This week, MAGA radicals and conspiracy-fueled “news” outlets ramped up their efforts to undermine the work of fact-driven investigations into Donald Trump and his associates for their criminal conspiracy around the 2020 election. As multiple criminal investigations into the former president accelerate, including reportedly the Manhattan district attorney’s office’s likely indictment of Trump, it’s even more critical for accountability to be achieved for any and all criminal wrongdoing.
Here’s what you need to know for the weekend:
Main Points for the Weekend:
1. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and MAGA Republicans this week launched specious efforts to undermine the Select Committee on January 6’s investigation and findings.
Attempts this week to politicize and rewrite January 6 follows House Speaker Kevin McCarthy exclusively providing Carlson with January 6 security footage, which the Fox News host flagrantly cherry-picked to shamefully mischaracterize the insurrection that day as “peaceful”. And despite mounting bipartisan backlash – including from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell – Speaker McCarthy doubled down on giving tapes to Carlson.
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- Top point to make: Every single aspect of Tucker Carlson and MAGA radicals’ political propaganda of January 6 is flat-out dangerous – it’s critical that leaders condemn their actions and, in turn, help ensure accountability for any and all criminal wrongdoing around the 2020 election.
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- If you read one thing: CNN, 3/8/23: House GOP plots new January 6 probes despite internal backlash over McCarthy giving Carlson footage. “House Speaker Kevin McCarthy often spent the last two years avoiding much discussion about the January 6, 2021, attack. Now, he’s effectively put the issue back in the spotlight and on the investigative agenda – a gambit that has divided House and Senate Republicans and reopened ugly wounds inside the GOP. Republicans in the House are beginning to plot multiple probes into the 2021 Capitol attack, including looking into the Democratic-led select committee’s actions from the last Congress, the security failures from that day and potentially even the treatment of January 6 defendants, multiple sources familiar with the work tell CNN. The move comes as McCarthy green-lit the release of January 6 security footage to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sought to whitewash the severity of the attack and caused a major uproar among Senate Republicans on Tuesday.”
2.New and escalating efforts this week to discredit the Select Committee on January 6 is amid accelerating drip-drip-drip revelations from the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News for knowingly peddling conspiracy theories around the 2020 election.
Following news just last week that Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch admitted in a deposition that he knew network hosts falsely were promoting the narrative that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, a flurry of even more damning testimony and evidence has been released this week showing the extent to which top executives and anchors knowingly hawked election denialism. Private texts from host Tucker Carlson, released via the lawsuit, even showed him remarking: “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane[.]” and “I hate [Trump] passionately…We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights … I truly can’t wait.”
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- Top point to make: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant” and “democracy dies in the darkness” are both trite and true – we must continue to discredit election lies and foster trust in our election systems in order to preserve democracy.
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- If you read one thing: Washington Post, Greg Sargent Op-Ed: 3/8/23: Revealing Fox News texts point to the right’s long war on the truth. “This is one of the most extraordinary scandals to ever buffet a major American network. But it also points to an even bigger story: The right wing media’s long war on the truth. For decades, conservative media outlets have expressly sought to build and capture an audience that would accept only their version of events, and would be cordoned off to place them beyond the reach of mainstream news sources entirely.”
3.This past week, we saw encouraging disciplinary action taken against election deniers for their activities around the 2020 and 2022 elections – underscoring that accountability is possible and essential in safeguarding American democracy.
Early this week, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Iyer Julian sanctioned election denier Mark Finchem, who last year was defeated as a Arizona secretary of state candidate, for challenging 2022 election results “without substantial justification.” And on Wednesday, Colorado Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel censured Trump attorney Jenna Ellis for her 2020 election lies, which violated a state professional rule of conduct. Ellis as part of this legal process has admitted in a sworn statement that she made untruthful statements about the 2020 election.
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- Top point to make: It is heartening to see the American legal system work as it should and hold election deniers accountable for their dangerous efforts to sow doubt and chaos in our election systems. There’s still much more work to do, and we must continue to remain vigilant in our ongoing work to protect the will of American voters.
Expert Voices
Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW): “The Jan. 6 Committee presented damning evidence of Donald Trump’s criminal efforts to overturn an election and incite an insurrection. An investigation of the committee’s work is nothing more than politically motivated cover for Trump and partisan payback.” Tweet
Norm Eisen, a longtime election lawyer who was involved in Trump’s first impeachment: “Despite evidence that the same people were involved in multiple states and that the effort was funded in part by prominent Trump supporters including his former lawyer Sidney Powell, there is little indication a federal inquiry is underway. ‘Because there is a nationwide pattern here involving the same people, and because of the risk that those individuals will organize this yet again, I think it is … important that federal authorities look at the larger pattern,’ said Norm Eisen, a longtime election lawyer who was involved in Trump’s first impeachment. ‘It needs to be analyzed as a recurring pattern so that that pattern does not continue to occur in the future.’” Los Angeles Times
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian at New York University: “Trump’s CPAC speech brings forth a century of rhetoric and agendas that have been used to destroy democracy, conjuring threats that are meant to build support for authoritarian action and leadership, starting with the idea of the head of state as a vengeful victim.” Lucid
Jason Stanley, philosopher at Yale University: “Let’s be clear: this talk of internal enemies, revenge, retribution is the core anti-democratic talk, demagoguery[.]” Yahoo News
