California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu told Raw Story on Friday that "extreme MAGA Republicans are batsh*t crazy."
Lieu, who was sworn in to the California legislature in the fall of 2005 and elected to Congress in 2014, was asked to reflect on how much things had changed during his political career.
"A huge amount has changed," he told Raw Story.
"Number one, extreme MAGA Republicans are batsh*t crazy and they want to criminalize women's health care, they want to ban birth control pills," Lieu said. "I mean, it's the 21st century, they want to have government ban birth control pills?"
"They want to attack democracy and end Social Security," he continued. "So that's where the other side is."
Lieu, who retired from the Air Force Reserve with the rank of colonel in 2021, had harsh words for the Republicans who blocked the burn pit bill they had previously supported.
"And then they just flipped their votes because they threw a temper tantrum," Lieu said. "It is obnoxious and morally wrong."
The former constitutional law professor who sits on the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol warned his congressional colleagues not to be nonchalant about subpoenas.
"I would not be casual about a subpoena," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story during a Capitol Hill scrum.
"Please tell the moms and dads of America, if your child gets subpoenaed, don't tell them to just dream up in their mind an executive privilege or attorney-client privilege and throw it under the sofa and forget about it," he said. "That's not how you do it."
"A subpoena is not like an invitation to a summer party that you can just forget about," Raskin said. "A subpoena is something you've got to respond to."
In May, the select committee subpoenaed five members of Congress, including House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
The other four members are Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Scott Perry (R-PA).
Last week, a federal jury found Donald Trump's former aide Steve Bannon guilty of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to testify before lawmakers investigating the assault on the US Capitol.
Bannon, who led Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign, was among hundreds of people called by a House of Representatives committee to testify about the storming of Congress by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021.
The 68-year-old Republican strategist did not appear on the summons date or provide requested documents, and was indicted on two charges of contempt of Congress.
The 12-person jury deliberated for less than three hours before finding Bannon guilty of both misdemeanor charges.
Bannon, who served as Trump's strategy chief at the White House before being sacked in 2017, faces a minimum of 30 days in jail and a maximum sentence of a year for each count.
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for trying to turn schools into a "haunted house" and scaring parents into thinking that their children are somehow being turned into monsters.
Republicans in Florida have been waging what they call a battle for parents to have a greater say over what their children learn in school.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Wilson explained she's not sure that DeSantis is a "little Trump" because Trump isn't "smart enough" to come up with issues like critical race theory or the 'don't say gay' bill to attack public education.
"This man has taken a theory that's only available in colleges, universities, and law schools," Wilson explained. "Critical race theory has never been mentioned, taught or even considered in any public school across this country. Never! And he has made people think that little children are learning critical race theory across the nation... then he turned around and called it a culture war."
The Republican governor is seen as a possible presidential contender for his party in 2024 -- possibly challenging Trump if he decides to runs again.
The state's so-called "don't say gay" law bans teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity "in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."
The education war in Florida also centers on teaching of critical race theory, the doctrine holding that racism is an inherent part of law and legal institutions in America in that they serve to maintain social, economic and political inequality.
Wilson said that DeSantis is pretending to stand up for the children, but the reality is far from it.
"The difference is — one is Mr. Trump is dumb, Mr. DeSantis is smart. What he has done is created little vignettes to mislead the American people. He's made parents think that they should run the public schools when we have principals and administrators who we have trusted for years," Wilson continued, pointing out that DeSantis is a product of public schools.
"Parents don't have to show up at a school board meeting to run a school. They know to respect the will of the parents and what parents need for their children. These are trained experts. I was one of them. So, I know. But he has made the school district as a sinful place. That they talk about 'gays!' I mean, hello. Give me a break. This man has taken little vignettes of culture and made them into haunted houses and monsters. He has permeated fear not just in Florida but it has permeated across the nation. That's what's so amazing."
The bill still has some way to go before becoming law but the multi-billion dollar package finally won crucial support from conservative Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (WV). His previous opposition had essentially killed President Joe Biden's ambitious plans, because in the 50-50 Senate, where Republicans rarely back Biden on anything, Democrats can't afford to lose a single vote.
"It's a complete flip-flop," said Cornyn on Manchin's support. "Everything he said he was against, now he's for. And, uh, I just wonder what the transaction was that got him to 'yes.'"
He went on to say that it "poisons the well" in his relationship with Democrats, though it's unclear how strong that relationship was at all.
"They work around here — even though we're political adversaries there has to be some modicum of, uh — that when people tell you something, you can believe them," Cornyn said. "That's been pretty well eviscerated."
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was just as furious, saying that he was opposed to the "chips bill," meaning the legislation for semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. It's a bill that Republican Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) told Raw Story was a GOP suggestion two years ago that got unanimous support among Republicans.
"Sounds like a lot of people got schnookered," Johnson said. When asked what he's heard from party leaders he repeated, "sounds like they got schnookered."
He noted that it "didn't help" the strained relationship between the two parties.
If passed, the reconciliation package will pour some $369 billion into clean energy and climate initiatives and $64 billion into state-funded healthcare, including a popular measure meant to lower ruinously high prescription medicine prices.
It would be paid for by raising $739 billion, with a major chunk coming from a 15 percent corporate tax rate. An extra $300 billion raised under the plan would go to paying off the federal deficit.
Biden said prescription drug prices would drop and healthcare for Americans using the subsidized Affordable Care Act policy would also become $800 a year cheaper.
Funding for clean energy will "create thousands of new jobs and help lower energy costs in the future," he said.
"We will pay for all of this by requiring big corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, with no tax increases at all for families making under $400,000 a year."
Biden thanked Manchin, an often unpredictable partner in the Senate, for his "extraordinary effort."
"If enacted, this legislation will be historic, and I urge the Senate to move on this bill as soon as possible, and for the House to follow as well."
According to Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX), the legislation from the Senate that would invest in manufacturing semiconductors on U.S. soil was a suggestion from former President Donald Trump's secretaries.
Speaking to reporters at the Capitol on Thursday, McCaul couldn't figure out why his GOP colleagues refused to back the bill.
"I'm going to vote what's right for the country and national security. I'm not going to vote against my own bill," McCaul said.
When Raw Story asked about the GOP opposing the law, McCaul said he couldn't figure it out.
"Look, you know, the inception of this bill came to me from the prior administration," he told Raw Story. "Trump's national security team, Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser, Secretary Wilbur Ross, [Robert] Lighthizer, that we have to protect our semiconductors capacity. We need to manufacture them in this country and not let it go offshore, particularly when you look at Taiwan having 90 percent of the semiconductor manufacturing capability."
"Imagine with the threat from China right now, if China takes over Taiwan, they will own the global market of 90 percent of semiconductor production and manufacturing in your phones, in your automobiles, even our most advanced weapons systems, which I'm most concerned about."
McCaul went on to say that in his role on the foreign affairs committee he gets classified briefings that other members don't get. The bill, he said, is "vitally important to our national security."
He went on to complain that two years ago he passed the same piece of legislation in the national defense reauthorization and that it got unanimous support at the time from both sides.
"It's been hijacked for two years by the Senate primarily, for political reasons, for other things to get passed on it," McCaul continued. "And, you know, that's a shame about politics today. A national security bill getting hijacked by politics? Come on."
Speaking to Raw Story, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said that after the revelations uncovered by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack, the Justice Department will have to step in.
Up until recently, the Justice Department has been investigating the fake electors scam in which members of Trump's campaign and legal advisers allegedly attempted to create a list of fake Republican electors. They then sent the names and signatures to the National Archives.
"Based on the House investigation I don't see how they could avoid that," Warren said of whether the DOJ would move forward on Trump. "Ultimately the Department of Justice will make their own independent decision about whether they have enough evidence to prosecute some or all of the people involved in the January 6 insurrection. DOJ has to make their own independent decision and that means independent of the politics. That's how the justice system works."
Amid calls by some Democrats for Trump to be prosecuted for the Capitol riot, Attorney General Merrick Garland said last week that "no person is above the law."
"This is the most wide-ranging investigation, and the most important investigation, that the Justice Department has ever entered into," Garland told reporters about the probe into the January 6 attack on Congress by Trump supporters.
"And we have done so because this effort to upend a legitimate election -- transferring power from one administration to another -- cuts at the fundamental of American democracy," Garland said.
"We have to get this right," he stressed. "We have to hold accountable every person who is criminally responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election."
Asked whether that even applies to a former president, Garland said: "No person is above the law in this country. I can't say it any more clearly than that.
"There is nothing in the principles of prosecution, in any other factors which prevent us from investigating anyone -- anyone -- who's criminally responsible for an attempt to undo a democratic election," he said.
More than 850 people have been arrested in connection with the 2021 attack on Congress, which came after Trump delivered a fiery speech to his supporters near the White House falsely claiming that the election was "stolen."
Most of them have been charged with seeking to obstruct an official proceeding -- the certification by Congress of Democrat Joe Biden's election victory.
The 76-year-old Trump, who has repeatedly hinted that he may run for the White House again in 2024, was impeached for a historic second time by the House after the Capitol riot -- he was charged with inciting an insurrection -- but was acquitted by the Senate.
A select House committee conducting an investigation of the Capitol riot is to hold its eighth and final hearing on Thursday and plans to provide a detailed examination of Trump's actions on January 6.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story identified Mr. Penrose as a Trump administration official. However, records show he left the NSA in 2014. Raw Story regrets the error. This story has also been updated to remove statements by Andrew Kloster that he says were recorded without his consent, at his request.
In late 2020, Lt. General Michael Flynn sent a security team to the home of Staci Burk, an Arizona law student. The team leader asked Burk to prepare an affidavit with information about ballots on planes that could be used to support lawsuits filed by attorney Sidney Powell to overturn the 2020 election.
Members of the security team, part of a group called 1st Amendment Praetorian, took Burk’s cell phone against her will. She later learned that it turned up in Washington, DC a couple of days before Trump supporters overran the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Burk herself was not in DC in December 2020 and January 2021. She said in a
court filing in February 2021 that she learned on Jan. 11 that her phone was at the Willard Hotel, which has been described as a “command center” of the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
The 1st Amendment Praetorian security team’s seven-week residency at Burk’s home upended her life. Burk fled her home, incurred financial debt, reassessed her beliefs about the election and struggled to repair her reputation as various conspiracy theorists in the election denial world assailed her credibility.
Burk’s ordeal with 1st Amendment Praetorian — better known by its initials 1AP — pulled her into the orbit of a dizzying array of pro-Trump actors, including Arizona politicians, conspiracy theorists and associates of Flynn and Powell.
In January 2022, almost one year after her cell phone was confiscated, a lawyer who served in the Trump White House Office of Presidential Personnel named Andrew Kloster reached out to Burk with an unusual request. He wanted a written statement from her disassociating a former National Security Agency official and Flynn associate from 1AP.
The request came just as the investigation of the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol was causing increasing unease among allies of the former president.
Kloster told Burk he was representing former NSA official Jim Penrose during the phone call earlier this year, which Raw Story is reporting for the first time. Kloster also indicated he was familiar with the former president’s interest in the widening congressional probe.
Described in his Federalist Society
bio as “a longtime fixture of the conservative movement” who had worked at the Heritage Foundation, Kloster joined the Trump White House Office of Presidential Personnel in 2020. After Trump left office, Kloster served as chief of staff for a special counsel appointed by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to investigate the outcome of the 2020 election in Wisconsin.
“Well, yes,” Kloster told Burk during the January 2022 phone call, explaining why Penrose was concerned. “Yes. Because — because I think a lot of what’s happening now — again, having talked with different attorneys and people who were swept up in this whole mess — a lot of this now is groups like 1AP, other people, who, maybe they’re not totally bad but they’re self-interested. There are circles that are close to the president, and then further out, blah blah blah, and everybody starts shooting at each other, and then they try to blame people for things. And the more of that can be limited by the truth, the better because it limits the ability of these little s***head staffers to do a fishing expedition.” Burk did not accede to Kloster’s request because she told him that would be a lie, and she said he did not contact her again.
Emails to the January 6th Committee for this story seeking clarification on whether Penrose is under scrutiny went unreturned.
According to a professional biography, Jim Penrose retired from the NSA as a senior-level defense intelligence analyst in 2014. Lin Wood, the defamation lawyer who collaborated with Powell to file election challenge lawsuits, has confirmed that Penrose
joined Powell and Flynn at his South Carolina estate in November 2020 to work on the election, along with Seth Keshel, a former Army intelligence captain, and Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas who would later lead the partisan review of the Arizona election.
Raw Story initially contacted Staci Burk in August 2021. She has continually expressed reluctance about going on the record due to her concern about ongoing threats from associates of Michael Flynn, including 1AP member
Michael Kenny. She said she decided to give Raw Story access to the recording now because she feels the public has a right to know about matters important to democracy.
Robert Patrick Lewis, the 1AP cofounder, received a
subpoena from the January 6th Committee in November 2021, requesting that he appear for a deposition and turn over documents. Lewis’ lawyer, Leslie McAdoo Gordon, has since indicated that Philip Luelsdorff, the other cofounder, and the organization itself have also been subpoenaed. Lewis appeared before the committee in April and invoked the Fifth Amendment, on his lawyer’s advice.
Citing a ruling by a federal judge in California that gave credence to an assertion made by the committee that President Trump participated in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election, McAdoo Gordon said in a letter to the committee that the committee’s position puts pressure on the US Department of Justice to pursue charges.
“Thus, the committee’s theory creates a genuine risk of criminal exposure for anyone who may have, in the opinion of motivated prosecutors, assisted former President Trump or his supporters in any way as they contested the election results between November 2020 and January 6, 2021,” McAdoo Gordon wrote.
In an addendum provided to the committee in July, McAdoo Gordon confirmed that Joshua James, who has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, was “a member of 1AP for a very short time in 2020.” James was charged as part of a conspiracy with other members of the Oath Keepers militia. McAdoo Gordon told the committee that James left 1AP after being advised he could not simultaneously be in the Oath Keepers and 1AP. She added that James was not a member of 1AP in January 2021 and has had no association with the group since that time.
‘This had the potential of blowing up all over the place’
Based on his conversations with Jim Penrose, Andrew Kloster told Burk he understood his client’s relationship with 1st Amendment Praetorian to be minimal.
“I talk with a lot of the people who were involved with different things, and I think — as far as I’m aware — as far as Jim has told me — I mean, his involvement is quite technical, was quite technical,” Kloster said. “So, he might have puffed himself up. It sounds like there are other circumstances where he puffed himself up that bit him in the ass, and maybe that’s what happened here. But I don’t think he’s as super connected — he knows a lot of people, don’t get me wrong — but he’s not as much of a mover and shaker as you might suppose.”
As previously reported by
ProPublica, Penrose told Burk during a phone call in late December 2020 that he had spent $75,000 to pay former FBI agents to look into two separate allegations about potentially illegal ballots delivered by plane in Phoenix and Seattle.
“Let me be crystal clear: I’m investigating this on behalf of Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, right, the people that are going to take this right up to the president and the Supreme Court and work on these cases,” Penrose told Burk during that call.
The call, which Burk recorded, took place on Christmas day after she and a 1AP member named Brandon Pittman had returned from a local shooting range. According to an incident report by the Florence Police Department, Richard “Chi” Chichester, a former correctional officer from Massachusetts who was also a member of the 1AP security team, reported that two black SUVs had followed Burk home from the shooting range. The incident also prompted a phone call to Penrose.
The recording reveals that Penrose, who expressed concern about Burk independently investigating the two ballots-on-planes leads, set parameters and conditioned the 1AP security team’s continued presence at her home on her compliance.
“Here’s the deal: If we’re going to protect you, we need to have some kind of understanding about what the parameters are and the way you’re going to engage publicly and how you’re going to expose yourself to threats publicly,” Penrose said. “Because it’s all of us, right? We’re all in this together.”
Penrose added that anything Burk did — from picking up the phone to inviting someone into her home — was “impacting the guys in the room with you, and anybody who’s going to be assigned to your protective detail.”
Burk told Raw Story she turned over her recording of the phone call to the January 6th Committee in October 2021.
Raw Story reviewed more than 20 recordings — which Burk has not publicly shared — that provide a picture of how her cell phone was stolen and how it wound up at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, just before Jan. 6.
In recorded statements, Pittman and Chichester — the two 1AP members assigned as Burk’s protective detail at the time — have both admitted that her phone was stolen, while giving conflicting accounts of how it took place. In one of the recordings, Pittman told Burk that he learned that Chichester had her phone in Washington, DC.
Joe Flynn, Michael Flynn’s brother, corroborated the account in a phone call with Burk. When the matter was brought to his attention, Flynn indicated he turned to a man named Geoffrey Flohr for an explanation.
Flohr, whose nickname was “Yoda,” was a former Michigan State Police officer and former polygrapher with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Pittman described him as the “team leader,” and Chichester called him “the guy in charge.”
“Yoda told me that Chi took it out of your hands,” Flynn told Burk. “Or something like that. And when I heard that, I said, ‘What are these people doing taking somebody’s property without their permission?’”
Former NSA official Jim Penrose tells Staci Burk that her security is conditioned on her acting within certain "parameters."
roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms
The precise reason why Burk’s phone was stolen and who, if anyone, ordered it remains unclear. Regardless, responsibility for the misdeed ultimately fell to Flohr, who also served in Michael Flynn’s personal security detail for his speech in front of the Supreme Court during the Jericho March on Dec. 12, 2020.
Chichester told Burk he encountered Flohr at the Willard hotel after Burk’s phone surfaced in DC.
“He just tapped me on the shoulder, didn’t say a f***ing thing, okay?” Chichester recounted. “And I was just watching him as he came past, all right? I was angry. I probably showed a little bit of anger in my face or something because I was pissed off at him because of the whole clusterf***…. Because of the whole thing — the stealing — the phone being stolen. The way he did things, it was just all f***ed up, and he was the guy in charge.”
James Curtis, a Marine Corps veteran who replaced Chichester on the 1AP protective detail at Burk’s house, also blamed Flohr.
“Seeing Yoda plan the theft of the phone — that by itself is problematic,” Curtis said. “But the timeline that sets this in motion and moves this off of you being a team player and to a target is knowing that on day one, they came asking for your phone.”
1AP team leader Geoffrey Flohr discusses the theft of Staci Burk's phone
In a call with Burk, Flohr told her he was told “to be quiet” about the phone debacle “because this had the potential of blowing up all over the place. You literally hold — I’m telling you right now — you literally hold 1A Praetorian in your hand. That’s how it’s viewed. But I wanted the f***ing truth.”
Flohr said he reported the matter to Matthew Wallach, a prominent 1AP member.
“We want to do the f***ing right thing,” Flohr said. “And it’s all on my shoulders. So, listen up. It’s all on my shoulder. I went and told him forty-five seconds after f***ing numb nuts there right next to you told me what it was. I went and drilled it right into the people that run this place. And I said, ‘We got to fix this. We gotta f***ing fix this.’ And they said, ‘Well, we’re gonna take it under advisement, get through the DC op, and then address it.’”
Flohr ended his involvement with 1AP shortly after Jan. 6, 2021. After the phone debacle, Pittman told Burk that Flohr’s departure was directly linked to the handling of her security detail.
“Because of the issues that we had with you, and the way that they were handled was a bunch of bulls***, and Yoda was the guy that was like, ‘This is a bunch of bulls***,’” Pittman told Burk. “And so, Yoda, like, shields me from a lot of flak, because I tell Yoda, and Yoda tells the bosses. The bosses hit back at Yoda, and then Yoda hits back at me, you know?”
As
previously reported by Raw Story, Flohr was on the grounds at the US Capitol, along with a second 1AP member named Alan Kielan.
Leslie McAdoo Gordon, 1AP’s lawyer, said in a statement provided to the January 6th Committee in early July that she learned following Robert Patrick Lewis’s deposition that “two members of 1AP went with or followed the portion of the crowd from the Ellipse that went to the Capitol grounds.” McAdoo Gordon minimized Flohr and Kielan’s connection to the organization, writing, “They had already completed their work with 1AP at that time.” She added that the two men went to the Capitol “without the knowledge or approval of 1AP or Mr. Lewis.”
Flohr could not be reached for comment for this story.
After Burk’s phone was stolen, James Curtis made a prediction that, in hindsight, seems prescient. He also entertained the possibility that Penrose bore some responsibility for the theft.
“I don’t know Penrose, but if he’s self-serving enough to take your phone, he’s also self-serving enough to help fabricate tales about you that aren’t true,” Curtis said. “But right now, your actions are being defined probably — I’m making some assumptions here — your actions are being defined by whoever it was that wanted your phone. And so, your actions are not going to be defined in a way complimentary to you or the truth you understand, right? They’re going to be defined in ways that benefit whoever took your phone — presumably Penrose, right?”
When Kloster called Burk nearly a year later, she told him that's almost exactly what ended up happening.
“He pushes this out there: ‘She’s crazy, she’s this, she’s that,’" Burk said of Penrose. "And tries to discredit and do all of this stuff, which leads all of those minions who thought they were saving the country and all of that to then chase me out of town and dox and harass and threaten."
Penrose could not be reached for this story.
Reached by Raw Story by phone, Joe Flynn said he doesn’t know why Burk’s phone was stolen, but indicated he was surprised to hear Penrose’s name come up in connection with the episode.
“It was inconsequential,” Flynn said during a brief interview. “It doesn’t mean much to anybody.”
Joe Flynn has acknowledged his role in assigning the 1AP security team to Burk’s home.
“At the time we were working with 1st — 1A Praetorians,” Flynn said in an interview for the QAnon-aligned Patriot Voice channel on Telegram in January. “We were working with them for a very short period of time, just after the election when we were participating in the rallies in Washington. And their team provided General Flynn, myself, Sidney, Patrick [Byrne] and a few others security…. By the way, they provided that security free of charge. At the time, we didn’t have any money, so that was a benefit not having to pay that money. As I understand it, we sent a team out to watch over her out in Phoenix.”
Joe Flynn talks about 1st Amendment Praetorian and Staci Burk on the Patriot Voice channel on Telegram.
www.youtube.com
Joe Flynn told Raw Story that his brother “didn’t have anything to do” with the decision to assign a security team to Burk, but Flohr gave a different account to Burk.
“It started with Joe,” he told Burk. “I got a call from him. He goes, ‘And we need ya in the Southwest.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ He says, ‘Hold on.’ And then Mike comes on the phone. He says, ‘Yoda, this is Mike Flynn. I need you to get to the Southwest for a whistleblower that we have down there. How long is it going to take you to get there?’ I said, ‘I haven’t been out to Arizona before.’ I said, ‘It’s going to take me a day and a half.’ He says, ‘Get going.’ And so, I did, because I had to pack my car. Two and a half hours later, I was on the road.”
Before 1AP’s arrival, a man named John Shattuck, who is linked to Michael Flynn through the Gold Institute for International Strategy, arranged for a local firm in Arizona called Mayhem Security Solutions to provide security for Burk.
Joe Flynn later explained to Burk that Mayhem was replaced because their fee was too expensive.
“We couldn’t afford it,” Flynn told Burk. “We weren’t going to be able to pay them. They wanted us to pay them thirty thousand dollars. We don’t have that kind of money. So, we said, ‘Okay, we got this other group who can do it for free.’”
‘If there’s going to be a second Trump term…’
Burk, who has since
concluded there is no evidence of widespread election fraud, looked into two separate allegations about potentially illegal ballots on planes shortly after the Nov. 3, 2020 election. She said that Geoffrey Flohr, the team leader for the 1st Amendment Praetorian security detail at her house asked her to prepare an affidavit for Powell. Burk said assertions about extensive fraud by Powell and Michael Flynn helped convince her there must be something to the allegations of ballots on planes, which Powell herselfmentioned in a speech at a Dec. 2, 2020 rally in Alpharetta, Ga.
“I listened to General Flynn and Sidney Powell say they had reliable evidence there were bad actors rigging the election and their team validated there was a great deal of corroborating evidence it was true and that I was in grave danger of being killed and needed a security team,” Burk said in a statement to Raw Story.
“Those were obviously lies,” Burk continued. “I believed the lies because, at the time, I thought, why else would they be taking the South Korean plane story so seriously when it was their associates who were on the ground with the plane taking video. I now see in their psyop I was a pawn, and it was much easier to raise money if they terrorized the witnesses and then said they needed money to protect the witnesses. I was just a pawn in their elaborate money-making venture,” Burk added.
Burk claims that in late December 2020, she had not been aware of a Dec. 18 meeting that took place at the White House in which Flynn, Powell and Byrne urged President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and order the National Guard to seize voting machines.
“It was my understanding Trump had a plan, and I trusted that,” Burk said. “As things came to light, I now see everything their associates did with me between November 2020 and May 2021 was all gaslighting, cover up and narrative control with an ends-justifying-the-means mentality and little care or concern for how their actions terrified my family and disrupted our lives.”
Joe Flynn said in a text to Raw Story that his brother was not interested in responding.
“This is a story about nonsense and nothing,” he said, “and anyone who reads Raw Story needs to get a mental exam.”
Sidney Powell could not be reached for this story.
Despite describing Penrose as a “contractor” during the period he engaged with 1AP, Kloster also suggested to Burk that his client’s relationship with Michael Flynn was insignificant.
“He knew General Flynn,” Kloster said. “He knew who he was. They had some communication. There was no hand in glove. He didn’t report to him, or vice-versa.”
Kloster also dismissed the notion that Penrose was working on behalf of President Trump, telling Burk: “I’m a little bit closer to some of that stuff. I kind of know — yeah, that’s a little bit, uh, that’s on the order of puffing up, for sure, yeah.”
Kloster did not return messages for this story. But in a post on Telegram in early July, he announced a new project to protect the professional reputations of so-called “America First” public servants.
“We’re just getting started, but if you’re looking to assist in giving our conservative public servants the tools they need to survive attack, pls look at this new org run by our former WH staff,” Kloster wrote.
The website for Personnel Policy Operations describes the new nonprofit’s foundational precept as a belief that conservative public servants targeted for “persecution” by “the radical left, corporate media, tech companies, leftwing NGOs and other activists” need support in order to succeed, while warning that without a robust safety net, “others will be deterred from entering public service in the first place, or from taking real action for their country.”
Kloster recently spoke up in defense of Kenneth Klukowski, a former senior counsel to Trump Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark. Kuklowski
reportedly helped Clark draft a letter to state officials in Georgia in late December 2020 requesting that they delay certifying their votes to allow time for federal prosecutors to investigate election fraud allegations.
“The January 6th investigation is all about attacking mid-level and senior staff like Ken, to ensure that we don’t have a farm team in 2024, no matter who the president is,” Kloster
toldThe Federalist last month. “This isn’t about the truth, but about making it impossible for conservatives to successfully enter and leave government.”
In a recent
Axios report, Kloster was named as part of a group of “former Trump administration and transition officials working on personnel, legal or policy projects for a potential 2025 government.”
Jack Posobiec,
described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a political operative who is “known primarily for creating and amplifying viral disinformation campaigns,” praised Kloster’s Personnel Policy Operation while filling in as a host on the “War Room” show for former White House strategist Steve Bannon on July 1. (Bannon wasconvicted of contempt of Congress on July 22 for refusing to cooperate with the January 6th Committee.)
“We’ve got the precinct project that’s going on here from the War Room,” Posobiec told Kloster. “That’s precinct by precinct across the country. We’ve got the dismantling of the administrative state. That’s the other project. But what you just said, I think, is one of the most important lessons, shall we say, from the first Trump term, which is that personnel
is policy.
“If there is going to be a second Trump term — and that’s basically been kind of the theme of this show today — that this key office, the PPO and the staffers across the government, right, getting into the administrative state and wrestling down with Leviathan.
”During his January 2022 phone call with Staci Burk, Kloster indicated that Jim Penrose was eager to put time assisting in the effort to challenge the election behind him.
“I mean, Jim, he’s in a different place now,” Kloster told Burk. “He does talk about a lot of that election stuff as — he had a weird second life basically for a couple months. But he seems very buttoned down now.”
Protesters showed up with paper and banners at former President Donald Trump's big speech in Washington, D.C. at his own pro-Trump nonprofit group that purports to be promoting policies.
Footage obtained by Raw Story from 26-year-old Mackenzie N. @Kenzington96, who works at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), but is not speaking on their behalf, showed a group of protesters being attacked by a group of men. The protesters were shouting "No Trump! No KKK! No fascist-USA!" and unfurled a banner reading "Indict Trump" on it.
At least two white men in green shirts, beards and man-buns grabbed the "Indict Trump" banner and stormed off while hotel security also ran toward the scene. The videos sent by Mackenzie showed a third man in the Army green shirt with a quasi-military-looking insignia on the left breast of his shirt and an American flag on the left arm.
Mackenzie described the men as "hired goons" of Trump's, but witnesses say the hotel confirmed that the "security" were actually hired by the America First nonprofit group to run "security" for their event.
She explained that she was there for a conference for the SEIU's strategic initiatives department that was booked about two months ago at the Marriott Marquis on Massachusettes Avenue in Washington, D.C.
The SEIU staff was holding their conference on what appeared to be the second floor, while the America First conference was on the first floor. According to Mackenzie, the America First attendees had to walk through their area to get to the small America First meeting.
As the America First group came through the SEIU conference area, they went through the breakfast buffet laid out and purchased by the labor union staff. Mackenzie explained that there was a big sign that said it was for SEIU only. She noted that they weren't wearing masks, despite Washington being in an area of the country that has seen a significant resurgence of COVID-19.
Once the SEIU group arrived last night for their event, they began to see the "America First" signs and realized that Trump was going to speak there.
She said that as a person of color she felt very uncomfortable given the white supremacist militias that have associated themselves with the Republican movement.
"I'm Black," Mackenzie told Raw Story. "As a person of color, it was distressful that they were there."
She also said that as a union that represents working people often ignored by Trump's policies they felt they need to make sure they did something.
"We rearranged our programing just to acknowledge it," she said in an interview with Raw Story.
At no point did the SEIU conference attendees go downstairs to the America First conference, they remained in their own area that was paid for by SEIU for their own event, Mackenzie explained.
She also said that at first the police in the hotel didn't come to the protesters, it was only the white men in the fake-military shirts. They grabbed the signs from the SEIU members and assaulted two protesters, body-checking one of the staffers and shoving another.
The police ultimately stepped in to separate the groups. One video from Mackenzie shows that one of the fake security men tried to make the SEIU group leave saying that they were no longer welcome. He wasn't a hotel employee and the SEIU group explained they paid to be at the hotel. The man in the green shirt wasn't any kind of authority with the hotel.
The group has been seen previously at Trump events working as "security."
The hotel did try and encourage the SEIU group to go into their own conference room and shut their doors and stay in there, but they refused, saying that they paid for the whole area.
TMZ noted that while Trump was speaking, "what was happening right outside, however, was far more interesting." The Washington Examiner posted videos to their Facebook Page showing a large "LOSER" banner across the street from the hotel along with additional anti-Trump protesters.
Just hours before his nightmarish death, Joseph Pettaway enjoyed a joyful backyard barbecue celebrating his good work on his buddy’s cute but dilapidated pink house in Montgomery, Alabama. Cresta Circle was a poor but friendly neighborhood and the little home’s tall windows, wooden shutters and shade trees gave the house charm. Pettaway’s friend, James Jones, paid Pettaway to add sheetrock, paint and clear debris so that Jones could move his girlfriend and baby girl into the home. That July Saturday, Jones and his sweetheart grilled venison sausage and hosted a feast at the pink house for Pettaway, a coworker and some neighbors.
Pettaway, 51, grew up in a big, close-knit Black family. He lived with his mom just three blocks from Cresta and was popular in the neighborhood.
But on July 8, 2018, the unarmed Pettaway was mauled horrifically by a police dog inside the pink house. The dog ripped open Pettaway’s femoral artery. An autopsy photo shows a gaping thigh wound two and a half inches long and deep, with bone visible.
In depositions, police officers near the attack agree that Pettaway did not break any law, didn’t resist arrest and didn’t argue with police.
The tragedy leading to Pettaway’s death was captured by police bodycam video that has been kept confidential from the public and the press.
Police depositions describe Pettaway screaming, pleading that he’s trying to cooperate as the dog holds its bite on his groin for two minutes. One deposition describes the video as showing K9 officer Nicholas Barber forced to strangle his dog into unconsciousness just to get the dog’s teeth unclamped from Pettaway’s flesh.
Unlike George Floyd’s final moments, this video might never be seen publicly.
In court documents, Montgomery city attorney Christopher East reveals a controversial reason for keeping the video secret. The video has “the potential of creating and/or facilitating civil unrest based on the graphic images alone.”
East invokes the fear that riots like those that erupted after video of George Floyd’s murder went viral.
Pettaway’s brother, Walter, sued Montgomery police in 2019. It took Walter’s pro bono attorney, Griffin Sikes, two years to obtain the video so he could prepare for trial. Judge Emily Marks, appointed to federal court by ex-President Donald Trump, ordered the video kept under seal of confidentiality, meaning Sikes cannot share it with reporters or members of the public.
First Amendment expert and Columbia Law School lecturer Robert Balin told Raw Story he’s never encountered public safety as a reason to refuse to release bodycam video to the press.
Balin makes a clear distinction between fear of civil unrest and concern for national security.
“An imagined fear that riots that may happen if people react a certain way is very different from citing specific national security concerns like an undercover law enforcement agent’s life would be at risk if certain information is released,” Balin explained.
By contrast, the city of Montgomery argues the video would expose police to “annoyance and embarrassment.”
First Amendment access to police bodycam video looms as a huge issue as the Jan. 6 hearings unfold. Bodycam video shows how vicious, violent and dangerous the riot was for a vastly outnumbered Capitol police. It also shows how courageously police fought to protect members of Congress and a free election.
Try to imagine the hearings without the bodycam video as an impartial, unedited witness.
Pettaway’s killing has also spurred debate over whether it’s just too dangerous — for police officers as well as innocent bystanders — to weaponize dogs. Lawyers can tell you how much juries love police dogs. And there are plenty of examples of smart, brave canines completing heroic missions like sniffing out explosives and drugs, finding lost kids or hikers injured in the wilderness, even dogs who disarmed bad guys with guns.
The trial is finally scheduled for spring of next year.
Joseph Pettaway’s brother, Walter, says that when Joseph was young, he served seven years in prison for writing bad checks. Joseph was discouraged by the long sentence but determined to change his life.
“While he was incarcerated, Joseph mailed our mother certificates he earned in prison for good behavior, counseling other inmates, taking classes, volunteering, learning skills,” Walter said. “She was so proud of his certificates. When he got out, he lived with her and took care of her.” Having a prison record made finding longtime employment hard but “Joseph worked all the: construction, detailing and washing cars, day labor. He was smart, had lots of skills.”
Electricity and water were turned off while the little pink house was rehabbed. But Jones kept beds inside so he or his workers could sleep there overnight when they worked late. Walter says it was a great perk for his brother because if he was out late on a date night, he could sleep at the pink house rather than accidentally wake his mom up when he got home.
The July 8 picnic ended between 10 and 11 p.m. Walter said his brother probably hung out with friends until 2 a.m. then decided to sleep at the pink house. He knocked on the front door, not knowing whether Jones or his coworker, Gary Dixon (who also had permission to sleep over) might be inside. The door was locked. Joseph saw a window was open and climbed inside and went to sleep on a bed.
Joseph never realized Dixon was in another room. When Dixon heard someone in the house, he figured it was a burglar. He took a packet of cigarettes, went outside and called 911. He was on the sidewalk smoking when police arrived.
Police woke Jones to get permission to enter the house and let a police dog loose inside. Jones consented although he was puzzled by why a burglar would linger in a house containing nothing but two cots and some sheetrock. It didn’t occur to him that Pettaway might have dropped in.
K9 handler Nicholas Barber and his dog, Niko, went to the front door. Walter Pettaway’s attorney, Griffin Sikes, has viewed and listened to Barber’s bodycam video. Sikes insists that he found the warning Barber yelled to be unintelligible. Barber maintains that he identifies himself twice as police clearly but concedes that he didn’t give three warnings as Montgomery Police policy requires.
Barber agreed that he waited only one second for the person inside the house to respond before he released Niko into the house.
Sikes wonders why one of the four policemen who gathered at the pink house didn’t use the bullhorns or patrol car voice amplifiers to contact a person in the house.
“In Alabama, there’s a fetish around police dogs; a canine getting its first bite is a big rite of passage,” Sikes told Raw Story. “Barber’s dog hadn’t gotten his first bite yet and I think they wanted to be there for it.”
“Bull Connor’s ghost is alive in Alabama,” he added ruefully, referring to Birmingham’s white supremacist public safety commissioner who deployed police dogs against peaceful 1960s civil rights protesters.
Montgomery Police declined to comment on this story.
After Barber issued his warning, he opened the front door and shouted, “Voran!” (German for “ahead”) to Niko. According to Barber’s deposition, Voran commands the dog to “search, find and bite someone.”
The next sound was Pettaway’s terrified screams.
When Barber entered the house, he found Pettaway under the bed trying to escape Niko’s claws and jaws. Sikes says the bite lasted two minutes and Barber’s bodycam shook as he struggled to choke Niko into releasing Pettaway’s groin.
According to the video timeline, the unconscious Pettaway was left alone inside the house for four minutes. Then, as Barber takes a photo of Pettaway for official documentation, Barber says, “Awesome.”
At one point, a policeman asks, “Did you get a bite?”
“Sure did,” Barber replies, chuckling.
Police brought Pettaway to the sidewalk to wait about three minutes for medics to arrive. Jones had arrived on the scene. He recognized his friend and realized this was not a burglary but a terrible misunderstanding. Pettaway died at the hospital from loss of blood.
Walter Pettaway was shocked to learn from Lt. Andre Carlisle’s deposition that Montgomery police are not taught first aid, not even how to apply a tourniquet. Sikes consulted Texas trauma surgeon and Iraq/Afghanistan veteran Dr. Scott Trexler who testified that Pettaway’s life might have been saved if any officer had known how to apply pressure to an arterial wound to stop or lessen bleeding.
Sikes is exasperated that Montgomery doesn’t even require officers to take inexpensive Boy Scouts first aid courses that now cover injuries common to rural and urban settings.
“Montgomery patrol cars don’t even carry first aid kits in their cars which you’d think police would want in case an officer was wounded and needed help before EMTs could help,” Walter said.
Alabama police dogs attack
The Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine tracked about 3,600 Americans sent to emergency rooms annually from police dog bites from 2005 to 2013. There’s no national database tracking how often police dog bites happen.
Pettaway’s death inspired the Marshall Project and Invisible Institute, nonprofits focused on criminal justice research, AL.com and the Indianapolis Star to team up for a 2020 examination of police dogs’ use in 20 cities across America. They found no consistent policy for deploying dogs during arrests.
“Chicago almost never deploys dogs for arrests and had only one (bite) from 2017 to 2019,” the report stated. “Seattle had 23. New York City, where policy limits their use mostly to felony cases, reported 25.”
The project found dozens of cases where police dogs ignored commands to release their bite--including a California dog who tore off a man’s testicle and a dog who tore off an Arizona man’s face—and had to be strangled or hit on the head to get them off a person.
Ernie Burwell, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff canine handler explained to the Marshall Project that a police dog’s trainer has a huge impact on the dog’s behavior on the job.
“If the handler’s an idiot, the dog will be, too,” Burwell said.
Barber was not an idiot. He joined the U.S. Army at age 19, served from 2004-12 and was promoted to staff sergeant, joined Montgomery police in 2013 and was promoted to corporal in 2017. But Montgomery Police officials came to doubt his judgment so much that a captain investigating Barber’s behavior recommended that Barber be fired.
In his deposition, Barber explains how he got into trouble. He used his position as a police officer to get information about his girlfriend’s ex-lover. Barber wrote out a warrant for the man’s arrest on domestic violence charges, then arrested him during a traffic stop and sent him to jail. A judge dropped all the charges against the man and the police department investigated Barber’s actions.
He resigned after accepting a law enforcement job in a small Alabama town.
Alabama v the press
Police bodycam video is one of the newest forms of public records for the First Amendment to confront — and Alabama just made it harder for the press and public to see them.
Last year, Mobile’s weekly paper, The Lagniappe, fought all the way to the Alabama Supreme Court to obtain a law enforcement officer’s bodycam video after he was exonerated in a fatal shooting alongside Interstate-10. Only a redacted version was released.
Alabama’s highest court ruled that "investigative writings or recordings are privileged communications protected from disclosure."
It’s a new landmark precedent that Alabama journalists denounced as dangerous.
"(The Court’s decision) puts photographs, videos, documents, 911 calls, autopsy records, and correspondence related to any criminal investigation behind a shroud of secrecy. The opinion appears to say these records are to be hidden from the public regardless of the source…" read a statement by J. Evans Bailey, Alabama Press Association General Counsel.
None of this surprises Kevin Goldberg, First Amendment expert at the nonprofit, nonpartisan Freedom Forum. Goldberg is very familiar with Alabama’s laws related to public/press access to government records.
“Alabama’s open records aren’t very strong,” Goldberg told Raw Story. “And laws governing body cam video are all over the map…different laws in different states.”
But he believes the fear of riots cited by Montgomery as a reason for suppressing bodycam video is not valid.
Fear of “a generalized harm is not sufficient,” Goldberg said, explaining that the reason to withhold evidence must be “specified and narrow.”
Goldberg and Balin both take hope from the judge’s decision in the Pettaway case to leave the door open for the video to be released to the public after the trial starts.
If Montgomery settles the case out of court, Pettaway’s last moments of life may remain unseen by the public.
Fire, blood on the sidewalk
The Pettaway family’s pro bono attorney, Griffin Sikes, filed a motion asking Judge Emily Marks to recuse herself from the Pettaway case, His worry was that one of the key attorneys defending police, Winston Sheehan, Jr., was the judge’s mentor. Marks and Sheehan worked at the same law firm in Montgomery for years and were co-counsel on 21 cases. The motion for recusal observed that Sheehan seemed to be a mentor to Marks.
She refused to recuse herself. Her denial angrily noted that the only evidence Sikes had of mentoring was that Sheehan was 26 years older than her.
Reporters found a case where a couple sued Wells Fargo because it foreclosed on property owned by the wife’s dying father. The couple said only one $695 mortgage payment was missed and they were ready to pay. After Marks was assigned to the case, the Wall Street Journal said Marks bought a lot of Wells Fargo stock---then ruled in favor of Wells Fargo, ordering the couple’s lawsuit to be dismissed.
The Journal article points out that Marks ignored recusal requirements related to financial conflicts.
Social and professional relationships are more ambiguous.
“It’s human nature for us all to believe we can be unbiased, put aside friends’ influence, think for ourselves,” Sikes said. “But humans aren’t always aware of their biases.”
Indian University law professor Charlie Geyh is an expert on recusals. He says the judge may be utterly free of a former colleague’s influence. But if a reasonable and prudent person might question her impartiality in a situation, it may be time to recuse.
“There is no hard and fast rule against judges presiding over cases in which lawyers at their former firms enter appearances,” Geyh wrote in an email to Raw Story. He added that most disqualification requests were meritless and “the judge in your case may well think she can be impartial and may likewise think that reasonable people would agree. But she is in a lousy position to make that call because most of us cultivate an exaggerated sense of our own impartiality and regard views to the contrary as unreasonable or ill-informed.”
Meanwhile, Walter Pettaway wonders what legacy Joseph, who had no children, will leave. Neighbors were angry after learning details of his agony. “I tried to calm them down, told them to wait for justice,” Walter says.
But 24 hours after Joseph died, a fire swept the little pink house. No one can see the care and craftsmanship he invested there. But, four years of rain haven’t washed away Joseph’s blood stains on the sidewalk.
Sikes says he’d learned that several Montgomery police officers are now taking first aid classes. That gives Walter hope that “my brother’s death may lead to lives being saved.”
Walter says his 89-year-old mother comforts herself by looking at the certificates Joseph earned while he was in prison, where he dreamed of being free and winning a new life with hard work.
Stephen K. Bannon’s conviction today by a federal jury for contempt of Congress carries a higher-than-usual prospect for prison time thanks to his arrogant conduct outside the courtroom, a top law professor told Raw Story today.
Bannon was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts by a federal jury in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, as well as a fine of $100 to $100,000.
In an exclusive interview, Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and a national expert on sentencing, said it’s uncommon for defendants to get prison time for misdemeanors. But he said Bannon may well be an exception.
“The overwhelming majority of misdemeanors result in sentences of probation,” Osler said. “But I’d say it’s 50/50 as to whether Bannon gets prison time because of all the braying he has done. Judges don’t like that.”
Osler, a professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis, said the high-profile nature of Bannon’s case could be a key factor.
“All misdemeanors are not created equal and this is an interesting case – as it should be – because of the national interest and Bannon’s behavior,” Osler said. “I’d say if he does get time – and he might – it would more than likely be somewhere between one and six months. This is the kind of case where there could happen.”
Osler said Bannon’s pardon by former president Donald Trump would wipe out any prior convictions, which otherwise would have factored into the federal sentencing guideline analysis of the case.
Bannon, 68, was found guilty of one contempt count involving his refusal to appear for a deposition and another involving his refusal to produce documents, despite a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to the Department of Justice.
“The subpoena to Stephen Bannon was not an invitation that could be rejected or ignored,” said Matthew M. Graves, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. “Mr. Bannon had an obligation to appear before the House Select Committee to give testimony and provide documents. His refusal to do so was deliberate and now a jury has found that he must pay the consequences.”
The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the election held its eighth hearing Thursday evening, in what some have described as a kind of "season finale, not a series finale."
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told Raw Story that there will likely be more coming from the committee after the August recess and that there are "a variety of people" whom she wants to hear from as more evidence is turned over to the committee. She noted that there are some things that the committee hasn't even been able to focus on.
According to Lofgren, after each of the public hearings, more witnesses came forward with statements and evidence based on what was being said or relevant information they realized they had. She went on to say it necessitates future hearings.
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), who was the lead on the hearings Thursday with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), told Raw Story that it's clear others coming forward have seen how courageous the witnesses are as they've come forward because "they believe it's the right thing to do" and "they care about our country."
Kinzinger told reporters after the hearing had finished that he's not a Justice Department attorney but he is convinced that Donald Trump committed criminal behavior.
"I think if you look at what we presented tonight and between all of these hearings — this cannot be acceptable from the President of the United States," Kinzinger said. "Like the worst thing we can do is put out something that says the president is above the law, he can do this again, because I guarantee you it will happen again."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) brought up the Senate's bill reforming the Electoral Count Act, and noted that it isn't a sufficient solution to what happened after the 2020 election. He doesn't think the committee will have been successful if people come out of the hearings thinking that all Donald Trump did was try and nullify the Electoral College vote count.
"There is a lot more to do because there has been a plot against democracy, not just on the Jan. 6 session of Congress, but we saw it take place at the state level, we saw attacks on voters' rights, we've seen it in efforts to overthrow the decisions of election boards and now we see the effort to impose political decisions of election boards, so there's a lot going on," Raskin explained. "And it's a moment when we have to be very serious about what can happen in our democracy."
He went on to cite the reports that Trump is still making calls to Wisconsin election officials trying to change the 2020 election.
"The president still wants Wisconsin to say that the election is not over and he's looking for a way to reopen it," Raskin continued. "To this day he has not accepted the outcome of the election and he's trying to make that fiction a litmus test for participation in the Republican Party. He wants everyone to accept the 'big lie.' I hope that these hearings completely and once and for all demolish the 'big lie.'"
He noted that he's not sure about the next steps after hearing that Trump called members of the U.S. Senate in the middle of the attack. The committee could subpoena them or their phone records, but Raskin said he wasn't certain if the committee was willing to take those steps because it "poses difficult questions about bicameralism."
"We obviously encourage everyone to come forward," Raskin also reiterated.
While other members have indicated there might be hearings in September, Raskin made it clear they haven't announced anything, but that the investigations and interviews with witnesses will continue through August.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The audience of the House Select Committee was filled with more elected officials than have been seen over the past several hearings. Among those that attended the eighth hearing were some Democrats who left the room during the break to express their fury about what they saw.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) told Raw Story that he wanted to be in the room on Thursday to remember what happened on Jan. 6. He said that he truly hopes that it doesn't happen again, but that starts with prosecutions.
"Not only the people that were outside and that came in but politicians or anyone else who enabled him," said Castro. "I take Merrick Garland at his word, I think yesterday when he said that no one in this country is above the law. I hope he sticks to that principle."
He went on to say that the 187 minutes of inaction where Trump was sitting and watching it all unfold on television was "sociopathic."
"Of a president of the United States watching the United States Capitol under attack, hearing and understanding the vice president was being threatened to be hung, to just sit there and let it go down — it's sociopathic," said Castro.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) had the same thoughts after watching the first half of the hearings. She told Raw Story she was struck by just "what a corrupt, disgusting individual the former president was and how he clearly was as we've been seeing was trying to implement a coup. And there were a lot of cowards around him including the senator who makes a gesture and runs like a chicken when he's actually being chased by the insurrectionists."
She went on to say that she wants to ensure that Trump can never run for office ever again.
"He needs to pay the consequences for what he's done to this country," said Jayapal.
Rep. Annie Kuster (D-NH) similarly told Raw Story that what she found the security footage of the third floor where she and other members were able to jump into the elevator incredible. She counted just 30 seconds before there were attackers in the halls behind them.
"Every time the police push back on the barriers and push back on the crowd and held the thin blue line saved my life and saved our democracy and the president of the United States is doing nothing to protect us," said Rep. Kuster.
"It's very unsettling, in fact, it's very disturbing, "she continued. "And as victims of this attack, it's important for us to stand witness to this and make sure that the American people understand how close our democracy came."
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) told Raw Story that "Donald Trump, Josh Hawley and all of them — they're traitors. I hope this moves the Senate to act, because we passed legislation to protect our democracy and the Senate has been sitting on his hands — the Republicans."
A Department of Justice task force to combat violent threats against election workers has received more than 1,000 referrals since it was launched in July 2021 but has only secured one conviction, a House hearing revealed Wednesday.
“It’s received well over 1,000 reports of threats, but it’s only secured one conviction,” said Rep. Richie Torres, D-NY, House Homeland Security Committee vice chair. “Which raises the question, ‘Why only one conviction?”
At the hearing on the election security landscape, the lack of accountability was also tied to more local law enforcement. Often police departments were reluctant to press charges after being contacted by the election officials, the committee was told, because police officers often did not know where the legal line was between illegal threatening conduct and permissible political speech.
“Law enforcement, in many cases, is unaware that issues on Election Day or leading up to the election can be a real threat or a real issue,” said Neal Kelly, who now chairs the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, which seeks to educate police on this issue, and was formerly the registrar of voters in Orange County, California, and was a police officer before that.
“Beat officers, officers on the ground, just are not familiar with criminal code for election violations or that threats to election officials are occurring in large numbers,” he said. “When I was in Orange County, I had police officers respond to some scenes and they just thought it was a civil matter. They were not aware that there were actually criminal violations that occurred at a vote center.”
The House hearing comes as 2022’s general election is heating up and there is disagreement over what are the biggest ongoing threats facing voters, election officials and American democracy. Polls conducted since the House January 6 Committee has been holding hearings detailing ex-President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election have shown many voters, especially independents, want provocateurs and insurrectionists held accountable.
“The threats to election security vary widely in the United States,” said Torres. “There’s the threat of a cyberattack on election infrastructure. There’s the threat of influence operations that radicalized people with misinformation and disinformation… And there’s a threat of violence and harassment and intimidation against election officials themselves.”
Torres asked which threat was mostly likely to “endanger” the 2022 midterms.
Elizabeth Howard, a senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice and New York University law school and a former Virginia state election official, replied that widespread threats to election officials were her top concern “because of the cascading effects that result.”
“What we’re seeing across the country are election officials who are deciding to leave the profession,” she said. “For example, five of Arizona’s 15 counties now have new election directors this cycle. Six of Georgia’s most populous counties have new election directors this cycle. This creates the potential for more mis- and disinformation because the people taking the retiring election officials’ place are not going to have the same level of experience [running elections].”
Kelly said that the 2020 election “amplified” the harassment, but “I’ve heard them before. If you go back to 2018 in Orange County, there was a number of similar threats and issues arose when we had congressional districts flip from red to blue... It’s not just at the national level. It can certainly happen at the local level. We see that, and I will say this, it’s not just the battleground states.”
“In every single election we see rumors, we see myths and disinformation,” said New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, who had to leave her home and have police protection after the 2020 election and after her state’s recent 2022 primary. “Those rumors tend to peter out.”
“Unfortunately, we are still on a daily basis, in my state and across the country, living with the reverberating effects of the big lie from 2020,” she continued. “The recent activities that happened in my state where we almost failed to certify an entire county’s worth of votes in a primary election [Otero County] are a direct result of that rhetoric.”
At Wednesday’s hearing, Democratic members of Congress were united in squarely blaming Trump’s false stolen election claims, and, to a lesser degree, social media platforms, that paired conspiracy-minded people with conspiracy theorists, for the uptick in threatened violence. Republican committee members, in contrast, said increased federal oversight of state-run elections was their top worry, and often went on to repeat Trumpian conspiracy theories about 2020.
“Isn’t it true, by implication, that the ballots cast in Wisconsin – by absentee drop box deposited ballots – were illegal in the 2020 election,” Rep. Dan Bishop, R-NC, asked Oliver, referring to July 2022 ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that banned their use one month before the state’s upcoming primary.
“I cannot speak to the ins and outs of the specific legality, the constitutional questions that came forth in Wisconsin,” Oliver replied. “What I can tell you is that in states like mine, where we have secure 24-hour monitored systems that are permissible under state law, [that] we do not see the level of concern. And frankly, the alleged fraud that has been leveled against such ballot collection systems.”
These kinds of exchanges evaded the central question of what the most pressing security threat was facing upcoming midterm elections. And, as important, what could be done to counter election-centered threats and violence?
“When something like 40 percent of Americans believe that the 2020 election was stolen, about 60 to 70 percent of Republicans… clearly, that is the root cause of the threats of violence that many nonpartisan election officials are facing,” said Rep. Tom. Malinowski, D-NJ, addressing Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, where polls have found 62 percent of Republicans still believe the 2020 election was stolen. “What should responsible leaders in our country be doing to address that false believe out there?”
“I guess I find the silver lining to every cloud – that folks are interested in this topic right now at a level that they would not normally be,” replied LaRose. “I view this as an opportunity to educate people about the safeguards that exist, and make sure that information is available in every part of our state.”
Only the committee vice chair, Torres, asked repeated questions about the Justice Department’s election threats task force and why it only had one conviction.
“Is the issue one of law and the law is insufficiently protective of election workers or is it one of enforcement?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
“The DOJ task force has taken important steps but clearly what they’ve done is not enough,” Howard replied, summarizing her more detailed written testimony. “We think that they need to expand the task force to include state and local law enforcement. As our Brennan Center survey showed, almost nine out of 10 election officials who had been threatened reported those threats not to federal officials, but to their local law enforcement.”
The DOJ did not testify. But later in the hearing, Kelly amplified Howard’s comments by noting that most local police officers are unfamiliar with election-related crimes and are reluctant to present cases to local prosecutors.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Washington, Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke to reporters and pushed back on the accusation that the DOJ wasn’t doing enough to hold perpetrators of 2020-related election violence accountable.
“There is a lot of speculation about what the Justice Department is doing, what it’s not doing, what our theories are, what are theories aren’t, and there will continue to be that speculation. That’s because a central tenant of the way in which the Justice Department investigates — a central tenant of the rule of law — is that we do not do our investigations in public. This is the most wide-ranging investigation and the most important investigation that the Justice Department has ever entered into. And we have done so because this represents, this effort to upend a legitimate election, transferring power from one administration to another, cuts at the fundamental of American democracy. We have to get this right. And for people who are concerned, as I think every American should be about protecting democracy, we have to do two things. We have to hold accountable every person who is criminally responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election. And we must do it in a way filled with integrity and professionalism – the way the Justice Department conducts investigations. Both of these are necessary in order to achieve justice and to protect our democracy.”
Garland primarily was referring to crimes surrounding the planning and execution of the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. (Other recent news reports have said that internal DOJ memos suggest the department would not likely indict Trump before the 2022 midterm elections, if he were to be indicted.)
In contrast, the testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee concerned the ongoing and current threats to local and state election officials by followers of the big lie, where local and federal police, for differing reasons, have barely held those threatening violence to account.
