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mickeyrat
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,746
Biden
Quote of the day:
"...if the Trumps reoccupy the White House, expect Melania to fiddle with the furniture while the world burns."
I wonder whether she'll even go there long-term. She'll probably be at the inauguration but I would not be surprised if she lives elsewhere.
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mickeyrat
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mickeyrat
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Arizona grand jury indicts 11 Republicans who falsely declared Trump won the state in 2020
By JACQUES BILLEAUD and JOSH KELETY
16 mins ago
PHOENIX (AP) — Eleven Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Donald Trump beat Joe Biden in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election were charged Wednesday with conspiracy, fraud and forgery, marking the fourth state to bring charges against “fake electors.”
The 11 people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claiming that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Seven others were indicted, but their names were blacked out of records released by Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes. Her office said the names will be released after those people are served with the charges.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Of the eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in the state, one was filed by the 11 Republicans who would later sign the certificate declaring Trump as the winner.
Their lawsuit asked a judge to de-certify the results that gave Biden his victory in Arizona and block the state from sending them to the Electoral College. In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa said the Republicans lacked legal standing, waited too long to bring their case and “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.”
Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, the 11 Republicans participated in the certificate signing.
The Arizona charges come after a string of indictments against fake electors in other states.
Michigan’s Attorney General in July filed felony charges that included forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery against 16 Republican fake electors. One had charges dropped after reaching a cooperation deal, and the 15 remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Three fake electors also have been charged in Georgia alongside Trump and others in a sweeping indictment accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn the results. They have pleaded not guilty.
Trump also was indicted in August in federal court over the fake electors scheme. The indictment states that when Trump was unable to persuade state officials to illegally swing the election, he and his Republican allies began recruiting a slate of fake electors in battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — to sign certificates falsely stating he, not Biden, had won their states.
In early January, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said that state’s five Republican electors cannot be prosecuted under the current law. In New Mexico and Pennsylvania, fake electors added a caveat saying the election certificate was submitted in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors. No charges have been filed in Pennsylvania.
In Arizona, Mayes’ predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, conducted an investigation of the 2020 election, but the fake elector allegations were not part of that examination, according to Mayes’ office.
In another election-related case brought by Mayes’ office, two Republican officials in a rural Arizona county who delayed canvassing the 2022 general election results face felony charges. A grand jury indicted Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby in November on one count each of conspiracy and interference with an election officer. Both pleaded not guilty.
The Republicans facing charges are Kelli Ward, the state GOP’s chair from 2019 until early 2023; state Sen. Jake Hoffman; Tyler Bowyer, an executive of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA who serves on the Republican National Committee; state Sen. Anthony Kern, who was photographed in restricted areas outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and is now a candidate in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District; Greg Safsten, a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; energy industry executive James Lamon, who lost a 2022 Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat; Robert Montgomery, chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee in 2020; Samuel Moorhead, a Republican precinct committee member in Gila County; Nancy Cottle, who in 2020 was the first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; Loraine Pellegrino, president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; and Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician who is married to Kelli Ward.
There was no immediate response to phone messages seeking comment that were left Wednesday with Jacob Hoffman, Kelli Ward, Michael Ward, James Lamon and Tyler Bowyer.
___
Associated Press writers Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
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mickeyrat
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Investigator says Trump, allies were uncharged co-conspirators in plot to overturn Michigan election
By ED WHITE
Today
DETROIT (AP) — A state investigator testified Wednesday that he considers former President Donald Trump and his White House chief of staff to be uncharged co-conspirators in a scheme to claim that he won Michigan in the 2020 election, despite Democrat Joe Biden's clear victory.
Trump and Mark Meadows were among the names mentioned during the cross-examination of Howard Shock, whose work led to forgery charges against more than a dozen people in Michigan. A judge in the state capital is holding hearings to determine if there is enough evidence to order a trial.
A defense attorney, Duane Silverthorn, offered a series of names and asked Shock if they were “unindicted co-conspirators,” which means they weren't charged but could have been part of an alleged plot to put Michigan's electoral votes in Trump's column.
Prosecutors from the attorney general's office didn't object. Shock responded “yes” to Trump, Meadows, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and some high-ranking state Republicans.
“I'm surprised the question was even answered,” said Detroit-area attorney Margaret Raben, former head of a statewide association of defense lawyers.
“It's irrelevant — legally and factually irrelevant — that there are other people who could have been charged or should have been charged," said Raben, who is not involved in the case.
Meadows' lawyer, George Terwilliger, had a similar reaction when reached by The Associated Press. He declined further comment. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung referred to the Michigan case as an “ongoing witch hunt,” and Giuliani political adviser Ted Goodman said the former New York mayor was proud to stand up for people with concerns about the election.
In Georgia, Trump, Giuliani and others are charged with conspiracy related to the filing of a Republican elector certificate in that state following the 2020 election. Meadows is also charged in Georgia but not in relation to the elector scheme. They have pleaded not guilty.
An indictment by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith charging Trump with plotting to overturn the election also accuses the former president in a fake elector scheme and identifies six unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators, including Giuliani.
In Michigan, authorities said more than a dozen Republicans sent certificates to Congress falsely declaring they were electors and that Trump was the winner of the 2020 election in the state, despite results showing he had lost. Attorney General Dana Nessel said the scheme was hatched in the basement of the state Republican Party headquarters.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
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mickeyrat
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mickeyrat
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mickeyrat
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memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
And why the supreme court decided to hear the immunity defense. They’ll delay it so it’s too close to the election, then they’ll delay it again and if Trump wins, he’ll kill the case. Justice Thomas is in the clear at that point.
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mickeyrat
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And why the supreme court decided to hear the immunity defense. They’ll delay it so it’s too close to the election, then they’ll delay it again and if Trump wins, he’ll kill the case. Justice Thomas is in the clear at that point.
he would. need to reverse himself then. stated unequivocally in 2020 presidents do not enjoy absolute immunity
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,746
Biden
Can any of you actually imagine what will happen if Trump wins in election this fall? I can't because every time I start to think about what that would be like, my brain shuts down and I come to in a few minutes and find myself staring at the wall. If it happens, if he is elected, we are screwed beyond recognition.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.
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mickeyrat
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memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Can any of you actually imagine what will happen if Trump wins in election this fall? I can't because every time I start to think about what that would be like, my brain shuts down and I come to in a few minutes and find myself staring at the wall. If it happens, if he is elected, we are screwed beyond recognition.
I don't think that is true. I am certainly very concerned about what changes he would try to implement, but there are actually safeguards in this country that he cannot bypass, not the least being the federal bureaucracy. I think people use fatalistic language to ensure people vote, but it also drives up anxiety. For all of Trump's bluster the first four years, he really did very little.
The one area I get really nervous about are foreign affairs. The executive branch has much more power abroad that at home. So things like pulling Ukraine support and letting Russia win the war is what worries me the most. And then the downstream effect of other European countries' freedom being at risk.
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mickeyrat
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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
Can any of you actually imagine what will happen if Trump wins in election this fall? I can't because every time I start to think about what that would be like, my brain shuts down and I come to in a few minutes and find myself staring at the wall. If it happens, if he is elected, we are screwed beyond recognition.
I don't think that is true. I am certainly very concerned about what changes he would try to implement, but there are actually safeguards in this country that he cannot bypass, not the least being the federal bureaucracy. I think people use fatalistic language to ensure people vote, but it also drives up anxiety. For all of Trump's bluster the first four years, he really did very little.
The one area I get really nervous about are foreign affairs. The executive branch has much more power abroad that at home. So things like pulling Ukraine support and letting Russia win the war is what worries me the most. And then the downstream effect of other European countries' freedom being at risk.
Are you not familiar with Project 2025? That plan takes the guardrails of the Federal bureaucracy and turns them into capos who protect the mob boss. Coupled with judicial appointments and you have what POOTWH and his ilk are dreaming about becoming reality. These people are serious, dedicated and are backed with $$$. Just look where we are with the repub party and their eventual nominee. POOTWH gets reelected and the Brandon administration will seem old-timey and quaint in comparison.
This is not fear mongering to drive libs to the polls.
Can any of you actually imagine what will happen if Trump wins in election this fall? I can't because every time I start to think about what that would be like, my brain shuts down and I come to in a few minutes and find myself staring at the wall. If it happens, if he is elected, we are screwed beyond recognition.
I don't think that is true. I am certainly very concerned about what changes he would try to implement, but there are actually safeguards in this country that he cannot bypass, not the least being the federal bureaucracy. I think people use fatalistic language to ensure people vote, but it also drives up anxiety. For all of Trump's bluster the first four years, he really did very little.
The one area I get really nervous about are foreign affairs. The executive branch has much more power abroad that at home. So things like pulling Ukraine support and letting Russia win the war is what worries me the most. And then the downstream effect of other European countries' freedom being at risk.
Are you not familiar with Project 2025? That plan takes the guardrails of the Federal bureaucracy and turns them into capos who protect the mob boss. Coupled with judicial appointments and you have what POOTWH and his ilk are dreaming about becoming reality. These people are serious, dedicated and are backed with $$$. Just look where we are with the repub party and their eventual nominee. POOTWH gets reelected and the Brandon administration will seem old-timey and quaint in comparison.
This is not fear mongering to drive libs to the polls.
I am familiar with that alleged plan being put together by crazy Trump supporters. That doesn't make it a law. That doesn't mean these morons will actually dismantle the FBI, kill the ATF and all of their other crazy plans. The whole strategy depends on the unitary executive theory, which is dubious on its own. The bills to create and ongoing bills to fund these parts of the Executive Branch are binding on any administration. So to do what it sets out to do would need either a Senate that does not filibuster the plan, a House and a Senate willing to abdicate their power FOREVER, not just for one president, and/or a SCOTUS that completely ignores the concept of bicameral house, executive signature to create a law.
Can any of you actually imagine what will happen if Trump wins in election this fall? I can't because every time I start to think about what that would be like, my brain shuts down and I come to in a few minutes and find myself staring at the wall. If it happens, if he is elected, we are screwed beyond recognition.
I don't think that is true. I am certainly very concerned about what changes he would try to implement, but there are actually safeguards in this country that he cannot bypass, not the least being the federal bureaucracy. I think people use fatalistic language to ensure people vote, but it also drives up anxiety. For all of Trump's bluster the first four years, he really did very little.
The one area I get really nervous about are foreign affairs. The executive branch has much more power abroad that at home. So things like pulling Ukraine support and letting Russia win the war is what worries me the most. And then the downstream effect of other European countries' freedom being at risk.
Are you not familiar with Project 2025? That plan takes the guardrails of the Federal bureaucracy and turns them into capos who protect the mob boss. Coupled with judicial appointments and you have what POOTWH and his ilk are dreaming about becoming reality. These people are serious, dedicated and are backed with $$$. Just look where we are with the repub party and their eventual nominee. POOTWH gets reelected and the Brandon administration will seem old-timey and quaint in comparison.
This is not fear mongering to drive libs to the polls.
I am familiar with that alleged plan being put together by crazy Trump supporters. That doesn't make it a law. That doesn't mean these morons will actually dismantle the FBI, kill the ATF and all of their other crazy plans. The whole strategy depends on the unitary executive theory, which is dubious on its own. The bills to create and ongoing bills to fund these parts of the Executive Branch are binding on any administration. So to do what it sets out to do would need either a Senate that does not filibuster the plan, a House and a Senate willing to abdicate their power FOREVER, not just for one president, and/or a SCOTUS that completely ignores the concept of bicameral house, executive signature to create a law.
In other words, it's far fetched to me.
These are not proposed legislative changes. These are proposed rules changes to be implemented by political appointments who head up the organization, whether it’s the EPA or the department of commerce. Rule changes that are carried out by yes men (don’t take it as sexist, it just sounds better and conveys the meaning better than “yes-persons or yes-people) and aren’t noticed or opposed until there’s a court challenge. Changing the rules or requirements for getting hired in the civil service or by which background or law school you went to so that “interpretation” of the law or rule is favourable is controlled by OPM, Office of Personnel Management, as an example. Do the same at the FBI, DOJ, Pentagon, FEC, IRS, DOL, EPA, etc., and you have effectively changed government without the legislative oversight and when someone somewhere sues, the courts uphold it, all the way to SCOTUS, and we know where they are currently. Can’t fire everyone in an agency, branch, division? Relocate the office while having a roster of ready applicants ready to be hired. Loyalty oaths, who you worked for and where you went to school become the method, particularly for key decision making positions. Follow that up with hiring loyalists who won’t question the directions given and you reshape government to the will of the executive. That scenario in the hands of POOTWH and his ilk is frightening and should give everyone pause. And it’s real and they’re telling you what and how they’re going to do it. They have lists to begin on day one, both hiring and what rules changes they want, by EO.
Add one or both houses of congress to repub control and you can pretty much forget about democracy.
Can any of you actually imagine what will happen if Trump wins in election this fall? I can't because every time I start to think about what that would be like, my brain shuts down and I come to in a few minutes and find myself staring at the wall. If it happens, if he is elected, we are screwed beyond recognition.
I don't think that is true. I am certainly very concerned about what changes he would try to implement, but there are actually safeguards in this country that he cannot bypass, not the least being the federal bureaucracy. I think people use fatalistic language to ensure people vote, but it also drives up anxiety. For all of Trump's bluster the first four years, he really did very little.
The one area I get really nervous about are foreign affairs. The executive branch has much more power abroad that at home. So things like pulling Ukraine support and letting Russia win the war is what worries me the most. And then the downstream effect of other European countries' freedom being at risk.
Are you not familiar with Project 2025? That plan takes the guardrails of the Federal bureaucracy and turns them into capos who protect the mob boss. Coupled with judicial appointments and you have what POOTWH and his ilk are dreaming about becoming reality. These people are serious, dedicated and are backed with $$$. Just look where we are with the repub party and their eventual nominee. POOTWH gets reelected and the Brandon administration will seem old-timey and quaint in comparison.
This is not fear mongering to drive libs to the polls.
I am familiar with that alleged plan being put together by crazy Trump supporters. That doesn't make it a law. That doesn't mean these morons will actually dismantle the FBI, kill the ATF and all of their other crazy plans. The whole strategy depends on the unitary executive theory, which is dubious on its own. The bills to create and ongoing bills to fund these parts of the Executive Branch are binding on any administration. So to do what it sets out to do would need either a Senate that does not filibuster the plan, a House and a Senate willing to abdicate their power FOREVER, not just for one president, and/or a SCOTUS that completely ignores the concept of bicameral house, executive signature to create a law.
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
Disbanded? Crazy talk. Refocused on political and personal enemies? Sure. Directed to refrain from investigating malfeasance conducted by POOTWH and his ilk? Sure. Dropping or burying allegations or investigations of payoffs, bribery, political interference and corruption? You betcha. Harassment of particular liberal leaning groups and organizations like BLM, LGBTQ+ and family planning organizations? Bet on it.
Can any of you actually imagine what will happen if Trump wins in election this fall? I can't because every time I start to think about what that would be like, my brain shuts down and I come to in a few minutes and find myself staring at the wall. If it happens, if he is elected, we are screwed beyond recognition.
I don't think that is true. I am certainly very concerned about what changes he would try to implement, but there are actually safeguards in this country that he cannot bypass, not the least being the federal bureaucracy. I think people use fatalistic language to ensure people vote, but it also drives up anxiety. For all of Trump's bluster the first four years, he really did very little.
The one area I get really nervous about are foreign affairs. The executive branch has much more power abroad that at home. So things like pulling Ukraine support and letting Russia win the war is what worries me the most. And then the downstream effect of other European countries' freedom being at risk.
Hey bud, I hope you are right, but I'm not as convinced as I'd like to be. Trump's first move will be to dismantle as many of those safeguards as possible.
Plus, I mean, who would have ever suspected of Roe Vs Wade would get overturned? Who would have ever imagined the Capitol building being breached and lives of lawmakers so nearly lost? Who would have ever imagined a mad man with no morals who claims "If I went out on the street and shot people dead at random, my followers would still vote for me" (and they would!)-- who would believe someone like that could be elected president, and might be again?
And yes, right on about the concern for foreign affairs. It would a mess that would take a long, long time to rectify.
Well, anyway, I hope none of this comes to pass.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
This was just AG Bill DISbarred. Imagine a whole slew of cabinet secretaries and undersecretaries along with corresponding directors serving one person and one person only and not the ‘Murican people writ large. They showed you a glimpse of what is to come. Billy talking about “militant secularists?” Can someone point me toward a few? I’d like to sign up like those militia guys. From WaPo:
Before Barr was the guy noting correctly that Trump’s claims about the 2020 election were false, he was the guy defending and extending Trump’s line-crossing approach to the presidency. (Even as Barr claimed that the prosecutions Trump faces were perhaps political, in his familiar just-asking-questions way, he also pointed out to Collins that Trump “basically has the kind of personality that he’s always testing the limit,” which is “what gets him in trouble.”)
Barr got the gig in part by sending an unsolicited letter to the Justice Department in 2018 arguing that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III couldn’t feasibly charge a president with obstructing justice. After Barr took over as attorney general less than a year later, the Mueller investigation into Russia’s effort to influence the 2016 election quickly concluded. Barr’s framing of the report’s findings was incredibly useful to Trump in batting away concerns about his actions.
And then Barr went further, appointing a U.S. attorney to investigate the origins of the Russia probe. Barr had an active hand in this effort to raise questions about the work of federal law enforcement, an effort that ultimately tried to implicate Hillary Clinton directly in triggering questions about ties between Trump and Russia. (It did not work.)
Before Barr was the guy admitting that Trump didn’t have the goods on election fraud, he was the attorney general giving Trump oxygen by allowing the Justice Department to break tradition by digging into alleged claims of fraud. Before that, he was the guy who came out to ask law enforcementdealing with protesters in Lafayette Square whether the protesters would still be there when the president came out of the White House, with the violent clearing of the square following a few minutes later — and Trump’s photo op at a church a few minutes after that.
Before that, he was the guy who set up a system under which Rudy Giuliani’s flood of allegations about Biden from sources in Ukraine (including some linked to Russian intelligence) worked their way into proper law enforcement channels — a system that ultimately generatedthe discredited bribery claim against the current president.
All of these actions were taken in service of a president who viewed his power as expansive and allowed for targeting opponents in direct and indirect ways. As he made clear in that initial letter to the Justice Department, Barr shares this view of presidential power, at least when deployed by a Republican president.
Barr has framed his worldview in starkly religious terms, as he did in an infamous 2019 speech at the University of Notre Dame.
“Today militant secularists do not have a live-and-let-live spirit,” he said in that speech, identifying these secularists in the way an adherent of the extremist QAnon ideologymight, as elements of the media and entertainment industries and as college professors. “They are not content to leave religious people alone to practice their faith. Instead, they seem to take delight in compelling people to violate their conscience.”
At another point in that speech, Barr said, “I do not mean to suggest that there is no hope for moral renewal in our country, but we cannot sit back and just hope that the pendulum is going to swing back towards sanity.”
Barr broached the issue of morality to Collins, too.
“Biden is not a great moral exemplar, okay?” he said. “And is he following the laws? Here he is, giving away another round of forgiving student loans, after he lost it in the Supreme Court.” On Barr’s scales of morality, Trump’s actions sit evenly with Biden’s forgiving student loans.
In part because he’s so willing to excuse what Trump did. Collins asked Barr about a claim that Trump had called for the execution of someone who had leaked an unflattering story about him.
“I remember him being very mad about that. I actually don’t remember him saying, executing. But I wouldn’t dispute it, you know?” Barr responded. “I mean, it doesn’t sound — I mean, the president would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he would have actually carried it out.”
Pressed by Collins, he claimed he was confident that Trump could be talked out of such an action. “The thing that I worry about President Trump is not that he’s going to become an autocrat and do those kinds of things,” Barr insisted. This came a minute or two before his claim about how the Biden administration’s effort to address emissions from internal combustion engines was a mark of democratic collapse.
Barr also doesn’t seem to acknowledge that his break with Trump was rooted specifically in his inability to talk Trump off the ledge. He tried to get Trump to step away from the election-fraud stuff, without luck. But he seemingly wants those watching to assume that Trump won’t have someone killed.
Collins challenged Barr on this.
“Name one thing that Biden has done that’s worse” than trying to subvert the election, she said.
“I think his whole administration is a disaster for the country,” Barr replied.
Collins asked whether it was “worse than subverting the peaceful transfer of power.”
“Did he succeed?” Barr replied.
The answer is “yes,” of course: Power was transferred, but the process was not peaceful. But, hey, at least no one suggested that cutting back on natural gas stoves would have potential health and environmental benefits.
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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
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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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
PHOENIX (AP) — Eleven Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Donald Trump beat Joe Biden in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election were charged Wednesday with conspiracy, fraud and forgery, marking the fourth state to bring charges against “fake electors.”
The 11 people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claiming that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Seven others were indicted, but their names were blacked out of records released by Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes. Her office said the names will be released after those people are served with the charges.
DONALD TRUMP
Some Nikki Haley voters are hanging on to her candidacy and, like her, refuse to endorse Trump
Investigator says Trump, allies were uncharged co-conspirators in plot to overturn Michigan election
Biden bashes Trump as he scores another union endorsement
Biden picks up another big union endorsement, this one from building trades workers
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Of the eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in the state, one was filed by the 11 Republicans who would later sign the certificate declaring Trump as the winner.
Their lawsuit asked a judge to de-certify the results that gave Biden his victory in Arizona and block the state from sending them to the Electoral College. In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa said the Republicans lacked legal standing, waited too long to bring their case and “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.”
Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, the 11 Republicans participated in the certificate signing.
The Arizona charges come after a string of indictments against fake electors in other states.
In December, a Nevada grand jury indicted six Republicans on felony charges of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument in connection with false election certificates. They have pleaded not guilty.
Michigan’s Attorney General in July filed felony charges that included forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery against 16 Republican fake electors. One had charges dropped after reaching a cooperation deal, and the 15 remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Three fake electors also have been charged in Georgia alongside Trump and others in a sweeping indictment accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn the results. They have pleaded not guilty.
In Wisconsin, 10 Republicans who posed as electors settled a civil lawsuit, admitting their actions were part of an effort to overturn Biden’s victory. There is no known criminal investigation in Wisconsin.
Trump also was indicted in August in federal court over the fake electors scheme. The indictment states that when Trump was unable to persuade state officials to illegally swing the election, he and his Republican allies began recruiting a slate of fake electors in battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — to sign certificates falsely stating he, not Biden, had won their states.
In early January, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said that state’s five Republican electors cannot be prosecuted under the current law. In New Mexico and Pennsylvania, fake electors added a caveat saying the election certificate was submitted in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors. No charges have been filed in Pennsylvania.
In Arizona, Mayes’ predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, conducted an investigation of the 2020 election, but the fake elector allegations were not part of that examination, according to Mayes’ office.
In another election-related case brought by Mayes’ office, two Republican officials in a rural Arizona county who delayed canvassing the 2022 general election results face felony charges. A grand jury indicted Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby in November on one count each of conspiracy and interference with an election officer. Both pleaded not guilty.
The Republicans facing charges are Kelli Ward, the state GOP’s chair from 2019 until early 2023; state Sen. Jake Hoffman; Tyler Bowyer, an executive of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA who serves on the Republican National Committee; state Sen. Anthony Kern, who was photographed in restricted areas outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and is now a candidate in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District; Greg Safsten, a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; energy industry executive James Lamon, who lost a 2022 Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat; Robert Montgomery, chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee in 2020; Samuel Moorhead, a Republican precinct committee member in Gila County; Nancy Cottle, who in 2020 was the first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; Loraine Pellegrino, president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; and Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician who is married to Kelli Ward.
There was no immediate response to phone messages seeking comment that were left Wednesday with Jacob Hoffman, Kelli Ward, Michael Ward, James Lamon and Tyler Bowyer.
___
Associated Press writers Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
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DETROIT (AP) — A state investigator testified Wednesday that he considers former President Donald Trump and his White House chief of staff to be uncharged co-conspirators in a scheme to claim that he won Michigan in the 2020 election, despite Democrat Joe Biden's clear victory.
Trump and Mark Meadows were among the names mentioned during the cross-examination of Howard Shock, whose work led to forgery charges against more than a dozen people in Michigan. A judge in the state capital is holding hearings to determine if there is enough evidence to order a trial.
A defense attorney, Duane Silverthorn, offered a series of names and asked Shock if they were “unindicted co-conspirators,” which means they weren't charged but could have been part of an alleged plot to put Michigan's electoral votes in Trump's column.
Prosecutors from the attorney general's office didn't object. Shock responded “yes” to Trump, Meadows, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and some high-ranking state Republicans.
Silverthorn then moved on to other questions.
DONALD TRUMP
Arizona grand jury indicts 11 Republicans who falsely declared Trump won the state in 2020
Some Nikki Haley voters are hanging on to her candidacy and, like her, refuse to endorse Trump
Biden bashes Trump as he scores another union endorsement
Biden picks up another big union endorsement, this one from building trades workers
“I'm surprised the question was even answered,” said Detroit-area attorney Margaret Raben, former head of a statewide association of defense lawyers.
“It's irrelevant — legally and factually irrelevant — that there are other people who could have been charged or should have been charged," said Raben, who is not involved in the case.
Meadows' lawyer, George Terwilliger, had a similar reaction when reached by The Associated Press. He declined further comment. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung referred to the Michigan case as an “ongoing witch hunt,” and Giuliani political adviser Ted Goodman said the former New York mayor was proud to stand up for people with concerns about the election.
In Georgia, Trump, Giuliani and others are charged with conspiracy related to the filing of a Republican elector certificate in that state following the 2020 election. Meadows is also charged in Georgia but not in relation to the elector scheme. They have pleaded not guilty.
An indictment by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith charging Trump with plotting to overturn the election also accuses the former president in a fake elector scheme and identifies six unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators, including Giuliani.
In Michigan, authorities said more than a dozen Republicans sent certificates to Congress falsely declaring they were electors and that Trump was the winner of the 2020 election in the state, despite results showing he had lost. Attorney General Dana Nessel said the scheme was hatched in the basement of the state Republican Party headquarters.
___
Follow Ed White at https://twitter.com/edwritez
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he would. need to reverse himself then. stated unequivocally in 2020 presidents do not enjoy absolute immunity
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The one area I get really nervous about are foreign affairs. The executive branch has much more power abroad that at home. So things like pulling Ukraine support and letting Russia win the war is what worries me the most. And then the downstream effect of other European countries' freedom being at risk.
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This is not fear mongering to drive libs to the polls.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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In other words, it's far fetched to me.
Add one or both houses of congress to repub control and you can pretty much forget about democracy.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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its a heritage foundation idea
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
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Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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Before Barr was the guy noting correctly that Trump’s claims about the 2020 election were false, he was the guy defending and extending Trump’s line-crossing approach to the presidency. (Even as Barr claimed that the prosecutions Trump faces were perhaps political, in his familiar just-asking-questions way, he also pointed out to Collins that Trump “basically has the kind of personality that he’s always testing the limit,” which is “what gets him in trouble.”)
Barr got the gig in part by sending an unsolicited letter to the Justice Department in 2018 arguing that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III couldn’t feasibly charge a president with obstructing justice. After Barr took over as attorney general less than a year later, the Mueller investigation into Russia’s effort to influence the 2016 election quickly concluded. Barr’s framing of the report’s findings was incredibly useful to Trump in batting away concerns about his actions.
And then Barr went further, appointing a U.S. attorney to investigate the origins of the Russia probe. Barr had an active hand in this effort to raise questions about the work of federal law enforcement, an effort that ultimately tried to implicate Hillary Clinton directly in triggering questions about ties between Trump and Russia. (It did not work.)
Before Barr was the guy admitting that Trump didn’t have the goods on election fraud, he was the attorney general giving Trump oxygen by allowing the Justice Department to break tradition by digging into alleged claims of fraud. Before that, he was the guy who came out to ask law enforcementdealing with protesters in Lafayette Square whether the protesters would still be there when the president came out of the White House, with the violent clearing of the square following a few minutes later — and Trump’s photo op at a church a few minutes after that.
Before that, he was the guy who set up a system under which Rudy Giuliani’s flood of allegations about Biden from sources in Ukraine (including some linked to Russian intelligence) worked their way into proper law enforcement channels — a system that ultimately generatedthe discredited bribery claim against the current president.
All of these actions were taken in service of a president who viewed his power as expansive and allowed for targeting opponents in direct and indirect ways. As he made clear in that initial letter to the Justice Department, Barr shares this view of presidential power, at least when deployed by a Republican president.
Barr has framed his worldview in starkly religious terms, as he did in an infamous 2019 speech at the University of Notre Dame.
“Today militant secularists do not have a live-and-let-live spirit,” he said in that speech, identifying these secularists in the way an adherent of the extremist QAnon ideology might, as elements of the media and entertainment industries and as college professors. “They are not content to leave religious people alone to practice their faith. Instead, they seem to take delight in compelling people to violate their conscience.”
At another point in that speech, Barr said, “I do not mean to suggest that there is no hope for moral renewal in our country, but we cannot sit back and just hope that the pendulum is going to swing back towards sanity.”
Barr broached the issue of morality to Collins, too.
“Biden is not a great moral exemplar, okay?” he said. “And is he following the laws? Here he is, giving away another round of forgiving student loans, after he lost it in the Supreme Court.” On Barr’s scales of morality, Trump’s actions sit evenly with Biden’s forgiving student loans.
In part because he’s so willing to excuse what Trump did. Collins asked Barr about a claim that Trump had called for the execution of someone who had leaked an unflattering story about him.
“I remember him being very mad about that. I actually don’t remember him saying, executing. But I wouldn’t dispute it, you know?” Barr responded. “I mean, it doesn’t sound — I mean, the president would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he would have actually carried it out.”
Pressed by Collins, he claimed he was confident that Trump could be talked out of such an action. “The thing that I worry about President Trump is not that he’s going to become an autocrat and do those kinds of things,” Barr insisted. This came a minute or two before his claim about how the Biden administration’s effort to address emissions from internal combustion engines was a mark of democratic collapse.
Barr also doesn’t seem to acknowledge that his break with Trump was rooted specifically in his inability to talk Trump off the ledge. He tried to get Trump to step away from the election-fraud stuff, without luck. But he seemingly wants those watching to assume that Trump won’t have someone killed.
Collins challenged Barr on this.
“Name one thing that Biden has done that’s worse” than trying to subvert the election, she said.
“I think his whole administration is a disaster for the country,” Barr replied.
Collins asked whether it was “worse than subverting the peaceful transfer of power.”
“Did he succeed?” Barr replied.
The answer is “yes,” of course: Power was transferred, but the process was not peaceful. But, hey, at least no one suggested that cutting back on natural gas stoves would have potential health and environmental benefits.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/29/bill-barr-doesnt-mind-little-autocracy-if-your-politics-are-right/
The former attorney general of the United States. People better wake the fuck up.
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