As the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports, Greene reached out to Loeffler on December 2nd, 2020 to gage her willingness to help with a plan to throw out certified election results on January 6th.
"I need to talk with you about a plan we are developing on how to vote on the electoral college votes on Jan 6th," Greene wrote. "I need a Senator! And I think this is a major help for you to win on the 5th!!"
While Loeffler was unresponsive to this request, Greene would text her again on December 20th to invite her to a meeting at the White House to further discuss the plot.
"Hi Kelly, I’ve organized a meeting with President Trump, his legal team, and Members of electoral college votes for Joe Biden in several key states on January 6th," Greene wrote. "It’s tomorrow at 2:00. Can you come to the White House? It’s an informational meeting and planning session."
According to the AJC, Loeffler consulted her aides about how to reply -- and they told her to say she was spending that day with then-first daughter Ivanka Trump.
"I’m with Ivanka all day Mon, subject to the time of vote on relief package," Loeffler wrote. "But I’ve said everything is on table with regard to Jan 6."
Conservative attorney George Conway warned that Donald Trump will act more frantically after Wednesday's bombshell ruling by a federal judge that found the former president likely committed crimes — including while in office.
"To the other big story we mentioned involving criminal liability for the former president, a federal judge in California today ordered emails turned over to the Jan. 6 committee saying they indicate the former president knew his voter fraud claims were wrong but pushed them anyway," CNN's Anderson Cooper.
For analysis, the anchor interviewed Conway and Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as director of strategic communications in Trump's White House.
Griffin noted she had heard Trump complain about the fact he had lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.
"So the fact is most people around Trump, including Trump himself, knew he lost, but they wanted to desperately cling to power in any way they could," she said. "I would agree with George, I do think this is the closest thing to a smoking gun in just deliberate wrongdoing."
"It kind of reeks of desperation," Griffin said. I think he's in a place he feels cornered in various different investigations."
"This man is cornered at every turn and he's not surrounded by wise legal counsel, so think you will see further acts of desperation from him," she said.
Conway said Trump would be unable to block the emails from being handed over to the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
"This is going to be used against him and it is a devastating, as I said, a devastating piece of evidence," Conway said.
"I agree with Alyssa, he's a desperate man and he's getting more and more desperate," he continued. "I think we will see that over the coming months. He will run for president, in effect, for protection against these legal proceedings, but there will be too many of them and I think we're going to see the -- you know, I think he might get the nomination anyway, but I think we will see the meltdown to end all meltdowns of a public figure."
Inflation, driven to 40-year highs — not just in the United States, but around the whole world — has been one of the leading issues driving the last year of politics, including lawmakers' pitches to voters in the midterm elections, as voters find themselves paying more for everything.
President Joe Biden recently signed a landmark bill designed to boost energy supplies and cap health care costs, while Republicans are blaming the entire monetary situation on Democratic policies and asking voters to let them manage the economy.
But on Wednesday, writing for New York Magazine, Ed Kilgore laid out what Republicans are actually planning as a policy response to inflation — and warned that these policies will anger voters more than inflation itself ever did.
Specifically, everyone from House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is blaming inflation on "spending" — and signaling they want huge cuts to social programs, possibly including Social Security and Medicare, and even a threat to force the U.S. into default and destroy the creditworthiness of the debt altogether as a way of forcing Democrats to capitulate.
"It might seem strange that Republicans would be pivoting to a more aggressive agenda without holding the White House. But this is actually consistent with the strategy they have followed over the past three decades," wrote Kilgore. "Republicans are committed to scaling back the safety net. But they realize this agenda is toxically unpopular — even less popular than defunding the police, a policy Democrats have repudiated en masse. They could try to accomplish this through compromise — the previous two Democratic presidents showed some willingness to trade social-spending cuts for higher taxes on the rich. But higher taxes on the rich are completely verboten in the GOP. And so their strategy is to force Democratic presidents to sign spending cuts into law against their will."
This sort of policy is wildly unpopular — and not just in the U.S. In a survey of 11 democracies around the world, Kilgore wrote: "Large majorities of citizens across all 11 countries say they would oppose their own government taking action to reduce consumer prices if it means that 'rent and mortgage payments increase'; 'taxes paid by people like you increase'; or that 'unemployment increases.' The only consequence that global citizens are willing to stomach to reduce inflation is 'rich people pay more taxes' — an idea backed by two-thirds of people across the 11 countries and something [British Prime Minister] Liz Truss’s team should have relayed before the unveiling of her trickle-down economic plans."
Ultimately, wrote Kilgore, Democrats need a winning message to highlight all of this and fight back.
"Democrats cannot be the custodians of the status quo," he concluded. "Instead of boasting about signs of progress or discussing macroeconomic statistics, Democrats should recognize that the living standards of wage earners have been deteriorating for years and focus on those who are grinding them down by both holding down wages and boosting prices: rich and powerful corporations."
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is asking voters to report instances which “they feel might be inconsistent with state laws” during next month’s election, the Johnson campaign announced in a news release Wednesday.
The campaign unveiled a website dedicated to “election integrity incident reporting,” and the release states that the campaign, the Republican Party of Wisconsin and the Republican National Committee are working to make sure the 2022 elections are “free and fair.”
Johnson, a two-term incumbent running for re-election against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, has been heavily involved in Republican efforts over the last two years to overturn the results of the 2020 election and cast doubt on its validity.
Numerous recounts, audits, lawsuits, reviews and investigations have affirmed that the 2020 election was won by President Joe Biden and that there was not widespread fraud in its administration.
Johnson has frequently spread conspiracy theories about the election and participated in an effort by Wisconsin Republicans to cast false electoral college votes for former President Donald Trump. Johnson was revealed to have attempted to pass those false votes to former Vice President Mike Pence by the U.S. House Committee investigating the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
“Everyone in Wisconsin should have the assurance that their vote counts and it will not be canceled by a fraudulent vote,” Johnson said in a statement. “We are doing everything in our power in 2022 to restore confidence in our election by ensuring Wisconsin elections laws are fully complied with. We will continue to coordinate with the committees to make sure this election is free and fair, and that everyone can have full confidence in the final results.”
Republicans across the country have attempted to establish a stable of voters on the lookout for perceived instances of fraud through online portals such as Johnson’s and attempts to recruit election inspectors and poll watchers who are on board with Republican theories that elections are rigged. The release states that the RPW has recruited 5,000 election inspectors and nearly 2,000 poll watchers — although it’s unclear how many of those will actually show up to the polls on Election Day.
Johnson is locked in a race with Barnes that polls show is essentially neck-and-neck with three weeks remaining. To prepare for the close race, the Johnson campaign hired Jim Troupis, a Wisconsin election attorney who was at the forefront of the Trump campaign’s legal efforts to overturn the results of Wisconsin’s 2020 election, to prepare for the possibility of a recount.
In Wisconsin, if a race is decided by less than 1% of the vote, a candidate may request a recount. Troupis has represented Wisconsin Republicans in a number of recounts.
Troupis was involved in a lawsuit that sought to hand the election to Trump by throwing out more than 220,000 absentee ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties. He has also been implicated in the false elector strategy. A Nov. 18, 2020, memo sent by Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro outlined the “alternate elector” strategy that Republicans undertook the next month.
Campaign finance filings show that the Johnson campaign paid Troupis $20,287.50 for “legal consulting” in July and consultation on a potential recount in August.
Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.
Fox News Chief Executive Officer Suzanne Scott is expected to be deposed in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against the media giant by Dominion Voting Systems, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Dominion is suing Fox along with allies of former President Donald Trump for claiming that its electronic voting machines stole votes from Trump and switched them to then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the 2020 election. The allegations are but one facet of Trump World's debunked conspiracy theories that the contest between the twice-impeached ex-president and Biden was rigged and rife with fraud.
In this case, Scott "has emerged as one of the central figures in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems, in which the voting company accuses Fox executives of juicing ratings and profits by repeatedly airing false information about Dominion," the Times explained. "According to several people closely involved in the case, lawyers for Dominion are expected to depose her soon. A judge has granted Dominion access to her emails and text messages from the period after the 2020 election when Fox anchors and guests amplified some of the most outrageous falsehoods about Dominion and its supposed role in a plot to steal the election."
But as the Times pointed out, the pro-Trump messaging that Fox has been promulgating do not necessarily reflect Scott's personal views, which could lead to hefty consequences for the network.
The aforementioned communications "contained at least one instance in which Ms. Scott expressed skepticism about the dubious claims of voter fraud that her network had been promoting, a recent court proceeding revealed. That kind of evidence is what Dominion hopes will ultimately convince a jury that Fox broadcast information it knew to be false, which would leave the company on the hook for significant damages," noted the Times.
Scott has also expressed skepticism about Trump's numerous denials about losing to Biden.
"One colleague recalled that in a meeting shortly after the 2020 election, Ms. Scott seemed in disbelief as she described how people she considered otherwise serious and rational thought there was any chance Mr. Trump could legitimately stop President Biden’s inauguration," the Times wrote, adding that Scott had "warned against 'giving the crazies an inch.'"
Fox, meanwhile, maintains that its broadcasts are protected under the free speech protections in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
"There is nothing more newsworthy than covering the president of the United States and his lawyers making allegations,” Fox News Media said in a statement.
Dominion disagrees with that assessment.
“If it were up to Fox, the more ‘newsworthy’ the lie, the greater their right to spread it,” a Dominion spokeswoman said. “However, the First Amendment does not give broadcasters the right to knowingly spread lies or disregard the truth.”
In an interview with the "Today Show" Nikki Haley, Donald Trump's former ambassador to the United Nations, asserted her principles and said she would never help or support any Republican candidates who denied the 2020 election results. Election deniers have taken over the Republican Party after primary elections where supporters of the former president's dominated the polls with election denial as the litmus test.
Haley, like many of the few Republicans, left willing to speak out against the attempt to overthrow the government, but she quickly failed to keep the promise, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
“Everybody that I’m helping acknowledges the fact that the elections, you know, were real,” Haley promised.
It was only Tuesday that Haley stumped for New Hampshire senate candidate Don Bolduc at a rally. While running in a GOP primary, Bolduc claimed that President Joe Biden is "illegitimate."
In Aug., Bolduc made it clear: “I signed a letter ... saying that Trump won the election, and, damn it, I stand by my letter. I’m not switching horses, baby. This is it.”
It's unclear if Bolduc got some polling back showing he couldn't win with that stance, if there were problems with donations, or he just really wanted Haley to visit, but he flip-flopped so fast that all of the local papers outright laughed at him.
“I’ve done a lot of research on this and I have spent the past couple of weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state, from every party, and I have come to the conclusion, and I want to be definitive about this, that the election was not stolen,” Bolduc said last month. "People live and learn."
As the Boston Globe put it: "The joke’s on anyone in the Republican Party who actually believed Bolduc when, as recently as last month, he echoed Trump’s lie that he had actually won the election."
Laxalt, a former state attorney general, wrote in a Nov. 2020 op-ed for the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Nevada election officials tabulated “thousands of illegal votes consisting of a combination of dead voters, out-of-state voters, double voters (those who cast ballots in Nevada and another state), among other improper votes.”
As the Los Angeles Times wrote, Laxalt "didn’t just jump on the ex-president’s election-denying bandwagon. He helped build it."
As co-chairman of Trump’s Nevada campaign, Laxalt led efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, filing a batch of groundless lawsuits, pushing phony claims of voter fraud and sowing unwarranted doubts about the integrity of balloting overseen by Nevada’s top election official, a fellow Republican.
Prosecutors at the Justice Department say there is sufficient evidence to charge Donald Trump with obstruction of justice when it comes to allegations that he mishandled classified documents, although they're not quite sure on how to indict him, Bloomberg reports.
"The team that's part of the classified records probe has not yet made a formal recommendation to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who would ultimately approve or reject such a move, according to people familiar with the matter," Bloomberg's report stated. "It's also unlikely officials would bring only obstruction charges amid several other Trump investigations into potential crimes, the people said."
Some FBI agents are against the idea of charging Trump so close to an election, but others wants charges to move forward, sources close to the matter tell Bloomberg.
Obstruction is part of the Justice Department's investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents -- a charge that the DOJ announced in August that there is probable cause for. But Bloomberg noted that no charges are likely to be filed before the mid-terms.
The unprecedented FBI raid on Trump's Palm Beach, Florida Mar-a-Lago home saw thousands of government records, including the highly classified materials, retrieved.
Before the raid, the FBI uncovered "multiple sources of evidence" showing that "classified documents" remained at Mar-a-Lago, the Justice Department said in a court filing earlier this year.
"The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed... and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation," the filing added.
"Even with overwhelming evidence, the potential indictment of a former president is unprecedented and would likely set off a firestorm in a nation already divided by political passions and mounting tensions," writes Bloomberg's Chris Strohm. "This decision is the most important task for Garland, 69, the former federal appeals court judge who must now be an arbiter of whether criminal law extends to former presidents. The stakes couldn't be greater for the judicial system, the nation and its citizens."
Trump, who is weighing another White House run in 2024, has accused the Justice Department under Democratic President Joe Biden of conducting a "witch hunt" and said the judge "should never have allowed the break-in of my home."
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham crossed the border into Georgia Tuesday to lay out the stakes as he sees them in the Peach State’s Senate election, now just three weeks away.
“I’m your neighbor, and the reason I’m here is I’m tired of being canceled out by your two Democratic senators,” Graham told a friendly crowd gathered outside an art gallery in north Atlanta.
“If we had one more senator in Washington in the Republican column, I would be the budget chairman, not (Vermont independent Sen.) Bernie Sanders,” he added.
Graham’s preferred candidate, Republican Herschel Walker, is in a tight race with incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.
If Walker, a former University of Georgia football star, pulls off a win, it could give the GOP control of the Senate and allow them to curtail President Joe Biden’s plans for the rest of his term.
“It’s time to tell all your friends — and if you don’t have any friends, it’s now time for you to make some friends — get them to the polls, and take this election very seriously, as this may be the last best chance for you and your family to have an America that you can recognize. The stakes are high. I’ve never felt better about winning than I do right now.”
Tuesday’s appearance marks a return to the campaign trail after a heated debate on Friday. As Walker took the stage, he flashed an honorary police badge that became a point of contention at the debate. Walker pulled out the badge when Warnock criticized him for lying about being a police officer and once threatening to get into a shootout with police, earning the former Heisman trophy winner a scolding from the moderator for breaking a debate rule banning props.
Herschel Walker shows an honorary police badge. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
Walker is not a police officer. He has acknowledged a history of mental illness and said he has overcome his past issues. He did not appear at a Sunday Atlanta Press Club debate to which he was invited.
In his standard stump speech Tuesday, Walker said he will back the police, fight “wokeness” in the military and stop schools from what he calls indoctrinating students.
“I can promise you I won’t forget about America,” he said. “I won’t forget about what God has done for me. I found that Americans dream right here in the United States. I’m American. And all of you are my family, I don’t care what color you are.”
The crowd of more than 100 people gave Graham a friendly Georgia welcome, but Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants him to come back to answer some tough questions about his conduct in wake of Georgia’s 2020 election.
Her office is seeking Graham’s testimony in its investigation of whether former President Donald Trump sought to illegally overturn Georgia’s election results. Graham is trying to avoid testifying, arguing that his role as a senator protects him from questions about his legislative activities.
A federal judge denied his request, but Graham has told CNN he will take the matter to the Supreme Court if necessary. Graham did not comment on the grand jury subpoena at the rally.
Georgia Democrats criticized Walker for appearing with Graham, who has proposed a 15-week nationwide abortion ban.
“Today, Herschel Walker is campaigning with Senator (Lindsey) Graham in support of a nationwide abortion ban,” Warnock’s campaign said in an advisory to reporters. “Walker doesn’t support exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or even to save the life of the mother, saying, there’s ‘no exception in [his] mind.’ Walker has also said he would vote for the nationwide abortion ban introduced by Graham last month — saying ‘I WOULD support this policy.’”
Walker appeared to have altered his position on the debate stage Friday, saying he supports Georgia’s abortion law, which bans most abortions after six weeks and before most women know they are pregnant. The Georgia law includes exceptions including for ectopic pregnancies — when a fetus implants and begins to grow outside the uterus, threatening the woman’s life — and in cases of rape or incest when the pregnancy is less than 20 weeks along and the woman has filed a police report.
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on Facebook and Twitter.
In the days leading up to the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton urged his followers on social media to “stand with President Trump” and “#StopTheSteal.”
On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, he tweeted that “a lot of voters, as well as myself, believe something went wrong in this election.” And after the attack unfolded, he tweeted that he didn’t believe violence is the answer but was “sorely disappointed today in the certification of the election.” He made those claims even after Trump’s own U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr declared there had been no widespread vote fraud that could have affected the results of the presidential election.
Paxton, who is seeking his third term as attorney general, isn’t a run-of-the-mill election denier, casually casting false doubt on election security. He’s a loyal Trump ally, who tried to get the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in four states where President Joe Biden had won the election. The court rejected the suit within days, and Paxton was subsequently sued by the Texas state bar for professional misconduct related to the effort. Paxton’s attempt to dismiss the case is pending. He called the case against him a political attack.
That Paxton is so close to securing his reelection this November as the state's chief legal officer is raising alarms from election experts about the impact he could have on future close elections, particularly if Trump runs for president again in 2024. The attorney general in Texas does not administer elections, but the office is in charge of defending and enforcing the state’s election laws and of bringing lawsuits, such as ones that allege voter fraud.
“Paxton took among the most extreme positions of anyone in 2020 filing a brief that did not get traction at the Supreme Court that was advancing a radical theory that would have disenfranchised voters in numerous other states,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at University of California, Los Angeles and the director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, which aims to ensure free and fair elections. “Unless he is actually put on trial and convicted or removed or loses his election, we can expect to see more of the same in 2024.”
Paxton is facing years-old securities fraud charges in Texas courts and is the subject of an FBI investigation after eight of his former top deputies accused him of abuse of office for doing political favors for a donor. He has denied all wrongdoing. But he remains the frontrunner, based on polls and fundraising, in the attorney general race against Democrat Rochelle Garza, a Brownsville attorney.
Garza has blasted Paxton for his legal problems and said he is a threat to election security because of his attempts to change how elections are administered. She cited his August legal opinion that said ballots should be made available for inspection to voters the same day they are cast — an opinion that goes against standing state and federal law that aims to safeguard ballots.
"Criminally-indicted Ken Paxton is a threat to our democracy. Paxton’s repeated attempts to change the outcome of elections is alarming,” Garza said in a statement. “I’m running for Texas Attorney General to stand up for the rule of law and protect the integrity of our electoral system.”
Paxton did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Paxton is among a large number of Republican candidates across the country who have cast doubt or flatly rejected the results of the 2020 presidential election, despite dozens of courts and extensive audits showing no signs of impropriety that would have impacted the results. As of October, more than half the country — 58% of the population living in 29 states — has a candidate running for governor, attorney general or secretary of state who has cast doubt on the 2020 elections, according to States United Action, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for safe elections. (The group also deemed Gov. Greg Abbott an election denier for authorizing a “forensic audit” into the 2020 elections, but Abbott has not openly questioned the election results like Paxton has.)
“A single Election Denier winning a statewide office in a single state could throw our democracy into chaos,” Thania Sanchez, senior vice president of research and policy development at States United Action, said in an email. “The attorney generals we elect this year will be responsible for defending state voting laws and election results. Giving Election Deniers that power would be like putting arsonists in charge of the fire department.”
Nearly two years after the 2020 elections, Paxton still has not said whether he accepts the results of that presidential election, a question posed to his office in The Texas Tribune’s request for comment. His three opponents in the GOP primary earlier this year were asked that question in a debate, but Paxton skipped the event (two of those candidates, Eva Guzman and George P. Bush, said Biden had won the presidency, while U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert said he did not know).
Last week, Texas Secretary of State John Scott, who was appointed by Abbott and briefly represented Trump in a suit challenging the election results, stressed in an interview with Texas Monthly that Biden’s election was legitimate and “if he wins the next election, he’ll be president for the next four years.”
As recently as May 2022, the head of Paxton’s election integrity unit in the attorney general’s office was continuing to push the idea that the election had been stolen by screening a debunked film called “2000 Mules,” which falsely claims there was significant voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
“At this point, anyone who is repeating claims that the 2020 election is stolen has to know that there’s no evidence behind those at all,” said Jessica Marsden, a lawyer at the nonpartisan nonprofit organization Protect Democracy. “It’s not like it’s the middle of November 2020 anymore. All of these claims have been thoroughly investigated and debunked.”
Paxton has also directed his office to increasingly work on voter fraud cases, fanning the flames of conspiracy theorists who believe that election fraud is deciding elections despite ample evidence to the contrary. Such moves started under Abbott, who was Paxton’s predecessor, but has picked up attention over the last decade. Since 2005, the Texas attorney general’s website says the office has prosecuted 155 people for 534 election fraud offenses — about 0.0048% of the 11.1 million Texas votes cast in the 2020 presidential contest alone, and not even a rounding error’s worth of all votes cast in the state over the last 17 years.
In September, the state’s highest criminal court dealt a blow to Paxton’s attempts to prosecute more election fraud cases when it ruled the attorney general’s office could not try the cases without the approval of the local prosecutor’s office. Paxton has said he doesn’t find more fraud because he doesn’t have the resources to do so and because Democratic district attorneys refuse to pursue charges in their jurisdictions.
David Becker, the executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said having an attorney general casting doubt on the outcome of an election has a “disastrous effect” on the public’s trust in elections and government.
“A democracy cannot sustain itself if that’s the case,” he said. “It’s very concerning when a chief legal officer of the state is spreading lies that no court has upheld anywhere.”
Becker, a former voting rights attorney for the Justice Department who co-wrote the book “The Big Truth” about how claims about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election evaporate under scrutiny, said he fears the effect that such repeated claims can have on the public and on elections administrators. He said those election workers are leaving the field after seeing increased harassment from people who believe that the 2020 election was stolen.
This August, Paxton set the stage for new vote challenges in the midterm elections and beyond when he released an opinion that said anyone — an aggrieved voter, activist or out-of-state entity — can request access to ballots as soon as the day they are counted. That nonbinding legal opinion is at odds with state and federal law which requires ballots be kept secure for 22 months after an election to allow for recounts and challenges. Experts say Paxton’s opinion exposes election clerks to possible criminal charges and that such audit requests by voters have been used by activists all over the country to “audit” election results.
Chris Hollins was the Harris County clerk in 2020 and was in charge of administering the elections during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said Paxton’s office made it difficult for him to try to increase access to the ballot for people of color and the elderly during a pandemic, and the attorney general’s office even tried to challenge the votes of more than 127,000 voters in Harris County who had cast their ballots through drive-thru voting, a pandemic measure by county officials which the state Legislature later banned. Paxton’s office argued that drive-thru voting and other measures taken by Harris County were not authorized by the state election code and therefore not allowed.
“Our toughest challenge in administering the 2020 election was not the pandemic, it was Ken Paxton,” said Hollins, who is now running for Houston mayor. “Four more years of Ken Paxton is going to do lasting damage to our state, to our communities and we should be fearful of what could happen in a contested 2024 election if he is at the helm in this critical position as chief legal officer of the state of Texas.”
In 2021, Paxton also tried to indict former Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir on a charge of unlawfully obstructing a poll watcher, a Class A misdemeanor that could result in up to a year in jail. A grand jury returned a no-bill in the matter, meaning it did not find probable cause for the charge.
Overall, Marsden said, Paxton has already done damage to the public’s trust in elections by using his significant status in state government to question the 2020 presidential election despite the claims being roundly debunked.
In a poll conducted by Ipsos and NPR this January, 65% of Americans said they accepted the outcome of the 2020 elections. But that number fell to less than half — 47% — when people who identify as Republicans were polled. Twenty-two percent of Americans said there was major fraudulent voting that changed the result of the elections, with the number going up to 45% when the question was posed to Republicans.
“If you think about the past couple of years as an experiment, I think we’ve seen that these kinds of comments from Attorney General Paxton and others do and have eroded faith in the system,” she said.
Disclosure: Texas Monthly and Texas Secretary of State have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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US Republicans said Tuesday they will not write "a blank check" to war-torn Ukraine if they make the widely expected gains needed to take control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections.
The warning from House minority leader Kevin McCarthy is the first official signal that Kyiv could be facing a tougher fight for funding as it fends off Russia's invasion, with bipartisan support beginning to wane in the United States.
"I think people are going to be sitting in a recession and they're not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won't do it," McCarthy told online politics outlet Punchbowl News.
McCarthy hopes to become House speaker -- the third-most senior position in US politics behind the president and vice president -- if Republicans take over the House next year.
He said he expected voters to punish the Democrats in November's elections for neglecting domestic priorities such as a growing immigration crisis at the southern border.
"Ukraine is important, but at the same time it can't be the only thing they do and it can't be a blank check," McCarthy said.
The 57-year-old from California spoke out as Kyiv announced almost 1,200 towns and villages had been left without power after 10 days of Russian strikes that have destroyed one-third of the country's power stations, with winter approaching.
'Spending spree'
Since the start of Russia's expanded invasion in February, President Joe Biden's administration has allocated $17.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine -- although this is a fraction of the total bill including humanitarian assistance.
There has been cross-party support in Congress for the handouts, although a significant section of the Republicans' "America First" hard-right has objected.
Some analysts suggested that McCarthy's announcement was a concession to the party's right wing as he looks for votes to become speaker.
Others said his remarks may be aimed at juicing turnout among the traditionally isolationist support base of former president Donald Trump, with Republican strategists fearing many plan to stay home on Election Day.
"The Democrat spending spree never, ever ends. Biden needs to understand that we are the USA not the US-ATM," far right congresswoman Lauren Boebert tweeted last month.
All but a handful of House members voted against a $12.3 billion spending bill in September that included $3 billion for arms, supplies and salaries for Ukraine's military.
Democrats said McCarthy's interview demonstrated that Republicans could not be trusted with US foreign policy.
"Cutting off Ukraine in the middle of the biggest war in Europe since WWII indicates just how over his head McCarthy would be as Speaker," tweeted Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor in Barack Obama's administration.
Former Vice President Mike Pence clashed with Joe Biden on abortion on Tuesday, only three weeks before the 2022 midterm elections.
Campaigning in Florida, the president of the United States urged voters to elect more Democrats so they can codify the overturned Roe vs. Wade decision into federal law.
“If we do that, here’s the promise I make to you and the American people: The first bill I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe vs. Wade," Biden said. "And when Congress passes it, I’ll sign it in January, 50 years after Roe was first decided the law of the land."
Former VP Pence, who was in South Carolina, responded to Biden's speech on social media.
"Today, President Biden made a pledge that if Democrats were to hold on to the House and the Senate, then on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade come this January, that he would sign a bill codifying that decision into law," Pence said.
"I’ve got news for President Biden. Come January 22nd, we will have Pro-Life majorities in the House and Senate and we’ll be taking the cause of the right to Life to every state house in America!" Pence predicted with an American flag emoji.
Pence also spoke on abortion at the Carolina Pregnancy Center’s Spring Gala, held May 5 at Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium, The Post and Courierreported.
“We are on the verge of what may be a new era in American history, an era in which all human life once again is cherished and respected,” Pence said. “This has been a momentous week for the cause of life because of your stand for life, I believe with all of my heart, because of the mission of the Carolina Pregnancy Center and crisis pregnancy centers around the country, I believe with all of my heart life is winning in America.”
Incumbent GOP Sen. Marco Rubio sparred on stage Tuesday night with Democrat Val Demings in the only scheduled televised debate before the general election in less than a month.
Both candidates for the U.S. Senate in Florida went back and forth on a variety of issues from gun violence, abortion, voting rights and more – oftentimes interrupting one another and engaging in some heated exchanges.
Rubio, a Republican and former Florida House Speaker, is seeking a third term in the Senate and has gotten support from law enforcement groups across the state. Demings, a former police chief, had accepted invitations to three contests but Rubio agreed only to Tuesday’s debate.
Here are some of the major issues during the debate Tuesday evening:
Reproductive rights
Abortion took center stage during the one-hour debate at the Palm Beach State College Lake Worth campus. Demings, a former Orlando police chief, accused her opponent of lying about his stance on abortion but Rubio defended his record.
“I am 100 percent pro-life,” Rubio said, adding that he’s favored legislation with exceptions for rape and incest.
Rubio has defended his co-sponsorship of Republican legislation to impose a federal ban on abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation with exceptions for rape and incest.
“I have shown a willingness to work with people to save unborn, innocent human life,” he said. “She (Demings) opposes any limitation of any kind.”
Unlike Florida’s 15-week ban on the medical procedure, the 15 weeks’ abortion bill being discussed in Congress would allow exceptions for rape, incest, or “in cases of risk of death or major injury to the mother.”
Rubio said: “I am being attacked on a bill that has exceptions. My name is on that bill.”
Rubio is on record in support of a total ban on abortion from the moment of conception, with no exceptions for rape or incest, but has wiggled somewhat on the issue.
Demings said Rubio is lying about his stance on abortion, arguing that he has been against the exceptions.
“Senator how gullible do you really think Florida voters are?” she said. “You have been clear that you support no exceptions, even including rape and incest. Now as a police detective who investigated cases of rape and incest, no senator, I don’t think it’s okay!” she said.
In response to Rubio’s claim that Demings opposes any limitation on abortions, she said: “I support a woman’s right to choose up to the time of viability.”
Climate change
Demings pointed to climate change when asked about Hurricane Ian and addressing federal policies to protect Floridians from projected sea level rise. The massive storm wreaked havoc last month on Southwest Florida, making landfall as a category 4 hurricane.
“I grew up in Florida so I know all too well the devastating effects that hurricanes can cause on our state,” Demings said. “And number one, we have got to get serious about climate change. Climate change is real. If we don’t do something about it then we are going to pay a terrible price for it – more intense storms, more flooding.”
Rubio had a different stance on addressing the issue, without mentioning climate change. He said his plan would involve two phases: boosting emergency response and long-term recovery efforts. “These communities immediately need emergency relief,” Rubio said.
“What’s happening for a lot of these cities and counties is they have to spend a lot of money upfront, money out of their budgets they have to spend right now to pay for these things,” Rubio added.
Guns
Rubio said he doesn’t think a federal ban on the sale of AR-style rifles is the solution to address gun violence. He said a lot of people own rifles but don’t commit gun crimes.
“Denying the right to buy it is not going to keep them from doing it,” Rubio said. “A lot of people own AR-15’s and they don’t kill everyone – the majority of the people don’t.”
Rubio pointed to his support for red flag laws, “that will allow the police department to go before a judge and your guns if they can prove that you are a danger.”
In an emotional rebuttal, Demings slammed Rubio for his response to gun violence, saying he hasn’t done anything to address it in Florida. “Victims of gun violence just heard that and they are asking themselves ‘what in the hell did he just say?”
“Our primary responsibility is the safety of Floridians,” she said. “And senator, 24 years in elected office, and you have not yet risen to that occasion, and then when asked about it you say something that makes no sense!”
Immigration reform
Rubio criticized President Joe Biden and national Democrats for failing to secure the U.S. border, an issue backed by many Republicans that argue against the federal government’s response to migrants seeking a better life in the United States.
Rubio said millions of illegal immigrants have “entered our country since Joe Biden took over as president.”
“There’s no country in the world, that can tolerate or permit, or afford, 5,000 people a day arriving at your border saying the magic words and getting asylum.”
“This cannot continue, it has to be fixed,” he said.
Demings said she supports securing the U.S. border by boosting personnel and resources.
“We need to make sure that the women and men at the borders have the resources that they need,” she said. “I am a fan of boots on the ground. Let’s have more boots on the ground but let’s also hire more processors so that we can separate those who need to be arrested from those who are seeking asylum.”
Inflation and the economy
When asked about inflation and the economy, Rubio highlighted the Paycheck Protection Plan passed in Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The paycheck protection program was a bipartisan victory,” he said.
“We saved millions of small businesses. I am incredibly proud of it,” he said. “I’m proud of the fact that we saved millions of jobs.”
Demings touted the American Rescue Plan, pushed by many Democrats in Congress.
“No one planned the pandemic but our response to it is everything,” Demings said. “And individuals were hurting, families were hurting, businesses were hurting.”
Polls and campaign dollars
As for polls, Rubio has a 5-point advantage over Demings based on an average of recent polls, according to
data from to Real Clear Politics.
And Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight forecast shows Democrats are “slightly favored to win the Senate,” but in the Florida race, the chance of winning shows Rubio would likely be the winner.
However, Demings has been raising more money in Florida’s U.S. Senate race, according to campaign finance records from the Federal Election Commission — about $64.6 million from January of 2021 to September. Rubio has raised about $35.2 million in that same time period.
And for money spent on their respective campaigns, Demings has spent $59.7 million, while Rubio has spent $30.5 million. Data show that Rubio has more “ending cash on hand,” with $9.6 million, compared to Demings’ $6.4 million.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
On Tuesday, ABC7 reported that Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), a longtime House Republican, is facing an unusually difficult re-election challenge as a gay Democrat challenges him in a newly redrawn district that includes much more liberal territory Calvert hasn't had to stand for election in up to this point.
"Sixty-nine-year-old Congressman Ken Calvert has represented the Inland Empire in Washington D.C. for 30 years, but redistricting changed the map and added Palm Springs to the 41st district," reported Josh Haskell. "Calvert's Democratic opponent is 37-year-old former federal prosecutor Will Rollins, who is gay and hopes to turn this historically red portion of Southern California to blue. Rollins says he decided to run following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol."
While Rollins attacks Calvert over inaction in the wake of that attack, Calvert is sticking to conventional GOP lines of attack, railing against inflation and fuel prices and trying to stick these issues on to President Joe Biden, and by extension his party.
"Rollins has also called out Calvert for softening his tone on abortion saying his opponent is aware the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v Wade is not popular in California," said the report. "'He's trying to take a big eraser and go back to his congressional record and remind everyone that none of that ever happened and unfortunately it's there in the congressional record books. So I'm running against a guy who already voted in 1995 for a national abortion ban with no exceptions to save the life of a woman,' said Rollins."
"The 41st district stretches from Corona to Indio and extends north almost to Yucaipa and south to Sage and Anza," said the report. "Twenty percent of the district is new including Palm Springs which has a large LGBTQ+ population."
California is seeing several competitive House races this year, many of which are centered in the historically Republican but left-trending Orange County, where a number of districts changed hands both in 2018 and 2020 before being redrawn.
