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Defend Our Country Digest

DEFEND OUR COUNTRY DIGEST – September 6, 2023

By September 6, 2023No Comments

Driving the Day

Must Read Stories

Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio sentenced for role in Jan. 6 Capitol attack and seditious conspiracy

  • New York Times: Ex-Leader of Proud Boys Sentenced to 22 Years in Jan. 6 Sedition Case: “Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, was sentenced on Tuesday to 22 years in prison for the central role he played in organizing a gang of his pro-Trump followers to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power. Mr. Tarrio’s sentence, stemming from his conviction this spring on charges of seditious conspiracy, was the most severe penalty handed down so far to any of the more than 1,100 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack — and was likely to remain that way, given that no other defendants currently face accusations as serious as the ones he did.”

  • The Independent: Who is Enrique Tarrio? Ex-Proud Boys leader faces longest prison sentence yet for January 6: “Two days before a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol, the now-former leader of a neo-fascist gang was arrested in Washington DC shortly after stepping off a plane from Miami. Enrique Tarrio was wanted by police after he admitted to tearing down and burning a Black Lives Matter flag outside a historically Black church in the nation’s capital during December riots connected to a protest supporting then-President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. On 6 January, 2021, Tarrio watched the insurrection unfold from a hotel in Baltimore. Before his arrest two days earlier, Tarrio wrote to his lieutenant: ‘Whatever happens … make it a spectacle.’ Tarrio is now among four members of the self-described ‘Western chauvinist’ gang facing decades in prison after they were found guilty in May of seditious conspiracy and other charges in connection with the mob’s assault. Tarrio’s verdict marked the first successful seditious conspiracy conviction against a January 6 defendant who was not physically at the Capitol that day.rique Tarrio? Ex-Proud Boys leader faces longest prison sentence yet for January 6.”

Peter Navarro faces contempt trial for defying Jan. 6 Committee

  • CNN: Peter Navarro, second ex-Trump aide to be prosecuted for contempt of Congress, faces trial Tuesday: “Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro goes on trial Tuesday as the second ex-aide to former President Donald Trump to be prosecuted for criminal contempt of Congress. Navarro, like Trump ally Steve Bannon, faces charges over his lack of cooperation with subpoenas issued by the now-defunct House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack. Jury selection began Tuesday morning. Bannon was convicted last summer on two counts of criminal contempt in a case he’s appealing to the Washington, DC, US Circuit Court of Appeals. While the House committee investigation ended in early January, convictions in the criminal cases arising from the defiance of its subpoenas stand to be a powerful cudgel for congressional investigators in the future who are dealing with recalcitrant witnesses. It may also help draw clearer lines around a former president’s power to assert privilege over aides facing demands from Congress for testimony and documents.”

  • Washington Post: Peter Navarro heads to trial with gutted defense and mounting bills: “With former president Donald Trump now accused of 91 felonies in four historic indictments, the legal woes of his erstwhile senior trade adviser, Peter Navarro, have been reduced to a prosecutorial sideshow. Yet the 74-year-old economist, still a loud proponent of the ‘stolen election’ falsehoods of his ex-boss, remains noteworthy in this sense: After right-wing provocateur Stephen K. Bannon was convicted last summer of contempt of Congress, Navarro on Tuesday is set to become the second top official in Trump’s White House to face a criminal trial related to a scheme to undo President Biden’s 2020 victory at the polls. And Navarro, who has pleaded not guilty, said it is costing him plenty. ‘My legal bills just went up by another half-million dollars,’ he said last week as he departed the federal courthouse in Washington, having failed in his last-ditch attempt to have the case against him thrown out.”

Trump attempts to appeal his D.C. trial date

  • Washington Post: Why Trump’s vow to appeal his D.C. trial date probably won’t work: “When former president Donald Trump declared last week that he would appeal a federal judge’s decision to schedule his D.C. election-obstruction trial for March, legal experts quickly shot down the idea. That’s because the date a trial is scheduled is generally not an appealable issue. In addition, the court system is generally loath to scrutinize a judge’s decisions in a criminal case before the trial is completed. Federal courts have long held — and state courts usually agree — that criminal defendants should not be able to appeal most pretrial decisions until after a trial is over. If they could, their cases would probably drag on much longer before getting to a jury. Appeals courts tend to dislike such appeals, and consider them only in rare instances where a trial judge’s decision might cause harm that cannot be undone by a post-conviction appeal.”

  • Washington Monthly: Judge Chutkan is The Boss: “Trump will most likely be tried first in Chutkan’s courtroom. She’s a highly experienced Jamaica-born judge who brooks no nonsense and is widely respected among her colleagues at the D.C. Circuit—the appellate court that will review her trial work. Her appointment to the federal bench in 2014 was impressively non-controversial. The Republican opposition researchers on the minority staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee dug as hard as they could and came up empty-handed. Chutkan’s nomination cleared the panel by voice vote, and in the Senate, the cloture vote by 54-40 and the confirmation vote by 95-0, with Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham—now attacking her—among the Republicans voting ‘yea.’”

  • Newsweek: Trump May Be Headed for Another Major Court Loss: “Former President Donald Trump may be headed for another major court loss after his pledge to appeal his Washington, D.C., trial date may not happen since the date a trial is scheduled is generally not an appealable issue, according to legal analysts. Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Trump with four criminal counts in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the former president’s alleged multiple efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. A mob of Trump’s supporters, allegedly motivated by his unfounded claims of voter fraud in the election, violently protested the results in a failed effort to block congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Trump who was indicted on four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights, maintained his innocence in the case and pleaded not guilty during his arraignment.”

  • Washington Post: Trump lawyers evoke 1931 trial of ‘Scottsboro boys’ in election case: “Nearly a century ago, nine Black teens were wrongfully accused of raping two young White women — then arrested, tried and sentenced all in the span of two weeks. Now, former president Donald Trump’s legal team has raised eyebrows by citing that case while arguing for more time to prepare a defense in his 2020 election-obstruction case. Keeping up with politics is easy with The 5-Minute Fix Newsletter, in your inbox weekdays. In March 1931, the teens who would become known as the ‘Scottsboro boys’ were accused of raping the female mill workers as they passed through Alabama on a train. They were given barely any chance to talk to their attorneys before or during their brief trials by White juries, which led to death sentences for eight of them.”

In the States 

ALABAMA: After the federal court struck down Alabama’s new Republican-drawn congressional map, the state Attorney General appeals the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court

  • Reuters: Alabama to ask US Supreme Court to keep Republican-drawn electoral map: “Alabama’s Republican-backed congressional map illegally dilutes Black residents’ voting power and must be redrawn, a panel of three federal judges ruled on Tuesday, a decision that the state said it would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. That appeal plan escalated the stakes of a judicial decision that boosted Democratic chances to win back a U.S. House of Representatives majority in the 2024 congressional elections. The lower court’s ruling marked the second time that the judges threw out a map delineating the boundaries of the seven U.S. House districts in Alabama put in place by the Republican-controlled state legislature. The three-judge panel in Birmingham wrote that it saw little reason to give the state legislature a third chance. Instead, a court-appointed special master will create a new electoral map ahead of next year’s vote, the judges decided. At issue was whether the Republican-drawn map violated a bedrock federal civil rights law, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.”

GEORGIA: Georgia’s congressional maps get their day in court, could decide control of U.S. House seat

  • Georgia Recorder: Georgia redistricting trial opens with debate over federal requirements for Black representation: “A federal trial that could recontour the political landscape in Georgia ahead of next year’s congressional and legislative races started Tuesday. The complex trial, which is expected to last through next week, focuses on a trio of challenges targeting the state’s congressional map – which helped Republicans gain a U.S. House seat last year – as well as district lines carving up the state Senate and House of Representatives. The lawsuits all argue the maps drawn during a special session in late 2021 violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court kept intact with its surprise ruling against Alabama’s maps this summer. This decades-old provision bars practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race. “The Voting Rights Act was designed for a case like this one,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, interim co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project. District Judge Steve C. Jones is presiding over the trial in the same 19th floor courtroom that has been the setting for the push by some defendants in the 2020 election interference case to have their trial moved from Fulton County to federal court.”

OHIO: Voting rights groups say prolonging legal battle is bad for voters, ask for their challenge to congressional map to be dismissed

  • Associated Press: Voting rights groups ask to dismiss lawsuit challenging gerrymandered Ohio congressional map: “Ohio voting-rights groups moved to dismiss their lawsuit against Ohio’s unconstitutional congressional map on Tuesday, arguing that prolonging the legal wrangling over where to draw district boundaries isn’t in the best interests of Ohio voters. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Ohio and others, told the Ohio Supreme Court that they are willing to live with the U.S. House map approved March 2, 2022, and used in last year’s elections, “(i)n lieu of the continued turmoil brought about by cycles of redrawn maps and ensuing litigation.” Democrats netted wins under that map — securing five of 15 U.S. House seats, compared to the four of 16 they had held previously. Ohio had lost one seat under the 2020 Census because of lagging population growth.”
  • WCBE: Ohio elections officials concerned expired ID may thwart voters: “Elections officials in Ohio, looking at results of the Aug. 8 special election, are concerned that the voter ID law that went into effect this year might result in more voters being turned away at the polls. The Aug. 8 election was just the second one under House Bill 458, which requires Ohio voters to show valid photo ID in order to vote. The same law shortened the period to mail in absentee ballots. House Bill 458 passed last year and took effect in April, just before the May primary. The law spells out a number of forms of valid photo ID, including an unexpired Ohio driver’s license or state ID card, a U.S. passport or passport card, a U.S. military ID card. If a voter who does not have the proper ID casts a provisional ballot, that ballot cannot be counted. Aaron Ockerman of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials said he is concerned that the new law might result in a higher number of voters being turned away or ballots being rejected.”

TEXAS: Impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton continues in state Senate

  • Washington Post: Texas AG Paxton pleads not guilty as historic impeachment trial begins: The Texas Senate’s historic impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton, the conservative firebrand accused of bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of office, opened Tuesday with him alternately denounced for betraying “his constituents and the sacred public trust” and defended given “baseless” charges and evidence “dumber than a bag of hair.” Paxton (R), only the third official to be impeached since Texas became a state in 1845, left the chamber before a fellow Republican delivered the prosecution’s opening statements. “Mr. Paxton has been entrusted with great power. Unfortunately, rather than rise to the occasion, he has revealed his true character,” said Rep. Andrew Murr, a lawyer and rancher with a handlebar mustache who led the investigation that culminated in the House’s overwhelming vote to impeach in May. He said he and his colleagues “uncovered egregious misconduct and abuse of office” and alluded to actions by Paxton and his backers “seeking to intimidate the Senate.”

What Experts Are Saying

Dennis Aftergut for Salon: “Vigilance will always be required, especially given the precarious state of our democracy, to call out judges who appear to prioritize politics or ideology over the rule of law. Even so, we should stop to appreciate — and to defend — the majority of courts that continue to uphold the legal standards, and the search for truth, upon which democratic freedoms depend.”

Joyce Vance on X (Twitter): “Trump made a veiled threat about the possibility of civil war in an August interview with Tucker Carlson, ‘January 6 was a very interesting day, because, you know, they don’t report it properly…people in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they’d ever experienced.’ This Labor Day it’s important to remember what’s at stake. It is nothing less than the future of our still fragile union. We’re in this together.”

Norm Eisen on Rudy Giuliani’s charges: “The challenge for Rudy Giuliani is that he played such a central role as Donald Trump’s outside attorney in the alleged scheme. And he touches every different part of that complicated conspiracy that Fani Willis has charged.”

Marc Elias for Democracy Docket: “Defending democracy means defending those who make democracy work… Yet, since November, we have witnessed an alarming increase in violent threats and harassment aimed at our frontline election workers. They have ranged from in-person harassment to threats cloaked in the anonymity of social media and the internet. It has led many of these dedicated public servants and civic-minded individuals to resign from their positions or simply retire from helping to administer our elections.

We must be particularly focused on the impact this is having on local election officials and poll workers — paid and unpaid. While elected and statewide officials have put themselves into the public arena and should expect the praise and criticism that results, local officials and workers have not. A social media post accusing the secretary of state of “stealing the election” is not the same as one aimed at a local precinct volunteer or county election worker. We do not have a shortage of people willing to run for secretary of state, but we are likely to face an acute shortage of local election workers.”

Noah Bookbinder on X (Twitter): “It is appropriate that those who violently disrupted the peaceful transfer of power in this country are receiving significant sentences. It is hard to overstate how serious this conduct is in a republic, and the consequences should match.”

Headlines

The MAGA Movement and the Ongoing Threat to Elections 

Salon: “Dark” right-wing network recruits MAGA “army” to replace 50K federal workers Trump plans to purge

Trump Investigations 

Reuters: Meadows, other Trump allies plead not guilty in Georgia election case

Politico: Trump’s co-defendants are already starting to turn against him

Newsweek: Fani Willis ‘Has To Feel Good’ About Mark Meadows Case: Jan 6 Lawyer

Washington Post: Court undoes ruling allowing DOJ access to Scott Perry’s phone

January 6 and the 2020 Elections

The Hill: Proud Boys, Oath Keepers prosecutions set stage for Trump DC trial

CBS: FBI searches for growing number of Jan. 6 fugitives

Roll Call: Media, defendants to get access to Capitol video from Jan. 6 attack

NBC: Trump campaign aide told police officers to ‘go hang yourself’ at Jan. 6 riot

Opinion

Washington Post: How Trump could win by losing, and delay his trial date

The Hill: We can enact ethics reform for the Supreme Court, judiciously

New York Times: In Georgia, One Republican Says, ‘We Will Do What Is Right’

The Week: Electing Donald Trump could lead to demise of American democracy

In the States

The Guardian: Wisconsin voters caught in the middle as misinformation takes on education

Associated Press: A Georgia trial arguing redistricting harmed Black voters could decide control of a US House seat

Axios: Push to expand voting rights gains ground in 2023