This week, we await the January 6th Committees’ final hearing, where they are expected to announce which individuals they will be sending criminal referrals to the Justice Department, Although the country is taking one more step into finally holding those involved accountable, the threat to our right to choose our own leaders is still under siege by individuals from all walks of life – including members of the next MAGA House majority.
Here’s what you need to know for the weekend:
Main Points for the Weekend:
1. The January 6th Committee will announce who they are criminally referring to the Justice Department on Monday, December 19, 2022. The committee’s final report will be released on Wednesday, December 21, 2022, according to committee chair Congressman Bennie Thompson.
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- Top point to make: Those responsible for the attack on our Capitol on January 6th, and those who attempted to override the will of the people will be held accountable for their actions.
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- If you read one thing: ABC News, 12/13/22: Jan. 6 select committee announces final public meeting Monday. “The Jan. 6 select committee’s final act won’t just include recommendations for criminal charges against allies of Donald Trump. Chair Bennie Thompson indicated on Tuesday that the panel was likely to make ‘five or six’ categories of referrals to outside entities for potential misconduct by figures in the former president’s orbit. It was the most specific detail yet that Thompson (D-Miss.) has provided about some of the committee’s most anticipated final decisions. Thompson said the announcement of the referral targets would come on Monday, when the committee convenes for what is likely to be its last public meeting.”
2. Text messages revealed this week from the phone of former White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, show 34 members of Congress he engaged with to try and overturn the 2020 election results, an election Donald Trump, Mark Meadows, and all of their MAGA followers knew they lost.
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- Top point to make: Current members of Congress were revealed to have had a significant role in the events surrounding January 6th and will continue their push in the new Congress. The fight to stop them is not over yet.
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- If you read one thing: Talking Points Memo, 12/12/22: Mark Meadows Exchanged Texts With 34 Members Of Congress About Plans To Overturn The 2020 Election. “The messages document the role members played in the campaign to subvert the election as it was conceived, built, and reached its violent climax on Jan. 6, 2021. The texts are rife with links to far-right websites, questionable legal theories, violent rhetoric, and advocacy for authoritarian power grabs. One message identified as coming from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) to Meadows on January 17, 2021, three days before Joe Biden was set to take office, is a raw distillation of the various themes in the congressional correspondence. In the text, despite a typo, Norman seemed to be proposing a dramatic last ditch plan: having Trump impose martial law during his final hours in office… Based on TPM’s analysis, Meadows received at least 364 messages from Republican members of Congress who discussed attempts to reverse the election results with him. He sent at least 95 messages of his own… Meadows’ text log shows what the scheme to reverse the election results looked like behind the scenes, revealing new details about which members of Congress helped spearhead the efforts and the strategies they deployed. The members who messaged Meadows about challenging the election included some of the highest-profile figures on the right flank in Congress, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), all of whom are identified as playing leading roles in the effort to undo Trump’s defeat. One message that was dated Dec. 30, 2020 and was identified as coming from Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller described Brooks as a ‘ringleader’ of the effort to block the electoral certification.”
3. In Arizona, one of Trump’s most noxious MAGA allies is following his lead and refuses to concede the election she knows she lost. Even though the state officially certified the election results, Kari Lake and others in the state still cry about election fraud.
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- Top point to make: MAGA Republicans will stop at nothing to attempt to override the will of the people and steal power for themselves.
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- If you read one thing: Reuters, 12/12/22: Election denier Kari Lake sues Arizona elections officials. “Defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake sued Arizona elections officials on Friday to challenge the counting and certification of the November electoral contest and ask to be declared the winner despite a lack of evidence of voter fraud… Kari Lake needs attention like a fish needs water,’ she said. ‘Independent experts and local election officials of both parties have made clear that this was a safe, secure, and fair election.’… Maricopa County spokesman Fields Moseley said the court system is the appropriate venue for campaigns to challenge the results. Moseley said the county ‘looks forward to sharing facts about the administration of the 2022 General Election and our work to ensure every legal voter had an opportunity to cast their ballot.’”
Expert voices
Dennis Aftergut, former federal prosecutor, and Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor emeritus and a professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School: “We’ve long known that Trump and his campaign ran a multipronged, post-election scheme to persuade battleground state Republicans to reverse their state’s certifications of President Joe Biden’s win. Trump lawyers Rudolph Giuliani and John Eastman seem to have led it, appearing before battleground state legislative bodies to argue Trump’s case. And Trump personally participated. He called for friendly legislatures to help him stay in office. He introduced Giuliani on a call where the former New York City mayor made an unsuccessful pitch to Arizona’s then–Senate Majority Leader Rusty Bowers to appoint “fake electors” to cast Electoral College votes for Trump. The concerted, multistate effort looks very much like the basis for charging a conspiracy to defraud the United States of its lawful government function in a presidential election. Smith’s Dec. 6 subpoenas aim to collect evidence of the scheme held by state officials.” Slate Op-Ed: The Special Counsel Investigating Trump Is Wasting No Time
Barbara McQuade, former US attorney (MSNBC Video): “‘If they’re still out there in a storage locker or somebody’s basement, that exposes the US to grave harm.’ @BarbMcQuade says Trump’s team needs to attest that there are no more classified documents floating around, which is a huge national security risk.” The Katie Phang Show Tweet
Colby Galliher, research analyst at the Brookings Institution, and Norman Eisen, Brookings senior fellow: “A survey of the seven states [Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin] where Republican electors are reported to have met on December 14, 2020—the day the Electoral College convened to cast its votes for president—reveals a factual and legal basis for other state investigations of those officials who took the origins of the election denial movement to an extreme: potential criminal wrongdoing. The false electors signed their names to documents that claimed they were “duly elected and qualified” electors from their state (implying President Trump won the popular vote in their states, when he did not). Then those documents were submitted to Congress and the National Archives, raising the question of whether the false electors may have violated state laws in jurisdictions other than Georgia. This essay summarizes the known facts surrounding the false electors’ activities in each of the seven states where false slates were created, as well as a sampling of potentially applicable state laws that may be implicated by the electors’ conduct.” Brookings: Democracy on the ballot—will false electors be investigated?
Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University: “Over the past six years, Republican officials, and the rank and file, have learned how to live with Trump because they believe that he can win, and that his loyal base can help them be victorious. Whether it was out of fear or hope, Republicans showed that they would tolerate almost anything – even trying to overturn an election – to protect him. A week like this might shatter that status quo. Now that there are more Republicans, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who could possibly do Trumpism in more effective fashion, the former president’s standing within the party inevitably becomes more precarious.” CNN Op-Ed: Trump’s terrible week sends a message to GOP
Aziz Huq, Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School: “Both phenomena [election violence and Moore v. Harper] instead suggest a much more profound dissatisfaction with the orderly operation of democracy. Both imply a deeply felt resistance to popular rule in favor of a political order of yesteryear that has the trappings, not the substance, of democracy. Trump himself may or may not be fading from view. But such well-rooted resistance to the idea of fair and orderly elections is not going away. Whatever the Court ultimately decides, we will be living in the shadow of these antidemocratic fever dreams for some time to come.” TIME Op-Ed: American Democracy Is Under Threat—Again
Evan Caminker, former dean and current Branch Rickey Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School: “The checks and balances currently in place for federal election rules are critical to ensure that partisan politicians in state legislatures do not abuse their power and subvert the will of voters. But the aggressive view of ISLT pressed in the Moore litigation could pave the way for partisan gerrymandering, vote suppression and other tactics that undermine democracy. In Michigan, the Supreme Court’s decision on ISLT could open the door to eliminating legislative no-excuse absentee voting, automatic voter registration and even the independent redistricting commission. It is critical to protect the role of state courts as a check on state legislatures — because ultimately, state courts protect the people’s voice at the ballot box.” Detroit News Op-Ed: Supreme Court must protect fair elections from partisan legislators
