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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — September 22, 2022

By September 22, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Dozens Of Trump’s Fake Electors Still Hold Powerful GOP Jobs 

  • NBC: Dozens Of Trump’s Phony Electors, Many Under Investigation, Still Hold Powerful GOP Jobs In Key States:  They were part of an effort across battleground states to upend the 2020 presidential election results, signing documents asserting they were their states’ rightful electors and Donald Trump — not Joe Biden — was the victor. Today, the U.S. Justice Department is circling these “fake electors.” The FBI has visited many of their homes delivering grand jury subpoenas and, in at least one case, seizing a cellphone, a source familiar with the investigation confirmed to NBC News. And the Jan. 6 Select Committee has compelled many of them to testify, arguing they were an integral part of a broader scheme cooked up by some of Trump’s closest confidants to overturn the election.  Law enforcement activity has not pushed these false electors from their political perches. Instead, with just two months until the midterms, more than two dozen of the individuals who served as phony electors still hold some of the highest-ranking political posts in their state parties. They’re also interwoven into the GOP infrastructure across seven battleground states that will determine the balance of Congress in November and the next presidential race two years later, according to a review by NBC News.

Ginni Thomas Will Meet With January 6 Committee 

  • CNN: Ginni Thomas Agrees To January 6 Committee Interview: The House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, has come to an agreement with Ginni Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to be interviewed by the panel in the coming weeks, according to a source close to the committee. Ginni Thomas’ attorney, Mark Paoletta, confirmed the voluntary interview in a statement, saying, “As she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas is eager to answer the Committee’s questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election. She looks forward to that opportunity.” Members of the panel have long said they are interested in speaking with Thomas, particularly after CNN first reported text messages she exchanged with then-Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows prior to January 6 about overturning the election. But in the months since those messages emerged, there has been little indication that compelling her to testify was a top priority for the panel despite subsequent evidence that Thomas also encouraged state lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin to overturn Joe Biden’s legitimate electoral win. Thomas attended the rally that preceded the attack on the US Capitol, as she said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, where she stressed that her and her husband’s professional lives are kept separate. She also said that she had left the gathering before the protesters turned violent.

Trump Ally Mike Lindell Is Under Federal Investigation For Identity Theft And A Scheme To Target Election Computers In Colorado 

  • Reuters: My Pillow CEO, Trump Ally Faces Probe For Plot To Target 2020 Election Computers: Mike Lindell, the My Pillow Inc chief executive and ally to former President Donald Trump, is under U.S. federal investigation for identity theft and for conspiring to damage a protected computer connected to a suspected voting equipment security breach in Colorado. The new details about the focus of the investigation were confirmed on Wednesday after Lindell’s attorneys uploaded a copy of a search and seizure warrant approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge Tony Leung for Minnesota federal court on Sept. 7. Leung approved the warrant based on probable cause that Lindell and other possible co-conspirators may have violated federal laws prohibiting identity fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and causing intentional damage a protected computer.

Trump’s Legal Problems Deepen:  The New York Attorney General Launches Civil Fraud Suit Against The Trump Organization, 11th Circuit Rebukes Judge Cannon, Allows DOJ To Use Sensitive Files In Investigation, And Trump Faces New Sexual Assault Suit 

  • Politico: Trump, Company And Family Members Sued By New York Ag Over Alleged Fraud Scheme: New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed suit against former President Donald Trump, three of his adult children and his business empire, accusing them of large-scale fraudulent financial practices and seeking to bar them from real estate transactions for the next five years. The attorney general’s civil suit alleges more than a decade of deception, including billions of dollars in falsified net worth, as part of an effort by Trump to minimize his companies’ tax bills while winning favorable terms from banks and insurance companies. It seeks about $250 million in allegedly illegal profits netted from the scheme, as well as a five-year ban on the former president, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump participating in any real estate transactions–a restriction that would spell the end of the Trump real estate empire. In addition, it seeks a permanent ban on the former president and his family members involved in his business enterprises from serving as directors or officers of any New York corporation or business licensed in the state. James’ suit relies on a special statute for repeat instances of alleged violations of the law, stemming from real estate transactions. She is also filing a criminal referral to federal prosecutors in Manhattan and a separate tax fraud referral to the IRS for the same underlying allegations.
  • Wall Street Journal: Government Wins Appeal on Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents: An appeals court late Wednesday granted the Justice Department’s request to retain control of the classified materials seized at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and continue its criminal investigation into the handling of those documents, in a big win for the government. In a 29-page decision, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta lifted an earlier order from a federal judge who had barred federal agents from using roughly 100 classified documents seized as part of its probe into whether any national-security risks had been posed by the way the highly sensitive government material was being held at Mr. Trump’s Florida home. Mr. Trump’s legal team had said an independent lawyer known as a special master should be able to review them, arguing the government was exaggerating its concerns that national security would be compromised if it couldn’t immediately restart its criminal investigation into the handling of the classified documents. A unanimous three-judge panel disagreed, saying the roughly 100 documents bearing classification markings are by definition government property. “For our part, we cannot discern why Plaintiff would have an individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings,” the panel said in its ruling. The panel included two judges appointed by Mr. Trump, Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher and Circuit Judge Britt Grant. The other judge on the panel, Circuit Judge Robin Rosenbaum, is an appointee of President Barack Obama.
  • Washington Post: E. Jean Carroll Plans To Sue Trump Using New N.Y. Sexual Assault Law: Writer and columnist E. Jean Carroll, who has maintained that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her once during the 1990s, plans to sue the former president under a New York law that lets sexual assault victims file suit years later, she said in court records filed Tuesday. In late May, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed into law the Adult Survivors Act, which will give adult sexual assault survivors up to one year to file a lawsuit regardless of when the alleged violation happened. In the court documents filed Tuesday in her ongoing defamation case against Trump, Carroll’s attorney Roberta A. Kaplan told a New York federal judge that her client intends to file a lawsuit against Trump “as soon as that statute authorizes us to do so.” Carroll can sue under the Adult Survivors Act as of Nov. 24. Carroll — who in 2019 recounted the alleged assault in an excerpt of her book — previously hadn’t been able to press charges because the statute of limitations had passed. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations.

House Passes Electoral College Act Reform 

  • New York Times: House Passes Overhaul of Electoral Count, Moving to Avert Another Jan. 6 Crisis: The House on Wednesday took the first major step to respond to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, voting mostly along party lines to overhaul the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act, the law that former President Donald J. Trump tried to exploit that day to overturn his defeat. The bill was the most significant legislative answer yet to the riot and the monthslong campaign by Mr. Trump and his allies to invalidate the 2020 presidential election, but it also underscored the lingering partisan divide over Jan. 6 and the former president’s continuing grip on his party. It cleared a divided House, passing on a 229 to 203 vote. All but nine Republicans opposed the measure, wary of angering Mr. Trump and unwilling to back legislation co-written by Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and a leader of the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 and what led to them.

In The States 

MICHIGAN: Trump-Endorsed Candidate For Congress Wants To Roll Back Women’s Right To Vote 

  • CNN: GOP Congressional Candidate Said Us Suffered From Women’s Suffrage And Praised Organization Trying To Repeal 19th Amendment:  A Michigan candidate for the US House backed by former President Donald Trump once railed against giving women the right to vote, arguing that America has “suffered” since women’s suffrage. John Gibbs, who defeated in the primary an incumbent Republican who had voted to impeach Trump, also made comments in the early 2000s praising an organization trying to repeal the 19th Amendment which also argued that women’s suffrage had made the United States into a “totalitarian state.” As a student at Stanford University in the early 2000s, Gibbs founded a self-described “think tank” called the Society for the Critique of Feminism that argued women did not “posess (sic) the characteristics necessary to govern,” and said men were smarter than women because they are more likely to “think logically about broad and abstract ideas in order to deduce a suitable conclusion, without relying upon emotional reasoning.” Hosted on Gibbs’ personal page at Stanford in 2000 and 2001, the Society for the Critique of Feminism argued for a patriarchal society run by men, calling it “the best model for the continued success of a society.” Anne Marie Schieber, a spokesperson for Gibbs’ campaign told CNN that Gibbs believed women should be allowed to vote and work.

OHIO:  A Trump-Endorsed January 6 Participant Congressional Candidate Lied About Serving In Afghanistan 

  • Associated Press: Ohio GOP House Candidate Has Misrepresented Military Service:  Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, once describing “tough” conditions including a lack of running water that forced him to go more than 40 days without a shower. Military documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request tell a different story. They indicate Majewski never deployed to Afghanistan but instead completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting. Majewski’s account of his time in the military is just one aspect of his biography that is suspect. His post-military career has been defined by exaggerations, conspiracy theories, talk of violent action against the U.S. government and occasional financial duress. Still, thanks to an unflinching allegiance to former President Donald Trump — Majewski once painted a massive Trump mural on his lawn — he also stands a chance of defeating longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a district recently redrawn to favor Republicans. Majewski is among a cluster of GOP candidates, most running for office for the first time, whose unvarnished life stories and hard-right politics could diminish the chances of a Republican “red wave” on Election Day in November. He is also a vivid representation of a new breed of politicians who reject facts as they try to emulate Trump.

What Experts Are Saying

Danya Perry, former deputy chief of the criminal division SDNY, former NY deputy AG, and chief of NYS Moreland commission; Joshua Stanton, former public defender in Memphis, Tennessee; Norman L. Eisen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution: “So far, Donald Trump has withstood years of legal pressures that would have felled a less shameless person. He has a genius for impunity the likes of which we have never seen. Still, we have never seen him, or any individual, come under this many fronts of sustained legal pressure. Today’s announcement may well serve as a tipping point signaling the beginning of the end.” Just Security: Has a Trump Tipping Point Been Reached? Analyzing The NY Attorney General’s Case Against Trump

Greg Ehrie, a former FBI special agent who now works with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL): “Mindless or not, some experts say what Trump is doing is dangerous. ‘What we have is a former President, a potential candidate for the presidency of the United States, legitimizing what is in essence a cult,’ Greg Ehrie, a former FBI special agent who now works with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), told CNN Tuesday.” CNN

Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket: “This year, Republicans are changing their playbook, proactively filing more anti-voting lawsuits than recent years. A recent report by Democracy Docket demonstrates that Republicans and their allies initiated more than half — nearly 54% — of non-redistricting voting cases filed so far in 2022. This is a stark increase from 2021, when the comparable figure was 13%…The increase and brazenness of Republican-initiated litigation is tied to the larger trend of GOP election subversion and the nomination of election denier candidates. Republicans are not asking judges to ensure that lawful votes are counted. Instead, they see the courts as another way to discount the votes of their political opponents and undermine the will of the electorate.” Democracy Docket: Republican Anti-Voting Lawsuits Pile Up in 2022

Barbara F. Walter, political scientist at UC San Diego: “Political systems matter and some types are more prone to violence than others. All of the democracies that experienced civil war between 1960 and 1995 had majoritarian or presidential systems. None of them were based on proportional representation.” Tweet 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

ABC: In some states, security concerns prompt schools, churches to withdraw as polling places

Bolts: Four Ballot Measures Threaten to Undercut Direct Democracy in Arizona and Arkansas

New York Times: Trump Support Remains Unmoved by Investigations, Poll Finds

Salon: Trump donors think they’re giving to “save America,” but they’re paying Trump’s legal bills

January 6 And The 2020 Election

HuffPost: Jan. 6 Rioter Goes Back To Jail Over ‘Addiction’ To Online Conspiracy Theories

NBC: Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman offers new Jan. 6 details at trial of QAnon believer

Other Trump Investigations 

NBC: New York’s lawsuit against Trump is different from his other legal troubles: It’s personal

Politico: ‘He knows how to play the victim card perfectly’: Why Trump’s legal woes only make him stronger

Opinion

New York Times (Carlos Lozada): The Inside Joke That Became Trump’s Big Lie

New York Times (Peter Smith): No Party for Old Moderates

Washington Post (Greg Sargent): Shocker: Most Republicans oppose plan to avert a 2024 Trump coup

In The States 

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Trump target Raffensperger dominating race for reelection

Rhode Island Public Radio: Former GOP officials back Democrat Magaziner in CD2 race