Texas Republican Urges Election Audit — In Counties Biden Won

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Texas state Rep. Steve Toth (R) on Monday announced that he had filed legislation calling for a “forensic audit” of the state’s 2020 election results.

Former President Donald Trump won Texas in 2020 by nearly six percentage points despite ultimately losing the national electoral college and popular vote to President Joe Biden.

Toth’s bill, the “Texas Voter Confidence Act,” would not audit all of the 11 million-plus votes that were cast in the state. Instead, the legislation calls for an audit in “every precinct in each county with a population of 415,000 or more.”

This would disproportionately target counties that voted for Biden. Continue reading.

Tampa man, 20, admits intending to block Congress with Oath Keepers in new Capitol riot guilty plea

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A Tampa man pleaded guilty Tuesday to joining a “stack formation” of Oath Keepers members and associates who allegedly breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, becoming the latest to cooperate with prosecutors and the first among the formation to specify that he intended to hinder Congress that day using intimidation and coercion.

Caleb Berry, 20, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of obstructing an official proceeding.

In a plea deal, prosecutors agreed to request lowering an estimated prison term of 51 to 63 months under federal guidelines for Berry, who has no criminal record and is one of the youngest defendants charged in the Capitol riots, in exchange for his substantial assistance. Continue reading.

MAGA rioter’s hearing turns ‘ugly’ after she yells at judge while declaring herself a ‘sovereign citizen’

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A court hearing for MAGA rioter Pauline Bauer went off the rails on Monday after she began yelling at the judge while declaring herself a “sovereign citizen.”

NBC 4 Washington’s Scott MacFarlane reports that Bauer, who infamously called for the hanging of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during the Capitol riots, immediately went off the deep end by telling the judge that she is not subject to American laws.

According to MacFarlane, Bauer during her court hearing repeatedly interrupted the judge while also demanding that the court recognize her own personal judicial authority. Continue reading.

AG’s office refuses to reveal Marshall’s whereabouts before or after Jan. 6

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AG Steve Marshall’s office denied APR’s request for his calendar during the lead up to, and after, the Jan. 6 attack.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall won’t say where he was on the days leading up to and following the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

Marshall leads the Republican Attorneys General Association’s dark-money nonprofit Rule of Law Defense Fund, which paid for robocalls detailing when and where citizens should meet. 

Then-Republican Attorneys General Association director Adam Piper attended a Jan. 5 meeting at the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C., along with Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama; Donald Trump Jr.; Eric Trump; Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn; adviser Peter Navarro; Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski; and 2016 deputy campaign manager David Bossie, according to Charles W. Herbster, who was then the national chairman of the Agriculture and Rural Advisory Committee in Trump’s administration.

Jim Jordan among McCarthy picks for Jan. 6 panel

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Monday is expected to pick five Republicans to serve on the special House committee created to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The top Republican on the bipartisan panel will be Rep. Jim Banks (Ind.), a rising star who is serving this cycle as chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, GOP sources said.

The others , sources said, are Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee and the co-founder of the far-right Freedom Caucus; Rep. Rodney Davis (Ill.), the top Republican on the Administration Committee; and Reps. Kelly Armstrong (N.D.) and Troy Nehls (Texas), a former county sheriff. Continue reading.

Capitol rioter gets 8 months in prison in first Jan. 6 felony sentence

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38-year-old Paul Hodgkins of Tampa was sentenced to eight months in prison Monday after pleading guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony charge stemming from his participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Why it matters: Hodgkins is the first Jan. 6 rioter to be sentenced for a felony, setting a benchmark for hundreds of other cases that prosecutors have brought against individuals involved in the Capitol attack.

What they’re saying: As he prepared to announce the sentence, Judge Randolph Moss said that Hodgkins “actively participated” in an event that threatened not only Capitol security, but “democracy itself.” Continue reading.

Klobuchar Lays Out New Goals for Often Low-Key Rules Committee

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The panel typically focuses on the Senate’s inner workings, but its chairwoman, Amy Klobuchar, is seeking to transform it into a major force on voting rights.

WASHINGTON — The usually obscure Senate Rules Committee is the most insider of insider panels, typically responsible for doling out precious Capitol office space, keeping the Senate running and handling fights over arcane floor procedures.

But circumstances and the ambitions of the committee’s current chairwoman, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, have thrust the panel into the middle of things. In just six months, she has spearheaded a push for a sweeping voting rights bill sought by Democrats while her committee has investigated failings in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. The panel was also in charge of staging President Biden’s inauguration, only two weeks after the deadly riot.

“For so long people have been focused, understandably, on the inner workings of the Senate with the Rules Committee,” said Ms. Klobuchar, who answered with an emphatic “yes” when asked if she was trying to turn the panel into a force. “But the point is we have a bigger jurisdiction, and that’s our democracy.” Continue reading.

Cyber Ninjas Whine As Arizona ‘Audit’ Is Proved Utterly Pointless

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It’s been three weeks since the Arizona “audit”—a process that involved the most partisan of Trump partisans searching for “bamboo ballots” and the ghostly fingerprints of Hugo Chavez, under the supervision of a firm created expressly to bolster conspiracy theories—apparently came to a close. That is, the audit farce is still officially underway, but three weeks ago Cyber Ninjas tweeted out an announcement that they were done pretending to count ballots, and had moved onto the most critical part of the process: terminal whining.

As CBS News reports, Cyber Ninjas is now complaining that they “don’t have enough information” to complete the audit. Because getting to finger every single ballot, take control of the voting machines (which will now be discarded after the auditors did who knows what to them), and initiating a plan to go door-to-door asking people how they voted just isn’t enough. As has happened several times in the process, the Ninjas, along with supporters in the Arizona Senate, are directing fingers at the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors—the Republican-controlled Board of Supervisors—for failing to “cooperate” enough in an audit where they’ve turned over every ballot, every machine, and every scrap of paper related to the election. That’s not enough, say the Ninjas. They want … well, it might be easier to say what they don’t want. 

Until they get everything on their unreasonable list, and whatever unreasonable list comes after this, the “auditors” insist that they are not going to issue a report. Since July 2, all the ballots, machines, and accoutrements of Ninjaing have been parked at an unairconditioned building on the Arizona state fairgrounds. It’s unclear whether anyone is actually working there. Continue reading.

AP FACT CHECK: Trump Makes False Claims About Arizona Audit

Former President Donald Trump issued three statements in two days claiming that voting fraud and irregularities cost him Arizona’s electoral votes.

PHOENIX (AP) — Former President Donald Trump issued three statements in two days falsely claiming that voting fraud and irregularities cost him Arizona’s electoral votes.

Trump relied on comments made Thursday by contractors hired by state Senate Republicans to oversee a partisan review of the 2020 vote count in Maricopa County, which includes metro Phoenix.

The “forensic audit,” as Senate GOP leaders are calling their review, is overseen by Cyber Ninjas, a small computer security firm with no election experience before Trump began questioning the 2020 results. Its CEO, Doug Logan, spread false conspiracy theories about the election before he was hired to lead the Arizona review. Continue reading.

Current, former police officers charged in new Proud Boys indictment in Capitol riot

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A father and son, who are current and former Florida police officers, and a North Carolina man have been charged with joining alleged Proud Boys members in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to a new, five-co-defendant indictment unsealed in Washington on Friday.

Kevin “Tito” Tuck, 51, and Nathaniel A. Tuck, 29, of central Florida were arrested and released on $25,000 unsecured bond Thursday by a U.S. magistrate judge in Tampa, court records show.

Edward George Jr. was also arrested Thursday and was scheduled to appear in federal court Friday in Raleigh, according to court records. Continue reading.