Driving the Day:
“Many Republicans were either complicit in Trump’s effort to destroy our constitutional order to remain in power illegitimately, have since worked hard to cover it up or both.
So Republicans have zero credibility on these matters.” @ThePlumLineGS https://t.co/M12bYH42rZ— Defend Democracy Project (@DemocracyNowUS) June 6, 2022
What to Watch Today:
Primary elections in California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota
Must Read Stories
Proud Boys Leaders Indicted For Seditious Conspiracy, Documentarian Of The Militia To Testify At January 6 Hearing
- Washington Post: Proud Boys Leader Tarrio, 4 Top Lieutenants Charged With Seditious Conspiracy In Widening Jan. 6 Case: Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the former longtime chairman of the extremist group Proud Boys, was indicted on a new federal charge of seditious conspiracy with four top lieutenants on Monday. The charges expand the Justice Department’s allegations of organized plotting to oppose through violence the certification of President Biden’s election victory, culminating in the attack on the Capitol by a mob on Jan. 6, 2021. Tarrio, 38, was not in the District that day but allegedly guided activities from nearby Baltimore as Proud Boys members engaged in the earliest and most aggressive attacks to confront and overwhelm police at several critical points on restricted Capitol grounds. Another defendant, Dominic Pezzola of Rochester, N.Y., broke through the first window of the building at 2:13 p.m. with a stolen police riot shield, authorities said. A 10-count superseding indictment returned Monday morning charges Tarrio, Pezzola and three other existing defendants — Ethan Nordean of Washington state, Joe Biggs of Florida and Zachary Rehl of Pennsylvania — with “opposing the lawful transfer of presidential power by force,” eventually mustering and coordinating the movements of as many as 300 people around the Capitol that day. The defendants are accused of fomenting and spearheading a riot that stormed the Capitol, eventually forcing the evacuation of Congress as it met to confirm the 2020 election results.
- Associated Press: Proud Boys Documentarian To Be Among First Jan. 6 Witnesses: A documentary filmmaker who recorded members of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group as they stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, says he will testify during the first hearing of the House panel investigating the insurrection. Nick Quested, a British filmmaker who also witnessed some of the group’s planning before the attack on the Capitol, confirmed to The Associated Press that he will be among the witnesses in Thursday night’s prime-time hearing. The panel has not yet announced a full list of those who will testify. Quested was a witness to some of the most extraordinary events that took place that day, accompanying members of the extremist group as they walked to the Capitol from President Donald Trump’s speech in front of the White House, as they broke through police barriers and eventually into the building, and as hundreds of Trump’s supporters moved through the Capitol to protest his defeat. Quested was also with the man then leading the group, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the night before when Tarrio met in an underground Washington garage with Elmer “Stewart” Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, another extremist group present at the riot.
Trump’s Fake Electors Were Told To Operate In “Complete Secrecy” In Georgia
- Washington Post: Fake Trump Electors In Ga. Told To Shroud Plans In ‘secrecy,’ Email Shows: A staffer for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign instructed Republicans planning to cast electoral college votes for Trump in Georgia despite Joe Biden’s victory to operate in “complete secrecy,” an email obtained by The Washington Post shows. “I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” wrote Robert Sinners, the campaign’s election operations director for Georgia, the day before the 16 Republicans gathered at the Georgia Capitol to sign certificates declaring themselves duly elected. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.” The Dec. 13, 2020, email went on to instruct the electors to tell security guards at the building that they had an appointment with one of two state senators. “Please, at no point should you mention anything to do with Presidential Electors or speak to the media,” Sinners continued in bold. The admonishments suggest that those who carried out the fake elector plan were concerned that, had the gathering become public before Republicans could follow through on casting their votes, the effort could have been disrupted. Georgia law requires that electors fulfill their duties at the State Capitol. On Dec. 14, 2020, protesters for and against the two presidential candidates had gathered on the Capitol grounds. The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which begins public hearings on Thursday, is likely to highlight the scheme to appoint fake electors and explore whether top Trump campaign officials initiated the strategy as part of a larger effort to overturn the democratic election.
In The States
Michigan Widens Investigation Into Voting Breaches By Trump Allies
- Reuters: Michigan Widens Probe Into Voting System Breaches By Trump Allies: State police in Michigan have obtained warrants to seize voting equipment and election-related records in at least three towns and one county in the past six weeks, police records show, widening the largest known investigation into unauthorized attempts by allies of former President Donald Trump to access voting systems. The previously unreported records include search warrants and investigators’ memos obtained by Reuters through public records requests. The documents reveal a flurry of efforts by state authorities to secure voting machines, poll books, data-storage devices and phone records as evidence in a probe launched in mid-February. The state’s investigation follows breaches of local election systems in Michigan by Republican officials and pro-Trump activists trying to prove his baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. The police documents reveal, among other things, that the state is investigating a potential breach of voting equipment in Lake Township, a small, largely conservative community in northern Michigan’s Missaukee County. The previously unreported case is one of at least 17 incidents nationwide, including 11 in Michigan, in which Trump supporters gained or attempted to gain unauthorized access to voting equipment.
Judge Rejects GOP Scheme To End Early Voting In Arizona
- Arizona Republic: ‘The Answer Is No’: Mohave County Judge Rejects Republican Party Of Arizona Lawsuit To End Early Voting: There’s nothing unconstitutional about Arizona’s early voting law, a Mohave County judge determined Monday. The ruling, knocking down a lawsuit from the Republican Party of Arizona, is a win for the state’s election officials and Arizona voters who use the early-voting system, a vast majority of the electorate. And it’s another setback for the state party, which has argued the practice violates the Arizona Constitution’s requirement for ballot secrecy. Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen boiled down the essence of the case in his four-page ruling to this: “Is the Arizona Legislature prohibited by the Arizona Constitution from enacting voting laws that include no-excuse mail-in voting? The answer is no.
What Experts Are Saying
Brooking’s Norm Eisen and CREW’s Noah Bookbinder Co-Author NEW: Report: Trump on Trial: A Guide to the January 6 Hearings and the Question of Criminality Abstract | PDF
Laurence Tribe, Harvard Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Emeritus, on Proud Boys indictment: “Seditious conspiracy is huge. No more serious federal crime short of treason. Only several times in the past century have such charges been brought by DOJ.” Twitter
Heather Cox Richardson, American historian at Boston College, on the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers: “For all their heroic talk, these men were not the good guys. They were plotting ‘to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force.’ That is, this ragtag crew plotted to take away from the majority of Americans their right, one of the four rights our Founders called ‘unalienable,’ to consent to the government under which we live. That freedom to choose our own leaders was what 1776 meant, not the imposition of the will of a tyrannical minority on the rest of us.” Letters from an American
Lara Putnam, professor of history at University of Pittsburgh, on MAGA precinct strategy: “👇the stealth real answer to ‘what was the most important race on the ballot in the 2022 primaries in PA’: precinct-level Dem committee seats. Infrastructure matters. It matters when it’s decayed & dysfunctional & powerful actors benefit from keeping it that way… & it matters when a new generation of people find their self-interest aligns with stepping in, fighting for it, investing in it, & using it for purpose[.] You don’t have to believe me that it matters who runs for precinct person slots: you can believe Steve Bannon instead.
[from brilliant & insane profile by @JenSeniorNY] LINK” Twitter Thread
Barbara McQuade, former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, in Just Security: “Witnesses with Baggage” — Anticipating the Jan 6 Hearings and Related Investigations Just Security
Headlines
January 6 And The 2020 Election
Associated Press: An infamous day. A search for answers. Will America tune in?
Daily Beast: Fox News Will Not Air Primetime Jan. 6 Hearing
NBC: Fewer Americans now say Trump is responsible for Jan. 6, NBC News poll finds
New York Times: Jan. 6 Hearings Give Democrats a Chance to Recast Midterm Message
Opinion
Washington Post (Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman): Memo to Democrats: Hammer the GOP as complicit in Trump’s coup
In The States
FiveThirtyEight: Why Georgia’s Turnout Numbers Don’t Tell Us Enough About The Effect Of Restrictive Voting Laws
