Tag: 2020 election

Proud Boys leader arrested in the burning of church’s Black Lives Matter banner, D.C. police say

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The leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was arrested by D.C. police Monday afternoon on a warrant charging him with burning a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a historic Black church during a demonstration last month, officials said.

Police stopped a vehicle Tarrio had been in shortly after it entered the District, said Dustin Sternbeck, a D.C. police spokesman. He said it is believed that Tarrio, who lives in Miami, was coming into the District from the airport.

Sternbeck said Tarrio is charged with one misdemeanor count of destruction of property in connection with the Dec. 12 burning of a banner stolen from Asbury United Methodist Church. Continue reading.

Dominion plans to sue Sidney Powell, doesn’t rule out Trump

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Dominion Voting Systems plans to sue attorney Sidney Powell “imminently” for defamation, and it’s continuing to explore similar suits against President Trump and others, company founder and CEO John Poulos told the Axios Re:Cap podcast on Monday.

Between the lines: Dominion, which makes the voting machines used in Georgia and elsewhere, has been the subject of baseless accusations of malfeasance during last November’s elections. 

  • Trump, during his leaked call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, called the U.S.-based company “corrupt” and had to be corrected by Raffensperger after claiming machines had been recently removed and/or altered by Dominion employees. Continue reading.

Threats of violence and the virus grip Capitol Hill

The new Congress confronts a week of unrest.

Their first week back in Washington, lawmakers are grappling with an unprecedented mix of dangers on the job: intense pro-Trump rallies that authorities fear could turn violent and a deadly pandemic that has already claimed one of their own. 

And that doesn’t include what many in both parties consider an entirely different threat to American democracy — a historic effort by a growing band of Republicans to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential victory on the floors of Congress.

Congressional and D.C. officials are bracing for clashes in the streets on Wednesday, when dozens of GOP lawmakers will launch that doomed attempt to challenge the election results. President Donald Trump has encouraged his hardcore supporters — who have framed Jan. 6 as a battle akin to the American Revolution and encouraged each other to bring firearms — to march in the “wild” protests in hopes of pressuring Congress to keep him in power. Continue reading.

Capitol placed on lockdown, buildings evacuated amid protests

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The U.S. Capitol Police on Wednesday locked down the Capitol building and evacuated multiple congressional buildings amid increasingly violent protests outside.

Buildings being evacuated included the Library of Congress’s Madison Building across from the Capitol as well as the Cannon House office building. In an alert sent to Hill staffers, police ordered occupants of the Madison building to “move in a safe manner to the exists” and “close doors behind you but do not lock.”

Capitol police also told those in the Cannon House building to “take visitors, escape hoods, and Go Kits” and report to a tunnel connected to a nearby building. Continue reading.

Karl Rove Goes Off on Trump’s ‘Unseemly’ Georgia Phone Call: ‘It Boggles My Mind’

“The president has been ill-served in this whole process.”

Fox News contributor Karl Rove joined other Republicans on Monday in openly criticizing President Donald Trump’s “unseemly” call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he urged the Republican official to “find” 11,780 more votes in his favor to flip the state from President-elect Joe Biden.

In a potentially legally perilous call over the weekend, the president spent an hour attempting to shake down Raffensperger while parroting unhinged conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud. A recording of the call, which featured the Georgia secretary of state repeatedly debunking Trump’s false claims and rebuffing his requests to overturn the election, was later leaked to TheWashington Post.

During Monday’s broadcast of Fox News panel show Outnumbered, Rove—who has been criticalof Trump’s efforts to overthrow Biden’s victory—was asked by lead anchor Harris Faulkner to respond to the “shock over one Republican recording that” call. Continue reading.

Business leaders urge Congress to certify Biden win

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Almost 200 of the country’s top business leaders urged Congress to certify the electoral results for President-elect Joe Biden in a letter Monday, arguing that “attempts to thwart or delay this process run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy.”

The letter marked the business community’s most significant push yet to ensure President Trump’s efforts to overturn the November election are unsuccessful. Signers included a wide array of executives of Fortune 500 companies, from the leaders of banks, airlines, investment firms, pharmaceutical companies, professional sports leagues, real estate conglomerates, top law firms and media companies.

“The presidential election has been decided and it is time for the country to move forward,” the letter reviewed by The Washington Post said. “ … The incoming Biden administration faces the urgent tasks of defeating covid-19 and restoring the livelihoods of millions of Americans who have lost jobs and businesses during the pandemic.” Continue reading.

DC braces for pro-Trump protests amid Electoral College challenge

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Officials in Washington, D.C., are bracing for clashes in the streets Wednesday as thousands of pro-Trump supporters arrive to protest the presidential election and cheer on challenges of the Electoral College in Congress.

President Trump in several tweets has called his supporters to gather in the country’s capital for “wild” protests, sparking fears of trouble between proponents and critics of the president.

Three groups have submitted permits to the National Parks Service (NPS) to hold demonstrations Tuesday and Wednesday, calling on Congress to move toward overturning the election in Trump’s favor. The NPS has approved two, granting Women For America First a permit for the “March for Trump” at the Ellipse on Wednesday and the Eighty Percent Coalition a permit for its “Rally for Revival” in Freedom Plaza on Tuesday.  Continue reading.

Trump and his enablers have betrayed our country, and they should be held to account

This thing that’s happening? No one knows what to call it. Despotism? A soft coup? A temper tantrum? Part of the problem is that it is — in the words of former Trumper Chris Christie — “an absurdity.” 

I can be of some use here. Words are my stock and trade.

This is a betrayal of our nation. That’s what we should call it. Continue reading.

Election fight tears at GOP

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An effort by President Trump and his allies in Congress to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election is tearing apart the Republican Party in a messy fight a few days before two critical special elections in Georgia that will determine the Senate majority in 2021.

Adding to the spectacle, The Washington Post on Sunday published a recording of an extraordinary hour-long conversation between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, in which the president pressured the state official to “find 11,780 votes” in order to make him the winner of Georgia’s electoral votes instead of Biden.  

The published details of the recorded conversation heightened the sense of alarm among some Republican senators that Trump and his allies are trampling on the nation’s tradition of orderly post-election transitions of power. Continue reading.

From a presidential commission to Trump-nominated judges, here’s who has rebuked Trump’s voter fraud claims

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President Trump’s extraordinary phone call with fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, in which he urged Georgia‘s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to overturn Trump‘s defeat, is not the first time Trump has tied an unfavorable election outcome to false claims of fraud.

Trump‘s latest efforts are part of a years-long pattern. But Trump’s baseless claims have been rebuked by many people, including Republicans and the judges he appointed to the bench.

Here are groups and individuals who have found no merit in Trump’s attacks on the election system: Continue reading.