chesebro, kenneth

see ken main

pardons j6?

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officially cheese buroh 8 23 new trump j6 indict

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AN 6 26

As three alleged planners of Wisconsin’s fake elector scheme prepare to be arraigned this week in Dane County court, the criminal charges against them are moving forward in a national legal and political landscape that looks dramatically different from the one in which they were filed.

*This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

When Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed the charges in June 2024, Joe Biden was president, Donald Trump was battling a criminal case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and state prosecutors in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada were bringing criminal cases tied to the fake elector scheme.

That scheme arose in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Trump allies tried to keep him in power despite his loss. Those allies, who became known as fake or false electors, attempted to cast electoral votes for Trump in multiple states he lost and submit those certificates to Congress.

Now, as the three defendants in the Wisconsin case await arraignment on 11 felony forgery charges on June 16, Trump has regained the presidency, and he and his allies are undertaking extensive efforts to rewrite what happened in the 2020 election.

Since returning to office, Trump has issued a federal pardon to those involved in the 2020 scheme, and his administration has sent the FBI to investigate the 2020 election in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

The federal criminal case against Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election has been dismissed. And, until recently, his administration had plans to allocate $1.8 billion to compensate people it claimed had been unfairly prosecuted by the federal government, raising questions about whether participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and those involved in the fake elector schemes could receive taxpayer funds.

Other state cases have also faltered. Georgia’s election interference case has been dismissed, though not before the prosecution secured some guilty pleas from Trump’s allies. Michigan’s false elector case has also been dismissed. Arizona’s remains unresolved after a major setback for the prosecution, and Nevada’s just resumed after its Supreme Court revived charges that a lower court had thrown out.

Kaul faced criticism for filing his charges so late — it was the last criminal case to be filed regarding the fake electors. But two years later, that timing has left Wisconsin’s as one of the last cases standing in the broader, mostly failed effort to prosecute Trump and his allies for their attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

“The direction of activity has completely flipped, from prosecuting the people who were disrupting the election or inhibiting the normal flow of events to now going after Trump’s adversaries,” said Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor who founded the Elections Research Center.

The Trump administration’s new investigation into the 2020 election in Wisconsin and elsewhere, Burden said, “seems to be a targeted effort at people who were mostly upholding the law and trying to administer an election in a very difficult environment.”

Amid the federal government’s current activity, and nearly six years removed from the 2020 election, Burden said any guilty finding in the Wisconsin fake elector case would likely have a muted effect.

“If we wanted the public to believe that there were ramifications for that kind of unlawful behavior, it would have to happen quickly and publicly, and feel like it was an immediate response to what people had done after the 2020 election,” he said. “But that’s not where we are six years later.”

‘Shocking’ if there are no ramifications in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin criminal case is still in its preliminary stages. Although it was filed two years ago, a number of motions and an appeal have set the case back significantly.

The defendants — former Dane County Judge Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s Wisconsin campaign attorney in 2020; attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who advised Trump on legal matters; and former Trump aide Mike Roman — are scheduled to be arraigned on June 16.

Each faces 11 felony charges for his part in allegedly guiding Wisconsin’s 10 fake electors to send documents to the U.S. Capitol falsely stating that Trump had won Wisconsin in the 2020 election.

The 10 false electors from 2020 aren’t defendants in the current case, but they separately settled a civil lawsuit in Wisconsin by acknowledging that Biden won the 2020 election and pledging not to violate election laws in the future.

Chesebro and Troupis separately reached a settlement in that case, turning over a trove of documents outlining their role in 2020 and agreeing not to participate in similar schemes in future elections.

Text messages and emails show that Chesebro was a primary architect behind the 2020 plan to have Wisconsin’s GOP electors attest that Trump won the state while Trump’s court challenges seeking to overturn the election were still ongoing. Troupis discussed that plan with the Trump campaign, and Roman helped craft the language of the documents Republicans planned to send to the Capitol from states that Biden won.

Troupis has since asked the federal government to reimburse him $3.2 million from the proposed $1.8 billion fund, saying his life has been a “nightmare” since he stepped up to represent Trump.

“My experience is a poster-child for what weaponization can do,” he wrote in a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, adding that “the entire legal system is at risk if compensation is not paid.”

Attorneys for Chesebro and Roman didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Troupis’ attorney declined to comment.

Burden said it is striking that the case is still ongoing nearly six years after the election, but he said the conduct at issue remains extraordinary.

“These were among the most serious challenges to elections we’ve seen in modern times,” Burden said.

“To think that there might be no ramifications of that really would be shocking,” he said, “and, I think, at odds with how the American criminal justice system has typically operated.”

*Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander atashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

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rww

06/26/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Ian Millhiser @ Vox: The Supreme Court’s disastrous new abortion decision, explained

The Republican justices just nuked much of federal Medicaid law, in order to spite Planned Parenthood.

Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: Pete Hegseth Uses Iran Strike Presser to Complain Media Is Mean to Him

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attempted to bully journalists for covering the leaked Iran strikes report.

Alex Bollinger @ LGBTQ Nation: Christians warned marriage equality would end civilization. 10 years in, we’re still standing.

Perhaps the most dire prediction right-wingers made in the first 15 years of this century was that legalizing marriage between two people of the same sex would end civilization. No less than the pope warned that humankind was in peril because of countries legalizing marriage.

David Edwards @ Raw Story: Trump 2020 fake electors architect disbarred in New York

Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who plotted to use fake electors to overturn the 2020 presidential election on behalf of President Donald Trump, was disbarred in the state of New York this week.

Angry White Men: Laura Loomer: Zohran Mamdani Will ‘Stand With’ People Who Firebomb Churches And Synagogues

Once it became apparent that New York state Rep. Zohran Mamdani was the presumptive winner of New York City’s mayoral primary, right-wing figures went into full-blown hysterics. But few could top the meltdown from self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer, who claimed that Mamdani will support firebombing synagogues and murdering the rich — including President Trump.

Jennifer Bendery @ HuffPost: Trump Court Pick Emil Bove Can’t Say Joe Biden Won In 2020

The U.S. appeals court nominee claimed it is “political” to say Biden got the majority of votes and Electoral College votes to become president.

AN 12 24

Two of President-elect Donald Trump's former attorneys and one of his former aides have been criminally charged in Wisconsin as part of the "fake electors" plot from 2020.

According to the Guardian, attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and James Troupis, along with Republican operative Michael Roman, have all been charged by Wisconsin's Justice Department with conspiracy to commit a crime and several additional counts of fraud. While Wisconsin has previously pursued civil action as part of the fake electors scheme, this marks the first time the Badger State has filed criminal charges in response to the plot to overturn the 2020 election in the critical battleground state.

The criminal complaint mentioned Chesebro as the brains of the operation, having authored a memo entitled: "The Real Deadline for Settling a State’s Electoral Votes." That memo laid out the plan for Republicans to falsely submit their names to seven different swing states as the duly appointed presidential electors, even though President Joe Biden actually won the election in those states.

Chesebro's new charges are particularly noteworthy, as CNN reported in 2023 that Chesebro was cooperating with the fake elector investigations in both Michigan and Wisconsin. He also cooperated with law enforcement in both Arizona and Nevada, and pleaded guilty after Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis indicted him and more than a dozen others in her RICO case. His plea of conspiracy to commit to filing false documents guaranteed no prison time provided he cooperated with Willis' office and testified against his co-defendants.

Andrew Hitt, who was the chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party in 2020, told 60 Minutes earlier this year that he felt pressured to go along with the fake elector plot out of fear of Trump's supporters. And in a 2022 deposition, Hitt said he regularly got threatening calls and emails from both sides of the political aisle, with some demanding to know his exact location.

"If my lawyer is right, and the whole reason Trump loses Wisconsin is because of me, I would be scared to death," Hitt told journalist Anderson Cooper. "It was not a safe time."

Attorney Scott Grubmann, who represents Chesebro, insistes that his client "never believed" that Trump won the 2020 election despite his role in hatching the fake elector plot.

READ MORE:[Former Trump lawyer and Ga co-defendant now cooperating in 2 new 'fake elector' investigations

Click here to read the Guardian's report in fulL.

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an 6 24

alternet-no lnx

Why this Trump ally is 'most important person charged' in Wisconsin scheme: legal expert

Maya BoddieJune 04, 2024

Attorney Kenneth Chesebro was one of three former President Donald Trump allies charged by the state of Wisconsin Tuesday in connection to the 2020 fake elector's scheme led by the ex-president's campaign in efforts to overturn the election.

The fake elector ploy architect was indicted alongside Wisconsin lawyer James Troupis and former Trump campaign official Michael Roman — each on one count of forgery. CBS News reports, "The three are set to make their initial appearances in Dane County Circuit Court on Sept. 19, court records show. The charge carries a sentence of up to six years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000."

MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin explained to host Katy Tur how the Wisconsin charges differ from 2020 election fake elector charges in Georgia and Arizona, and why Chesebro is the "most important person charged in this document today."

READ MORE:Kenneth Chesebro among Trump allies hit with new fake elector indictments in Wisconsin

Rubin explained, "There are five suits now with respect to these fake elector schemes. Ken Chesebro is charged only in two of them. He was charged in Georgia, where he pled guilty and, now today, he's charged in Wisconsin. I want to tell you what makes this different, because Ken Chesebro's involvement in Wisconsin is qualitatively different. First of all, Wisconsin is where it all began. This is the state for which he wrote the original memo about fake electors in early December of 2020."

The legal expert continued, "Secondly, he attended the meeting of fake electors in Wisconsin. He basically crashed it, even though he had no right to be there."

Tur asked, "Isn't the argument in Georgia that he never went to Georgia and he couldn't be involved in the conspiracy because he never stepped in the state?"

Rubin replied, "It may have been one of his arguments before he pled guilty, but now having pled guilty, whether or not he stepped into the state of Georgia is irrelevant."

READ MORE:Watch: Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro strikes last-minute plea deal with Georgia prosecutors

"But here, he was in Wisconsin?" Tur added.

Rubin emphasized, "But here he was in Wisconsin, definitely involved in the meeting itself, then with the Wisconsin documents don't reach Washington, DC, and aren't received by members of congress, the Wisconsin republican party has a part-time aide fly them out there, who is there to receive them from her? None other than Ken Chesebro. And finally, while he did conduct an interview with wisconsin investigators, they discovered that he lied to them about his Twitter account, something that Michigan investigators also discovered. So, unlike in other states where he is theoretically a cooperator and an unindicted co-conspirator, here, he's probably the most important person charged in this document today.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Why Kenneth Chesebro is 'most important person charged' in Wisconsin: legal expert

youtu.be

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https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2023/08/15/here-are-19-people-named-sweeping-indictments-against-donald-trump/

no lnx

Here are the 19 people named in the sweeping indictment against Donald Trump

Here is a list of who is named in Fani Willis’ sweeping indictment of the nation’s 45th president and his allies.

By Tim Darnell, Atlanta News First staff and The Associated Press

Published: Aug. 14, 2023 at 8:32 PM PDT|Updated: 6 minutes ago

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ sweeping indictment from her investigation into alleged attempts by former President Donald Trump to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election includes some of the most prominent figures in the Republican Party.

It comes just two weeks after the Justice Department special counsel charged him in a vast conspiracy to overturn the election, underscoring how prosecutors after lengthy investigations that followed the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol have now, two-and-a-half years later, taken steps to hold Trump to account for an assault on the underpinnings of American democracy.

Though the indictment is centered on Trump’s efforts to subvert election results in just one state, its sprawling web of defendants stands apart from the more tightly-targeted case brought by special counsel Jack Smith, which so far only names Trump as a defendant. The Georgia case also stands out because, unlike the two federal prosecutions he faces, Trump would not have the opportunity to try to pardon himself if elected president.

FULL COVERAGE: Timeline, history and key players of historic indictment in Georgia

“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” says the indictment issued Monday night by the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

The indictment charges Trump with making false statements and writings for a series of claims he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other state election officials on Jan. 2, 2021, including that up to 300,000 ballots “were dropped mysteriously into the rolls” in the 2020 election, that more than 4,500 people voted who weren’t on registration lists and that a Fulton County election worker, Ruby Freeman, was a “professional vote scammer.”

Here are the 19 people named in the indictment:

DONALD TRUMP: Then-President Donald Trump fixated on Georgia after the 2020 general election, refusing to accept his narrow loss in the state and making unfounded assertions of widespread election fraud there. He also called top state officials, including Gov. Brian Kemp, to urge them to find a way to reverse his loss in the state. In a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump suggested the state’s top elections official could help “find” the votes needed for him to win the state. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened an investigation into possible illegal attempts to influence the election shortly after a recording of that call was made public.

RUDY GIULIANI: During several legislative hearings at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney promoted unsupported allegations of widespread election fraud in Georgia. Prosecutors have said Rudy Giuliani was also involved a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans serve as fake electors, falsely swearing that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

JOHN EASTMAN: A former dean of Chapman University law school in Southern California, John Eastman, one of Trump’s lawyers, was deeply involved in some of his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election. He wrote a memo arguing that Trump could remain in power if then-Vice President Mike Pence overturned the results of the election during a joint session of Congress where electoral votes would be counted. That plan included putting in place a slate of “alternate” electors in seven battleground states, including Georgia, who would falsely certify that Trump had won their states.

MARK MEADOWS: Trump’s chief of staff visited Cobb County, in the Atlanta suburbs, while state investigators were conducting an audit of the signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in December 2020. Mark Meadows obtained the phone number of the chief investigator for the secretary of state’s office, Frances Watson, and passed it along to Trump, who called her. He also participated in the Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

SIDNEY POWELL: A lawyer and staunch Trump ally, Sidney Powell was part of a group who met at the South Carolina home of conservative attorney Lin Wood in November 2020 “for the purpose of exploring options to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere,” prosecutors have said. Wood, who’s licensed in Georgia, said Powell asked him to help find Georgia residents to serve as plaintiffs in lawsuits contesting the state’s election results. Additionally, emails and documents obtained through subpoenas in an unrelated lawsuit have shown that Powell was involved in arranging for a computer forensics team to travel to rural Coffee County, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, to copy data and software from elections equipment there in January 2021.

KENNETH CHESEBRO: Prosecutors have said Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney, worked with Georgia Republicans in the weeks after the November 2020 election at the direction of Trump’s campaign. Chesebro worked on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

JEFFREY CLARK: A U.S. Justice Department official who championed Trump’s false claims of election fraud, Jeffrey Clark presented colleagues with a draft letter pushing Georgia officials to convene a special legislative session on the election results, according to testimony before the U.S. House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Clark wanted the letter sent, but Justice Department superiors refused.

JENNA ELLIS: The lawyer appeared with Rudy Giuliani at a Dec. 3, 2020, hearing hosted by state Republican lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol during which false allegations of election fraud were made. Jenna Ellis also wrote at least two legal memos to Trump and his attorneys advising that Pence should “disregard certified electoral college votes from Georgia and other purportedly ‘contested’ states” when Congress met to certify the election results on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors have said.

RAY SMITH: A Georgia-based lawyer, Ray Smith was involved in multiple lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. He also gathered witnesses to provide testimony before Georgia legislative subcommittee hearings held in December 2020 on alleged issues with the state’s election.

ROBERT CHEELEY: A Georgia lawyer, Robert Cheeley presented video clips to legislators of election workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta and alleged the workers were counting votes twice or sometimes three times. He spoke to the lawmakers after Giuliani.

MICHAEL ROMAN: A former White House aide who served as the director of Trump’s election day operations, Michael Roman was involved in efforts to put forth a set of fake electors after the 2020 election.

DAVID SHAFER: The chairman of the Georgia GOP, Shafer was one of 16 state Republicans who met at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won and also declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. He also joined Trump in a lawsuit challenging the certification of the 2020 election in Georgia.

SHAWN STILL: He was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. Shawn Still was the finance chairman for the state GOP in 2020 and served as a Georgia delegate to the Republican National Convention that year. He was elected to the Georgia state Senate in November 2022 and represents a district in Atlanta’s suburbs.

STEPHEN CLIFFGARD LEE: Prosecutors say Stephen Cliffgard Lee, a pastor, worked with others to try to pressure Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter after Trump and his allies falsely accused them of pulling fraudulent ballots from a suitcase during the vote count. Lee allegedly knocked on Freeman’s door, frightening her and causing her to call 911 three times, prosecutors said in a court filing last year.

HARRISON WILLIAM PRESCOTT FLOYD: Also known as Willie Lewis Floyd III, he served as director of Black Voices for Trump, and is accused of recruiting Lee to arrange a meeting with Freeman and Chicago-based publicist Trevian Kutti.

TREVIAN C. KUTTI: Prosecutors allege publicist Trevian C. Kutti claimed to have high level law enforcement connections. They say Freeman met with Kutti at a police precinct, where she brought Floyd into the conversation on a speakerphone. Prosecutors say Kutti presented herself as someone who could help Freeman but then pressured her to falsely confess to election fraud.

CATHY LATHAM: One of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors, Cathy Latham was also chair of the Coffee County Republican Party. She was at the county elections office for much of the day on Jan. 7, 2021, and welcomed a computer forensics team that arrived to copy software and data from the county’s election equipment in what the secretary of state’s office has said was “unauthorized access” to the machines.

SCOTT GRAHAM HALL: An Atlanta-area bail bondsman, Scott Graham Hall was allegedly involved in commandeering voting information that was the property of Dominion Voting Systems from Coffee County, a small south Georgia jurisdiction. Also charged in the scheme were Powell, Latham and former county elections supervisor Misty Hampton.

MISTY HAMPTON: She was the elections director in Coffee County. Misty Hampton was present in the county elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, when a computer forensics team copied software and data from the county’s election equipment. She also allowed two other men who had been active in efforts to question the 2020 election results to access the elections office later that month and to spend hours inside with the equipment.

Willis’ indictments come after months of speculation into whether the first-term Fulton County district attorney would bring charges against the nation’s 45th president. Among the former president’s mounting legal troubles, Willis’ indictments mark the second time Trump has been linked to any alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Those charges include allegedly pressuring Georgia election officials to change the election’s results, including his now-famous phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021.

In February 2021, Willis opened a criminal investigation “into attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia General Election,” a contest that saw Joe Biden become the first Democrat to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992 by less than one percent of the state’s overall vote.

A special grand jury with subpoena power was seated later that May at her request. In court filings, she alleged “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” Willis’ investigation also examined an alleged plot involving 16 Republicans who served as fake electors, one of whom was allegedly then-state Sen. Burt Jones, now Georgia’s lieutenant governor.

Willis’ special grand jury investigation heard from 75 witnesses. Some of the more notable figures were Gov. Brian Kemp; Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr; Raffensperger; Duncan; former White House official Mark Meadows; former U.S. House speaker and Georgia congressman Newt Gingrich; and Republican South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Last year, Raffensperger told a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump’s claims of 2020 election fraud “were false.”

Raffensperger, along with Gabriel Sterling, the office’s chief operating officer, appeared before the Democrat-led House Select Committee’s nationally televised public hearings. Raffensperger told the committee that the 2020 election went “remarkably smooth,” with average ballot-casting wait times between two to three minutes statewide. “I felt we had a successful election,” he said.

Trump has accused Willis of conducting a “strictly political witch hunt.” In a September 2022 statement, he also took aim at Atlanta as “number 1 in the country in murders and heinous crimes, especially on a per capita basis - even worse than now-fabled Chicago.”

“Yet the District Attorney there is spending almost all of her waking hours, which aren’t many, on attempting to prosecute a very popular president, Donald J. Trump, who got more votes in 2020 than any sitting president in the history of the United States,” Trump said at that time.

Timeline of Donald Trump/Georgia investigation

Trump timeline

Trump announced his 2024 White House candidacy last November.

Earlier this year, Willis notified Fulton County deputies she would announce charges from her investigation sometime between July 11 and Sept. 1. She also notified Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville her office planned to work remotely during the first three weeks of August and asked no trials be scheduled during that time.

Willis’ indictments are the latest in a series of legal troubles for the nation’s 45th president. Back in April, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. With Bragg’s indictment, Trump became the first former president in history to be criminally indicted at any level.

In early May, Trump lost a civil battery and defamation case against him in New York in a case brought against him by E. Jean Carroll. The writer claimed Trump assaulted her in a New York department store back in the 1990s. A Manhattan federal jury has ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million, which the former president is appealing.

Then, on June 13, Trump was arraigned at a federal courthouse in Miami on a single federal indictment that included more than 30 charges of mishandling classified documents after he left the White House in January 2021. Trump became the first ex-president ever to face criminal charges from the federal government he once oversaw.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing that federal investigation, was also responsible for overseeing the criminal investigation involving Trump’s alleged role in the U.S. Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, an investigation that yielded, earlier this month, the four-count felony indictment.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office sent deputies to both New York and Miami to observe how local law enforcement prepared for any demonstrations or possible unrest in the wake of Trump’s indictments.

In late July, security barriers were seen being set up around the Fulton County courthouse. Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat said in early August his department would be ready for any demonstrations or civil unrest that may result from Willis’ indictments.

FULL COVERAGE OF DONALD TRUMP/GEORGIA INVESTIGATION

Trump Investigation

He also said the former president, if indicted, would be booked, photographed and processed at the county jail on Rice Street, a facility that has come under intense scrutiny over the last several months because of its allegedly deplorable conditions, and which is also the target of a U.S. Department of Justice civil investigation.

link

https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2023/08/15/10-indictments-approved-fulton-countys-2020-georgia-election-interference-investigation/

...The charges include:

Violation of the Georgia RICO Act
Perjury
Solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer
False statements and writings
Impersonating a public officer
Conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer
Forgery in the first degree
Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree
Conspiracy to commit false statements
Filing false statements
Influencing witnesses
Conspiracy to commit election fraud
Conspiracy to commit computer theft
Conspiracy to commit computer trespass
Conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy
Conspiracy to defraud the state
Criminal attempt to commit filing false documents

...In total, there are 41 counts listed in the indictment. Trump is named in 13 of the counts.

Everyone named in the indictment is facing a violation of the Georgia RICO Act charge.

Willis said at a Monday night press conference that those named in the indictment are alleged to have engaged in a “criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election results.”

Willis said as is “the normal process in Georgia law,” the grand jury has also issued arrest warrants for those charged in the indictment. Willis said she is giving them until noon on Friday, Aug. 25 to voluntarily surrender.

THE STATE OF GEORGIA

V. DONALD JOHN TRUMP

Counts 1,5, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 2729, 38-39

RUDOLPH WILLIAM LOUIS GIULIANI Counts 1-3, 6-7, 9,11,13,15,17,19, 23-24

JOHN ChaRLES EASTMAN

Counts 1-2, 9, 11,13, 15, 17, 19, 27

MARK RANDALL MEADOWS

Counts 1, 28

KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO

Counts 1, 9,11,13,15,17,19

JEFFREY BOSSERT CLARK

Counts 1, 22

JENNA LYNN ELLIS

Counts 12 RAY STALLINGS SNIITH III Counts 1-2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13,15, 17,19, 23, 25

ROBERT DAVID CHEELEY

Counts 1, 9,11,13, 15, 17,19, 23, 26, 41

MICHAEL A. ROMAN

Counts 1, 9, 11,13,15,17, 19

DAVID JAMES SHAFER

Counts 1, 8,10,12,14,16,18, 40

SHAWN MCAH TRESHER STILL

Counts 1, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18

O.C.G.A. 16-1020

STEPHEN CLIFFGARD LEE

Counts 1, 20-21, 30-31

HARRISON WILLIAM PRESCOTT

FLOYD

Counts 1, 3031 Emma

TREVIAN C. KUTTI Counts 1,

SIDNEY KATHERINE POWELL Counts 1, 32-37

CATHLEEN ALSTON LATHAM

Counts 1, 8, 10, 12, 14, 32-37

SCOTT GRAHAM HALL

Counts 1, 32-37

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no lnx

Constitutional law scholar breaks down how Trump lawyer 'completely misused' his work in coup memo

Elizabeth Preza August 10, 2023

Legal scholar and Harvard University Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe on Tuesday detailed how a lawyer for Donald Trump “completely misused” and “grossly [misrepresented]” his work in a memorandum purporting to proved a legal framework for the former president’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

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Trump last week was indicted on four felony counts related to those efforts.

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Tribe’s breakdown of the Nov. 18, 2020 Memorandum, written by attorneyKenneth Chesebro (or “co-conspirator 5,” according to special counsel Jack Smith), was published in Just Security one day before the New York Times revealed the existence of a Dec. 6, 2020 internal campaign memo that Department of Justice prosecutors “are portraying as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts evolved into a criminal conspiracy.”

READ MORE: 'Veil of legitimacy': Ex-prosecutor shows why this Trump lawyer will likely face charges

The Nov. 18 memo, entitled “The Real Deadline for Settling a State’s Electoral Votes,” is the first in a series of documents that the special counsel laid out in his indictment of Trump, and, Tribe claims, “ relied on a gross misrepresentation” of the constitutional scholar’s work.

“As the title of the November 18 Memorandum indicates, Chesebro focuses on what he considers the ‘real deadline’ under the federal scheme for presidential election,” Tribe wrote. “In the body of the Memorandum, [Chesebro] quotes me completely out of context.”

The constitutional law professor claims Chesebro’s memo “grossly misrepresents what I wrote in my constitutional law treatise on the power of one Congress, through legislation, to bind a future Congress’s ability to pass new legislation,” accusing the Trump lawyer of flipping his conclusion “on its head” and “citing [his] work in support of the very opposite conclusion.”

READ MORE: 'We fear for their union': Dutch MEP blasts US gerontocracy — and warns 'Trump is a serious threat'

Per Tribe:

Specifically, in an apparent effort to get around the obviously binding force of the Electoral Count Act … Chesebro completely misused part of the latest edition of my constitutional law treatise.

…

In those passages I explained my view as to why “the power of Congress legislatively to bind subsequent Congresses is limited, for any statute that purported to direct or to forbid subsequent Congresses to do certain things or to follow certain procedures could be repealed, as could any other law, by another duly enacted statute.” Despite the clearly limited nature of that modest proposition, Chesebro cites my writing as though it stands for the radical claim that it would be wrong “to view the Electoral Count Act as tying the Senate’s hands, unless amended." That is, he averred that the Electoral Count Act could be flouted without a subsequent amendment or revocation by Congress.

What’s worse, as a result of this misrepresentation, Chesebro put me in the (outlandish) camp of those suggesting that the Electoral Count Act can be disregarded – for example, by a unilateral vice presidential decision to deem it “unconstitutional.”

Noting that Chesebro helped him as a research assistant in the “the very parts of [Tribe's] treatise” that the Trump lawyer then “misused,” Tribe argues his “dissection of the November 18 Memorandum shows not only a gross misrepresentation of legal authorities, but more importantly Chesebro’s pivotal role in laying the groundwork for ‘a coup in search of a legal theory.’”

Tribe then unequivocally refuted the very scheme Chesebro sought to enact to help Trump remain in power.

READ MORE: GOP congressional candidate 'wildly plagiarized' and 'entirely made up' portions of his honors thesis: report

“In future elections, removing the guardrails of the Electoral Count Act as Chesebro sought to do could grievously endanger our entire system of self-government under law,” Tribe wrote.

Read Tribe's full analysis at Just Security.

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cut off

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/html-submitted/ch3.html

j6 report ch 3

As discussed further in Chapter 5, that email contained Eastman’s 2-page memo proposing a strategy for January 6th based on the incorrect legal theory that Vice President Pence could assert some authority as President of the Senate to prevent or delay the election of former Vice President Biden during the joint session. Eastman’s memo relied on the fake votes, which the memo featured in the very first line: “7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors.” 120 When Eastman submitted his memo toEpshteyn, he also copied Chesebro, who had edited the memo and called it “[r]eally awesome.” 121

:{By that point, :{Chesebro and Eastman}: were coordinating their arguments about the fake-elector votes and how they should be used:{. On January 1, 2021, Chesebro sent an email to Eastman and Epshteyn that recommended that Vice President Pence derail the joint session of Congress. In it, he raised the idea of Vice President Pence declaring “that there are two competing slates of electoral votes” in several States, and taking the position that only he, or possibly Congress, could “resolve any disputes concerning them.” 122}:

Two days later, Eastman completed his second major memo advising President Trump and his team on strategies for January 6th, again arguing that there were “dual slates of electors from 7 states,” and calling for Vice President Pence to assert power to act “[a]s the ultimate arbiter” to take steps that could overturn the election, either by sending the election back to State legislatures to reassess or by rejecting Biden’s certified electoral votes from States in which there were also fake Trump electors.123

By early January, most of the fake elector votes had arrived in Washington, except those from Michigan and Wisconsin.124 Undeterred, the Trump team arranged to fly them to Washington and hand deliver them to Congress for the Vice President himself. “Freaking trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate President . . .” Wisconsin Republican Party official Mark Jefferson wrote to Party Chairman Hitt on January 4th.125 Hitt responded, “Ok I see I have a missed call from [Mike] Roman and a text from someone else. Did you talk to them already? This is just nuts. . . .” 126

The next day, Trump Campaign Deputy Director for Election Day Operations G. Michael Brown sent a text message to other campaign staff suggesting that he was the person who delivered the fake votes to Congress.127 After sending the group a photo of his face with the Capitol in the background, Brown said, “This has got to be the cover a book I write one day” and “I should probably buy [Mike] [R]oman a tie or something for sending me on this one. Hasn’t been done since 1876 and it was only 3 states that did it.” 128 The reference to 1876 alludes to a controversy during that election about certain States’ electoral college votes.129

President Trump and his Campaign apparently had assistance from allies on Capitol Hill for this effort, including Senator Ron Johnson, his chief of staff, and the chief of staff to Representative Mike Kelly, although Senator Johnson has said that “[his] involvement in that attempt to deliver” fake elector paperwork “spanned the course of a couple seconds.” 130 On the morning of January 6th, Representative Kelly’s then-chief of staff texted anaide to the Vice President, Chris Hodgson, about hand-delivering the fake elector votes to the Vice President’s team before the joint session, a message that Hodgson ignored: “Just following up-any chance you or someone from your team can meet to take the Michigan and Wisconsin packets.” 131

According to the office of Senator Ron Johnson, Representative Kelly’s chief of staff then had a phone call with Senator Johnson’s chief of staff at 11:58 a.m. “about how Kelly’s office could get us the electors [sic] because they had it.” 132 Shortly after 11:30 a.m., the Trump Campaign’s lead attorney in Wisconsin had texted Senator Johnson expressing a “[n]eed to get a document on Wisconsin electors to you [for] the VP immediately. Is there a staff person I can talk to immediately.” 133 Senator Johnson then put his chief of staff in touch with the campaign to handle the issue.134

Shortly afterwards, Senator Johnson’s chief of staff texted Hodgson: “[Sen.] Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise.” 135 When Hodgson asked what it was, the response he got was, “Alternate slate of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them.” 136 Hodgson did not mince words: “Do not give that to him [the Vice President]. He’s about to walk over to preside over the joint session, those were supposed to come in through the mail.” 137

Those fake electoral votes, which the Trump team tried for weeks to manufacture and deliver, never made it to the Vice President. But they would have been invalid even if they did arrive on time. The Trump team’s activities were based on the false pretense that these fake electoral votes had a decisive role to play at the joint session of Congress. And yet any such role that they could have played would have helped unlawfully obstruct an official proceeding that determines how our Nation carries out the peaceful transfer of power between Presidents.

Indeed, as the joint session approached, Senator Mike Lee had expressed grave concerns about the fake elector effort in a series of text messages to one of the Trump team’s senior legal advisors. Although Senator Lee had spent a month encouraging the idea of having State legislatures endorse competing electors for Trump, he grew alarmed as it became clear that the Trump team wanted the fake electors’ votes to be considered on January 6th

...

On December 30th, Senator Lee texted Trump advisor Cleta Mitchell that January 6th was “a dangerous idea,” including “for the republic itself.” 139 He explained that, “I don’t think we have any valid basis for objecting to the electors” because “it cannot be true that we can object to any state’s presidential electors simply because we don’t think they handled their election well or suspect illegal activity.” 140 Senator Lee even questioned her about the plan’s dangerous long-term consequences: “[w]ill you please explain to me how this doesn’t create a slippery slope problem for all future presidential elections?” 141

ENDNOTES

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Groups from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all allegedly met in December 2020 and sent lists of so-called alternate electors to the National Archives after the 2020 election.

heavy rep troll and freedom caucus

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questions: how many states? all swing?

how much CNP, cleta, ginni involvement?

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philly inq

https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-republicans-jan-6-help-trump-20221222-ccq7ly5w2rfergjbcnwdatya3a-story.html

hundreds of pages of deposition transcripts released Wednesday by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack offered new insights into the roles Pennsylvania Republicans played in aiding President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The committee is expected to issue the full report on its investigation on Thursday. But the newly released transcripts were filled with new details including that Mike Roman, a Philadelphia native and one of Trump’s top election advisers, helped spearhead the effort to send pro-Trump electors to Washington as Congress met to certify the election results that day.

They also revealed a previously undisclosed attempt by state Sen. Doug Mastriano to access certain voting machines days before Jan. 6 as well as references to a plan floated by the White House to sue Pennsylvania directly in the U.S. Supreme Court over its administration of the 2020 vote. The documents also shed new light on the role a congressional staffer for U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly played behind the scenes.

Here are some of the highlights from the committee’s interviews:

Mike Roman: A key Trump campaign operative’s role in the false electors scheme

Roman, a longtime Philadelphia Republican political operative, appeared to play a key role in organizing false electors in swing states such as Pennsylvania as part of a plot to overturn the election.

A former Philadelphia ward leader and senior adviser to the Trump campaign, Roman was designated by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as “the lead for executing the voting” by the fake electors Dec. 14, 2020, according to an email the committee cited in an interview transcript released Wednesday.

The interview transcript suggests the pro-Trump electors in Pennsylvania were concerned about possible legal exposure if they signed official certificates purporting to be the legitimate electors.

In the interview, investigators referenced a Dec. 12, 2020, email sent to Roman from Trump campaign lawyer Kenneth Chesebro.

“Mike, here is my suggested language for dealing with the concern raised in the PA conference call about electors possibly facing legal exposure, parenthesis, at the hands of a partisan AG, close parenthesis, if they seem to certify that they are currently the valid electors,” the transcript says.

Investigators also asked Roman whether he knew if Mastriano, the state senator who ran as the GOP’s candidate for Pennsylvania governor this year, had expressed concerns about the elector plan. Roman pleaded the Fifth.

The transcript suggests Roman also played a role in organizing the delivery of Wisconsin Republicans’ fake elector certificate to Congress on Jan. 6. A person investigators identified as Michael Brown texted associates that he “should probably buy Roman a tie for sending me on this one. Hasn’t been done since 1876 ... ”

That’s an apparent reference to the disputed presidential election that year.

Roman refused to say whether he’d instructed Brown to deliver the document, the transcript says.

The interview transcript also references a briefing of Pennsylvania lawmakers in November 2020 about purported election fraud. On Nov. 8, 2020, Roman shared with an associate a screenshot of a message he’d obtained that said: “Maybe the Trump campaign should get some actual evidence of fraud and file in court. They’ve been horrible in their court filings. We just got a report from their legal team. They told us on caucus they have zero evidence.”

Roman declined to tell investigators who sent him the message or to discuss the briefing of Pennsylvania lawmakers, apparently delivered by Kentucky’s secretary of state.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly: Staffer’s behind-the-scenes involvement in false electors effort

Committee investigators repeatedly asked Roman during his deposition what he knew about behind-the-scenes efforts to undermine the election by a longtime top aide to U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, a Butler County Republican and a top Trump ally in the House.

Between Nov. 21 and Dec. 4, 2020, Roman exchanged 25 messages with Kelly’s then-chief-of-staff, Matt Stroia, according to questioning in the deposition transcripts. Those included exchanges that suggested Stroia may have played a more active and earlier role in the efforts by Trump and his allies than was previously known.

His name had previously surfaced in the committee’s work in connection with efforts to deliver the slates of pro-Trump electors to Pence on Jan. 6.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has said his office passed along the lists to Pence but that it was Kelly’s office that provided it to him. And while Kelly initially denied Johnson’s claims as “patently false,” the congressman’s office later acknowledged an “internal investigation” found Stroia had been in contact with Johnson’s staff.

But Roman’s deposition before the Jan. 6 Committee suggests Stroia may also have played a role in organizing a raucous Nov. 25 state Senate hearing in Gettysburg, during which Mastriano and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis pushed unfounded claims of fraud in the Pennsylvania election. Trump called in from Washington to voice his support.

“I hope it turns out like we envisioned,” Stroia wrote to Roman three days before the hearing in a message quoted in the deposition transcripts.

During his interview with the Jan. 6 Committee, Roman pleaded the Fifth and refused to answer questions about it or discuss whether he or Stroia had any involvement in organizing the Gettysburg hearing.

But other messages cited in Roman’s deposition show Stroia was in direct contact with Giuliani, who spearheaded Trump’s election challenges in the state. In one exchange with Roman, Stroia said he’d directed the president’s lawyer to talk to Roman instead.

“Do you know why Mr. Giuliani would have been calling Mike Kelly’s chief of staff ... about presidential election issues rather than you, who was acting as director of election day operations for the campaign?” committee staffers asked. He added: “I told him that you will know everything I do.”

Asked to explain, Roman again pleaded the Fifth.

Doug Mastriano and Jenna Ellis: The state senator and Trump lawyer sought access to Pennsylvania voting machines

The committee’s interview with Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis also shed light on Mastriano’s postelection activities.

“We made good headway convincing [hopefully] two counties with Dominion machines in Pennsylvania,” Mastriano wrote in a Dec. 28 email to Ellis, according to the transcript.

In another email, Mastriano makes reference to efforts to gain access to “ballot images.” Ellis declined to tell investigators why Mastriano was interested in that.

In a Dec. 29 email, Mastriano told Ellis that he’d emailed Trump himself with a letter related to “securing voluntary access for Dominion forensics.”

Fulton County later gave a third-party firm access to its Dominion voting machines, facilitated by Mastriano and state Sen. Judy Ward, R-Blair, for a supposed “audit” of the votes. That prompted the state to decertify those voting machines and force the county to obtain new ones. It wasn’t immediately clear which other counties Mastriano and other Trump allies sought to hand over access to voting machines.

Elliswas also questioned about her contacts with Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler and Jake Corman and Kim Ward, the GOP leaders of the State Senate. She declined to answer questions, however, on any efforts she and Giuliani had made to pressure them to set aside the state’s election results.

Cutler previously told the committee that Giuliani and Ellis called him daily during the run-up to Congress’ certification of the election, looking to push a baseless theory that state legislatures could set aside election results based on unsupported suspicions of fraud and appoint a new slate of Electoral College delegates instead.

Cutler said he largely avoided those calls, thinking they were inappropriate and had his attorneys respond, asking Giuliani and Ellis to stop contacting him.

Jeffrey Clark: A White House plan to sue Pennsylvania in the U.S. Supreme Court

In December 2020, Trump had White House lawyers draft a complaint to sue Pennsylvania in the U.S. Supreme Court over the administration of its election, according to committee questioning in the deposition of former Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark.

Clark, a Philadelphia native, has emerged as a central focus for the committee due to his role in a drama in which Trump briefly considered appointing him attorney general in the waning days of his administration.

Clark had been introduced to the president by U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a York County Republican and key ally of the president in Congress. And according to earlier testimony before the committee, Clark expressed a willingness to use the Justice Department to pressure state legislatures in battleground states to overturn their election results despite no evidence of significant fraud.

On Monday, the Jan. 6 Committee referred him to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution.

During two contentious deposition interviews with the committee in November 2021 and February 2022, Clark refused to answer almost any questions about his relationship to Perry, his conversations with Trump, or the ideas he floated on how the Justice Department could help contest the election. He repeatedly invoked executive privilege — the doctrine that allows presidents and their staff to resist some legislative oversight — as well as his Fifth Amendmentright against self-incrimination.

He also balked at answering questions about the draft complaint that a White House assistant sent to top officials at the Justice Department on Dec. 29, 2020, for a suit against Pennsylvania. Correspondence referenced in the deposition of Ellis, the Trump lawyer, also referenced a Trump campaign plan to ask the Supreme Court to order new elections in as many as eight states to “ensure electoral integrity.” Those suits were never filed.

Instead, the Trump campaign filed a brief in support of a long-shot lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seeking to overturn Pennsylvania’s election. The justices declined to hear the case.

For his part, Clark during his deposition — in one of his only substantive exchanges with committee members — lamented the current partisan state of politics in Washington, recalling his own upbringing in a primarily white, working-class neighborhood near the foot of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge.

“My dad was a truck driver who never graduated from high school,” he said. “He was a lifelong Democrat and a Catholic. My mom was a lifelong Republican and a Protestant. I wound up as a blend of the two, a Catholic conservative Republican.”

His lawyer Harry MacDougald was more acerbic. He called the Jan. 6 committee’s questioning “railroading” and accused members of indulging in a “paranoid fantasy.”

“It is not enough in Washington to merely disagree with someone about policy questions,” he said. “Instead, they must be destroyed. Those who disagree with Mr. Clark seek his destruction by any means available.”

The QAnon Hummer Duo: Coordination among right-wing extremist groups

Deposition transcripts were also released Wednesday for two Virginia men who made headlines in Philadelphia when they showed up outside the 2020 vote count at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in a Hummer filled with guns and emblazoned with QAnon stickers.

But the transcripts show neither Joshua Macias, president of the organization Veterans for Trump, nor his bodyguard, Antonio LaMotta, were forthcoming in their interviews with committee investigators. Both men asserted their Fifth Amendmentrights again and again, citing their ongoing prosecution in Philadelphia for weapons violations and attempted election interference.

(They were both later convicted on the weapons counts in October, but acquitted on the election related charges. LaMotta has since been federally charged with illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6.)

The committee’s investigators attempted to quiz both men on their contacts with other right-wing extremist groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters — the leaders of which Macias and LaMotta were shown in videos to have interacted with Jan. 5.

One video played during an earlier committee hearing showed Macias meeting with Enrique Tarrio, then-president of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, head of the Oath Keepers, in a Washington parking garage the day before the Capitol attack. Committee members have previously cited the video to suggest some coordination among extremist groups in the run-up to Jan. 6.

But when asked in his deposition how he came to be in the garage, Macias remained tight lipped.

“I walked,” he responded.

Investigators asked him why. “I was asked to,” he said.

By whom? “Someone said, ‘Hey come here,” Macias replied.

He refused to say what they discussed in that meeting.

As for whether he considered himself a QAnon adherent, Macias responded: “I do not ascribe to people’s beliefs. I have my own belief system.”

Philadelphia Inquirer staff writers Jonathan Lai and Jonathan Tamari contributed to this article.

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https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/15/jan-6-trump-operative-false-electors-00046175

Trump campaign operative who delivered Jan. 6 false elector lists is identified

Mike Roman passed the names to a House GOP aide in a bid to get them to then-Vice President Mike Pence, people familiar with the episode told POLITICO.

By KYLE CHENEY and NICHOLAS WU

07/15/2022

A little-known Donald Trump campaign operative delivered lists of false electors to Capitol Hill in a bid to get them to Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two people familiar with the episode.

Mike Roman, then Trump’s 2020 director of Election Day operations, delivered those false elector certificates — signed by pro-Trump activists in Michigan and Wisconsin — to Rep. Mike Kelly’s (R-Pa.) chief of staff at the time, both people told POLITICO. Kelly was a Trump ally in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, and his then-top aide received the documents from Roman before deputizing a colleague to disseminate copies on Capitol Hill, according to both people.

Roman’s role in the effort to deliver those slates of electors directly to Pence has not previously been reported. The onetime Trump White House researcher [bad code] ...

The origin of the false elector lists, which never got to Pence before he presided over certification of Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, has become an enduring subplot in the select panel’s investigation of the Capitol attack designed to disrupt that day. After the committee revealed the role of a top aide to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in the episode during a hearing last month, Johnson said the false elector lists came from Kelly — who has repeatedly denied any involvement by his office in their distribution.[vid?]

"They have changed their story, from denying their involvement outright to now not denying their former chief of staff’s involvement,” said Alexa Henning, a Johnson spokesperson. “Congressman Kelly should be issuing Senator Johnson an apology for participating in the perpetration of false stories regarding Senator Johnson’s minimal involvement in this matter.”

Kelly has recently touted the results of an “internal investigation” that identified Matt Stroia, his chief of staff at the time, as the intermediary for the lists. That inquiry found that the lists were never passed from Stroia, now a Pfizer lobbyist, to Johnson’s office. Kelly’s office, in response to a request for comment,said Stroia had a previous relationship with members of the Trump team and got contacted by someone linked to that team on Jan. 6.

“Matthew got the information,” Kelly’s current chief of staff, Tim Butler, said in an interview. “There was another staffer here in the office who was asked to physically walk it over. And it’s just those two individuals that were involved.”

Neither of those two individuals worked in Kelly’s office any longer, Butler said. Kelly’s office declined to identify the other staffer involved.

Neither Roman nor Stroia returned requests for comment for this story.

Both people who confirmed Roman’s involvement in the transmission of the elector lists spoke on condition of anonymity amid the select panel’s ongoing investigation into the runup to the attack and Trump’s role in it.

[INSURRECTION FALLOUT

‘His own choices’: Select panel says Trump — not his advisers — set Jan. 6 in motion

BY KYLE CHENEY AND NICHOLAS WU

The Jan. 6 committee’s mention of his office’s role put Johnson, facing a tough reelection race this fall, on the back foot. He later told a home-state radio host: “My office’s entire involvement in this thing lasted 70 minutes. My involvement was probably seconds, maybe a minute or two.”

Roman’s involvement, however, clarifies another piece of the puzzle behind Trump’s effort to seize a second term he didn’t win. Trump, relying on a band of fringe attorneys, spent much of December 2020 leaning on Republican state legislatures in a handful of states to ignore the results and deliver pro-Trump electors to Congress.

Under Trump’s plan, Pence — required by the Constitution to preside over the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021 — would cite the “alternate” and illegitimate electors to block Biden’s victory or delay the count altogether. Ultimately, no state legislature agreed to Trump’s plan, but the former president’s campaign still assembled activists to sign false documents claiming to be genuine presidential electors and delivered them to Congress.

The plan fell apart when Pence refused to go along, contending that doing so would violate multiple provisions of federal law and insisting he had no power to do anything other than introduce certified electoral votes. Pence, who had huddled with advisers and the Senate parliamentarian to flesh out his position, had decided well before Jan. 6 that he would not attempt to overturn Biden’s victory.

But that didn’t stop the Trump campaign from attempting to place some of the false slates directly into Pence’s hands on Jan. 6.

The Justice Department is in talks with the select committee about evidence specifically related to the false electors effort, Jan. 6 panel chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said this week.

DOJ has in recent weeks subpoenaed a slew of Trump allies who acted as false electors, including several state GOP chairs. It has also subpoenaed state-level operatives working on Trump’s campaign.

In addition, FBI agents recently seized the phone of attorney John Eastman, a top strategist for Trump’s effort who worked closely on the plan to appoint false electors. Eastman is fighting in a New Mexico federal court to get his phone back but was dealt a setback Friday evening when a judge denied his motion for a restraining order.

When subpoenaing Roman, who is from Pennsylvania, the select committee cited records reflecting his push to convince Republican state legislatures to appoint pro-Trump slates of presidential electors as part of a strategy to boost the losing campaign.

“[T]he Select Committee is in possession of communications reflecting your involvement in a coordinated strategy to contact Republican members of state legislatures in certain states that former President Trump had lost and urge them to “reclaim” their authority by sending an alternate slate of electors that would support former President Trump,” Thompson wrote in a letter accompanying the subpoena.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

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https://www.alternet.org/unequal-justice-crime-and-punishment/

j6 comm good at narr]

...

Trump’s prosecution, at least at the federal level (he’s also under serious investigation in the states of Georgia and New York), now rests in the hands of the Justice Department and special counsel Jack Smith. The DOJ has received criminal referrals from the committee for four overlapping federal felonies committed by the former President:

Obstruction of an official proceeding, referring to the joint session of Congress convened on January 6, 2021, to confirm the election of Joe Biden, and the effort to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify Biden’s victory;
Conspiracy to defraud the United States, referring to the former president’s multi-phase scheme to overturn the election;
Conspiracy to make a false statement, referring to the plan to submit false slates of electors to Congress and the National Archives; and
Inciting, assisting, or giving aid and comfort to an insurrection, referring to Trump’s incendiary speech immediately prior to the riot at the Capitol and his behavior during the riot.

The committee has also referred five of Trump’s former aides and associates to the Justice Department: John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Kenneth Cheseboro and Jeffrey Clark. Trump, however, is the only member of the crew who has been referred for insurrection. The report singles out the ex-commander-in-chief on the insurrection charge, stating “the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump.”

Although the referrals are non-binding, Smith is already in the thick of investigating the insurrection and the plot to overturn the 2020 election, presenting evidence to at least two grand juries. The special counsel is also leading the investigation into Trump’s removal of top-secret government documents to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Convicting Trump will not be easy, especially on charges related to January 6. Each of the felonies referred to the Department of Justice requires proof of criminal intent. The government will have to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump knew he had lost the election and was acting with a “corrupt purpose” to obstruct the work of the joint session of Congress or, on the conspiracy referral, that he had an intent to defraud the nation with the submission of fake slates of electors.

It will be particularly challenging to prove that Trump incited or assisted the insurrection as Trump would likely mount a First Amendment defense. In its landmark 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court articulated a two-part test for punishing incendiary speech, holding that the First Amendment protects advocating the use of force or lawbreaking “except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action” (emphasis added).

Still, it’s easy to understand why the committee chose to cite Trump for insurrection. Trump knew that members of the crowd who had gathered to hear him talk were armed when he urged them to march to the Capitol to “fight like hell.” And amid the ensuing melee, he accused Pence of cowardice for not using his authority as Vice President to change the outcome of the election, seething in a Tweet, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution…USA demands the truth!” Almost immediately after the Tweet was posted, the report notes, “the crowd around the Capitol surged, and more individuals joined the effort to confront police and break further into the building.”

Should Trump be tried and convicted of insurrection, he would face a prison sentence of up to ten years. He would also be barred from holding federal office for life.

So, what are the odds that Trump is finally held to account? Will Jack Smith prove to be Trump’s Porfiry Petrovich, the police investigator who brought Raskolnikov to justice, or will he turn out to be another Robert Mueller? We may have the answer in a matter of months.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/25/fann-townsend-subpoenas-arizona-trump/

no lnx Democracy Dies in Darkness

Arizona fake-electors subpoenas show breadth of DOJ Jan. 6 probe

Requests for information from two state lawmakers were released under a state public records law

By Devlin Barrett and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

July 25, 2022

Arizona state Sen. Kelly Townsend, pictured in 2019, and state Senate President Karen Fann received subpoenas seeking communications “relating to any effort, plan, or attempt to serve as an Elector” for Donald Trump after the 2020 election. (Bob Christie/AP)[

Grand jury subpoenas issued last month to two Arizona state lawmakers show the breadth of the criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington into efforts by supporters of Donald Trump to use “false electors” to try to undo Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Copies of two subpoenas issued to Republican state senators from Arizona were released Monday via a public-records request, confirming what has been previously reported about the June demands for records related “to the signing or mailing of any document purporting to be a Certificate certifying Elector votes in favor of Donald J. Trump and/or Michael R. Pence.”

The subpoenas issued to Karen Fann, president of the Arizona Senate, and Sen. Kelly Townsend also seek communications “relating to any effort, plan, or attempt to serve as an Elector” in favor of the then-president and then-vice president.

A subpoena is not an accusation but rather a demand for information that investigators believe may help them solve a crime. The documents released Monday cast a wide net for any communications that Fann and Townsend may have had with any member of the executive or legislative branch of the federal government; any representative or agent of Trump or his campaign; or Trump boosters Jenna Ellis, Bernard Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, Boris Epshteyn, James Troupis, Joe DiGenova, John Eastman, Joshua Findlay,Justin Clark, Kenneth Chesebro, Mike Roman or Victoria Toensing.....

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