Biden vs Trump 2020 - vote now and discuss!
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Pages 5 through 8, from April 2020, are a hoot but more importantly, how much credit does Brandon deserve for getting quite a bit of the progressive agenda implemented? Anyone ask Bernie of late?09/15/1998 & 09/16/1998, Mansfield, MA; 08/29/00 08/30/00, Mansfield, MA; 07/02/03, 07/03/03, Mansfield, MA; 09/28/04, 09/29/04, Boston, MA; 09/22/05, Halifax, NS; 05/24/06, 05/25/06, Boston, MA; 07/22/06, 07/23/06, Gorge, WA; 06/27/2008, Hartford; 06/28/08, 06/30/08, Mansfield; 08/18/2009, O2, London, UK; 10/30/09, 10/31/09, Philadelphia, PA; 05/15/10, Hartford, CT; 05/17/10, Boston, MA; 05/20/10, 05/21/10, NY, NY; 06/22/10, Dublin, IRE; 06/23/10, Northern Ireland; 09/03/11, 09/04/11, Alpine Valley, WI; 09/11/11, 09/12/11, Toronto, Ont; 09/14/11, Ottawa, Ont; 09/15/11, Hamilton, Ont; 07/02/2012, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/04/2012 & 07/05/2012, Berlin, Germany; 07/07/2012, Stockholm, Sweden; 09/30/2012, Missoula, MT; 07/16/2013, London, Ont; 07/19/2013, Chicago, IL; 10/15/2013 & 10/16/2013, Worcester, MA; 10/21/2013 & 10/22/2013, Philadelphia, PA; 10/25/2013, Hartford, CT; 11/29/2013, Portland, OR; 11/30/2013, Spokane, WA; 12/04/2013, Vancouver, BC; 12/06/2013, Seattle, WA; 10/03/2014, St. Louis. MO; 10/22/2014, Denver, CO; 10/26/2015, New York, NY; 04/23/2016, New Orleans, LA; 04/28/2016 & 04/29/2016, Philadelphia, PA; 05/01/2016 & 05/02/2016, New York, NY; 05/08/2016, Ottawa, Ont.; 05/10/2016 & 05/12/2016, Toronto, Ont.; 08/05/2016 & 08/07/2016, Boston, MA; 08/20/2016 & 08/22/2016, Chicago, IL; 07/01/2018, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/03/2018, Krakow, Poland; 07/05/2018, Berlin, Germany; 09/02/2018 & 09/04/2018, Boston, MA; 09/08/2022, Toronto, Ont; 09/11/2022, New York, NY; 09/14/2022, Camden, NJ; 09/02/2023, St. Paul, MN; 05/04/2024 & 05/06/2024, Vancouver, BC; 05/10/2024, Portland, OR;
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©0 -
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memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
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Bidenremember, if they are worried about it, its because they do it.2022 Midterm elections Elections Voting Donald Trump Georgia Presidential elections Atlanta Local elections Election 2020 Automated Insights - Earnings Government and politicsVideo fills in details on alleged Ga. election system breachBy KATE BRUMBACKToday
ATLANTA (AP) — Two months after the 2020 presidential election, a team of computer experts traveled to south Georgia to copy software and data from voting equipment in an apparent breach of a county election system. They were greeted outside by the head of the local Republican Party, who was involved in efforts by then-President Donald Trump to overturn his election loss.
A security camera outside the elections office in rural Coffee County captured their arrival. The footage also shows that some local election officials were at the office during what the Georgia secretary of state’s office has described as “alleged unauthorized access” of election equipment.
Security footage from two weeks later raises additional alarms — showing two people who were instrumental in Trump's wider efforts to undermine the election results entering the office and staying for hours.
The security video from the elections office in the county about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta offers a glimpse of the lengths Trump's allies went in service of his fraudulent election claims. It further shows how access allegedly was facilitated by local officials entrusted with protecting the security of elections while raising concerns about sensitive voting technology being released into the public domain.
Georgia wasn't the only state where voting equipment was accessed after the 2020 presidential election. Important information about voting systems also was compromised in election offices in Pennsylvania,Michigan and Colorado. Election security experts worry the information obtained — including complete copies of hard drives — could be exploited by those who want to interfere with future elections.
"The system is only as secure as the people who are entrusted to keep it secure,” said lawyer David Cross, who represents plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit over Georgia’s voting machines.
The Coffee County security footage was obtained through that lawsuit, which alleges that Georgia’s touchscreen voting machines are vulnerable to attack and should be replaced by hand-marked paper ballots. The suit long predates and is unrelated to false allegations of widespread election fraud pushed by Trump and his allies after the 2020 election.
Security video from a rural county in Georgia shows local election and Republican Party officials were present when voting equipment was accessed in what the secretary of state's office calls an unauthorized breach (Sept. 6)The alleged breach in Coffee County's elections office also has caught the attention of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is overseeing an investigation into whether Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Last month, Willis cited the Coffee County activity, among other things, when she sought to compel testimony from Sidney Powell, an attorney who was deeply involved in Trump's effort to undo the election results.
Emails and other records show Powell and other attorneys linked to Trump helped arrange for a team from data solutions company SullivanStrickler to travel to Coffee County, which Trump won by nearly 40 percentage points.
The surveillance video, emails and other documents that shed light on what happened there in January 2021 were produced in response to subpoenas issued in the voting machine lawsuit and were obtained by The Associated Press. Parts of the security video appear to contradict claims by some of the local officials:
— Footage captures Cathy Latham, then chair of the Coffee County Republican Party, arriving at the elections office shortly after 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol. Just a few weeks earlier, she was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
A few minutes after her arrival, she is seen outside greeting SullivanStrickler Chief Operating Officer Paul Maggio and two other people. Less than 10 minutes later, she escorts two other men into the building.
The video shows her leaving the elections office just before 1:30 p.m., roughly two hours after she greeted the SullivanStrickler team. She returns a little before 4 p.m. and then leaves around 6:15 p.m.
Latham said under oath during a deposition in August that she stopped by the elections office that evening for “Just a few minutes” and left before 5 p.m. Pressed on whether she had been there earlier in the day, Latham said she couldn’t recall but suggested her schedule as a teacher would not have allowed it.
A lawyer for SullivanStrickler said in an email attached to a court filing that Latham was a “primary point of contact” in coordinating the company’s work and “was on site” while that work was done.
Robert Cheeley, a lawyer for Latham said in an emailed statement that his client doesn't remember all the details of that day. But he said she “would not and has not knowingly been involved in any impropriety in any election" and “has not acted improperly or illegally.”
— The video also shows Eric Chaney, a member of Coffee County's election board, arriving shortly before 11 a.m. the same day and going in and out several times before leaving for the night around 7:40 p.m. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the voting machine lawsuit wrote in a court filing that a photo produced by SullivanStrickler's COO shows Chaney in the office as the copying is happening.
During a deposition last month, Chaney declined to answer many questions about that day, citing the Fifth Amendment. But when an attorney representing the county reached out to him in April regarding questions from the The Washington Post, Chaney wrote, “I am not aware of nor was I present at the Coffee County Board of Elections and Registration's office when anyone illegally accessed the server or the room in which it is contained.” Chaney resigned from the elections board last month, days before his deposition.
Attempts to reach Chaney by phone were unsuccessful, and his lawyer did not respond to an email seeking comment.
— About two weeks after the initial breach, video shows Misty Hampton — then the county elections director — arriving at the elections office at 4:20 p.m. on Jan. 18, when it was closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. She unlocked the door and let in two men — Doug Logan and Jeff Lenberg, who have been active in efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.
Logan founded Cyber Ninjas, which participated in a partisan and ultimately discredited review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona. The two men remained inside until just after 8 p.m. and then spent more than nine hours there the next day. Lenberg returned for brief visits on at least three more days later that month.
Hampton resigned as elections supervisor in February 2021 after elections board officials said she falsified her timesheets. Attempts by the AP to reach her were unsuccessful.
In a statement released by its attorney, SullivanStrickler said the company was retained by attorneys to forensically copy voting machines used in the 2020 election and had no reason to believe they would ask its employees to do anything improper.
The Georgia secretary of state’s office said it opened an investigation in March and asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for assistance last month. State officials have said the system remains secure because of multiple protections in place.
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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 '140 -
BidenLindsey Graham must testify in 2020 election investigation, court rules https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/lindsey-graham-georgia-2020-election-investigation/Lindsey Graham must testify in 2020 election investigation, court rules
By Ann E. Marimow
October 20, 2022 at 17:10 ET
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) must appear before a Georgia grand jury investigating possible attempts by former president Donald Trump and his allies to disrupt the state’s 2020 presidential election, a federal appeals court said Thursday.
Graham’s lawyers had asked the court to block a subpoena from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D), claiming that a sitting senator is shielded from such investigations. But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit denied Graham’s request and upheld a lower-court ruling narrowing the range of questions prosecutors can ask.
“Senator Graham has failed to demonstrate that this approach will violate his rights under the Speech and Debate Clause,” according to the six-page order.
Graham can appeal the order to the full appeals court or could ask the Supreme Court to intervene.
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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 '140 -
BidenU.S. Supreme Court Elections Donald Trump Georgia South Carolina Lindsey Graham Congress Government and politicsGraham asks Supreme Court to intervene after election rulingBy MEG KINNARD10 mins ago
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene after a lower court ordered him to testify before a special grand jury in Georgia investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in the state.
In a filing with the court, attorneys for Graham, a top ally of Trump's, sought to halt his possible testimony while he continues to appeal the order to appear before the Fulton County special grand jury.
Graham's office described the South Carolina Republican's filing as an attempt “to defend the Constitution and the institutional interest of the Senate.” The lower court's ruling, Graham's office said, “would significantly impact the ability of senators to gather information in connection with doing their job.”
The legal move is the latest in Graham's ongoing fight to prevent his testimony in a case that has ensnared allies and associates of the former president. Some have already made their appearances before the special grand jury, including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani — who’s been told he could face criminal charges in the probe — attorneys John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro, and former White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
Paperwork has been filed seeking testimony from others, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Graham, a four-term senator who last won reelection in 2020, was first subpoenaed in July by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who opened her investigation shortly after a recording of a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was made public. In that call, Trump suggested Raffensperger could “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Willis wants to question Graham about two phone calls he made to Raffensperger and his staff in the weeks after the election.
During those calls, Graham asked about “reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump,” Willis wrote in a petition seeking to compel his testimony.
Graham also “made reference to allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia, consistent with public statements made by known affiliates of the Trump Campaign,” she wrote. She said in a hearing last month that Graham may be able to provide insight into the extent of any coordinated efforts to influence the results.
Raffensperger said he took Graham’s question about absentee ballots as a suggestion to toss out legally cast votes. Graham has dismissed that interpretation as “ridiculous.” Graham has also argued that the call was protected because he was asking questions to inform his decisions on voting to certify the 2020 election and future legislation.
Graham challenged his subpoena in federal court, but a judge refused to toss it out. Graham then appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and a three-judge panel ruled Thursday in favor of Willis. Graham can appeal to the full court.
Graham’s lawyers argued that the Constitution’s speech or debate clause, which protects members of Congress from having to answer questions about legislative activity, shields him from having to testify.
Graham is represented by former White House counsel Don McGahn, who was involved in a lengthy court fight over a congressional subpoena for his own testimony related to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. After years of back-and-forth, the two sides reached an agreement and McGahn answered investigators' questions in a private session.
Graham's filing Friday was directed to Justice Clarence Thomas, who handles emergency appeals from Georgia and several other Southern states. Thomas can act on his own or refer the matter to the full court.
Trump's lawyers recently submitted a Supreme Court application to Thomas asking the Supreme Court to step into a legal fight over the classified documents seized during an FBI search of Trump's Florida estate.
Thomas has previously come under scrutiny for his vote in a different Trump documents case, in which he was the only member of the court to vote against allowing the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot to obtain Trump records held by the National Archives and Records Administration.
Thomas’ wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, is a conservative activist and staunch Trump supporter who attended the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse and wrote to Meadows in the weeks following the election encouraging him to work to overturn Biden’s victory and keep Trump in office.
She also contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin in the weeks after the election, though no evidence has emerged that she contacted Georgia officials. Thomas was recently interviewed by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, and she stood by the false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent, despite the fact that numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even Trump's own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of mass fraud.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP
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Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.
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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
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BidenTrump aide Meadows ordered to testify in election probeBy KATE BRUMBACKToday
ATLANTA (AP) — A judge on Wednesday ordered former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before a special grand jury that's investigating whether President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to sway Georgia's results in the 2020 election.
Meadows, a former GOP congressman, is a key figure in the investigation. He traveled to Georgia, sat in on Trump’s phone calls with state officials and coordinated and communicated with outside influencers who were either encouraging or discouraging the pressure campaign.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened the investigation last year into actions taken by Trump and others to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the state. Meadows is just one of several associates and advisers of the Republican former president whose testimony Willis has sought.
Because Meadows doesn't live in Georgia, Willis, a Democrat, had to use a process that involved getting a judge where he lives in South Carolina to order him to appear. First, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who's overseeing the special grand jury, signed off on a petition certifying that Meadows was a “necessary and material witness."
Now, Circuit Court Judge Edward Miller in Pickens County, South Carolina, has honored McBurney's finding and ordered Meadows to testify, Willis spokesman Jeff DiSantis confirmed.
Meadows attorney Jim Bannister told The Associated Press that his client was “weighing all options,” including appeals.
“Nothing final until we see the order,” he said.
Willis has been fighting similar battles — mostly with success — in courts around the country as she seeks to compel Trump allies to testify. But an appeals court in Texas has indicated it may not recognize the validity of the Georgia summonses, and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene after a federal appeals court last week ordered him to testify.
In the petition seeking Meadows’ testimony, Willis wrote that he attended a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting at the White House with Trump and others “to discuss allegations of voter fraud and certification of Electoral College votes from Georgia and other states.”
The next day, Willis wrote, Meadows made a “surprise visit” to Cobb County, just outside Atlanta, where an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes was being conducted. He asked to observe the audit but wasn’t allowed to because it wasn’t open to the public, the petition says.
Meadows also sent emails to Justice Department officials after the election alleging voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere and requesting investigations, Willis wrote. And he took part in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which Trump suggested that Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official and a Republican, could “find” enough votes to overturn the president's narrow loss in the state.
According to a transcript of the call with Raffensperger, Meadows said Trump's team believed that “not every vote or fair vote and legal vote was counted. And that's at odds with the representation from the secretary of state's office.” He goes on to say he hopes they can agree on a way “to look at this a little bit more fully.”
Raffensperger disputed the assertions, addressing Trump, “We don't agree that you have won.”
After the election, Meadows was widely seen in the White House as a chief instigator of Trump’s fixation on the election, passing along debunked conspiracies about fraud that other officials were forced to swat down. He pushed one theory that people in Italy had changed votes in the U.S. with satellite technology, a claim that former Justice Department official Richard Donoghue labeled “pure insanity.”
On the legal front, in a court filing this week, Meadows' lawyer Bannister argued that executive privilege and other rights shield his client from testifying.
Bannister asserted in a filing that Meadows has been instructed by Trump “to preserve certain privileges and immunities attaching to his former office as White House Chief of Staff.” And Willis' petition calls for him “to divulge the contents of executive privileged communications with the President," Bannister wrote.
Meadows previously invoked that privilege in a fight against subpoenas issued by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Meadows has been fighting investigations into the violent 2021 insurrection since last year and has so far avoided having to testify about his role and his knowledge of the former president’s actions. He turned over thousands of texts to the House Jan. 6 committee before eventually refusing to do an interview.
The House held Meadows in contempt of Congress for defying the subpoena, but the Justice Department declined to prosecute.
Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments. Instead, they can gather evidence and compel testimony and then can recommend further action, including criminal charges, in a final report. It is ultimately up to the district attorney to decide whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
Grand jury secrecy is “paramount” in South Carolina, Bannister wrote. Because the special grand jury is expected to ultimately issue a public report, ordering Meadows to testify would violate his state right to privacy, Bannister argued.
McBurney, the Fulton County Superior Court judge, has made clear in rulings on other attempts by potential witnesses to avoid or delay testimony that he considers the special grand jury's investigation to be a criminal proceeding. He has also stressed a need for secrecy for the panel's workings.
____
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Jill Colvin and Meg Kinnard in New York contributed.
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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 '140 -
Bidensuppose this goes here too.....2 conservatives accused in hoax robocall scheme plead guiltyBy MARK GILLISPIE24 Oct 2022
CLEVELAND (AP) — Two right-wing operatives pleaded guilty on Monday in Cleveland to single felony counts of telecommunications fraud for having placed thousands of false robocalls in Ohio that told people they could be arrested or be forced to receive vaccinations based on information they submitted in votes by mail.
Jacob Wohl, 24, of Irvine, California, and Jack Burkman, 56, of Arlington, Virginia, could each receive a year in prison when they are sentenced Nov. 29 in common pleas court. They were indicted in October 2020 on numerous counts of telecommunications fraud and bribery.
Wohl's attorney, Mark Wieczorek, declined to comment about the his client's plea. Burkman's attorney, Brian Joslyn, did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.
The two men were accused of arranging for a voice broadcast service to make about 85,000 robocalls to predominantly Black neighborhoods in Ohio, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois during the runup to the 2020 general election. Prosecutors said the pair were responsible for 3,500 calls to residents of Cleveland and East Cleveland.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley at the time the pair were charged said they "clearly infringed upon that right in a blatant attempt to suppress votes and undermine the integrity of this election.”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, whose consumer protection unit assisted in the investigation, issued a statement Monday saying “voter intimidation won't be tolerated in Ohio.”
The calls warned people that information included in their mailed ballots could be used by law enforcement agencies to enforce arrest warrants, to collect outstanding debts, and lead to tracking by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for mandatory vaccines.
Wohl and Burkman have a history of staging hoaxes and spreading false smears against Democrats and public officials.
The Associated Press reported in May 2019 that a 21-year-old college student from Michigan said the men recruited him to falsely claim he was raped by then-Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, and published the smear without the student's permission.
Wohl denied the accusation, saying the student had reached out to him. Burkman said on Twitter that he believed the student’s initial account of the alleged assault was “accurate and true.”
The men have been sued in federal court in New York City and face a $5.1 million fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission. Wohl and Burkman are appealing criminal charges filed against them in Detroit stemming from a similar bogus robocall scheme targeting Black voters.
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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 '140 -
Nothing will come of it and he will never have to testify! The judicial and appeals process in this country is a fucking joke!mickeyrat said:Trump aide Meadows ordered to testify in election probeBy KATE BRUMBACKTodayATLANTA (AP) — A judge on Wednesday ordered former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before a special grand jury that's investigating whether President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to sway Georgia's results in the 2020 election.
Meadows, a former GOP congressman, is a key figure in the investigation. He traveled to Georgia, sat in on Trump’s phone calls with state officials and coordinated and communicated with outside influencers who were either encouraging or discouraging the pressure campaign.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened the investigation last year into actions taken by Trump and others to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the state. Meadows is just one of several associates and advisers of the Republican former president whose testimony Willis has sought.
Because Meadows doesn't live in Georgia, Willis, a Democrat, had to use a process that involved getting a judge where he lives in South Carolina to order him to appear. First, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who's overseeing the special grand jury, signed off on a petition certifying that Meadows was a “necessary and material witness."
Now, Circuit Court Judge Edward Miller in Pickens County, South Carolina, has honored McBurney's finding and ordered Meadows to testify, Willis spokesman Jeff DiSantis confirmed.
Meadows attorney Jim Bannister told The Associated Press that his client was “weighing all options,” including appeals.
“Nothing final until we see the order,” he said.
Willis has been fighting similar battles — mostly with success — in courts around the country as she seeks to compel Trump allies to testify. But an appeals court in Texas has indicated it may not recognize the validity of the Georgia summonses, and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene after a federal appeals court last week ordered him to testify.
In the petition seeking Meadows’ testimony, Willis wrote that he attended a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting at the White House with Trump and others “to discuss allegations of voter fraud and certification of Electoral College votes from Georgia and other states.”
The next day, Willis wrote, Meadows made a “surprise visit” to Cobb County, just outside Atlanta, where an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes was being conducted. He asked to observe the audit but wasn’t allowed to because it wasn’t open to the public, the petition says.
Meadows also sent emails to Justice Department officials after the election alleging voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere and requesting investigations, Willis wrote. And he took part in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which Trump suggested that Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official and a Republican, could “find” enough votes to overturn the president's narrow loss in the state.
According to a transcript of the call with Raffensperger, Meadows said Trump's team believed that “not every vote or fair vote and legal vote was counted. And that's at odds with the representation from the secretary of state's office.” He goes on to say he hopes they can agree on a way “to look at this a little bit more fully.”
Raffensperger disputed the assertions, addressing Trump, “We don't agree that you have won.”
After the election, Meadows was widely seen in the White House as a chief instigator of Trump’s fixation on the election, passing along debunked conspiracies about fraud that other officials were forced to swat down. He pushed one theory that people in Italy had changed votes in the U.S. with satellite technology, a claim that former Justice Department official Richard Donoghue labeled “pure insanity.”
On the legal front, in a court filing this week, Meadows' lawyer Bannister argued that executive privilege and other rights shield his client from testifying.
Bannister asserted in a filing that Meadows has been instructed by Trump “to preserve certain privileges and immunities attaching to his former office as White House Chief of Staff.” And Willis' petition calls for him “to divulge the contents of executive privileged communications with the President," Bannister wrote.
Meadows previously invoked that privilege in a fight against subpoenas issued by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Meadows has been fighting investigations into the violent 2021 insurrection since last year and has so far avoided having to testify about his role and his knowledge of the former president’s actions. He turned over thousands of texts to the House Jan. 6 committee before eventually refusing to do an interview.
The House held Meadows in contempt of Congress for defying the subpoena, but the Justice Department declined to prosecute.
Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments. Instead, they can gather evidence and compel testimony and then can recommend further action, including criminal charges, in a final report. It is ultimately up to the district attorney to decide whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
Grand jury secrecy is “paramount” in South Carolina, Bannister wrote. Because the special grand jury is expected to ultimately issue a public report, ordering Meadows to testify would violate his state right to privacy, Bannister argued.
McBurney, the Fulton County Superior Court judge, has made clear in rulings on other attempts by potential witnesses to avoid or delay testimony that he considers the special grand jury's investigation to be a criminal proceeding. He has also stressed a need for secrecy for the panel's workings.
____
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Jill Colvin and Meg Kinnard in New York contributed.
jesus greets me looks just like me ....0 -
BidenDAMMIT MAN. Hope he didnt come down with the vapors.....Supreme Court clears way for Graham testimony in GeorgiaBy MARK SHERMAN35 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Sen. Lindsey Graham's testimony in a Georgia investigation of possible illegal interference in the 2020 election by then-President Donald Trump and his allies in the state.
The court lifted a temporary hold on Graham's appearance before a special grand jury, now scheduled for Nov. 17.
But in an unsigned order, the justices noted that Graham still could raise objections to some questions.
“Today, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Constitution s Speech or Debate Clause applies here. They also affirmed that Senator Graham may return to the District Court if the District Attorney tries to ask questions about his constitutionally protected activities. The Senator s legal team intends to engage with the District Attorney s office on next steps to ensure respect for this constitutional immunity.”
The South Carolina senator, a top Trump ally, had argued that a provision of the Constitution, the speech and debate clause, shields him from being forced to testify at all.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had told the justices that “the delay resulting from a stay would be unavoidably harmful” to the grand jury investigation.
Lower courts had rebuffed Graham’s plea for a pause while the legal case plays out.
Tuesday's order dissolved a temporary hold that Justice Clarence Thomas had placed on the testimony while he and his colleagues weighed the arguments.
Graham's legal team plans to reach out to Willis' office about what happens next, according to a statement from the senator's office.
Graham, a four-term senator who last won reelection in 2020, was first subpoenaed in July by Willis. The district attorney opened her investigation shortly after a recording of a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was made public. In that call, Trump suggested Raffensperger could “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Willis wants to question Graham about two phone calls he made to Raffensperger and his staff in the weeks after the election.
During those calls, Graham asked about “reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump,” Willis wrote in a petition seeking to compel his testimony.
Graham also “made reference to allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia, consistent with public statements made by known affiliates of the Trump Campaign,” she wrote. She said in a hearing last month that Graham may be able to provide insight into the extent of any coordinated efforts to influence the results.
Raffensperger said he took Graham’s question about absentee ballots as a suggestion to toss out legally cast votes. Graham has dismissed that interpretation as “ridiculous.” Graham has also argued that the call was protected because he was asking questions to inform his decisions on voting to certify the 2020 election and future legislation.
Lower courts already have told Willis that she “may not ask about any investigatory conduct,” which is protected under the Constitution.
The justices wrote Tuesday that their intervention is unnecessary because the courts “have held that Senator Graham may not be questioned about such activities.”
He also can return to federal court if disputes arise over the questioning in front of the grand jury, the justices wrote.
Thomas initially dealt with Graham's appeal, but involved the rest of the court in Tuesday's order, as is customary.
But Thomas did not step aside from the case, and indeed he has participated in all the election-related disputes brought to the court by Trump and his allies, despite the involvement of the justice's wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, in efforts to question Trump's defeat in 2020.
Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and staunch Trump supporter, attended the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse and wrote to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the weeks following the election, encouraging him to work to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory and keep Trump in office.
She also contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin in the weeks after the election, though no evidence has emerged that she contacted Georgia officials.
Ginni Thomas was recently interviewed by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, and she stood by the false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent, despite the fact that numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even Trump’s own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of mass fraud.
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Bidenop-ed gift articleOpinion | If the GOP can’t get rid of Trump, maybe Georgia’s prosecutors can
Opinion by Jennifer Rubin
November 14, 2022 at 7:45 ET
Despite dragging his party to defeat in the midterms, former president Donald Trump is expected to announce his 2024 presidential campaign this week. This would not only obliterate the GOP’s chance to win the runoff election for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat, but also threaten his party’s prospects two years from now.
But Republicans will likely learn in the near future that Trump’s latest political humiliation is the least of his worries. He remains in grave legal peril on multiple fronts, and no criminal investigation is a greater threat to him that the one being conducted by Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Ga.
Willis is teeing up a strong criminal case against Trump for his attempt to pressure Georgia election officials to overturn the state’s 2020 results. She has been calling the former president’s cronies to testify before a grand jury and is successfully beating back specious challenges to subpoenas from key figures — including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey O. Graham.
A voluminous new report from the Brookings Institution provides a legal road map for the potential prosecution of Trump. The report debunks defenses that Trump will likely deploy and underscores the real possibility that his closest associates might flip in the case, given how many might face criminal liability.
The report sums up the damning facts in the case:
[Trump] and those around him, including his chief of staff and others, made multiple attempts to intervene and overturn the state’s election results. His personal attorneys testified falsely in the state legislature. His campaign pursued a plan to organize false electors that included a bogus slate in Georgia. Trump attempted to replace his own attorney general to seek the unlawful intervention of the Georgia legislature. . . .
Most notably, on Saturday, January 2, 2021, Trump placed a call to Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump urged and ultimately threatened Raffensperger to reverse the election outcome — including a demand that Raffensperger “find 11,780 votes” that could be deemed fraudulent and tossed out. That number was exactly one more vote than the margin of Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in the state. If Raffensperger’s office complied with his request, Trump would be named the winner of the state’s presidential election, and presumably could use that development to seek a broader unraveling of the certified election results in other states confirming his defeat.continues....
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BidenTHAT select committee SUBPENOA is for TODAY.Bristow 05132010 to Amsterdam 2 061320180
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BidenFlorida Donald Trump Georgia Atlanta National security Michael Flynn Sarasota Government and politicsJudge says Michael Flynn must testify in Ga. election probeBy CURT ANDERSON and KATE BRUMBACKToday
SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) — A Florida judge on Tuesday said former national security adviser Michael Flynn must testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta that's looking into whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.
Sarasota County Chief Judge Charles Roberts ordered Flynn to testify before the panel on Nov. 22.
Attorneys for Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who served briefly as national security adviser under Trump, had argued that the special grand jury's investigation was a civil matter, rather than a criminal one. For that reason, Flynn should not be compelled to testify, they argued.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who's overseeing the special grand jury, has said that the special grand jury's investigation is a criminal proceeding. He also certified Flynn as a “necessary and material witness.”
Roberts honored that, saying, “General Flynn is a material witness.” The judge also denied a motion by Flynn’s attorneys to stay his ruling in anticipation of an appeal.
“There’s no undue hardship,” Roberts said.
Flynn spoke only in response to the judge’s questions and did not answer reporters’ questions after the hearing. Because Flynn lives outside Georgia, Willis had to use a process to try to get a judge where he lives in Florida to order him to comply with her summons.
The investigation, led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is seen as one of the most significant potential legal threats to the former president as he prepares to announce a third run for the presidency. Willis has sought the testimony of numerous high-profile Trump associates as witnesses in the investigation.
Former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who's been told he could face criminal charges in the investigation, testified in August. Judges have also ordered former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich to testify later this month. Gingrich on Monday initiated an appeal of his ruling.
Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to Meadows, is expected to appear before the special grand jury Wednesday. In testimony in June before the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Hutchinson detailed what she saw and heard at the White House on that day and in the days preceding the insurrection, including discussions of how Trump's election loss could be overturned.
The special grand jury has also heard from high-ranking state officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr. Gov. Brian Kemp, who had tried unsuccessfully to avoid testifying but was allowed to delay his appearance until after last week's election, was seen leaving the courthouse Tuesday. All of those state officials received calls from Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
In an interview on a right-wing cable news channel in mid-December 2020, Flynn said Trump “could take military capabilities” and place them in swing states and “basically re-run an election in each of those states,” Willis wrote in a petition seeking to compel his testimony before the special grand jury.
Flynn also met at the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, with Trump, attorney Sidney Powell and others associated with the Trump campaign for a meeting that, according to news reports, “focused on topics including invoking martial law, seizing voting machines, and appointing Powell as special counsel to investigate the 2020 election,” Willis wrote.
And he attended meetings in November 2021 at the South Carolina home of conservative attorney Lin Wood. Willis wrote that Wood said in a television interview that they met to look into possible ways to influence the election results in Georgia and elsewhere. Wood told The Associated Press that he testified before the special grand jury last week.
Willis opened the investigation early last year, shortly after a recording of a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger was made public. In that call, the Republican president urged Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.
The investigation's scope has broadened since then, and a special grand jury with subpoena power was seated in May, allowing Willis to compel testimony from people who might otherwise refuse. The special grand jury operates in secret with witness testimony closed to the public.
Special grand juries in Georgia are generally used to investigate complex cases with many witnesses. They can compel evidence and subpoena testimony from witnesses, but they cannot issue indictments. Once its investigation is complete, a special grand jury can recommend action, but it remains up to the district attorney to decide whether to then seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
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Brumback reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed reporting.
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BidenUS Sen. Lindsey Graham questioned in Georgia election probeBy KATE BRUMBACKToday
ATLANTA (AP) — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham testified Tuesday before a special grand jury that's investigating whether President Donald Trump and others illegally meddled in the 2020 election in Georgia.
The South Carolina Republican's appearance before the panel came after a drawn-out legal fight that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court as Graham tried to avoid testifying. He had argued that his position as a senator shielded him from questioning. The courts rejected his assertion but did rule that prosecutors and grand jurors could not ask him about protected legislative activity.
Graham's office said in a statement that he spent just over two hours with the special grand jury and “answered all questions.”
“The senator feels he was treated with respect, professionalism and courtesy,” the statement said.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis launched the investigation early last year. It is considered one of the most significant potential legal threats to the former president, who last week announced a third run for the White House. Graham is one of a number of high-profile Trump allies whose testimony has been sought.
When Willis filed paperwork in July seeking Graham’s testimony, she wrote that she wanted to ask him about a phone call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger shortly after the election.
Raffensperger has said Graham asked whether he could reject certain absentee ballots, which the secretary of state said he interpreted as a suggestion to throw out legally cast votes. Graham has called that idea “ridiculous.”
Willis said in August that she hoped to be able to send the special grand jury home by the end of the year. But that timeline could be complicated by the fact that some of the testimony she's seeking is tied up in appeals.
For witnesses who live outside of Georgia, Willis has to rely on a process that involves getting a judge in the state where a potential witness lives to order that person to travel to Atlanta to testify.
Michael Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who served briefly as national security adviser under Trump, had been ordered to testify Tuesday, but a Florida judge issued a provisional stay of that order after Flynn appealed. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich had been ordered by a Virginia judge to testify Nov. 29, but that has been stayed pending appeal. And an appeal of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' order to appear on Nov. 30 is pending before the South Carolina Supreme Court.
Former Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who previously testified before the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, answered questions from the special grand jury last week.
Special grand jury proceedings are secret, but some related public court filings have shed light on the scope of the investigation.
From the start Willis has said she was interested in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger. The Republican president urged the state's top elections official to “find” the votes needed to reverse his narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.
It has also become clear that she is interested in several other areas, including: the submitting of a fake slate of Republican electors from Georgia who falsely declared that Trump won the state; false statements about the election made by former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others to state lawmakers; efforts to pressure a Fulton County elections worker to admit wrongdoing; breaches of election equipment in rural Coffee County; the abrupt departure of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in January 2021.
Willis has notified Giuliani, who testified before the special grand jury in August, and the Georgia fake electors that they could face criminal charges in the investigation.
Special grand juries in Georgia are generally used to investigate complex cases with many witnesses. They can compel evidence and subpoena testimony from witnesses, but they cannot issue indictments. Once its investigation is complete, a special grand jury can recommend action, but it remains up to the district attorney to decide whether to then seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
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BidenDonald Trump Georgia Atlanta South Carolina Mark Meadows Congress south carolina supreme court Government and politicsCourt says Trump aide Meadows must testify in election probeBy KATE BRUMBACKYesterday
ATLANTA (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court says former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must testify before a special grand jury that’s investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.
The state high court on Tuesday affirmed a lower court ruling last month ordering Meadows to appear before the panel. The former Republican congressman is the latest Trump associate to lose a legal fight over a summons to testify.
The South Carolina Supreme Court opinion says the justices reviewed Meadows’ arguments and found them to be “manifestly without merit.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who's leading the investigation, has said Meadows is an important witness. Because he doesn't live in Georgia, she had to use a process that involved getting a judge in South Carolina, where Meadows lives, to order him to travel to Atlanta to testify.
Meadows had originally been ordered to testify Wednesday. It was not immediately clear whether that would be rescheduled.
In a petition seeking his testimony, Willis wrote that Meadows attended a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting at the White House with Trump and others “to discuss allegations of voter fraud and certification of Electoral College votes from Georgia and other states.”
The next day, Willis wrote, Meadows made a “surprise visit” to Cobb County, just outside Atlanta, where an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes was being conducted. He asked to observe the audit but wasn’t allowed to because it wasn’t open to the public, the petition says.
Meadows also sent emails to Justice Department officials after the election alleging voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere and requesting investigations, Willis wrote. And he took part in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which Trump suggested that Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official and a Republican, could “find” enough votes to overturn the president’s narrow loss in the state.
An attorney for Meadows had argued that executive privilege and other rights shield him from testifying. He previously invoked that privilege in a fight against subpoenas issued by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Meadows has been fighting investigations into the violent 2021 insurrection since last year and has so far avoided having to testify about his role and his knowledge of the former president’s actions. He turned over thousands of texts to the House Jan. 6 committee before eventually refusing to do an interview.
The House held Meadows in contempt of Congress for defying the subpoena, but the Justice Department declined to prosecute.
Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments. Instead, they can gather evidence and compel testimony and then can recommend further action, including criminal charges, in a final report. It is ultimately up to the district attorney to decide whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
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BidenMichael Flynn appears before grand jury in Georgia election probe https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/08/fulton-county-trump-michael-flynn/Michael Flynn appears before grand jury in Georgia election probe
By Holly Bailey
December 08, 2022 at 13:25 ET
ATLANTA — Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, appeared Thursday before a special grand jury in Atlanta investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s presidential election results.
Flynn arrived at the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday. He exited about an hour later, accompanied by his attorneys and under heavy security, including police officers who carried automatic rifles. In response to questions about his appearance and whether he had answered the jury’s questions, Flynn did not reply, even as reporters followed him to a nearby parking garage.
Flynn’s appearance came after a Florida appeals court this week rejected his latest effort to quash a summons from prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., who have called him a “necessary and material witness” in the grand jury investigation into alleged election interference by Trump and his allies.
A lawyer for Flynn did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the Fulton County District Attorney’s office also did not respond to a request for comment.
The special grand jury is considering whether Trump and his allies violated Georgia law when they spread rumors about alleged election fraud in the state and pressured state officials to undertake efforts that would change the results of the state’s presidential election, which Trump lost by fewer than 12,000 votes.
In a court filing, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis listed four areas of interest that she wanted Flynn to testify about, including a December 2020 appearance he made on Newsmax suggesting Trump could use “military capabilities” to rerun elections in states, including Georgia.continues....
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Bidenuh huh...Ginni Thomas says she regrets post-election texts to MeadowsBy MARY CLARE JALONICK and LISA MASCAROYesterday
WASHINGTON (AP) — Virginia Thomas, the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, says she regrets sending texts to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after the 2020 election, telling the House Jan. 6 committee that “I would take them all back if I could today.”
Thomas — known as Ginni — is a longtime conservative activist. In a transcript of the interview released by the panel on Friday, she told investigators she was “emotional” after the election when she sent several texts to Meadows urging him to stand firm with then-President Donald Trump as he falsely claimed that there was widespread fraud in the election.
In the texts, she bemoaned the state of American politics and called the election a “heist.” Thomas told the panel she still feels there were election irregularities, but she does believe that Joe Biden is the president of the United States.
“You know, it was an emotional time,” Thomas told the committee. “I’m sorry these texts exist.”
The nine-member panel sought Thomas’s interview, and she appeared voluntarily. While Thomas urged Meadows to act, and she is married to one of nine Supreme Court justices who were at the time reviewing Trump’s election challenges, investigators did not believe she played a major role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election or his inaction as the violent insurrection unfolded. Her name does not appear once in the committee’s final report released last week.
Still, the committee sought to speak to her as it built a comprehensive account of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the weeks beforehand. The committee’s chairman and vice chairwoman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, said the panel wanted to speak to her after her name came up in communications with other witnesses.
Thomas’ attorney Mark Paoletta said in a statement Friday that her absence from the report was a conclusion that “was obvious from the beginning" and that her post-election activities were “minimal and mainstream.”
In the interview, Thomas characterized herself as an “instigator” of Groundswell and other conservative advocacy groups that have met weekly as a coalition for years. She and her husband are longtime associates of conservative lawyer John Eastman, an architect of the scheme to have several 2020 battleground states send alternative electors for Trump, rather than Biden.
Thomas said that while she was interested in pursuing claims of voter fraud, she had largely stepped aside during the aftermath of the election because she felt her presence as the wife of Justice Thomas often “chilled” the discussion. She insisted she operated separately from her husband.
“It’s laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence,” she said. “The man is independent and stubborn.”
Thomas said throughout the interview that she still had concerns about election fraud, but offered little evidence. Pressed by the investigators about her post-election efforts to challenge the election results, Thomas demurred.
When the panel told her that Trump-aligned attorney Cleta Mitchell testified under oath that Thomas had asked her about potential fraud in Georgia’s elections, Thomas said she could not recall the conversation.
“I don’t have any memory of it,” Thomas told investigators. “Anything I was doing was looking for fraud and irregularities in the election, not to overturn it.”
Multiple times, the lawmakers delved more pointedly into Thomas’s responses — and she had few specifics to offer in return.
“I think I understood you to say you never saw any list of fraud or irregularities,” Cheney asked her at one point.
“Right,” Thomas responded. “I know. I wasn’t very deep.”
“But you’re confident there was fraud and irregularities?” Cheney continued.
“I was hearing it, Congresswoman, from a lot of people I trust,” Thomas said.
Cheney asked Thomas if she was aware that Trump’s own advisers, attorney general and others had told him there was no fraud that would change the outcome of the election.
“That was news to me, Congresswoman,” Thomas replied.
Cheney asked when she became aware of that.
“I think sometime after this committee started its work,” Thomas replied.
But Thomas said even if she had been aware, it wouldn’t change her views. “I just think there’s still concerns,” Thomas said, while also acknowledging that Biden is the president.
Over and again, the panel confronted Thomas with her own words, including a text to Meadows a week after the election in which she suggested attorney Sidney Powell “will help the cavalry come and fraud exposed and America saved.” Powell was behind some of the most outrageous claims by Trump's allies, including that foreign countries were hacking voting machines.
Thomas explained to investigators that at the time she didn’t really know Powell, and as she learned more in the weeks to come, “I kind of got off that train.”
She also told investigators she reached out to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as she tried to encourage the defeated president’s team to investigate potential voter fraud after the 2020 election.
“I was trying to buck him up and encourage him to stand firm until all the evidence is in,” Thomas told investigators she wrote to Kushner in an email.
At one point, she did elicit sympathy from the investigators.
“I think it might be a unanimous view of everyone on this call and in this room that I don’t know how many of you would want your texts to become public on the front page of The Washington Post," Thomas said, referring to the first reports of her communications.
“I understand that,” said California Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the committee. “And I’m sure you’re right, no would like to see their personal texts in the newspaper.”
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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Someone’s opinion as to whether or not it would sway a judge’s is irrelevant. Judge’s routinely recuse themselves in situations where there would even be the perception of possible bias.0
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BidenTrump campaign staff on 2020 election lies: ‘fan the flame’By SCOTT BAUERYesterday
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A newly released audio recording offers a behind-the-scenes look at how former President Donald Trump’s campaign team in a pivotal battleground state knew they had been outflanked by Democrats in the 2020 presidential election. But even as they acknowledged defeat, they pivoted to allegations of widespread fraud that were ultimately debunked — repeatedly — by elections officials and the courts.
The audio from Nov. 5, 2020, two days after the election, is surfacing as Trump again seeks the White House while continuing to lie about the legitimacy of the outcome and Democrat Joe Biden's win.
The Wisconsin political operatives in the strategy session even praised Democratic turnout efforts in the state's largest counties and appeared to joke about their efforts to engage Black voters, according to the recording obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. The audio centers on Andrew Iverson, who was the head of Trump's campaign in the state.
“Here’s the deal: Comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need. Just be on standby if there’s any stunts we need to pull,” Iverson said.
Audio from Nov. 5, 2020, two days after the election, is surfacing as Trump again seeks the White House while continuing to lie about the legitimacy of the outcome and Democrat Joe Biden's win. The audio centers on Andrew Iverson, who was the head of Trump's campaign in the state.((AUDIO AS INCOMING))“Here’s the deal: Comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need. Just be on standby if there’s any stunts we need to pull,” Iverson said.
Iverson is now the Midwest regional director for the Republican National Committee. He deferred questions about the meeting to the RNC, whose spokesperson, Keith Schipper, declined comment because he had not heard the recording.
The former campaign official and Republican operative who provided a copy of the recording to the AP was in the meeting and recorded it. The operative is not authorized to speak publicly about what was discussed and did not want to be identified out of concern for personal and professional retaliation, but said they came forward because Trump is mounting a third attempt for the White House.
In response to questions about the audio, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said: “The 2024 campaign is focused on competing in every state and winning in a dominating fashion. That is why President Trump is leading by wide margins in poll after poll.”
Wisconsin was a big part of Trump's victory in 2016, when he smashed through the Democrats' so-called “Blue Wall” in the upper Midwest, and his campaign fought hard to keep the swing state in his column four years later before his loss to Biden.
Biden defeated Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2020, a result that has withstood independent and partisan audits and reviews, as well as lawsuits and recounts in the state's two largest and Democratic-leaning counties.
Yet, two days after the election, there was no discussion of Trump having won the state during the meeting of Republican campaign operatives.
Instead, parts of the meeting focus on discussions about packing up campaign offices and writing final reports about how the campaign unfolded. At one point on the recording, Iverson is heard praising the GOP's efforts while admitting the margin of Trump's defeat in the state.
At one point on the recording, Andrews Iverson is heard praising the GOP's efforts while admitting the margin of Trump's defeat in the state.((AUDIO AS INCOMING - ADULT LANGUAGE))“At the end of the day, this operation received more votes than any other Republican in Wisconsin history,” Iverson said. “Say what you want, our operation turned out Republican or DJT supporters. Democrats have got 20,000 more than us, out of Dane County and other shenanigans in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Dane. There’s a lot that people can learn from this campaign.”
“At the end of the day, this operation received more votes than any other Republican in Wisconsin history,” Iverson said. “Say what you want, our operation turned out Republican or DJT supporters. Democrats have got 20,000 more than us, out of Dane County and other shenanigans in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Dane. There’s a lot that people can learn from this campaign.”
The meeting showcases another juxtaposition of what Republican officials knew about the election results and what Trump and his closest allies were saying publicly as they pushed the lie of a stolen election. Trump was told by his own attorney general there was no sign of widespread fraud, and many within his own administration told the former president there was no substance to various claims of fraud or manipulation — advice Trump repeatedly ignored.
In the weeks after the election, Trump and his allies would file dozens of lawsuits, convene fake electors and pressure election officials in an attempt to overturn the will of the voters and keep Trump in office.
It’s unclear whether the staff in Wisconsin coordinated their message directly with campaign officials in Washington.
Parts of the Nov. 5 meeting also center on Republican outreach efforts to the state's Black community.
At one point, the operatives laugh over needing “more Black voices for Trump.” Iverson also references their efforts to engage with Black voters.
“We ever talk to Black people before? I don’t think so,” he said, eliciting laughter from others in the room.
Another speaker on the recording with Iverson is identified by the source as GOP operative Clayton Henson. At the time, Henson was a regional director for the RNC in charge of Wisconsin and other Midwestern states. They give a postmortem of sorts on the election, praising Republican turnout and campaign efforts while acknowledging the Democrats' robust turn-out-the-vote campaign.
Henson specifically references Democratic turnout in Dane County, which includes Madison, the state capital, and is a liberal stronghold in the state. A record-high 80% of the voting-age population cast ballots in 2020 in the county, which Biden won with 76% of the vote.
“Hats off to them for what they did in Dane County. You have to respect that,” Henson said. “There's going to be another election in a couple years. So remember the lessons you learned and be ready to punch back.”
Henson, reached by phone Thursday, said, “No thank you” when asked to comment about the meeting.
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Bidengift article.....Trump campaign paid researchers to prove 2020 fraud but kept findings secret
By Josh Dawsey
February 11, 2023 at 14:29 ET
Former president Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign commissioned an outside research firm in a bid to prove electoral fraud claims but never released the findings because the firm disputed many of his theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The campaign paid researchers from Berkeley Research Group, the people said, to study 2020 election results in six states, looking for fraud and irregularities to highlight in public and in the courts. Among the areas examined were voter machine malfunctions, instances of dead people voting and any evidence that could help Trump show he won, the people said. None of the findings were presented to the public or in court.
About a dozen people at the firm worked on the report, including econometricians, who use statistics to model and predict outcomes, the people said. The work was carried out in the final weeks of 2020, before the Jan. 6 riot of Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol.
[The attack: The Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol was neither a spontaneous act nor an isolated event]
Trump continues to falsely assert that the 2020 election was stolen despite abundant evidence to the contrary, much of which had been provided to him or was publicly available before the Capitol assault. The Trump campaign’s commissioning of its own report to study the then-president’s fraud claims has not been previously reported.
“They looked at everything: change of addresses, illegal immigrants, ballot harvesting, people voting twice, machines being tampered with, ballots that were sent to vacant addresses that were returned and voted,” said a person familiar with the work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private research and meetings. “Literally anything you could think of. Voter turnout anomalies, date of birth anomalies, whether dead people voted. If there was anything under the sun that could be thought of, they looked at it.”continues....
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BidenTrump election probe grand jury believes some witnesses liedBy KATE BRUMBACK1 hour ago
ATLANTA (AP) — A special grand jury investigating efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia says it believes "one or more witnesses" committed perjury, and it's urging local prosecutors to bring charges.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should “seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” according to portions of the special grand jury's final report that were released on Thursday.
The sections that were made public are silent on key details, including who the panel believes committed perjury and what other specific charges should be pursued. But it marks the first time the grand jurors' recommendations for criminal charges tied to the case have been made public. And it's a reminder of the intensifying legal challenges facing the former president as he ramps up his third White House bid amid multiple legal investigations.
Trump is also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for holding classified documents at his Florida estate.
The former president never testified before the special grand jury, meaning he is not among those who could have perjured themselves. But the case still poses particular challenges for him, in part because his actions in Georgia were so public.
Trump and his allies made unproven claims of widespread voter fraud and repeatedly berated Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp for not acting to overturn his narrow loss to President Joe Biden in the state.
Willis has said since the beginning of the investigation two years ago that she was interested in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump suggested to Raffensperger that he could “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the state.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call. “Because we won the state.”
Trump has said repeatedly that his call with Raffensperger was “perfect,” and he told The Associated Press last month that he felt “very confident” that he would not be indicted.
State and federal officials, including Trump’s attorney general, have consistently said the election was secure and there was no evidence of significant fraud. After hearing “extensive testimony on the issue,” the special grand jury agreed in a unanimous vote that there was no widespread fraud in Georgia's election.
The special grand jury, which was requested by Willis to aid her investigation, was seated in May and submitted its report to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Dec. 15. The panel does not have the power to issue indictments. Instead, its report contains recommendations for Willis, who will ultimately decide whether to seek one or more indictments from a regular grand jury.
Over the course of about seven months, the special grand jurors heard from 75 witnesses, among them Trump allies including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Top Georgia officials, such as Raffensperger and Kemp, also appeared before the panel.
Graham told reporters Thursday that he has not been contacted by authorities regarding his testimony. “I’m confident I testified openly and honestly,” he said.
The partial release of the grand jury's report was ordered Monday by McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury. During a hearing last month, prosecutors urged him not to release the report until they decide on charges, while a coalition of media organizations, including the AP, pushed for the entire report to be made public immediately.
McBurney wrote in his Monday order that it’s not appropriate to release the full report now because it’s important to protect the due process rights of people for whom the grand jury recommended charges.
While there were relatively few details in Thursday's release, it does provide some insight into the panel's process. The report’s introduction says an “overwhelming majority” of the information that the grand jury received “was delivered in person under oath.” It also noted that no one on the panel was an election law expert or criminal lawyer.
“The majority of this Grand Jury used their collective best efforts,” the report said, “to attend every session, listen to every witness, and attempt to understand the facts as presented and the laws as explained.”
Based on witnesses called to testify before the special grand jury, it is clear that Willis is focusing on several areas. Those include:
— Phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the wake of the 2020 election.
— A group of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
— False allegations of election fraud made during meetings of state legislators at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020.
— The copying of data and software from election equipment in rural Coffee County by a computer forensics team hired by Trump allies.
— Alleged attempts to pressure Fulton County elections worker Ruby Freeman into falsely confessing to election fraud.
— The abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in January 2021.
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Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed reporting.
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More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump
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