Tag: Trump election fraud lie

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.

Oregon House officially expels Mike Nearman over involvement in State Capitol breach

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Oregon lawmakers have moved to expel Rep. Mike Nearman (R-Ore.) from the Oregon House of Representatives following his decision to aid far-right demonstrators by letting them into the state Capitol. 

On Thursday, June 10, House lawmakers voted 59-1 in favor of a resolution condemning Nearman’s decision to open the doors of the State Capitol for a crowd of protesters on Dec. 21 of last year. Lawmakers agreed that Nearman’s actions, which they described as “disorderly behavior” were enough cause for them to expel him, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Prior to the highly publicized vote, top-ranking House lawmakers weighed in with their opinion of Nearman’s actions. When House Republican Leader Christine Drazan appeared on the public radio show Think Out Loud, she admitted that protesters’ intrusion could have easily escalated into a deadly encounter similar to the one that unfolded at the White House on Jan. 6. 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.

Alleged supporters of right-wing Three Percenters group charged in new Jan. 6 Capitol riot conspiracy

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Six Southern California men, including four self-described members of the Three Percenters movement, were arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.

The new indictment adds the Three Percenters to the list of right-wing groups — mainly the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys — whose alleged associates have been charged with conspiring to impede police or thwart Congress’s confirmation of the 2020 presidential election results.

The 28-page indictment unsealed Thursday accuses the men of felony counts of conspiracy and aiding and abetting the obstruction of a joint session of Congress, although only one defendant allegedly entered the Capitol. Continue reading.

Poll: Nearly One-Third Of GOP Voters Believe Trump Will Be ‘Reinstated’

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Nearly one-third of Republicans believe Donald Trump will be likely be “reinstated” in office in August, a new Politico/Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday found — the latest lie the GOP base believes surrounding the 2020 election.

The poll found that an overwhelming majority of voters, or 72 percent, say it’s “not likely at all” or “not very likely” that Trump will be reinstated. However, 17 percent of Republicans believe it’s “very likely” that Trump will be reinstated, while another 12 percent believe reinstatement is “somewhat likely.”

Trump himself has been telling advisers that he will be reinstated by August, according to a report from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman confirmed by other outlets. 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.

Election Denial and $16 Spritzers: Welcome to Florida’s Trump Coast

Lured south by sunshine, golf, and money, the former president’s allies and hangers-on have formed an alternate universe that revolves around Mar-a-Lago.

Since he left Washington in turmoil in January, Donald Trump has spent the bulk of his brief, contentious post-presidency holed up in what Karl Rove calls his “Fortress of Solitude”—Mar‑a‑Lago, his private club in Palm Beach. It’s an odd sort of isolation: Although he’s largely cut off from the outside world, Trump is hardly alone.

Tossed from the White House, banished from Facebook and Twitter, Trump has never seemed more distant from public consciousness. But while he can’t broadcast out, those same platforms offer a surprisingly intimate glimpse into his new life, thanks to the prolific posting of the club’s guests. At every moment of his day, Trump is bathed in adulation. When he enters the dining room, people stand and applaud. When he returns from golf, he’s met with squeals and selfie requests. When he leaves Mar-a-Lago, he often encounters flag-waving throngs organized by Willy Guardiola, a former professional harmonica player and anti-abortion activist who runs weekly pro-Trump rallies in Palm Beach. “Give me four hours and I can pull together 500 people,” Guardiola says. Trump recently invited the self-proclaimed “biggest Trump supporter in the country” for a private consultation at his club.

In this gilded Biosphere, Trump encounters no one who isn’t vocally gratified by his presence. When he speaks extemporaneously, so many guests post footage that you can watch the same weird scene unfold from multiple vantage points, like the Japanese film Rashomon. Trump seems so comfortable, the journalist and Instagram sleuth Ashley Feinberg has noted, that he’s taken to wearing the same outfit for days on end. Blue slacks, white golf shirt, and red MAGA cap are to the former president what the black Mao suit is to his old frenemy Kim Jong Un. Club members say his new lifestyle agrees with him. “Presidents when they finish always look so much older,” says Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire founder of Interactive Brokers LLC, who lives three doors down from Mar-a-Lago. “Not true for Trump.” Continue reading.

Stephen Colbert Breaks Down Latest Bonkers Election Conspiracy To Emerge From GOP

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“Now this is obviously insane,” the “Late Show” host said of the wild “Italygate” theory.

Stephen Colbert took on the latest wild conspiracy to emerge from the GOP — the so-called “Italygate.”

The baseless theory suggests that people in Italy used military satellites to flip votes in the 2020 presidential election from then-President Donald Trump to his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.

The theory was even pushed by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the aftermath of Trump’s defeat, according to The New York Times. Meadows reportedly pressured the Justice Department to investigate. 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.