Tag: Trump election fraud lie

Former Trump campaign staffers file lawsuit in Ohio on the strength of the former president’s Big Lie

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In Stark County, Ohio, a continuation of the fight over the 2020 presidential election is in full swing although the right-wing arguments are founded on a Big Lie. According to Talking Points Memo, former Trump campaign staffers have filed a new lawsuit focused on allegations of “misconduct by the county board of elections.”

The problems began back in December when the Stark County Board of Elections voted in favor of investing $1.5 million for the purchase of new voting equipment from Dominion Voting Systems. However, in March the Republican-led Stark County Board of Commissioners pushed back with a vote opposing the purchase of 1,450 machines after received an influx of complaints from Trump supporters.

“They believe the election was stolen from Trump and we should stand by Trump and the Dominion machines have been known to be hacked,” Commissioner Richard Regula said to the Canton Repository. “It’s been the most calls I’ve ever received as a county commissioner. … I had 17 voicemails in one day.” Continue reading.

In echo of Arizona, Georgia state judge orders Fulton County to allow local voters to inspect mailed ballots cast last fall

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A Georgia state judge on Friday ordered Fulton County to allow a group of local voters to inspect all 147,000 mail-in ballots cast in the 2020 election in response to a lawsuit alleging that officials accepted thousands of counterfeit ballots.

The decision marks the latest instance of a local government being forced to undergo a third-party inspection of its election practices amid baseless accusations promoted by President Donald Trump that fraud flipped the 2020 contest for President Biden.

The inspection in Fulton County, home to Atlanta, is likely to proceed differently than an audit underway in Maricopa County, Ariz., where Republican state senators ordered county election officials to hand over equipment and ballots to a private company called Cyber Ninjas for examination. That process has come under widespread criticism for lacking security measures and failing to follow the rigorous practices of government recounts. On Thursday, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) urged local officials to toss their machines after the audit is complete because their security is now in doubt. Continue reading.

GOP efforts to downplay danger of Capitol riot increase

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Attempts to whitewash the violence of the Jan. 6 insurrection and cast the rioters as sympathetic characters are becoming increasingly common among Republican members of Congress.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) this week said it was a “false narrative” to say “there were thousands of armed insurrectionists breaching the Capitol,” while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said the rioters charged with crimes were facing overly harsh treatment in jail and questioned why Congress isn’t also investigating liberal protests over racial justice last year that at times turned violent.

Other Republicans in recent days have falsely claimed the rioters weren’t armed and questioned whether people in the mob were really former President Trump’s supporters. One GOP lawmaker compared one image of the Capitol breach to a “normal tourist visit.”

New analysis reveals one key reason Trump lost Arizona — and deflates his claim of ‘rigging’

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About 75,000 Republican-leaning voters in Arizona’s two most populous counties did not vote to re-elect President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, according to an analysis of every vote cast by a longtime Arizona Republican Party election observer and election technologists familiar with vote-counting data.

The analysis from Maricopa and Pima Counties underscored that the Arizona state Senate’s ongoing audit of 2.1 million ballots from Maricopa County’s November 2020 election was based on a false premise—that Democrats stole Arizona’s election where Trump lost statewide to Joe Biden by 10,457 votes.

“I am continuing my analysis of why Trump lost in Arizona,” Benny White, a former military and commercial pilot who has been a Republican election observer for years in Pima County and was part of the research team, saidin a May 10 Facebook post. “Bottom line: Republicans and non-partisans who voted for other Republicans on the ballot did not vote for Trump, some voted for Biden and some simply did not cast an effective vote for President.” Continue reading.

‘The warning signs are all there’: Ex-Reagan aide fears Trump is leading the party to more political violence

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During Donald Trump’s presidency, long-time conservative activist Peter Wehner wrote a series of anti-Trump articles for The Atlantic. And although Trump has been gone from the White House for four months, Wehner remains a vehement critic of the GOP’s current direction. A former speechwriter under three Republican presidents — Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush — he discusses Trump’s unending stranglehold on the GOP in an article published by The Atlantic this week. And he warns that the potential for more political violence continues as long as so many Republicans maintain their unwavering devotion to Trump.

“The GOP remains fully in Trump’s thrall, with its leadership more committed than ever to spreading his foundational lies and conspiracy theories,” the 60-year-old Wehner laments. “Under Trump’s sway, the Republican Party is becoming more fanatical, venturing even further into a world of illusion…. No former president, and certainly no president defeated after only one term, has so dominated his party after he left office.”

The Never Trump conservative points to Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming as an example of a prominent GOP conservative who lost a leadership position for being openly critical of Trump and refusing to indulge his false claim of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Cheney formerly served as House Republican Conference chair, making her the third highest-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives. But Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, lost that position, Wehner notes, for her “fireable offense” of “refusing to remain silent in the face of Trump’s ongoing efforts to undermine our constitutional system.” Continue reading.

Republicans lose patience with Arizona election audit

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PHOENIX — A growing chorus of Arizona Republicans is calling on the GOP-controlled state Senate to end an audit into Maricopa County’s 2020 election results that is increasingly relying on disproven conspiracy theories to challenge President Biden’s victory here.

The audit, ordered by a state Senate majority that has bought into former President Trump’s big lie about the results of the election he lost handily, is on hold until Monday. It has already dragged on well past the estimated time auditors said it would take to recount the county’s ballots.

But some Republicans say they hope it does not continue after embarrassing revelations that supposedly bombshell allegations by auditors who have perpetuated Trump’s lies were in fact errors made by the auditors themselves. Continue reading.

Proud Boys member who allegedly shouted about taking the Capitol before breach arrested

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U.S. authorities have arrested three more alleged associates of two right-wing groups in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, including one who allegedly shouted, “Let’s take the f—ing Capitol!” an hour before the assault while marching with a large group of Proud Boys around the building.

Charging papers identified Daniel Lyons Scott, 28, of Bradenton, Fla., as the Proud Boys member nicknamed “Milkshake,” who after allegedly yelling about taking the Capitol was admonished, “Let’s not f—ing yell that, okay?” by a Proud Boys leader on a video live-streamed by the group that day. In the same moments, court documents allege, accused leader Ethan Nordean was recorded saying, “It was Milkshake, man, you know . . . idiot!”

Nordean and three other Proud Boys seen near him that day have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to obstruct police and the joint session of Congress to confirm the 2020 election results. Continue reading.

Maricopa County will need new voting machines after GOP’s audit, Arizona secretary of state says

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The machines must be replaced because election officials don’t know what was done to them by the Republican auditors, she said.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said Thursday that the voting machines Republicans turned over to private companies as part of their audit of the 2020 election are no longer safe for use in future elections.

In a letter sent to Maricopa County officials and shared with NBC News, Hobbs, a Democrat, cited security concerns about losing the chain of custody over the equipment when it was handed over to the auditors and urged the county to get new machines. If it does not, her office would consider decertifying the equipment involved in the audit, she wrote. That would remove the machines from service.

State Senate Republicans subpoenaed nearly 400 of Maricopa County’s election machines, along with ballots cast by voters in November’s election, to facilitate an unusual audit of the election results. The GOP hired private firms, led by the Florida-based cybersecurity company Cyber Ninjas, to do the work. Continue reading.

GOP leader’s Jan. 6 call to Trump draws scrutiny in commission fight

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For Kevin McCarthy, the race to move beyond Jan. 6 is personal.

The House Republican leader not only has his eyes set on the Speakership after next year’s midterms, he was also the only lawmaker to speak directly to President Trump in the midst of the violent attack on the Capitol.

Those seemingly unrelated facts are in fact related in the context of the debate over the Jan. 6 commission. The dynamics make McCarthy unique among Republicans — and leave him with an equally unique dilemma.  Continue reading.

This Week in Republican Insurrection Erasure

It will shock you how much it never happened.

In the week following Liz Cheney’s purge for the crime of speaking honestly about the former president’s unprecedented, if buffoonish, attempt to overthrow the election and stay in power against the will of the people, Republicans have taken out their neuralyzer and moved deliberately and unapologetically down the path of January 6 erasure.

  • A witness to the president’s support for a domestic terror assault on the Capitol refuses to testify.
  • A congressman tries to retcon his support for overturning the election on national TV.
  • A Republican campaign committee rewards the members who tried to “Stop The Steal.”
  • A senator who spearheaded the legislative coup is given massive platforms to promote his book about being silenced.

For the GOP, memory-holing the insurrection is the point.

It will shock you how much it never happened. Continue reading.