Trump tweets Pence betrayed them ‘poured gasoline on the fire’ (WH aide)

Aware of chants to hang Pence, Trump: ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Pence ‘deserves it.’” Tweet 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections 

Associated Press: Election deniers quiet on fraud claims after primary wins

CNN (Analysis): Trump-allied candidates threaten democracy as January 6 probe tries to protect it

The Hill: Trump to hold rally in Illinois

Politico: Matt Dolan lost to J.D. Vance in Ohio. But he isn’t giving up on a post-Trump GOP.

January 6 And The 2020 Election

Daily Caller: Ginni Thomas Says She Looks ‘Forward To Talking To’ January 6 Committee, Wants To ‘Clear Up Misconceptions’

Mother Jones: Insurrectionist Anti-Vax Doctor Simone Gold Was Just Sentenced to 60 Days in Prison

New York Times: A Justice Department inquiry into alternate electors is focusing on Trump lawyers.

NPR: The Jan. 6 committee says the Trump campaign ripped off donors. But was it illegal?

Vice: Trump Attorney John Eastman Was Warned Jan. 6 Would Cause ‘Riots’ and Didn’t Care

Washington Post (Analysis): The odd timing of Eastman’s claim of a ‘heated fight’ at Supreme Court

Washington Post: Justice Dept. says Jan. 6 House panel hampering major Proud Boys trial

Opinion 

The Hill (Lawrence Tribe and Dennis Aftergut): An ‘I-believed-my-own-lies’ defense won’t work for Trump

New York Times (Jamelle Bouie): Ginni Thomas Has a Lot of Explaining to Do

Washington Post (Jennifer Rubin): Trump’s pressure campaign on Pence was more vindictive than anyone imagined

Washington Post (Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent): The Jan. 6 hearing’s devastating case against Trump’s co-conspirator

Political Violence 

Time: Right-Wing Groups Target Pride Events Amid Rising Anti-LGBTQ Rhetoric

Washington Post: Pride events targeted in surge of anti-LGBTQ threats, violence

In The States 

Detroit Free Press: Judge orders GOP candidate Ryan Kelley to surrender his guns, over his objections