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.

Trump says Gen. Mark Milley should be ‘court-martialed’ if he thought the former president potentially sought a coup

Former President Donald Trump on Friday said that General Mark Milley should be “court-martialed and tried” if he believed that the former president sought to carry out a coup, referencing an excerpt from a forthcoming book by Washington Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker.

Trump has pushed back against the excerpt from “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” which said that Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed the possibility of a coup with friends, legislators, and colleagues.

“The writings within these third-rate books are Fake News, and ‘General’ Milley (who [former Defense Secretary James] Mattis wanted to send to Europe in order to get rid of him), if he said what was reported, perhaps should be impeached, or court-martialed and tried,” the former president said in a statement. “He tries to be a tough guy, which he is not, but he choked beyond belief as soon as a microphone was stuffed in front of his face or, at the mere sight of the Fake News Media.”

Trump lashes out at Fox News after investigation debunks his allegations of fraud in Arizona

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President Donald Trump angrily lashed out at Fox News on Friday evening.

Trump was reacting to an Associated Press investigation that discredited his conspiracy theories about massive fraud in Arizona, a state which was won by Joe Biden.

“Arizona county election officials have identified fewer than 200 cases of potential voter fraud out of more than 3 million ballots cast in last year’s presidential election, further discrediting former President Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election as his allies continue a disputed ballot review in the state’s most populous county,” the AP reported Friday. Continue reading.

‘A propaganda tool’ for Trump: A second federal judge castigates attorneys who filed a lawsuit challenging the 2020 results

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Just before Christmas, two Colorado lawyers filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of 160 million American voters, alleging a vast conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election by the voting equipment manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems, Facebook, its founder Mark Zuckerberg, his wife Priscilla Chan and elected officials in four states — and asking for $160 billion in damages.

The case was dismissed in April, but now a federal judge is considering disciplining the lawyers for filing a frivolous claim — sharply questioning the duo in a Friday hearing about whether they had allowed themselves to be used as “a propaganda tool” of former president Donald Trump.

“Did that ever occur to you? That, possibly, [you’re] just repeating stuff the president is lying about?” Federal Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter asked the two lawyers, Gary D. Fielder and Ernest John Walker, during a hearing to consider sanctioning them. Continue reading.

Arizona audit muddles on with no clear end in sight

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Arizona’s partisan election audit is muddling along with no end on the horizon as Republicans in the state Senate and Democratic outside groups battle over the process.

The glacial pace of the audit — which state Senate Republicans kicked off in December — was put into sharp relief this week with each side complaining that the other had not provided needed documents related to the count.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp shot down a motion from the GOP to dismiss a lawsuit from liberal watchdog group American Oversight seeking documents related to the state Senate’s audit. Continue reading.

Two men charged in alleged plot to firebomb California Democratic Party headquarters

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Two men have been charged in an alleged plot to firebomb the California Democratic Party’s headquarters in Sacramento, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.

Ian Benjamin Rogers and Jarrod Copeland were “prompted by the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election” and believed their attack would spark a “movement,” according to federal prosecutors, who said the men were members of a militia group.

Law enforcement officers seized five pipe bombs, thousands of rounds of ammunition and “between 45 and 50 firearms, including at least three fully-automatic weapons” during a January search of Rogers’s home and business, according to the indictment. Continue reading.

Capitol rioter Proud Boy being ‘threatened’ in jail by fellow inmates: attorney

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On Thursday, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that a key high-ranking member of the Proud Boys being held in a jail in Seminole County, Florida is alleging to have been “threatened” by other inmates in the facility while awaiting trial for his involvement in planning the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Joseph R. Biggs, 37, was a leader among the Proud Boys in planning ‘an organized and violent attack’ upon the country’s democracy and its Capitol building on Jan. 6, according to federal prosecutors,” the paper reported. “And word that Biggs is locked up in a subsection of the Seminole County Jail, which holds about 150 federal inmates in other cases, has been getting around, according to J. Daniel Hull, who represents Biggs. ‘I do worry about somebody wanting to test Joe Biggs’ mettle,’ Hull said. ‘I think that’s going to be coming up more and more.'”

Biggs has been charged as part of a conspiracy — videos taken of the incident shows his fellow Proud Boys violently stampeding into the Capitol. Continue reading.