Tag: Trump big lie

Dating app trips up another Capitol riot suspect, one accused of hitting police with whip

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The phrase “all is fair in love and war” took on a new meaning Friday, when a Texas man was arrested after boasting to a match in a dating app about participating in the Jan. 6 riot “from the very beginning.”

Andrew Taake of Houston was charged with assaulting police and storming the Capitol building. His arrest follows a months-long investigation spurred by a tip and a FedEx delivery driver who confirmed his identity to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Taake made his initial court appearance Friday in the Southern District of Texas, according to a Department of Justice news release. His public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Continue reading.

Suspect Tries to Compare Capitol Riot to Last Year’s Violence in Portland, Ore.

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Right-wing news media and Republican politicians have often made the comparison. Now, in a narrow legal context, a judge will consider the argument.

The comparison has become a staple among right-wing figures in the news media and Republican politicians: The attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 was really no different than the unrest last year that accompanied months of racial justice protests. Any discussion of the first should — out of fairness, they have said — make reference to the second.

Now, for the first time, a federal court is poised to consider the merits of that argument, albeit in a narrow legal context.

The move comes in the case of Garret Miller, a Dallas man charged with storming the Capitol and facing off with officers inside. Last month, Mr. Miller, 34, raised what is known as a selective prosecution defense, claiming that he had been charged with violent crimes because of his conservative beliefs while dozens of leftist activists in Portland, Ore., had similar charges stemming from last year’s violence reduced or dismissed. Continue reading.

A Republican official’s comment accidentally exposes the party’s ‘Snowflake Syndrome’: columnist

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A recent op-ed piece published by The Washington Post highlights the problem of Snowflake Syndrome among voters who cast ballots for former President Donald Trump. The author, Greg Sargent, notes that the current Republican agenda centers on the following: restricting voting rights, sowing doubt about the COVID-19 vaccine, and downplaying the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The problem is that there is no justification or substantial evidence to support any of their arguments regarding these initiatives. In fact, all are connected to false narratives and misinformation that has been, in some way, influenced by Trump. For example, the nationwide push for voting rights restrictions is supposedly an incentive to increase voters’ confidence in the integrity of the United States’ voting systems. But Sargent pushed back against that argument describing it as “bad-faith nonsense.”

“Broadly speaking,” Sargent wrote, “this “confidence” storyline is bad-faith nonsense: It’s being widely abused to keep alive the myth of the stolen election and to justify an unprecedented wave of efforts to disenfranchise the opposition’s voters. It is not designed to build confidence in our elections, but to further undermine it, for illicit purposes.” Continue reading.

Trump wants to punish GOP critic — but he’s having trouble finding someone who can actually do it

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Donald Trump is laser focused on punishing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) in a Republican primary race.

The ex-president’s advisers have been pressing potential challengers on their ability to raise money and the strength of their campaign organizations, hoping to find a single candidate to take down Cheney, reported Politico.

“Trump’s analysis is correct that we need to get it down to a two-person race, and at that point, the challenger is likely to win, based on the polling we’ve done,” said David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth. Continue reading.

Trump Expected His SCOTUS Picks to ‘Deliver’ on Election and ‘Disappointed’ They Didn’t: Report

Former President Donald Trump is disappointed with Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett for not standing by him over his charges of election fraud.

This is according to Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig, who revealed this bit of reporting during a Friday morning appearance on CNN’s New Day in promotion of I Alone Can Fix This, the Trump tell-all she co-wrote with Philip Rucker.

John Avlon brought up a recent CNN report that showed the Trump Department of Justices allegedly buried over 4,000 tips it received during the contentious nomination of Kavanaugh amid charges of sexual misconduct. Continue reading.

New report thoroughly discredits GOP’s claims of widespread voter fraud

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In states all over the country, former President Donald Trump and Republican officials, leaders, and lawmakers raised concerns about claims of voter fraud. To make matters worse, multiple attorneys general and prosecutors in various states also echoed the same baseless claims despite not having substantial evidence of voter fraud. 

While there were isolated reports of voter fraud, many of those cases actually involved Republican voters casting illegal votes for Trump. Now, a new report reveals how sparse claims of voter fraud have been, undercutting the conservative outcry alleging election rigging.

According to Bloomberg Government: Continue reading.

Trump’s PAC collected $75 million this year, but so far the group has not put money into pushing for the 2020 ballot reviews he touts

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Former president Donald Trump’s political PAC raised about $75 million in the first half of this year as he trumpeted the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen from him, but the group has not devoted funds to help finance the ongoing ballot review in Arizona or to push for similar endeavors in other states, according to people familiar with the finances.

Instead, the Save America leadership PAC — which has few limits on how it can spend its money — has paid for some of the former president’s travel, legal costs and staff, along with other expenses, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the group’s inner workings. The PAC has held onto much of its cash.

Even as he assiduously tracks attempts by his allies to cast doubt on the integrity of last year’s election, Trump has been uninterested in personally bankrolling the efforts, relying on other entities and supporters to fund the endeavors, they said. Continue reading.

Pennsylvania decertifies county voting system following private company audit promoted by pro-Trump state senators

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Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state has decertified a county’s voting system for future elections after it was subjected to a review by a private company in an effort promoted by a group of state senators supporting former president Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Acting secretary of state Veronica W. Degraffenreid said in a statement Wednesday that Wake TSI’s examination of the Fulton County ballots earlier this year violated the state’s election code.

Pennsylvania is the second state where officials have decertified election equipment because of questionable audits requested by Republicans. Arizona’s Maricopa County said in June that it will replace voting equipment that was turned over to a private contractor for a Republican-commissioned review of the 2020 election. Continue reading.

Pelosi says GOP antics won’t stop Jan. 6 panel’s work

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday said the panel looking into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol “will not let” GOP “antics stand in the way” of the investigation, offering her first detailed remarks on her rejection of two Republican lawmakers for the committee.

“It’s my responsibility as Speaker of the House to make sure we get to the truth on this, and we will not let their antics stand in the way of that,” Pelosi said at a press conference on Thursday.

Drama unfolded on Wednesday after Pelosi announced that she was rejecting two of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) five nominees, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.). Continue reading.

‘Like Nixon drunk rambling’: Anderson Cooper shocked by new Trump recording blaming Capitol police for Jan. 6

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Reporters Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker’s new book, I Alone Can Fix It, ends with a conversation with Donald Trump where he rattles off a random slate of conspiracy theories from attacking the 86 judges who wouldn’t rule in his favor to the Supreme Court.

But one major part of the recording has Trump saying that the whole ordeal was the fault of the Capitol Police because they “ushered” the protesters inside the building. Nothing of the sort happened, so it’s unclear where Trump got his information. Protesters used poles and stole police shields to break windows and doors in an effort to get into the building. 

“We want to understand what did you want when you said ‘go up there’?” Leonnig says in the recording, referring to Trump saying that he was going to march with the crowd to the Capitol. Continue reading.