Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans continue to push conspiracy theories of election fraud and refuse to concede elections they lose. While the ballots for November fill up with these candidates, more evidence continues to be uncovered regarding their involvement in illegal and unconstitutional conspiracies to overturn the will of the people. All of these individuals must be held accountable at the ballot box and in the courts.
Here’s what you need to know for the weekend:
Main Points for the Weekend:
1. Election deniers and conspiracy theorists won primary elections across the country this week. In Arizona, the candidates set to appear on the ballot in November are all running on election denial conspiracy theories, posing a further threat to Arizonans’ right to choose who leads them.
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- Top point to make: This is evidence of an ongoing plot by MAGA Republicans to overturn elections they lose and take away our right to vote. We must hold these individuals accountable and protect our fundamental right to choose our own leaders. They should not be allowed to represent us.
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- If you read one thing: Washington Post, 8/3/22: Several election deniers backed by Trump prevail in hotly contested primaries. “This could be the last time we have free and fair elections,” said Adrian Fontes, who oversaw voting in Arizona’s biggest county in 2020 and was in a tight race Tuesday night with Arizona Rep. Reginald Bolding (D) in the Democratic primary for secretary of state. Fontes and other Democrats are alarmed by the candidates advancing in Republican primaries as well as the Supreme Court’s recent move to consider a conservative legal argument that could give state legislatures new power to shape and reject election results.”
2. The Department of Defense wiped texts from top officials and the Department of Homeland Security lost texts from Secret Service members regarding conversations surrounding January 6th. Multiple House committees directed the DHS to compile “all documents or materials that refer or relate to events that could or ultimately did transpire on January 6” before the texts were tampered with. The texts are believed to hold vital information for the investigations.
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- Top point to make: Essential documents in the investigation have been lost or erased. These must be fully investigated and conspirators must be held accountable for their participation in efforts to cover up the truth about January 6th.
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- If you read one thing: CNN, 8/2/22: First on CNN: Jan. 6 text messages wiped from phones of key Trump Pentagon officials. “‘It just reveals a widespread lack of taking seriously the obligation to preserve records, to ensure accountability, to ensure accountability to their partners in the legislative branch and to the American people,’ Sawyer said… ‘I think it’s highly unlikely that anyone could argue with a straight face that communications happening between these top officials on January 6 would not have the type of informational value that the Federal Records Law is meant to reach,’ Sawyer said.”
3. Trump White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin have been subpoenaed for their knowledge about the criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of an election. A federal grand jury issued subpoenas for the lawyers, indicating a direction in the Department of Justice’s parallel investigation.
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- Top point to make: The DOJ is deepening its probe into the truth about the criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the election that Trump and his advisors knew he lost. They must be held accountable in a court of law for their violent acts.
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- If you read one thing: AP, 8/4/22: Trump White House lawyers subpoenaed by 1/6 probe grand jury. “But Cipollone vigorously resisted attempts by Trump and his allies to undo the results of the presidential election Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden, saying he did not agree that there was sufficient fraud to have affected the outcome of the race… ‘To have the federal government seize voting machines? That’s a terrible idea for the country. That’s not how we do things in the United States,’ Cipollone testified, adding, ‘I don’t understand why we even have to tell you why that’s a bad idea for the country.’”
4. For the first time, the Department of Justice is directly engaging with Trump and his lawyers on the criminal probe. His lawyers warn that “indictments are possible” to hold him and members of his inner circle accountable for their actions.
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- Top point to make: Donald Trump engaged in a violent, illegal, and unconstitutional conspiracy to change the results of an election he knew he lost. He must be held accountable.
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- If you read one thing: CNN, 8/4/22: Exclusive: Trump lawyers in talks with Justice Department about January 6 criminal probe. “The Trump team’s discussions are with the US attorney’s office in Washington, DC, which is in charge of the investigation, and its top January 6 prosecutor Thomas Windom, the sources said… At this stage, the conversations are focused mostly on whether any communications that witnesses from the Trump West Wing had with the former President can be kept from a federal criminal grand jury under Trump’s claims of executive privilege, the people said. The Justice Department has been anticipating a court fight with Trump over executive privilege… Some members of Trump’s legal team have discussed his potential defense strategies on at least two occasions in recent months, according to two sources familiar with the matter, as they brace for new developments in the Justice Department probe and a separate investigation by Georgia officials into his potentially criminal meddling in the state’s 2020 election results…”
Expert voices
Marc Elias, Founder of Democracy Docket: “This is how Republicans are planning to steal elections in the future. By refusing to count lawful votes and then certifying incomplete and inaccurate results, Republicans hope to create a veneer of legitimacy around an illegitimate outcome.” Tweet | More details in recent Democracy Docket piece
Eliza Sweren-Becker, Brennan Center’s Voting Rights & Elections Counsel: “As you know, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Moore v. Harper, a case in which some North Carolina legislators have asked the Court to embrace the so-called independent state legislature notion. This is the radical claim (‘theory’ is too generous a term) positing that the Constitution removes the normal checks on state legislatures when they regulate federal elections. You’ve already heard that this claim is wrong. Constitutional text, American history, Supreme Court precedent, sound policy, and common sense all refute the idea.” Brennan Center
Jill Wine-Banks, Watergate scandal prosecutor: “I opposed pardon for Nixon and even more vehemently oppose it for Trump. House arrest is fine. More important, penalty must include barring him from future office. Without accountability, he — or other wannabe dictator — will repeat the conduct threatening our democracy.” Tweet
Thomas Zimmer, visiting history professor at Georgetown University: “The current situation necessarily marks a turning point. It is a veritable crisis because it will have to be resolved, one way or the other. America will either overcome this reactionary counter-mobilization and make the leap to multiracial, pluralistic democracy – or the country will regress, and let democracy perish before it’s ever been fully achieved in this land.” Guardian Op-Ed: This summer may be one of the most consequential in US democracy
Joyce Vance, former US attorney, on investigating Jan. 6-related Secret Service texts after DHS IG halted recovery plan: “The important thing is to move this investigation out of the hands of the DHS IG and into the hands of the FBI.” Tweet of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports
Dan Barr, legal expert based in Arizona, re: AZ Senate’s partisan “audit”: “Mark Brnovich cannot investigate his way out of a paper bag. Even Inspector Clouseau would have figured out that these allegations were total nonsense at least 10 months ago.” Tweet
Harry Litman, former US attorney, re: news that Pentagon wiped phones of key Trump admin. officials: “The underlying events have been so stunning we haven’t focused enough on this to date; but this potentially huge problem is the Watergate analog of ‘it’s not the crime, it’s the coverup.’ Here though it would be both.” Tweet
Theda Skocpol, a political scientist and sociologist at Harvard University: “Trump, in a second term, would bring in like-minded loyal and lawless authoritarians from the get-go, especially to run Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense. From all he says, it is clear that exerting domination and using the government apparatus to reward loyalists and punish perceived opponents is his main thing now. [American institutions] would not survive another Trump term, especially because of parallel reinforcing developments in a majority of states and in the federal Courts. Discouragement and outright repression and popular threats of violence would push most centrists and liberals into full retreat. Minority rule would lock in.” Thomas B. Edsall’s NYT Column
Heather Cox Richardson, professor of American history at Boston College: “If the majority is speaking up for our rights and freedoms, it seems the Republican Party is doubling down on extremism. Today, [Rusty] Bowers lost the Republican primary in a bid to move to the state senate. His opponent, who won by a large margin, was endorsed by former president Trump.” Letters from an American
Joyce Vance, former US attorney: “Accountability can come in the form of civil cases: Judge Mehta said the evidence suggests Trump assembled the crowd & then instructed the rally goers to march on the Capitol, despite knowing that the crowd likely included violent & destructive elements.” Tweet
Federico Finchelstein, professor of history at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College, re: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis falsely claiming elementary school workers are instructed to tell children to switch genders: “As the author of a book on the history of fascist lies, I can assert with authority that this is how fascist liars work…” Tweet
Rick Hasen, legal scholar and director of UCLA Law’s Safeguarding Democracy Project: “‘Among the Trumpian core of the Republican Party, this [refusing to concede and pushing conspiracy theories] has become mainstream,’ said Rick Hasen, the director of UCLA Law’s Safeguarding Democracy Project. ‘It’s exceedingly dangerous, because a democracy depends on losers’ consent.’ ‘If people believe the other side is consistently stealing elections, first of all, you completely delegitimize people in office … but second, you create the conditions where people might be more willing to engage in fraud themselves as a way of trying to even the score,’ he said.” Axios
Joyce Vance, former US attorney: “A subtle point about the value of J6C hearings: Ongoing revelations from the House..select committee are keeping the public informed about the sort of wrongdoing a criminal probe might focus on, making it harder for Trump to demagogue an investigation away” Tweet
Heather Cox Richardson, scholar of American history: “Part of why the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol has been so effective is that it has carefully built a story out of verifiable facts. Because House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) withdrew the pro-Trump Republicans from the committee, we have not had to deal with the muddying of the water by people like Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), who specializes in bullying and hectoring to get sound bites that later turn up in on right-wing channels in a narrative that mischaracterizes what actually happened.” Letters from an American
Dan Barr, Arizona elections lawyer: “Establishment AZ Republican leaders enabled and excused the birthers, election deniers, conspiracy mongers and Covid deniers when it was convenient for them. Yesterday, the people they enabled for far too long kicked them in the teeth and threw them to the curb.” Tweet
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian at New York University: “The speeches former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence gave this past week brought to mind two types of democracy destroyers. There are the brutes with the stick, who act loudly and quickly, and there are the soft-voiced bureaucratic types who act methodically. To use a popular metaphor, one whomps the frog to death in public and leaves its corpse there as an example to others. The other boils the frog slowly, attracting less notice, and then conceals its remains. The latter is no less deadly but is more discreet.” Lucid
Rachel Kleinfeld, Carnegie Endowment senior fellow (Podcast Audio): Republicans Have a Militia Problem The Bulwark
Joanna Lydgate, the chief executive of States United Action, re: Election Denier candidates for governor and secretary of state: “‘If any one of these election deniers wins statewide office, that’s a five-alarm fire for our elections,’ said Joanna Lydgate, the chief executive of States United Action, a bipartisan legal and democracy watchdog organization. ‘It could throw our elections into chaos. It could put our democracy at risk.’” New York Times
Eric Holder, former US attorney general (Radio): “My guess is that by the end of this process, you’re going to see indictments involving high-level people in the White House, you’re going to see indictments against people outside the White House who were advising them with regard to the attempt to steal the election, and I think ultimately you’re probably going to see the President, former President of the United States indicted as well.” Sirius XM
Harry Litman, former US attorney: “It’s always seemed likely that the link b/t Trump and the Proud Boys and other terrorists doing his bidding on the ground would be a sort of bridge conspiracy comprising the most motley grotesque figures in Trump land such as [Alex] Jones, [Roger] Stone, and [Rudy] Giuliani.” Tweet
