He’ll be the nominee in 24 GOP has already resigned to the fact that he’s the leader! Not one other Republican candidate can get 74+ million voters to vote for them!
Yep and they are all at the end of the day more concerned with having R seats in as many places as possible. If abandoning trump means losing power they will never abandon him. The Republican civil war doesn’t exist
Ditto Moscow Mitch has already stated that if idiot is the nominee he will support him!
Study: No partisan benefit from mail voting in 2020 election
by: NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Press
Posted: Mar 5, 2021 / 06:31 PM EST / Updated: Mar 5, 2021 / 06:31 PM EST
Donald Trump last year publicly worried that the explosion in voting by mail during the pandemic would increase turnout so much that “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” But a new study shows the record rates of mail voting in 2020 didn’t help Democrats or lead to an increase in voting.
The research is only the latest in a years-long number of studies finding no partisan benefit to mail voting. But it also draws the conclusion that making it easier to vote did not increase voting levels because voters were already highly motivated to participate in the 2020 contest.
“We find a pretty precisely zero effect on turnout,” said Jesse Yoder, one of the study’s authors and a Ph.D. student in political science at Stanford University. “Voter interest was really driving turnout more than these convenience voting forms.”
The researchers proved this with a novel approach — examining turnout rates in Texas, which, unlike many states, did not ease its mail voting restrictions during the pandemic. Voters 65 and older could vote by mail automatically, while younger ones still had to provide a legally justified excuse.
The researchers compared the voting rates of 65-year-olds with automatic access to mail voting to those of 64-year-olds who lacked them. The two age groups voted at identical rates and there were only .2% more Democrats in the 65-year-old group than in the 64-year-old one, showing mail voting didn’t increase Democrats’ share of the vote.
The researchers found there was a modestly higher turnout rate among 65-year-olds compared to those a year younger in 2014 and 2018, implying that mail voting does increase turnout in off-year elections when interest in the contest is typically lower.
Democrats were more likely to vote by mail than Republicans in 2020 — largely due to Trump polarizing the issue. But that didn’t help them win the election, the Stanford study found, because they were equally less likely to vote early in-person or on Election Day. The 65-year-olds, for example, were 9.5% more likely to vote by mail but 9.5% less likely to vote in person.
Another recent study from Emory University’s Alan Abramowitz found that states that encouraged mail voting in 2020 saw a sharper increase in turnout than those that did not. But, notably, Democrats did not do any better in those higher turnout states.
“Eased absentee voting rules were not the only reason for increased turnout in 2020, but they did make a difference,” Abramowitz wrote in his study, released late last month. However, he added, it did not help President Joe Biden increase his share in any of the states.
Abramowitz noted that Republican-controlled state legislatures are now rushing to curtail mail voting, convinced it cost them the White House.
“These findings suggest that efforts by Republican legislators in a number of states to roll back eased absentee voting rules and make it more difficult for voters to take advantage of absentee voting in the future are unlikely to benefit GOP candidates,” he wrote.
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Agents found no evidence of backdated ballots, report says
By MARC LEVY
Yesterday
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — U.S. Postal Service investigators did not find evidence of any backdated presidential election ballots in the post office in Erie, Pennsylvania, according to a report summarizing the investigation into claims by a postal worker that spurred calls from Republicans for a federal probe.
The presidential battleground of Pennsylvania was a key target for unfounded claims of election fraud by former President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans after Trump lost the state, and the election, to Democrat Joe Biden.
Agents from the Postal Service inspector general's office found no evidence of backdated ballots after interviewing county and post office employees and reviewing ballots received by the Erie post office on Nov. 3 and afterward, the report said.
The report had been kept under wraps by the inspector general’s office until it was posted, without an announcement, on Feb. 26.
Allegations by an employee, Richard Hopkins, became public Nov. 5 in a video released by Project Veritas, a conservative group that had been promoting voter fraud accusations on social media.
Citing Hopkins’ allegations, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called for an investigation by the Department of Justice.
The name of the employee in the agents' report is redacted, but the report discusses the same claims he made publicly, as well as his involvement with Project Veritas. Hopkins does not appear to have a publicly listed telephone number.
On Nov. 6, he told agents that he overheard a conversation between the postmaster and a supervisor that involved backdating ballots received after polls closed to “make them appear to have been received” on Nov. 3, which was Election Day, the report said.
Three days later, on Nov. 9, he told the agents that he had not actually heard a conversation about ballots, but saw the postmaster and the supervisor having a discussion “and assumed it was about backdating ballots,” the report said.
He “acknowledged he had no evidence of any backdated presidential ballots,” the report said.
Postmaster Robert Weisenbach has called the allegations false, and the supervisor and the postal worker who controlled the postmarking stamps at the post office told agents they were unaware of any evidence of backdated presidential election ballots, the report said.
Doug Smith, Erie County’s chief clerk and clerk of elections, told The Associated Press at the time that the county had received about 140 ballots after the election. Just five had an Erie postmark, while the rest were postmarked elsewhere from other post offices, Smith said.
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US Justice Department worried about Arizona Senate recount
By BOB CHRISTIE
Today
PHOENIX (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice expressed concern Wednesday about ballot security and potential voter intimidation arising from the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate's unprecedented private recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County.
In a letter to GOP Senate President Karen Fann, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said the Senate's farming out of 2.1 million ballots from the state's most populous county to a contractor may run afoul of federal law requiring ballots to remain in the control of elections officials for 22 months.
And Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Pamela S. Karlan said that the Senate contractor's plans to directly contact voters could amount to illegal voter intimidation.
“Past experience with similar investigative efforts around the country has raised concerns that they can be directed at minority voters, which potentially can implicate the anti-intimidation prohibitions of the Voting Rights Act,” Karlan wrote. “Such investigative efforts can have a significant intimidating effect on qualified voters that can deter them from seeking to vote in the future.”
Karlan wants Fann to lay out how the Senate and its contractors will ensure federal laws are followed. She pointed to news reports showing lax security at the former basketball arena where the ballots are being recounted by hand.
Fann said Senate attorneys were working on a response she promised to share when it was completed.
The Justice Department letter came six days after voting rights groups asked federal officials to intervene or send monitors to the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix at the state fairgrounds, where the ballots are being recounted.
“We are very concerned that the auditors are engaged in ongoing and imminent violations of federal voting and election laws,” said the letter sent by the Brennan Center for Justice, the Leadership Conference and Protect Democracy.
In other developments Wednesday, the Arizona Democratic Party has reached a deal with the Republican-controlled state Senate to ensure that voter and ballot privacy is guaranteed during an unprecedented recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County.
The agreement reached Wednesday puts teeth in a court order that already required the Senate and its contractor, Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, to follow state laws around ballot privacy. Any violations of the agreement would be enforceable by seeking an emergency court order.
The agreement also puts in writing a verbal agreement between the Senate and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs that allows her to have three observers inside the Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the state fairgrounds.
Under the court order, the Senate and Cyber Ninjas last week released their policies and procedures for the recount. Hobbs' elections director, Bo Dul, told The Associated Press there were major problems with those rules, including that they seemed haphazard, lacked specifics and left much room for interpretation — something that is never allowed in ballot counts.
Dul noted that the policies allow counters to accept a large enough error rate to perhaps show Trump won the state. Such an outcome would not change the outcome of the election because the results were certified months ago in the state and Congress.
Hobbs on Wednesday sent a letter to the Senate's liaison to its recount contractor, former Secretary of State Ken Bennett, formally laying out a series of problems with the policies.
"Mr. Bennett, as a former Secretary of State, you know that our elections are governed by a complex framework of laws and procedures designed to ensure accuracy, security, and transparency," Hobbs wrote. “You also must therefore know that the procedures governing this audit ensure none of those things.”
The developments come as the counting of 2.1 million ballots from the November election won by President Joe Biden are off to a slow pace. Bennett told the Associated Press Tuesday night that teams doing a hand recount of the presidential race lost by former President Donald Trump and the U.S. Senate race won by Democrat Mark Kelly has tallied less than 10% of the ballots since starting on April 23.
Bennett said it is clear the count can't be done by the time the deal allowing the Senate to use the Coliseum ends on May 14. Several days of high school graduations are set to begin on May 15.
Bennett said the plan was to move the ballots and other materials into a secure area of the Coliseum to allow the events, then restart counting and continue until that is completed.
Trump and his backers have alleged without evidence that he lost Arizona and other battleground states because of fraud. Fann said she wants to prove one way or the other whether GOP claims of problems with the vote are valid and use the results of the audit to craft updated election laws.
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US Justice Department worried about Arizona Senate recount
By BOB CHRISTIE
Today"
I'm wondering if that whole thing might just fizzle out. From the latest reporting, it sounds like the people there are doing more visiting with each other than working hard on a recount where soon they'll lose the space to work.
Democrats press for broader voter access as GOP resists
By BRIAN SLODYSKO and CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY
Today
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans in the U.S. Senate mounted an aggressive case against Democrats' sweeping election and voter-access legislation, pushing to roll back proposals for automatic registration, 24-hour ballot drop boxes and other changes in an increasingly charged national debate.
The legislation, a top priority of Democrats in the aftermath of the divisive 2020 election, would bring about the largest overhaul of U.S. voting in a generation, touching nearly every aspect of the electoral process. It would remove hurdles to voting erected in the name of election security and curtail the influence of big money in politics.
At the end of a long, contentious day, the Rules Committee deadlocked 9-9 on Tuesday over advancing the bill to the full Senate in its current form. That leaves it to Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to try to invoke a special process to force the legislation ahead.
Though it is federal legislation, Republicans are fighting a national campaign against it rooted in state battles to restrict new ways of voting that have unfolded during the pandemic. Just Tuesday, the Arizona Legislature sent the governor a bill that would make it easier to purge infrequent voters from a list of those who automatically get mail-in ballots, the latest battleground state to push through changes likely to take months or years to finally settle in court.
GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is so determined to stop the legislation that he made a rare appearance at Tuesday's Rules Committee session in Washington. McConnell and other Republicans on the panel argued for a wave of amendments against key sections of the bill, which Democrats turned aside in an hours-long voting session.
McConnell declared, “Our democracy is not in crisis" and said he wasn’t about to cede control of elections to new laws “under the false pretense of saving it.”
With Democrats holding the White House and narrow control of Congress, they see the legislation as crucial — perhaps their best chance to counter efforts by state-level Republicans who have seized on former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election to push ballot restrictions.
Yet even as they tout the measure, Democrats find themselves playing defense, unable to push their legislative response to President Joe Biden’s desk. While the elections overhaul has passed the House, there’s no clear path forward in the Senate, which is split 50-50. Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have both said they oppose making changes to the Senate’s filibuster rules, which would be needed to maneuver the bill past unified Republican opposition.
Trump’s election claims, which have only increased in the six months since his defeat, were rejected by Republican as well as Democratic election officials in state after state, by U.S. cybersecurity officials and by courts up to the U.S. Supreme Court. And his attorney general said there was no evidence of fraud that could change the election outcome.
“President Trump told a big lie, one of the biggest ever told. We all know that. Every single person in this room knows that,” Sen. Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, said at the hearing. "And it’s taking root, this big lie is taking root in our country, not just in the minds of his voters but in the laws of the land.”
The laws emerging around the country “are about one thing and one thing alone: making it harder for Americans to vote," he said.
The Democrats' measure would not stop every bill being passed in Republican states across the country. But it would make it difficult, if not impossible, for states to press ahead with many of the new rules.
That's because the legislation would create nationwide rules for early voting and no-excuse absentee voting, standardizing the process. Currently, six states don’t offer early, in-person voting and a third of states still require an excuse — such as illness or planning to be away from home on Election Day — to vote by mail, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Republicans walked a narrow line during much of the discussion on Tuesday, criticizing congressional Democrats for seeking to change voting rules while at the same time offering robust support for GOP state lawmakers who are doing the same.
The GOP senators cited high voter turnout in last year’s presidential election during the pandemic as proof that the system worked without the Democrats' changes and voters were not disenfranchised. But they offered little justification for GOP efforts at the state level to impose new limits on voting, particularly mail voting.
Republicans also attacked provisions that would create a new public financing system for political campaigns and strengthen the enforcement capabilities of the federal agency tasked with policing elections, as well as dozens of other proposals that would dictate how states conduct their elections.
“This bill doesn’t protect voting rights, it steals voting rights from the American people,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
While Republicans argue the new state rules are needed to secure the vote, critics warn the states are seeking to reduce voter access, particularly for Black voters, who are a crucial part of the Democratic Party base. That could usher in a new Jim Crow era for the 21st century, they warn.
“These bills moving in state capitals across America are not empty threats, they are real efforts to stop people from voting,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee.
Yet moderate members of the Democratic caucus — not just Republicans — pose a sizable obstacle to the bill becoming law.
Manchin has called for any elections overhaul to be done on a bipartisan basis, despite Republican insistence that no changes are necessary. Other Democrats want to pare back the bill to core voting protections to try to put Republicans on the spot.
In the latest version of the legislation, states would have more time and flexibility to put new federal rules in place. Some election officials had complained of unrealistic timelines, increased costs and onerous requirements.
States would have more time to launch same-day voter registration at polling places and to comply with new voting system requirements. They would also be able to apply for an extension if they were unable to meet the deadline for automatic voter registration. Officials have said these are complex processes that require equipment changes or upgrades that will take time.
Democrats are also dropping a requirement that local election offices provide self-sealing envelopes with mail ballots and cover the costs of return postage. They plan to require the U.S. Postal Service to carry mail ballots and ballot request forms free of charge, with the federal government picking up the tab.
But Republicans argue the changes would do little to limit what they view as unwarranted federal intrusions into local elections.
“Giving states more time to implement bad policy doesn’t make the policy less bad,” said Sen Roy Blunt of Missouri, the ranking minority member on the committee. “I think the federal government taking over elections is the wrong thing to do."
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Auditors find no fraud in disputed New Hampshire election
By MICHAEL CASEY
Today
PEMBROKE N.H. (AP) — There is no evidence of fraud or political bias in a controversial New Hampshire election where a recount and audit has drawn the interest of former President Donald Trump, auditors concluded Thursday.
Rather, auditors investigating the election in the town of Windham believe a folding machine used by the town to try to accommodate the numbers of absentee ballots in the November election is responsible for mistakenly adding to vote counts for candidates in four legislative seats.
“We found no evidence of fraud or political bias,” Mark Lindeman, one of the three auditors and the acting co-director of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, said. “I have heard no one actually articulate a credible hypothesis of how fraud could account for what we found.”
The town used the machine to fold the absentee ballots before sending them to voters. After they were returned, the ballots were fed into a counting machine. Because the folds on some ballots went through a Democrats name, the ballot was either not counted or a vote was wrongly given to the Democrat.
The audit, mandated by the legislature and started earlier this month, is set to finish Thursday. It was called by lawmakers from both parties after a recount requested by a losing Democratic candidate in one of the legislative races showed the Republicans getting hundreds more votes than were originally counted. No matter the audit findings, the results won’t change.
The discrepancy drew the attention of Trump and his supporters in their effort to find evidence of his wider claim of election fraud from 2020. Trump's cheerleading of skeptics in Windham shows how his search for evidence to support his false claims of election fraud have burrowed into American politics, even at the local level.
Kristi St. Laurent, the losing Democratic candidate who requested the recount, was watching the audit wrap up Thursday at the Edward Cross Training Center in Pembroke. She was satisfied with the audit and was counting on either the legislature or the secretary of state's office take action to ensure the problem doesn't happen again.
“They have been very thorough, very transparent and it's also clear that it's multiple factors that led to the results we had on election night” she said.
But not everyone was convinced the audit would find the reason for the discrepancy in the counts or that auditors had done enough to look at fraud or other factors.
“I wish it wasn’t ending. There is still a lot more work that needs to be done. If you are going to turn over every rock and look at every possibility, there is a lot of evidence that hasn't been looked at,” said Tom Murray, a contractor from Windham who was watching the audit. He said he has “less faith in the integrity of the system now than I did before this audit started.”
Auditors must issue a final report within 45 days and Lindeman said that would include a series of recommendations. But he doubts the findings would have relevance beyond Windham.
“We have no reason to think that it's a statewide or national issue, although it's certainly possible that it occurred in other localities," he said.
That was echoed by Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who said ballots are sent to towns and cities with score marks to facilitate folding and the state ensures those marks don’t go through the ovals where votes are marked.
“There’s never been a ballot we sent out that was scored over an oval,” he said.
While it’s unknown how many other communities might use a folding machines like the one Windham did, Gardner said he suspects that few, if any, do. While the number of absentee ballots skyrocketed due to the pandemic, they generally make up a small percentage of the votes and communities don’t have a problem folding ballots by hand.
Gardner has overseen 549 recounts in his 44 years as secretary of state, including 16 after the November elections. Those recounts involved 168,000 ballots — 22% of the total cast statewide — and 65 polling places.
“We don’t have any reason to believe that any other town is facing this kind of situation,” he said. “There wasn’t anything else that we saw that was like this, and there’s not been anything else like it over the years.”
___
Associated Press writer Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.
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Reports detail tense moments with Georgia election monitors
By KATE BRUMBACK
Today
ATLANTA (AP) — As a pair of election workers sat at a table counting ballots during an audit of Georgia's presidential election in November, no fewer than eight Republican monitors swarmed around them, hurling accusations of voter fraud and taking photos in violation of the rules.
This was one of several tense situations involving party monitors that independent election monitor Carter Jones documented in reports produced during the several months he spent observing election operations in Fulton County to ensure that officials in the state's most populous county were complying with a consent agreement.
“The party audit monitors seemed to feel as though they were detectives or sheriffs and that they were going to personally ‘crack the case’ and uncover a stolen election,” Jones wrote in a report submitted to the State Election Board on Nov. 20. “This is a gross misunderstanding of their role as monitors and certainly made the audit process more contentious — not to mention more difficult for the auditors attempting to count amidst the commotion of a full-scale argument.”
While transparency is imperative throughout the election process and monitors are necessary, political parties must do a better job of vetting and training their monitors and explaining exactly what their role is, Jones wrote. He also suggested that repeat offenders be prohibited from serving as monitors in the future.
No one from the Fulton County Republican and Democratic parties immediately responded Thursday to emails seeking comment.
Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, experienced many problems during its primary last June, including hourslong lines and absentee ballots that were requested but never received. The State Election Board entered into a consent order with the county to make changes for the general election. That included the appointment of Jones, who has previous experience working on elections in other parts of the world, as an independent monitor from October through January.
An executive summary of his findings was released earlier this year and Jones briefed the State Election Board in February. But detailed notes and reports produced by Jones during the process and obtained this week by The Associated Press provide more details about what he saw.
Then-President Donald Trump focused his attention on Georgia after losing the traditional Republican stronghold to Democrat Joe Biden by about 12,000 votes in November. Trump and his allies focused particular attention on Fulton County, making repeated unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud. Election workers in the county were subjected to intense harassment, sometimes stemming from misunderstandings by observers about what they were seeing as ballots were counted, recounted by hand for an audit and recounted again by machine at Trump's request.
On Nov. 14, when Jones walked over to the table where the group of GOP monitors was hovering over workers processing a batch of early voting ballots from the city of College Park, one monitor told him she'd taken a photo of the stack of ballots — all for Democrat Joe Biden, none for Trump — as evidence of voter fraud.
“You took photos?” Jones asked.
“Yes, for evidence. I'm concerned with the truth. As a journalist you should be too,” the woman replied, misunderstanding his role. When he told her photos weren't allowed, she seemed to get angry and accused him of being complicit in a cover-up of voter fraud, Jones wrote.
About an hour and a half later, Jones observed the same party monitor yelling at a Fulton County attorney who had been called over to allow an elderly pair of audit workers to take a break. They had been working for hours to process a batch of 3,500 ballots and had skipped lunch so as not to violate the rules against taking breaks in the middle of a batch. But one of them was diabetic and was starting to shake from low blood sugar.
The party monitor was demanding strict adherence to the “no breaks” policy. After arguing with county elections director Rick Barron and another county official, the monitor pulled Jones into the conversation. Jones said he tried to stay neutral, but asked her to be reasonable with the application of the policy. He also let her know she could file a formal complaint with the secretary of state.
“The monitor then again accused me of colluding to cover up voter fraud and made a vague personal threat to both me and Barron,” Jones wrote in his report, adding that he included the anecdote “in an attempt to encapsulate the tense mood in the room.”
Complaints about overzealous party monitors were common during the audit, Jones wrote. Among the other issues he documented were monitors trying to speak with auditors, wandering among ballot bags and taking photos of the labels on them, trying to instruct auditors how to do their jobs, and gathering around tables when there was only supposed to be one monitor from each party for every 10 tables. The party monitors “were also performing their duties very eagerly and were frequently informing staff if they saw an issue,” Jones noted, adding that often their complaints were valid.
Earlier in the month, as the ballots were initially being counted during the week of the election, party monitors sometimes misunderstood what was happening, complained about their level of access, went around barriers to talk to election workers, shot photos and video, and exhibited “astoundingly poor mask hygiene," Jones wrote, referring to the county's policy that election workers wear face coverings to prevent transmission of the coronavirus.
At one point on Election Day, Jones noticed the party monitors watching him closely. He introduced himself and asked one if he'd seen anything out of the ordinary.
“We weren't informed of your role here so it's not our place to tell you anything,” the monitor responded and then called Jones a traitor.
During a runoff election in January, a monitor secretly recorded a 45-minute conversation with a county election official and quoted their conversation extensively in a complaint filed with the secretary of state's office.
Multiple party monitors in January told Jones they had been recording the license plates of staffers' cars as “evidence,” which Jones said seemed like “a massive invasion of the privacy of the election workers.”
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Michigan Senate GOP probe: No systemic fraud in election
By DAVID EGGERT
59 mins ago
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — State Senate Republicans who investigated Michigan's 2020 presidential election for months concluded there was no widespread or systemic fraud and urged the state attorney general to consider probing people who have made baseless allegations about the results in Antrim County to raise money or publicity “for their own ends.”
The GOP-led state Senate Oversight Committee said in a 55-page report released Wednesday that citizens should be confident that the election's outcome represents the “true results.” Democrat Joe Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump by about 155,000 votes, or 2.8 percentage points, in the battleground state.
“The committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain,” the panel wrote days after Republican activists requested an Arizona-style “forensic” audit of the election.
The committee's three Republicans did recommend legislation that would close "real vulnerabilities" in future elections. Election-related bills are pending, including proposed tougher photo ID rules that the Senate passed last week, but Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will veto them if they reach her desk.
Election night results in northern Michigan's rural Antrim County, which has roughly 23,000 residents, initially erroneously showed a local victory for Biden over Trump. But it was attributed to human error, not any problems with machines, and corrected. A hand recount turned up no signs of shenanigans.
“We will review the report in its entirety in order to determine if a criminal investigation is appropriate,” Lynsey Mukomel, spokeswoman for Attorney General Dana Nessel, said of the call to probe individuals who have lied about what happened in Antrim.
People mentioned in the report include Mike Lindell, the MyPillow creator-turned-conspiracy peddler; lawyer Matthew DePerno, who unsuccessfully sued the county on behalf of a resident, and ex-state Sen. Patrick Colbeck. The report also criticized Texas-based Allied Security Operations Group, a company that worked with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to raise baseless allegations of fraud and counting errors.
The report dismissed various allegations — that many dead people voted, that hundreds of thousands of unsolicited absentee ballots were mailed to Michigan voters, that absentee ballots were counted multiple times, that tens of thousands of fraudulent absentee ballots were “dumped” at Detroit's counting center after the polls closed. Those ballots had been submitted throughout Election Day in drop boxes, in the mail and at clerk's offices.
The panel's Republicans recommended that drop boxes not be used or be closed sooner than 8 p.m. on Election Day so that processing and tabulating the ballots they contain won't extend long into the night. Democrats have said such a move would disenfranchise some voters.
“The committee’s report goes into considerable detail ... and I hope the public is reassured by the security and protections already in place, motivated to support necessary reforms to make it better and grateful for our fellow citizens who do the hard work of conducting our elections,” said Sen. Ed McBroom, a Vulcan Republican who chairs the panel.
The lone Democrat on the committee, Sen. Jeff Irwin of Ann Arbor, noted that its two other members had been among 11 GOP senators who asked Congress to investigate “credible” allegations of election misconduct on Jan. 4, two days before it met to certify Biden's win amid the deadly insurrection by Trump supporters at the Capitol.
“It is unfortunate that the Michigan Legislature participated in the circus, parading witnesses who were not credible or who pressed obvious falsehoods in order to promote the lie that Michigan’s results were tainted," he said. "But it is my fervent hope that we, as a legislative body, can finally focus our energy on getting help out to our residents who need it most after such a tumultuous year for many due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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Records show pressure by Trump, allies on Arizona officials
1 hour ago
PHOENIX (AP) — Newly released records show the top Republicans in Arizona's largest county dodged calls from Donald Trump and his allies in the aftermath of the 2020 election, as the then-president sought to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory in key battleground states.
The records — including voicemails and text messages — shed light on another state where Trump, his attorneys and others mounted a behind-the-scenes pressure campaign on Republican officials overseeing elections. Days before Congress certified Biden's win on Jan. 6, Trump pressed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find enough votes to overturn Biden's win there.
Trump tried to reach Clint Hickman, then the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, on Jan. 3, shortly before midnight in Washington and hours after news broke of Trump's call with Raffensperger.
“Hello, sir. This is the White House operator I was calling to let you know that the president’s available to take your call if you’re free,” the White House operator said in a voicemail. “If you could please give us a call back, sir, that’d be great. You have a good evening.”
Hickman told The Arizona Republic, which first received the records from Maricopa County, that he did not return the phone call. He said he presumed Trump would try to pressure him to change election results or discuss election conspiracies as he had done with Raffensperger.
“I’m not going to tape a president, so I’m not going to talk to a president. … I didn’t want to have a very rough call to my home on a Sunday night," Hickman told the Republic.
Hickman and the rest of the Board of Supervisors, which is controlled 4-1 by Republicans, have aggressively defended the vote count in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and 60% of Arizona's voters. They have maintained the outcome was not affected by fraud or irregularities.
State Senate Republicans used their subpoena power to take control of all 2.1 million ballots and the machines that counted them. A firm led by a Trump supporter who has shared far-fetched conspiracy theories is overseeing an audit for the Senate GOP.
The most aggressive pressure came from Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward, who tried to convince Republicans on the board to question the election results, even as the officials tried to instill confidence in the them. At one point, she texted Hickman, "We need you to stop the counting.”
She tried to convince Hickman and Supervisors Steve Chucri and Bill Gates to call Trump attorney Sidney Powell, who filed lawsuits around the country alleging the election conspiracies. The lawsuits were all thrown out.
Early Nov. 20, when the board was scheduled to certify Maricopa County's election results, Ward texted Gates, “Can we talk today now that the lawsuit is over? There are so many abnormalities that must be adjudicated. I know the Republican board doesn’t want to be remembered as the entity who led the charge to certify a fraudulent election.”
After sending information alleging fraud — and shortly before the board voted to accept the election results — she texted him, “Sounds like your fellow Repubs are throwing in the towel. Very sad. And unAmerican.”
She texted Chucri, "Seems you’re playing for the wrong team and people will remember. WRONG team.”
The records also include voicemails from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani trying to reach several of the GOP supervisors. Chucri met with Giuliani when he was in Phoenix to air Trump's baseless fraud theories.
“If you get a chance, would you please give me a call,” Giuliani said in a message to Gates. “I have a few things I’d like to talk over with you. Maybe we can get this thing fixed up. You know, I really think it’s a shame that Republicans sort of are both in this kind of situation. And I think there may be a nice way to resolve this for everybody.”
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Trump lawyers might be penalized over Michigan election case
By ED WHITE
Yesterday
DETROIT (AP) — A federal judge is considering whether to order financial penalties or other sanctions against some of former President Donald Trump's lawyers who signed onto a lawsuit last year challenging Michigan's election results.
The lawsuit alleging widespread fraud was voluntarily dropped after a judge in December found nothing but “speculation and conjecture” that votes for Trump somehow were destroyed or switched to votes for Joe Biden, who won Michigan by 2.8 percentage points.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the city of Detroit now want the plaintiffs and a raft of attorneys, including Trump allies Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood, to face the consequences of pursuing what they call frivolous claims.
“It was never about winning on the merits of the claims, but rather (the) purpose was to undermine the integrity of the election results and the people’s trust in the electoral process and in government,” the attorney general's office said in a court filing.
U.S. District Judge Linda Parker in Detroit is holding a hearing by video conference Monday.
There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Indeed, election officials from both political parties have stated publicly that the election went well, and international observers confirmed there were no serious irregularities.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of six Republican voters who wanted Parker to decertify Michigan's election results and impound voting machines. The judge declined, calling the request “stunning in its scope and breathtaking in its reach.”
The case appeared to be mostly handled by Detroit-area attorneys. But the lawsuit also carried the names of Powell, Wood and four more lawyers from outside Michigan.
The roles of Powell and Wood are unclear; they never filed a formal appearance in the case, according to the docket. But they've been targeted in the request for penalties.
Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, also a Democrat, want the state to receive at least $11,000 in legal fees. Detroit is asking the judge to disgorge any money that lawyers have collected through a post-election fundraising campaign. The city also wants the lawyers to face disciplinary hearings in their respective states.
In response, attorney Stefanie Lambert Junttila insisted there was plenty of evidence to support the lawsuit.
“They are a new form of political retribution,” she said of possible sanctions. “Such abuse of the law has no place in this court and is contrary to the law it hypocritically invokes.”
In New York, Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law because he made false statements while trying to get courts to overturn Trump’s election loss.
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The Republican Party’s top lawyer called election fraud arguments by Trump’s lawyers a ‘joke’ that could mislead millions
Members
of President Donald Trump’s legal team, from left, Rudolph W. Giuliani,
Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis, at a news conference Nov. 19 at the
Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington. (Jacquelyn
Martin/AP)
The
Republican Party’s top lawyer warned in November against continuing to
push false claims that the presidential election was stolen, calling
efforts by some of the former president’s lawyers a “joke” that could
mislead millions of people, according to an email obtained by The
Washington Post.
Justin Riemer, the Republican National Committee’s chief counsel, sought to discourage a Republican Party staffer from posting claims about ballot fraud
on RNC accounts, the email shows, as attempts by Donald Trump and his
associates to challenge results in a number of states, such as Arizona
and Pennsylvania, intensified.
“What
Rudy and Jenna are doing is a joke and they are getting laughed out of
court,” Riemer, a longtime Republican lawyer, wrote to Liz Harrington, a
former party spokeswoman, on Nov. 28, referring to Trump attorneys
Rudolph W. Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. “They are misleading millions of
people who have wishful thinking that the president is going to somehow
win this thing.”
The email from Riemer to Harrington, which came about six weeks before a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6,
shows key figures in the party were privately disturbed by the false
claims being made about the election by Trump and his supporters — even
if they did not say so publicly.
Riemer
said Ellis and Giuliani were damaging a broader Republican Party push
on “election integrity” issues, according to the email. Riemer had led
the party’s legal efforts for months ahead of and after the November
election, particularly limiting the expansion of mail-in ballots. But
Riemer was skeptical internally of some of the most conspiratorial
theories and did not believe many of the claims from Giuliani and others
about fraud, according to people who talked to Reimer and, like others,
spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Some
Trump allies, including Giuliani, sought to have Riemer fired after
learning of the email, according to people familiar with the matter, but
he remains employed at the RNC.
Former
president Donald Trump has remained the main driver of the Republican
Party priorities, despite losing his reelection bid in 2020. (Blair
Guild, JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
“I
led the RNC legal team in over 55 lawsuits on behalf of the President’s
reelection, winning a majority of them, including the only successful
post-election lawsuit. Any suggestion that I did not support President
Trump or do everything in my power to support the RNC’s efforts to
reelect President Trump is false,” Riemer said in a statement. “I will
say publicly now what I then said privately: I take issue with
individuals who brought lawsuits that did not serve President Trump well
and did not give him the best chance in court.”
Harrington,
who is now a spokeswoman for Trump, continued to push voter-fraud
allegations and left the RNC at the end of 2020. As the former
president’s spokeswoman, she continues to post false claims of election
fraud on social media and helps draft and disseminate the former
president’s false claims about the election.
“The
only thing that’s a joke is the idea that Joe Biden got 81 million
votes,” Harrington said when asked about Riemer’s email on Monday
afternoon.
Giuliani
did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the emails.
Ellis did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.
In
recent weeks, some Trump allies have targeted the RNC and its
chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, arguing they did not do enough in the
aftermath of the Nov. 3 election to help Trump overturn the results.
Ellis has led many of the attacks, tweeting “#RonnaMustGo.”
Ellis
and Giuliani were brought in by Trump to handle his election challenges
within two weeks of the election, amid his growing dissatisfaction with
his traditional legal team. Many of those lawyers stepped back in
mid-November, when Trump appointed Giuliani and others to take charge.
But Giuliani and Ellis were also unable to overturn the results, and
Trump has complained about both of them in recent weeks, according to
multiple people familiar with the former president’s remarks. Ellis has
launched a group on voting, but Trump has not yet backed it publicly.
In
the days after the election, McDaniel flew to various states to raise
issues about the election, and Giuliani and then-Trump lawyer Sidney
Powell held a much-maligned news conference
in the lobby of the party’s headquarters. The email from Riemer came
days after that news conference, which discomfited senior RNC officials.
McDaniel soon slowed her public appearances and did not embrace the
far-flung claims of fraud.
McDaniel
has urged top donors and party officials in recent weeks to focus on
the 2022 midterms and has argued that focusing on re-litigating the
results of the 2020 election could hurt the party going forward,
according to people who have spoken with her. But people close to
McDaniel said she continues to speak with Trump and has a good
relationship with him.
The
RNC has also declined, according to multiple people familiar with the
matter, to pay any of Giuliani’s legal bills — a point of contention
among some Giuliani associates. “Rudy Giuliani has never worked for the
RNC and he has never acted at our direction,” a party spokeswoman said.
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It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
To the others, this was first reported by Politico, not the Post. But more importantly:
1. It's a long standing Justice Dept policy not to pursue investigations during a federal election year that could be deemed to provide one political candidate an advantage over another. This should not be news to you and this clearly would fall into that category. The investigations would continue after the election.
2. The decision maker in this case was a Trump appointed US Attorney
3. The DOJ was under Trump
So what we have here is a Trump official following DOJ policy. I'm not sure why this would bother you.
It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
To the others, this was first reported by Politico, not the Post. But more importantly:
1. It's a long standing Justice Dept policy not to pursue investigations during a federal election year that could be deemed to provide one political candidate an advantage over another. This should not be news to you and this clearly would fall into that category. The investigations would continue after the election.
2. The decision maker in this case was a Trump appointed US Attorney
3. The DOJ was under Trump
So what we have here is a Trump official following DOJ policy. I'm not sure why this would bother you.
Particularly with an investigation that began in 2018 and here we are in 2021. But then again, you have to consider the linked source. Has Mr. Bobulinski been interviewed under oath? Here's a source reporting back in April:
Hunter Biden: What was he doing in China and Ukraine?
Hunter Biden, second son of US President Joe Biden, is being investigated by the Justice Department over his finances including, according to US media reports, some of his business dealings in China.
During the 2020 election campaign, he and his father were frequently accused by Donald Trump and his associates of wrongdoing in regards to China and Ukraine, allegations which they both denied.
The New York Post reported on an alleged email in which an adviser from a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, apparently thanked Hunter for inviting him to meet his father, Joe Biden.
Asked about the allegations, Joe Biden told a reporter it was a "smear campaign". No criminal activity has been proven, and no evidence has emerged that Mr Biden did anything to intentionally benefit his son.
In an interview with the BBC months after his father was sworn in as president, Hunter Biden defended his qualifications for the position at Burisma but added that, in retrospect, he had "missed... the perception that I would create".
Claims of influence-peddling are common in Washington DC and Mr Trump's children have also been accused of conflicts of interest in lucrative business deals overseas. They, too, deny wrongdoing.
The tax investigation was launched in 2018 but Hunter Biden said he had learned about it for the first time in December 2020.
Asked about the investigation by US broadcaster CBS this April, the president's son said: "I'm co-operating, completely. And I'm absolutely certain, 100% certain, that at the end of the investigation, that I will be cleared of any wrongdoing."
What have the Bidens been accused of in China?
The New York Post cited a purported email from Hunter Biden in August 2017 indicating he was receiving a $10m annual fee from a Chinese billionaire for "introductions alone", though it is unclear who was involved in the alleged introductions.
Another purported email, which Fox News said it had confirmed, reportedly refers to a deal pursued by Hunter involving China's largest private energy firm. It is said to include a cryptic mention of "10 held by H for the big guy".
Fox News cited unnamed sources as saying "the big guy" in the purported email was a reference to Joe Biden. This message is said to be from May 2017. Both emails would date from when the former US vice-president was a private citizen.
A former business associate of Hunter Biden has come forward to say he can confirm the allegations.
Tony Bobulinski told Fox News that, contrary to Joe Biden's statements that he had nothing to do with his son's business affairs, Hunter had "frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals" in China.
Mr Bobulinski, who is reportedly a US Navy veteran, separately told Fox News' Tucker Carlson that he had met on two occasions with Joe Biden to discuss business deals with China, the first time in May 2017 when Barack Obama's former vice-president was a private citizen.
He says he asked Joe Biden's brother, James, whether the family was concerned about possible scrutiny of the former vice-president's involvement in a potential business deal with a Chinese entity. Mr Bobulinski told Fox News that James Biden had replied: "Plausible deniability."
Mr Bobulinski was invited by Mr Trump to be his guest at the final presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee on 22 October.
What is known about Hunter's dealings in China?
In 2013, Hunter flew aboard Air Force Two with his father, who was then vice-president, on an official visit to Beijing, where the younger Biden met investment banker Jonathan Li.
Hunter told the New Yorker he had just met Mr Li for "a cup of coffee", but 12 days after the trip a private equity fund, BHR Partners, was approved by the Chinese authorities. Mr Li was chief executive and Hunter was a board member. He would hold a 10% stake.
BHR is backed by some of China's largest state banks and by local governments, according to US media.
Hunter Biden's lawyer said he had joined the board in an unpaid position "based on his interest in seeking ways to bring Chinese capital to international markets".
His lawyer also said his client did not acquire his financial stake in BHR until 2017, after his father had left office in the US.
Hunter resigned from the board of BHR in April 2020, but still held his 10% stake in BHR as of July this year, according to the company report.
What did the New York Post say about Hunter Biden and Ukraine?
The New York Post reported an email from April 2015, in which an adviser to Burisma, Vadym Pozharskyi, apparently thanked Hunter Biden for inviting him to meet his father in Washington.
Hunter was a director on the board of Burisma - a Ukrainian-owned private energy company while his father was the Obama administration's pointman on US-Ukrainian relations. Hunter was one of several foreigners on its board.
The New York Post article did not provide evidence that the meeting had ever taken place. The Biden election campaign said there was no record of any such meeting on the former vice-president's "official schedule" from the time.
But in a statement to Politico, the campaign also acknowledged that Mr Biden could have had an "informal interaction" with the Burisma adviser that did not appear on his official schedule, though it said any such encounter would have been "cursory".
"Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as 'not legitimate' and political by a GOP colleague, have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official US policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing," said Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Mr Biden.
Mr Biden's team has also decried the New York Post story as "Russian disinformation", though it did not say the emails were bogus.
The New York Post article was shared by President Trump and his allies. Two of his former advisers, Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani, were involved in providing the story and the hard drive containing the alleged emails, to the newspaper.
Mr Giuliani says the messages were found on a laptop that Hunter dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in April 2019.
Sceptics have noted that Mr Giuliani travelled in December 2019 to Kyiv where he met Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach, whom the US Treasury has designated as a longtime Kremlin agent. Mr Giuliani has acknowledged trying dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine.
But the US Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, told Fox Business that the purported emails were not connected to a Russian disinformation effort.
Other US media say they have been unable to verify the authenticity of the emails. Hunter has neither confirmed nor denied that he dropped off a laptop at the location.
Hunter joined Burisma in 2014, and remained on the board until April 2019, when he decided to leave.
Speaking to the BBC, he said Burisma had seen his name "as gold" and that it had played a large part in his appointment to the board.
What are the Bidens accused of in Ukraine?
Donald Trump and his allies accused Joe Biden of wrongdoing because he had pushed, while vice-president, for the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor, who was investigating the company for which Hunter worked.
In 2016, Joe Biden called for the dismissal of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, whose office had Burisma and other companies under investigation.
However, other Western leaders and major bodies that give financial support to Ukraine also wanted the prosecutor dismissed because they believed he was not active enough in tackling corruption.
What else has the Biden campaign said?
Shortly before the final presidential debate last year, the Democrat's camp released a statement denying wrongdoing.
"Joe Biden has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any overseas business whatsoever," said the statement.
"He has never held stock in any such business arrangements nor has any family member or any other person ever held stock for him.
"What is true is that Tony Bobulinski admitted on the record to Breitbart that he is angry that he was *not* able to go into business with Hunter and James Biden [Joe Biden's brother]."
What did this have to do with impeachment?
In 2019, details emerged of a phone call Mr Trump, the then president, had made to the president of Ukraine, in which he had urged the Ukrainian leader to investigate the Bidens.
This led to charges by the Democrats that Mr Trump was trying to illegally pressure Ukraine to help damage his election rival, resulting in impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Mr Trump denied he had done anything wrong, and he was later acquitted by the Republican-controlled US Senate.
Has anything been proven against the Bidens?
While no criminal activity has been proven, it has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest.
A senior State Department official raised such concerns as far back as 2015.
No criminal charges were proven against Burisma either. The company issued a statement in 2017 saying "all legal proceedings and pending criminal allegations" against it were closed.
There is nothing illegal about sitting on a board of a company whilst family members serve in government.
Hunter Biden's lawyers said in statement in October 2019 that he had undertaken "these business activities independently. He did not believe it appropriate to discuss them with his father, nor did he."
Hunter told the New Yorker magazine that on the only occasion he had mentioned Burisma: "Dad said, 'I hope you know what you are doing.'"
Amid all the scrutiny, Joe Biden promised last year that if he was elected president, no-one in his family would hold a job or have a business relationship with a foreign corporation or foreign government.
It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
To the others, this was first reported by Politico, not the Post. But more importantly:
1. It's a long standing Justice Dept policy not to pursue investigations during a federal election year that could be deemed to provide one political candidate an advantage over another. This should not be news to you and this clearly would fall into that category. The investigations would continue after the election.
2. The decision maker in this case was a Trump appointed US Attorney
3. The DOJ was under Trump
So what we have here is a Trump official following DOJ policy. I'm not sure why this would bother you.
It bothers me because this isn't justice. Has the investigation started up again? I don't know but what I do know is that Hunter Biden is now selling his "art" for upwards of $500,000. The laptop already showed that he used Joe Biden for pay to play. The laptop shows plenty of damaging evidence that if you or I were caught with, we'd be thrown in a dark hole as we should be.
It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
To the others, this was first reported by Politico, not the Post. But more importantly:
1. It's a long standing Justice Dept policy not to pursue investigations during a federal election year that could be deemed to provide one political candidate an advantage over another. This should not be news to you and this clearly would fall into that category. The investigations would continue after the election.
2. The decision maker in this case was a Trump appointed US Attorney
3. The DOJ was under Trump
So what we have here is a Trump official following DOJ policy. I'm not sure why this would bother you.
It bothers me because this isn't justice. Has the investigation started up again? I don't know but what I do know is that Hunter Biden is now selling his "art" for upwards of $500,000. The laptop already showed that he used Joe Biden for pay to play. The laptop shows plenty of damaging evidence that if you or I were caught with, we'd be thrown in a dark hole as we should be.
You're mad because he's selling art? Were you mad when Ivanka was selling fashion attire and securing patents with China?
Why are you mad that the DOJ put the investigation on hold per the policy? And second, it's also DOJ policy not to disclose investigations of private citizens. These seem like common sense policies to me.
It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
To the others, this was first reported by Politico, not the Post. But more importantly:
1. It's a long standing Justice Dept policy not to pursue investigations during a federal election year that could be deemed to provide one political candidate an advantage over another. This should not be news to you and this clearly would fall into that category. The investigations would continue after the election.
2. The decision maker in this case was a Trump appointed US Attorney
3. The DOJ was under Trump
So what we have here is a Trump official following DOJ policy. I'm not sure why this would bother you.
It bothers me because this isn't justice. Has the investigation started up again? I don't know but what I do know is that Hunter Biden is now selling his "art" for upwards of $500,000. The laptop already showed that he used Joe Biden for pay to play. The laptop shows plenty of damaging evidence that if you or I were caught with, we'd be thrown in a dark hole as we should be.
Oh and please tell me the specific crime Hunter committed that would get you and I thrown in a dark hole. I guarantee I can pick apart your argument with basic legal and statutory knowledge.
F Me In The Brain
this knows everybody from other commets Posts: 31,373
Biden
Didn't Hunter run the Comet Pizza deal? And take Robert Johnson's soul down at the crossroads?
What a fucking joke. Trump fans claiming lack of justice. A sexual predator (self-admitted) who not only never faced justice, but who was elected President and milked (continues to milk) the govt for all sorts of money....this is your hero but you complain about the opposition's son.
Didn't Hunter run the Comet Pizza deal? And take Robert Johnson's soul down at the crossroads?
What a fucking joke. Trump fans claiming lack of justice. A sexual predator (self-admitted) who not only never faced justice, but who was elected President and milked (continues to milk) the govt for all sorts of money....this is your hero but you complain about the opposition's son.
"This is your hero" Did I say Trump was my hero?
You are making stuff up to make yourself feel better.
0
F Me In The Brain
this knows everybody from other commets Posts: 31,373
Didn't Hunter run the Comet Pizza deal? And take Robert Johnson's soul down at the crossroads?
What a fucking joke. Trump fans claiming lack of justice. A sexual predator (self-admitted) who not only never faced justice, but who was elected President and milked (continues to milk) the govt for all sorts of money....this is your hero but you complain about the opposition's son.
"This is your hero" Did I say Trump was my hero?
You are making stuff up to make yourself feel better.
It does not make me feel better, not sure why it would.
I have no investment in Hunter Biden, I do not care two shits about Hunter Biden.
I don't even like Great Grandfather Biden as President all that much....I just felt it was an easy decision to vote for him vs. that fat lop of disgusting shit Donny Diapers.
Sorry if Trump is not your hero, I made an assumption based on what I was reading.
If you think Trump is a sexual predator I directed that at the wrong person based on my assumption.
It's bad enough when social media platforms hide stories but it's even worse when the officials we are supposed to trust do the same. Not everything about this election was on the up and up.
To the others, this was first reported by Politico, not the Post. But more importantly:
1. It's a long standing Justice Dept policy not to pursue investigations during a federal election year that could be deemed to provide one political candidate an advantage over another. This should not be news to you and this clearly would fall into that category. The investigations would continue after the election.
2. The decision maker in this case was a Trump appointed US Attorney
3. The DOJ was under Trump
So what we have here is a Trump official following DOJ policy. I'm not sure why this would bother you.
It bothers me because this isn't justice. Has the investigation started up again? I don't know but what I do know is that Hunter Biden is now selling his "art" for upwards of $500,000. The laptop already showed that he used Joe Biden for pay to play. The laptop shows plenty of damaging evidence that if you or I were caught with, we'd be thrown in a dark hole as we should be.
Oh and please tell me the specific crime Hunter committed that would get you and I thrown in a dark hole. I guarantee I can pick apart your argument with basic legal and statutory knowledge.
Hunter lied on a federal background check when he purchased a gun by stating that he wasn't addicted to drugs.
Do you want stronger gun control? How about we start with enacting the laws that are already in place?
Comments
Deplorable’s will kneel at his statue lol
Study: No partisan benefit from mail voting in 2020 election
by: NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Press
Posted: Mar 5, 2021 / 06:31 PM EST / Updated: Mar 5, 2021 / 06:31 PM ESTNot today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — U.S. Postal Service investigators did not find evidence of any backdated presidential election ballots in the post office in Erie, Pennsylvania, according to a report summarizing the investigation into claims by a postal worker that spurred calls from Republicans for a federal probe.
The presidential battleground of Pennsylvania was a key target for unfounded claims of election fraud by former President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans after Trump lost the state, and the election, to Democrat Joe Biden.
Agents from the Postal Service inspector general's office found no evidence of backdated ballots after interviewing county and post office employees and reviewing ballots received by the Erie post office on Nov. 3 and afterward, the report said.
The report had been kept under wraps by the inspector general’s office until it was posted, without an announcement, on Feb. 26.
Allegations by an employee, Richard Hopkins, became public Nov. 5 in a video released by Project Veritas, a conservative group that had been promoting voter fraud accusations on social media.
Citing Hopkins’ allegations, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called for an investigation by the Department of Justice.
The name of the employee in the agents' report is redacted, but the report discusses the same claims he made publicly, as well as his involvement with Project Veritas. Hopkins does not appear to have a publicly listed telephone number.
On Nov. 6, he told agents that he overheard a conversation between the postmaster and a supervisor that involved backdating ballots received after polls closed to “make them appear to have been received” on Nov. 3, which was Election Day, the report said.
Three days later, on Nov. 9, he told the agents that he had not actually heard a conversation about ballots, but saw the postmaster and the supervisor having a discussion “and assumed it was about backdating ballots,” the report said.
He “acknowledged he had no evidence of any backdated presidential ballots,” the report said.
Postmaster Robert Weisenbach has called the allegations false, and the supervisor and the postal worker who controlled the postmarking stamps at the post office told agents they were unaware of any evidence of backdated presidential election ballots, the report said.
Doug Smith, Erie County’s chief clerk and clerk of elections, told The Associated Press at the time that the county had received about 140 ballots after the election. Just five had an Erie postmark, while the rest were postmarked elsewhere from other post offices, Smith said.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/544010-erdogan-calls-biden-comments-on-putin
PHOENIX (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice expressed concern Wednesday about ballot security and potential voter intimidation arising from the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate's unprecedented private recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County.
In a letter to GOP Senate President Karen Fann, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said the Senate's farming out of 2.1 million ballots from the state's most populous county to a contractor may run afoul of federal law requiring ballots to remain in the control of elections officials for 22 months.
And Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Pamela S. Karlan said that the Senate contractor's plans to directly contact voters could amount to illegal voter intimidation.
“Past experience with similar investigative efforts around the country has raised concerns that they can be directed at minority voters, which potentially can implicate the anti-intimidation prohibitions of the Voting Rights Act,” Karlan wrote. “Such investigative efforts can have a significant intimidating effect on qualified voters that can deter them from seeking to vote in the future.”
Karlan wants Fann to lay out how the Senate and its contractors will ensure federal laws are followed. She pointed to news reports showing lax security at the former basketball arena where the ballots are being recounted by hand.
Fann said Senate attorneys were working on a response she promised to share when it was completed.
The Justice Department letter came six days after voting rights groups asked federal officials to intervene or send monitors to the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix at the state fairgrounds, where the ballots are being recounted.
“We are very concerned that the auditors are engaged in ongoing and imminent violations of federal voting and election laws,” said the letter sent by the Brennan Center for Justice, the Leadership Conference and Protect Democracy.
In other developments Wednesday, the Arizona Democratic Party has reached a deal with the Republican-controlled state Senate to ensure that voter and ballot privacy is guaranteed during an unprecedented recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County.
The agreement reached Wednesday puts teeth in a court order that already required the Senate and its contractor, Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, to follow state laws around ballot privacy. Any violations of the agreement would be enforceable by seeking an emergency court order.
The agreement also puts in writing a verbal agreement between the Senate and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs that allows her to have three observers inside the Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the state fairgrounds.
Under the court order, the Senate and Cyber Ninjas last week released their policies and procedures for the recount. Hobbs' elections director, Bo Dul, told The Associated Press there were major problems with those rules, including that they seemed haphazard, lacked specifics and left much room for interpretation — something that is never allowed in ballot counts.
Dul noted that the policies allow counters to accept a large enough error rate to perhaps show Trump won the state. Such an outcome would not change the outcome of the election because the results were certified months ago in the state and Congress.
Hobbs on Wednesday sent a letter to the Senate's liaison to its recount contractor, former Secretary of State Ken Bennett, formally laying out a series of problems with the policies.
"Mr. Bennett, as a former Secretary of State, you know that our elections are governed by a complex framework of laws and procedures designed to ensure accuracy, security, and transparency," Hobbs wrote. “You also must therefore know that the procedures governing this audit ensure none of those things.”
The developments come as the counting of 2.1 million ballots from the November election won by President Joe Biden are off to a slow pace. Bennett told the Associated Press Tuesday night that teams doing a hand recount of the presidential race lost by former President Donald Trump and the U.S. Senate race won by Democrat Mark Kelly has tallied less than 10% of the ballots since starting on April 23.
Bennett said it is clear the count can't be done by the time the deal allowing the Senate to use the Coliseum ends on May 14. Several days of high school graduations are set to begin on May 15.
Bennett said the plan was to move the ballots and other materials into a secure area of the Coliseum to allow the events, then restart counting and continue until that is completed.
That seems far from certain, though, after a state fair board official told the Arizona Republic that extending the Coliseum lease is “not feasible.” The fair board didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from the AP.
Trump and his backers have alleged without evidence that he lost Arizona and other battleground states because of fraud. Fann said she wants to prove one way or the other whether GOP claims of problems with the vote are valid and use the results of the audit to craft updated election laws.
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I'm wondering if that whole thing might just fizzle out. From the latest reporting, it sounds like the people there are doing more visiting with each other than working hard on a recount where soon they'll lose the space to work.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans in the U.S. Senate mounted an aggressive case against Democrats' sweeping election and voter-access legislation, pushing to roll back proposals for automatic registration, 24-hour ballot drop boxes and other changes in an increasingly charged national debate.
The legislation, a top priority of Democrats in the aftermath of the divisive 2020 election, would bring about the largest overhaul of U.S. voting in a generation, touching nearly every aspect of the electoral process. It would remove hurdles to voting erected in the name of election security and curtail the influence of big money in politics.
At the end of a long, contentious day, the Rules Committee deadlocked 9-9 on Tuesday over advancing the bill to the full Senate in its current form. That leaves it to Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to try to invoke a special process to force the legislation ahead.
Though it is federal legislation, Republicans are fighting a national campaign against it rooted in state battles to restrict new ways of voting that have unfolded during the pandemic. Just Tuesday, the Arizona Legislature sent the governor a bill that would make it easier to purge infrequent voters from a list of those who automatically get mail-in ballots, the latest battleground state to push through changes likely to take months or years to finally settle in court.
GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is so determined to stop the legislation that he made a rare appearance at Tuesday's Rules Committee session in Washington. McConnell and other Republicans on the panel argued for a wave of amendments against key sections of the bill, which Democrats turned aside in an hours-long voting session.
McConnell declared, “Our democracy is not in crisis" and said he wasn’t about to cede control of elections to new laws “under the false pretense of saving it.”
With Democrats holding the White House and narrow control of Congress, they see the legislation as crucial — perhaps their best chance to counter efforts by state-level Republicans who have seized on former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election to push ballot restrictions.
Yet even as they tout the measure, Democrats find themselves playing defense, unable to push their legislative response to President Joe Biden’s desk. While the elections overhaul has passed the House, there’s no clear path forward in the Senate, which is split 50-50. Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have both said they oppose making changes to the Senate’s filibuster rules, which would be needed to maneuver the bill past unified Republican opposition.
Trump’s election claims, which have only increased in the six months since his defeat, were rejected by Republican as well as Democratic election officials in state after state, by U.S. cybersecurity officials and by courts up to the U.S. Supreme Court. And his attorney general said there was no evidence of fraud that could change the election outcome.
“President Trump told a big lie, one of the biggest ever told. We all know that. Every single person in this room knows that,” Sen. Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, said at the hearing. "And it’s taking root, this big lie is taking root in our country, not just in the minds of his voters but in the laws of the land.”
The laws emerging around the country “are about one thing and one thing alone: making it harder for Americans to vote," he said.
The Democrats' measure would not stop every bill being passed in Republican states across the country. But it would make it difficult, if not impossible, for states to press ahead with many of the new rules.
That's because the legislation would create nationwide rules for early voting and no-excuse absentee voting, standardizing the process. Currently, six states don’t offer early, in-person voting and a third of states still require an excuse — such as illness or planning to be away from home on Election Day — to vote by mail, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Republicans walked a narrow line during much of the discussion on Tuesday, criticizing congressional Democrats for seeking to change voting rules while at the same time offering robust support for GOP state lawmakers who are doing the same.
The GOP senators cited high voter turnout in last year’s presidential election during the pandemic as proof that the system worked without the Democrats' changes and voters were not disenfranchised. But they offered little justification for GOP efforts at the state level to impose new limits on voting, particularly mail voting.
Republicans also attacked provisions that would create a new public financing system for political campaigns and strengthen the enforcement capabilities of the federal agency tasked with policing elections, as well as dozens of other proposals that would dictate how states conduct their elections.
“This bill doesn’t protect voting rights, it steals voting rights from the American people,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
While Republicans argue the new state rules are needed to secure the vote, critics warn the states are seeking to reduce voter access, particularly for Black voters, who are a crucial part of the Democratic Party base. That could usher in a new Jim Crow era for the 21st century, they warn.
“These bills moving in state capitals across America are not empty threats, they are real efforts to stop people from voting,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee.
Yet moderate members of the Democratic caucus — not just Republicans — pose a sizable obstacle to the bill becoming law.
Manchin has called for any elections overhaul to be done on a bipartisan basis, despite Republican insistence that no changes are necessary. Other Democrats want to pare back the bill to core voting protections to try to put Republicans on the spot.
Democrats have been making their own changes to draw more support.
In the latest version of the legislation, states would have more time and flexibility to put new federal rules in place. Some election officials had complained of unrealistic timelines, increased costs and onerous requirements.
States would have more time to launch same-day voter registration at polling places and to comply with new voting system requirements. They would also be able to apply for an extension if they were unable to meet the deadline for automatic voter registration. Officials have said these are complex processes that require equipment changes or upgrades that will take time.
Democrats are also dropping a requirement that local election offices provide self-sealing envelopes with mail ballots and cover the costs of return postage. They plan to require the U.S. Postal Service to carry mail ballots and ballot request forms free of charge, with the federal government picking up the tab.
But Republicans argue the changes would do little to limit what they view as unwarranted federal intrusions into local elections.
“Giving states more time to implement bad policy doesn’t make the policy less bad,” said Sen Roy Blunt of Missouri, the ranking minority member on the committee. “I think the federal government taking over elections is the wrong thing to do."
___
Cassidy reported from Atlanta.
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PEMBROKE N.H. (AP) — There is no evidence of fraud or political bias in a controversial New Hampshire election where a recount and audit has drawn the interest of former President Donald Trump, auditors concluded Thursday.
Rather, auditors investigating the election in the town of Windham believe a folding machine used by the town to try to accommodate the numbers of absentee ballots in the November election is responsible for mistakenly adding to vote counts for candidates in four legislative seats.
“We found no evidence of fraud or political bias,” Mark Lindeman, one of the three auditors and the acting co-director of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, said. “I have heard no one actually articulate a credible hypothesis of how fraud could account for what we found.”
The town used the machine to fold the absentee ballots before sending them to voters. After they were returned, the ballots were fed into a counting machine. Because the folds on some ballots went through a Democrats name, the ballot was either not counted or a vote was wrongly given to the Democrat.
The audit, mandated by the legislature and started earlier this month, is set to finish Thursday. It was called by lawmakers from both parties after a recount requested by a losing Democratic candidate in one of the legislative races showed the Republicans getting hundreds more votes than were originally counted. No matter the audit findings, the results won’t change.
The discrepancy drew the attention of Trump and his supporters in their effort to find evidence of his wider claim of election fraud from 2020. Trump's cheerleading of skeptics in Windham shows how his search for evidence to support his false claims of election fraud have burrowed into American politics, even at the local level.
Kristi St. Laurent, the losing Democratic candidate who requested the recount, was watching the audit wrap up Thursday at the Edward Cross Training Center in Pembroke. She was satisfied with the audit and was counting on either the legislature or the secretary of state's office take action to ensure the problem doesn't happen again.
“They have been very thorough, very transparent and it's also clear that it's multiple factors that led to the results we had on election night” she said.
But not everyone was convinced the audit would find the reason for the discrepancy in the counts or that auditors had done enough to look at fraud or other factors.
“I wish it wasn’t ending. There is still a lot more work that needs to be done. If you are going to turn over every rock and look at every possibility, there is a lot of evidence that hasn't been looked at,” said Tom Murray, a contractor from Windham who was watching the audit. He said he has “less faith in the integrity of the system now than I did before this audit started.”
Auditors must issue a final report within 45 days and Lindeman said that would include a series of recommendations. But he doubts the findings would have relevance beyond Windham.
“We have no reason to think that it's a statewide or national issue, although it's certainly possible that it occurred in other localities," he said.
That was echoed by Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who said ballots are sent to towns and cities with score marks to facilitate folding and the state ensures those marks don’t go through the ovals where votes are marked.
“There’s never been a ballot we sent out that was scored over an oval,” he said.
While it’s unknown how many other communities might use a folding machines like the one Windham did, Gardner said he suspects that few, if any, do. While the number of absentee ballots skyrocketed due to the pandemic, they generally make up a small percentage of the votes and communities don’t have a problem folding ballots by hand.
Gardner has overseen 549 recounts in his 44 years as secretary of state, including 16 after the November elections. Those recounts involved 168,000 ballots — 22% of the total cast statewide — and 65 polling places.
“We don’t have any reason to believe that any other town is facing this kind of situation,” he said. “There wasn’t anything else that we saw that was like this, and there’s not been anything else like it over the years.”
___
Associated Press writer Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.
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ATLANTA (AP) — As a pair of election workers sat at a table counting ballots during an audit of Georgia's presidential election in November, no fewer than eight Republican monitors swarmed around them, hurling accusations of voter fraud and taking photos in violation of the rules.
This was one of several tense situations involving party monitors that independent election monitor Carter Jones documented in reports produced during the several months he spent observing election operations in Fulton County to ensure that officials in the state's most populous county were complying with a consent agreement.
“The party audit monitors seemed to feel as though they were detectives or sheriffs and that they were going to personally ‘crack the case’ and uncover a stolen election,” Jones wrote in a report submitted to the State Election Board on Nov. 20. “This is a gross misunderstanding of their role as monitors and certainly made the audit process more contentious — not to mention more difficult for the auditors attempting to count amidst the commotion of a full-scale argument.”
While transparency is imperative throughout the election process and monitors are necessary, political parties must do a better job of vetting and training their monitors and explaining exactly what their role is, Jones wrote. He also suggested that repeat offenders be prohibited from serving as monitors in the future.
No one from the Fulton County Republican and Democratic parties immediately responded Thursday to emails seeking comment.
Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, experienced many problems during its primary last June, including hourslong lines and absentee ballots that were requested but never received. The State Election Board entered into a consent order with the county to make changes for the general election. That included the appointment of Jones, who has previous experience working on elections in other parts of the world, as an independent monitor from October through January.
An executive summary of his findings was released earlier this year and Jones briefed the State Election Board in February. But detailed notes and reports produced by Jones during the process and obtained this week by The Associated Press provide more details about what he saw.
Then-President Donald Trump focused his attention on Georgia after losing the traditional Republican stronghold to Democrat Joe Biden by about 12,000 votes in November. Trump and his allies focused particular attention on Fulton County, making repeated unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud. Election workers in the county were subjected to intense harassment, sometimes stemming from misunderstandings by observers about what they were seeing as ballots were counted, recounted by hand for an audit and recounted again by machine at Trump's request.
On Nov. 14, when Jones walked over to the table where the group of GOP monitors was hovering over workers processing a batch of early voting ballots from the city of College Park, one monitor told him she'd taken a photo of the stack of ballots — all for Democrat Joe Biden, none for Trump — as evidence of voter fraud.
“You took photos?” Jones asked.
“Yes, for evidence. I'm concerned with the truth. As a journalist you should be too,” the woman replied, misunderstanding his role. When he told her photos weren't allowed, she seemed to get angry and accused him of being complicit in a cover-up of voter fraud, Jones wrote.
About an hour and a half later, Jones observed the same party monitor yelling at a Fulton County attorney who had been called over to allow an elderly pair of audit workers to take a break. They had been working for hours to process a batch of 3,500 ballots and had skipped lunch so as not to violate the rules against taking breaks in the middle of a batch. But one of them was diabetic and was starting to shake from low blood sugar.
The party monitor was demanding strict adherence to the “no breaks” policy. After arguing with county elections director Rick Barron and another county official, the monitor pulled Jones into the conversation. Jones said he tried to stay neutral, but asked her to be reasonable with the application of the policy. He also let her know she could file a formal complaint with the secretary of state.
“The monitor then again accused me of colluding to cover up voter fraud and made a vague personal threat to both me and Barron,” Jones wrote in his report, adding that he included the anecdote “in an attempt to encapsulate the tense mood in the room.”
Complaints about overzealous party monitors were common during the audit, Jones wrote. Among the other issues he documented were monitors trying to speak with auditors, wandering among ballot bags and taking photos of the labels on them, trying to instruct auditors how to do their jobs, and gathering around tables when there was only supposed to be one monitor from each party for every 10 tables. The party monitors “were also performing their duties very eagerly and were frequently informing staff if they saw an issue,” Jones noted, adding that often their complaints were valid.
Earlier in the month, as the ballots were initially being counted during the week of the election, party monitors sometimes misunderstood what was happening, complained about their level of access, went around barriers to talk to election workers, shot photos and video, and exhibited “astoundingly poor mask hygiene," Jones wrote, referring to the county's policy that election workers wear face coverings to prevent transmission of the coronavirus.
At one point on Election Day, Jones noticed the party monitors watching him closely. He introduced himself and asked one if he'd seen anything out of the ordinary.
“We weren't informed of your role here so it's not our place to tell you anything,” the monitor responded and then called Jones a traitor.
During a runoff election in January, a monitor secretly recorded a 45-minute conversation with a county election official and quoted their conversation extensively in a complaint filed with the secretary of state's office.
Multiple party monitors in January told Jones they had been recording the license plates of staffers' cars as “evidence,” which Jones said seemed like “a massive invasion of the privacy of the election workers.”
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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — State Senate Republicans who investigated Michigan's 2020 presidential election for months concluded there was no widespread or systemic fraud and urged the state attorney general to consider probing people who have made baseless allegations about the results in Antrim County to raise money or publicity “for their own ends.”
The GOP-led state Senate Oversight Committee said in a 55-page report released Wednesday that citizens should be confident that the election's outcome represents the “true results.” Democrat Joe Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump by about 155,000 votes, or 2.8 percentage points, in the battleground state.
Trump and his allies have pushed debunked conspiracy theories and unfounded information about voter fraud.
“The committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain,” the panel wrote days after Republican activists requested an Arizona-style “forensic” audit of the election.
The committee's three Republicans did recommend legislation that would close "real vulnerabilities" in future elections. Election-related bills are pending, including proposed tougher photo ID rules that the Senate passed last week, but Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will veto them if they reach her desk.
Election night results in northern Michigan's rural Antrim County, which has roughly 23,000 residents, initially erroneously showed a local victory for Biden over Trump. But it was attributed to human error, not any problems with machines, and corrected. A hand recount turned up no signs of shenanigans.
“We will review the report in its entirety in order to determine if a criminal investigation is appropriate,” Lynsey Mukomel, spokeswoman for Attorney General Dana Nessel, said of the call to probe individuals who have lied about what happened in Antrim.
People mentioned in the report include Mike Lindell, the MyPillow creator-turned-conspiracy peddler; lawyer Matthew DePerno, who unsuccessfully sued the county on behalf of a resident, and ex-state Sen. Patrick Colbeck. The report also criticized Texas-based Allied Security Operations Group, a company that worked with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to raise baseless allegations of fraud and counting errors.
The report dismissed various allegations — that many dead people voted, that hundreds of thousands of unsolicited absentee ballots were mailed to Michigan voters, that absentee ballots were counted multiple times, that tens of thousands of fraudulent absentee ballots were “dumped” at Detroit's counting center after the polls closed. Those ballots had been submitted throughout Election Day in drop boxes, in the mail and at clerk's offices.
The panel's Republicans recommended that drop boxes not be used or be closed sooner than 8 p.m. on Election Day so that processing and tabulating the ballots they contain won't extend long into the night. Democrats have said such a move would disenfranchise some voters.
“The committee’s report goes into considerable detail ... and I hope the public is reassured by the security and protections already in place, motivated to support necessary reforms to make it better and grateful for our fellow citizens who do the hard work of conducting our elections,” said Sen. Ed McBroom, a Vulcan Republican who chairs the panel.
The lone Democrat on the committee, Sen. Jeff Irwin of Ann Arbor, noted that its two other members had been among 11 GOP senators who asked Congress to investigate “credible” allegations of election misconduct on Jan. 4, two days before it met to certify Biden's win amid the deadly insurrection by Trump supporters at the Capitol.
“It is unfortunate that the Michigan Legislature participated in the circus, parading witnesses who were not credible or who pressed obvious falsehoods in order to promote the lie that Michigan’s results were tainted," he said. "But it is my fervent hope that we, as a legislative body, can finally focus our energy on getting help out to our residents who need it most after such a tumultuous year for many due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
___
Follow David Eggert at https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00
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PHOENIX (AP) — Newly released records show the top Republicans in Arizona's largest county dodged calls from Donald Trump and his allies in the aftermath of the 2020 election, as the then-president sought to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory in key battleground states.
The records — including voicemails and text messages — shed light on another state where Trump, his attorneys and others mounted a behind-the-scenes pressure campaign on Republican officials overseeing elections. Days before Congress certified Biden's win on Jan. 6, Trump pressed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find enough votes to overturn Biden's win there.
Trump tried to reach Clint Hickman, then the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, on Jan. 3, shortly before midnight in Washington and hours after news broke of Trump's call with Raffensperger.
“Hello, sir. This is the White House operator I was calling to let you know that the president’s available to take your call if you’re free,” the White House operator said in a voicemail. “If you could please give us a call back, sir, that’d be great. You have a good evening.”
Hickman told The Arizona Republic, which first received the records from Maricopa County, that he did not return the phone call. He said he presumed Trump would try to pressure him to change election results or discuss election conspiracies as he had done with Raffensperger.
“I’m not going to tape a president, so I’m not going to talk to a president. … I didn’t want to have a very rough call to my home on a Sunday night," Hickman told the Republic.
Hickman and the rest of the Board of Supervisors, which is controlled 4-1 by Republicans, have aggressively defended the vote count in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and 60% of Arizona's voters. They have maintained the outcome was not affected by fraud or irregularities.
State Senate Republicans used their subpoena power to take control of all 2.1 million ballots and the machines that counted them. A firm led by a Trump supporter who has shared far-fetched conspiracy theories is overseeing an audit for the Senate GOP.
The most aggressive pressure came from Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward, who tried to convince Republicans on the board to question the election results, even as the officials tried to instill confidence in the them. At one point, she texted Hickman, "We need you to stop the counting.”
She tried to convince Hickman and Supervisors Steve Chucri and Bill Gates to call Trump attorney Sidney Powell, who filed lawsuits around the country alleging the election conspiracies. The lawsuits were all thrown out.
Early Nov. 20, when the board was scheduled to certify Maricopa County's election results, Ward texted Gates, “Can we talk today now that the lawsuit is over? There are so many abnormalities that must be adjudicated. I know the Republican board doesn’t want to be remembered as the entity who led the charge to certify a fraudulent election.”
After sending information alleging fraud — and shortly before the board voted to accept the election results — she texted him, “Sounds like your fellow Repubs are throwing in the towel. Very sad. And unAmerican.”
She texted Chucri, "Seems you’re playing for the wrong team and people will remember. WRONG team.”
The records also include voicemails from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani trying to reach several of the GOP supervisors. Chucri met with Giuliani when he was in Phoenix to air Trump's baseless fraud theories.
“If you get a chance, would you please give me a call,” Giuliani said in a message to Gates. “I have a few things I’d like to talk over with you. Maybe we can get this thing fixed up. You know, I really think it’s a shame that Republicans sort of are both in this kind of situation. And I think there may be a nice way to resolve this for everybody.”
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DETROIT (AP) — A federal judge is considering whether to order financial penalties or other sanctions against some of former President Donald Trump's lawyers who signed onto a lawsuit last year challenging Michigan's election results.
The lawsuit alleging widespread fraud was voluntarily dropped after a judge in December found nothing but “speculation and conjecture” that votes for Trump somehow were destroyed or switched to votes for Joe Biden, who won Michigan by 2.8 percentage points.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the city of Detroit now want the plaintiffs and a raft of attorneys, including Trump allies Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood, to face the consequences of pursuing what they call frivolous claims.
“It was never about winning on the merits of the claims, but rather (the) purpose was to undermine the integrity of the election results and the people’s trust in the electoral process and in government,” the attorney general's office said in a court filing.
U.S. District Judge Linda Parker in Detroit is holding a hearing by video conference Monday.
There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Indeed, election officials from both political parties have stated publicly that the election went well, and international observers confirmed there were no serious irregularities.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of six Republican voters who wanted Parker to decertify Michigan's election results and impound voting machines. The judge declined, calling the request “stunning in its scope and breathtaking in its reach.”
The case appeared to be mostly handled by Detroit-area attorneys. But the lawsuit also carried the names of Powell, Wood and four more lawyers from outside Michigan.
The roles of Powell and Wood are unclear; they never filed a formal appearance in the case, according to the docket. But they've been targeted in the request for penalties.
Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, also a Democrat, want the state to receive at least $11,000 in legal fees. Detroit is asking the judge to disgorge any money that lawyers have collected through a post-election fundraising campaign. The city also wants the lawyers to face disciplinary hearings in their respective states.
In response, attorney Stefanie Lambert Junttila insisted there was plenty of evidence to support the lawsuit.
“They are a new form of political retribution,” she said of possible sanctions. “Such abuse of the law has no place in this court and is contrary to the law it hypocritically invokes.”
In New York, Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law because he made false statements while trying to get courts to overturn Trump’s election loss.
___
Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez
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The Republican Party’s top lawyer called election fraud arguments by Trump’s lawyers a ‘joke’ that could mislead millions
The Republican Party’s top lawyer warned in November against continuing to push false claims that the presidential election was stolen, calling efforts by some of the former president’s lawyers a “joke” that could mislead millions of people, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post.
Justin Riemer, the Republican National Committee’s chief counsel, sought to discourage a Republican Party staffer from posting claims about ballot fraud on RNC accounts, the email shows, as attempts by Donald Trump and his associates to challenge results in a number of states, such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, intensified.
“What Rudy and Jenna are doing is a joke and they are getting laughed out of court,” Riemer, a longtime Republican lawyer, wrote to Liz Harrington, a former party spokeswoman, on Nov. 28, referring to Trump attorneys Rudolph W. Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. “They are misleading millions of people who have wishful thinking that the president is going to somehow win this thing.”
The email from Riemer to Harrington, which came about six weeks before a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, shows key figures in the party were privately disturbed by the false claims being made about the election by Trump and his supporters — even if they did not say so publicly.
Giuliani’s N.Y. law license suspended in connection with efforts to overturn 2020 election
Riemer said Ellis and Giuliani were damaging a broader Republican Party push on “election integrity” issues, according to the email. Riemer had led the party’s legal efforts for months ahead of and after the November election, particularly limiting the expansion of mail-in ballots. But Riemer was skeptical internally of some of the most conspiratorial theories and did not believe many of the claims from Giuliani and others about fraud, according to people who talked to Reimer and, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Some Trump allies, including Giuliani, sought to have Riemer fired after learning of the email, according to people familiar with the matter, but he remains employed at the RNC.
“I led the RNC legal team in over 55 lawsuits on behalf of the President’s reelection, winning a majority of them, including the only successful post-election lawsuit. Any suggestion that I did not support President Trump or do everything in my power to support the RNC’s efforts to reelect President Trump is false,” Riemer said in a statement. “I will say publicly now what I then said privately: I take issue with individuals who brought lawsuits that did not serve President Trump well and did not give him the best chance in court.”
Harrington, who is now a spokeswoman for Trump, continued to push voter-fraud allegations and left the RNC at the end of 2020. As the former president’s spokeswoman, she continues to post false claims of election fraud on social media and helps draft and disseminate the former president’s false claims about the election.
“The only thing that’s a joke is the idea that Joe Biden got 81 million votes,” Harrington said when asked about Riemer’s email on Monday afternoon.
Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the emails. Ellis did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.
In recent weeks, some Trump allies have targeted the RNC and its chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, arguing they did not do enough in the aftermath of the Nov. 3 election to help Trump overturn the results. Ellis has led many of the attacks, tweeting “#RonnaMustGo.”
Conservative nonprofit group challenging election results around the country has tie to Trump legal adviser Jenna Ellis
Ellis and Giuliani were brought in by Trump to handle his election challenges within two weeks of the election, amid his growing dissatisfaction with his traditional legal team. Many of those lawyers stepped back in mid-November, when Trump appointed Giuliani and others to take charge. But Giuliani and Ellis were also unable to overturn the results, and Trump has complained about both of them in recent weeks, according to multiple people familiar with the former president’s remarks. Ellis has launched a group on voting, but Trump has not yet backed it publicly.
In the days after the election, McDaniel flew to various states to raise issues about the election, and Giuliani and then-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell held a much-maligned news conference in the lobby of the party’s headquarters. The email from Riemer came days after that news conference, which discomfited senior RNC officials. McDaniel soon slowed her public appearances and did not embrace the far-flung claims of fraud.
McDaniel has urged top donors and party officials in recent weeks to focus on the 2022 midterms and has argued that focusing on re-litigating the results of the 2020 election could hurt the party going forward, according to people who have spoken with her. But people close to McDaniel said she continues to speak with Trump and has a good relationship with him.
‘Pure insanity’: How Trump and his allies pressured the Justice Department to help overturn the election
The RNC has also declined, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, to pay any of Giuliani’s legal bills — a point of contention among some Giuliani associates. “Rudy Giuliani has never worked for the RNC and he has never acted at our direction,” a party spokeswoman said.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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1. It's a long standing Justice Dept policy not to pursue investigations during a federal election year that could be deemed to provide one political candidate an advantage over another. This should not be news to you and this clearly would fall into that category. The investigations would continue after the election.
2. The decision maker in this case was a Trump appointed US Attorney
3. The DOJ was under Trump
So what we have here is a Trump official following DOJ policy. I'm not sure why this would bother you.
Hunter Biden: What was he doing in China and Ukraine?
Hunter Biden, second son of US President Joe Biden, is being investigated by the Justice Department over his finances including, according to US media reports, some of his business dealings in China.
During the 2020 election campaign, he and his father were frequently accused by Donald Trump and his associates of wrongdoing in regards to China and Ukraine, allegations which they both denied.
The New York Post reported on an alleged email in which an adviser from a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, apparently thanked Hunter for inviting him to meet his father, Joe Biden.
Asked about the allegations, Joe Biden told a reporter it was a "smear campaign". No criminal activity has been proven, and no evidence has emerged that Mr Biden did anything to intentionally benefit his son.
In an interview with the BBC months after his father was sworn in as president, Hunter Biden defended his qualifications for the position at Burisma but added that, in retrospect, he had "missed... the perception that I would create".
Claims of influence-peddling are common in Washington DC and Mr Trump's children have also been accused of conflicts of interest in lucrative business deals overseas. They, too, deny wrongdoing.
What do we know about the federal investigation?
The Justice Department is investigating Hunter Biden's finances including scrutinising some of his past Chinese business dealings and other transactions, a "person familiar with the matter" told The Associated Press in December.
The tax investigation was launched in 2018 but Hunter Biden said he had learned about it for the first time in December 2020.
Asked about the investigation by US broadcaster CBS this April, the president's son said: "I'm co-operating, completely. And I'm absolutely certain, 100% certain, that at the end of the investigation, that I will be cleared of any wrongdoing."
What have the Bidens been accused of in China?
The New York Post cited a purported email from Hunter Biden in August 2017 indicating he was receiving a $10m annual fee from a Chinese billionaire for "introductions alone", though it is unclear who was involved in the alleged introductions.
Another purported email, which Fox News said it had confirmed, reportedly refers to a deal pursued by Hunter involving China's largest private energy firm. It is said to include a cryptic mention of "10 held by H for the big guy".
Fox News cited unnamed sources as saying "the big guy" in the purported email was a reference to Joe Biden. This message is said to be from May 2017. Both emails would date from when the former US vice-president was a private citizen.
A former business associate of Hunter Biden has come forward to say he can confirm the allegations.
Tony Bobulinski told Fox News that, contrary to Joe Biden's statements that he had nothing to do with his son's business affairs, Hunter had "frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals" in China.
Mr Bobulinski, who is reportedly a US Navy veteran, separately told Fox News' Tucker Carlson that he had met on two occasions with Joe Biden to discuss business deals with China, the first time in May 2017 when Barack Obama's former vice-president was a private citizen.
He says he asked Joe Biden's brother, James, whether the family was concerned about possible scrutiny of the former vice-president's involvement in a potential business deal with a Chinese entity. Mr Bobulinski told Fox News that James Biden had replied: "Plausible deniability."
Mr Bobulinski was invited by Mr Trump to be his guest at the final presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee on 22 October.
What is known about Hunter's dealings in China?
In 2013, Hunter flew aboard Air Force Two with his father, who was then vice-president, on an official visit to Beijing, where the younger Biden met investment banker Jonathan Li.
Hunter told the New Yorker he had just met Mr Li for "a cup of coffee", but 12 days after the trip a private equity fund, BHR Partners, was approved by the Chinese authorities. Mr Li was chief executive and Hunter was a board member. He would hold a 10% stake.
BHR is backed by some of China's largest state banks and by local governments, according to US media.
Hunter Biden's lawyer said he had joined the board in an unpaid position "based on his interest in seeking ways to bring Chinese capital to international markets".
His lawyer also said his client did not acquire his financial stake in BHR until 2017, after his father had left office in the US.
Hunter resigned from the board of BHR in April 2020, but still held his 10% stake in BHR as of July this year, according to the company report.
What did the New York Post say about Hunter Biden and Ukraine?
The New York Post reported an email from April 2015, in which an adviser to Burisma, Vadym Pozharskyi, apparently thanked Hunter Biden for inviting him to meet his father in Washington.
Hunter was a director on the board of Burisma - a Ukrainian-owned private energy company while his father was the Obama administration's pointman on US-Ukrainian relations. Hunter was one of several foreigners on its board.
The New York Post article did not provide evidence that the meeting had ever taken place. The Biden election campaign said there was no record of any such meeting on the former vice-president's "official schedule" from the time.
But in a statement to Politico, the campaign also acknowledged that Mr Biden could have had an "informal interaction" with the Burisma adviser that did not appear on his official schedule, though it said any such encounter would have been "cursory".
"Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as 'not legitimate' and political by a GOP colleague, have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official US policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing," said Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Mr Biden.
Mr Biden's team has also decried the New York Post story as "Russian disinformation", though it did not say the emails were bogus.
The New York Post article was shared by President Trump and his allies. Two of his former advisers, Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani, were involved in providing the story and the hard drive containing the alleged emails, to the newspaper.
Mr Giuliani says the messages were found on a laptop that Hunter dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in April 2019.
Sceptics have noted that Mr Giuliani travelled in December 2019 to Kyiv where he met Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach, whom the US Treasury has designated as a longtime Kremlin agent. Mr Giuliani has acknowledged trying dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine.
But the US Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, told Fox Business that the purported emails were not connected to a Russian disinformation effort.
Other US media say they have been unable to verify the authenticity of the emails. Hunter has neither confirmed nor denied that he dropped off a laptop at the location.
Hunter joined Burisma in 2014, and remained on the board until April 2019, when he decided to leave.
Speaking to the BBC, he said Burisma had seen his name "as gold" and that it had played a large part in his appointment to the board.
What are the Bidens accused of in Ukraine?
Donald Trump and his allies accused Joe Biden of wrongdoing because he had pushed, while vice-president, for the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor, who was investigating the company for which Hunter worked.
In 2016, Joe Biden called for the dismissal of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, whose office had Burisma and other companies under investigation.
However, other Western leaders and major bodies that give financial support to Ukraine also wanted the prosecutor dismissed because they believed he was not active enough in tackling corruption.
What else has the Biden campaign said?
Shortly before the final presidential debate last year, the Democrat's camp released a statement denying wrongdoing.
"Joe Biden has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any overseas business whatsoever," said the statement.
"He has never held stock in any such business arrangements nor has any family member or any other person ever held stock for him.
"What is true is that Tony Bobulinski admitted on the record to Breitbart that he is angry that he was *not* able to go into business with Hunter and James Biden [Joe Biden's brother]."
What did this have to do with impeachment?
In 2019, details emerged of a phone call Mr Trump, the then president, had made to the president of Ukraine, in which he had urged the Ukrainian leader to investigate the Bidens.
This led to charges by the Democrats that Mr Trump was trying to illegally pressure Ukraine to help damage his election rival, resulting in impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Mr Trump denied he had done anything wrong, and he was later acquitted by the Republican-controlled US Senate.
Has anything been proven against the Bidens?
While no criminal activity has been proven, it has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest.
A senior State Department official raised such concerns as far back as 2015.
US Republican lawmakers launched an investigation and found last year that Hunter's work for the Ukrainian firm had been "problematic" - but there wasn't evidence that US foreign policy was influenced by it.
No criminal charges were proven against Burisma either. The company issued a statement in 2017 saying "all legal proceedings and pending criminal allegations" against it were closed.
Last year, Yuriy Lutsenko, the prosecutor in Ukraine who succeeded Viktor Shokin, told the BBC that there was no reason to investigate the Bidens under Ukrainian law.
There is nothing illegal about sitting on a board of a company whilst family members serve in government.
Hunter Biden's lawyers said in statement in October 2019 that he had undertaken "these business activities independently. He did not believe it appropriate to discuss them with his father, nor did he."
Hunter told the New Yorker magazine that on the only occasion he had mentioned Burisma: "Dad said, 'I hope you know what you are doing.'"
Amid all the scrutiny, Joe Biden promised last year that if he was elected president, no-one in his family would hold a job or have a business relationship with a foreign corporation or foreign government.
Hunter Biden: What was he doing in China and Ukraine? - BBC News
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Why are you mad that the DOJ put the investigation on hold per the policy? And second, it's also DOJ policy not to disclose investigations of private citizens. These seem like common sense policies to me.
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