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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — May 31, 2022

By May 31, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Fake Electors Probe Expands To Multiple States 

  • CNN: Federal Investigation Into Trump Fake Elector Probe Expands To Multiple States: Federal investigators have interviewed Republicans in Georgia about interactions with people in former President Donald Trump’s orbit and his 2020 reelection campaign, as the Justice Department’s sprawling criminal probe into efforts to put forth alternate slates of electors to displace Joe Biden electors expands to multiple states. In one case, FBI agents asked a prominent Georgia Republican whether he had direct conversations with Trump. “They just asked who talked to me. If anyone from the Trump campaign had been in touch with me. Did Giuliani talk to me? Did Trump talk to me?” said Patrick Gartland, who was set to serve as an elector but dropped out. He recounted how two FBI agents visited his home in Marietta, Georgia, a few weeks ago. Investigators have sought answers this month from Gartland and others connected to the GOP in Georgia and in Michigan — both in FBI interviews and in grand jury subpoenas for documents and testimony. Investigators are looking at whether the Trump campaign played a role in the submission of false election certificates, according to people approached by the Justice Department.

Peter Navarro Receives Grand Jury Subpoena 

  • New York Times: Peter Navarro, Former Trump Aide, Gets Grand Jury Subpoena in Jan. 6 Inquiry: Peter Navarro, who as a White House adviser to President Donald J. Trump worked to keep Mr. Trump in office after his defeat in the 2020 election, disclosed on Monday that he has been summoned to testify on Thursday to a federal grand jury and to provide prosecutors with any records he has related to the attack on the Capitol last year, including “any communications” with Mr. Trump. The subpoena to Mr. Navarro — which he said the F.B.I. served at his house last week — seeks his testimony about materials related to the buildup to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and signals that the Justice Department investigation may be progressing to include activities of people in the White House. Mr. Navarro revealed the existence of the subpoena in a draft of a lawsuit he said he is preparing to file against the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Mr. Navarro, who plans to represent himself in the suit, is hoping to persuade a federal judge to block the subpoena, which he calls the “fruit of the poisonous tree.”

Georgia Grand Jury Investigating Trump Subpoenas Secretary Of State Raffensperger And Other State Officials 

  • CBS: Trump Election Interference Grand Jury In Georgia To Hear From Raffensperger:  Georgia’s top elections official is expected to appear next week before a special grand jury in an investigation into whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to meddle in the 2020 election in the state. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has been summoned to appear before the special grand jury Thursday, according to a subpoena obtained through an open records request by the Associated Press and separately by CBS News. Five other people in his office have received subpoenas to appear in early June and the office has received a subpoena for documents. State Attorney General Chris Carr has received a subpoena to appear June 21.

Trump Lashes Out At Liz Cheney And “Insurrection Hoax” At Wyoming Rally 

  • The Guardian: Trump Calls Capitol Attack An ‘insurrection Hoax’ As Public Hearings Set To Begin: As the House committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump prepares to start public hearings next week, the former president called the insurrection on January 6, 2021, a hoax. Trump spoke at a rally in Wyoming on Saturday night in support of the Republican primary challenger in the midterm elections to congresswoman Liz Cheney. Cheney sits on the committee and has been vilified by Trump since she voted in favor of his historic second impeachment over the insurrection. Addressing the sub-capacity crowd at a rally in Casper for Republican candidate Harriet Hageman, Trump slammed Cheney, saying: “As one of the nation’s leading proponents of the insurrection hoax, Liz Cheney has pushed a grotesquely false, fabricated, hysterical partisan narrative.” He added: “Look at the so-called word insurrection, January 6 – what a lot of crap.”
  • NBC: Wyoming Gop Chair, Who Was On Restricted Capitol Grounds On Jan. 6, Speaks At Trump Rally:  The head of the Wyoming Republican Party, who was on restricted Capitol grounds during the U.S. Capitol riot, delivered a speech at Donald Trump’s rally Saturday. “I would run through barbed wire for that guy, how about you?” Frank Eathorne asked the crowd, referring to the former president. The rally was held in support of Harriet Hageman, a GOP activist who is running against Rep. Liz Cheney in the party primary in August. Eathorne had pushed for Cheney to be censured after she voted to impeach Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. Eathorne, according to images and videos reviewed by NBC News, was on the restricted grounds on the west side of the Capitol on the day of the riot after members of the mob bypassed several police barricades. Evidence unearthed by members of the “Sedition Hunters,” a community investigating the Jan. 6 attack, shows Eathorne in a mob in front of the inauguration platform Joe Biden would be sworn in on two weeks after the attack. 

Trump Attorney Who Plotted To Overturn The 2020 Election Is Recruiting Election Deniers To “Monitor” The 2022 Elections 

  • New York Times: Lawyer Who Plotted to Overturn Trump Loss Recruits Election Deniers to Watch Over the Vote:  In a hotel conference center outside Harrisburg, Pa., Cleta Mitchell, one of the key figures in a failed scheme to overturn Donald J. Trump’s defeat, was leading a seminar on “election integrity.” “We are taking the lessons we learned in 2020 and we are going forward to make sure they never happen again,” Ms. Mitchell told the crowd of about 150 activists-in-training. She would be “putting you to work,” she told them. In the days after the 2020 election, Ms. Mitchell was among a cadre of Republican lawyers who frantically compiled unsubstantiated accusations, debunked claims and an array of confusing and inconclusive eyewitness reports to build the case that the election was marred by fraud. Courts rejected the cases and election officials were unconvinced, thwarting a stunning assault on the transfer of power. Now Ms. Mitchell is prepping for the next election. Working with a well-funded network of organizations on the right, including the Republican National Committee, she is recruiting election conspiracists into an organized cavalry of activists monitoring elections. In seminars around the country, Ms. Mitchell is marshaling volunteers to stake out election offices, file information requests, monitor voting, work at polling places and keep detailed records of their work. She has tapped into a network of grass-root groups that promote misinformation and espouse wild theories about the 2020 election, including the fiction that President Biden’s victory could still be decertified and Mr. Trump reinstated. One concern is the group’s intent to research the backgrounds of local and state officials to determine whether each is a “friend or foe” of the movement. Many officials already feel under attack by those who falsely contend that the 2020 election was stolen.

In The States 

Echoing Trump, Dr. Oz Declares Himself The “Presumptive” Winner In Pennsylvania While Votes Are Still Being Counted 

  • NBC: Mehmet Oz Claims Victory As Pennsylvania Declares Recount: Republican Mehmet Oz, the television personality and doctor endorsed by former President Donald Trump, declared himself the “presumptive” Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania on Friday, despite the state’s announcement this week that the race would need an official recount. In a video posted to Twitter, Oz thanks his supporters and calls for unity, painting himself as the winner of the primary. “I am blessed to have earned the presumptive Republican nomination for the United States Senate,” Oz says. “I know we’ve got to heal, we’ve got to pull people together again.” But the state has not certified a winner in the primary (and news organizations like the NBC News Decision Desk have not projected a winner). Instead, the acting Secretary of State announced on Wednesday that the race would head to a recount with Oz leading former hedge fund CEO David McCormick by 902 votes.

What Experts Are Saying

Jonathan Alter’s Substack: Will Trump Be Indicted? Ruminating with Harry Litman, David Frum and Norman Ornstein on the upcoming January 6th hearings and the road from here. LINK 

Harry Litman, former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General, on upcoming House January 6 Hearings: “If the Committee has the goods on Republicans actually giving tours to insurrectionists on January 5th, it will be politically stunning. Can McCarthy just fold his arms and say, ‘There’s nothing here, move along’ as he’s been doing?” OLD GOATS with Jonathan Alter

Norman Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, on January 6 Investigations: “It may be that Donald Trump has tried very hard to avoid any direct involvement, but there is going to be evidence coming from some less-cautious players. There will be texts and phone calls from these people to Mark Meadows and possibly Trump. Looking at how explosive the materials Mark Meadows gave over to the committee voluntarily were, imagine what’s in the materials he didn’t give over. This is going to provide more impetus to subpoena some more of those records. Donald Trump talked about burner phones, [but] they’re going to be able to track what calls he was making. My guess is there’s going to be an enormous amount of circumstantial evidence that will show that Trump was talking on a regular basis with the January 6th perpetrators. That’s going to make it much more difficult for Merrick Garland to just say, ‘Well, we don’t want to get into this.’ There’s going to be a lot of pressure on the Justice Department to take this to its logical conclusion.” OLD GOATS with Jonathan Alter

Heather Cox Richardson, professor of history at Boston College, on GOP Leadership and the 1/6 House Select Committee’s Work: “On June 9, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol will begin six televised hearings to explain to the American people what happened on and around that day. That story is unlikely to reflect well on Republican leadership, who are trying to discredit the committee itself by claiming it is illegitimate. Their wiggling doesn’t look great for those who are supposed to be responsible for writing our laws… If Americans are concerned that the Republicans have gamed the system, the January 6 committee hearings seem unlikely to provide much reassurance.” Letters from an American

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections 

Associated Press: Christian nationalism on the rise in some GOP campaigns

Axios: Merrick Garland warns of democracy under threat in Harvard speech

The Hill: Mo Brooks gets into fiery exchange with ‘Fox News Sunday’ host over 2020 election

HuffPost: Rep. Mo Brooks Says We Need Our Guns So We Can ‘Take Back’ The Nation

New York Times: A Big Lie in a New Package

Washington Post (Analysis): Some far-right members are being replaced by traditional conservatives

January 6 And The 2020 Election 

Bloomberg: GOP’s Biggs Says Jan. 6 Committee Exceeds Authority in Subpoena

CNN: Alleged Nazi sympathizer convicted for role in January 6 US Capitol riot after claiming he didn’t know Congress met there

NBC: Federal judge orders ex-Proud Boys leader to be detained until Jan. 6 trial

NBC: New evidence reveals coordination between Oath Keepers, Three Percenters on Jan. 6

Politico: Select committee drops bid to obtain RNC records in time for public hearings

Washington Post: No evidence of exploitation of Dominion voting machine flaws, CISA finds

Opinion 

Washington Post (Greg Sargent):  Kevin McCarthy’s coverup for Trump just got much more alarming

In The States 

Daily Beast: She Lost the GA Guv Race By 70 Points. She Still Won’t Concede.

Washington Post: Georgia’s primary went smoothly. Voting advocates worry about November.