Tag: 2020 election

Posted on

Arizona GOP Official Dodged Trump Phone Calls Seeking To Flip Election Results

Donald Trump has asked a federal court to force Twitter to reinstate his account

Donald Trump (image public domain/White House)
The New York Times reports Donald Trump reached out to the top Republican in Phoenix twice via phone as his aides were attempting to overturn Arizona’s 2020 results, according to the official, who said he let the calls go to voice mail.

Clint Hickman, then the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said in an interview on Friday that he let the calls — made in late December and early January — go to voice mail and did not return them. “I told people, ‘Please don’t have the president call me,’” he said.

At the time, Mr. Hickman was being pressed by the state Republican Party chairwoman and Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to investigate claims of fraud in the county’s election, which Mr. Biden had won by about 45,000 votes.

The Arizona Republic obtained the records of the phone calls from Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani after a Freedom of Information Act request.

There were no significant irregularities in Maricopa’s vote tallies, according to election officials there who have repeatedly refuted Trump’s claims.

Posted on

Michigan: GOP-Led Investigation Finds No Voter Fraud In 2020 Election

From The Hill:

A report from the GOP-controlled Michigan state Senate released Wednesday found no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election.

The report from the state Senate Oversight Committee affirmed that there was no evidence of fraud in the election.

“The Committee can confidently assert that it has been thorough in examination of numerous allegations of unlawful actions, improper procedures, fraud, vote theft, or any other description which would cause citizens to doubt the integrity of Michigan’s 2020 election results,” the committee wrote.

President Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by a margin of 154,188 votes (50.62%-47.84%).

Posted on

Georgia Sec Of State: ‘The Kraken Cracks Under Pressure’

Attorney Sidney Powell

Attorney Sidney Powell
Attorney Sidney Powell (screen capture)
Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, issued a statement today regarding former legal adviser to Donald Trump Sidney Powell who repeatedly claimed there was election fraud in the Peach State. Among other things, Powell alleged without evidence that Dominion Voting Systems was part of a massive international communist plot to rig the election. Powell never presented any evidence to back up her claims. In January, Dominion filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Powell over her conspiracy theories. But this week, Powell’s legal team filed a statement in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking for the case to be dismissed saying “no reasonable person would conclude that [her] statements were truly statements of fact.” The statement from Raffensperger, titled ‘The Kraken Cracks Under Pressure,’ states, “In the face of legal action, Sidney Powell admitted that her effort to make millions lying to the American people had no facts to begin with.” In the court filing, Powell and her lawyers point to Dominion’s criticism that Powell’s claims were “wild accusations,” “outlandish claims,” “inherently improbable,” or “impossible” as evidence that “reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact but view them only as claims.” Powell and her legal team now say that her claims about voter fraud, stolen elections, or switched votes were merely “her opinions and legal theories.” It’s worth noting that Powell’s claims in the weeks following the 2020 election helped fuel belief that the election was ‘stolen’ which led to the violent insurrection of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6. Seven people died as a result of that event as well has dozens seriously injured. Over 4,000 lawyers have signed an open letter calling for disciplinary action to be taken against Powell for her outrageous behavior following the 2020 election.

Posted on

News Round-Up: March 16, 2021

Trans actor Elliot Page on the cover of TIME Magazine Some news items you might have missed: • TIME Magazine: Elliot Page tells TIME he knew he was a boy at 9-years-old and it took the pandemic for him to transition. The X-Men actor came out in December becoming one of the most high-profile trans people in America. • NowThis News: A father with a transgender daughter shared his experience raising her in a powerful testimony against an anti-trans bill in Missouri. ‘As a parent, the one thing we cannot do — the one thing — is silence our child’s spirit.’

• NPR: Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo, has become the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history. The Senate voted 51-40 Monday to confirm the Democratic congresswoman to lead the Interior Department, an agency that will play a crucial role in the Biden administration’s efforts to combat climate change and conserve nature. • Instinct Magazine: The new music video from Imagine Dragons – “Follow You” – is a veritable smorgasbord of shirtless hunks (presented in fantasy-mode) led by front man (and LGBTQ ally) Dan Reynolds.

• USA Today: U.S. intelligence officials say Russia and Iran attempted to influence and sway the 2020 elections by spreading “false or inflated claims about alleged compromises of voting systems to undermine public confidence in election processes and results.” Russia specifically focused on “denigrating” Joe Biden’s candidacy. • HuffPost: After QAnon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called Guam, a U.S. territory a foreign nation in a recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Guam Del. Michael F.Q. San Nicolas paid a visit to Greene’s office accompanied by a group of National Guard members from Guam who delivered a gift basket of cookies. Guam has been a U.S. territory since 1899, and its residents have been American citizens since 1950. Greene later claimed she was being ‘harassed’ by the National Guard.

Posted on

Georgia Prosecutor Begins Criminal Investigation Into Trump Election Interference

A prosecutor in Georgia is reportedly in the early stages of investigating Donald Trump for attempting to overturn the election results in the state

A prosecutor in Georgia is reportedly in the early stages of investigating Donald Trump for attempting to overturn the election results in the state
(image via Depositphotos)
A prosecutor in Georgia has taken steps to launch an investigation into Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the state’s presidential election results. Election officials in the state have been asked to preserve documents (including phone call transcripts) related to “an investigation into attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia General Election.” From the New York Times:

For two months after Joseph R. Biden Jr. was declared the winner, Mr. Trump relentlessly attacked election officials in Georgia, including Mr. Raffensperger and Mr. Kemp, claiming they were not doing enough to uncover instances of voting fraud that might change the outcome.

In addition to the phone call to Mr. Raffensperger, he also called Mr. Kemp in early December and pressured him to call a special legislative session to overturn his election loss. Later that month, Mr. Trump called a state investigator and pressed the official to “find the fraud,” according to those with knowledge of the call.

The inquiry makes Georgia the second state after New York where Mr. Trump faces a criminal investigation. And it comes in a jurisdiction where potential jurors are unlikely to be hospitable to the former president; Fulton County encompasses most of Atlanta and overwhelmingly supported President Biden in the November election.

This new investigation is in addition to a criminal fraud inquiry into Trump’s finances by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and a civil fraud inquiry by the New York attorney general.

Posted on

Trump Considered Firing Acting AG, Using Justice Dept To Overturn Georgia Election Results

Donald Trump

Donald Trump
Donald Trump (photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr – CC License)
According to a new report, Jeffrey Clark, the acting head of the civil division at the end of the Trump administration, supported Donald Trump’s plans of undermining the 2020 presidential election and using the Department of Justice to pressure Georgia officials to change the state’s election results. From the New York Times:

The department’s senior leaders were shocked when Mr. Clark’s machinations came to light. They have spent recent weeks debating how he came to betray Mr. Rosen, his biggest champion at the department, and what blend of ambition and conviction led him to reject the results of the election and embrace Mr. Trump’s claims, despite all evidence to the contrary, including inside the department itself.

The plot devised by Mr. Clark and Mr. Trump would have ousted Mr. Rosen and used the Justice Department to pressure lawmakers in Georgia to overturn the state’s election results. But Mr. Trump ultimately decided against firing Mr. Rosen after top department leaders pledged to resign en masse.

Senior Justice department officials, including Rosen, former Attorney General William Barr and former acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall repeatedly refused to file a case with the Supreme Court case since there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. The Times goes on to quote colleagues of Clark who were stunned to find out about the plan. “The story kind of shocked me because this is not the Jeff that I know,” said Theodore H. Frank, a friend and former co-worker. A Justice Department watchdog is now apparently investigating the matter. Read the full report at the New York Times.

Posted on

Is Trump Setting Mike Pence Up To Be The Fall Guy?

Mike Pence

Mike Pence
L-R Donald Trump, VP Mike Pence (image: public domain/Flickr)
Donald Trump is really setting Mike Pence up as the fall guy for his failure to secure a second term as president. Trump falsely announced on Tuesday that his number two “has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.” Last night in Georgia at a campaign rally for the two Republican senatorial candidates, he told the crowd of supporters “I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you. Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him as much.” Think how Trump’s supporters will feel about Pence (who probably was considering a 2024 run for the White House) if he doesn’t “come through” for Trump and somehow flip the election results. The Vice President has no such power to pick and choose which slate of electors from a state to count on January 6 at the joint session of Congress.

Posted on

All 10 Living Defense Secretaries Warn Against Using Military In Election Disputes

Defense Department

Photo of U.S. military service member
(image: public domain/WhiteHouse/Flickr)
All 10 living former U.S. defense secretaries – Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry, and Donald Rumsfeld – have penned an op-ed for the Washington Post saying involving the military in election disputes would cross into dangerous territory.

As former secretaries of defense, we hold a common view of the solemn obligations of the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Department. Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party.

American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy. With one singular and tragic exception that cost the lives of more Americans than all of our other wars combined, the United States has had an unbroken record of such transitions since 1789, including in times of partisan strife, war, epidemics and economic depression. This year should be no exception.

Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.

Read the full op-ed at the Washington Post.

Posted on

Trump To Georgia Officials: ‘Find 11,780 Votes’

Donald Trump

Donald Trump
Donald Trump (screen capture)
In an extraordinary phone call between Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump urged Raffensperger to “find 11,780” so the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia could be reversed. The hour-long phone call was obtained by the Washington Post. From the Washington Post:

“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” he [Trump] said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”

Raffensperger responded: “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”

At another point, Trump said: “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

The rambling, at times incoherent conversation, offered a remarkable glimpse of how consumed and desperate the president remains about his loss, unwilling or unable to let the matter go and still believing he can reverse the results in enough battleground states to remain in office.

“There’s no way I lost Georgia,” Trump said, a phrase he repeated again and again on the call. “There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”

You can listen to the excerpts below.

In addition to being harmful to our democratic process, Trump’s desperation is really very sad and pathetic. He continued his empty, baseless claims on Twitter, of course.

Posted on

Ted Cruz Joins The Cast Of ‘Electoral College Scrabble’

The daughter of far-right, anti-LGBTQ Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) just came out as bisexual?

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
More players sign up for political theater as 11 Republican Senators announce they will join in objecting to certifying state Electoral College results. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is apparently up for joining Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) for the reindeer games on Wednesday in an attempt to play up to Donald Trump and his followers as he’s certain to make another run for the White House in 2024. From Axios:

Cruz, who, like Hawley, is thought to be considering a 2024 presidential bid, plans to release a statement this afternoon announcing his plans. Once the Texas Republican does so, several other senators from his party are expected to follow in a coordinated effort they consider distinct from Hawley’s.

Republicans involved in these talks include Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.), as well as Sens.-elect Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).

Basically, the exercise on Wednesday will consist of reading the results of each state in alphabetical order. If a House member and a Senator object in writing to any state’s results the two chambers separate and are given two hours to debate whether to accept the challenge. In that the House is controlled by the Democrats, we know the House will vote the effort down. Even though the Senate is led by a bare Republican majority, Democrats will only need a handful of sane GOPers to vote down any challenge. But what this will do is slow down the confirmation of the Electoral College by a rate of two hours for each state the nutjobs challenge. IF the Senate were to agree to the challenge and the House oppose it, the Electoral College Act calls for the tie to be broken by counting the slate of electors certified by the top executive officer of a state – the governor. “The votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted.” In all of the swing states Trump has tried to question – Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada – the governors have certified Joe Biden electors. All that to say, as I began, that this is all political theater.