This Week: As Investigations of Former President Trump Pick Up Steam, MAGA Politicians Continue Their Assault on Free and Fair Elections
This week, investigations into attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election kept “picking up steam.” The special counsel informed former President Donald Trump that he is a target, suggesting that another indictment “could be imminent.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was interviewed by prosecutors as part of the investigation into “efforts to overturn the 2020 election,” she revealed. The Pennsylvania secretary of state was also interviewed as part of the investigation.
In total, the special counsel has now subpoenaed officials in at least seven states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as part of this investigation.
As part of a state-level 2020 election investigation in Michigan, state Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed charges against 16 “fake electors” – with eight felony charges each – for signing documents falsely claiming that Trump had won the 2020 election.
The Georgia Supreme Court rejected Trump’s attempt to shut down the investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis into “attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.”
In Arizona, the attorney general is “ramping up” an investigation into alleged attempts by MAGA supporters “to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state” by signing and transmitting to Congress election results that falsely declared Trump “the winner.”
An Arizona Superior Court judge threw out another request by election denier and failed attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh for a new trial to contest his defeat in the 2022 general election, while a federal judge ordered attorneys for gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem “to pay $122,200 for filing a baseless lawsuit attempting to ban the use of voting machines” in the 2022 general election.
Election-denying MAGA supporters in Congress, including Greg Murphy from North Carolina, Bryan Steil from Wisconsin and Barry Loudermilk from Georgia, advanced a wide-ranging bill that would suppress voting, make it more difficult to register voters, and make it easier to hide campaign spending.
A bipartisan group of 32 county election officials told members of the North Carolina General Assembly that MAGA-supported legislation to make North Carolina the “strictest state” for absentee voting would negatively impact “election integrity and public confidence.”
Also in Michigan, a judge cleared the way for expected charges against MAGA supporters who were allegedly part of a “conspiracy to seize voting machines” after the 2020 presidential election. The judge ruled that it is illegal “to take possession” of a voting machine without authorization from a court or the Secretary of State’s office.
Lastly, the Georgia State Election Board filed a lawsuit against True the Vote for failing to comply with subpoenas to back up allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election made in “2000 Mules,” “a widely debunked film by conservative pundit and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza.”
