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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — October 17, 2022

By October 17, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Scrutiny On Secret Service Role On January 6 Increases 

  • Bloomberg: Secret Service Minimized Threats Before Jan. 6, Documents Show: A Secret Service unit responsible for identifying threats repeatedly downplayed advance warnings of potential violence on Jan. 6, 2021, newly released documents show, a lapse that is now part of the House investigation into the attack on the US Capitol. The Secret Service Protective Intelligence & Assessment Division’s preparation and response to Jan. 6 is laid bare in nearly 900 pages of emails, internal reports and threat assessments obtained by Bloomberg News in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The reports tell of extremist groups heading for Washington, including some that openly discussed employing violence to overturn the 2020 election results. But a series of internal memos circulated among agents repeatedly say “there is no indication of civil disobedience” associated with any of the planned protests.  The performance of the Secret Service and other law enforcement has become a flashpoint in a House committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6 assault since it was revealed that the agency had deleted text messages sent among agents that were sought by the committee.
  • CNN: January 6 Committee Member Says Panel Will Ask Former Secret Service Agent To Testify Again: Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, told CNN on Sunday the panel will ask former Secret Service Assistant Director Tony Ornato to testify again. “We’re in a position in the very near future to call the witnesses from the Secret Service back in for a few additional questions,” the California Democrat told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “CNN Newsroom,” explaining that the panel had wanted to “get through all the documentary evidence … over a million documents,” which they’ve now done. The House select committee has made clear it believes Ornato was a central figure who could provide valuable information about former President Donald Trump’s movements and intentions leading up to and on January 6.
  • NBC: Congress Asks Secret Service For An Account Of All Contacts Between Agency, Oath Keepers Up To And On Jan. 6, 2021:  The House Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection has asked the Secret Service for records of all communications between the far-right Oath Keepers group and Secret Service agents prior to and on the day of the attack, after a preliminary accounting by the agency indicated multiple contacts in 2020, according to a Secret Service spokesman.  The spokesman said the Congressional request follows a short telephonic briefing from the Secret Service to committee staff, in which the agency said an agent from its protective intelligence division had “numerous” contacts with Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and other group members prior to Trump rallies in fall 2020, but that they were all part of common practice to inform the group of security protocols to follow. That initial briefing was prompted by federal trial testimony in which the ex-leader of the North Carolina Oath Keepers said Rhodes was in contact with a member of the Secret Service around the time of a September 2020 rally. 

Friday Saw A Flurry Of Activity In January 6 Related Cases

  • Bloomberg: Giuliani Mounts Defense in Ethics Case With Election Denier List: Rudy Giuliani intends to defend himself against a legal ethics prosecution in Washington by calling a string of witnesses who promoted baseless claims that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud. A witness list submitted Friday by his lawyers to the hearing committee that will consider his case in early December features prominent conservative lawyers and activists who backed then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” effort to undo Joe Biden’s victories in key states.  Giuliani’s proposed witnesses include Doug Mastriano the Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania; Christina Bobb, a lawyer recently in the spotlight for her connection to a federal criminal inquiry into Trump’s handling of government documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort; former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis; former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi; former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, former Trump 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
  • NBC: Wisconsin Lawyer Suing Over Fake Elector Plot Wants To Probe Ron Johnson’s Jan. 6 Communications: Sen. Ron Johnson’s public explanations about whether he played a role in a plan to reverse the 2020 election results have led the lawyer suing Wisconsin’s slate of “fake electors” to say he’ll soon demand they turn over any communications they may have had with him or his staff. The attorney, Jeff Mandell, told NBC News he’s also attempting to probe communications between the Republican senator and the Wisconsin-based lawyer Jim Troupis, who served as an attorney for then-President Donald Trump’s campaign. Troupis, who headed Trump’s unsuccessful recount efforts in the state, was not one of the 10 people who falsely attested that Trump was Wisconsin’s rightful winner, but the lawsuit alleges he was a key player in the broader scheme to undermine Joe Biden’s victory. Mandell, whose case is pending in federal court, described Johnson’s public explanations as evolving and said he plans to ask the judge overseeing the case for communications between the defendants and Johnson and his aides, including texts or emails. 
  • Washington Post: Judge Bucks Trump, Orders Pence Aide To Testify To Jan. 6 Grand Jury: A former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence returned before a grand jury Thursday to testify in a criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election after federal courts overruled President Donald Trump’s objections to the testimony, according to people familiar with the matter. In a sealed decision that could clear the way for other top Trump White House officials to answer questions before a grand jury, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled that former Pence chief of staff Marc Short probably possessed information important to the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that was not available from other sources, one of those people said. Trump appealed, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to postpone Short’s appearance while the litigation continues, the people said, signaling that attempts by Trump to invoke executive privilege to preserve the confidentiality of presidential decision-making were not likely to prevail.
  • CNN: Trump Operative Seen On Video In Georgia Voting System Breach Testifies Before Special Grand Jury:  A pro-Trump operative who was caught on tape participating in a Georgia voting system breach after the 2020 election has testified before the special grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the outcome in that state, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman and Fulton County Republican poll watcher who was captured on surveillance video the same day the breach happened and acknowledged he gained access to a voting machine, testified as a witness for over three hours last week in the state-level probe overseen by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the sources said. Hall’s appearance before the grand jury has not been previously reported.

Republican Candidates Refuse To Commit To Honoring Election Results 

  • USA Today: Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate Kari Lake Won’t Commit To Honoring Election Results: Emulating Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona repeatedly refused to say Sunday whether she would honor the results of her election – if she lost. “I’m going to win the election and accept that result,” Kari Lake said twice on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Lake is among this election’s most prominent “election deniers,” Republicans who agree with Trump’s false claims about his loss in the 2020 election and suggest they may file protests of their own after the November elections. Public interest groups said Trump and his denier acolytes are threats to democracy, sowing distrust in the system because they know they cannot command a majority of voters. They said more protests after the 2022 elections will only fuel doubts about elections, despite mountains of evidence that they are fairly run.
  • Daily Beast: Blake Masters Is Already Claiming His Election Will Be Stolen: In his campaign to unseat Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Republican Blake Masters has consistently amplified skepticism and conspiracy theories surrounding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. But during the final stretch of his own 2022 race, Masters is starting to cast doubt on the outcome of this election—before the votes are even counted. At a campaign stop on Tuesday in a small town north of Phoenix, Masters was confronted with one voter’s concern that he could win by a “landslide” but that voting machines would “flip the vote” in Kelly’s favor, according to audio of the event obtained by The Daily Beast. “Unfortunately, we still have the machines in this election,” Masters replied. The “machines” refer to Dominion Voting Systems’ machines, which were used in Arizona and have been the subject of countless unfounded conspiracies. Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, used paper ballots in the 2020 election; audits found no evidence of fraud.

In The States 

ARIZONA: Arizona AG Asks Feds To Investigate Election Conspiracy Group True The Vote 

  • Arizona Republic: Arizona Attorney General’s Office Asks FBI, IRS to Investigate Group Behind ‘2000 Mules’: Republican candidates for top statewide offices in Arizona have said they believe what they saw in the election-conspiracy movie “2000 Mules.” Now, the state Attorney General’s Office is asking the FBI and IRS for investigations of the group behind the movie, True the Vote, noting that it has repeatedly rebuffed all requests to share the documentary’s alleged evidence and has raised “considerable sums of money” based on claims of having that evidence. “Given TTV’s status as a nonprofit organization, it would appear that further review of its financials may be warranted,” wrote Reginald “Reggie” Grigsby, chief special agent of the office’s Special Investigations Section. The film, released in May and thoroughly debunked by experts and media organizations, claims mobile-phone data obtained by the group shows a coordinated effort by hundreds of people around the country — deemed “mules” — to stuff election drop boxes with ballots for candidate Joe Biden in 2020. True the Vote’s representatives said they would use their findings to make elections more secure.

What Experts Are Saying

Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University: “The committee successfully unpacked the dark days that followed the 2020 election. They have been exposed in clear detail right in front of our eyes. The biggest mystery left is whether as a nation we will close our eyes and simply move forward without demanding accountability, justice and reform.” CNN Op-Ed: The biggest mystery after the dramatic January 6 revelations

Lara Putnam, professor of history at University of Pittsburgh: “Putnam said there is a growing distrust about the electoral system, despite the abundance of protocols in place to prevent voting fraud. ‘What’s so deeply ironic is that despite all of the safeguards that you’ve just heard about, as a result of the way the 2020 election played out, we have a real crisis of trust in the integrity of the electoral system,’ Putnam said. Pennsylvania’s election system is actually reliable in practice in contrast to the criticism it receives, according to Putnam. ‘We don’t have a crisis in actual integrity,’ Putnam said. ‘The actual integrity of the election system has never been stronger, but…only two thirds of Pennsylvanians say they trust that officials in their local county accurately counted votes in 2020.’” The Pitt News

Aziz Huq, constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago: “I think the big question presented today is whether the United States has a mechanism for addressing high-level criminality, acts by a very senior official within the government either that violate the law or that seriously break faith with the Constitution. The mechanism that is in the U.S. Constitution, which is impeachment, has not done the work that I think the framers expected. The problem today is that the Constitution has nothing else to say on the matter. Other countries which have more recently enacted constitutions create mechanisms for investigating high-level criminality and for dealing with it in a nonpartisan way that doesn’t risk witch hunts but that ensures what Representative Cheney calls accountability. We do not have those mechanisms, and that is a profound gap in our constitutional order.” NPR: All Things Considered  

Norman Eisen, Brookings Institute senior fellow, Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, and E. Danya Perry, former deputy chief of the criminal division SDNY and former NY deputy AG: “As the committee waits for the (unlikely) testimony of Mr. Trump, the torch now passes to other actors who hold the power to achieve accountability for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — and to prevent another one from happening…The added proof of Mr. Trump’s involvement in the events of Jan. 6 renews the question of whether elections officials and courts can disqualify him from holding public office under the Constitution…The report could be modeled after the Watergate Road Map. That document laid out in painstaking detail the evidence of wrongdoing that an investigative body (there, a grand jury) had collected. It consisted of an inventory listing the evidence and then attached pieces of proof — whether it was a document, witness transcript or something else…One final handoff is perhaps most important of all: to voters. Well over 300 midterm candidates have embraced “the Big Lie” about the 2020 election being stolen. The committee has repeatedly warned of the danger this election-denial movement poses.” New York Times: The Jan. 6 Hearings Are Over. These 3 Things Must Happen Now.

Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, and Laurence H. Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor emeritus and a professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School: “Those soldiers are still out there marching. They pose a silent but clear and present danger to our constitutional republic. The New York State Bar’s grievance committee must send a powerful message of deterrence by expeditiously investigating [Trump lawyer Kenneth] Chesebro. It should help defend the nation—and honor our profession by expelling him from it.” Slate Op-Ed: How to Ensure Accountability for the Legal Foot Soldiers of Jan. 6

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

Bloomberg: Trump Spent 91 Cents to Raise Each Dollar as Troubles Mounted

New York Times: The Problem of Marjorie Taylor Greene

New York Times: Far-Right Republicans Face Tough Races in Swing Districts, Testing McCarthy

Popular Information: Corporations donated more than $35.6 million to election deniers

USA Today: ‘Before it is too late:’ Trump attacks American Jews in post and draws swift criticism

Washington Post: Leaders of democracies increasingly echo Putin in authoritarian tilt

Washington Post: Racist appeals heat up in final weeks before midterms

Washington Post: Sidney Powell’s nonprofit raised $16 million as she spread election falsehoods

January 6 And The 2020 Election

The Atlantic: What Republicans Really Thought on January 6

Daily Beast: Roger Stone Threw a Fit After Not Getting Pardon, Called Ivanka ‘Abortionist Bitch’

Hunter Walker’s Substack: Here Are All Of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s January 6 Text Messages With Mark Meadows

NBC: FBI official was warned after Jan. 6 that some in the bureau were ‘sympathetic’ to the Capitol rioters

New York Times: Trump, Reacting to Pending Jan. 6 Subpoena, Repeats Election Lies in Letter

Politico: Kinzinger: Not clear what will happen if Trump refuses to testify

Politico: Judge denies Eastman attempt to reclaim phone seized by FBI

Washington Post: Jan. 6 video undermines Trump’s repeated efforts to blame Pelosi for Capitol security

Other Trump Investigations 

Associated Press: Justice Dept. seeks end to arbiter’s review of Trump docs

Wall Street Journal: FBI Seeks Additional Information From Two Trump Aides About Mar-a-Lago Records

Washington Post: Co-founder of Trump’s media company details Truth Social’s bitter infighting

Opinion

New York Times (Anand Giridharadas): A New Playbook for Saving Democracy

Political Violence

Miami Herald: Cops say a Trump supporter attacked Biden fans in Miami. Does an impartial jury exist?

In The States 

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohio Republican legislative leaders appeal Ohio Supreme Court gerrymandering decision to U.S. Supreme Court

Washington Post: On Kari Lake’s campaign for Arizona governor, the mic is always hot