#Fake Electors

[odinsblog]

Disbarred Republican attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was hiding from the authorities and decided to taunt them. Thanks to his “masterful use” of social media, they caught him.

👉🏿 https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/18/politics/rudy-giuliani-served-arizona-indictment

[saywhat-politics]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

A.B. Stoddard at The Bulwark:

1. Trump’s Not Taking the L. . .

The last two weeks—the unveiling of the Harris-Walz ticket, and Kamala Harris’s surge in the polls—feels like some surreal dream state. Everything has changed. Have you noticed Harris has pushed Donald Trump right out of the comfy lead he’s held for an entire year? He’s noticed. From FiveThirtyEight to RealClearPolitics—pick your polling average—they all now show Harris out in front after only two and a half weeks.

Trump is no longer on track to win the election—which he has been for more than six straight months. Instead, the momentum, money, voter registration, volunteering, grassroots organizing, polling, and online engagement all favor the Democrats and it looks now like Trump could easily lose. But that won’t happen, because Trump doesn’t lose. He beat Joe Biden in 2020—remember? So if he’s not the rightful victor on November 5, an entire army of Republicans is ready to block certification of the election at the local level. No need to worry about mayhem on January 6, 2025 when Congress meets in joint session; the election deniers plan to stop a result right away if it looks like Harris is winning. Their goal: Refuse to certify anywhere—even a county that Trump won—and prevent certification in that state, which prevents certification of the presidential election. A Harris victory could become a nightmare.

An investigation by Rolling Stone identified “in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania . . . at least 70 pro-Trump election conspiracists currently working as county election officials who have questioned the validity of elections or delayed or refused to certify results.” Of those 70, 22 of them already have “refused or delayed certification” in recent past elections. Nationwide, Republicans have refused to certify results at least 25 times since 2020, in eight states—the most in Georgia.

The article describes social media posts from the zealots who have infiltrated election administration as showing “unapologetic belief in Trump’s election lies, support for political violence, themes of Christian nationalism, and controversial race-based views.” There are more than enough such individuals in these key posts to bring us to a constitutional crisis. “I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election” in November, Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias told Rolling Stone. “Everything we are seeing about this election is that the other side is more organized, more ruthless, and more prepared.” Sit with that.

Then there is this. Trump’s self-destructive attacks on Georgia’s popular governor made the headlines from his Atlanta rally last Saturday, but he also singled out for praise three little-known Georgians—Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, and Janelle King—calling them “pitbulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.” Who are Johnston, Jeffares, and King? They are three of the five members of Georgia’s State Election Board. Three days after Trump’s speech, this past Tuesday, those three Republicans approved a new rule requiring a “reasonable inquiry” prior to election certification that—while vague and undefined—could be exploited to delay certification and threaten the statewide election certification deadline of November 22.

The law in Georgia, where Trump and fourteen1 others are charged with plotting to overturn the 2020 election result, requires county election boards to certify results “not later than 5:00 P.M. on the Monday following the date on which such election was held”—so this year, by the evening of November 11. The secretary of state is then to certify the statewide results “not later than 5:00 P.M. on the seventeenth day” after the election, so November 22.

Across the country, the November election results will have to be certified in more than 3,000 counties, and all state results must be final by the time electors meet in each state on December 17. Members of county election boards are not tasked with resolving election issues; certification is mandatory and “ministerial,” not discretionary. Disputes over ballot issues are separate from the certification process—investigated and adjudicated by district attorneys, state election boards, and in court. Election experts say the new rule could disrupt the entire process across the state by allowing local partisans to reject results. And Georgia appears to be at the center of Trump’s plans. Casting doubt on Fulton County, which makes up the bulk of Democratic votes in the state, will help him claim he won the Peach State as the rest of the results come in red.

But even without an explicitly permitted “inquiry” like the new Georgia rule provides, Republicans in other swing states still plan on acting at the county level to slow or stop certification. Because questioning the outcome at the very start of the process will create delay. Any doubt and confusion, and perhaps even violence, makes it easier to miss essential deadlines and can threaten the chance that the rightful winner prevails. Election deniers also hope that sowing chaos might prompt GOP legislatures to intervene—in Georgia, Arizona, or Wisconsin for example—a dangerous scenario I wrote about in April.

[...] It’s crucial that these plans are widely publicized. And they can be. Just like Project 2025, which was virtually unheard of and is now in the forefront of the political debate. Putting a media spotlight on this issue will force Republican officials to address what they are well aware of and are refusing to call out. Yesterday CBS News reported Biden said in his first interview since leaving the presidential race he is “not confident at all” there will be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump loses. Harris isn’t likely to talk about this in her campaign, so it’s critical that other high-profile surrogates do. President Obama, President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and others must educate voters about the plot underway to force more public pressure and accountability on the process. Every Republican must be asked about local certification of elections, electors honoring the popular vote of their state, preventing political violence—all of it. Repeatedly. As Elias told an interviewer, there are things we can do, as citizens willing to invest some time, to take action. This isn’t a threat from abroad. This year—and likely for years to come—we will all have to continue to fight against what our fellow Americans are doing to subvert elections. Because without free elections—and facts and truth—we cannot be a free country.

A.B. Stoddard wrote in The Bulwark that Republicans will seek to cause chaos post-election to try to block certification of a potential Kamala Harris win.

[contemplatingoutlander]

This is an excellent NY Times interactive article, so the above link is a gift 🎁 link so anyone can read the entire article, even if they don't subscribe to the NY Times. Here are some excerpts.

Upending the outcome of a free and fair presidential election is no minor endeavor. It requires time, energy, money and, especially, an awful lot of people willing to do the wrong thing — or at least go along with it. The network of people who allegedly helped Donald Trump try, without success, to stay in power more than two and a half years ago may seem hopelessly chaotic, but there was a method to the madness. American elections are, by design, entrusted to the states and therefore decentralized. To meddle in them requires national masterminds working hand in glove with plotters at the state and local levels — a tangle of conspirators, enablers and indulgent bystanders as messy and sprawling as our democracy itself. And while it can be tempting to downplay or dismiss the entire nightmare as the pathetic machinations of crackpots and fringe figures or even to wave it off as ancient history, that would be a mistake. Those who worked to overturn the 2020 election are the same kinds of people and groups Mr. Trump would surely surround himself with if elected to a second term: unscrupulous or timid federal and state officials, ethically flexible lawyers and Republican yes men and women. Except that in 2025 those figures would have a better sense of how to dismantle the guardrails that once stood in their way and how to exploit the fault lines and weaknesses in our electoral process. [emphasis added]

Below is the final graphic in the article that shows all the people connected with Trump's coup attempt, including some who refused to go along with it:

This interactive article is well worth reading, and I invite you to use the above gift link to do so.

______________ The text of this article is by Michelle Cottle; the graphics are by Taylor Maggiacomo and Norman Eisen.

[mitchfynde]

I don't even need to drink. I'm at the final phase of this sober.

[onenakedfarmer]

Just eleven more traitors and enemies of the state going to prison for election fraud in service to and worship of Donnie D-Cups.

What a beautiful day.

Jake Hoffman

Anthony Kern

Kelli Ward

Michael Ward

Tyler Bowyer

Jim Lamon

Robert Montgomery

Nancy Cottle

Samuel Moorhead,

Lorraine Pellegrino

Gregory Safsten

[randyite]

[nando161mando]

If you're only allowed to vote for neoliberal parties, your election is a fucking sham and you have no democracy

[nodynasty4us]

From the April 24, 2024 article:

“Defendants and unindicted coconspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters,” the 58-page indictment reads.

The names of seven of the defendants, including Meadows, Giuliani and Epshteyn, are redacted, but the document makes clear who they are by describing their roles. Others include attorneys John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb, as well as Trump 2020 campaign operative Mike Roman.

Ken Chesebro, an attorney who helped devise Trump’s post-election strategy, is described as “unindicted coconspirator 4.”

The only defendants whose names are visible in the version of the indictment released by the Arizona attorney general’s office Wednesday evening are the 11 Republicans who falsely posed as the state’s presidential electors despite Joe Biden’s narrow victory there. Among them: former Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward, state senators Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, and Arizona’s RNC committeeman Tyler Bowyer.

[tomorrowusa]

Georgia wasn't the only state where Team Trump tried to interfere with the 2020 election.

While Trump himself wasn't indicted in Arizona, a number of his minions were.

A grand jury in Arizona has handed up an indictment against former President Donald Trump’s allies over their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, including the fake electors from that state and several individuals connected to his campaign. Boris Epshteyn, a former White House aide who remains one of Trump’s closest advisers; former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; and Rudy Giuliani are among those who have been indicted, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, announced the indictment Wednesday night, focusing on the 11 individuals who acted as pro-Trump electors in the state. The names of several other indicted defendants remain redacted, Mayes said in a statement Wednesday, until those people have been served. “A state grand jury made up of everyday regular Arizonans, has now handed down felony indictments for all 11 Republican electors as well as several others connected to this scheme,” Mayes said. “These are serious indictments, but this is the first hurdle the state must pass in our constitutional criminal justice system. We intend to prove these crimes were committed beyond a reasonable doubt.” While Trump is not among those charged in Arizona, the details in the indictment suggest he is “Unindicted Coconspirator 1.”

Trump likes nicknames so I hope he enjoys his new one: Unindicted Coconspirator 1.

Speaking of Arizona on Wednesday, the lower chamber of the legislature voted to repeal the state's 1864 extreme abortion ban. A handful of Republicans joined the Democratic minority to move the measure forward.

Tempers, retribution come with vote to repeal abortion ban

These actions, on the same day, act as reminders of the importance of state government. Making sure that your state is not controlled by MAGA extremists is just as vital as keeping Trump and his Capitol Hill sycophants out of power.

Get involved with state politics, especially the legislature. Start by finding out who represents you in the legislature.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

[odinsblog]

Just a reminder that Lindsey Graham still needs to be charged and held accountable for his role in the January 6th insurrection and trying to overturn the election.

👉🏿 https://www.vox.com/2020/11/18/21571684/lindsey-graham-brad-raffensperger-georgia-ballots

👉🏿 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-election-brad-raffensperger-lindsey-graham-throw-out-ballots/

[politicalantibody]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-could-face-more-criminal-charges-over-fake-electors-scam-report-says/ar-AA1ky6Ql?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=cf32aa844a114d5d96b46087c58b149b&ei=14

More fake elector lawsuits in the works. Trump's legal problems just keep getting worse. States to watch (besides Georgia: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

Remember, Donald. Today is the best day of the rest of your life.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Darrell Lucus at Loud, Liberal, Christian:

Much of the armchair quarterbacking over Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House centers around claims that Trump would have never been a position to run again had the Justice Department moved more quickly to prosecute him for absconding with classified documents and his role in the 2021 insurrection. Well, excuse me, but I disagree. Those criticizing Merrick Garland for waiting almost two years to start a criminal investigation against Trump need to ask themselves what would have happened had he moved quickly to investigate and indict Trump, only to have the case come unstuck in court. If you think Trump and his minions were screaming “WITCH HUNT!” now, imagine what would have happened had he been acquitted because a rushed investigation resulted in missteps at trial.

We would have risked a repeat of the Freddie Gray case, which came apart because Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby rushed the cases to court without ensuring there was enough evidence to show that the negligence of the officers who shackled Gray into a police van without a seat belt amounted to criminal conduct. We may have known their actions amounted to a callous disregard for life, but Mosby didn’t take the time to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. I’m also reminded of the Bill Cosby case, where prosecutors in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania cared more about chasing headlines than doing the actual work of putting Cosby away for sexual assault. In so doing, they relied too much on testimony Cosby gave in a civil suit—a Fifth Amendment violation that couldn’t be ignored on appeal, even if there was no real-world doubt that Cosby was a pervert.

From where I’m sitting, the real hackles should be directed at the Democratic campaign apparatus. It got the equivalent of manna from heaven in the form of voluminous evidence that showed not just beyond reasonable doubt, but ALL doubt, that when Trump was ranting about having a second term stolen from him, he did so when he damned well knew that he had lost to Joe Biden. And yet, in the absence of something I haven’t heard or seen, neither the party nor the Kamala Harris campaign (née the Joe Biden campaign) made a dedicated effort to ensure that evidence stayed in voters’ minds.

The first time that a lot of people learned that Trump knew he had lost came in late January 2021, when The New York Times reported that Trump’s legal team concluded as early as Nov. 12—nine days after the election—that it could not win enough legal challenges to overturn Biden’s lead in Arizona. Earlier that day, Trump’s legal team filed legal challenges to 191 ballots—not even a fraction of Biden’s 10,000-vote lead there. Ethically, they were required to tell Trump, or at the very least make sure he received that information. At the same time, Rudy Giuliani started ranting about supposed malfeasance by Dominion Voting Systems. By then, the deplorable tubes were percolating with talk that Dominion-powered voting machines had switched thousands of votes from Trump to Biden. Even though deputy campaign manager Justin Clark told Trump this was bullshit, Trump sided with Giuliani. This started what the Old Grey Lady called “an extralegal campaign” to wangle a second term. In light of what we now know, “extralegal campaign” is a polite term for “insurrection” or “attempted self-coup.”

A few days later, William Saletan of Slate compiled a list of articles that suggested Trump knew or reasonably should have known even earlier than Nov. 12 that he had lost. The two things that jumped out at me were articles in Axios and The Washington Post that indicated Trump knew his odds of overturning Biden’s lead were extremely slim. According to Axios, Clark and his boss, Bill Stepien, told Trump on Nov. 7, soon after most networks declared Biden president-elect, that he had only one shot shot at reelection. He needed to run the table among outstanding ballots in Arizona and Georgia, and also win a legal challenge to Wisconsin’s count. Clark told Trump that at best—AT BEST—he only stood a 10% chance of pulling it off. According to The Post, Trump ���signaled that he understood” what Clark was telling him—he needed a political Hail Mary to win another term.

The significance? As early as Nov. 12, Trump had to have known that on the latter date, he had no legitimate claim to Arizona’s 10 electoral votes. As anyone who was paying attention in 2020 knows, Trump had no politically realistic path to 270 that didn’t include Arizona’s 10 electoral votes. He damned well knew or damned well should have known that path had closed off as early as nine days after the election, and was still railing about fraud.

[...] And yet, a mere five days later, Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis held an absolutely bonkers press conference in which they aired out claims that they knew or should have known were false. So the president of the United States damned well knew or damned well should have known that the Big Lie was, well, a lie. He damned well knew or damned well should have known said lie that was causing innocent people—election officials, poll workers, voting tech company workers—to be harassed, trolled, and threatened. And yet, he didn’t do a damned thing about it. Worse, actually—he allowed his legal team to make those very same claims to the American people. The ads wrote themselves—or at least should have written themselves. And yet, in the absence of something I haven’t heard or seen, they never came. Any concerns the Biden campaign might have had about tainting a potential jury should have been put to rest with how that campaign memo came to light. It wasn’t obtained through a leak. It was obtained via a legal filing by Eric Coomer, the former Dominion employee who had taken the Trump campaign, Giuliani, Powell and several other elements of the right-wing fever swamp to court for defaming him. Coomer had been forced to go into hiding due to a litany of death threats stirred up by the Big Lie, and his lawyers got his hands on that memo via discovery. News reports are one thing. Legal filings are another. The timeline is laughably easy to follow. Trump knew as early as Nov. 7 that he was shooting his last legal bolt to win another term, and knew as early as Nov. 12 that said bolt had missed. On Nov. 14, his own communications team unearthed hard evidence that would have made it clear to anyone with a brain that the Big Lie was, well, a lie. And yet, five days after that memo came out, Trump’s own lawyers held a press conference centered around claims that they knew or should have known were false. Seen in this light, that press conference was the first overt act in the insurrection—and everything Trump and his team did after that date was in furtherance of that insurrection. That includes all of those hair-on-fire fundraising emails from the Trump campaign warning about fraud. Seen in this light, it’s clear that the insurrection actually started sometime in November. It was almost certainly underway by Nov. 19 at the latest; that day’s bonkers press conference was the first overt act in the insurrection.

[...] The Democrats had a chance to make Trump pay the ultimate political price for his lies—and in so doing, make it far easier to make him pay in court for it. And they blew it eight ways to Sunday. If there is any doubt that Democrats have a messaging problem, the Democrats’ failure to make the American people remember Trump lied and knew he was lying should put it beyond all doubt.

This post from Darrell Lucus is spot-on: Donald Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, but kept on pushing the lie that he “won” even after being told that he didn’t win.

See Also:

Adam Kinzinger: Trump's Shield of Power: Evading Justice

[spiderlegsmusic]

This should be clear: the coup attempt wasn’t the siege at the capitol. It was the fake electors scheme going on in the swing states. The attack on the capitol was part of it—it was needed to stop or delay the count so that these fake electors could get into place. Fortunately not all republicans are conscienceless. One of the fake electors in Michigan and in Georgia refused to sign their fake elector certificates, and Pence refused to take the fake electors list from Rep Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin). Thus the “hang Mike Pence” chants.

Had the coup been successful, new info came out (via Countdown) that Trump would have had Biden executed. Trump isn’t just a traitor, he’s capable of any atrocity you can imagine, so stop thinking “that can’t happen here.” He has said he will put immigrants and his critics in prison—vermin. Where will he draw the line?

Hitler didn’t just put Jews in the camps, he put artists, teachers, philosophers, musicians—anyone who criticized him, or who potentially could—in those camps.

Trump said he never read Mein Kampf, but Steven Miller, his right hand man (his Joseph Goebbels) has. And trump’s late exwife Ivana Trump told her lawyer, among other people, that Trump kept a book containing hitler’s speeches on his bedside table. The friend who gave it to Trump confirmed this.

Look who he admires: Xi, Kim, Orbán and his good buddy, Putin. Trump wants so desperately to be a dictator like his buddies. His last administration had republicans in high positions who were recommended by other republicans. They weren’t Trump people. They often butted heads and opposed trump’s ideas because they weren’t constitutional or because they were brutal or ridiculous or all 3.

If he wins, he will fill those positions with sycophants—Trump yes men—who won’t be qualified for those jobs and more importantly, won’t try to stop him when he does ridiculous, brutal or unconstitutional things…like rounding up brown people (the immigrants he hates aren’t the ones from Europe), critics, opponents , and why stop there? How about teachers, artists, philosophers and musicians? There won’t be anyone in his administration to stop him this time like there were last time.

Go ahead and call me a Cassandra. But it can happen here. On day 1 of trump’s dictatorship, he’ll round up immigrants and put them in camps. He has repeated that several times. Even when Hannity gave Trump an opportunity to downplay his threats, Trump doubled down on them. It can happen here. Register to vote. Vote.

The depths to which Trump will reach have no limits. He’s an evil and insane wannabe dictator. Biden isn’t an ideal president. He’s owned by corporations and special interests like most politicians. But he’s not going to round people up and put them in camps. He doesn’t admire Hitler. The past 4 years haven’t been great at all, but imagine the next 4 years under Trump with no one to stop his cruelty. No one to rein him in. He thinks he’s a king. Thinks he’s immune from prosecution. Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t have another scheme ready for when he loses this election too.

So if you’re planning on not voting because of biden’s stance on the war in Gaza, his inability to forgive student debt, or any of the other legitimate reasons you have for disliking him, I ask you to reconsider. Vote for him and hold his feet to the fire. Protest him until he hears you and changes his mind. He is at least capable of reconsidering his views.

He’s done it before. He wrote the crime bill during the Clinton administration that took a hardline approach to all drugs, including pot. This year he repealed the convictions of everyone who had been convicted of federal marijuana charges. That is literally 180° turn. You can change his mind.

You can’t change Trump’s.

If you read this far, thank you

[mitchfynde]

Reminder that Trump did not use alternate electors, he used fake electors. It's not some silly libtard thing. His electors were not chosen nor certified by the states. They were chosen by him and his administration and certified by no one.