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Election Interference Page 1

Tracking interference into our elections
In 2016, we had to worry about the Russians interfering in our elections. In 2020 we worried that the Russians would interfere again never did we think that the President of the Untied States would be the one inferring in our elections and attempting to steal the election. Some Republicans are now helping Donald J. Trump interfere with, subvert the law and the will of the people, and steal the election depriving 80,000,000 of their votes. Trump will fail in his attempt to steal the election however, the damage that he and his enablers have done to our democracy will be long lasting.
By Matt Naham

A pro- Trump lawyer who more than one year ago now pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit filing false documents, a felony, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against Georgia RICO case co-defendants, which includes the former president, has been “convicted of a serious crime” and, for that reason, should have his license to practice in New York “immediately” suspended, a court decided on Thursday.

Chesebro is an attorney who drafted a legal memo contemplating a scenario where then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6 could set aside legitimate electoral votes from “contested States” and replace those with “Trump-Pence electors.” That memo was featured prominently in the Jan. 6 Committee’s final report , which highlighted the lawyer’s communications to propel the fake elector scheme forward in Nevada, Arizona , Wisconsin , and elsewhere.
Story by Taylor Odisho

Texas police are investigating the distribution of flyers targeting Kamala Harris supporters, which threaten that they have been added to a "national database" and will be subjected to an IRS tax audit.

On Saturday, the San Marcos Police Department shared in a Facebook post that they were investigating two reports of flyers posted on political signs around the city, stating: "You have been identified and are now in our National Database of miscreant Harris supporters, either by social interactions with your neighbors who are on our investigations team, or by yard signs, or vehicle bumper stickers."

It goes on to say instead of "the hangman's nooses of the old days" the person receiving the flyer will be "IRS tax audited...and at a minimum - - - 4 years of painful misery."

It was signed, "The Grand Dragon of Trump Klan #124."

Since then, the number of incidents has jumped to five, according to reporting by KXAN.
Story by Haley BeMiller and Scott Wartman, Cincinnati Enquirer

At a recent hearing of an elections board in Ohio's Wood County, Ted Bowlus stood up and explained that he is, in fact, a registered Ohio voter.

"Would you require any more evidence than what I presented?" Bowlus asked election officials when he finished his pitch.

"No, sir," Republican board member Doug Ruck replied. "Your name's on the plaque right behind me."

Bowlus is also a Wood County commissioner.

He and Ruck were among nearly 17,000 voters in the northwest Ohio county − about 20% of its voting population − to have their registration challenged days before early voting began in the Nov. 5 election. Ohio law allows individuals to contest another person's right to vote, which is designed to catch ineligible voters who may get overlooked during typical voter roll maintenance.

But Wood County isn't alone. Lorain County fielded about 1,000 challenges on Oct. 4 as election staff prepared for their busiest time of year. Since the summer, challenges have reached the Democratic strongholds of Hamilton and Franklin counties and more conservative areas such as Butler County, which received more than 3,000 of them.

The impact is practical and political.
Story by AFP

"Breaking" news, screamed an online post by a conservative American influencer as he pushed disinformation about Kamala Harris, illustrating how journalism lingo has been co-opted as a tool to amplify election falsehoods.

The misuse of the term, typically deployed by media outlets to relay major news developments, is part of a persistent assault on reality across tech platforms that researchers say have relaxed their guardrails against false information in a crucial election year.

It is yet another disinformation trend undermining trust in traditional media -- already at historic lows, surveys show -- alongside the proliferation of fake "news" sites and the growing tactic of attributing false information to legitimate media outlets.

Disinformation peddlers "commonly use terms like 'breaking' in an apparent attempt to convey legitimacy," Sam Howard, politics editor at the watchdog NewsGuard, told AFP.

"This tactic has had a conspicuous role in false US political narratives that have spread in 2024."
Story by Jesus Mesa

Former President Donald Trump sought to return to power months after his defeat in the 2020 election by urging Republican Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks to call for a special election that would reinstall him as president.

The attempt, part of a broader effort to overturn the election results, is detailed in famed Watergate journalist Bob Woodward's upcoming book War, which offers new insights into Trump's relentless pursuit to invalidate Joe Biden's victory four years ago.

By June 2021, six months after Biden's inauguration, Trump continued to privately push claims of a "stolen election," according to Woodward's book. Trump reportedly told his aides that he expected to return to the White House by August 2021, a date that coincided with false predictions circulated by QAnon conspiracy theorists.

"He had an army. An army for Trump. He wants that back," Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale is quoted as saying. "I don't think he sees it as a comeback. He sees it as vengeance."
Story by Philip Bump

There are two theories that allies of Donald Trump promote to assert that the 2020 presidential election was illegitimate.

The first is that rampant fraud — maybe with mail-in ballots, maybe from voting machines, maybe both, maybe something else — resulted in Joe Biden earning more votes nationally and in the states he flipped from 2016. This theory suffers from the minor flaw that there is no evidence in favor of it and lots of evidence against it. It also suffers from the secondary flaw that the lack of evidence means that those who most loudly adhere to it are often those with whom reputable people are the least interested in associating.

So the second theory gained traction. It holds that the election was illegitimate because a number of ancillary things shifted the results: late changes to election rules, including some that let more people vote early (meaning, the argument goes, more Democrats); big donors helping fund election administration; social media companies putting their thumb on the scales, including by (briefly) limiting the sharing of a New York Post story about Joe Biden’s son Hunter. In short, the election was “rigged” for Biden not by direct cheating but by indirect influence, and that made all the difference.
Story by Rhian Lubin

Rudy Giuliani allegedly sent a text message begging Michigan lawmakers to overturn the 2020 election result – but got the wrong number.

The embattled former New York City mayor, who is also facing trial accused of conspiring to subvert Arizona’s 2020 presidential election results, has a long history of technological gaffes and humiliating mishaps.

The latest embarrassing example was detailed in special counsel Jack Smith’s legal briefing, filed in federal court in Washington DC on Wednesday, which outlines the federal election interference case against Donald Trump in the most thorough detail to date.

include the fullest account and evidence of what happened in the lead-up to the election and Trump’s alleged attempt to subvert the result as if it were an opening statement to a jury.

Giuliani is not named in the filing but is presumed to be “co-conspirator 1”, accused of launching state-by-state efforts to convince Republican lawmakers to support Trump’s mandate of overturning the 2020 election result.

According to the 165-page document, Trump turned to Giuliani when others were “telling the defendant what he did not want to hear – that he had lost” the 2020 election. Trump enlisted Giuliani as his personal attorney because he “was willing to falsely claim victory and spread knowingly false claims of election fraud,” according to the document.
By Melissa Quinn, Robert Legare

Washington — U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has made public a key filing from special counsel Jack Smith that includes evidence compiled in his investigation into former President Donald Trump's alleged efforts to subvert the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election.

The highly anticipated 165-page filing provides the most comprehensive look at the evidence federal prosecutors have amassed in their case, which was upended by the Supreme Court's July decision finding Trump is entitled to some level of immunity from federal charges.

In the new brief, prosecutors argued that Trump's conduct was private in nature and therefore not covered by immunity. They reiterated the allegations against Trump and revealed new insights into the mountains of evidence they have collected over the course of the case.

The filing described how Trump and his aides allegedly planned to challenge the election results far in advance of Election Day and pressured Vice President Mike Pence to reject Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021. In one striking passage, prosecutors said Trump replied, "So what?" when he was told that Pence could be in danger at the Capitol.

"When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office," Smith and his team wrote.
Story by Sean O'Driscoll

Russia hacked into Hillary Clinton's computer about five hours after Donald Trump asked them for her emails, a lawyer involved in the Mueller investigation has said.

Aaron Zebley revealed that Trump couldn't be prosecuted because he made his request publicly and did not directly conspire with the Russian government.

Zebley was speaking on Friday to former federal prosecutor, Preet Bharara, on the Stay Tuned With Preet podcast.

He appeared on the podcast with attorney Andrew Goldstein. Both of them worked on the Mueller investigation into alleged links between Trump and the Russian government and have published a new book: Interference: The Inside Story of Trump, Russia, and the Mueller Investigation.

Zebley said that there was a "call and response" going on between Trump and the Russians but, legally, it could not be considered a conspiracy.

Zebley was referring to a July 27, 2016, press conference in Florida, in which Trump publicly asked Russia to supply Clinton emails.
Story by Nikki McCann Ramirez

The House is expected to vote Wednesday on a continuing resolution to keep the government funded and avoid a shutdown at the end of the month, just weeks before the November election. The vote will likely fail.

The bill ties the continued funding of the federal government to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), a piece of legislation that would make it harder for Americans to cast their ballots by requiring proof of citizenship when one registers to vote.

Packaging the two pieces of legislation together is a doomed endeavor. Still, Republicans in control of the lower chamber, led by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), are taking their marching orders from former President Donald Trump, who is demanding the government be shut down if the SAVE act doesn't pass.
"If Republicans don't get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form," Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social.

"Democrats are registering Illegal Voters by the TENS OF THOUSANDS, as we speak – They will be voting in the 2024 Presidential Election, and they shouldn't be allowed to," Trump claimed. "Only American Citizens should be voting in our Most Important Election in History, or any Election!"
Story by Christopher Mathias

MONROEVILLE, Pa. — JD Vance spoke at a festival of election denialism in a Pittsburgh suburb Saturday, lending the imprimatur of his position as the Republican nominee for vice president to a gathering of people who still falsely believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump and who might be laying the groundwork to make the same bogus claim next month if Trump and Vance lose in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state.

Vance participated in an hour-long town hall at one of the final stops of the “Courage” tour, a neo-Charismatic Christian revival roadshow organized by Lance Wallnau, a Texas-based evangelical pastor and self-described “apostle” who claims to be able to speak with God, who told him Trump is prophesied to be the 47th president of the U.S. If Wallnau’s name sounds familiar, it might be because he played a major role in fomenting disinformation about the last presidential election and was even set to speak at the Jan. 6, 2021, election denial rally in Washington that became the violent insurrection.

As Vance spoke from the stage at Wallnau’s event Saturday to a few hundred mostly middle-aged and octogenarian white people, a familiar cast of election-denying organizations operated booths on the other side of the convention hall, encouraging people to join their mailing list or offering them candy. Their presence here demonstrated the ways Wallnau’s brand of extreme Christian nationalism dovetails with election denial. After all, of what import are actually fair elections here on Earth if a candidate is predestined or prophesied from above to take office?
Story by Nicholas Liu

Georgia’s GOP-controlled State Election Board is teeing up votes on nearly a dozen election rule changes on Friday, worrying officials who say that the proposals and their timing would disrupt an election process due to start in a matter of weeks — and open the door for board members to block certification of results at will, NPR reported.

Some of the proposals include adding hand counts of absentee ballots; requiring the publication of all registered voters in the 2024 election; giving poll watchers expanded access to voting centers; and permitting local election board members to vote against certifying an election if they claim to find discrepancies or do not receive access to every election document they request.
Story by Ed Kilgore

With the major-party presidential candidates in close battles in a sparse landscape of battleground states, every electoral vote matters. There are scenarios where either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins 269 or 270 electoral votes. Part of the underlying picture is that each of them has been expected to snag a single Electoral College vote from one of the two states (Maine and Nebraska) that allocate them by congressional district. Biden won the Omaha-based Second Congressional District of Nebraska in 2020, when Trump won the largely rural Second Congressional District of Maine. Polls are showing the same outcome is likely this year.

So the two campaigns have hungrily looked at a potential gain or loss of an electoral vote if either state moved toward a winner-take-all system. But only Nebraska, pushed aggressively by Team Trump, has seriously moved toward taking that step in 2024. It hasn’t happened yet, in part because of internal Nebraska Republican dissension and in part because Maine Democrats have threatened to retaliate and make the whole exercise pointless. But now, at the very last minute, the heist may be back on, as the Nebraska Examiner reports:

The national Republican push to help former President Donald Trump win all five of Nebraska’s Electoral College votes is ramping up again, and this time it might work.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen on Wednesday hosted two dozen state senators at the Governor’s Mansion, along with Secretary of State Bob Evnen, the state’s chief election official.

Several who attended the meeting said some senators who had wavered earlier showed more support now for changing Nebraska to the winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes this year.
Story by Ella Lee

Former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis has agreed to cooperate with Arizona prosecutors in their 2020 election subversion case against aides to former President Trump and the state’s so-called fake electors.

Ellis previously faced nine felony counts including fraud, forgery and conspiracy, but in exchange for her cooperation, the charges were dismissed.

In a statement, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes called the agreement a “significant step forward” in the case.

“I am grateful to Ms. Ellis for her cooperation with our investigation and prosecution,” Mayes said. “Her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the State in proving its case in court. As I stated when the initial charges were announced, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined — it is far too important. Today’s announcement is a win for the rule of law.”
The Brennan Center survey also found 62% of local election officials are concerned about political leaders’ attempting to interfere with how they do their jobs.
By Julia Ainsley

A survey of local election officials across the U.S. found that 38% report experiencing “threats, harassment or abuse” and 54% are concerned about the safety of their colleagues, according to a report released Wednesday by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The survey of more than 925 local election officials in February and March also found 62% are concerned about political leaders’ attempting to interfere with how election officials do their jobs.

Thirteen percent of the local officials who responded said they are “concerned about facing pressure to certify results in favor of a specific candidate or party.”

“Election officials are adjusting to ensure workers and voters are safe. The numbers around threats, harassment and interference remain unacceptably high, but election officials aren’t being passive in the face of this hostile environment. They are investing in security trainings, increasing physical and cybersecurity measures, and building stronger networks with emergency management services,” said Lawrence Norden, senior director of elections and government at the Brennan Center, part of the New York University School of Law.
Story by Amanda Marcotte

Because Donald Trump himself wasn't indicted, there was a surprisingly muted response to the announcement, late on Wednesday, that Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes had indicted a school bus full of Republican activists and operatives on felony charges related to Trump's efforts to steal the 2020 election. There's a real "Trump himself or it doesn't count" bar regarding interest levels in coup-related cases. The previous indictment for the same scheme in Georgia did include the former president, leading to his infamous mug shot from the Fulton County Jail. Plus, Trump himself is on trial in New York on charges of cheating in the 2016 election, leading to a stream of images of him looking bedraggled as he goes in and out of court. Hearing that Rudy Giuliani is getting arrested again just can't compete.

But it's time to take a longer look at these Arizona charges because they will have a major impact on Trump personally, even if he is not indicted (yet) for his role. These charges further erode his already-collapsing support system. Trump goes to court most days without family or friends, just his lawyers and security, people who are paid to be there. Despite his endless pleading, he can't get his followers to show up to demonstrate outside the courthouse. The people who were willing to commit crimes to keep him in office in 2020 now have to face the real possibility that sticking by Trump's side raises their chances of going to prison. Even those foolish enough to take that risk, I suspect, are going to be too busy trying to fend off criminal charges from the last attempted coup to have much time to help Trump with planning the next one.
Story by Nicholas Liu

Wisconsin GOP operative Carlton Huffman is blowing the whistle on what he claims was an effort to suppress Black votes ahead of the 2020 election. While unproven confessions from a disgraced figure accused of sexual assault may be viewed with suspicion, the text messages he revealed to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel implicate new Wisconsin GOP executive director Andrew Iverson in an apparent 2020 election plot to sabotage "Souls to the Polls," a Black-led voter turnout group.

"Can Mario [Herrera, head of Hispanic outreach for Trump Victory] help get some Trump supporters to participate in Souls to the Polls?" Iverson texted Huffman on Election Day. "'Can't wait to go vote for President Trump!' Wearing [sic] MAGA hat or something."

The then-Wisconsin state head of Trump Victory continued: "I'm excited about this. Wreak havoc."

Iverson released a statement claiming that the text messages were jokes not meant to be taken seriously. But Huffman said that he didn't take them as such at the time. He told the Journal-Sentinel that Iverson was trying to suppress the Black vote by forcing Souls to the Polls to divert valuable resources on Trump supporters.
Story by Ewan Palmer

The indictment in the Arizona fake electors plot unsealed on Wednesday contains one piece of "gold" evidence for prosecutors, a legal expert has said.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes' office has charged 18 people, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, lawyer Jenna Ellis and longtime Donald Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn in connection with a plot to allegedly falsely claim that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election in Arizona. The former president has not been charged as part of the probe but is referred to as "Unindicted Coconspirator 1" throughout the indictment.

Former Pentagon special counsel Ryan Goodman noted one section of the indictment suggesting that those close to Donald Trump were aware of a plan to certify "illegal votes" as part of their alleged scheme.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Goodman highlighted a section of the indictment that discussed how some members of Trump's inner circle refused to support the alleged fake electors scheme.

Ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker detailed the plot to “help” the Trump campaign during his bombshell testimony in Donald Trump’s criminal trial. Former SDNY attorney Maya Wiley and Lachlan Cartwright, former Executive Editor with American Media Inc, join MSNBC’s Katie Phang.
ABC News

Former President Donald Trump, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Rudy Giuliani are unindicted co-conspirators in the Michigan attorney general's case against the state's so-called "fake electors" in the 2020 election, a state investigator revealed in court on Wednesday.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged 16 Republicans last year with forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery for allegedly attempting to replace Michigan's electoral votes for Joe Biden with electoral votes for Trump at the certification of the vote on Jan. 6, 2021.
Story by Josh Marcus

A grand jury indicted 11 Arizona Republicans and seven others for their role in an alleged scheme to keep Donald Trump in the White House by falsely certifying the state’s 2020 election results as a Trump win.

The indictment accuses the group of trying to prevent “the lawful transfer of the presidency of the United States, keeping President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”

According to the indictment, one month after the election, 11 Trump-supporting Republicans convened at the state’s GOP headquarters in Phoenix to sign certificates claiming the state’s electoral college votes.

The meeting was recorded on video.
Story by Betsy Woodruff Swan

Arizona Republicans who falsely posed as electors for Donald Trump in 2020 have appeared before a grand jury in recent days and invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, as state prosecutors near a decision on potential criminal charges against those who helped Trump try to overturn his loss in the state.

The prosecutors' decision to require these people to appear in person is the latest escalation of the long-running probe by the state’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, into election interference by Trump allies. The tactic is also highly unusual and risks biasing the grand jury against key targets of the probe, according to independent legal experts who have worked as both prosecutors and defense lawyers.

If the grand jury charges them, it could even provide a longshot basis for the targets to challenge the indictment.

“My view is that the better practice is not to call people before the grand jury who you know are going to invoke the Fifth Amendment,” said Paul Charlton, a former Arizona assistant attorney general. “Why? Because all that does is unnecessarily prejudice the grand jury.”
Story by Kyle Cheney

ACalifornia judge on Wednesday recommended the disbarment of John Eastman, calling to revoke the law license of one of Donald Trump’s top allies in his failed last-ditch gambit to subvert the 2020 election.

Judge Yvette Roland, who presided over months of testimony and argument about the basis of Eastman’s fringe legal theories, ruled that the veteran conservative attorney violated ethics rules — and even potentially criminal law — when he advanced Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results based on weak or discredited claims of fraud.

Though Eastman may appeal Roland’s decision, including to the state Supreme Court, the ruling forces his law license into “inactive” status while any review is pending, meaning he can no longer practice law in California.

“Given the serious and extensive nature of Eastman’s unethical actions, the most severe available professional sanction is warranted to protect the public and preserve the public confidence in the legal system,” Roland ruled.

Roland’s 128-page opinion was a lacerating rebuke of Eastman’s conduct and his subsequent lack of remorse. She concluded that he made knowingly flimsy claims of fraud and irregularities in legal filings on Trump’s behalf, including his brief for Trump in a Supreme Court fight.
Story by Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor

An Arizona grand jury has sent out subpoenas to alleged participants in a version of the 'fake electors scheme' in the state –the latest iteration of a multi-state conspiracy probe springing from the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

The subpoenas ask the Republican 'electors' to testify before a grand jury about their involvement in a plan that would have substituted them for the 11 electors determined by the vote of the people in the state, the Washington Post reported.

State prosecutors have subpoenaed 'multiple people' linked to Donald Trump's 2020 campaign, Politico reported Wednesday, calling it an indication that state Attorney General Kris Mayes is wrapping up her probe.

Trump on Wednesday became the de facto Republican presidential nominee for 2024 after rival Nikki Haley announced she was dropping out of the race.
Story by Athena Hallet

Tennessee is sending a clear message, if you don't have the right to own a gun, then you don't have the right to vote. A recent rule came through banning people with felony charges from voting, it's obvious that Tennessee is changing the way they handle voting rights.

Rights For Voting Being Violated
This change in voting rights is set to affect 475,000 Tennessee residents, and has been denounced by rights groups claiming it is violating Americans' right to vote. They claim it has affected black Americans and Latinos specifically.

Claims Of Suppression
There have also been claims made that these changes were made specifically to "suppress the black vote." Local media reports that these are the allegations being made.

Prioritizing The Restoration Of Gun Rights
Voting rights policies in Tennessee have gotten more strict over the last year requiring that anyone convicted of a crime must first have their gun rights reinstated before they are allowed to vote in ballots, that includes this year's presidential election. If a person has been convicted with a felony crime they are prohibited from buying or carrying a firearm, obviously restricting their rights to vote.
Story by Brandi Buchman

A plethora of newly released text messages and emails flowing between a lawyer who pleaded guilty to conspiring to file fake elector slates for Donald Trump in Georgia and a campaign lawyer for the former president offers a startling look into a fast-moving world where Trump’s allies steadily discussed ways to create a “cloud of confusion” in the 2020 election aftermath.

The texts and emails are contained in a more than 1,400-page document. That document surfaced publicly this week after a lawsuit filed by Wisconsin voters and electors against Kenneth Chesebro — the conservative attorney turned Trump co-conspirator in the fake electors case in Georgia — and campaign lawyer Jim Troupis, along with other alleged fake electors in the state, was finally settled.

Chesebro pleaded guilty last November to charges in the pending Georgia election racketeering case. He is not alone; Trump campaign lawyer and co-conspirator Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty a month earlier after Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges after cutting a deal with federal prosecutors. Co-conspirator Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman charged with breaching election system equipment, also pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges, including conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.

Luke Broadwater, New York Times Congressional joins Nicolle Wallace to discuss new text messages and emails uncovered showing the fake elector scheme concocted by Team Trump which set into a motion a plan to overturn the will of the voters in 2020 and throw the election to the House of Representatives.
Story by Gabriella Ferrigine

Former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, one of the architects in the former president’s fake elector plot, may have a "perjury" problem over his testimony to a Nevada grand jury.

The Washington Post on Monday reported on a cache of documents in the Nevada grand jury probe of the fake elector scheme, including Chesebro's statements to the panel.

Chesebro told the grand jury that he saw "pending litigation" as pivotal to the plot to overturn Trump's 2020 loss.

“The whole point of the alternate elector plan that we arrived at in Wisconsin is the idea is we make sure that we have the extra three weeks to try to win the lawsuit," the right-wing lawyer said, according to a transcript. "If there isn't any lawsuit then there's no need for this to be done because there's no lawsuit that would be won before January 6th."
Story by SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press

Two attorneys for then-President Donald Trump orchestrated a plan for fake electors to file paperwork falsely saying the Republican won Wisconsin in a strategy to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory there and in other swing states, according to a lawsuit settlement reached Monday that makes public months of texts and emails.

Under their agreements, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over more than 1,400 pages of documents, emails and text messages, along with photos and video, offering a detailed account of the scheme’s origins in Wisconsin. The communications show how they, with coordination from Trump campaign officials, replicated the strategy in six other states including Georgia, where Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 2020 election.

he agreements settle a civil lawsuit brought by Democrats in 2022 against the two attorneys and 10 Republicans in Wisconsin who posed as fake electors. The Republicans settled in December.
Story by Molly Bohannon, Forbes Staff

Topline
Kenneth Chesebro, the ex-attorney for former President Donald Trump, told investigators he did not have any social media presence or alternate IDs he used on social media, but a CNN investigation found he had a private Twitter account where he “promoted a far more aggressive election subversion strategy” than he shared with investigators.

Key Facts
Chesebro—a Trump lawyer who was involved in creating a fake electors scheme allegedly designed to overturn the 2020 election results—reportedly distanced himself from schemes to overturn the election when talking to investigators in Michigan, but didn’t mention his alternate Twitter account on which he posted a number of things that contradicted what he told investigators, CNN exclusively reported Monday.
Story by Jacob Miller

Donald Trump’s prolonged attempt to reverse his loss in the 2020 election reached its peak on a single, now-infamous day: Jan. 6.

However, Trump’s legal team had envisioned an alternative scenario—one that would have prolonged the period of uncertainty caused by the Trump campaign’s efforts, stretching the process until Jan. 20, 2021, the Constitution’s firm deadline for the transfer of power. If their plan had succeeded, these lawyers hoped that Joe Biden would never assume office.

The specifics of this plan are now being disclosed for the first time. They are derived from a collection of documents provided to Michigan prosecutors by Trump’s lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, which includes thousands of pages of emails exchanged among Trump’s legal team, some of which contain previously unpublished information.

Trump’s lawyer Chesebro developed strategies to create confusion and disorder by exploiting the procedures outlined in the Electoral Count Act (ECA), which governs the Congressional certification process. Specifically, he devised multiple methods to undermine the ECA, the legislation that outlines the steps for Congress to certify the election on Jan. 6. Crucially, the law imposes strict constraints on the duration of individual lawmakers’ debates over contested electoral votes—changing or extending these limits, set at five minutes per member and two hours in total, could extend Jan. 6 indefinitely.
Story by Rohan M.

Published Phone Call Exposes Trump’s Personal Participation in 2020 Election Interference
A recording of a November 2020 phone call between then-President Donald Trump, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, and two Michigan Republican officials has been reviewed by the Detroit News. It shows just how involved Trump was in attempting to overturn the 2020 election, in which he was defeated by President Joe Biden.

Concerning Comments
“We’ve got to fight for our country,” Trump said on the recordings of the call, which were made by a person present with the two Michigan election officials. “We can’t let these people take our country away from us,” the former President continued.

The Players Involved
Trump was speaking to Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers. He was attempting to convince them not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Story by Rey Harris

Washington DC - A new report has revealed how Donald Trump and his allies apparently plotted to fly their "fake elector" ballots to the nation's capitol ahead of the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. Audio recordings and messages obtained by CNN newly detail the plan, which reportedly began two days prior to January 6, 2021 - the day Vice President Mike Pence was set to certify the election results.

The most important of these include testimony given by former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who agreed to a plea deal in October, admitting to conspiracy to file false documents. As a part of his deal, Chesebro has been cooperating with prosecutors in the Georgia election interference case and others in Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, where investigators are looking into allegations of questionable fake elector certificates used in their states in 2020.
Story by David McAfee

New audio recordings released by CNN revealed that ex-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro had lots of grievances with the ex-president's campaign, but it also points to potentially new defendants, according to an ex-prosecutor. Joyce Vance did an in-depth dive on the new evidence from CNN, which put together a timeline of what happened to fake elector ballots before Jan. 6, 2021. The article the outlet put out included some already reported information, as well as new audio recordings, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said on Friday. "None of this makes sense," Vance wrote while walking through the new evidence.

"It suggests some of the folks he worked with, who avoided indictment in Fulton County, may have some culpability—we’ll get to that," Vance wrote. "Several of them have reportedly spoken with either federal or state prosecutors, or both and remained silent since, possibly suggesting cooperation in the real sense of that term. But none of this is exculpatory for Chesebro." One individual whom Vance highlights is Matthew Morgan, a lawyer who joined Vice President Pence’s office in 2017, she says.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Following the report that former President Donald Trump tried to pressure canvassers in Michigan to block certification of election results, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson wrote a dire warning about the threat the former president still poses in The Daily Beast.

"For me, the lowest moment in the post-election battle to protect Michigan’s accurate and legitimate election results in 2020 was not when armed protestors stormed my home," wrote Benson. "It wasn’t when a gathering of Trump supporters showed up to Michigan’s State Capitol demanding to be let in as the state’s 'true slate of electors' when we all were sheltered in the State Senate Chambers finalizing the electoral college. It wasn’t even when Rudy Giuliani came to town to headline a sham legislative hearing filled with lies about our elections. No, the most challenging time for me was the night of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting."
By Marshall Cohen, CNN

CNN — The Detroit News obtained a recording of a call former President Donald Trump made to two Michigan county officials in 2020, urging them not to certify the election results from Detroit.

The call was previously known and reported by CNN – and condemned at the time by election experts and Michigan Democrats, who said it was a stunning attempt by a sitting president to pressure local officials to interfere with an election.

For the first time, we are learning exactly what Trump said, according to the Detroit News. CNN has not independently obtained or verified the recording.
Story by By GABE STERN, Associated Press/Report for America

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada grand jury on Wednesday indicted six Republicans who submitted certificates to Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 presidential election in their state, making Nevada the third to seek charges against so-called “fake electors.” “We cannot allow attacks on democracy to go unchallenged," Nevada's Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a statement Wednesday. "Today’s indictments are the product of a long and thorough investigation, and as we pursue this prosecution, I am confident that our judicial system will see justice done.”

The fake electors — involved in the state GOP or Clark County GOP — have been charged with offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument. Those two categories of felonies have penalties that range from one year up to either four or five years in prison. The indictments in Nevada are just the latest to come out of investigations in several states into the activities of Republican electors. Michigan’s Attorney General filed felony charges in July against 16 Republican fake electors, who would face eight criminal charges including forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery, though one had charges dropped after reaching a cooperation deal. The top charge carried a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

Unsealed texts from GOP Congressman Scott Perry reveal Perry had a "vast web of contacts" who he was talking to about efforts to overturn the election, including top Republicans. MSNBC’s Ari Melber reports and is joined by Senior Mueller Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann.
Story by Rachel Weiner, Spencer Hsu, Devlin Barrett

On Dec. 30, 2020, Jeffrey Clark was nervous. He had just been told that Donald Trump was “very happy” with him. “I’m praying,” the Justice Department official told Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who less than two weeks earlier had arranged for Clark to meet the president. “And wonder if I’m worthy or ready.” “You are the man. I have confirmed it,” Perry replied. “God does what he does for a reason.”

The text exchange, briefly made public as part of a court dispute over special counsel prosecutors’ access to Perry’s phone, illuminates the extent of Perry’s involvement in the machinations that have led to criminal charges against both Clark and Trump over their attempts to prevent President Biden from taking office. The U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit said that a district court judge needed to individually review roughly 2,000 communications to decide which ones were “speech or debate” — falling under a clause that grants members of Congress immunity from criminal investigation in their official capacities. But the same appellate panel on Wednesday exposed many of those messages by unsealing that lower court judge’s 51-page opinion, previously available only with heavy redactions.
Story by Areeba Shah

Fulton County prosecutors have been in talks about potential plea deals with at least six more co-defendants in the Fulton County, Georgia, indictment related to former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, CNN reported.

District Attorney Fani Willis' office has a clearly defined strategy: to persuade as many co-defendants as they can to cooperate against Trump “to convict” the most serious offenders, legal experts say.

“This has been Willis’ strategy the whole time,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Salon. “She never wanted to try 19 defendants. She wanted 18 guilty pleas and one trial against Donald Trump.”

Robert Cheeley, a pro-Trump lawyer, declined a plea agreement, his attorney told the news outlet. But at least five other co-defendants, including former Coffee County elections supervisor Misty Hampton and former Trump campaign official Mike Roman, have engaged in discussions regarding potential plea deals with the D.A.’s office, according to CNN. Three other defendants have also been in talks about a potential plea deal with prosecutors.

Among the 19 defendants in the Fulton County case, four individuals, including three attorneys who played direct roles in Trump's efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia, have already agreed to plea deals. In some instances, they have pleaded guilty to felony charges in return for a more lenient sentencing recommendation.
Story by Holly Bailey

ATLANTA — Jenna Ellis, a former lawyer for Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, plans to plead guilty Tuesday to illegally conspiring to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia, according to a court document. This will make her the third attorney associated with the former president to accept a plea deal in the sweeping criminal racketeering case. Ellis, who had been facing two charges including violating Georgia’s anti-racketeering act, is expected to plead guilty to a reduced charge in court on Tuesday.

She will become the fourth Trump co-defendant to plead guilty in the case. Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall, accused of playing a wide-ranging role in the conspiracy to reverse Trump’s loss in Georgia, pleaded guilty Sept. 29 in a cooperation deal with prosecutors. Former pro-Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro each pleaded guilty last week on the eve of their scheduled joint trial in the case.
ABC News

Sidney Powell, one of 18 co-defendants in former President Donald Trump's election interference case in Georgia, has taken a plea deal in which she has agreed to testify in the case. She is pleading guilty to six misdemeanor charges, according to the agreement read in court Thursday. She will get 12 months of probation for each count, as well as a $6,000 fine. As part of the agreement, Powell must "testify truthfully about any co-defendants" involved in the case and "provide all documents to the district attorney's office" relevant to their case against the other co-defendants, according to Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee.

Steve Sadow, Trump's lead counsel in the Georgia case, responded to Powell's plea deal by telling ABC News in a statement, "Assuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, it will be favorable to my overall defense strategy." Powell's plea comes a day before she was scheduled to go on trial along with co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro. Chesebro, according to sources, last month rejected a similar plea deal with the state, ABC News was first to report yesterday. Regarding Powell's plea deal, former Georgia prosecutor Chris Timmons told ABC News, "From the D.A.'s Office's perspective, it can help them in a number of ways. It focuses the trial to acts that are relevant to Mr. Chesebro. It also means the State's witnesses are facing one cross examination instead of two."
Story by Carl Gibson

Pro-Trump influencer Douglass Mackey is now headed to federal prison to serve a seven-month sentence after being convicted by a federal jury in March. Prosecutors asked for Mackey, who was arrested in 2021, to serve between six months and a year behind bars.

Mackey, a West Palm Beach, Florida resident who went by the name "Ricky Vaughn," was found guilty on one count of conspiracy against rights for trying to defraud Hillary Clinton supporters in the 2016 election. According to the New York Times, Judge Ann M. Donnelly, of the Eastern District of New York, said while sentencing Mackey that he was "one of the leading members" of the conspiracy to prevent Clinton supporters from voting, adding that it was "nothing short of an assault on our democracy."

The conspiracy in question stemmed from a series of posts, meant to look like they were from the former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, encouraging Black and Latino supporters to vote by text message or through social media, knowing that those votes would not actually be counted. One of those posts showed a Black woman holding a sign, and another post was in Spanish, and included the Clinton campaign logo with fine print attached that read "Hillary for President."
Story by Benzinga Neuro

Stefanie Lambert, a pro-Donald Trump Michigan attorney, has been charged with accessing and tampering with voting machines in the 2020 election, Associated Press News reports.

Lambert along with Matthew DePerno and former GOP state Rep. Daire Rendon were previously named by Attorney General Dana Nessel as having "orchestrated a coordinated plan to gain access to voting tabulators."

The charges come days after DePerno and Rendon were arraigned in connection with the case.

Michigan is among one of the three states where individuals are alleged to have compromised election systems while adopting and disseminating the unfounded claim by Trump that the 2020 election was unlawfully taken.
After trying to use the Justice Department to delegitimize the 2020 vote, Clark has become a rising legal star for Republicans
By Isaac Stanley-Becker

In a conference room near the Capitol, young conservatives gathered in April to learn how to run for office — how to win and wield government power. Among the keynote speakers at the summit, hosted by a group devoted to “training America’s future statesmen today,” was Jeffrey Clark, the former senior Justice Department official who in 2020 sought to use federal law enforcement power to undo then-President Donald Trump’s defeat.

Clark, who accused the Biden administration of abusing its power, “really fired up our attendees and inspired them to get more active in the political process,” recalled Aiden Buzzetti, president of the Bull Moose Project, which takes its name from Theodore Roosevelt’s split with the Republican Party in 1912. Clark was chosen to speak, Buzzetti added, because of his “very unique résumé and experience with the federal government.”
Story by Hunter Walker

Special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of former President Donald Trump details a sweeping criminal conspiracy to reverse his loss in the 2020 election. Smith described a marked shift away from legitimate election challenges toward a strategy in which the President and those close to him used “knowing deceit in the targeted states to impair, obstruct, and defeat the federal government function.” And Smith identified one day as the key turning point when the plot veered from political gamesmanship into deliberate falsehoods: November 13, 2020.

Text messages obtained by Talking Points Memo — most which have not previously been made public — paint a picture of what was going on behind the scenes in the White House during the crucial period the special prosecutor has zeroed in on. In particular, they reveal that Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and former Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward were among those who played key roles in elements of the alleged conspiracy from the moment Smith said it began.
Story by By JOEY CAPPELLETTI, Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Two Michigan allies of former President Donald Trump, including a former Republican state attorney general candidate, were charged in connection with an effort to illegally access and tamper with voting machines in the state after the 2020 election, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Attorney Matthew DePerno was charged with undue possession of a voting machine and conspiracy, while Daire Rendon, a former Republican state representative, was charged with conspiracy to commit undue possession of a voting machine and false pretenses, special prosecutor D.J. Hilson announced in a news release. Both were arraigned Tuesday afternoon, according to Richard Lynch, the court administrator for Oakland County’s 6th Circuit.

Michigan is just one of at least three states where prosecutors say people breached election systems while embracing and spreading Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
Veuer

Donald Trump was recently indicted yet again, this time on 4 charges related to the January 6th insurrection and attack on our nation’s capital. One of those charges was related to the former President attempting to install uncertified electors in swing states. Veuer’s Tony Spitz has the details.
Story by hgetahun@insider.com (Hannah Getahun)

An unindicted co-conspirator working with former President Donald Trump to pass along an alleged fake slate of electors in 2021 said that they were told their actions may "appear treasonous," according to special counsel Jack Smith's indictment released Tuesday.

The scheme, in which unnamed attorneys gathered uncertified electors from swing states to provide electoral votes with false certifications to Congress, was part of an effort to "prevent President Joe Biden from receiving the 270 electoral votes necessary to secure the presidency" on January 6, 2021, per the indictment.

As these unnamed individuals began reaching out to lawyers to help with the plan, one person, only identified as co-conspirator 5 explained to co-conspirator 1 that they were told by a state official and state provisional elector that "it could appear treasonous" for the Arizona electors they had selected to vote on December 14, 2020 — the day that legal electors were to submit their ballots — if "no pending court proceeding..." to challenge election results was filed.
Story by Jordan Green, Investigative Reporter

As overlapping criminal investigations bear down on former President Donald Trump, one potential — and prominent — co-conspirator could face particularly pitched legal jeopardy as a key participant in the multi-state, multi-stage effort to overturn the 2020 election.

Rudy Giuliani — the former mayor of New York City, former federal prosecutor, and one of the former president’s most loyal advocates — figures prominently in an alleged scheme to install fake Trump presidential electors, which appears to be the focal point of anticipated charges by both Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Giuliani’s promotion of a debunked conspiracy theory about two election workers falsely accused of mishandling Fulton County ballots also implicates him in an infamous phone call from Trump to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — also a focal point of Willis’ investigation. During the phone call, Trump tried to pressure the state’s chief election officer into flipping the election in the former president’s favor.
Story by Alex Henderson

Former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have been the focus of two separate criminal investigations: one by special counsel Jack Smith for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the other by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for the State of Georgia. If Trump is indicted in both cases, he will be facing four criminal prosecutions altogether; Trump's team of lawyers is already battling a 37-count federal indictment and a 34-count indictment in New York State.

All of this comes at a time when Trump is the clear frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Never before in U.S. history has an ex-president faced so many legal problems while seeming to be his party's most likely presidential nominee — assuming his poll numbers continue to hold up.
Story by Ben Blanchet

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) didn’t let an interruption from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) phase her as she tore apart Republicans’ voter fraud claims on Wednesday. Crockett went after GOP lawmakers as she talked “about who’s cheating” during a congressional hearing that looked at election integrity in the District of Columbia.

“We haven’t had half as many hearings about guns as we’ve had on voting rights, and every time we seemingly have a hearing on voting rights, we’re talking about the fact that people are cheating, so let’s talk about who’s cheating” Crockett said.

Crockett, in remarks to Wendy Weiser, vice president of democracy at The Brennan Center for Justice policy institute, questioned Fox News’ $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in a defamation case involving 2020 election lies before switching to a Georgia law that reportedly held 87,000 people back from voting in 2018.

“I’m running out of time, so I’ma keep going,” she said. “There also was this article because I don’t want us to base anything on Georgia at all. Please, Jesus, not Georgia. Because Georgia purged 87,000 votes.”
Story by Tatyana Tandanpolie

The Atlanta-area probe of former President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss has expanded to include activities in Washington, D.C. and other states, two sources with knowledge of the investigation told The Washington Post. The inquiry's expansion is a sign that "prosecutors may be building a sprawling case under Georgia's racketeering laws," the outlet reported.

Fulton Country District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, began her investigation over two years ago into Trump and his allies' efforts to reverse his loss, indicating during its course that she may use the state's far-reaching Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute to accuse them of a larger scheme.

Recently, according to the two sources, Willis has pursued information regarding the Trump campaign's hiring of two firms, one of which investigators have subpoenaed, to identify voter fraud across the country and hiding their results when they didn't find it. The DA, whose investigation is separate from a similar federal probe into the former president, has said that she plans to make a charging decision this summer as early as August.
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