Tag: Trump attempt to steal a second term

Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers

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Election officials and their families are living with threats of hanging, firing squads, torture and bomb blasts, interviews and documents reveal. The campaign of fear, sparked by Trump’s voter-fraud falsehoods, threatens the U.S. electoral system.

Note: This story contains offensive language 

Late on the night of April 24, the wife of Georgia’s top election official got a chilling text message: “You and your family will be killed very slowly.”

A week earlier, Tricia Raffensperger, wife of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, had received another anonymous text: “We plan for the death of you and your family every day.”

That followed an April 5 text warning. A family member, the texter told her, was “going to have a very unfortunate incident.” Continue reading.

Trump Pressed Official to Wield Justice Dept. to Back Election Claims

The former president began pressuring his incoming acting attorney general even before announcing that his predecessor was stepping down, emails show.

WASHINGTON — An hour before President Donald J. Trump announced in December that William P. Barr would step down as attorney general, the president began pressuring Mr. Barr’s eventual replacement to have the Justice Department take up his false claims of election fraud.

Mr. Trump sent an email via his assistant to Jeffrey A. Rosen, the incoming acting attorney general, that contained documents purporting to show evidence of election fraud in northern Michigan — the same claims that a federal judge had thrown out a week earlier in a lawsuit filed by one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers.

Another email from Mr. Trump to Mr. Rosen followed two weeks later, again via the president’s assistant, that included a draft of a brief that Mr. Trump wanted the Justice Department to file to the Supreme Court. It argued, among other things, that state officials had used the pandemic to weaken election security and pave the way for widespread election fraud. Continue reading.

AG Garland to double enforcement staff to protect voting rights

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Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday announced the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division will double the number of enforcement staff dedicated to protecting the right to vote in the next 30 days. 

Why it matters: After an election fraught with baseless claims of fraud and a recent flurry of voter restriction bills in state legislatures, Garland underscored his dedication to protecting voting rights. He said the DOJ will “do everything in its power to prevent election fraud, and if found to vigorously prosecute” but will also scrutinize “new laws that seek to curb voter access.” 

  • “There are many things that are open to debate in America, but the right of all eligible citizens to vote is not one of them,” Garland said in his speech. “The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy. The right from which all other rights, ultimately flow.” Continue reading.

Chicago Cop Arrested In Jan. 6 Attack Allegedly Texted ‘We Inside The Capital LMFAO’

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Officer Karol J. Chwiesiuk allegedly breached the Capitol building, and told an acquaintance beforehand that he was going to D.C. to “f**k up some commies.”

Federal authorities arrested a Chicago police officer Friday morning for his alleged role in storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when hundreds of supporters of former President Donald Trump attempted to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the presidential election. 

Chicago Police Department officer Karol J. Chwiesiuk appeared remotely before U.S. Judge Gabriel Fuentes on Friday. Chwiesiuk faces charges of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building without lawful authority.

In a press conference Friday, CPD Superintendent David Brown said Chwiesiuk had been on the force for two years, and has been placed on desk duty since his arrest. Continue reading.

Capitol rioter’s attorney goes off on Trump for ‘letting the dummies take the hit’ while he went golfing at Mar-a-Lago

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After earlier comparing former president Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, the attorney for one of the Capitol rioters went on a rant at the end of an interview with CNN host John Berman in which he railed at Trump for sending “dummies” to do his dirty work in an effort to void the 2020 presidential election.

After his client, Anthony Antonio, carefully parsed his words in an effort to apologize for his actions — while at the same time admitting he went to Washington, D.C., on Jan 6th because the then-president was calling for people to show up — Antonio’s lawyer, Joseph Hurley went on an extended attack on Trump.

Asked if Trump should be held accountable for the Jan 6th insurrection, Antonio conceded, “I have my day in court and do I think he’s held responsible for this? I think he should be held responsible — we’re all responsible for our own actions, and I do think he should be held responsible,” before adding, “I trust our legal system to do what they see fit when it comes to his actions that day.” Continue reading.

Arizona ‘Fraudit’ Challenged By Experienced Election Auditors

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A team of seasoned election auditors has challenged the Republicans leading the Arizona Senate’s inquiries into the accuracy of 2020’s presidential election results to a demonstration where the auditors say that they will conclusively show that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in Arizona’s most populous county.

The challenge, led by a longtime Republican Party election observer and two technologists familiar with voting systems and vote-counting data, would present the results of every race in any randomly chosen batch of ballots, as generated by Maricopa County’s 2020 election data. Those paper ballots would be hand-counted and compared to the electronic totals to attest to the election’s results. These paper and digital records are the building blocks of the county’s voting system.

“We now have the capability to determine the ballot count and vote results for all of the elections on any batch and any box of ballots that were delivered to the [Senate’s contractor, Florida-based Cyber] Ninjasunder the [Senate’s] subpoena, without ever looking at a single ballot,” Tucson’s Benny White, a longtime election observer for the Arizona and Pima County Republican Parties, wrote on June 8 in a letter to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann and the audit liaison and former Secretary of State Ken Bennett. Fann and Bennett are Republicans. Continue reading.

FBI Director Testifies Capitol Rioters Carried ‘All Sorts Of Weapons’

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FBI Director Christopher Wray testified under oath on Thursday that at least one person among the supporters of Donald Trump who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 carried a firearm, while many used other items as weapons, refuting GOP attempts to portray the insurrection as less violent than it was.

Asked by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee whether anyone involved in the riot had been armed with a firearm, Wray responded, “I can think of at least one instance where there was an individual with a gun inside the Capitol, but for the most part the weapons were weapons other than firearms.”

Gohmert is one of several GOP lawmakers who have downplayed the attack that left five people dead and 140 law enforcement officers injured. Republicans like Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) falsely described the riot as a “normal tourist visit,” while Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) described the Trump supporters who violently pushed their way into the Capitol and beat up police officers guarding the building as “peaceful patriots.” Continue reading.

Capitol rioter had plans to bomb Amazon’s servers and take down the Internet: report

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According to a report from the Washington Post, a man taken into custody for attacking the U.S. Capitol as part of the Jan. 6th insurrection has admitted he later planned to wreak havoc on the internet by using bombs to take out Amazon’s servers.

The report notes that 28-year-old Seth Aaron Pendley, who is accused of taking a sawed-off rifle to the Capitol assault, hoped to cripple government operations with his bomb attack

According to WaPo, Pendley was arrested when he met with a seller of C4 explosive devices who was actually an FBI agent. Continue reading.

Brooks’s claim that counting the votes of ‘eligible American citizens’ would have reelected Trump

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Donald Trump won the presidential race “if only lawful votes cast by eligible American citizens were counted … Somewhere in the neighborhood of 900,000 to 1.7 million noncitizens voted in the 2020 presidential election overwhelmingly for Joe Biden.”

— Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), in an interview with the Washington Examiner, published June 7

Brooks, who is running for the Senate, is echoing Trump’s false claim that President Biden actually lost the election. He, like Trump, claims there was all sorts of election fraud behind Biden’s victory. But he also has argued that Biden’s victory was greased by the votes of noncitizens.

The Examiner said that Brooks “did not provide evidence to support the claim” but instead pointed to a speech he made on Jan. 7 that laid out his calculations. In the address on the House floor, he declared: “Noncitizens overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden in exchange for the promised amnesty and citizenship and, in so doing, helped steal the election from Donald Trump, Republican candidates, and American citizens all across America.”

The speech is actually rather detailed in showing Brooks’s math. But it relies on dubious assertions, some of which we have fact-checked before, to come up with these numbers. Continue reading.

Trump’s election fraud claims propelled them to the Capitol on Jan. 6. His ongoing comments are keeping them in jail.

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Many of those charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol have blamed former president Donald Trump for their actions, saying he riled them with his claims of election fraud and his promises to join them in fighting it.

Now, Trump’s continued refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election is helping to keep some of those supporters behind bars.

“The steady drumbeat that inspired defendant to take up arms has not faded away; six months later, the canard that the election was stolen is being repeated daily on major news outlets and from the corridors of power in state and federal government, not to mention the near-daily fulminations of the former President,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote recently in denying bond to a Colorado man. The man is accused of driving to Washington with two firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition after threatening to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D). Continue reading.