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ashcroft, jay miz SoS

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pow mofo pending

mypillow

'Give me some specifics': Missouri Republican unable to back up Biden allegation during testy interview - Alternet.org

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Jay Ashcroft - Wikipedia

john Robert "Jay" Ashcroft (born July 12, 1973) is an American attorney, engineer and politician serving as the 40th and current Secretary of State of Missouri since 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he is the son of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As Missouri Secretary of State, Ashcroft pushed for stricter voter identification laws, fought against ballot initiatives, supported an investigation into former Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, and restricted library services for minors.

Ashcroft is a candidate in the 2024 Missouri gubernatorial election.

Early life

Ashcroft is the son of politician John Ashcroft.[1]

Ashcroft attended the United States Merchant Marine Academy, but did not graduate.[2] He earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from Missouri University of Science and Technology. He then worked as an engineer.[3] Ashcroft attended law school, earning his Juris Doctor from Saint Louis University.[4]

Political career

Ashcroft ran for the Missouri Senate in 2014,[5] losing to Democrat Jill Schupp.[1] He ran for Missouri Secretary of State in the 2016 election, defeating state senator Will Kraus in the Republican primary election[6] and former KMOV anchor Robin Smith in the general election.[7] In 2020, Ashcroft won re-election against Democrat Yinka Faleti.

Abortion

Ashcroft opposes abortion. As Secretary of State, Ashcroft wrote "problematic" ballot summaries for initiatives seeking to reverse the Missouri ban on abortions. Judge Beetum rewrote summaries for all six initiatives, noting that Ashcroft's summaries are argumentative, do not fairly represent the purposes or effect, and lack reference to any other reproductive care mentioned in the initiatives.[8] Ashcroft appealed the case to Supreme Court of Missouri, however it was denied less than a week later.[9]

Elections

Ashcroft is a staunch supporter of stricter voter ID laws. Ashcroft's claims about voter fraud, as well as the need for photo ID laws to combat voter fraud, were a central aspect of his 2016 campaign for the office of Missouri Secretary of State.[10] He has asserted that voter fraud is common enough to have "changed elections."[11][12][13] Election fraud did change the outcome in a Kansas City election when an aunt and uncle voted illegally for a state representative who won by one vote.[14] The type of voter fraud that would be addressed through Ashcroft's preferred legislation, which critics say suppresses turnout,[15] is extremely rare.[16][17] In defending a push for stricter photo-ID laws, Ashcroft cited one instance where a couple illegally voted, but omitted that the photo-ID laws that Ashcroft was advocating for would not have prevented the couple from voting.[17] According to the Kansas City Star, "there has never been a reported case of voter impersonation fraud in Missouri."[10] In June 2018, Ashcroft said that voter fraud was "an exponentially greater threat than hacking."[10]

On July 3, 2017, Ashcroft said that he would comply with a request by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, a commission appointed by Trump to investigate supposed voter fraud, to a request for Missourians voting data.[18] At the time, Missouri was one of only three states to comply with the commission - which was required by Missouri law.[19] Officials of both parties in many states declined to turn over data to the commission, variously citing voter privacy and stating that the commission would legitimize Trump's claims of massive voter fraud.[18][20] He said he would give out voters' names, addresses, birthdates, where they voted and when, also required by Missouri law.[19][21]

Ashcroft has backed a number of Republican proposals to reduce the number of Missouri ballot initiative petitions and make it harder for ballot initiatives to win approval in elections.[22]

In March 2023, Ashcroft announced that he is withdrawing Missouri from Electronic Registration Information Center, a bipartisan system to update and improve the accuracy of voter rolls.[23]

Investigation of Josh Hawley

In December 2018, Ashcroft, who as Secretary of State does not have the power to issue subpoenas, asked Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway, who can issue subpoenas, to cooperate in an investigation into then-Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley for using public resources in his successful 2018 campaign for the U.S. Senate.[24] In February 2019, Ashcroft ended his investigation into Hawley, declaring that there was no evidence that Hawley or the AG's office had violated election law.[25]

Opposition to Medicaid expansion

After Missouri voters voted in favor of Medicaid expansion, Ashcroft applauded efforts by Republicans in the Missouri legislature to block funding for Medicaid expansion.[26]

Library censorship

As Secretary of State in 2022, Ashcroft proposed restrictions on materials available to minors in public libraries. The proposal details procedures and processes each library would be required to implement in order to continue receiving state funding. More than 10,000 comments were submitted in the 30-day public comment period, and library industry leaders and associations voiced their opposition.[27] In response to backlash, Ashcroft described the proposed rules as a move toward "local control" and said "I'm not the one making a big deal about this. It's the libraries."[28]

The implementation of Ashcroft's rule has been described as "mass confusion" for libraries as they attempt to comply with restrictions that could be interpreted broadly.[29]

Investments rules

In 2023, following the failure of a bill related to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment practices in Missouri Congress, Ashcroft utilized the powers of his office to set a rule requiring disclosure forms for utilization of ESG scores. The rule has been criticized as "anti-free market" by the Sierra Club, and the Chamber of Commerce described it as "vague" and "burdensome." The Missouri Secretary of State office's oversight over securities rules is unusual relative to other Secretary of State offices.[30]

Ashcroft's office hired campaign donors as independent counsel in a lawsuit challenging the rules.[31]

Electoral history

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swatted 1 24 why? biden off ballot?

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said Monday that he and his family are safe after someone called police to report a fake shooting at their home.

Ashcroft said Jefferson City police called him Sunday to check in after receiving a call about a shooting at his house that night.

Ashcroft said he at one point walked out of his home with his hands in the air as armed police waited for him outside. Ashcroft, his wife and children were not hurt.

"I’m so thankful the Jefferson City Police Department handled the situation with an extreme amount of professionalism and that no one was hurt. It is unfortunate their resources and manpower had to be used on a prank,” Ashcroft said in a statement. “I am hopeful those responsible for such childish, cowardice acts will be brought to justice.”

An Associated Press call to Jefferson City police requesting additional information about the incident was not immediately returned Monday.

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[### Please God, No, Jay Ashcroft Is Running for Governor

Riverfront Times

https://www.riverfronttimes.com › news › please-god...](https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/please-god-no-jay-ashcroft-is-running-for-governor-39808497)

Apr 6, 2023 — The gubernatorial candidate is a cookie-cutter Missouri politician, and we're sick of them.

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ymail judd 1 24

republican officials in several states are threatening to remove President Biden's name from the presidential ballot. The officials claim that removing Biden's name could be justified in response to Biden's immigration policies. The threat is rooted in a white nationalist conspiracy theory, the "great replacement," which posits Biden is intentionally allowing migrants to cross the border as part of a scheme to cement political control of the country.

The warning by Republicans that they are prepared to kick Biden off the ballot comes in response to decisions in Colorado and Maine to disqualify Trump. These decisions, which are under appeal, are based on the text of the 14th Amendment, which states that anyone who "having previously taken an oath… engaged in insurrection" is disqualified from holding "any office, civil or military, under the United States."

On X, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R), who is currently a candidate for governor, said that if the decisions in Colorado and Maine are upheld, he would apply the "new legal standard" to Biden.

[twt]

Ashcroft said that the removal of Biden from the ballot could be justified because Biden purposely allowed an "invasion" of immigrants to cross the southern border.

In a December interview on Fox News, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R) said Texas could "take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing 8 million people to cross the border since he’s been president." Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) said he was considering removing Biden because "he's let in 8 million people illegally, a massive invasion, including from enemies of our country."

All of these officials have their facts wrong. Customs and Border Protectionl has reported 8 million encounters with migrants since Biden took office. But, until August 2024, millions of those migrants were immediately expelled based on Title 42, a Trump-era policy that denied the legal right of migrants to seek asylum due to the public health emergency created by the COVID pandemic. Many of these encounters were the same migrants attempting to cross the border multiple times. Since Title 42 provided for immediate expulsion without the creation of an immigration record, it encouraged repeated attempts.

Since then many more migrants have been expelled under a new Biden policy, which requires migrants to make an appointment using a smartphone app before presenting themselves at the border. Most undocumented migrants who are currently inside the United States are here legally. The Refugee Act of 1980 gives migrants inside the United States the right to claim asylum based on "a well-founded fear of persecution." During Biden's presidency, a much smaller number of migrants have been able to cross without detection, which was the case under Trump and every president.

But even if the Republican claims about Biden's immigration record were true, how would that constitute Biden engaging in "insurrection"? That claim appears to be premised on the idea that Biden intentionally allowed millions of migrants to enter the country as part of a sinister plot to enhance the political power of Democrats. The racist conspiracy theory that Democrats are trying to "replace" white voters with non-white immigrants has been embraced by white supremacists.

What the Constitution says

The Constitution includes several requirements for candidates for president. To run for president, a candidate must be at least 35 years old, a natural-born citizen, and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. (Trump spent years asserting that President Obama was not a legitimate president, falsely claiming that Obama was born in Africa.)

In 1868, another requirement was added with the ratification of the 14th Amendment. Section 3 states that if you win federal office, take an oath, and then "engage in insurrection" you are ineligible to hold "any office… under the United States."

In Colorado, the state Supreme Court ruled that Trump was ineligible because he engaged in an insurrection that culminated on January 6, 2021. The Constitution does not define the term "insurrection," but the court ruled that Trump's conduct met both the dictionary definition and how the drafters of the 14th Amendment understood the term:

President Trump continued to fan the flames of his supporters’ ire, which he had ignited, with ongoing false assertions of election fraud, propelling the “Stop the Steal” movement and cross-country rallies leading up to January 6. Specifically, between Election Day 2020 and January 6, Stop the Steal organizers held dozens of rallies around the country, proliferating President Trump’s election disinformation and recruiting attendees, including members of violent extremist groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and the Three Percenters, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and white nationalists, to travel to Washington, D.C. on January 6.

…With full knowledge of these sometimes-violent events, President Trump sent the following tweet on December 19, 2020, urging his supporters to travel to Washington, D.C. on January 6: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6. Be there, will be wild!”

…At this point, the record established that President Trump’s “plan” was that when Congress met to certify the election results on January 6, Vice President Pence could reject the true electors who voted for President Biden and certify a slate of fake electors supporting President Trump or he could return the slates to the states for further proceedings.

Shenna Bellows, Maine's Secretary of State, ruled that Trump was disqualified from the Maine ballot based on similar evidence. Both rulings have been stayed pending Trump's appeal to the Supreme Court. As a result, Trump will appear on the primary ballot in both states.

The Supreme Court could find in Trump's favor, ruling that Trump did not engage in an insurrection. (Something that is contradicted by voluminous evidence.) Or the Supreme Court could say that the 14th Amendment would only apply if Trump were convicted in court of engaging in an insurrection. (Something that does not appear in the text.) Or the Supreme Court could find a technical way to let Trump off the hook. One of these outcomes appears likely, particularly with the current composition of the court.

But the process of taking the Constitution seriously is not, as Republicans like Ashcroft claim, "disgraceful" and does not "undermine[] our republic."

Media advances the Republican narrative

The Republican narrative that applying the 14th Amendment to Trump is a threat to the democratic process is being advanced by prominent media outlets. On December 22, for example, the New York Times published a piece that claimed that the "Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that Donald J. Trump is constitutionally ineligible to run for president again pits one fundamental value against another: giving voters in a democracy the right to pick their leaders versus ensuring that no one is above the law."

The Washington Post editorial board wrote that excluding Trump from the ballot would "is dangerous." And claim courts "should be reluctant to prevent the country’s citizens from choosing an elected official to lead them."

But voters in the United States have never had "the right to pick their leaders" without limitation. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) proved to be a popular politician and was elected Governor of California twice. But voters could not select him as president because he was born outside of the United States. Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL) is a well-liked figure, but voters cannot select him as president anytime in the next decade because he is just 26 years old.

If there was an overwhelming desire from voters to elect prior officeholders who engaged in an insurrection to the presidency, there is a mechanism to do that. They could elect representatives who would amend the Constitution to allow it. Until that happens, enforcing the qualifications to run for office under the Constitution is not an attack on democracy. It is a central part of the democratic process.

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apr 2023 star

during his time in the office, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has been willing to acknowledge and elevate those that have promoted conspiracy theories and false claims about elections. Following former President Donald Trump’s debunked theories after the 2020 presidential election, Ashcroft said he was confident that Missouri’s elections were secure. But, at the same time, the Republican has taken an approach that critics say supports unproven claims about the elections in which he runs.

Just after the start of this year’s legislative session, The Star revealed in January that Ashcroft met with right-wing conspiracy theorist and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell in Jefferson City. Lindell played a major role in promoting baseless lies about the 2020 election and has continued to elevate claims in the years that have followed. TOP VIDEOS Top Videos 00:30 01:30 See Bar Medici and TheMercury Room through thelens of a KC Star photographer And, last week, The Guardian reported that Ashcroft was among 10 state election officials who attended a secret February conference held by three groups that spread election denial lies and advocate for stricter voting laws.

Now, the 49-year-old secretary of state is running for governor in what will likely be a hotly contested Republican primary. Ashcroft is poised to run his 2024 campaign appealing to the right-wing of the Republican Party through hot-button national topics such as election integrity and social issues. Critics of Ashcroft who spoke with The Star say he has largely used his position as secretary of state to elevate himself in front of conservative voters. They argue that, while serving as Missouri’s top election official, he made frequent gestures to fringe groups promoting false claims about the security of elections.

Those actions, critics say, illustrate a candidate willing to entertain conspiracies to get elected. And voting rights advocates say his actions have made it harder for Missourians to vote. “I have not yet seen evidence that there are lines that Jay Ashcroft is not willing to cross,” said Jason Kander, Ashcroft’s immediate predecessor as secretary of state who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate as a Democrat in 2016. “I’m worried that he is somebody who views whatever office he holds as merely a vehicle to elevate him to the next office and not as a very important responsibility that goes beyond his ideological agenda.”

Ashcroft, in a statement provided by his campaign, said he’s willing to work with anyone “who wants to ensure Missouri has the most free, fair, and secure elections in the country.” The statement cited a report from the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based conservative thinktank, that said Missouri was ranked third nationally in “election integrity.” “As Secretary of State, I’ve made voter ID the law, ended private funding of election operations, and eliminated drop boxes. I am committed to listening to people across the spectrum to protect our democracy,” the statement said.

Defenders of Ashcroft in interviews with The Star painted him as an outspoken conservative who believes what he says and defends what he thinks is important. “Jay Ashcroft will come out and he will take very public stances on the issues that the Republican Party’s base feels are really important issues,” said John Lamping, a former Republican state senator who said his comments were not an endorsement of Ashcroft. Ashcroft is looking at a Republican primary still more than a year away in which he will likely face Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe and state Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican. The race between three Republican office holders is certain to hone in on their past political histories.

MISSOURI ELECTIONS Ashcroft was elected secretary of state in 2016 and reelected in 2020. “Jay Ashcroft has repeatedly touted ‘Missouri’s elections are safe and secure,’” said Denise Lieberman, the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition’s director and general counsel. “And yet continues to uplift, validate unfounded narratives about voter fraud in order to stoke fears, to propel a radical anti-voter agenda.” Last year, Ashcroft supported a new GOP-led state law that enacted sweeping changes to how elections are conducted in Missouri.

The law, which requires voters to show a government issued ID at the ballot box and bans touchscreen voting machines after 2024, was decried by voting rights advocates as an attempt to stifle voting rights. And the Republican secretary of state earlier this year pulled Missouri out of a nonprofit organization formed in 2012 that analyzes voter registration, motor vehicle department and other data to help maintain accurate data rolls and eliminate duplicate registrations. Ashcroft’s decision came after some Republicans grew suspicious of the organization, commonly referred to as ERIC, amid the conspiracies promoted by Trump and his supporters. Kander, the former secretary of state, told The Star that there were two types of election officials in the country: those who view voters as customers of the process and those who view them as criminals.

He said Ashcroft views his job as the latter. Ashcroft’s conflicting statements that Missouri’s elections are secure while also meeting with conspiracy theorists is not nuanced, Kander said. It’s “just dishonest and it’s cowardly.” ASHCROFT AS POTENTIAL GOVERNOR While Ashcroft has been criticized for his decisions related to elections, others have lauded his hands-on approach to statewide issues. “He’s traveled the state and has worked with every county clerk and every election authority throughout his tenure as secretary of state,” said state Rep. Peggy McGaugh, a Carrollton Republican and former county clerk. “I worked with numerous (secretaries of state) in my 30 year career as county clerk, but I don’t remember any of them traveling the state like he has.”

McGaugh, who said her comments were not an endorsement of Ashcroft, has sponsored legislation that would make sweeping changes to Missouri’s elections. In an interview with The Star, she pushed back on criticism of her and Ashcroft’s support of Missouri’s new election law saying last year’s election was a “resounding success.” “If he runs the governor’s office like he has the secretary of state’s office, he’ll surround himself with good people, he’ll be hands on, and it’ll be something that we can rely on — him being fair and honest.” Lamping, the former Republican state senator, said Ashcroft would take a much different approach to the governorship than Gov. Mike Parson, whose term ends in 2025. Ashcroft, he said, would be much more outspoken about conservative ideological issues. “What are things dominating Republican Party primary voters in the last six months? It was (COVID-19) mandates, maybe it’s CRT, certainly transgenderism,” he said. Kander said he would expect Ashcroft to use the position of governor to eye higher office. “He has clearly approached the job of secretary of state as its main function is to elevate Jay Ashcroft to whatever the next level is,” he said. “And I think if he’s the governor, that will be that much more damaging.”

Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City-based attorney who has worked for prominent Missouri Democrats, including former Gov. Jay Nixon and former U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, said Ashcroft has been one of the most politically aggressive secretaries of state he has seen. The position, he said, has not been historically controversial or political, but rather an office that ensures elections are run on time and business filings get done. “Particularly lately, he’s using his office to sort of establish his conservative street cred, which has become a common thing, I think, among Republican candidates,” Hatfield said. Hatfield said he hopes that Ashcroft’s movement further to the right doesn’t help him in the race. But it has helped in the past, he said, pointing to U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, who previously served as state attorney general. “I think at some point, I assume the electorate will hold people accountable for extreme positions. But we haven’t seen it,” Hatfield said. Star reporters Maia Bond and Jonathan Shorman contributed to this story. RELATED STORIES FROM KANSAS CITY STAR}:

Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article274207115.html#storylink=cpy

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4 23 gmail

Heritage and its political arm, Heritage Action for America, have spent tens of millions of dollars promoting their own model bills that impose strict restrictions on voting. They have targeted the investment on key battleground states such as Arizona, Georgia and Michigan that could hold the balance of power in the 2024 presidential race.

Heritage began hosting annual gatherings of Republican secretaries of state at the start of the Trump presidency in 2017. February’s in-person conference was the first to be sponsored by three rightwing powerhouses of election denial and voter suppression – Heritage, together with the Public Interest Legal Foundation (Pilf), and the Honest Elections Project (HEP).

Pilf is a conservative legal group that sues election officials to force them to purge voter rolls, a process that has affected eligible US voters. The group is led by J Christian Adams, a former justice department lawyer who tried to use the Voting Rights Act to claim voting discrimination against white people.

Trump’s former lawyer Cleta Mitchell also sits on the Pilf board.

HEP is a conservative dark-money group closely tied to the Republican operative Leonard Leo who was instrumental in engineering the current conservative supermajority on the US supreme court. Reporting by ProPublica and the New York Times last year revealed that Leo has received control of a staggering $1.6bn to advance rightwing causes.

Concern about the potential of top election officials to subvert democracy intensified during the 2022 midterm elections when a number of individuals committed to Trump’s stolen election lie also ran for office. They formed the “America First Secretary of State Coalition” which became a conduit of far-right conspiracy theories linked to QAnon.

Most of those candidates failed in their bid to take over the reins of election administration in their states. But the Heritage conference suggests that the desire to deploy Republican secretaries of state as channels of voter suppression and election misinformation remains very much alive.

Though chief election officials are tasked with ensuring that ballots are fair and impartial, the Heritage conference was attended only by Republican secretaries of state.

The Guardian asked Heritage to explain why its conference was held in secret and with only Republican attendees. The group did not answer those questions.

Von Spakovsky said that the event was an “educational summit intended to provide information on current issues in elections and ensure that our election process protects the right to vote for American citizens by making it easy to vote and hard to cheat”.

He disputed the argument that security measures at the ballot box such as voter ID suppressed turnout. “The claim that secure elections somehow promote greater restrictions is outrageous and has been clearly disproven,” he said.

Von Spakovsky also pointed to Heritage’s election fraud database, which he said sampled “proven instances of election fraud from across the country”. The database records 1,422 “proven instances of voter fraud” stretching back to 1982 – a 41-year period during which billions of votes have been cast in the US.

Several of the participants at the conference have election denial and voter suppression track records. They include Florida’s secretary of state, Cord Byrd,who, soon after beingappointed by Governor Ron DeSantis last spring, refused to say whether Joe Biden had wonthe 2020 presidential election.

Byrd runs Florida’s “election integrity unit” that was set up by DeSantis last year to investigate election crimes, even though there is scant evidence of substantial voter fraud. More than a dozen citizens accused of illegally voting have been arrested at gunpointunder DeSantis’s crackdown on supposed voter fraud.

Another attendee – Jay Ashcroft, secretary of state of Missouri – has been a leading proponent of that state’s new restrictive voting law. His office has been named in numerous lawsuits in the last year for imposing extreme constraints on voter registration, including a recent lawsuit accusing Ashcroft of illegally blocking a ballot measure.

Tennessee’s secretary of state, Tre Hargett, another listed participant, has been accused by Democratic leaders in Tennessee of purging thousands of voters from the official rolls.

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On the eve of Thursday’s hearing at which a congressional committee revealed even more damning evidence of former President Donald Trump’s central role in the Capitol insurrection and the broader plot to keep him in power after losing the 2020 election, former Rep. Michele Bachmann told religious-right activists that the insurrection was planned by Trump opponents to make him look bad.

Bachmann, who was at the U.S. Capitol that day, told a Family Research Council town hall on Christian nationalism that the Jan. 6 crowd was “happy” before the violence started. She declared that the attack was a “rebranding exercise” to portray Trump and the MAGA movement as terrorists.

Bachmann is an influential figure on the religious right.She is dean of the School of Government at Pat Robertson’s Regent University and board chair of the Family Research Council, which was the organizer of Wednesday’s event.

Bachman is an ardent election denialist who, like Trump, has refused to accept his defeat. On Election Day 2020, she had assured viewers of Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Network that “the Lord, our God, has sealed this election in the heavenlies and we are going to be rejoicing very soon.” 

Weeks after the election, she screamedthat her vote had been “stolen” on election night, “when Satan was snatching away from America rule by the consent of the governed.” In April 2021, she responded to President Biden’s first State of the Union Speech by saying, “We had a fake election. We’ve had a fake presidency. This is a fake State of the Union address.” A month before, she used her post at Regent to host an “election integrity” conferencethat gave a platform to Gateway Pundit’s Jim and Joe Hoff and other conspiracy theorists.

Bachmann has also been a fervent promoter of bogus conspiracy theories about the insurrection since hours after the attack. The day after the insurrection, she falsely declared that the Capitol was invaded by left-wing “rabble-rousers paid to put together a coup.” Months later, she told right-wing radio listeners that the insurrection “was a theatrical event that the progressive left put on” to “rebrand Donald Trump as being an insurrectionist and a leader of a terrorist movement.”

She has her story, and she’s sticking to it, evidence be damned. [vid]

Tags: Michele Bachmann Capitol Insurrection Christian Nationalism Jan. 6 Family Research Council

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ref 3/21

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/michele-bachmanns-election-integrity-conference-features-notorious-source-of-conspiracy-theories-the-gateway-pundit/

Former Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who was named dean of Regent University’s Robertson School of Government in December, is hosting an “election integrity” conferenceTuesday, March 23, featuring a mix of longtime voter suppression advocates and right-wing pundits who have promoted former President Donald Trump’s bogus “stolen election” claims. The conference is further evidence that the religious right has thrown its institutional muscle behind Republican efforts to gain and hold political power by passing laws designed to make it harder for some people to vote.

On election night last November, Bachmann told viewers of Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel that God had “sealed this election in the heavenlies” and that they would be “rejoicing very soon.” A few weeks later she declared that Satan stole the election from Trump.

Bachmann is using her perch at the “academic setting” of Regent University, which is affiliated with televangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, to tout the supposed intellectual seriousness of her conference. She recently told radio host Dom Giordano that the event would feature “A-list speakers” and that she was “very careful” about who she chose to speak, saying, “I didn’t want any fringe people, people that would be considered nuts.”

One measure of Bachmann’s claims and her sense of what counts as not-fringey is that she has also said that a “centerpiece of this entire conference” will be an hour-long presentation by “the editorial board of The Gateway Pundit,” which she said has the “finest archive in the United States of stories dealing with questionable election practices.” The Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft and his brother Joe Hoft have both been listed as speakers in promotional materials for the conference, and The Gateway Pundit has in turn promoted the conference.

The Gateway Pundit has for years been widely recognized as a notorious source of conspiracy theories and disinformation about a range of topics. A 2017 Harvard University study of disinformation and propaganda said, “Gateway Pundit is in a class of its own, known for ‘publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes.’” Jim Hoft’s Twitter account was permanently suspended in February for spreading disinformation about the 2020 election in violation of the company’s “civic integrity policy.”

Research from the nonprofit research organization Advance Democracy noted just before the inauguration that The Gateway Pundit and other right-wing media were questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election and either downplaying the seriousness of the Capitol insurrection or falsely claiming that it was incited by left-wing activists. The day after the Capitol Insurrection, The Gateway Pundit promoted an article that referred to then-Vice President Mike Pence as a “traitor.”

Former Right Wing Watch investigative reporter Jared Holt, now at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, noted on March 17, “Since the Capitol attack, the pro-Trump disinformation rag The Gateway Pundit has been growing increasingly cozy to the modern militia movement. Recent articles have cheered on Ammon Bundy, and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, for example.”

Bachmann promoted the conference and touted The Gateway Pundit’s central role on a March 17prayer call hosted by religious-right activists Jim Garlow and Mario Bramnick. Garlow and Bramnick have hosted a series of prayer calls since the election that promoted stolen election claims and fervent prayers and prophecies that God would intervene before Inauguration Day to miraculously keep Trump in power. The day after the Capitol insurrection, Bachmann appeared on one of the calls, where she said that Democratic wins in Georgia Senate runoff elections and the assault on the Capitol were both part of “a left-wing coup.”

In addition to a presentation by The Gateway Pundit, which Bachmann told her fellow prayer warriors would have people “clamoring for election reform,” the conference will also include sessions on thesupposed threat to democracy posed by H.R. 1, the voting rights and democracy reform legislation that has passed the House and is being considered by the Senate. Proponents of H.R. 1 say it is urgently necessary to prevent a new wave of state voter suppression laws from taking effect. Bachmann told radio listeners that it would lead to “one-party rule” by Democrats “for evermore.”

Bachmann has touted the participation of former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who is not widely known for his expertise on election procedures.

Other speakers include the following:

Tags: Eric Metaxas Hans von Spakovsky Jay Ashcroft Jim Hoft Joe Hoft John Fund Kris Kobach Michele Bachmann Disinformation Election 2020 voter suppression Voting Rights Gateway Pundit Heritage Foundation Regent University

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