Defend Our Country Weekly: What to Know for the Weekend

This week, as the January 6th Committee plans to return before the end of the month, MAGA Republicans are still trying to avoid accountability and push conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen from the former president. Even with all of these efforts, Americans across the country recognize the threat posed by the former president and MAGA Republicans against our right to choose who leads us.  

Here’s what you need to know for the weekend: 

Main Points for the Weekend:

1. Majority of Americans now believe Trump and MAGA Republicans are the biggest threat to democracy, polling shows. New polling results released by Reuters/Ipsos show that a growing number of Americans believe President Biden is right – Trump and MAGA Republicans are the biggest threat to our democracy. 

• • Top point to make: Americans know Trump and MAGA Republicans pose the biggest threat to our country.

• • If you read one thing: Reuters, 9/8/22: Most Americans see Trump’s MAGA as threat to democracy: Reuters/Ipsos poll. “A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday found a majority of Americans believe Trump’s movement is undermining democracy. Fifty-eight percent of respondents in the two-day poll – including one in four Republicans – said Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ movement is threatening America’s democratic foundations. Biden’s Sept. 1 speech marked a sharp turn for his efforts to boost Democrats in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when Republicans aim to win control of the U.S. Congress. Speaking in Pennsylvania, a key electoral battleground, Biden urged voters to reject Trump and extremism.”

2. Documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago included those regarding foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities. The former president’s refusal to return such documents endangers not only the rule of law, but the security of the country.

• • Top point to make: Donald Trump is not above the law. He and his allies must be held accountable for putting the security of our country at risk. 

• • If you read one thing: Washington Post, 9/6/22: Material on foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities seized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. “Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs, according to people familiar with the search, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive details of an ongoing investigation… ‘People say this was unprecedented,’ Barr told Fox News. ‘But it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay?’”

3. In Michigan, a lawsuit has been filed to decertify the 2020 (that’s right, the 2020) election. Even though the election was certified almost two years ago, individuals in the state will not distance themselves from Donald Trump and his false claims of election fraud. 

• • Top point to make: Trump and his MAGA Republicans will stop at nothing to override the will of the people in their attempt to overturn elections they lose.
    

• • If you read one thing: The Detroit News, 9/6/22: Michigan clerk who handed over tabulator sues to decertify 2020 election. “Olson was one of four clerks who allegedly handed over tabulators, according to the Attorney General’s Office. Olson ‘indicated that she was asked by Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf to cooperate with investigators regarding an election fraud investigation,’ according to the petition from the Attorney General’s Office for a special prosecutor… The new lawsuit that Olson signed onto as a plaintiff contended that Michigan’s electronic voting system software was not properly certified. The bipartisan Board of State Canvassers, which features two Republicans and two Democrats, is in charge of approving electronic voting systems for use in the state… A past suit in federal court to overturn the results of Michigan’s presidential election failed with Eastern District Judge Linda Parker labeling it ‘a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.’”

4. A federal grand jury is now investigating the former president’s PAC and its spending, issuing subpoenas for documents, records, and testimony from potential witnesses. Trump’s Save America PAC raised $250 million after the 2020 election on the false basis of voter fraud, even when they knew there was none, in an attempt to stay in power and override the will of the people. 

• • Top point to make: Donald Trump planned, paid for, and profited off a violent criminal conspiracy to overturn an election he knew he lost. 

• • If you read one thing: New York Times, 9/8/22: Trump’s Post-Election Fund-Raising Comes Under Scrutiny by Justice Dept. “Those parts of the Jan. 6 inquiry related to Mr. Trump have so far largely centered on a plan to create slates of electors pledged to him in seven key swing states that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had won. The new subpoenas appeared to have been issued by a different grand jury in Washington than the one that has been gathering evidence about the so-called fake electors plan, which has focused on questions surrounding pro-Trump lawyers like Rudolph W. Giuliani and John Eastman. At least one of the new subpoenas bore the name of a veteran federal prosecutor in Washington who specializes in fraud cases, suggesting that this avenue of inquiry is devoted primarily to examining the spending and fund-raising at Mr. Trump’s PAC.”

Expert voices

Steve Vladeck, Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas School of Law: “So much for the hope that Judge Cannon was bending over backwards to look like she was accommodating Trump. This is twisting the law into a pretzel in ways that are as unsupported in precedent as they are unlikely to be followed in any future cases. Just a sad day for the courts.” Tweet 

Asha Rangappa, former FBI agent: “This judge basically did Trump’s lawyers’ work for them, making arguments under the 4-part Richey test which Trump did not brief or argue, making executive privilege arguments that Trump did not press fully in the hearing, and granting an injunction when one wasn’t requested” Tweet

Matthew Miller, former special advisor to the National Security Council and former director of the office of public affairs at the Department of Justice: “So all Judge Cannon has to do now is find a special master who:
a. is an expert in one of the more contested, unexplored areas of the law;
b. already has a Top Secret clearance;
c. isn’t seen as tainted through service in a recent administration.
Goood luck.” Tweet 

Norm Eisen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute: “The most profound error in the order is on p 16-18: using a special master for the first time in history to adjudicate an executive privilege dispute within the executive branch[.] It is contrary to the PRA & precedent as we explained in our amicus brief 👉” Tweet  

Andrew Weissmann, former lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office:  “Nothing about the MAL search warrant process was special and her reasoning wd lead to appointment of a special master in EVERY criminal case. The only thing special is a former president stealing highly classified docs.” Tweet 

Harry Litman, former US attorney: “I think about as bad as it could have been.  Leaving aside the legal incoherence and the opening for holding Trump has a right of executive privilege in the docs he stole (meaning for starters the PRA is unconstitutional), the practical possibilities of delay are enormous.” Tweet

Noah Bookbinder, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, re: Couy Griffin being removed from office under the 14th Amendment: “This just went from being theoretical to being something that is legally recognized and legally possible…That’s hugely significant. It could have real implications for protecting the country from people associated with the effort to overturn the last election.” New York Times 

Nancy MacLean, American historian at Duke University: “[W]e do not yet have accountability at the highest levels for the events of January 6 and the ongoing criminal conspiracy against our country that has been more than demonstrated by the House Select Committee to investigate the events of January 6. And the problem is that if you don’t have accountability, those acts become normalized, and the people who engage in them become emboldened to become more aggressive, more violent, more threatening. And I think, you know, something that Biden said at the very top of his remarks is extremely important, that so much that has happened in recent years, and certainly in the last year, is not normal. And the problem that I see as an educator is that there are young people growing up who have known nothing else but this moment. And there are many of us who have been so bruised by the pandemic and inured by years of this Trump rhetoric and aggression, and that coming from his followers, that we can start to think that this is how a normal democracy functions. But it is not. The United States has slipped radically down the scale of healthy democracies.” Democracy Now! 

Joyce Vance, former US attorney, re: Washington Post reporting that material on foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities were seized through search warrant at Mar-A-Lago: “1/2 Trump’s damage to our national security includes relationship damage with friendly countries we work with & rely on the gather intelligence. If they believe it’s no longer safe to work with us, we are in a much less secure position. & why wouldn’t…2/2 think that with this? Compromising sources & methods of collection leads to long term damage to our security,  compliments of the guy who blathered about making America great again.” Tweet | Tweet 

Paul Rosenzweig, a former homeland security official in the George W. Bush administration and prosecutor in the independent counsel investigation of Bill Clinton: “said it was egregious to block the Justice Department from steps like asking witnesses about government files, many marked as classified, that agents had already reviewed. ‘This would seem to me to be a genuinely unprecedented decision by a judge,’ Mr. Rosenzweig said. ‘Enjoining the ongoing criminal investigation is simply untenable.’” New York Times 

Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard Law School professor: “said anyone targeted by a search warrant fears reputational harm, but that does not mean they can get special masters appointed. He called Judge Cannon’s reasoning ‘thin at best’ and giving ‘undue weight’ to the fact that Mr. Trump is a former president. ‘I find that deeply problematic,’ he said, emphasizing that the criminal justice system was supposed to treat everyone equally. ‘This court is giving special considerations to the former president that ordinary, everyday citizens do not receive.’” New York Times 

Samuel W. Buell, a Duke University law professor: “‘To any lawyer with serious federal criminal court experience who is being honest, this ruling is laughably bad, and the written justification is even flimsier,’ he wrote in an email. ‘Donald Trump is getting something no one else ever gets in federal court, he’s getting it for no good reason, and it will not in the slightest reduce the ongoing howls that he is being persecuted, when he is being privileged.’” New York Times 

Jeffrey C. Isaac, James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington: “Biden understands now—as FDR understood in 1940—that imminent threats to democracy require a broad-based coalition politics, a kind of ‘democratic united front’ that gives pride of place to the defense of democratic procedures and the rule of law and places a temporary hold on more ambitious social and economic reforms. But he also understands that ‘delivering’ for the citizenry is an essential dimension of democratic self-defense, and that the promise of a more just, social democracy should always be kept alive.” Common Dreams

Just Security and Protect Democracy: Citizens Guide to January 6th and Ongoing Threats to Democracy: “In June 2021, the House of Representatives created the January 6 Select Committee to investigate the events surrounding the attack on the Capitol including their causes. This Guide presents an overview of the Select Committee’s findings to date, revealed to the public in a series of hearings that allege President Trump and his associates engaged in a seven-part conspiracy to hold onto power. This Guide covers the numerous threats to American democracy that have emerged, responsive reforms under consideration by policymakers, and how Americans can learn more about these events and possible paths forward toward a more resilient democracy in the future.” Overview | PDF 

Harry Litman, former US attorney: “The Cannon order is not only grievously flawed, it threatens inordinate delay and potential scuttling of the entire criminal investigation.” LA Times Column: The special master order for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents is perverse and potentially disastrous

Bipartisan Conference of Chief Justices, a group representing the top judges in all 50 states, in amicus brief re: Moore v. Harper: “The Elections Clause does not derogate from state courts’ authority to decide what state election law is, including whether it comports with state and U.S. Constitutions.” Copy of Amicus Brief | Reuters: Top state court judges defend their election oversight at U.S. Supreme Court 

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a professor of history at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who studies the evangelical movement: “Flynn’s rhetoric — us versus them, good versus evil, the idea that God is on ‘our’ side — has been a staple among conservative Christians for decades, and is mainstream in conservative evangelicalism, Du Mez said. The thinking, she said, can fuel violence. ‘They’re out to get us. Therefore, we need to strike first. And the threat is always dire,’ Du Mez says the thinking goes. ‘And if the threat is dire, then the ends justify the means.’ ‘These values are not unconnected from the violence that we saw on Jan. 6,’ she added.” Associated Press 

Barbara McQuade, professor of law at the University of Michigan and a former US attorney: “In Michigan, you can feel extremism creeping into civic life. Michigan is far from the only state in the grip of politicians who peddle disinformation and demonize their opponents. But it may also be the one best positioned to beat back the threat of political violence.” NYT Op-Ed: How One State Resisted Political Extremism — Against All Odds