Veteran journalist Bob Woodward pointed out seven conspiratorial actions taken by Donald Trump and Steve Bannon to conduct a "Watergate-style" subversion of the election process, which he said should fall under investigation by a special counsel.
Woodward said he and Washington Post colleague Robert Costa uncovered those actions while reporting on their book, "Peril," but he told CNN's "New Day" that he only recently understood how those potential crimes set in motion the violent attempt to overturn Trump's election loss on Jan. 6.
"I just looked back at what we have in the book, and quite directly have we have the dots [but] we didn't connect them, though they're there," Woodward said, "and they're seven conspiratorial actions by Trump and Bannon, essentially, to subvert and destroy the process of certifying who the next president is going to be, and when you think about it, it's just like Watergate. It's a destruction of the process that we want to trust, and the -- I'm sorry, my memory is not great on this -- can I go through some of those conspiratorial actions?"
"First of all, on Dec. 30, Bannon talks to Trump and says, 'You've got to make a dramatic return to Washington,'" Woodward continued. "Trump is in Mar-A-Lago, he's going to have the New Year's Eve party down there, but he comes back, and Bannon says to Trump, 'You've got to call Vice President Pence off the ski slopes where they, Pence's staff and advisers, have stashed him away because they know in a week he's going to have to certify or decide what he's going to do about who the next president is, and then Bannon says to Trump, Jan. 6 is the moment of reckoning here, and if we can challenge the legitimacy of Biden, it casts a shadow over the Biden presidency, and then he says, 'We are going to kill the Biden presidency in the crib.' The violent language, of course, it was manifest, the violence itself, on Jan. 6."
"Then on Jan. 5, as Liz Cheney was pointing out, Bannon meets with others, including Rudy Giuliani and their phony Republicans, to block the certification of Biden, and then you put all this in and Trump put out a phony statement at the time -- this is on the public record -- saying he and Pence agreed that Pence has the power to walk away and essentially get Trump certified as president," Woodward added. "But that's totally untrue. So, anyway, we have a very clear-cut case, I would suspect it is quite possible that Attorney General Merrick Garland will appoint a special counsel to look at this, because the evidence is so clear for a massive Watergate-style attempt to destroy the process of electing a president."
Rudy Giuliani's legal situation was indirectly called into question in a new legal filing by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
Mukasey disclosed he was paid $21,551 by Mujahedeen e-Khalq. The filing was made under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which "requires certain agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities."
The filing is significant because Giuliani has done work for the same group, but has not filed under the act, as was noted by New York Times journalist Ken Vogel.
On Tuesday, former New York City mayor and Trump associate Rudy Giuliani posted a video to Twitter of himself attacking Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe — with an Abraham Lincoln filter applied to his face.
"Virginia, vote against the man who dishonored our past by selling my bedroom hundreds and hundreds of times to scoundrels in a pay-for-play scheme!" said Giuliani in the clip. "In my time, we had a name for men who sold bedrooms for one night. In your time, the name is Terry McAuliffe! End the Clinton sleaze once and for all!"
Giuliani is referring to a controversy in the early 1990s in which the Bill Clinton administration was accused of renting out the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House to campaign contributors. Terry McAuliffe worked in the Clinton White House at the time, but fact-checkers have debunked the frequently repeated claim by Republicans that McAuliffe was the mastermind of the scheme.
Conservative pundit Alice Stewart and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona debated the election bill that Republicans have refused to support even though Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) helped draft and negotiate it.
Stewart attacked the bill saying that it federalizes the election system that has long been run by the states. Still, Cardona cited the far-right Republicans who aim to bypass voters altogether.
"There are rational Republicans out there that believe we do have free and fair elections with and they do believe that Jan. 6th should not have happened and we should have certified election results," said Stewart. "And they do not want to have this be the topic of conversation and there are rational Republicans that say that Jan. 6th is not what we need to be focusing on as we head into the midterms, especially with all that's going on with the Biden administration.
Cardona cut in to ask what she means by "rational Republicans," but Stewart refused to cite who exactly those Republicans are in the contemporary GOP.
"These are Republicans, as I said, that do believe that we have free and fair elections. The more we even question if we should question our electoral process, that's an affront to our democracy," said Stewart, who dismissed the idea that there should still be a focus on accountability for Jan. 6 and preventing another attack. "And we do not even need to be having these conversations in the first place. And there are a large majority of Republicans who are focusing on reassuring people that we need to go out and vote. We do have free and fair elections, and that's what conservatives are doing."
Cardona noted that while there might be an overwhelming majority of Republicans who believe Joe Biden won the 2020 election, they're not the ones in control of the GOP anymore. In fact, few of those are even in office or they're about to be replaced or retire.
"Donald Trump is the reason why this democracy is hanging by a thread," said Cardona while Stewart tried to talk over her. "And the more -- the more -- hang on, the more that Republicans -- you say there are rational Republicans out there, focused on talking about how the election was fair, there are not enough of them."
"Let me just say this, with all due respect to my friend, Maria here, we are not in peril," said Stewart."Our democracy is not in peril. We need to reassure Americans that our election process is free and fair. And the last thing we need to do is light our hair on fire about democracy in peril and federalize our elections, which is exactly what you and our Democratic friends want to do."
Cardona insisted that the elections do need to be federalized because states have made it clear that they can't handle operating a free and fair election.
Stewart explained that there were many Republican officials who fought back against President Donald Trump's demands to overthrow the voters' choice in the election. The problem, Cardona explained, is that those Republicans willing to risk their career to do the right thing are about to be kicked out of office by the Republican Party that Stewart claims is still "rational."
"All of these states have candidates, Alice, who have said, if they would have been in power, they would not have certified this election," Cardona explained. "What happens if all of those people win in 2022 and 2024? What if all of those rational, common sense, thank goodness, Republicans in the 2020 election did not come forward and stand up against the Donald Trump and the Steve Bannons and the Rudy Giulianis. What if they had said, 'Right, this election is not free. I'm not going to certify it.' That is how close we came to losing our democracy. Our democracy is in peril. And it is in peril because people like Donald Trump and people like Steve Bannon and people like Chuck Grassley, who just stood up next to Donald Trump, without the backbone to say what this man is doing is dangerous. We have way too many Republicans that are hell-bent on standing next to Donald Trump, because they are so afraid of not doing that, that that continues to put our democracy in peril."
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former candidate for Nevada's governorship testified on Friday that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani introduced him to Lev Parnas, a onetime Giuliani associate now on trial for alleged campaign finance law violations, who facilitated a contribution to the candidate.
Adam Laxalt, who lost his bid for the governorship, said he ultimately received a $10,000 donation from Parnas associate Igor Fruman shortly before the Nov. 6, 2018 election, But he said his campaign did not accept the funds because of doubts about the true source and concerns the contribution was illegal.
Prosecutors called Laxalt to testify in Parnas' Manhattan federal court trial. The Ukraine native has been charged with illegally funneling money from a Russian businessman to the campaigns of candidates for office in states where Parnas, Fruman and associates were seeking licenses to run cannabis businesses.
Laxalt said he met Giuliani, who was then personal attorney for former President Donald Trump, at the Trump International Hotel in Washington two months before the 2018 state election. Laxalt, a Republican, said he then accompanied Giuliani to a balcony at the hotel, where a group including Parnas were smoking cigars and drinking.
Parnas "immediately offered to help my campaign," Laxalt told the jury in the case overseen by U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken.
There was no suggestion that Giuliani did anything illegal by introducing Laxalt to Parnas. Prosecutors are separately probing whether Giuliani violated lobbying laws while working as Trump's lawyer. Giuliani has not been charged with any crime and has denied wrongdoing.
The case has drawn attention because of Parnas' and former co-defendant Fruman's roles helping Giuliani investigate President Joe Biden's activities in Ukraine. Biden, a Democrat, defeated Trump in the Republican's 2020 bid for re-election.
Giuliani's lawyer has said Parnas' case and the lobbying probe are unrelated.
Parnas pleaded not guilty. Belarus-born Fruman pleaded guilty in September.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)
An associate of Jared Kushner is seeking a plea agreement after prosecutors seek to hold him to account for alleged misconduct that resulted in him getting a president pardon.
"Former New York Observer editor-in-chief Ken Kurson, who was pardoned by Donald Trump over federal cyberstalking allegations, is now in plea discussions over state charges springing from the same conduct, a prosecutor said. Assistant District Attorney Alex Wynne disclosed the talks at a hearing Friday in New York Criminal Court in Manhattan," Business Insider reported Friday.
Kurson also worked for Rudy Giuliani's consulting firm and 2008 presidential campaign.
"Kurson was charged by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. in August with eavesdropping and computer trespass, both felonies that carry a maximum of four years in prison," Business Insider reported. "The New York prosecutors allege that from September 2015 to March 2016 Kurson installed spyware on a computer belonging to his ex-wife to get passwords to her accounts and then accessed and anonymously distributed private Facebook messages."
In July, The New York Timesreported the alleged misconduct was uncovered during a FBI background check after Trump considered him for a seat on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Former Trump personal and campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis is getting blowback from at least one top legal expert after she falsely compared herself and her colleague, Rudy Giuliani, to fictional hero attorney Atticus Finch from "To Kill a Mockingbird," and to founding father John Adams.
"No, you are not John Adams. You are not Atticus Finch. Competent lawyers warned you to stay away from the election lawsuits," said top national security attorney Bradley Moss. "We warned you loyalty to a conspiratorial client [doesn't] override ethical obligations to the court. It's on you."
Ellis, in video posted by Right Wing Watch (below), claimed that she and Giuliani were merely "advocating" for "politically inconvenient candidates" like Trump, which is provably false.
"It used to be that if you represented the politically inconvenient candidates or the, the politically inconvenient, people I mean look at 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' you know, it was like you were you were lauded as a defense attorney, like John Adams, you know, who represented people who deserve a defense," Ellis said.
"This has such an impact on the future of America," Ellis continued, "because if we tell lawyers that in order to advocate for a client, that means that necessarily you have to subscribe to their position, you will be you will be liable for your bar license essentially based on not only the merit of their case but the outcome, then we won't have advocates anymore in the United States."
Again, that is not a reality-based response to what she and Giuliani were doing.
Moss, meanwhile, was far from the only attorney criticizing Ellis.
Former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Richard Signorelli, commented, "Jenna is lucky she wasn't given any actual lawyerly responsibilities."
Atlanta appellate attorney Andrew Fleischman weighed in, saying, "It's good for people to get due process before being convicted of things. It's bad to file dozens of frivolous, dishonest lawsuits. That's the distinction."
The Michigan House of Representatives voted Thursday to concur with Senate versions of three election bills tightening requirements for absentee ballots and voter ID.
Senate Bill 303, introduced by Sen. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte), will require in-person voters and absentee voters to present their state IDs when going to cast a ballot. Currently, you can sign an affidavit of identity if you do not have an ID. The bill will also deny election officials the ability to send unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters. SB 303 was concurred in with a vote along party lines, 56-51.
Rep. Matt Hall (R-Battle Creek) was the first to speak on the House floor about the bills, saying they will ensure that voter confidence in elections is restored.
“The practice of many people throughout our state getting unsolicited applications could entice people to commit fraud," Hall said. “And for that reason, these bills will prohibit that today and will restore people's confidence in our election."
While Hall was the House Oversight Committee chair last year, he hosted Rudy Giuliani at a post-2020 election committee meeting where Giuliani took charge of the meeting to push election conspiracies that former President Donald Trump won.
Now-President Joe Biden beat Trump in Michigan by more than 154,000 votes. More than 250 state and local audits did not find evidence of widespread voting problems or fraud.
Rep. Darrin Camilleri (D-Brownstown Twp.) later lambasted the Oversight Committee hearing featuring Giuliani, calling it a “sham hearing" that gave Giuliani and colleagues a “platform to spread Donald Trump's lies to the American people." He said these bills further perpetuate lies regarding the 2020 general election and that these bills will mostly harm communities of color.
“These bills are creating more issues for voters," Camilleri said. “[The bills are] solving problems that don't exist and ruining faith in our democracy. And we know that the negative effects of these bills would be felt most severely by communities that already struggle with representation."
Rep. Amos O'Neal (D-Saginaw) also spoke out against the bills, citing the U.S. history of suppressing the right to vote. He said people's votes “shouldn't depend on the whims of one or several untrained poll workers."
(The bills) are heinous, regressive, suppressive and discriminatory. … These bills chip away at the very foundation of our fundamental American rights.
– Rep. Amos O'Neal (D-Saginaw)
“We find ourselves back here, at the starting line of the 1965 Voting Rights Act," O'Neill said. “[The bills] are heinous, regressive, suppressive and discriminatory. … These bills chip away at the very foundation of our fundamental American rights."
Rep. Ann Bollin (R-Brighton), whose speech was interrupted halfway through by people chanting in the House gallery apparently in protest, said the bills will not work to prevent people from voting, but help people “vote secretly, independently, safely and securely."
“These bills will allow us a path to ensure that we have fair and free elections," Bollin said. “These bills will restore confidence in our elections. Voters want to know that their vote will count and that they and only they are casting their own ballot."
The bill's passage in the House also comes after Republicans tie-barredHouse Bill 5007 to SB 303. HB 5007, introduced by Rep. Ryan Berman (R-Commerce Twp.), eliminates the $10 fee for issuing state ID cards, late renewals for a state ID or changing an address on a state ID. The bill was passed by the House along party lines.
Berman said in a press release following the passage of the bill that strengthening ID protections will help to make elections in Michigan more secure.
“Voter ID requirements are a popular, practical way to protect our elections against fraud," Berman said. “Strengthening ID protections will make our elections more secure, and providing free ID will ensure our elections are accessible for every Michigan voter."
Senate Bill 304 was also approved by the House on Thursday. The bill was originally introduced by Sen. Curtis VanderWall (R-Ludington) and allows voters who failed to show their photo ID at the ballot box six days to present a photo ID to their local clerk's office.
The bills will most likely be vetoed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Whitmer vetoed voter restrictions bills earlier this month, insisting the bills were part of “calculated misinformation" regarding the 2020 election which Trump lost.
Republicans also recently received approval to begin gathering signatures for a ballot measure that aims to restrict voting access. If the petition, led by the Secure MI Vote campaign, were to get enough signatures, the GOP-controlled Legislature could first approve the measure before it goes before voters. The initiative would not be able to be vetoed by Whitmer under Michigan law.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and Twitter.
A judge dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday that aimed to discredit Fulton County absentee ballots, the latest in a string of lawsuits challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential elections to get tossed.
Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero ruled against a request by supporters of former President Donald Trump for an up-close review of Fulton's 147,000 absentee ballots after a secretary of state's office investigation cleared away their accusations that counterfeit ballots were cast in the Nov. 3 election.
Amero's ruling cites an investigation by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office that failed to find any fraudulent votes while reviewing several batches of ballots contested by a group of voters who filed suit.
In Tuesday's court brief, the secretary of state's office pointed out that poll monitor turned 6th District U.S. congressional GOP candidate Suzie Voyles was unable to identify the batches of “pristine" counterfeit paper absentee ballots she claimed she observed in an affidavit.
Despite claims that illegal ballots diluted the plaintiffs' votes, Amero wrote that without a specific injury alleged by plaintiffs then no standing to sue exists. Still, in September Amero asked the secretary of state's office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into the possibility the claims of counterfeit ballots were true.
Garland Favorito, founder of VoterGa.org and a lead plaintiff in the Fulton County ballot inspection lawsuit, disputed the merits of the dismissal and maintained that only a public inspection could resolve questions about whether illegal ballots influenced the election. The group's request included access to the paper ballots and the ability to use a high-powered microscope to inspect them.
The final version of the lawsuit listed as defendants the three Democrats on the Fulton election board. Favorito is planning to appeal the Amero's ruling.
“All citizens of Georgia have a right to know whether or not counterfeit ballots were injected into the Fulton County election results, how many were injected, where they came from and how we can prevent it from happening again in future elections," Favorito said. “It is not adequate for any organization to secretly tell us there are no counterfeit ballots and refuse to let the public inspect them.
“We prepared diligently to present concrete evidence of our allegations and refute other false claims at the scheduled Nov. 15th hearing," Favorito said.
Raffensperger repeatedly declared Georgia's 2020 election the most secure in the state's history, starting soon after the Nov. 3 election. Results were confirmed by multiple recounts.
Still, Trump allies, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have peddled baseless conspiracy theories about widespread fraud leading to President Joe Biden's narrow Georgia victory last year.
Amero's ruling effectively kills the already miniscule chances of proving widespread fraud in elections in 2020, said Jeffrey Lazarus, associate professor of political science at Georgia State University.
Since November, scores of lawsuits in Georgia and multiple other states challenging the election have all been either dismissed or withdrawn.
Amero suspended the case in September, in part to delay a ruling on a motion to dismiss until investigation filings were received in the Fulton absentee ballot case.
“It's just part of the broader pattern of Republicans trying to delegitimize the 2020 election, and honestly, it's hard to delegitimize elections in general," Lazarus said. “They're trying to set the stage to do successfully in 2024 what they couldn't do in 2020, which is overturn an election result."
Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts celebrated the rejection of the attempt that's akin to requiring the election results be confirmed for a fourth time.
The Nov. 3 presidential election has been confirmed by three counts, including one conducted by hand on the record 5 million ballots across Georgia.
“Proponents of the Big Lie have floated this same counterfeit ballot conspiracy theory across the country and it has been discredited at every turn," Pitts said in a statement. “I have been on the front lines of fighting the Big Lie since Day 1 when I told President (Donald) Trump and others to 'put up or shut up' and I will always fight those working to take away the voice of Fulton voters."
Favorito's group appeared to be on its way to gaining access to the ballots when Amero unsealed the ballots in May. But a planned visit to an election records warehouse came to a halt after attorneys for Fulton County asked Amero to dismiss the case.
They asked to use high-powered microscopes to inspect high-resolution images of absentee ballots in their effort to prove the baseless claims irregularities played a significant factor in election results that delivered former president Trump a loss in Georgia by about 12,000 votes.
A new state election law for the first time allows the public to inspect images of absentee ballots.
Trump continues to demand that his presidential election loss be overturned in Georgia, citing Fulton's duplicate ballots and incomplete chain of custody forms in DeKalb County.
One investigation that is making headway is an independent state review of Fulton's election operations that was prompted by requests from GOP lawmakers under the state's new takeover provision for election boards. Although the review was prompted by Republicans who question the legitimacy of Georgia's 2020 election, the potential takeover would only affect future contests.
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.
A judge dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday that aimed to discredit Fulton County absentee ballots, the latest in a string of lawsuits challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential elections to get tossed.
Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero ruled against a request by supporters of former President Donald Trump for an up-close review of Fulton's 147,000 absentee ballots after a secretary of state's office investigation cleared away their accusations that counterfeit ballots were cast in the Nov. 3 election.
Amero's ruling cites an investigation by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office that failed to find any fraudulent votes while reviewing several batches of ballots contested by a group of voters who filed suit.
In Tuesday's court brief, the secretary of state's office pointed out that poll monitor turned 6th District U.S. congressional GOP candidate Suzie Voyles was unable to identify the batches of “pristine" counterfeit paper absentee ballots she claimed she observed in an affidavit.
Despite claims that illegal ballots diluted the plaintiffs' votes, Amero wrote that without a specific injury alleged by plaintiffs then no standing to sue exists. Still, in September Amero asked the secretary of state's office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into the possibility the claims of counterfeit ballots were true.
Garland Favorito, founder of VoterGa.org and a lead plaintiff in the Fulton County ballot inspection lawsuit, disputed the merits of the dismissal and maintained that only a public inspection could resolve questions about whether illegal ballots influenced the election. The group's request included access to the paper ballots and the ability to use a high-powered microscope to inspect them.
The final version of the lawsuit listed as defendants the three Democrats on the Fulton election board. Favorito is planning to appeal the Amero's ruling.
“All citizens of Georgia have a right to know whether or not counterfeit ballots were injected into the Fulton County election results, how many were injected, where they came from and how we can prevent it from happening again in future elections," Favorito said. “It is not adequate for any organization to secretly tell us there are no counterfeit ballots and refuse to let the public inspect them.
“We prepared diligently to present concrete evidence of our allegations and refute other false claims at the scheduled Nov. 15th hearing," Favorito said.
Raffensperger repeatedly declared Georgia's 2020 election the most secure in the state's history, starting soon after the Nov. 3 election. Results were confirmed by multiple recounts.
Still, Trump allies, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have peddled baseless conspiracy theories about widespread fraud leading to President Joe Biden's narrow Georgia victory last year.
Amero's ruling effectively kills the already miniscule chances of proving widespread fraud in elections in 2020, said Jeffrey Lazarus, associate professor of political science at Georgia State University.
Since November, scores of lawsuits in Georgia and multiple other states challenging the election have all been either dismissed or withdrawn.
Amero suspended the case in September, in part to delay a ruling on a motion to dismiss until investigation filings were received in the Fulton absentee ballot case.
“It's just part of the broader pattern of Republicans trying to delegitimize the 2020 election, and honestly, it's hard to delegitimize elections in general," Lazarus said. “They're trying to set the stage to do successfully in 2024 what they couldn't do in 2020, which is overturn an election result."
Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts celebrated the rejection of the attempt that's akin to requiring the election results be confirmed for a fourth time.
The Nov. 3 presidential election has been confirmed by three counts, including one conducted by hand on the record 5 million ballots across Georgia.
“Proponents of the Big Lie have floated this same counterfeit ballot conspiracy theory across the country and it has been discredited at every turn," Pitts said in a statement. “I have been on the front lines of fighting the Big Lie since Day 1 when I told President (Donald) Trump and others to 'put up or shut up' and I will always fight those working to take away the voice of Fulton voters."
Favorito's group appeared to be on its way to gaining access to the ballots when Amero unsealed the ballots in May. But a planned visit to an election records warehouse came to a halt after attorneys for Fulton County asked Amero to dismiss the case.
They asked to use high-powered microscopes to inspect high-resolution images of absentee ballots in their effort to prove the baseless claims irregularities played a significant factor in election results that delivered former president Trump a loss in Georgia by about 12,000 votes.
A new state election law for the first time allows the public to inspect images of absentee ballots.
Trump continues to demand that his presidential election loss be overturned in Georgia, citing Fulton's duplicate ballots and incomplete chain of custody forms in DeKalb County.
One investigation that is making headway is an independent state review of Fulton's election operations that was prompted by requests from GOP lawmakers under the state's new takeover provision for election boards. Although the review was prompted by Republicans who question the legitimacy of Georgia's 2020 election, the potential takeover would only affect future contests.
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.
At the urging of former President Donald Trump, a crowd of about 400 supporters flocked to the Michigan Capitol steps Tuesday to spend the cloudy afternoon demanding a “transparent forensic audit" of the 2020 presidential election that the one-term GOP president lost.
GOP activists in Michigan and other states have called for an Arizona-style audit. Experts said the chaotic and often opaque process did not meet professional standards. But it (again) found no evidence of fraud and that now-President Joe Biden won the state, even though Trump and other supporters have lied that it did.
Biden defeated Trump by more than 154,000 votes in Michigan.
According to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's office, more than 250 state and local audits have confirmed the accuracy and integrity of Michigan's election, and none have come up with any evidence of widespread voter fraud.
The Lansing event featured familiar figures from conspiracy-laden events committee hearings thanking “patriots" for their Trump votes and repeatedly calling for the state's long-confirmed election results to be reexamined.
They included state Rep. Steve Carra (R-Three Rivers), who has introduced legislation for an “audit"; state Rep. Daire Rendon (R-Lake City); ex-state Sen. Patrick Colbeck (R-Canton), who has championed himself as an expert while propping up debunked election conspiracies; right-wing talk show host Randy Bishop, a.k.a. “Trucker Randy"; and so-called “Dominion whistleblower" Mellissa Carone, who testified to state lawmakers alongside Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani in December.
The rally was emceed by Janice Daniels, a former Troy mayor who was elected during the tea party wave, but was successfully recalled after making a series of homophobic comments.
Speakers and attendees repeated false claims about 5G “chips" in voting software, conspiracies about the voting software company Dominion being in on an effort to fix the vote, so-called “phantom voters" and more “evidence" that speakers say points to Democrats stealing the election from Trump.
Messages on signs ranged from “Trump won" and “F-ck Biden" to anti-mask and anti-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sentiments. Some depicted Whitmer as Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler, while others showed Biden's face transposed onto images of the late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Speakers told the more than 300 attendees to not give up on their efforts to support Trump and demand a full election audit.
At one point, speakers announced that Benson was “in the audience" and offered that she take the mic and explain the so-called voter fraud. Some audience members held up signs scrawled with messages like “Benson for prison," while event organizers repeatedly and baselessly insinuated that the Democratic official willfully broke election laws.
Benson was not present and a spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. It appears that attendees mistook her for House Minority Leader Donna Lasinski (D-Scio Twp.), who was screamed at and booed by Trump supporters on her way into her Capitol office.
“Today, we heard state elected officials wearing QAnon insignias spew the same kind of inflammatory rhetoric that brought men armed with assault rifles to these very steps last year," Lasinski said in a statement afterwards.
“… The behavior we saw today is not just embarrassing for our state, it's downright dangerous. Efforts like this to undermine faith in our democracy are no longer just about overturning the 2020 election, they're about eroding trust and laying the groundwork to overturn the next election," Lasinski continued.
According to the Detroit News, Rendon was seen wearing a pin with a “Q" flag symbolizing the pervasive right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory that is rooted in anti-Semitic tropes and revolves around Trump hunting down and eventually killing Democratic politicians and wealthy liberals who lead double lives as Satan-worshipping cannibals running a child sex trafficking ring.
“Now we've seen the evidence [of election fraud]. … We've seen a lot of evidence. Why doesn't anyone else want to see it?" Rendon said on stage Tuesday, without offering details of the evidence.
Rendon was one of several Michigan lawmakers who sought to disrupt the state's Electoral College vote in December by submitting an illegal slate of GOP “electors." She has also been involved in legal efforts to overturn the election and challenge election results.
Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) Chair Lavora Barnes released a statement Tuesday excoriating the rally and attaching a picture of Rendon wearing the QAnon flag pin during what appears to be a legislative committee hearing.
“Representative Rendon simply continues to spiral further into bogus, dangerous, and violent conspiracy theories about the 2020 election," Barnes said. “… If she is so convinced by her own bogus conspiracy theories about the 2020 election results, then she should just resign. Michiganders and our democracy would certainly be better for it."
The House and Senate did not hold regular sessions with attendance and votes on Tuesday. Spokespersons for both Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) and House Speaker Jason Wentworth (R-Clare) said the decision was not related to the coinciding Trump rally outside.
“Not in the least," Shirkey spokesperson Abby Mitch told the Advance in an email Monday. “Both caucuses' floor leaders made it clear they had members who wanted to attend the funeral of Rep [Andrea] Schroeder [R-Independence Twp.]," Mitch said.
Colbeck, as he has done before at legislative committee hearings since the 2020 election, repeated unsubstantiated claims to the crowd about Democrats purposefully exploiting weaknesses in the election system to change the votes.
“That allows one person with an IV drip of Red Bull to go off and modify and select the next leader of the free world," Colbeck said. He went on to characterize Benson's efforts to send out absentee ballot applications — not ballots themselves — as “good old-fashioned ballot stuffing."
Trump-backed Kalamazoo attorney Matthew DePerno also spoke. DePerno, who plans to run against Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel in 2022, said Nessel worked with Benson to orchestrate a scheme and fraud the election.
“I have been threatened by Dana Nessel," DePerno said, without evidence, amid chants of “lock her up," before launching into talking points that ranged from blasting “socialism" to ending critical race theory, which is not part of the curriculum in Michigan schools.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and Twitter.
"The judge in Dominion Voting Systems Inc.'s $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News balked at ordering the network to turn over performance reviews of Tucker Carlson and other hosts who aired false election-fraud claims," Bloomberg News reports. "Reviews are 'about as personal as it gets,' Judge Eric Davis said at a discovery hearing Tuesday in Delaware state court. The request is 'too intrusive' without further explanation on why the reviews might help Dominion's case, he said."
The lawsuit originated from Fox News pushing Donald Trump's "Big Lie" of election fraud.
"According to Dominion, the reviews would bolster its claim that Fox maliciously booked former President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani and former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell to appear on its top-rated shows, where they spread false claims that the company rigged the 2020 presidential election," Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg reports Dominion is also seeking performance reviews of Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs.
The parties were ordered to meet in an attempt to narrow other areas of dispute in the discovery process before returning to the questions of the performance reviews, Bloomberg reported.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has another wild conspiracy theory to explain Donald Trump's election loss.
The right-wing pillow magnate claims, without any evidence or sourcing, that tens of thousands of people voted using fictitious addresses and phone numbers to push Joe Biden over the top in Wisconsin, a key battleground state previously won by Trump in 2016, reported Newsweek.
"If you can pull up, I'm going to show you guys in Wisconsin, just an example, how 23,000 people voted using a prison address and used the same phone number," Lindell said during an interview posted on his namesake website, "and a lot of them were people that turned out, as we dove into it, they're not alive anymore, they just used their names obviously, and they don't live in Wisconsin."
Lindell did not explain how he uncovered this alleged fraud or how so many voters were able to use fraudulent identities without detection by election officials, and he did not identify which prison he was discussing.
The conspiracy-mongering Lindell has been sued, along with former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, for defamation in a $1.3 billion complaint filed by Dominion Voting Systems over lies they spread about their equipment in an effort to overturn the former president's loss.
Lindell has been banished from Twitter and Fox News for spreading election misinformation.
