Groundswell

<p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></p><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">see ginni thomas</font></p><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">SEE HIRING MTG jAN 2019 roosevelt rm</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">mapped under JudicialW</font></p><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">sorta proto-Trump, //CNP?</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">note 2 orgs w/ same name?

</font> </font></p><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">phobe yahtzee:</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1 misogyny is female phobia</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>2 gay phobia</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>3 islam</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>4 racism</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>5 islamophobe</b></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>6 </b><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">anti-semitic</span></font></span></div><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">ali alex and ken blackwell in trump coup / fake electors</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wiki 7 22</font></p><div id="mw-content-text" class="mw-body-content mw-content-ltr" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr;"><div class="mw-parser-output" style=""><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b style="">Groundswell</b> is a coalition of prominent <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_conservative" class="mw-redirect" title="American conservative" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">American conservative</a> activists, including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Thomas" class="mw-redirect" title="Virginia Thomas" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Virginia Thomas</a>, who began meeting in 2013 in order to fight <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_States" title="Progressivism in the United States" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">progressivism in the United States</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party(United_States)" title="Republican Party (United States)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Republican Party</a> (GOP) establishment.</span><sup id="cite_ref-motherjones_1-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-motherjones-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Intercept_2-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-Intercept-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-NYT_3-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-NYT-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <b>Groundswell went on to be influential in the White House of former president </b></span><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump" title="Donald Trump" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, conducting an effort to rid the White House and other government agencies of so-called "</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_in_the_United_States" title="Deep state in the United States" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">deep state</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">" opponents of Trump.</span><sup id="cite_ref-auto_4-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-auto-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-NYT_3-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-NYT-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The Groundswell Group played a significant role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.</span></b><sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><b>[</b>6]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to leaked documents in 2013, the group had started staging "a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation",<sup id="cite_ref-motherjones_1-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-motherjones-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[1]</a></sup> by such goals as undermining the power of former GOP strategist and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News" title="Fox News" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Fox News</a> analyst <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove" title="Karl Rove" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Karl Rove</a>,<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[7]</a></sup> along with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack" title="2012 Benghazi attack" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">2012 Benghazi attack</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fast_and_Furious" class="mw-redirect" title="Operation Fast and Furious" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Operation Fast and Furious</a>'s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-running" class="mw-redirect" title="Gun-running" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">gun-running</a> issue,<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[8]</a></sup> repealing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act" title="Affordable Care Act" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Affordable Care Act</a>, working behind the scenes to enact <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_laws" class="mw-redirect" title="Voter ID laws" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">voter ID laws</a>, and blocking <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_administration" class="mw-redirect" title="Obama administration" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Obama administration</a> nominees</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-motherjones_1-2" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-motherjones-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2021, Barbara Ledeen was named as a member of Groundswell in connection with her involvement in an undercover campaign by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas" title="Project Veritas" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Project Veritas</a> to discredit <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.R.McMaster" title="H. R. McMaster" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">H. R. McMaster</a> when he served as Trump's national security adviser in 2017 and 2018. Ledeen, longtime staffer for Senator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Grassley" title="Chuck Grassley" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Chuck Grassley</a> on the Senate Judiciary Committee and wife of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_in_the_United_States" class="mw-redirect" title="Neoconservatism in the United States" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">neoconservative</a> foreign policy analyst <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ledeen" title="Michael Ledeen" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Michael Ledeen</a>, said she passed on information about McMaster's social calendar to Project Veritas which then used the information to plan an operation to secretly record McMaster making comments that would cause him to resign or be fired. Ledeen admitted passing on the information but said "I am not part of a plot."</span><sup id="cite_ref-auto_4-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_note-auto-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="References">References</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; margin-right: 0px;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h2><div class="reflist" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.5em; list-style-type: decimal;"><div class="mw-references-wrap"><ol class="references" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-parent 0 list-item 0; list-style-type: inherit;"><li id="cite_note-motherjones-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;">^ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-motherjones_1-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up to:</span><sup style="line-height: 1;"><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-motherjones_1-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><sup style="line-height: 1;"><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-motherjones_1-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><sup style="line-height: 1;"><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFCorn2013" class="citation web cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Corn, David (July 25, 2013). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" e54="e54" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Inside Groundswell: Read the Memos of the New Right-Wing Strategy Group Planning a "30 Front War"<span class="cs1-kern-right" style="padding-right: 0.2em;">"</span></a>. <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones(magazine)" title="Mother Jones (magazine)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Mother Jones</a></i>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=Mother+Jones&rft.atitle=Inside+Groundswell%3A+Read+the+Memos+of+the+New+Right-Wing+Strategy+Group+Planning+a+%2230+Front+War%22&rft.date=2013-07-25&rft.aulast=Corn&rft.aufirst=David&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.motherjones.com%2Fpolitics%2F2013%2F07%2Fgroundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGroundswell+%28group%29" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-Intercept-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-Intercept_2-0" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a></b></span> }<span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFFangSurgey2019" class="citation news cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Fang, Lee; Surgey, Nick (June 4, 2019). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/04/ginni-thomas-trump-conservative-group/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" e54="e54" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Ginni Thomas Plans New Conservative Supergroup to "Protect President Trump"<span class="cs1-kern-right" style="padding-right: 0.2em;">"</span></a>. <i>The Intercept</i>. First Look Institute<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">July 6,</span> 2021</span>. <q style="quotes: " apos="apos">Ginni Thomas has been involved in an ad-hoc coalition known as 'Groundswell,' touted as a plan to wage a '30-front war' on left-wing activists and the GOP establishment.</q></cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=The+Intercept&rft.atitle=Ginni+Thomas+Plans+New+Conservative+Supergroup+to+%22Protect+President+Trump%22&rft.date=2019-06-04&rft.aulast=Fang&rft.aufirst=Lee&rft.au=Surgey%2C+Nick&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com%2F2019%2F06%2F04%2Fginni-thomas-trump-conservative-group%2F&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGroundswell+%28group%29" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-NYT-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;">^ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-NYT_3-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up to:</span><sup style="line-height: 1;"><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-NYT_3-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><sup style="line-height: 1;"><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFHaberman2021" class="citation news cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Haberman, Maggie (May 3, 2021). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/us/politics/trump-purge-ginni-thomas.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" e54="e54" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Among Those Pressing Trump to Weed Out Disloyalty: Clarence Thomas's Wife"</a>. <i>The New York Times</i><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">July 6,</span> 2021</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=The+New+York+Times&rft.atitle=Among+Those+Pressing+Trump+to+Weed+Out+Disloyalty%3A+Clarence+Thomas%27s+Wife&rft.date=2021-05-03&rft.aulast=Haberman&rft.aufirst=Maggie&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F02%2F24%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-purge-ginni-thomas.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGroundswell+%28group%29" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-auto-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;">^ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-auto_4-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up to:</span><sup style="line-height: 1;"><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-auto_4-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><sup style="line-height: 1;"><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFGoldmanMazzetti2021" class="citation web cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Goldman, Adam; Mazzetti, Mark (May 13, 2021). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/us/politics/mcmaster-fbi-trump-project-veritas.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" e54="e54" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Activists and Ex-Spy Said to Have Plotted to Discredit Trump 'Enemies' in Government"</a> – via NYTimes.com.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=Activists+and+Ex-Spy+Said+to+Have+Plotted+to+Discredit+Trump+%27Enemies%27+in+Government&rft.date=2021-05-13&rft.aulast=Goldman&rft.aufirst=Adam&rft.au=Mazzetti%2C+Mark&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2021%2F05%2F13%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fmcmaster-fbi-trump-project-veritas.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGroundswell+%28group%29" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-5" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a></b></span> }<span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFSwan" class="citation web cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Swan, Jonathan. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.axios.com/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house-ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" e54="e54" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Exclusive: Trump's "Deep State" hit list"</a>. <i>Axios</i>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=Axios&rft.atitle=Exclusive%3A+Trump%27s+%22Deep+State%22+hit+list&rft.aulast=Swan&rft.aufirst=Jonathan&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.axios.com%2Ftrump-memos-deep-state-white-house-ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGroundswell+%28group%29" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-6" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a></b></span> }<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ginni-thomas-clarence-wife-mark-meadows-texts-2020-election-overturn/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" e54="e54" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Ginni Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, exchanged texts with Mark Meadows about efforts to overturn the 2020 election"</a>. <i>www.cbsnews.com</i><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">2022-03-30</span></span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=www.cbsnews.com&rft.atitle=Ginni+Thomas%2C+Justice+Clarence+Thomas%27+wife%2C+exchanged+texts+with+Mark+Meadows+about+efforts+to+overturn+the+2020+election&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Fginni-thomas-clarence-wife-mark-meadows-texts-2020-election-overturn%2F&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGroundswell+%28group%29" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-7" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a></b></span> }<span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFCorn2013" class="citation web cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Corn, David (July 25, 2013). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-ginni-thomas-war-karl-rove" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" e54="e54" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Groundswell's Secret Crusade to Crush Karl Rove"</a>. <i>Mother Jones</i>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=Mother+Jones&rft.atitle=Groundswell%27s+Secret+Crusade+to+Crush+Karl+Rove&rft.date=2013-07-25&rft.aulast=Corn&rft.aufirst=David&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.motherjones.com%2Fpolitics%2F2013%2F07%2Fgroundswell-ginni-thomas-war-karl-rove&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGroundswell+%28group%29" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell(group)#cite_ref-8" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a></b></span> }<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/facing-groundswell" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" e54="e54" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Facing a 'Groundswell'<span class="cs1-kern-right" style="padding-right: 0.2em;">"</span></a>. <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rachel_Maddow_Show" title="The Rachel Maddow Show" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Rachel Maddow Show</a></i>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSNBC" title="MSNBC" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">MSNBC</a>. July 25, 2013.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=The+Rachel+Maddow+Show&rft.atitle=Facing+a+%27Groundswell%27&rft.date=2013-07-25&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.msnbc.com%2Frachel-maddow-show%2Ffacing-groundswell&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGroundswell+%28group%29" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li></ol></div></div><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Further_reading">Further reading</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; margin-right: 0px;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h2><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" d4515="d4515" margin="margin" em="em" px="px" padding="padding"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite id="CITEREFBeckerHakim2022" class="citation news cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Becker, Jo; Hakim, Danny (February 22, 2022). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" e54="e54" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas"</a>. <i>The New York Times</i>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISSN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISSN (identifier)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISSN</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0362-4331" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" e54="e54" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">0362-4331</a><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">May 29,</span> 2022</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=The+New+York+Times&rft.atitle=The+Long+Crusade+of+Clarence+and+Ginni+Thomas&rft.date=2022-02-22&rft.issn=0362-4331&rft.aulast=Becker&rft.aufirst=Jo&rft.au=Hakim%2C+Danny&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2022%2F02%2F22%2Fmagazine%2Fclarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AGroundswell+%28group%29" class="Z3988" /></font></li></ul><div role="note" class="metadata plainlinks asbox stub" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; overflow: hidden;">
</div></div></div><div id="catlinks" class="catlinks" data-mw="interface" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 5px; margin-top: 1em; clear: both;"><div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Category" title="Help:Category" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Categories</a>: </font><ul style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 0px; padding: 0px 0.5em 0px 0.25em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_States_organization_stubs" title="Category:United States organization stubs" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United States organization stubs</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 0px 0.5em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conservative_political_advocacy_groups_in_the_United_States" title="Category:Conservative political advocacy groups in the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Conservative political advocacy groups in the United States</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 0px 0.5em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deep_politics" title="Category:Deep politics" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Deep politics</a></li></ul></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/new-the-coming-collapse-of-donald-50c" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/new-the-coming-collapse-of-donald-50c</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx  </font><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 252, 255); color: rgb(114, 116, 118); font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.15px;">Jan 30</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><div style="font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The McMaster Plot and Barbara Ledeen</b></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ginni Thomas’s story takes a turn toward possible sedition in 2018, just as Trump and his team were gearing up for the 2020 election by seeking to ally themselves with pro-Kremlin Ukrainians promising manufactured dirt on the man Trump believed would be his November opponent: Joe Biden.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">{Note: All of this is covered in exhaustive detail in the nearly 600-page nonfiction book Proof of Corruption, published by Macmillan in 2020, so I won’t unpack it further here.}</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It was in 2018 that, according to the New York Times, Ginni Thomas conspired with one of the most prominent members of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Groundswell, Barbara Ledeen,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> to formulate a conclusive “enemies list” for Trump to use in targeting opponents outside (but even more so, inside) the federal government. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ledeen is married to Michael Ledeen, the co-author of Michael Flynn’s first book, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(St. Martin’s / Griffin, 2017).</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ABOVE: Barbara Ledeen (second from left) in the U.S. Capitol in 2003.]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Flynn—the former highly controversial intel official (at the DIA) and Trump National Security Advisor, a federal indictee, and now an open insurrectionist—is very close to the Ledeens, and has been for years. Indeed, in May of 2021 Proof published the “lost chapter” of Proof of Corruption, entitled “Flynn and the Ledeens”, which detailed how Flynn turned to the Ledeens in 2016 after Trump ordered him to get Hillary Clinton’s “missing” emails, </span>even if doing so meant conspiring with or paying Russian criminals. Barbara Ledeen’s work with Flynn on this clandestine project—which continued after it was universally known that the Kremlin was waging cyberwar on the United States and using “cut-outs” to dump data it had stolen from federal officials—underscored her willingness to skirt the line of legality in trying to help Trump win a presidential election (and Flynn’s equal willingness in this regard). Indeed, Ledeen ultimately made contact with individuals she believed to be Russian hackers on the “dark web”, and—despite America being in a cyberwar with Russia—sent materials transmitted to her by these “Russians” to Erik Prince. Ledeen has since posted on Facebook, “We owe a lot to Erik Prince.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That the wife of a Supreme Court Justice would have any professional contact with someone like Barbara Ledeen, let alone secretly conspire with her to draft a “list” of the sort held by the the corrupt, nearly-impeached U.S. president Richard Nixon—who avoided impeachment only by resigning from office—is stunning. But in fact Ginni Thomas’s work with Ledeen appears to have gone much deeper than even this.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At a time when she was a “close friend” of Ginni Thomas, per the Times—and had worked with Thomas on at least one secretive plot (the “enemies list”) intended to aid Trump—Barbara Ledeen acted as a “messenger” in a national security–implicating plot to blackmail the nation’s sitting National Security Advisor, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">H.R. McMaster</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The plot mirrored Kremlin intelligence operations, inasmuch as it intended to use a “honey trap” (an attractive woman tasked with seducing the plot’s intended victim) to gain info from McMaster that could be used to extort him into resigning from one of the top national security positions in the U.S. government. Though the criminal plot, as reported by the Times, was run by “a network of conservative activists…[who had] mounted a campaign during the Trump administration to discredit perceived enemies of President Trump inside the government”—precisely the project Ginni Thomas was then working on with the implicated Barbara Ledeen—Ginni Thomas’s name was never brought into reporting on the scheme. This may be for the simple reason that the scheme was never executed; McMaster resigned his job before the unnamed “network of conservative activists” could run their counterintelligence op on him, so that illegal scheme was never the subject of the sprawling federal criminal investigation that would undoubtedly have turned up everyone who was involved in it.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Anyone inclined to think Ginni Thomas was unaware of what “close friend” Barbara Ledeen was doing—as part of a broader gambit (regarding Trump’s enemies) Thomas is now confirmed to have been involved in with Ledeen—would be hard-pressed to maintain that view in light of a second “undercover operation” the Times uncovered, this one also of dubious legality and spearheaded by a Ginni Thomas associate: <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">James O’Keefe. Per the New Yorker, this plot “targeted government employees, including F.B.I. agents, suspected of trying to thwart Trump’s agenda.” The magazine notes that Thomas had given O’Keefe an “Impact Award,” just as she had Mark Meadows.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Times report notes that the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">O’Keefe operation was styled as an intelligence plot—a “sting operation” involving “secret surveillance” and “undercover operatives”—which means it mirrors the “warlike” intelligence ops run by the Groundswell group</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (to which O’Keefe was tied via his association with Ginni Thomas, its chairwoman</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">). Indeed, in a seeming echo of Thomas’s own political obsessions, this second scheme targeted, the Times reports, individuals who likely were on the Thomas-Ledeen-built “enemies list,” as it betrayed the “obsession some of Mr. Trump’s allies had about a shadowy ‘deep state’ trying to blunt his agenda.” There could be no more precise recitation of O’Keefe associate Ginni Thomas’s own post-2016 political obsession.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Anyone who doubts whether it is appropriate to call these operations run by people so close to Ginni Thomas “intelligence” operations must read the New York Times article in full, as it explains (emphasis supplied) that</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">[c]entral to the effort, according to interviews, was </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Richard Seddon,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> a former undercover British spy who was recruited in 2016 by the security contractor Erik Prince to train Project Veritas operatives to infiltrate trade unions, Democratic congressional campaigns and other targets. He ran field operations for Project Veritas until mid-2018.</span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Last year, The New York Times reported that <b>Mr. Seddon ran an expansive effort to gain access to the unions and campaigns and led a hiring effort that nearly tripled the number of the group’s operatives, according to interviews and deposition testimony. He trained operatives at the Prince family ranch in Wyoming.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>So how high up did these Ledeen- and O’Keefe-involved intelligence operations go? The Times reports that “Ledeen…said she was brought on by someone ‘with access to McMaster’s calendar’”—a telling detail, given the grave national security implications of the minute-by-minute whereabouts of one of the nation’s foremost intelligence officials. </b>The fact that Ledeen has been unwilling to name any of the others who were involved in the plot she participated in raises the real possibility that a top adviser to Trump who ran one of the foremost civilian intelligence-gathering ops in D.C., Ginni Thomas, would have been revealed as at least one of the individuals with knowledge of the operation.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lest this seem mere inflammatory speculation, consider what the New York Times has to say on who recruited Ledeen to the McMaster operation, as well as Ledeen’s clear unwillingness to reveal that person’s name: “Who initially ordered the operation is unclear. In an interview, Ledeen said ‘someone she trusted’ contacted her to help with the plan. She said she could not remember who.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Ledeen added that her role in the events reported on by the Times was to “<b>pass[ ] [a] message to a man she believed to be a Project Veritas operative </b>during a meeting at the University Club in Washington” (a place it appears Ginni Thomas has frequented). </span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What sort of meeting in D.C. was it that Ledeen both (a) refused to identify, and (b) saw then–congressional staffers meeting with far-right activists to share intelligence? It’s certainly possible that other groups besides Groundswell answered to this description in 2018, but Ledeen’s involvement in that group, her “close” friendship with its chairwoman, her unwillingness to speak about the provenance of the meeting, and the known activities of Groundswell <b>all suggest that Ginni Thomas’s operation may well have been the original epicenter of the McMaster sting.</b> Much more investigation would be required to confirm this, of course, but it is noteworthy that—consistent with the caution that Ledeen’s Groundswell group displayed in revealing the names of anyone who attended its meetings—Ledeen claimed to the Times (rather improbably) that not only could she not remember who had passed her intelligence about McMaster’s schedule, but that the person she gave that intelligence to had used a “fake name”, so there was no point in repeating it. Would a Project Veritas employee really have used a fake name at a private gathering with friendly congressional staffers like Ledeen? One would be hard-pressed to see why—or, for that matter, why Project Veritas’s founder would’ve been working closely with Groundswell’s longtime chairwoman in 2018 and 2019 but for some reason eschewed her intelligence-gathering operations in 2018—but these too remains unsolved mysteries that no one appears to be looking into at the moment.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>We do, however, have some indications about the role Ginni Thomas may have played in the McMaster operation.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In early 2020, the perpetually arch Wonkette attributed McMaster’s ouster to Ginni Thomas and Groundswell, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">writing that “After Groundswell’s early success [in] getting rid of National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster….[Ginni] Thomas scored a meeting with the president in January 2019, where he ‘listen[ed] quietly as members of the group denounced transgender people and women serving in the military.’” Salon issued a similar verdict, reporting that Groundswell “led a successful effort to oust former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who [had] replaced [Michael] Flynn.” The unstated implication to be taken from these and other similar reports, in view of reporting on the Project Veritas sting operation against McMaster, is that the operation allegedly intended by Ginni Thomas associate James O’Keefe was “Plan B” to a more conventional lobbying/disinformation action by Thomas and Groundswell.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Additional evidence in this regard comes from reporting by Axios, which dates the beginning of the formalized Ginni Thomas-Barbara Ledeen “hit list” to approximately the middle of 2018, only a matter of weeks after McMaster’s April 9, 2018 resignation (and a matter of days after the last known email regarding the McMaster plot, which the Times reports was inexplicably still a going concern in May, well after its target had left the Trump administration)</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Times reporting indicates that at that time Ginni Thomas associate James O’Keefe was just beginning what he publicly claimed would be a “series” of undercover operations against “deep state” figures; the list Thomas and Ledeen were then compiling certainly included prime candidates for a project of that sort, and therefore represents a temporal nexus between the two efforts. J<b>ust so, Ginni Thomas’s “Crowdsourcers” partnership with O’Keefe reportedly unfolded at some point between mid-2018 and the end of 2019, meaning that it likewise coincided with the “series” of undercover operations against Trump enemies O’Keefe promised.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So was Groundswell’s success in pushing out McMaster one of the inspirations for Ginni Thomas and Barbara Ledeen formalizing their partnership—or even expanding it into new partnerships with associated parties like Project Veritas? Describing the enemies list Groundswell’s leader began producing in 2018, Axios reports (emphasis supplied) that</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">[b]y the time President Trump instructed [John McEntee], his 29-year-old former body man and new head of presidential personnel to rid his government of anti-Trump officials [in February of 2020], he’d [already] gathered reams of material to support his suspicions.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While Trump’s distrust has only intensified since his [early 2020] impeachment and acquittal, he has long been on the hunt for “bad people” inside the White House and U.S. government, and fresh “pro-Trump” options. Outside advisers have been happy to oblige.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In reporting this story, I have been briefed on, or reviewed, memos and lists the president received since 2018 suggesting whom he should hire and fire. Most of these details have never been published.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A well-connected network of conservative activists with close ties to Trump and top administration officials is quietly helping develop these “Never Trump”/pro-Trump lists, and some sent memos to Trump to shape his views, per sources with direct knowledge. Members of this network include Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Republican Senate staffer Barbara Ledeen.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The big picture: since Trump’s [February 2020] Senate acquittal, aides say the president has crossed a psychological line regarding what he calls the “Deep State.” He feels his government—from Justice to [the] State [Department] to [the] Defense [Department] to [the Department of] Homeland Security—is filled with “snakes.” He wants them fired and replaced ASAP.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This reporting strongly contradicts any notion—pushed exclusively, to this point, by anonymous White House insiders seeking to (for unknown reasons) distance Trump from Ginni Thomas—that Trump saw Thomas as a “wacko” he listened to only out of concern for her husband’s opinion of him. Rather, it suggests that, as the 2020 Trump presidential campaign churned into high gear in February 2020, both Ledeen and Ginni Thomas were deemed critical Trump advisers who could regularly liaison with the White House—in the person of McEntee or with Trump directly—to advance the then-president’s ongoing “war” on the “Deep State.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It was this war that Trump would frame as being continued in the “protest” he helped orchestrate on January 6, 2021. As he said in his White House Ellipse speech that day, speaking of government employees around the country, “In every single swing state, local officials, state officials…made illegal and unconstitutional changes to election procedures without the mandated approvals by the state legislatures. These changes paved a way for fraud on a scale never seen before. I think we [have to] go a long way outside of our country [to find fraud on this scale].” He called what “they” were doing a matter of “national security”, adding that he’d committed himself—in an imagined second term in office—to “drain[ing] the Washington swamp…[and] clean[ing] up the corruption in our nation’s capital. We’ve done a big job on it, but you think it’s easy? It’s a dirty business. It’s a dirty business. You have a lot of bad people out there [in Washington].” Not long after Ginni Thomas posted on Facebook her support for the armed mob gathered before Trump at the Ellipse, Trump told that mob that it was an unnamed “group of people” who were then trying to “illegally take over our country.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All of this may explain why, when major media outlets write about Groundswell even in passing, it is referred to as a “network of conservative activists…[with] close ties to Trump and his senior officials.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Fallout From Ginni Thomas’s </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“Groundswell Purge”</span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ginni Thomas and Barbara Ledeen’s influence over Trump’s administration, via John McEntee and direct contact with Trump, had more far-reaching an impact than many realize. By pushing Trump to launch a comprehensive sweep of his administration—which effort the president initiated by first rehiring McEntee (who had previously been let go because he couldn’t pass a national security background check)—Thomas and Ledeen helped usher in a new era of the Trump administration, one that would have profound implications for the post-election period that began in November 2020.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As the New York Times reports, the Groundswell-backed purge led to a “freeze on all political appointments across the government” and a new Trump policy under which “cabinet secretaries [were to be told] that the White House would be choosing their deputies from now on.” This latter policy was be in evidence just nine months later, when Trump installed two young and ill-prepared—but unwaveringly loyal—political operatives<b>, Kash Patel </b>and Ezra Cohen-Watnick, as top deputies inside the Pentagon.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Patel thus became the chief of staff for new Secretary of Defense Chris Miller—who wasn’t permitted to choose his own top aide—with Cohen-Watnick becoming Miller’s acting undersecretary for intelligence and security. Both men were in their roles by January 6,</b> when the Pentagon inexplicably failed to relieve the Capitol for nearly four hours, doing so only after the building had already been cleared of the insurrectionists who had intended to occupy it. It is reasonable to ask, now, whether Patel and Cohen-Watnick would have been in a position to influence the conduct of the United States military on January 6 if Ginni Thomas had not led a clandestine effort to ensure that only unflinchingly loyal Trump acolytes were serving under Trump cabinet members.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As CNN reported at the outset of McEntee’s purge, which extended through Election Day and encompassed the installation of Patel and Cohen-Watnick at the Pentagon,</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump has told aides he wants fewer people working for him in the White House and only loyalists installed in key administration positions, several people familiar with the matter say. Trump’s allies have provided him lists—not always solicited—of people they’ve identified as disloyal and of names they say would work better toward advancing his agenda. The lists have been generated over the past three years, but some are being dusted off in the post-impeachment purge.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">….</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[A]fter hearing for three years from acquaintances and confidants about various people deemed disloyal, [Trump’s] efforts seem to have newfound urgency. Trump told people recently he wants to take action on removing some people who he’s been “warned about,” according to one person who’s spoken to him. Some of the conservative activists who have been working on the effort to compose the lists include Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Senate staffer Barbara Ledeen.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(Emphasis supplied.)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Most tellingly, however—with respect to the connection between the Groundswell-pushed purge and the Patel and Cohen-Watnick appointments—is this reporting from CNN: “McEntee indicated he plans to first focus his efforts on personnel at the State Department and Defense Department.” As Proof has reported, at the very moment Patel and Cohen-Watnick were dithering at the Pentagon on January 6, <b>a militant associated with Donald Trump’s legal team, Joe Oltmann, was in the State Department lobbying loyalist Trump political appointees to seize voting machines.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It may not be too much to say, therefore, that the insurrectionist government Trump headed on January 6—“insurrectionist” as to its leadership cadre—was one that had been orchestrated by Ginni Thomas over a years-long lobbying effort that involved multiple meetings with President Trump himself. Indeed, in a February 2020 NPR interview, Axios reporter Jonathan Swan indicated that Trump had been an active partner of Thomas’s, rather than merely a passive recipient of her work product. According to Swan, who had by then reviewed never-before-seen administration documents to compile his report, “Over the last 18 months [a period of time ranging from the first Thomas-Ledeen ‘enemies list’ to the hiring of McEntee], the president has been asking for names of people within his government who are disloyal, who are, quote-unquote, ‘Never Trump’ or anti-Trump, or, quote-unquote, ‘the bad people.’ He’s told aides that he feels that there are ‘snakes everywhere,’ quote-unquote” (emphasis supplied). Swan added that Trump was specifically targeting DOJ, the Pentagon, and the Department of Homeland Security, but “also…the White House. He has a network outside the White House, which is comprised of very well-connected conservative activists. One of them in particular is Ginni Thomas, who is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.” Axios even explained that it was a Groundswell memorandum that had first aimed its sights at the then-head of the Presidential Personnel Office, Sean Doocey, whose eventual ouster led to his replacement with none other than John McEntee.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In other words, it now appears that Ginni Thomas didn’t just want to direct Trump’s government-wide purge from outside the government, she wanted to influence who would execute the purge from inside the government. And she was successful in these clandestine efforts.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Swan summarizes his early 2020 findings—issued well under a year before the attack on the Capitol—by observing that “Ginni Thomas has put an extraordinary amount of energy and time into a project of shaping the president’s thinking on the staffing of his government.” Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, one of the most highly respected Court-watchers in U.S. media, would go even farther the following day, writing that Ginni Thomas “is paid to staff up the Trump administration with [her] friends and cronies, even as her husband [Justice Clarence Thomas] sits on cases that involve [Trump] and the agencies she seeks to reshape.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">{Note: As Proof has reported, in addition to the now-infamous Trump plot to install Jeffrey Clark as Attorney General, Oltmann’s lobbying of Trump loyalists in the State Department, and Trump’s installation of Patel and Cohen-Watnick at the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security was critical to the insurrection<b> because Trump’s legal team had tasked Christina Bobb—a former DHS employee—with lobbying her former boss to overturn the 2020 presidential election.</b> And so it was that every Trump administration unit targeted by Ginni Thomas for purging, from DOJ to DHS, became part of the administration’s coup plot.}</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Barbara Ledeen and January 6</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At the time Barbara Ledeen was involved in the plot against the nation’s National Security Adviser, she was—incredibly—also a federal employee herself. Specifically, she was a staff member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was then led by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Reports indicate that though Ledeem served the Committee generally, she was deemed to be a staffer for Senator Grassley in particular.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Given that Ginni Thomas’s lobbying of President Trump focused on appointments, and that Ledeen was a regular collaborator with Thomas on secretive Groundswell projects, it is deeply concerning to learn that Ledeen was in the “judicial nominations unit” of Grassley’s office up until 2019, whereafter she continued this work (for the same Senate committee) under Trump golfing partner Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">{Note: Just prior to January 6, Ledeen returned to service with Grassley. More on this below.}</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One reason Proof calls this coincidence concerning is because when Donald Trump rushed Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination to a vote virtually on the eve of the November 2020 presidential election, he did so, and openly, with an eye toward cases that might come before that Court in the near term—including post-election cases addressing an issue Trump had had with the conduct of the election since before Election Day: mail-in ballots.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">None of these interrelationships and power dynamics would matter much to a probe of the January 6 insurrection were it not the case that the recent article on Chuck Grassley at Proof was continually forced to refer to <b>anonymous persons in the Senate office of Chuck Grassley </b>making critical decisions about how to respond to reports Grassley may have been involved in the January 6 coup plot in some way. Proof was forced into this position because only the official spokesman to Grassley, Taylor Foy, would speak to the press for attribution on this issue. Other Grassley staffers refused to speak for attribution, even as they repeatedly made claims to the media that turned out to be untrue.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So who was one of the leading staffers in Chuck Grassley’s office in September 2021, when he faced his toughest questioning yet over his actions on Insurrection Eve?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Barbara Ledeen.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Chuck Grassley and Barbara Ledeen: Two Experienced Republican Operatives with a Very Long History</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The questions Grassley faced last September focused on one issue in particular: what did his staffers or others tell him about Trump’s coup scheme prior to January 6? What did he know about the plot, and from whom did he hear it, and when? But a second question—one raised by Grassley staffers’ unproven, self-aggrandizing claims that in September 2021 they had sifted through Grassley’s January 2021 correspondence and found no evidence of wrongdoing—was this one: why would reporters take Grassley’s staffers’ word on this point, when some of the people doing the searching may well have been the same operatives who initially briefed Grassley on Trump’s coup plans?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There is, of course, a necessary (and a far more specific) third question, as well: what role did Barbara Ledeen play in either briefing of Grassley prior to Insurrection Day—during which time she was a staffer for Lindsey Graham but still working for the Senate Judiciary Committee (on which Grassley was the senior Republican)—or in aiding Grassley’s ultimately self-exculpating September 2021 search of his files for potentially incriminating documents?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In answering these three questions, it’s important to first understand that the “purge” project Ginni Thomas and Barbara Ledeen were leading from outside the White House was being led inside the White House, per reporting from CNN, by top Trump adviser Peter Navarro. Navarro was also one of the authors, with Trump attorney John Eastman, of the “Green Bay Sweep” coup plot that in September 2021 Grassley’s staff—including Ledeen—assured the press Grassley knew nothing about.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">With this denial, the suggestion must be, therefore, that either Peter Navarro kept from Ledeen his ambitions for January 6 despite them being the central players (with Ginni Thomas) in a massive, government-wide pro-Trump project to eliminate non-loyalists from Trump’s inner circle, or that Ledeen was briefed by Navarro or Eastman about the “Green Bay Sweep” but decided to hide that information from her boss in the United States Senate. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Worth noting here, too, is that only two people (out of more than two dozen) who appear to have attended the<b> Trump International Hotel war room</b> on Insurrection Eve felt the need to lie about that attendance and maintain that lie over time: (1) Peter Navarro, and (2) Barbara Ledeen’s close friend, Michael Flynn. While this could be mere coincidence, it could also indicate that two insurrectionists in Ledeen’s orbit fear with great particularity any inquiry into what they were doing on the day Chuck Grassley attempted to remove Vice President Mike Pence from the January 6 equation.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">{Note: In identifying these connections, Ginni Thomas’s orbit cannot be forgotten, either. Thomas appears to have been essential in pushing Mark Meadows into Trump’s inner circle, and it is Mark Meadows who, the New York Times reports, led a “band of loyalists…[who] fought to keep Trump in power….[by] taking on an outsize role in pressuring the Justice Department [over the election results], amplifying conspiracy theories and flooding the courts in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election.” Trump’s man at DOJ, Jeffrey Clark, has already asserted the Fifth Amendment to protect himself from self-incrimination, as has Eastman, who sent his coup outline to Meadows. So in considering how ignorant Ledeen would have to have been of a plot advanced by those in her orbit, we must also consider how ignorant Thomas would have to have been of a plot likewise advanced by those in her orbit.}</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>For his part, Grassley has vacillated on his own degree of knowledge of the coup plot.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Proof has reported, when Grassley was pressured, in September 2021, on whether Trumpist partisans “approached” him with the Eastman-Navarro coup plot prior to his declaration that he would be in charge of the January 6 joint session—a claim made in the 2021 book Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa—Grassley’s hedging could only be described as epic.</span> “I [was not] ‘approached’ in the situation as you described it”, he replied cagily (emphasis supplied). By leaving the door open, indeed wide open, to the implication that he had been approached about the coup plot in some way other than the precise one Woodward and Costa had detailed, Grassley allowed the implication that he might have been briefed on the plot by either his own staffers (many of whom were connected to Barbara Ledeen via the Senate Judiciary Committee), Judiciary Committee staffers like Ledeen herself, or outside agitators like Thomas. Grassley’s denial of the reporting in Peril appeared to cover only an approach from Trump’s legal team (e.g., Eastman) or administration advisers (e.g., Navarro). All of which only heightens the scrutiny on those Eastman or Navarro might’ve thought to use as interlocutors with Grassley—a list of people that undoubtedly has Thomas and Ledeen at its top.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Recall, now, that in the days leading up to Grassley’s astonishing declaration that Pence would not be at the Capitol on January 6, Ginni Thomas was in contact with John Eastman—her husband’s former law clerk—via the Thomas Clerk World listserv.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In short, if, as Grassley implies, he caught wind of Trump’s coup plot before he took a public action that clearly aimed to advance it, there are no more obvious suspects in the matter of who briefed him on that plot than Barbara Ledeen and Ginni Thomas</span>—which makes it astonishing that thus far it seems neither have been interviewed by the House January 6 Committee. That public records appear to indicate that Grassley rehired Ledeen on January 3, 2021—the day the post-election Congress was sworn in—underscores that he would have been in contact with her in the days leading up to his Insurrection Eve gambit, and also that it was during this period of time that Ledeen would have been in the position of wanting and needing to underscore to Grassley her utility to his staff. Her ready access to Trump’s inner circle, and intelligence regarding its January 6 designs, would surely have been one of her primary chits in this regard.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As indicated above, Ledeen has a very long history of being interested—much like Ginni Thomas is—in clandestine intelligence-gathering, and in the dissemination of such intelligence. That she would have wanted to pass on Eastman and Navarro’s plans to her new (or, rather, both former and “new”) boss Grassley cannot be doubted, if in fact she had access to those plans. Consider the sort of schemes we have seen from Barbara Ledeen in the past:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ABOVE: Just one example of Barbara Ledeen seeking to position herself as an intelligence intermediary between individuals in positions of power and influence.]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On the other end of Ledeen’s second stint as a Grassley staffer, it must be noted that, as the New York Times has reported, Ledeen “retired” from her position with Grassley almost immediately after Grassley’s staff was forced to answer questions about which of them, if any, had briefed the senator about Trump’s coup plo</span>t. Given that Ledeen’s first employment with Grassley lasted for seven years, the fact that her second was cut short after only a matter of months is certainly worthy of some additional investigation.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Telling, as well, is Michael Flynn’s confession to federal investigators that Ledeen acted as a “conduit” between Trump and the late Peter W. Smith in the plot to buy stolen documents from Russian hackers during the 2016 presidential campaign</b>. This mirrors Ledeen’s claim of being a “messenger” in the scheme to blackmail Flynn’s successor, H.R. McMaster. So it is that when, two days after hiring Ledeen, Grassley seemed to quote from the Eastman Memo (see below) only to later be cagey about who had acted as a conduit or messenger to him from Eastman’s ring of coup plotters, it would be understandable if the suspicion of federal criminal investigators were to fall on a repeat interlocutor in several criminal schemes: Barbara Ledeen. This is especially so given that Ledeen’s closest political associate, Ginni Thomas, was in contact with Eastman during the period he was drafting his now-infamous memo.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ABOVE: Step 1 in the Eastman coup plot noted the advantage of having Grassley replace Pence as overseer of the January 6 joint session. Grassley thereafter unilaterally announced that he would indeed take on this role.]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>There is, too, the broader context of Ledeen’s career—and her husband’s—to consider.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Much as this publication has often said of Trump lawyer Joe diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing, Esquire reports that “there scarcely has been a Republican presidential scandal in the past 40 years that Michael Ledeen hasn’t had a hand in.”</span> The same might be said, in the Trump era, of the Ledeens’ good friend Michael Flynn, or the originator of the Stop the Steal “movement,” longtime Trump friend and adviser Roger Stone. It is Stone who, of all the political operators in Washington, is most associated with the word ratfucking (popularly defined as “political sabotage or dirty tricks, particularly pertaining to elections”). In writing of the Ledeens, Esquire notes that <b>“Michael Ledeen’s family has made ratf[u]cking a generational enterprise.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Statements from Grassley spokesman Taylor Foy have only further confused the issue.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As reported by a popular Iowa politics website, which was itself working off research done by celebrated independent investigative journalist Marcy Wheeler, the origin of Grassley’s knowledge of the coup plot (below referred to as “the PowerPoint”) seems to have remained deliberately murky even through December of 2021:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Foy’s hair-splitting is telling in too many ways to count. But here are a few indications that this topic is one Chuck Grassley’s office feels a need to dissemble in addressing:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While Grassley may not have chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from early January 2019 to early January 2021, he was on it, and Ledeen was working for its chairman (Senator Graham) as a means of serving the entire committee—so yes, Ledeen was doing work for Grassley “in the [two] years leading up to January 6.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Prior to working for Grassley indirectly from 2019 to 2021, Ledeen worked for Grassley directly from 2012 to 2019, making Foy’s attempt to suggest that Sen. Grassley was at a distance from Ledeen disingenuous at best.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Grassley did, in fact, rehire Ledeen 72 hours before the insurrection</b>, so Foy clarifying that Ledeen wasn’t rehired to be part of Grassley’s Judiciary Committee staff—but rather was serving him in some other capacity—goes beyond mere disingenuity, as Foy seeks here to leave the impression that Ledeen wasn’t working for Grassley at all during Insurrection Week. In fact, she was.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That Ledeen’s retirement from the Senate came under circumstances worthy of additional investigation is underscored by Foy’s use of that retirement as a sort of rhetorical “get-out-of-jail-free” card in dealing with reporters. Despite the fact that Ledeen leaving the Senate in precipitous fashion makes the incident more rather than less worthy of investigation, Foy attempts to fashion it as a means for Grassley and his team to avoid significant questions about her.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Given that Foy worked alongside Ledeen for a very long time, his efforts to put distance between himself and her border on the comical: “you’d have to ask her”; “I don’t have her contact information”; “I can’t speak to her [knowledge].” In fact, not only would Foy almost certainly have her contact information (given that she only just recently left Grassley’s office), but he should be able to tell media whether Ledeen exhibited any awareness of “the PowerPoint” during the three quarters of a year—at a minimum—that he worked alongside her in Senator Grassley’s employ.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But Foy’s most telling evasion, bordering on pure deceit, is his last one: “She didn’t work for Senator Grassley at the time.” Foy here takes advantage of the fact that Woodward and Costa’s reporting about the Eastman plot covered a several-week period of time, from mid-December 2020 through Insurrection Day. Ledeen did work for Grassley during part of that time, but not for all of it, which Foy here exploits to imply that she didn’t work for Grassley for any of it.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Conclusion</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As a former federal criminal investigator, I was trained to consider the relationships between all parties to a given event, the histories of all parties to an event, and the motives that these histories and relationships may disclose. I’m trained to deem past conduct a possible precedent for future conduct; lies as illuminating as truths; and the opportunity for a malfeasor to misbehave as the obvious and necessary precursor to a finding that they did. With all this in mind, and on all of these grounds, there is simply no doubt that Ginni Thomas and Barbara Ledeen are presently the foremost (if not the only) suspects in the matter of who transmitted to key members of Congress the coup plot John Eastman and Peter Navarro had devised with Donald Trump’s knowledge.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Incredibly, the other chief suspects in this are all connected to Ginni Thomas and Barbara Ledeen by various means: Ali Alexander, a participant in Ginni Thomas’s Groundswell group; Erik Prince, the man who helped train Project Veritas (run by Thomas’s partner James O’Keefe) in intelligence-gathering; Michael Ledeen, Barbara Ledeen’s politically well-connected husband, who has been involved in scandals in every Republican administration since Nixon’s; Michael Flynn, a close friend of the Ledeens, and Michael Ledeen’s co-author;</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Mark Meadows, whose Trumpist career was advanced in aggressive terms by Ginni Thomas, in part (but only part) by the awarding of an laurel Thomas devised to celebrate and advertise her favored political instruments; Cleta Mitchell, another participant in Groundswell, and one who also participated directly in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election; John Eastman and Peter Navarro themselves, the former of whom was in contact with Ginni Thomas in the weeks and months before the attack on the Capitol and the latter of whom spearheaded a “purge” effort inside the White House that was masterminded by Ginni Thomas and Barbara Ledeen outside of it; Presidential Personnel Office director and former Trump “body man” John McEntee, who assumed a position for which he was entirely unqualified because of a clandestine disinformation campaign against his predecessor Sean Doocey by—you guessed it—Ginni Thomas and Barbara Ledeen; </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Steve Bannon, whose media operation was hopelessly entwined with Thomas and Groundswell and who was himself a privileged guest of Thomas’s secretive group on at least one occasion; and Donald Trump, who met with Thomas on a number of occasions to discuss the very topic at issue here: locating and positioning loyalists in government who would do anything Trump demanded of them. A small number of other tangential figures, like Jeffrey Clark at DOJ, would not have been key liaisons themselves, but were nevertheless somehow located and selected via a murky process run by Trump partisans; Thomas and Ledeen had spent years plucking men like Clark from obscurity for the sake of getting them to do Trump’s bidding, and in the search for those who recruited Clark to participate in a coup plot in December 2020, Thomas and Ledeen would likewise be the prime suspects for any federal criminal investigator.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In short, as the House January 6 Committee seeks to connect three spheres of coup plotting—grassroots activists and political insiders, Congress, and the White House—there is no map of the key players within these spheres in January 2021 that does not have both Ginni Thomas and Barbara Ledeen at or near the center of it.</b> The House January 6 Committee would be wise to subpoena these two women immediately in order to find out what they know as soon as possible. Proof is confident that if such a subpoena is issued, one or both women will take the same tack that their associates already have, either by asserting the Fifth Amendment (like Eastman and Clark), defying their subpoenas (like Meadows and Bannon), fighting document production vociferously (like Flynn and Trump), issuing statements filled with half-truths (like Foy and Navarro), or testifying under circumstances that suggest perjury (Alexander).</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It is deeply regrettable that Ginni Thomas’s association with Turning Point USA as an advisory board member led to a false rumor that she directly aided that organization’s leader, Charlie Kirk, in organizing buses to transport Trump voters to Washington on January 6. While Thomas’s indirect involvement at both ends of Kirk’s operation—on the front end she advised it, and on the back end the Turning Point buses were aimed at aiding the efforts of Alexander, a previous participant in her Groundswell group—the fact that Ginni Thomas was not working the phones ordering up buses (a task well below her pay-grade) obscured the fact that she appears to have been involved in January 6 in more complex and troubling ways. It is little wonder that after cheering on the events of January 6 on the morning of Insurrection Day, she thereafter did the bare minimum to justify her conduct, adding a non-apologetic note to her Facebook page before making it invisible to the public, and then sending a private apology to a private listserv regarding private missives none of us have ever seen. There remains no sense that Thomas regrets her role in January 6 or is even willing to speak about it.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All of the foregoing puts in an entirely new light Ginni Thomas’s husband—who, we are assured from those who know them both, she directly lobbies on matters before the Supreme Court—being the only member of the Supreme Court to rule that Donald Trump should be able to keep secret documents related to his contacts with advisers in the run-up to January 6. That Ginni Thomas appears to have been one of Trump’s key advisers in 2019 and 2020, and that during this period she was working hand-in-glove with one of the most notorious election-year “ratfuckers” in the Republican Party, raises the question of whether Clarence Thomas had reason to apprehend (either under his own steam or at his wife’s urging) that Ginni Thomas or her closest associates might well be implicated in January 6 plotting if all of Trump’s presidential records are disclosed to Congress. Unless we assume that Ginni Thomas hid from her husband the nature of her contacts with Trump and her work on Trump’s behalf—which would be impossible, given that Clarence Thomas was present at intimate gatherings with his wife and the former president; it is also not, according to friends of the Thomases, how their marriage has been structured for many decades now—Justice Thomas was aware of his wife’s proximity to coup plotters like John Eastman when the issue of Trump’s records being released to Congress came before the Court.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While the Supreme Court ruling releasing Trump’s records to Congress was an 8-1 decision—meaning that Thomas’s dissent was ultimately immaterial as a practical matter—in the months and years to come other issues touching upon Donald Trump’s ongoing insurrection will come before the Court. One or indeed many more than one may end up as 5-4 decisions favoring the protection of Trump’s borderline seditious conduct. These majority rulings will depend upon the vote of a man who is surely well aware of what his wife did or did not know about the January 6 coup plot in advance.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">If House members do not determine what Ginni Thomas knew between now and the presumed Republican takeover of Congress in January 2023, it will be impossible for the case to be made that Clarence Thomas cannot sit on any Supreme Court case that involves Trump or the January 6 insurrection now or in the future. That is how urgent the immediate issuance of federal subpoenas to Barbara Ledeen and Ginni Thomas is.</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/us/politics/trump-purge-ginni-thomas.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/us/politics/trump-purge-ginni-thomas.html</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nyt no lnx</font></font></font></font></div><div><b>Among Those Pressing Trump to Weed Out Disloyalty: Clarence Thomas’s Wife</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div>A group led by Ginni Thomas has targeted officials in the administration, and lobbied for its own preferred choices. As the president’s distrust in those serving him has grown, so has its sway.</div><div>Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has targeted officials at the National Security Council, the former head of the White House personnel office and other top White House aides for replacement.</div><div>By Maggie Haberman</div><div>Published <b>Feb. 24, 2020</b></div><div>Updated May 3, 2021</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For the past 18 months, Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, and other conservatives have plied the White House with memos and suggestions about which people to fire — and who should replace them.</span></div><div>
</div><div>President Trump has generally treated Ms. Thomas’s suggestions coolly, passing them off to advisers, according to people familiar with Ms. Thomas’s efforts. But since the end of the Senate impeachment trial, the president has become more distrustful of the people filling the ranks of government and has been giving those recommendations a closer look.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The memos from Ms. Thomas were first reported by Axios.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Among Ms. Thomas’s top targets have been officials at the National Security Council, the former head of the White House personnel office, Sean Doocey, and other top White House aides. Another target was Jessie K. Liu, who recently left her job as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia for a job in the Treasury Department that was later withdrawn by the White House.</div><div>
</div><div>Ms. Thomas, a politically active conservative who for nearly seven years has led a group called Groundswell, also successfully lobbied for a role for Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the former attorney general of Virginia who is now the acting deputy secretary of homeland security.</div><div>
</div><div>Another conservative, Becky Norton Dunlop, an official at the Heritage Foundation, has also repeatedly passed names of possible appointments to personnel officials, administration officials said.  </div><div><b>Mr. Trump recently shook up the personnel office, replacing Mr. Doocey with John McEntee,</b> who was fired from his previous job at the White House, with a mandate to look for “bad” people, according to multiple administration officials.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some administration aides have long been suspicious that people like Ms. Thomas and Ms. Dunlop are less interested in pro-Trump purity than in appointments for their own networks of friends. White House officials have privately questioned Ms. Thomas’s lobbying on personnel, and have said<b> Mr. Trump — who is facing several decisions before the Supreme Court personally and in terms of administration policy — has made clear he is conscious of whom she is married to.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Still, in the last year, as Mr. Trump has grown more mistrustful of his government, the sway held by Ms. Thomas and her group has increased</b>. Administration officials have routinely sent aides to attend weekly Groundswell meetings held at the offices of Judicial Watch, another conservative group led by a vocal defender of the president, Tom Fitton.</div><div>
</div><div>Image</div><div><b>Jessie K. Liu, who recently left her job as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia f</b>or a job in the Treasury Department that was later withdrawn by the White House, was a target of Ms. Thomas’s.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Trump was also given a memo about Ms. Liu that officials attributed to a Senate Judiciary Committee staff member named Barbara Ledeen</span>, [// HR McMaster JOK] another member of Groundswell, though it was drafted with input from other conservatives. The memo mentioned the failure to prosecute Andrew G. McCabe, a former F.B.I. official whom Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked, as a strike against Ms. Liu, as well as her signing the sentencing memo of <b>Michael T. Flynn, a friend of Ms. Ledeen’s</b>.</div><div>
</div><div>Ms. Ledeen and Ms. Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ms. Ledeen also raised concerns with the staff of <b>Senator Mike Lee, </b>a Utah Republican, about Ms. Liu when she was nominated for the No. 3 job at the Justice Department in March 2019, according to three people familiar with the discussion. After Mr. Lee and others objected to Ms. Liu’s appointment, the White House withdrew her nomination.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ms. Liu became a flash point again when she was nominated to the Treasury Department post. Someone provided Mr. Trump with a fresh copy of the memo attributed to Ms. Ledeen, according to a person familiar with the events.</span></div><div>
</div><div>And another memo Ms. Thomas passed along accused Mr. Doocey of obstruction related to State Department jobs, and claimed that he had surreptitiously switched one appointee for another for a foreign aid agency. That particular claim was demonstrably false, according to three people familiar with the memo.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The New York Times reported in <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">January 2019 that Mr. Trump met that month with Ms. Thomas and a half-dozen of her members at what was at times a contentious meeting in the Roosevelt Room</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span>of the White House. At that meeting, Ms. Thomas insisted that White House personnel were blocking appointments of supporters of the president, and handed him a list of suggested appointees.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Since the meeting, Ms. Thomas and her group have been pressing Mr. Trump to replace job holders they did not consider reliably conservative and have complained to White House staff that they were not getting enough attention from the personnel office.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Privately, officials in that office told associates that Ms. Thomas’s suggested hires could never survive proper vetting, including possibilities such as David A. Clarke, the former sheriff of Milwaukee County for a homeland security role, or the<b> Fox News guest Dan Bongino [GROUNDSWELL] </b>for a counterterrorism post.</div><div>
</div><div>Despite her own history of supporting Senator Ted Cruz of Texas for the Republican presidential nomination and of trying to stop Mr. Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention, Ms. Thomas has presented herself to the White House as a barometer of who is sufficiently conservative and supportive of the Trump agenda, according to current and former administration officials.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Mr. Trump has alternately listened to and been dismissive of Ms. Thomas’s entreaties, according to people familiar with his thinking. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the White House has frequently sent administration officials to meet with members of Groundswell.</span></b></div><div>
</div><div>A person close to Ms. Thomas said she did not intend for Groundswell to be her alter ego, and that she merely saw herself as a launching point for conservative input at the White House.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One concern among White House officials has been that outsiders like Ms. Thomas and her allies do not understand how the personnel office functions.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In its previous iteration under Mr. Doocey, the office tried to serve as a buffer, getting input and at times pushback about possible hires from the White House Counsel’s Office, the Office of Political Affairs and cabinet secretaries. Mr. Doocey, who had told associates that his goal was to always try to shield the president from problematic appointments, reported directly to the chief of staff.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Mr. Trump would sometimes tell conservative activists such as Ms. Thomas that he could not fulfill their wishes because his aides were stopping him. He has said such things even when he agreed that certain recommendations did not make sense, essentially faulting aides for his own choices to avoid confrontation, </b>according to people familiar with the discussions.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Mr. McEntee will report directly to Mr. Trump</span>, giving Mr. McEntee more leeway but also denying the president that buffer when it comes to dealing with people who try to lobby him on personnel matters.</div><div>
</div><div>But it is unclear how much ideological purity Mr. Trump can achieve in his appointments, given how few Republicans supported his candidacy from its inception, the rivalries within his administration, and the stream of aides, consultants, advisers or friends who at some point have whispered in his ear that someone was trying to undermine him.</div><div>
</div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>=</b></font></font></font></p></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mojo corn have series of 4?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2nd mojo on rove lnx to 3 mo mtg</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">david corn</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">eg</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739865-redacted-groundswell-mtg-notes-3-20-2012-google">http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739865-redacted-groundswell-mtg-notes-3-20-2012-google</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">404 --></font></p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20131007212913/https://www.motherjones.com/documents/739865-redacted-groundswell-mtg-notes-3-20-2012-google"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://web.archive.org/web/20131007212913/https://www.motherjones.com/documents/739865-redacted-groundswell-mtg-notes-3-20-2012-google</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/739865/redacted-groundswell-mtg-notes-3-20-2012-google.pdf</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-ginni-thomas-war-karl-rove/">https://www.motherjones.com/politics/<b>2013/07/</b>groundswell-ginni-thomas-<b>war-karl-rove/</b></a></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">groundswell, the recently created coalition of prominent right-wing activists and journalists, gathers weekly to coordinate messaging and plot strategy for “a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation.” These sessions usually fixate on how best to battle the president, congressional Democrats, and progressive groups. But their 30-front war also includes something of a civil war: <b>a fierce crusade against the Republican establishment and Karl Rove, the GOP strategist </b>and Fox News pundit.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Rove is a regular topic of discussion—and frustration—at Groundswell’s Wednesday morning meetings, according to the documents obtained by Mother Jones. At these sessions, and in messages shared by participants on Groundswell’s Google group page, <b>Groundswellers often gripe that the GOP’s inside-the-Beltway crowd wants to marginalize the party’s ideological die-hards and recruit, promote, and support political candidates deemed less strident and more electable</b>.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Rove especially ticked off tea-party-minded conservatives in February when the super-PAC he advises, American Crossroads, announced it was launching the Conservative Victory Project, which would try to block far-right candidates from blowing key races, as Missouri’s Todd Akin and Indiana’s Richard Mourdock did in Senate contests last year.</span></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Yet as Rove kicked off this project, Groundswellers, in closed-doors meetings, initiated an effort to crush Rove, who they believed had helped shape a <b>post-election post-mortem </b>by the Republican National Committee that called on the party to temper its message to appeal to a broader swath of voters.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">At the group’s March 20 meeting, Groundswell participants reviewed the details of this vigorous anti-Rove endeavor, according to notes prepared after the session. This memo referred to a “two front war” to tear down the prominent GOP strategist who engineered the political triumphs of George W. Bush. Under the subject head “ROVE PROJECT,” the memo reported:</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Rove is still actively networking and building his financial capabilities, an indication that we are not yet being effective</b>. His associates have quietly contributed to the drafting of the RNC document, Autopsy. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Autopsy Report…has drawn fire from the Tea Party, social conservatives and conservatives in general. It undermines the RNC platform…</span></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Two Front War: The two front war covers finances and reputation. Rove has relationships built over the last two decades. He must become toxic among the grass roots and among his base. His effectiveness has been called into question on Sunday talk shows and at CPAC. Regarding financing, the donors to his Crossroads [super-PAC] are public. They must be educated to the fact, Rove is not a conservative and his efforts are not effective.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Rove’s position as party spokesperson was established as a result of the Bush election. Rove gained the title and the credit for being the “great architect.” Fox has given Rove a platform and just renewed his contract. In truth, Rove no more represents conservatives then Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton represent all Black</b>s.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The memo cautioned that smashing Rove would take time: “Rove has been building his power base for decades. Change requires time and patience.” It suggested “powerful messaging points” to use against him: “Rove does not speak for GOP like Sharpton does not speak for black community” and “Who put you in charge?”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Rove has relationships built over the last two decades. He must become toxic among the grass roots and among his base.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Rove Project was a key agenda item at other Groundswell get-togethers. At a February 20 meeting, Groundswell participants talked about how best to “continue efforts to educate conservatives to this real and present danger to our future success”—meaning Rove—and attendees were informed that<b> Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state now affiliated with the Family Research Council, was identifying donors to conservative causes who “need specific attention.” That is, Blackwell was compiling a list of conservative funders to pressure to boycott Rove.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">During a March 6 meeting, it was announced that the Rove Project would be one of Groundswell’s 10 working groups. (Others included national security, messaging, ground game, immigration, and <b>Benghazi.)<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Sandy Rios</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, a fellow Fox News contributor, was put in charge of the campaign to discredit Rove</span>. <b>Weeks later, though, a Groundswell memo noted that the Conservative Action Project—a coalition of more than 100 right-wing organizations that is chaired by former Attorney General Edwin Meese—would be “taking the lead” on the Rove Project.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rove did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, one of the leading members of Groundswell and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Through Groundswell’s Google group, members were asked in February to sign a letter organized by Diana Banister, a Groundsweller and a partner at the Shirley & Banister PR firm, demanding the firing of Jonathan Collegio, American Crossroads’ communications director. Collegio’s sin: He had called Brent Bozell, a conservative media critic, a “hater” in an interview. (Collegio had been reacting to Bozell’s attack on Rove’s plan to oppose unelectable conservative Republican candidates.) The letter, addressed to American Crossroads president Steven Law, proclaimed, “You obviously mean to have a war with conservatives and the Tea Party.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Groundswellers certainly seem to believe they are engaged in all-out combat with Rove and GOP insiders. In February,<b> Blackwell posted an article on Groundswell’s Google group page and stated, “War has been declared on the conservative movement.” The article was about Rove’s effort to back credible GOP candidates.</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/739865/redacted-groundswell-mtg-notes-3-20-2012-google.pdf">
</a></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/739865/redacted-groundswell-mtg-notes-3-20-2012-google.pdf">https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/739865/redacted-groundswell-mtg-notes-3-20-2012-google.pdf</a></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">11 pp</font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">who is JW? judicial watch fitton HQ?</font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...SHADOW GOVERNMENT:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 250-page report on Tom Perez and the DOJ is devastating.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">GARDASIL-HPV VACCINE: This week there will be a press release based on research done by</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">JW revealing the vaccine’s adverse effects on recipients, including deaths. The vaccine slated to</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">prevent cervical cancer was first pushed on girls but is now being forced on young boys as well.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This is merely a public health experiment with serious safety concerns</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. [Read more here and</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">here]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IMMIGRATION:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Massive and instant amnesty programs are being proposed. Some Senators in the Judiciary</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Committee are pushing back against the “secret” bills. They are requesting open discussion that</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">will allow for an analysis of the proposed bills. [Click here for the text of the letter to Sen. Leahy]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...UPDATE ON TACTICS OF THE LEFT:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Talk on the Left is that the GOP is self-destructing. The Left is defining GOP issues and we are</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“eating the cheese.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservatives are so busy dealing with issues like immigration, gay marriage and boy scouts there</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">is little time left to focus on other issues. These are the very issues the Left wants to avoid but we</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">need to magnify. R’s cannot beat Obama at his own game but need to go on the offense and</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">define the issues. Focus on the issues the Left does not want to discuss:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fast and Furious</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Obama’s record</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Benghazi</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State Issues</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State Issues: New regulations are distracting Governors. Coalescing state groups to put pressure</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on the Governors and at the same time letting Governors know they are supported will encourage</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Governors to speak up. Identify strong Governors, like the Governor of Texas, to work together</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and fight back; this will be produce better result.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Left wants us to go in circles. Conservatives must hold the line and go on the offense. We</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...made that a group of 5 conservative leaders, respected by the senator and his staff, meet with them</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to inform and influence the process. A ground team from TN will be addressing the nomination</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">from the angle of concerns about Perez’s position on Sharia.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ILLINOIS GROUNDSWELL: The success in fighting the same-sex marriage issue before the IL</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">legislators highlights the importance and the impact of public pressure on the process. Family</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PAC and other family groups gathered 5000 people who descended on the capitol to protest the</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">passage of same-sex marriage legislation. <b>Black pastors [so bapt conf?]  </b>joined the ranks and pressured Black</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">legislators. Public pressure in this blue state has met success. The bill is 13 votes shy of the</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">necessary votes to pass this legislation. This is groundswell in action. We have a lot more power</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">than we realize. Issues revolving around immigration, marriage and Sharia are upsetting to the</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">public.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is ironic the RNC document discussed earlier, charts a course away from social issues to capture</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the minority vote of Hispanics and Blacks. The fact is these social issues are the way to bring this</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">constituency into agreement with conservatives. The idea that becoming more like the D’s will</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">somehow make the R’s more appealing is false.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OLD AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CPAC AND THE UNIVITED: Brietbart hosted a 2-hour panel on Islam/Sharia for “the</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">uninvited” at CPAC. It was a standing room only event.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JW as an event sponsor had the ability to hold CPAC accountable and help provide</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">alternative events. CPAC was a success.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GUN ISSUE: The assault weapons band will not be going to the floor; there are not enough votes</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to pass the bill. While this appears to be a victory, the legislation that will be going to the floor is</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">problematic. The legislation going to the floor proposes a </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">n<b style="">ational background check system </b>that</span></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">will in essence register every person who purchases a gun. A national registration is disastrous; it</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">provides the government with the tools and ability to confiscate guns. <b>[</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Already seen in CA and</b></span></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NJ</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">] </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to at least one source, this is a win for the WH and in line with their objectives.</span></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">We cannot afford to let our guard down.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NOTE: This situation provides cover for red state D’s up for re-election. They will not</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">have to go on the record on the issue of gun rights and can safely take the alternative,</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“more reasonable” approach by voting for gun registration and background checks. ...</font></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/739818/redacted-notes-action-groundswell-mtg-3-6-2013.pdf">https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/739818/redacted-notes-action-groundswell-mtg-<b>3-6-2013</b>.pdf</a> 9 pp</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cherylyn Harley LeBon suggested we measure our success by Googling our theme and noted

how Groundswell is driving this theme right now!!

BROWNIE POINTS for using the theme “politics over public safety; danger” of the week to:

Tom Fitton

Frank Gaffney

Peter List

Mark Krikorian

Michael James Barton

Mark Tapscott

Related efforts are showing up in Michael Walsh’s op ed, Matt Boyle’s pieces, but Bongino

reminded people to somehow get the phrase in your pieces too!

HASHTAGS AND MESSAGING:

SequesterThis

#PoliticsOverPublicSafety</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">......CPAC: Pamela Geller, an outspoken expert on the threat of Islamic terrorism and Sharia has been</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">excluded from the convention. Additionally, Robert Spencer, who runs Jihad Watch and is the</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">recipient of the People’s Choice Award, was barred from the convention.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PRESIDENT’S TRIP TO THE MIDDLE EAST/ISRAEL: (March 20) Repeat of</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Munich. (Suggested Theme: “Munich 2.0”) It is anticipated that peace efforts will be made at the</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">expense of the rest of the world.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CHAVEZ DEATH: A watchful eye should be kept on Venezuela. According to the Venezuelan</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Constitution, the President of the General Assembly should succeed the President, not the Vice</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President. Elections should be held in 30 days. This is an opportunity for someone without ties to</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cuba to become President.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY: Chinese front groups have</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">acquired a major energy company in Canada. The acquisition was approved by Obama agency</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and benefits Obama donors (i.e. Solyndra). This gives the Chinese control over half of the key</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">crude oil supply and enables them to set the price. [For more see Judicial Watch]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">VAWA:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">VAWA passed the House 286-138. Feminists have lodged a costly bullying campaign against</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">those voting in opposition to the bill. Talking points for those who voted no and will face</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">recriminations from misled voters will be forth coming from Eagle Forum</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">· VAWA DISCRIMINATION: A provision of VAWA requires that grant money will</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">only go to non-profit organizations that perform abortions or make abortion referrals. This</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">prohibits religious organization from qualifying for funds and is therefore</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">discriminatory. There are religious organizations working to rescue victims of human</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trafficking and would be disqualified from funding. Not discussed enough (per Rep. Jim</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bridenstine]...</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>wk gp 30 front war</b></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Energy and Environment - Myron</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">National Security - Frank</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">UN - Austin</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Benghazi - Boykin</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Immigration - Mark</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Messaging - Bongino</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gun - Barton</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ground Game – Peter List</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Karl Rove Project - Sandy</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Shadow Government – Fitton and Farris, and others</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Any suggestions for other work groups is encouraged.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NEW STATE OUTREACH PROJECT: An initiative will be launched to support, strengthen and</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">connect with the best state activists who are building state coalitions, as we are doing nationally.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We want to encourage others to work outside of silos, together, to save the country and promote</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">constitutional principles. Three states will be chosen to build a possible model(s) with the hope of</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">replicating it across other states, expanding our reach and connecting key state activists/leaders</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">into the Groundswell meetings somehow with time.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The first state identified is Maryland. Please forward your suggestion for other states or</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">state projects to consider. </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ILLEGAL ALIEN CRIMINALS: Continuing this theme as politics over safety. Include</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the GOP members who are focused on the goal of Hispanic votes over public</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">safety. (Rubio, Graham, McCain and others.) As well as the GOP’s lack of making</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">anyone responsible for the President’s lawlessness and willingness to put people at risk.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">· TEA PARTY PATRIOTS: Opportunity to find faces to go with our theme – TPP</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">began collecting information on their website using the theme, “share your story;” for</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">how big government policies are affecting you.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OTHER MESSAGING IDEAS proposed:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“THE GREAT DIVIDER” as Obama’s legacy.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LINKS</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WASHINGTON EXAMINER: HTTP://WASHINGTONEXAMINER.COM/NEWS/WATCHDOG</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. GAVE TROUBLED FLORIDA FIRM $129 MILLION FOR NEW OHIO HEALTH</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">COOPERATIVE http://washingtonexaminer.com/u.s.-gave-troubled-florida-firm-129-million-for-newohio-health-cooperative/article/2523337</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THE OBAMA YOU DON’T KNOW http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2508551</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“One of the penalties of not participating in politics is that you will be governed by your inferiors.”—Plato</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/documents/739889-redacted-groundswell-notes-and-action-items-from" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.motherjones.com/documents/739889-redacted-groundswell-notes-and-action-items-from</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hagel conrim vote</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>...https://www.motherjones.com/documents/739889-redacted-groundswell-notes-and-action-items-from</div><div>GROUNDSWELL: This meeting is about message synchronization, coalitional efforts and a 30 front war seeking to</div><div>fundamentally transform the nation…</div><div>ACTION ITEMS from Feb 20 Groundswell</div><div>1. BENGHAZI - Edits to General Boykin’s letter due by cob Thursday send to: w...@frc.org as we seek to distribute with signatures. (Boykin)</div><div>(1.) Press Conference - Gaffney to hold press conference on Monday, February 25, 2013 re: lingering questions on Benghazi, Islam, John</div><div>Brennan (more)</div><div>2. SEQUESTER: CRS report provided:</div><div>http://www.federalbudgetreport.com/Budget%20Sequestration%20and%20Selected%20Program%20Exemptions%20and%20Special%20Rules.pdf</div><div> MESSAGE: REPLACE (not STOP) Sequester; focus on Obama’s or Panetta’s quotes on sequester impact on defense capabilities. Hill is only</div><div>discussing this in terms of job losses but it is a much broader issue with a wider impact. Need help, suggestions to change the message. NOTE:</div><div>No position taken on the alternative presented R idea of providing Obama flexibility in making cuts.</div><div>3. HAGEL and BRENNAN CONFIRMATION VOTES: GRASS-ROOTS and GRASS-TOPs calls needed to Senators asking they sign on to</div><div>Cornyn’s letter to POTTUS to withdraw Hagel nomination. [current signatories: Cornyn, Inhofe, Graham, Wicker, Vitter, Cruz, Lee, Toomey, Rubio,</div><div>Coats, R. Johnson, Coburn, Scott, Risch and Barrasso]: Review letter here: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/21/GOP-SenatorsUrge-White-House-to-Withdraw-Hagel-Nomination</div><div>Hagel confirmation vote, Tuesday, February 26. Ask key senators to vote “no” on Hagel nomination. (See 4 page info on Hagel attachment) Target</div><div>list for Tuesday cloture vote:...</div><div>NOTE: BLUE represents who is up in 2014.</div><div>4. ROVE Strategy – Continue efforts to educate conservatives to this real and present danger to our future success. Please help Ken Blackwell</div><div>identify potential donors who need specific attention. Tweet @rupertmurdoch if you don’t want to see Rove on FOX. Tweet @ewerickson on Rove</div><div>5. <b>MIN WAGE</b> –D organizing tool to reach low and middle-income vote. New working group forming with Dan Bongino and Mike Flynn to develop</div><div>proactive efforts; identify FACES of our argument (I.E. It hurts those wanting FIRST JOBS). Bongino to contact the woman he met on minimum</div><div>wage issue - farming community MD</div><div>6. WASTEFUL SPENDING: USDA Diversity Training video has more legs and potential for Govt Waste argument; congressional talking points,</div><div>hearings, spending cuts, op eds [Tom Fitton]</div><div><b>7. GUNS: Star Parker </b>holding press conference, Friday morning, February 22, 2013 on minorities and gun. Opportunity in Salazar comments in</div><div>the House for op ed’s, social media! Comments posted in<b> Malkin article:</b> http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/341084/disarming-american-womenmichelle-malkin</div><div>8. CANDIDATES: Need to identify, recruit and support OUR OPTIMAL Senate candidates now, based on Andy Roth’s presentation. IA, GA, NE,</div><div>WV, LA. For the bold amongst us, potentially primary challenges in SC, TN, KY and KA. House races to watch are: MO-8 (Emerson’s) and SC-1</div><div>(Tim Scott’s) where March 9 is primary election, April 2 will be a run-off if needed and general election is May 7. Reality, we are already behind.</div><div>9. GAP of REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP: how do we tell them they are failing their base; will lose in 2014 unless they fight for principles (as</div><div>opposed to show disdain for them and accommodate Obama; O is dividing Rs and they seem clueless); IDEAS NEEDED!</div><div>10. CR coming (ends March 27): Leadership is inclined to ask for little to nothing now.</div><div>11. BOLTON – Republicans in office, and conservative leaders, need to understand and discuss national security risks more; people are not</div><div>remembering the risks and our enemies! Nuclear proliferation front is a larger vulnerability than people are focusing on – (See Bolton OPED - WSJ</div><div>Doc Attachment)</div><div>
</div><div>12. NEED WORKING GROUPS for division of labor for 30 front war (Ginni to seek out/discuss); seek volunteer leaders or team-players on various</div><div>fronts. Expectation: Teams should connect once a week before Groundswell meeting.</div><div>1. Guns: Michael James Barton, Gayle Trotter, Rick Manning</div><div>2. Messaging: <b>Dan Bongino, </b>Cherylyn Harley LeBon, Alex Cortes,<b> Anita MonCrief</b></div><div>3. Groundgame: Peter List</div><div>4. Getting on Offense: Anita MonCrief</div><div>5. Alternative to Rove: Sandy Rios</div><div>6. National Security lane - Frank Gaffney</div><div>7. Energy and Environment lane – Myron Ebell</div><div>8. UN lane - Austin Ruse</div><div>
</div><div>9.<b> Shadow Govt teams: Tom Fitton</b>, Mike Farris, Heritage?</div><div>10. Benghazi – Boykin, Thomas, Fitton</div><div>11. Others needed: Immigration,</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.axios.com/2020/02/23/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.axios.com/<b>2020/02/</b>23/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house</a></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">axios</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Trump White House and its allies, over the past 18 months, assembled detailed lists of disloyal government officials to oust — and trusted pro-Trump people to replace them — according to more than a dozen sources familiar with the effort who spoke to Axios.</font></b></font></font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;">Driving the news: </span>By the time President Trump instructed his 29-year-old former body man and new head of presidential personnel to<a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text=" rid his government of anti-Trump officials" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/scoop-white-house-personnel-chief-targets-never-trumpers-2ee51bfd-03f9-4971-8308-863c81ace5f0.html" data-vars-content-id="ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3" data-vars-headline="Exclusive: Trump's " deep="Deep" state="State" hit="hit" list="list" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/scoop-white-house-personnel-chief-targets-never-trumpers-2ee51bfd-03f9-4971-8308-863c81ace5f0.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); --tw-text-opacity:1;"> rid his government of anti-Trump officials</a>, he'd gathered reams of material to support his suspicions.</font></font></font></p><ul https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" none="none" margin="margin" rem="rem" px="px" padding="padding" font-family="font-family" atiza="Atiza" ui-serif="ui-serif" georgia="Georgia" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); list-style: url("><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Trump's distrust has only intensified since his impeachment and acquittal, he has long been on the hunt for "bad people" inside the White House and U.S. government, and fresh "pro-Trump" options. Outside advisers have been happy to oblige.</font></font></font></li></ul><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;">In reporting this story, </span>I have been briefed on, or reviewed, memos and lists the president received since 2018 suggesting whom he should hire and fire. Most of these details have never been published.</font></font></font></p><ul https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" none="none" margin="margin" rem="rem" px="px" padding="padding" font-family="font-family" atiza="Atiza" ui-serif="ui-serif" georgia="Georgia" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); list-style: url("><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A well-connected network of conservative activists with close ties to Trump and top administration officials is quietly helping develop these "Never Trump"/pro-Trump lists, and some sent memos to Trump to shape his views, per sources with direct knowledge.</font></span></font></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Members of this network include Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Republican Senate staffer Barbara Ledeen.</font></span></font></font></li></ul><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;">The big picture: </span>Since Trump's Senate acquittal, aides say the president has crossed a psychological line regarding what he calls the "Deep State." He feels his government — from Justice to State to Defense to Homeland Security — is filled with "snakes." He wants them fired and replaced ASAP.</font></span></font></font></p><ul https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" none="none" margin="margin" rem="rem" px="px" padding="padding" font-family="font-family" atiza="Atiza" ui-serif="ui-serif" georgia="Georgia" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); list-style: url("><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;">"I think it's a very positive development,"</span> said Rich Higgins, who served on Trump's National Security Council in 2017. H.R. McMaster removed Higgins after he wrote a memo speculating that Trump's presidency faced threats from Marxists, the "Deep State," so-called globalists, bankers, Islamists, and establishment Republicans. (This was long before the full scope of the FBI's Russia investigation was known to Trump and his aides.)</font></font></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Higgins told me on Sunday he stands by everything he wrote in his memo, but "I would probably remove 'bankers' if I had to do it over and I would play up the intel community role — which I neglected."</font></font></font></li></ul><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Let's get to the memos.</font></span></font></font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">1. The Jessie Liu memo: </span>Shortly before withdrawing the nomination of the former D.C. U.S. attorney for a top Treasury role, the president reviewed a memo on Liu's alleged misdeeds, according to a source with direct knowledge.</font></font></font></p><ul https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" none="none" margin="margin" rem="rem" px="px" padding="padding" font-family="font-family" atiza="Atiza" ui-serif="ui-serif" georgia="Georgia" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); list-style: url("><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ledeen wrote the memo, and its findings left a striking impression on Trump, per sources with direct knowledge. Ledeen declined to comment.</font></span></font></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A source with direct knowledge of the memo's contents said it<b> contained 14 sections building a case for why Liu was unfit for the job for which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin selected her, including:</b></font></font></font></li><ul https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-outlined.svg="bullet-outlined.svg" none="none" margin="margin" rem="rem" px="px" padding="padding" font-size="font-size" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); list-style: url("><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not acting on criminal referrals of some of Justice Brett Kavanaugh's accusers.</font></font></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Signing "the sentencing filing asking for jail time" for Gen. Michael Flynn (a friend of Ledeen's).</font></font></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Holding a leadership role in a women's lawyers networking group that Ledeen criticized as "pro-choice and anti-Alito."</font></font></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not indicting former deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe.</font></font></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dismissing charges against "violent inauguration protesters who plotted to disrupt the inauguration."</font></font></font></li></ul><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither Liu nor the White House responded to requests for comment.</font></font></font></li></ul><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;">Between the lines: </span>The Liu memo is not the first such memo to reach the president's desk — and there's a common thread in Groundswell, a conservative activist network that's headed by Thomas and whose members include Ledeen.</font></font></font></p><ul https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" none="none" margin="margin" rem="rem" px="px" padding="padding" font-family="font-family" atiza="Atiza" ui-serif="ui-serif" georgia="Georgia" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); list-style: url("><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sources leaked me details of two other memos from people associated with the Groundswell network that also caused a stir inside the White House over the past year.</font></font></font></li></ul><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;">Thomas has spent a significant amount of time and energy</span> urging Trump administration officials to change the personnel inside his government. This came to a head early last year.</font></font></font></p><ul https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" none="none" margin="margin" rem="rem" px="px" padding="padding" font-family="font-family" atiza="Atiza" ui-serif="ui-serif" georgia="Georgia" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); list-style: url("><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Members of <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Groundswell" data-vars-click-url="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/" data-vars-content-id="ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3" data-vars-headline="Exclusive: Trump's " deep="Deep" state="State" hit="hit" list="list" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); --tw-text-opacity:1;">Groundswell</a>,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> whose members earlier led the successful campaign to remove McMaster as national security adviser, <b>meet on Wednesdays in the D.C. offices of Judicial Watch</b>, a conservative legal group that has led the fight against the Mueller probe.</span></font></font></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Judicial Watch's president is Tom Fitton. He's a regular on Fox News, and Trump regularly retweets his commentary on the "Deep State."</font></font></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative activists who attend Groundswell meetings funneled names to Thomas, and she compiled those recommendations and passed them along to the president, according to a source close to her.</font></span></font></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">S<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">he handed a memo of names directly to the president in early 2019. (The New York Times <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="reported" data-vars-click-url="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/us/politics/trump-ginni-thomas-meeting.html" data-vars-content-id="ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3" data-vars-headline="Exclusive: Trump's " deep="Deep" state="State" hit="hit" list="list" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/us/politics/trump-ginni-thomas-meeting.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); --tw-text-opacity:1;">reported</a> on her group's meeting with Trump at the time.)</span></font></font></font></li></ul><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">2. The Groundswell memo:</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The presidential personnel office reviewed Thomas' memo and determined that some names she passed along for jobs were not appropriate candidates. Trump may revisit some given his current mood.</span></font></font></font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Potential hires she offered to Trump, per sources with direct knowledge:</font></span></font></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="midStoryAd" data-ad-status="AD" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); 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--tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div data-vars-category="cta" data-vars-experiment="mid_story_ad" data-vars-experiment-variant="control" data-vars-label="cta/view/mid_story_ad/control" class="gtmView" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen-48430672_37="11182" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time-48430672_37="900" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><div class="h-px -mt-px" style="box-sizing: border-box; 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border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); list-style: url("><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sheriff David Clarke for a senior Homeland Security role.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Fox News regular and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino for a Homeland Security or counterterrorism adviser role.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Devin Nunes aide Derek Harvey for the National Security Council (where he served before McMaster pushed him out).</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Radio talk show host Chris Plante for press secretary.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Federalist contributor Ben Weingarten for the National Security Council.</span></li></ul><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;">What we're hearing: </span>These memos created tension inside the White House, as people close to the president constantly told him his own staff, especially those running personnel, were undermining him — and White House staff countered they were being smeared.</span></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;">3. The State Department memo: </span>In one extraordinary incident last year, President Trump passed along another action memo to his<b> then-head of presidential personnel, Sean Doocey</b> (since pushed to State and replaced with former body man <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="John McEntee" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/johnny-mcentee-white-house-d1c29eee-8b0a-4c4d-8ba4-9355f3c27f4f.html" data-vars-content-id="ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3" data-vars-headline="Exclusive: Trump's " deep="Deep" state="State" hit="hit" list="list" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/johnny-mcentee-white-house-d1c29eee-8b0a-4c4d-8ba4-9355f3c27f4f.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); --tw-text-opacity:1;">John McEntee</a>).<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> People familiar with the January 2019 memo say it came from conservatives associated with Groundswell. Though nobody I’ve spoken to has claimed credit for it.</span></p><ul https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" none="none" margin="margin" rem="rem" px="px" padding="padding" font-family="font-family" atiza="Atiza" ui-serif="ui-serif" georgia="Georgia" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); list-style: url("><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;">According to sources briefed on the incident, the memo was, in large part, an attack against Doocey. The memo accused him and a colleague in the State Department of obstructionism and named several State Department officials who needed to be fired.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;">This list named former deputy secretary John Sullivan, deputy undersecretary for management Bill Todd, and undersecretary for political affairs David Hale, who later testified in the impeachment hearings. (Todd and Hale are career foreign service officers, serving in positions typically reserved for career officials.) Sullivan is now the U.S. Ambassador to Russia.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 0.75rem;">The memo ended with an allegation that Doocey had sneakily changed the name of an appointment Trump had already agreed on, swapping out Mira Ricardel for Sean Cairncross to run the Millennium Challenge Corporation.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem;">Sources briefed on the matter say this particular charge was false on its face because Cairncross was nominated in January 2018, months before Ricardel was briefly discussed as an alternative, per sources with direct knowledge.</li></ul><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 1.5rem 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); font-weight: 600;">The bottom line:</span> As the New York Times' Peter Baker <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="wrote" data-vars-click-url="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/us/politics/trump-disloyalty-turnover.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" data-vars-content-id="ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3" data-vars-headline="Exclusive: Trump's " deep="Deep" state="State" hit="hit" list="list" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/us/politics/trump-disloyalty-turnover.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); --tw-text-opacity:1;">wrote</a> on Saturday, "in some of the most critical corners of the Trump administration, officials show up for work now never entirely sure who will be there by the end of the evening — themselves included."</p><ul https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" none="none" margin="margin" rem="rem" px="px" padding="padding" font-family="font-family" atiza="Atiza" ui-serif="ui-serif" georgia="Georgia" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); list-style: url("><li style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px solid currentcolor; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow:0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 transparent; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-ordinal:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-slashed-zero:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-figure:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-spacing:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-numeric-fraction:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-font-variant-numeric:var(--tw-ordinal) var(--tw-slashed-zero) var(--tw-numeric-figure) var(--tw-numeric-spacing) var(--tw-numeric-fraction); padding-left: 0.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem;">Groundswell is an influential driver of that uncertainty. Its members have been working toward this moment for three years. They have lists. They have memos. And they have the president's ear.</li></ul></div></span></font></font></div></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-ginni-thomas-insane-hiring-memos-for-former-president-donald-trump</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx    Inside Ginni Thomas’ ‘Insane’ Hiring Memos for Trump</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘WRECKED’</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas’ suggested hires included known bigots and at least one suspected foreign spy, sources say.</font></b></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Asawin Suebsaeng</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senior Political Reporter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adam Rawnsley</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former Senior Researcher</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Updated Apr. 02, 2022 </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Years before she became one of then-President Donald Trump’s most prominent coup supporters, Ginni Thomas was already notorious in his West Wing for, among other things, ruining staffers’ afternoons by working Trump into fits of vengeful rage.</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We all knew that within minutes after Ginni left her meeting with the president, he would start yelling about firing people for being disloyal,” said a former senior Trump administration official. “When Ginni Thomas showed up, you knew your day was wrecked.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ever since she became a welcome guest at Trump’s residences, Thomas—an influential and longtime conservative activist, and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—had perfected a proven formula of enthralling and manipulating the president’s emotions and mood. On multiple occasions throughout the Trump era, Thomas would show up in the White House, sometimes for a private meeting or a luncheon with the president. <b>She often came armed with written memos of who she and her allies believed Trump should hire for plum jobs—and who she thought Trump should promptly purge—that she distributed to Trump and other high-ranking government officials.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The fire lists were particularly problematic, as they were frequently based on pure conjecture, rumor, or score-settling, where even steadfastly MAGA aides were targeted for being part of the “Deep State” or some other supposedly anti-Trump coalition, according to people who saw them during the Trump administration.<b> </b></span><b>The hire lists were so often filled with infamous bigots and conspiracy theorists, woefully under-qualified names, and obvious close friends of Thomas that several senior Trump aides would laugh at them—that is, until Trump would force his staff to put certain names through the official vetting process, three sources familiar with the matter said.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“These fucking lists were so insane and unworkable.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">— one former Trump White House official</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the Trump years, these memos would astonish various administration officials, including those working in the White House Presidential Personnel Office (PPO). Some of these officials noticed that as the Trump term went on, the Thomas lists would increasingly feature a disproportionate share of names more suited to an OAN guest line-up than any functional government. (To be fair, well before Ginni Thomas became a recurring visitor, Trump would routinely hire people because they had entertained or excited him, via Fox and other cable-news appearances.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials in the PPO regularly annotated the margins of Thomas’ hire lists, usually including a single line for each rejected name, explaining why the prospective hires did not work out. Some failed background checks, or suffered from security-clearance hold-ups. Other annotations noted that a specific individual was offered a job in the Trump administration, but turned it down for whatever reason.</font></b></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sometimes, the reasons for the White House’s preemptive rejection, despite Thomas and Trump’s best efforts, were more outlandish. According to a person who reviewed one of the Thomas lists, one annotation for a MAGA job candidate noted that that individual had made too many extreme or offensive jokes on social media that were still visible.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another of these annotations claimed that one recommendation for a Trump administration position was, in fact, a suspected foreign-intelligence asset, or spy.</font></b></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas did not respond to requests for comment on this story.</font></b></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over the years, some of the specific names that Thomas had compiled and pushed to Trump and his West Wing have trickled out into the press. Among them were Fox News personality Dan Bongino, and the Trump-adulating Sheriff David Clarke.</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">And according to two sources with knowledge of the matter, Thomas had, unsuccessfully, advised the then-president to hire Frank Gaffney.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Gaffney, a former Pentagon official in the Reagan administration, has spent the past two decades embracing some of the more absurd conspiracy theories circulating in the far right. He has accused conservative anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist of being a secret agent for the Muslim Brotherhood </b>and believes that American adversaries are working on secret electrical device-frying “electromagnetic pulse” weapons to zap America back to the pre-industrial age.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“These fucking lists were so insane and unworkable,” said one former Trump White House official who had to personally deal with the Thomas-supplied memos and Trump’s fascination with them. “A lot of them were dripping with paranoia and read like they were written by a disturbed person.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Thomas departed, he would soon summon a variety of government personnel—West Wing brass, national security aides, lawyers, and other underlings, depending on proximity or the occasion—to inform them he’d just spoken to “Ginni.”</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump would then identify an official— or, sometimes, he would rattle off a string of names—who he said needed to be sacked “immediately,” according to people familiar with the matter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">When they could get away with it, several of these Trump administration hands would slow-walk these Thomas-inspired firing directives, and wait until Trump invariably forgot about it, cooled off, and moved on to other fixations and gripes. Others would scramble to try to calm Trump down themselves, advising their boss to reconsider, telling him that a firing or a larger purge in the middle of the Trump term would make him look bad or attract negative media attention.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas’ interactions with the Trump administration have taken on a new significance since the January 6th House Select Committee released text messages showing her urging Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to help overturn the 2020 election. Members of the committee are now seeking to interview Thomas, whose efforts to overturn the 2020 election included attendance at a “Stop the Steal” rally on the National Mall the day of the insurrection.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Trump loved talking to Ginni so much because he loved hearing about who was a Never Trumper, or allegedly one. He loved people who would flatter him, [as Ginni would do],” </b>said Stephanie Grisham, once a top White House aide to Trump who has since had a very public falling-out with the ex-president.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> “But also, <b>his obsession with loyalty aside, he just loved to gossip</b>—all the time. That’s something else he got out of his series of meetings at the White House with Ginni Thomas.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In the text messages released by the committee last month, Thomas defended Sidney Powell, the “Kraken” lawyer </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">whose election conspiracy theories were so outlandish they earned her a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit, the scorn of rank and file Republican officials, and sanctions from a Michigan court. At the time, a number of Trump aides were trying to distance the president from Powell because of her increasingly outlandish comments about bogus election fraud. Thomas, however, urged Meadows not to yield to mainstream Republicans, </span>according to The New York Times.</font></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In her texts with Trump’s consigliere, Thomas also showed a fondness for Steve Pieczenik, a far-right pundit and onetime Tom Clancy co-author whose conspiracy theories and bogus claims were so far-fetched even InfoWars briefly booted him from appearing on the network</b>. Before he began pushing the fake stories about watermarked fraud-catching ballots that earned Thomas’ endorsement, Pieczenik had pushed QAnon conspiracy theories, claimed to have arrested Pope Francis, and spun bogus stories about prominent mass shootings being false flags.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the Obama administration, Thomas and Gaffney participated in a conservative messaging effort known as “Groundswell.” The group, an informal network of conservative journalists, pundits, and political operatives, routinely met at the offices of the right-wing activist group Judicial Watch to coordinate talking points opposing the Obama administration’s agenda and <b>plot the ouster of allegedly moderate Republicans like Karl Rove from the broader conservative movement.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The revelation of Thomas’ texts with Meadows prompted the January 6th Committee to seek an interview with her, according to CNN, but that effort falls far short of the more legally compelling option of a subpoena.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the meantime, Congressional Democrats are divided over how to handle Thomas’ cameo in the Jan. 6 scandal. Some, like Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, have called for Thomas to recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases while others like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for him to step down or be impeached.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the lack of a Democratic supermajority in the Senate means neither of the Thomases are likely to have to give up their jobs just yet.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mojo <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/why-you-should-care-that-ginni-thomas-is-bonkers/"> https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/why-you-should-care-that-ginni-thomas-is-bonkers/</a>
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...last week, the <b>Washington Post</b><em> </em>and CBS News published <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">text messages</a> exchanged

between Ginni Thomas and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the

wake of the November 2020 election, in which Thomas fervently urged

Meadows to overturn the results to keep Donald Trump in power. The

disclosure of these texts has revived a long-running debate over Justice

Thomas’ potential conflicts of interest related to his wife’s political

work and his steadfast refusal to recuse himself from cases to which

she might possess a connection. One recent example: in January Clarence

Thomas was the only justice to dissent in a case in which the Supreme

Court declined to support Donald Trump’s effort to block the House

committee investigating the January 6 assault from obtaining White House

documents related to his attempt to undermine the election. Given his

wife’s role in the so-called Stop the Steal movement and her

communications with the Trump White House about this matter, Justice

Thomas might not have been an impartial arbiter in this dispute. Legal

ethics experts have <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/legal-scholars-are-shocked-by-ginni-thomass-stop-the-steal-texts?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">plenty to dissect here</a>. But as serious as that topic is, the texts raise another troubling prospect: Ginni Thomas is absolutely bonkers.

</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The texts show that she was a true-blue believer in Trump’s Big Lie

conspiracy theory about the election. “The majority knows Biden and the

Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History,” she texted

Meadows a few days after the election, when there was no proof of any

such theft (as there would never be) and when no opinion polls showed

most Americans concluding the election had been rigged against Trump. In

another text, she claimed the dispute over the election (which Trump

and his cult had ginned up) was a “a fight of good versus evil.” Her

texts indicated she believed the nonsense grifter-attorney Sidney Powell

was peddling about foreign states (China! Venezuela!) manipulating

voting machines to change the vote count.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>One Thomas text to Meadows shared a video promoting a QAnonish

conspiracy theory claiming watermarks on ballots would show that Biden

received millions of fraudulently cast votes. This baseless assertion

was <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/quantum-blockchain-watermark-vote/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">being pushed</a> on

InfoWars, the conspiracy theory site of blowhard nutter Alex Jones, by a

fellow named Steve Pieczenik</b>, a longtime disinformation purveyor who

claimed the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in

Newton, Connecticut, was a staged “false flag” operation. Related to

this particular BS, Thomas texted Meadows a quote she had pulled off a

right-wing website: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud

co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship

mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested &

detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will

be <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition</span>.”

Uh, no.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ginni Thomas has long been one of the leaders of the right, and it

turns out she’s a loon. This is not entirely a newsflash. Nine years

ago, I <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">revealed the existence</a> of

a new and secretive conservative outfit that Thomas had helped pull

together. Called <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Groundswell,</span></b> it assembled a collection of right-wingers

in Washington, DC, for weekly meetings to concoct talking points,

coordinate messaging, and hatch plans for “a 30 front war seeking to

fundamentally transform the nation,” according to a trove of its

documents I obtained. The group included a host of far-right extremists,

including Frank Gaffney (who had claimed Barack Obama was a secret

Muslim); Ken Blackwell and Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council;

Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch; tea party fanatic <b>Allen

West</b>, a former member of Congress; Steve Bannon, then the executive

chairman of Breitbart News Network; Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service

agent who would become a Fox News presence; <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Leonard Leo, </span>executive vice

president of the influential Federalist Society; a handful of

conservative journalists; and others. <b>A top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz was a

Groundsweller.</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Groundswell appeared to be set up as competition to the well-known

Wednesday morning gatherings of conservative advocates hosted by Grover

Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform</b>. That collective included

a broad spectrum of Republicans, including conservatives opposed to gay

rights and abortion rights and those who favor them, as well as GOPers

on different sides of the immigration reform debate. Groundswell, which

met at the same time as Norquist’s group, was a more ideologically pure

and extreme version of the Norquist confab.
</font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group devised strategies

for killing<b> immigration reform, hyping the Benghazi controversy, and

countering the impression that the GOP exploits racism</b>. On a Google

group page, Groundswellers often griped that the GOP’s

inside-the-Beltway crowd was trying to marginalize the conservative

die-hards and recruit, promote, and support political candidates deemed

less strident and more electable. Their <b>Number One enemy in this regard

was Republican strategist Karl Rove, and Groundswell <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-ginni-thomas-war-karl-rove/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">mounted an effort</a> to discredit him.</b></font></span>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The documents indicated that Ginni Thomas was a guiding force for

Groundswell, setting agendas for its meetings and actively coordinating

messaging among its participants, and that the group had a dark,

paranoid, and Manichean view of American politics. One Groundswell memo

stated that an “active radical left is dedicated to destroy [sic] those

who oppose them” with “vicious and unprecedented tactics. We are in a

real war; most conservatives are not prepared to fight.” At one meeting a

participant claimed that many government agencies (the<b> State

Department, the CIA, the Pentagon, the EPA,</b> and others) were conspiring

with “far left wing groups” to undermine conservatives in the media. [THE DREADED DEEP GREEN STATE!]
</font></span>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a post on a Google group page, Ginni Thomas encouraged Groundswell members to watch <b><a href="https://www.agendadocumentary.com/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">Agenda: Grinding America Down</a>, </b>a purported <a>documentary</a> that

claims progressives (including Obama) seek “a <b>brave new world” based on

the “failed policies and ideologies of communism</b>” and that an evil left

is purposefully “destroying the greatest country in all of world

history.” This film could have been produced by the John Birch Society.

Dredging up the Alger Hiss and Rosenberg atomic spying cases, it

compares liberalism to communism and Hitler’s Nazism. The film alleges

that the left is deliberately seeking to impose communism on the United

States and to eradicate the “American family.” It’s that old bugaboo of

the subversive foe within: “America has an enemy that is getting very

close to accomplishing its plan of destroying the greatest country in

all world history.” The <a href="https://www.agendadocumentary.com/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">website</a>

for the film features a wire diagram of the leftist conspiracy to

exterminate the United States that is worthy of a tinfoil hat award.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas was endorsing this claptrap. To see this film as an

accurate depiction of reality, one would have to be a paranoid nutcase

incapable of effectively and somberly evaluating the world. And there’s

this: a person who believes that such a sinister plot is afoot could

likely justify almost anything.  As that one Groundswell memo suggests,

this is a war, yet only Groundswellers are prepared for this battle. In

such circumstances—if you were combatting an evil force bent on

annihilating the land you love—would you really care about such niceties

as avoiding judicial conflicts of interest?</font></p><p><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in one of her texts to Meadows, Thomas sent a dire message: “the most

important thing you can realize right now is that there are no rules in

war.” That text also said, “This war is psychological. PSYOP.” That

means that the fight is over defining reality—something to which Ginni

Thomas is not strongly tethered—and that in this clash she feels no need

to abide by rules or, perhaps, even laws.</font></b>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s much to the Ginni Thomas story. The House 1/6 committee has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/28/jan-6-committee-thomas-trump/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert&wpmk=1&wpisrc=al_news__alert-politics--alert-national&pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJjb29raWVuYW1lIjoid3BfY3J0aWQiLCJpc3MiOiJDYXJ0YSIsImNvb2tpZXZhbHVlIjoiNTk3YzJlYjU5YmJjMGY2ODI2ZDM2NjZmIiwidGFnIjoid3BfbmV3c19hbGVydF9yZXZlcmUiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vcG9saXRpY3MvMjAyMi8wMy8yOC9qYW4tNi1jb21taXR0ZWUtdGhvbWFzLXRydW1wLz91dG1fc291cmNlPWFsZXJ0JnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXdwX25ld3NfYWxlcnRfcmV2ZXJlJmxvY2F0aW9uPWFsZXJ0JndwbWs9MSZ3cGlzcmM9YWxfbmV3c19fYWxlcnQtcG9saXRpY3MtLWFsZXJ0LW5hdGlvbmFsIn0.c2Sm85zkkNKGBtyjhHn3uKxPCH9yRmsjnLbKsWdH1s0">requested</a>

she come by for a chat. And for so many years now, she and her husband

have created the appearance of a serious conflict of interest. (A decade

ago she was <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/07/02/new-financial-forms-show-clarence-thomass-wife-continued-to-lobby-against-healthcare-in-2011?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">lobbying against Obamacare</a> when

her spouse was clearly going to have to rule on the constitutionality

of the healthcare law.)
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But she has now certainly demonstrated she’s a

conspiratorial crackpot. What does it say about the tea party and the

far right that they have been steered by a zealous lunatic? No doubt,

many Stop-the-Stealers do not drink Trump’s Kool-Aid. They use the false

claims of a fraudulent election as a cudgel against Joe Biden and the

libs. Or perhaps they suspect there was some chicanery, but they do not

buy the full My Pillow Guy nuttiness. (The CIA used Italian military

satellites to swipe votes from Tump!) Ginni Thomas, though, is all in.

She is unhinged. Though it may be unfair to judge a judge by his or her

spouse, it is hardly reassuring that a Supreme Court justice is

literally in bed with a quasi-QAnon conspiracist—and ruling on cases

related to her passions.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas

texted Meadows. In the Thomas household, it’s more like the end of

rationality.</font></p></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></font><div style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">curtis bowers james dobson interview. trashed by gary north
</font></font></div><div style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our AGENDA Weekly PRAYER  LIST is based on 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my

people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray,

and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from

heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” Never

has America more desperately needed humble, repentant praying

Christians.</font></div><div style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Bowers was a private school teacher and a public school tutor.<sup id="cite_ref-mountaingoat_bowers_3-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Bowers#cite_note-mountaingoat_bowers-3">[3]</a></sup>

</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In 1995, Bowers opened a fondue restaurant in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manitou_Springs,Colorado" title="Manitou Springs, Colorado">Manitou Springs, Colorado</a>. He later owned two other restaurants in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nampa,Idaho" title="Nampa, Idaho">Nampa</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boise,_Idaho" title="Boise, Idaho">Boise, Idaho</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-mountaingoat_bowers_3-1" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Bowers#cite_note-mountaingoat_bowers-3">[3]</a></sup>

</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In 2007, Bowers was appointed by Idaho governor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Otter" title="Butch Otter">Butch Otter</a> as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)" title="Republican Party (United States)">Republican</a> member of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_House_of_Representatives" title="Idaho House of Representatives">Idaho House of Representatives</a> for the 10A district.<sup id="cite_ref-votesmart_bowers_2-1" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Bowers#cite_note-votesmart_bowers-2">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-mountaingoat_bowers_3-2" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Bowers#cite_note-mountaingoat_bowers-3">[3]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-drjamesdobson_bowers_4-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Bowers#cite_note-drjamesdobson_bowers-4">[4]</a></sup>

</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Bowers has also worked as a filmmaker. He is known for the documentary<b> Agenda: Grinding America Down</b>.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Bowers#cite_note-5">[5]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-drjamesdobson_bowers_4-1" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Bowers#cite_note-drjamesdobson_bowers-4">[4]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Bowers#cite_note-6">[6]</a></sup> The film won the grand prize at the 2010 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_Independent_Christian_Film_Festival" title="San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival">San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Bowers#cite_note-7">[7]</a></sup>

</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></div><div style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---
</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref see below
</font></font></font></div><div style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></a></font></div><div style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas">https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas</a>
</font></font></font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=
</font></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">day 5 thurs 6/23 DOJ</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/jan-6-committee-exposes-how-donald-trump-misused-the-doj-to-concoct-election-fraud">https://www.thedailybeast.com/jan-6-committee-exposes-how-donald-trump-misused-the-doj-to-concoct-election-fraud</a></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CAPITOL RIOTS</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Jan. 6 Committee Exposes Trump’s Chaotic Abuse of the DOJ to Try to Stay in Power</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>‘JUST SAY IT WAS CORRUPT’</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Jan. 6 Committee is laying out how Trump pressured the DOJ to say there was election corruption when there wasn't.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jose Pagliery</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Political Investigations Reporter</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Updated Jun. 23, 2022 </font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the most damning evidence yet that former President Donald Trump knew he lost the 2020 election but was still willing to abuse his office to remain in power, a former top Department of Justice official testified Thursday that Trump told the DOJ to "just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thursday’s groundbreaking congressional testimony came from former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, one of a handful of ex-DOJ officials who stood up to Trump in his final days in office and refused to have the department misused this way.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donoghue’s handwritten notes of his interactions with the former president were presented at the Jan. 6 Committee’s fifth public hearing on Thursday, where legislators on the panel announced that several fellow members of Congress eventually sought presidential pardons for their role in Trump’s wide-ranging plan to stay in office.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The committee also revealed that pardons were sought by some of the most vocal Republicans who promulgated election conspiracy theories, played different roles to interrupt the transfer of power, and publicly called for Trump to remain in power—even if by force: <b>Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA</b>).</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Many of those asking for a pardon were present at a meeting on Dec. 21, 2020 in which members of Congress discussed overturning the election. Others like Gaetz—who asked for a blanket pardon “from the beginning of time up until today, for any and all things,</span>” according to videotaped testimony by Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann—and Brooks, who requested a pardon for anyone who voted to decertify the election, sought larger immunity.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Cassidy Hutchinson, once an aide to Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, recalled hearing from fellow staff that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also requested a pardon.</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The only reason I know to ask for a pardon is because you think you've committed a crime,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a member of the committee. “They knew that every bit of what they did was a lie and it was wrong.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">None of the legislators who allegedly sought pardons from Trump responded to questions from The Daily Beast emailed after the hearing.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The hearing kicked off just hours after news broke that federal agents had raided the Virginia home of the former DOJ official at the center of this plot: Jeffrey Clark, a Trump loyalist who has already come under scrutiny for abusing his high-ranking position there in the final weeks of the administration</b>. This relatively unknown government lawyer devised a plan to use the DOJ to cast doubt on election results in states where Trump lost to now-President Joe Biden by making vague references to a federal investigation and intimidating state-level officials. His home was searched by federal law enforcement on Wednesday.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has awkwardly confirmed the raid in vague terms, noting there "was law enforcement activity in the Lorton, Virginia area yesterday” without commenting on “the nature of that activity or any particular individuals."</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">At Thursday’s hearing, former DOJ leaders also recounted what may be one of the most decisive moments of the Trump presidency: a Sunday afternoon meeting on Jan. 3, 2021 when Trump nearly fired acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen—only to hear that several regional U.S. attorneys from districts across the country had threatened to quit in solidarity if the president would weaponize the DOJ this way. When Trump suggested putting Clark in charge, Donoghue told him something that seemed to stick: "Mr. Clark will be left leading a graveyard."</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Jan. 6 Panel Delays Hearing Schedule Due to New Evidence</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">KEEP IT COMING]</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The committee on Thursday also revealed text messages between Trump’s White House chief of staff and a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who lobbied to have Clark ascend through the DOJ ranks as part of the plan to hijack the department.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In those texts, <b>Perry expressed the urgency in getting Clark a high enough spot where he could make a difference.</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Mark, just checking in as time continues to count down. 11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration. We gotta get going!” the congressman wrote on Dec. 26, 2020. “Mark, you should call Jeff [Clark]. I just got off the phone with him and he explained to me why the principal deputy won’t work especially with the FBI. They will view it as not having the authority to enforce what needs to be done.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I got it. I think I understand. Let me work on the deputy position,” Meadows responded that evening. The congressman and White House official then began to communicate via Signal, an encrypted chatting app with disappearing messages.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The committee on Thursday also presented new evidence touching on the unhinged legal strategy put together by law professor John Eastman to keep Trump in command by interrupting the official certification of 2020 electoral college ballots on Jan. 6, 2021 at the Capitol building—the very event insurrectionists were trying to derail.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That plan, which involved having key states<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> replace Biden electors by submitting alternate slates of fake electors loyal to Trump, apparently also involved an attorney freshly appointed to the DOJ and assigned to specifically work under Clark as a senior counsel: Kenneth A. Klukowski.</span></b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That attorney’s role in the plot, which partly relied on a sustained campaign to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence into misusing his duty as the person counting the ballots aloud, was detailed in an email written by<b> </b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">J. Kenneth Blackwell</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">—an activist who has worked at the conservative group </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Groundswell</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> alongside Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">.</span></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In it, Blackwell wrote, “As stated last week, I believe the VP and his staff would benefit greatly from a briefing by John [Eastman] and Ken [Klukowski]. As I also mentioned, make sure we don’t overexpose Ken given his new position.”</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the outset of the hearing, Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said Trump “wanted the Justice Department to legitimize his lies, to basically call the election corrupt… it was a brazen attempt to use the Justice Department to advance the president’s personal agenda.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The committee’s three witnesses Thursday were all part of DOJ leadership during the tumultuous end of the Trump administration who had abrasive interactions with the White House when they took a firm stand and refused to do the president’s bidding: then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen, former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and Steven Engel, who led the DOJ’s in-house policymaking office.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They were willing to sacrifice their careers for the good of our country,” Kinzinger said.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All are expected to explain in further detail how Clark tried to use the chaos of Trump’s refusal to concede to Biden to make himself attorney general—and turn what should remain a non-political law enforcement agency into Trump’s personal tool.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Much of what the nation previously knew about the ordeal came from a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation last year that culminated in a 394-page report titled, “Subverting Justice: How the Former President and His Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[‘Pence Deserves It’: Jan. 6 Panel Reveals Dark Trump Desire</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PRIMETIME HISTORY</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jose Pagliery]</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Internal emails acquired by congressional investigators showed that Clark, then the head of the DOJ’s civil division, sought his boss’ approval for a draft letter he wrote to Georgia state officials claiming the Justice Department was “investigating various irregularities” and asking the governor and legislature there to “convene in special session” and hear testimony about made up election fraud claims.</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Co-chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) noted that Clark’s draft letter sounded all too similar to the legal theories of law professor John Eastman and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani because it was a key part of their ploy to keep Trump in power.</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Clark already testified under oath before the committee back in February, although he repeatedly refused to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. 105/125x]</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Thursday, the committee played a portion of a videotaped deposition of former Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, one of several attorneys who was present at a decisive meeting at the Oval Office on Jan. 3, 2021. Herschmann expressed bewilderment at Clark’s proposed plan to use the DOJ this way—and his ploy to make himself the nation’s AG.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I thought Jeff's proposal was nuts,” Herschmann testified, recalling that he said, “The best I can tell, the only thing you know about environmental and elections challenges is that the both start with 'E.’”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Republican on Jan. 6 Panel Sees ‘Violence in the Future’</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘WAKE UP, AMERICA’]</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donoghue, then the acting AG, previously told the committee in a recorded interview that Trump White House lawyer Pat Cipollone called Clark’s letter “a murder-suicide pact” that would “damage anybody who touches it.”</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several lawyers there remembered how Clark tried to argue that his short stint overseeing environmental cases at the DOJ somehow qualified him to be top lawyer in the country. Donoghue told the committee that he shot back: “That's right. You're an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we'll call you when there's an oil spill."</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">READ THIS LIST</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Klepper Confronts Clueless Trumpers With Jan 6 Hearing Clips</font></font></p><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">db</font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">TRUMPLAND</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Inside Ginni Thomas’ ‘Insane’ Hiring Memos for Trump</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">‘WRECKED’</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ginni Thomas’ suggested hires included known bigots and at least one suspected foreign spy, sources say.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Asawin Suebsaeng</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Senior Political Reporter</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Adam Rawnsley</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Senior Researcher</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Published Apr. 01, 2022 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Years before she became one of then-President Donald Trump’s most prominent coup supporters, Ginni Thomas was already notorious in his West Wing for, among other things, ruining staffers’ afternoons by working Trump into fits of vengeful rage.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We all knew that within minutes after Ginni left her meeting with the president, he would start yelling about firing people for being disloyal,” said a former senior Trump administration official. “When Ginni Thomas showed up, you knew your day was wrecked.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ever since she became a welcome guest at Trump’s residences, Thomas—an influential and longtime conservative activist, and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—had perfected a proven formula of enthralling and manipulating the president’s emotions and mood. On multiple occasions throughout the Trump era, Thomas would show up in the White House, sometimes for a private meeting or a luncheon with the president. She often came armed with written memos of who she and her allies believed Trump should hire for plum jobs—and who she thought Trump should promptly purge—that she distributed to Trump and other high-ranking government officials.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The fire lists were particularly problematic, as they were frequently based on pure conjecture, rumor, or score-settling, where even steadfastly MAGA aides were targeted for being part of the “Deep State” or some other supposedly anti-Trump coalition, according to people who saw them during the Trump administration. The hire lists were so often filled with infamous bigots and conspiracy theorists, woefully under-qualified names, and obvious close friends of Thomas that several senior Trump aides would laugh at them—that is, until Trump would force his staff to put certain names through the official vetting process, three sources familiar with the matter said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“These fucking lists were so insane and unworkable.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">— one former Trump White House official</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">During the Trump years, these memos would astonish various administration officials, including those working in the <b>White House Presidential Personnel Office (PPO).</b> Some of these officials noticed that as the Trump term went on, the Thomas lists would increasingly feature a disproportionate share of names more suited to an OAN guest line-up than any functional government. (To be fair, well before Ginni Thomas became a recurring visitor, Trump would routinely hire people because they had entertained or excited him, via Fox and other cable-news appearances.)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Officials in the PPO regularly annotated the margins of Thomas’ hire lists, usually including a single line for each rejected name, explaining why the prospective hires did not work out. Some failed background checks, or suffered from security-clearance hold-ups. Other annotations noted that a specific individual was offered a job in the Trump administration, but turned it down for whatever reason.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sometimes, the reason for the White House’s preemptive rejection, despite Thomas and Trump’s best efforts, were more outlandish. According to a person who reviewed one of the Thomas lists,<b> one annotation for a MAGA job candidate noted that that individual had made too many extreme or offensive jokes on social media that were still visible.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Another of these annotations claimed that one recommendation for a Trump administration position was, in fact, a suspected foreign-intelligence asset, or spy.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thomas did not respond to requests for comment on this story.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Over the years, some of the specific names that Thomas had compiled and pushed to Trump and his West Wing have trickled out into the press. Among them were Fox News personality Dan Bongino, and the Trump-adulating Sheriff David Clarke.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And according to two sources with knowledge of the matter, Thomas had, unsuccessfully, advised the then-president to hire Frank Gaffney.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gaffney, a former Pentagon official in the Reagan administration, has spent the past two decades embracing some of the more absurd conspiracy theories circulating in the far right. He has accused conservative anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist of being a secret agent for the Muslim Brotherhood and believes that American adversaries are working on secret electrical device-frying “electromagnetic pulse” weapons to zap America back to the pre-industrial age.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[Dems Are Livid at Thomas but Have No Idea What to Do</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">STRONGLY WORDED LETTERS]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“These fucking lists were so insane and unworkable,” said one former Trump White House official who had to personally deal with the Thomas-supplied memos and Trump’s fascination with them. “A lot of them were dripping with paranoia and read like they were written by a disturbed person.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">After Thomas departed, he would soon summon a variety of government personnel—West Wing brass, national security aides, lawyers, and other underlings, depending on proximity or the occasion—to inform them he’d just spoken to “Ginni.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Trump would then identify an official— or, sometimes, he would rattle off a string of names—who he said needed to be sacked “immediately,” according to people familiar with the matter.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When they could get away with it, several of these Trump administration hands would slow-walk these Thomas-inspired firing directives, and wait until Trump invariably forgot about it, cooled off, and moved on to other fixations and gripes.<b> Others would scramble to try to calm Trump down themselves, advising their boss to reconsider, telling him that a firing or a larger purge in the middle of the Trump term would make him look bad or attract negative media attention.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thomas’ interactions with the Trump administration have taken on a new significance since the January 6th House Select Committee released text messages showing her urging Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to help overturn the 2020 election. Members of the committee are now seeking to interview Thomas, whose efforts to overturn the 2020 election included attendance at a “Stop the Steal” rally on the National Mall the day of the insurrection.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Trump loved talking to Ginni so much because he loved hearing about who was a Never Trumper, or allegedly one. He loved people who would flatter him, [as Ginni would do],” said Stephanie Grisham, once a top White House aide to Trump who has since had a very public falling-out with the ex-president. “But also, his obsession with loyalty aside, he just loved to gossip—all the time. That’s something else he got out of his series of meetings at the White House with Ginni Thomas.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In the text messages released by the committee last month, Thomas defended Sidney Powell, the “Kraken” lawyer </b>whose election conspiracy theories were so outlandish they earned her a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit, the scorn of rank and file Republican officials, and sanctions from a Michigan court. At the time, a number of Trump aides were trying to distance the president from Powell because of her increasingly outlandish comments about bogus election fraud. Thomas, however, urged Meadows not to yield to mainstream Republicans, according to The New York Times.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In her texts with Trump’s consigliere, Thomas also showed a fondness for Steve Pieczenik, a far-right pundit and onetime Tom Clancy co-author whose conspiracy theories and bogus claims were so far-fetched even InfoWars briefly booted him from appearing on the network</b>. Before he began pushing the fake stories about watermarked fraud-catching ballots that earned Thomas’ endorsement, <b>Pieczenik had pushed QAnon conspiracy theories, claimed to have arrested Pope Francis, and spun bogus stories about prominent mass shootings being false flags.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the Obama administration, Thomas and Gaffney participated in a conservative messaging effort known as </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">“<b style="">Groundswell.”</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The group, an informal network of conservative journalists, pundits, and political operatives, routinely met at the offices of the right-wing activist group Judicial Watch to coordinate talking points opposing the Obama administration’s agenda and plot the ouster of allegedly moderate Republicans like Karl Rove from the broader conservative movement.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[Ginni Thomas’ Election Fraud Guru Claims He Arrested Pope</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">TOO HOT FOR INFOWARS</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Will Sommer]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The revelation of Thomas’ texts with Meadows prompted the January 6th Committee to seek an interview with her,</b> according to CNN, but that effort falls far short of the more legally compelling option of a subpoena.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the meantime, Congressional Democrats are divided over how to handle Thomas’ cameo in the Jan. 6 scandal. Some, like Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, have called for Thomas to recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases while others like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for him to step down or be impeached.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But the lack of a Democratic supermajority in the Senate means neither of the Thomases are likely to have to give up their jobs just yet.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/ginni-thomas-republican-connections-raise-ethics-concerns-for-scotus">https://www.americanoversight.org/ginni-thomas-republican-connections-raise-ethics-concerns-for-scotus</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">The activism of prominent conservative Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has for years raised questions about partisan influence on the judicial system and ethics in the Supreme Court. American Oversight is actively investigating Ginni Thomas’ connections and influence in right-wing networks and their potential impact on Justice Thomas’ ethics decisions. <b>Records we have obtained through public records requests reveal Ginni Thomas’ ties to the Trump administration as well as evidence of Justice Thomas’ contact with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.</b></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">As detailed in a recent </span><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/email-suggests-that-supreme-court-justice-thomas-had-been-in-regular-contact-with-florida-gov-desantis" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">update</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, emails</span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> between Ginni Thomas and DeSantis, obtained by American Oversight and reported on by <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/florida-playbook/2022/02/04/desantis-supreme-court-connection-00005583" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><i style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Politico</i></a>, suggest that Justice Thomas may have been in </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/clarence-thomas-ron-desantis-communication-new-emails-1295354/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">regular contact</span></a></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> with the Republican governor.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> On June 10, 2021, Ginni Thomas </span></span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p179/a2079095" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">reached out</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> to DeSantis’ scheduling office to invite him to speak to a “coalition” of “conservative patriots.” Thomas </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p178/a2079134" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">explained</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> that the governor would know her because her “husband has been in contact with him … on various things of late.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ginni Thomas said the “cone of silence coalition” of “about 83 national leaders” was formerly known as </b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Groundswell </b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">included former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows</span> among its attendees</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The group, now called the </span></span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p184/a2079097" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Third Century Group</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> (TC Group), was focused on “the greatest threats and opportunities to constitutional governance,”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Thomas </span></span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p179/a2079095" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">wrote</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> in her email</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, “and admittedly we are weary about the GOP divisions, lack of courage and lack of leadership.” Thomas also wrote that the group met “through the help of [conservative organization] <b>Judicial Watch</b>.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">DeSantis was eventually </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p181/a2079096" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">scheduled</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> to present during the group’s July 21 virtual meeting. According to an </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p180/a2079098" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">email</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> from a vice president at the Heritage Foundation who was planning to introduce the governor at the meeting, <b>DeSantis was invited to speak “about whatever is on his mind in terms of national politics” and the attendees were “very concerned about [critical race theory], election integrity and immigration.”</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: bolder;">The Coalition Formerly Known as Groundswell<br role="presentation" data-uw-rm-sr="" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Formerly known as Groundswell, TC Group is a secretive right-wing strategy group led by Ginni Thomas and others, which has been bringing together conservative activists for </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">nearly a decade</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">. Members have </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">included</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> former Trump chief strategist Stephen Bannon and former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, among others. The network was </span><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/trumps-post-impeachment-authoritarian-purges" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">well-connected to the Trump administration</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> — in 2019, Thomas and others </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house-ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3.html" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">compiled lists</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> of anti-Trump officials in executive agencies for the administration to dismiss and replace with Trump allies.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Public records obtained by American Oversight show the degree of access Thomas and her coalition had in the Trump administration. A calendar entry from </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20477798-omb-records-of-senior-staff-calendars-part-3#document/p1574" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">March 5, 2020</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, shows <b>Russ Vought, then the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, was scheduled to have “Breakfast with Ginni Thomas.”</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">On </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6540403-HHS-Records-Regarding-Anti-Abortion-Influence-on#document/p626" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Dec. 10, 2018</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, Thomas, on behalf of her lobbying firm Liberty Consulting, invited a Department of Health and Human Services official — likely </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6540403-HHS-Records-Regarding-Anti-Abortion-Influence-on#document/p640" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Steven Wagner</span></a></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">, the director of the Administration for Children and Families — to a “Conversation and Strategic Discussion” with conservative commentator<b> Jordan Peterson</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>.</b> The invitation noted that the event would be “closed to press and off the record” and that “a primary goal of this meeting is to determine specific action steps/solutions for winning back the next generation.” The reception was hosted by Thomas along with conservative Christian activist Bill Dallas and the Heritage Foundation’s Bridgett Wagner. The </span></span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6540403-HHS-Records-Regarding-Anti-Abortion-Influence-on#document/p633" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">list of participants</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> included prominent conservatives.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">On </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20477798-omb-records-of-senior-staff-calendars-part-3#document/p1116" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Aug. 22, 2018</span></a></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, Neomi Rao, then the administrator of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, was scheduled to have a “Groundswell Mtg.” It is not confirmed whether this is Ginni Thomas’ Groundswell</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Early in her career, Rao served as a law clerk for Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court, and in 2019, she was appointed by Trump to serve as federal judge in Washington, D.C. </span></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: bolder;">Thomas’ Activism Raises Judicial Ethics Questions<br role="presentation" data-uw-rm-sr="" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Ginni Thomas’ career as a prominent conservative activist, more heavily involved in politics </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">than any other spouse</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> of a Supreme Court justice in history, has for years raised concerns among </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/31/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-conflict-jan6-committee/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">legal experts</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> who note that justices typically avoid even being seen as partisan. Through her activism, Ginni Thomas has taken stances on issues that have come before the Supreme Court, such as on abortion, gun rights, and the </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Affordable Care Act</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, and recently took on major role in challenging Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Justice Thomas’ repeated </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">failure to recuse himself</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> on multiple matters relevant to his wife’s advocacy, especially as the court hears increasingly politically polarized cases, has been the subject of scrutiny. </span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Recently, Ginni Thomas was among the conservatives who </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/31/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-conflict-jan6-committee/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">signed a letter</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> criticizing the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A month later, Justice Thomas was the only Supreme Court justice to support Trump’s request to block that committee from accessing White House records. </span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Ginni Thomas also played a role in challenging the 2020 election results as a leader of the conservative Council for National Policy (CNP), according to the </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><i style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">New York Times</i></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">. Following the November 2020 election, CNP directed its members to </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/briefing/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-russia-ukraine.html" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">spread misinformation about the election</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> and pressured Republican lawmakers in Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania to challenge the election results by awarding their states’ electoral votes to Trump. In a newsletter, CNP’s political advocacy arm </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">advised</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, “</span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">There is historical, legal precedent for Congress to count a slate of electors different from that certified by the Governor of the state.” </span><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/fake-electoral-certificates-obtained-by-american-oversight-draw-renewed-scrutiny" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Fake electoral certificates</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> submitted by Trump allies in swing states to Congress to dispute Biden’s victory were obtained by American Oversight last year.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">American Oversight continues to investigate Ginni Thomas’ connections and influence. We have filed records requests seeking communications between Thomas and federal agencies during the Trump administration, and in January 2022, we submitted public records requests to attorneys generals and governors across the country for communications with both Ginni Thomas and Justice Thomas.</font></span></p></div><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">jane m nyer 1 22</font></p><p style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<b style="font-weight: normal; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Another organizer of the January 6th uprising who has been subpoenaed by the congressional committee, Ali Alexander, also has long-standing ties to Ginni Thoma</b><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">s. Like Fletcher, Alexander spoke at a rally in Washington the night before the riot, leading a chant of “Victory or death!” </span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">A decade ago, Alexander was a participant in Groundswell, a secretive, invitation-only network that, among other things, coördinated with hard-right congressional aides, journalists, and pressure groups to launch attacks against Obama and against less conservative Republicans. As recently as 2019, Ginni Thomas described herself as the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">chairman of <b>Groundswell</b>, </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">which, according to documents first published by Mother Jones, sees itself as waging “a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation.” </span>As Karoli Kuns, of the media watchdog Crooks and Liars, has noted</span><b style="font-weight: normal; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">, several <b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Groundswell members—including Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka,</span> the fringe foreign-policy analyst—went on to form the far-right flank of the Trump Administration.</b></b><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><b> (Both Bannon and Gorka were eventually pushed out.</b>) According to Ginni Thomas’s biography in the Council for National Policy’s membership book, she remains active in Groundswell. A former participant told me that Thomas chairs weekly meetings.</span></font></p><p style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">...</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ginni Thomas rarely speaks to mainstream reporters, but she often gives speeches in private forums. The Web site of the watchdog Documented has posted a video of her speaking with striking candor. In October, 2018, she led a panel discussion during a confidential session of the Council for National Policy. At the time, the Senate was caught up in the fight over the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, who had been accused of sexual assault. “I’m feeling the pain—Clarence is feeling the pain—of going through false charges against a good man,” she said. “I thought it couldn’t get worse than Clarence’s, but it did.” America, she said, “is in a vicious battle for its founding principles,” adding, “The deep state is serious, and it’s resisting President Trump.”<b> She declared twice that her adversaries were trying “to kill people,” and drew applause by saying, “May we all have guns and concealed carry to handle what’s coming!”</b></span></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This warlike mentality is shared by Groundswell, the political group that Thomas has chaired.</b> In a 2020 session of the Council for National Policy, Rachel Bovard, the senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute, described meeting weekly with Groundswell members to “vet” officials for disloyalty, saying, “Ginni has been very instrumental in working with the White House. . . . She really is the tip of the spear in these efforts.” <b>Bovard lamented Groundswell’s failure to weed out the whistle-blower Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman before he gave testimony at Trump’s first impeachment trial. </b>“We see what happens when we don’t vet these people,” Bovard said. “That’s how we got Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, O.K.?” Vindman, then the director for European affairs on Trump’s National Security Council, testified that the President had tried to pressure Ukraine’s leaders into producing dirt on Joe Biden’s family. In retaliation, a smear campaign was mounted against Vindman. </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He suddenly found himself fending off false claims that he had created a hostile work environment at the N.S.C., and fighting insinuations that, because he was born in Ukraine and had been invited to serve in its government, he had “dual loyalty.</span>” (Vindman had self-reported Ukraine’s offer, which he had rejected.) The Defense Department conducted an internal investigation of the accusations and exonerated him. But, Vindman told me, the attacks “harmed my career.” He went on, “It’s un-American, frankly, that a sitting Justice of the Supreme Court, who is supposed to be apolitical, would have a wife who is part of a political vendetta to retaliate against officials who were dutifully serving the public interest. It’s chilling, and probably has already had an effect on silencing other whistle-blowers.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Another target of Groundswell members was Trump’s former national-security adviser H. R. McMaster,</b> who was deemed insufficiently supportive of the President. According to the Times, in 2018<b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Barbara Ledeen, a Republican Senate aide who had reportedly developed Groundswell’s enemies list with Ginni Thomas,</span> participated in a plot to oust McMaster by secretly taping him bad-mouthing Trump. </b>Ledeen, who is a close friend of Ginni Thomas’s, told the Times that she’d merely acted as a messenger in the scheme. The plan was to send an undercover female operative to snare McMaster at a fancy restaurant. But McMaster quit before the sting was executed. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Times also reported that another undercover operation—which targeted government employees, including F.B.I. agents, suspected of trying to thwart Trump’s agenda—involved operatives from Project Veritas, the undercover-video group led by James O’Keefe. Ginni Thomas has given O’Keefe an Impact Award, too.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s unclear whether the Crowdsourcers project that Thomas said she was launching with<b> O’Keefe</b>’s help ever got off the ground. There’s little public trace of Crowdsourcers, other than a tax filing from 2019, showing that it was developed under the oversight of the<b> Capital Research Center, a right-wing nonprofit that does opposition research. </b>Project Veritas’s chief legal officer sent The New Yorker a statement saying that O’Keefe’s “schedule does not permit such extracurricular activities” as Crowdsourcers. But, in a PowerPoint presentation on the effort, in 2019, Thomas said that “James O’Keefe wanted to head up” a part of the group aimed at “protecting our heroes.” The purpose of Crowdsourcers, she said, was nothing less than saving America. “Our house is on fire!” she went on. “And we are stomping ants in the driveway. We’re not really focussed on the arsonists who are right around us!”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last year, Project Veritas asked the Supreme Court to hear its challenge to the Massachusetts ban on surreptitiously taping public officials. The Court turned down Project Veritas’s petition, as it does with most such requests. Nevertheless, David Dinielli, a visiting clinical lecturer at Yale Law School, told me that Ginni Thomas’s proclaimed political partnership with O’Keefe, and her awarding of a prize to him, appeared to be unethical. “That’s what the code of conduct is supposed to control,” he said.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ginni Thomas has held so many leadership or advisory positions at conservative pressure groups that it’s hard to keep track of them</b>. </font></div><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Within weeks of his inauguration, she issued a call to arms against the left’s resistance efforts, according to an email obtained by the Daily Beast. She continued to attend a regular meeting of conservatives called</span><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> Groundswell,</b><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> which had formed in 2013 to strategize message wars against the left. Attendees in its first years, Mother Jones reported, had included future top Trump advisers</span><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> Stephen K. Bannon and John Bolton</b><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">. One member says that Thomas excuses herself from the room whenever matters of the court arise.</span></font></p><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Benghazi! </b>— Breitbart CEO Bannon is part of a cabal that demanded the Republican Congress pursue endless investigations of the State Department response to the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> If you’re wondering why Congress has so far spent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/05/17/have-republicans-really-spent-7-million-on-the-benghazi-committee/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">$6.7 million</a> investigating the Benghazi tragedy, it’s partly over the fear that Breitbart News will marshal its resources to push members of the relevant congressional committees out of office if they don’t come up with a viable scandal to hang around the neck of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton</span>, who served as secretary of state when the incident happened. (Breitbart News is credited with having<b> created the pressure the forced the resignation of former House Speaker John Boehner.)</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2013, Mother Jones exposed the agenda of <b>Groundswell, a weekly planning meeting convened by the right-wing group, Judicial Watch</b>. Bannon’s name was on the guest list for a May 8, 2013, meeting, and Breitbart News reporter Matthew Boyle and the late editor Mike Flynn were active on its listserv </span>and participants in the messaging strategies on a range of issues at the time of the Mother Jones report. Others in the group, according to Mother Jones:</font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the influential conservatives guiding the group is <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Virginia "Ginni" Thomas,</span> a columnist for the Daily Caller and a tea party consultant and lobbyist. Other Groundswell members include John Bolton, the former UN ambassador; Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy;<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Ken Blackwell and Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council;</span> Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch; Gayle Trotter, a fellow at the Independent Women's Forum; Catherine Engelbrecht and Anita MonCrief of True the Vote; <b>Allen West</b>, the former GOP House member; Sue Myrick, also a former House GOPer; Diana Banister of the influential <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/meet-craig-shirley-and-diana-banister-the-rights-pitch-perfect-conservatives/2013/07/21/63cea20e-dffe-11e2-b94a-452948b95ca8_story.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Shirley and Banister</a><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/meet-craig-shirley-and-diana-banister-the-rights-pitch-perfect-conservatives/2013/07/21/63cea20e-dffe-11e2-b94a-452948b95ca8_story.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"> PR firm</a>; and <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Max Pappas, a top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).</span></font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one email message to the group, Boyle assures Groundswell members:</font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’m saying we can get pieces out fast on Breitbart. Whenever you have an idea, email or call me with a pitch and I'll do my best to get the story out there. Keep us on offense, them on defense. Even if the idea isn't perfect, I can help massage it to get there.”</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Audio of one of the group’s meetings obtained by Karoli Kuns of Crooks and Liars reveals Boykin of the Family Research Council pushing the false Benghazi narrative of a State Department cover-up, <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2013/07/30/wife-conservative-supreme-court-judge-conservative-activists-blogs-conspire-force-benghazi-scandal-gop.html%5C" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">suggesting that the message be conveyed</a> to<b> Boehner and Rep. Darryll Issa</b> (R-Calif.), </span>then chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, that nothing short of the appointment of a special committee on the Benghazi matter would do; conspiracy theorist, Islamophobe and birther Frank Gaffney is heard saying that in a meeting the previous night, he impressed upon the speaker and the committee chair that “there’s a lot of restiveness on the part of folks like us, and some of their donors as a matter of fact…” In May 2014, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) was appointed to lead the newly formed Select Committee on Benghazi.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Breitbart News stepped up to spin every small revelation into a false narrative of a gargantuan scandal. ...</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" line-height: 32px;">http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/5-manufactured-news-scandals-produced-and-promoted-breitbart-news-and-new-trump</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" line-height: 17.92px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/5-manufactured-news-scandals-produced-and-promoted-breitbart-news-and-new-trump">http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/5-manufactured-news-scandals-produced-and-promoted-breitbart-news-and-new-trump</a></span></font>

</span> </font>

</font><p style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Corn brings us news of yet another quasi-"secret" conservative group looking to shape messaging and the media coverage of that messaging. That yet another one exists, and that like others one of their top priorities is defeating not-conservative-enough Karl Rove and demanding a more radical conservatism of their conservatives, is not too surprising. That they seem to be in opposition to uberconservative Grover Norquist is a bit more surprising, but I suppose Norquist has gone out of favor now that people in the movement have started to suspect him of secret Muslimizm.</font></font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The list of people who participate in these "Groundswell" strategizing sessions, however,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">has a definite B-grade flavor to it</a>.<br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4;" />

 </font></p>

<blockquote style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 20px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(226, 226, 225); border-top: 1px solid rgb(226, 226, 225);"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the influential conservatives guiding the group is Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a columnist for the Daily Caller and a tea party consultant and lobbyist. Other Groundswell members include John Bolton, the former UN ambassador; Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy; Ken Blackwell and Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council; Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch; Gayle Trotter, a fellow at the Independent Women's Forum; Catherine Engelbrecht and Anita MonCrief of True the Vote; Allen West, the former GOP House member; Sue Myrick, also a former House GOPer; Diana Banister of the influential Shirley and Banister PR firm; and Max Pappas, a top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).</font></blockquote>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style=" line-height: 1.4;">Oh, well if you've got John Bolton, the Family Research Council and</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"> </span><em style=" font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Allen West</em><span class="Apple-converted-space" style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"> </span><span style=" line-height: 1.4;">thinking up your strategy, I'm sure nothing can go wrong with</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"> </span><em style=" font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">that</em><span style=" line-height: 1.4;">. Also featured prominently are various Breitbart apparatchiks, so you know it's top-notch stuff.</span><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4;" />

</font>

</font><blockquote style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 20px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(226, 226, 225); border-top: 1px solid rgb(226, 226, 225);"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">At its weekly meetings, the group aims to strengthen the right's messaging by crafting Twitter hashtags; plotting strategy on in-the-headlines issues such as voter ID, immigration reform, and the sequester; promoting politically useful scandals; and developing "action items."</font></blockquote>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style=" line-height: 1.4;">Oh God, stop, you're killing me. #HashtagBasedStrategizing</span><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4;" />

</font>

<p><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Groundswell members saw immigration as a life-or-death issue. "If we lose on immigration," the post-meeting memo noted, "we lose on every other issue. […]"</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group also reviewed how best to oppose the confirmation of Tom Perez, Obama's nominee for labor secretary. Groundsweller's claimed that Perez, then a senior Justice Department official, supported "Muslim Brotherhood organizations and Shariah." (One Groundswell memo maintained that Perez "is extremely antagonistic toward whites.") A third agenda item that Wednesday morning was beating back the effort to end the Boy Scouts of America's ban on gay scouts. […] The post-meeting memo suggested Twitter hashtags to push: #CantTrustObama, #PoliticsOverPublicSafety, #SequesterLies.</font></p>

</blockquote>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style=" line-height: 1.4;">A troupe of Rove-hating conservatives who spend their days talking about Sharia conspiracies. I'm beginning to see why this group is secret: I think it's so they don't get teased. Also, members literally seem to get something called "brownie points" for putting out the group's message, which in any other context would probably be humiliating for all involved. Not them, though!</span><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4;" />

</font>

</font><blockquote style=" font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 20px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(226, 226, 225); border-top: 1px solid rgb(226, 226, 225);"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Groundswellers feel that they too often lose the political narrative to their progressive rivals. One memo that circulated among members declared, "We must reclaim the language and put 'a face' on our messages; tell stories. Write articles on 4th grade level!"</font></blockquote>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">There's one place I have to disagree with David Corn's reporting on this story. He refers to some of the persons involved as "journalists," citing Breitbart "News" participants and others. I don't think you can claim that; the Breitbart group does not do "journalism," they do something … else. Their namesake made the brand on pushing falsified "pimp tape"-style stories to gullible peers. While it would indeed be alarming if "journalists" were coordinating strategies with the likes of Ginni Thomas, Frank Gaffney (snicker), John Bolton (cackle) and Allen Freaking West (it hurts, stop, I need a moment!), none of the columnists, "researchers" or Fox News hangers-on named in the story really pass as "journalists" in the conventional sense of the term. They might claim otherwise, but that doesn't make it true, and we really shouldn't just accept such claims at face value.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Breitbarters seem to play a substantive role in the group, which gives you an indication of the caliber of minds at work here, and is probably one force behind the group's apparent routine of thinking up good-sounding storylines first, then bothering with the "evidence" later. I am not thinking there is much to fear from this particular peanut gallery, but it might be interesting in the future to watch their promotion of certain themes and how they collect their "brownie points" for reinforcing each other's messages. Hell, we can give them "brownie points" ourselves, right? Ten points to Slytherin, guys, but come up with a really good hashtag and I'll make it 15. #MelonSizedCalves?<br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4;" />

 </font></p>

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<h4 style=" margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.1; font-weight: normal; text-transform: uppercase; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">ORIGINALLY POSTED TO<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Hunter/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-decoration: none;">HUNTER</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>ON THU JUL 25, 2013 AT 02:20 PM PDT.</font></h4>

<p><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p><p><font color="#000000"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas</font></a><b><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">  NO LNX
</font></b></font>

<b><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inside Groundswell: Read the Memos of the New Right-Wing Strategy Group Planning a </font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"30 Front War"</font></b>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas, Allen West, and a crew of conservative journalists and activists have formed a hush-hush coalition to battle progressives—and Karl Rove.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">By <b>David Corn | Thu Jul. 25, 2013 </b>
</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Social Title:</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inside the New Strategy Group Where Right-Wing Activists and Journalists Coordinate Messaging</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Social Dek:</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Been hearing the phrase "politics over public safety" deployed against Obama lately by prominent conservatives? Meet Groundswell.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Believing they are losing the messaging war with progressives, a group of prominent conservatives in Washington—including the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and journalists from Breitbart News and the Washington Examiner—has been meeting privately since early this year to concoct talking points, coordinate messaging, and hatch plans for "a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation," according to documents obtained by Mother Jones.</font>

<b><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[MoJo's full coverage of Groundswell.</font></b>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inside Groundswell: Read the Memos of the New Right-Wing Strategy Group Planning a "30 Front War" [1]</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Groundswell's Secret Crusade to Crush Karl Rove [2]</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is Ginni Thomas' Expanding Activism a Problem for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? [3]</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">PHOTOS: Meet Groundswell's Major Players [4]]</font></p><p><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dubbed Groundswell, this coalition convenes weekly in the offices of Judicial Watch, the conservative legal watchdog group. During these hush-hush sessions and through a Google group, the members of Groundswell—including aides to congressional Republicans—cook up battle plans for their ongoing fights against the Obama administration, congressional Democrats, progressive outfits, and the Republican establishment and "clueless" GOP congressional leaders. They devise strategies for killing immigration reform, hyping the Benghazi controversy, and countering the impression that the GOP exploits racism. And the Groundswell gang is mounting a behind-the-scenes organized effort to eradicate the outsize influence of GOP über-strategist/pundit Karl Rove within Republican and conservative ranks. (For more on Groundswell's "two front war" against Rove—a major clash on the right—click here [5].)</font>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the influential conservatives guiding the group is Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a columnist for the Daily Caller and a tea party consultant and lobbyist. Other Groundswell members include John Bolton, the former UN ambassador; Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy; Ken Blackwell and Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council; Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch; Gayle Trotter, a fellow at the Independent Women's Forum; Catherine Engelbrecht and Anita MonCrief of True the Vote; Allen West, the former GOP House member;<b> Sue Myrick, also a former House GOPer; Diana Banister of the influential Shirley and Banister PR firm [6]; and Max Pappas,</b> a top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).[PAUL TELLER?]
</font></span>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the conveners listed in an invitation to a May 8 meeting of Groundswell were <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Stephen Bannon</span>, executive chairman of Breitbart News Network; Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who resoundingly lost a Maryland Senate race last year (and is now running for a House seat);<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b> Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society; Sandy Rios, a Fox News contributor</b>; Lori Roman, a former executive director of the<b> American Legislative Exchange Council; a</b>nd Austin Ruse, the head of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. Conservative journalists and commentators participating in Groundswell have included Breitbart News reporters Matthew Boyle and Mike Flynn, Washington Examiner executive editor Mark Tapscott, and National Review contributor Michael James Barton.</span></font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Groundswell has collaborated with conservative GOPers on Capitol Hill, including Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Cruz and Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), a leading tea partier.</b> At its weekly meetings, the group aims to strengthen the right's messaging by crafting Twitter hashtags; plotting strategy on in-the-headlines issues such as voter ID, immigration reform, and the sequester; promoting politically useful scandals; and developing "action items."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A certain amount of secrecy cloaks Groundswell's efforts. Though members have been encouraged to zap out [7]tweets with a #GSW hashtag [8], a message circulated to members of its Google group noted that the<b> role of certain advocates should be kept "off of the Google group for OPSEC [operational security] reasons."</b> This "will avoid any potential for bad press for someone if a communication item is leaked," the message explained. (The Groundswell documents were provided to Mother Jones by a source who had access to its Google group page and who has asked not to be identified.)</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We want to protect the strategic collaboration occurring at Groundswell and build on it. Please be careful about bringing guests and clear them ahead of time."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Washington is full of coalitions that meet to coordinate messaging and strategy. For two decades, conservative strategist Grover Norquist [9], who heads Americans for Tax Reform, has held his now-famous Wednesday morning meetings for a broad spectrum of Republicans, including conservatives opposed to gay rights and abortion rights and those who favor them, as well as GOPers on different sides of the immigration reform debate. Groundswell, which meets at the same time as Norquist's group, appears to be a more ideologically pure version of the Norquist confab, and its emergence—given the prominent role of Ginni Thomas and the participation of journalists—prompts several intriguing questions.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Critics have contended [10] that Thomas' work as a lobbyist opposing Obamacare posed a conflict of interest for her husband, who would rule on the constitutionality of the health care reform initiative. (Clarence Thomas joined the Supreme Court minority that favored striking down the law.) And Common Cause has maintained [11] that Justice Thomas had a conflict of interest when he participated in the <b>Citizens United case </b>because his wife at the time was running a conservative nonprofit fighting the "tyranny" of President Barack Obama that would benefit from removing limits on such groups' spending and fundraising. With her involvement in Groundswell—which zeroes in on contentious issues that come before the high court, including voting rights, abortion, and gay marriage—Ginni Thomas continues to be intricately associated with matters on which her husband may have to render a decision. Ginni Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.</span></font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The participation of journalists in coordinating messaging with ideological advocates and political partisans raises another set of issues. Conservatives expressed outrage when news broke in 2009 about Journolist, a private email list where several hundred progressive-minded reporters, commentators, and academics exchanged ideas and sometimes bickered. (I was on Journolist, mainly as a lurker [12].) The late Andrew Breitbart once offered $100,000 [13] for the full Journolist archives and denounced it as "the epitome of progressive and liberal collusion that conservatives, Tea Partiers, moderates and many independents have long suspected and feared exists at the heart of contemporary American political journalism." The Groundswell documents show conservative journalists, including several with Breitbart News, colluding on high-level messaging with leading partisans of the conservative movement. 
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">

</font> </font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">How Groundswellers Win "Brownie Points"</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Notes prepared after a Groundswell meeting held on March 27 detailed the group's mission and origins [8]:</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Groundswell evolved out of conversations among conservative leaders after the November elections. This is the eighth meeting. Now others are asking to be included. Growth needs to be strategic; it should be made up of senior level people willing to collaborate. It is important to keep a balance of social conservatives, national security conservatives, and constitutional conservatives. <b>Outreach has occurred to incorporate groups with extensive reach: Heritage, Heritage Action, FreedomWorks, AFP [Americans for Prosperity], FRC [Family Research Council] and the NRA</b>, among others…Our country is in peril. This is a critical moment needing critical leadership. We want to protect the strategic collaboration occurring at Groundswell and build on it. Please be careful about bringing guests and clear them ahead of time.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The memo declared that the goal was not to merely ponder, but to be proactive:</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">What Groundswell is not is a room of note takers. The goal of Groundswell is to sync messages and develop action from reports and information exchanged. Going forward there should be an action item accompanying each report.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the March 27 meeting [8], Groundswell participants discussed one multipurpose theme they had been deploying for weeks to bash the president on a variety of fronts, including immigration reform and the sequester: Obama places "politics over public safety." In a display of Groundswell's message-syncing, members of the group repeatedly flogged this phrase in public.<b> Frank Gaffney penned a Washington Time</b>s op-ed [14] titled "Putting Politics Over Public Safety." Tom Fitton headlined a Judicial Watch weekly update [15] "Politics over Public Safety: More Illegal Alien Criminals Released by Obama Administration." Peter List, editor of LaborUnionReport.com, authored a RedState.com post [16] called "Obama's Machiavellian Sequestration Pain Game: Putting Politics Over Public Safety." Matthew Boyle used the phrase [17] in an immigration-related article for Breitbart. And Dan Bongino promoted Boyle's story on Twitter by tweeting [18], "Politics over public safety?" In a message to Groundswellers, Ginni Thomas awarded "brownie points" to Fitton, Gaffney, and other members for promoting the "politics over public safety" riff.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If we lose on immigration, we lose on every other issue. They key to defeating this bill is Sen. Rubio."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">There was much more on the agenda for the March 27 meeting [8] than a single talking point. The group routinely addresses an ambitious to-do list for its campaign against the left. At that session, Groundswellers discussed several immigration-related "action items." These included attempting to link the pending reform bill to Obamacare and collecting health care reform horror stories to provide to Cruz, a leading opponent of the Senate immigration reform bill. (Cruz has repeatedly compared [19] the legislation to the health care reform law.)</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Groundswell members saw immigration as a life-or-death issue.</b> "If we lose on immigration," the post-meeting memo noted, "we lose on every other issue. The key to defeating this bill is Sen. Rubio. He can gracefully remove himself from the 'gang of 8' and still save face…The messaging on this issue has to be 'we can't trust Obama' to enforce immigration laws after the amnesty."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The group also reviewed how best to oppose the confirmation of Tom Perez [20], Obama's nominee for labor secretary. Groundswellers claimed that Perez, then a senior Justice Department official, supported "Muslim Brotherhood organizations and Shariah</b>." (One Groundswell memo maintained that Perez "is extremely antagonistic toward whites.") A third agenda item that Wednesday morning was beating back the effort to end the Boy Scouts of America's ban on gay Scouts. And there was yet another issue for the Groundswell members to stoke:<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> "John Kerry has family ties to Iran that opens the doors to blackmail and other national security risks. Kerry's son in law is an Iranian American with extensive family still in Iran</span>." The post-meeting memo suggested Twitter hashtags to push: #CantTrustObama, #PoliticsOverPublicSafety, #SequesterLies.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We're Failing the Propaganda Battle"</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Groundswellers feel that they too often lose the political narrative to their progressive rivals. One memo that circulated among members declared, "We must reclaim the language and put 'a face' on our messages; tell stories. Write articles on 4th grade level!"</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Groundswell memo noted, "Terms like, 'GOP,' 'Tea Party,' 'Conservative' communicate 'racism.'" They proposed an alternative: "Fredrick Douglas Republican."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Notes from a February 28 Groundswell gathering [21] reflected both their collective sense of pessimism and desire for aggressive tactics: "We are failing the propaganda battle with minorities. Terms like, 'GOP,' 'Tea Party,' 'Conservative' communicate 'racism.'" The Groundswellers proposed an alternative: "Fredrick Douglas Republican," a phrase, the memo noted, that "changes minds." (His name is actually spelled "Frederick Douglass.") The meeting notes also stated that an "active radical left is dedicated to destroy [sic] those who oppose them" with "vicious and unprecedented tactics. We are in a real war; most conservatives are not prepared to fight."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The notes from the March 20 meeting [22] summed up Groundswell griping: "Conservatives are so busy dealing with issues like immigration, gay marriage and boy scouts there is little time left to focus on other issues. These are the very issues the Left wants to avoid but we need to magnify. R's cannot beat Obama at his own game but need to go on the offense and define the issues."<b> The group's proposed offensive would include hyping the Fast and Furious [23] gun-trafficking controversy, slamming Obama's record, and touting Benghazi as a full-fledged scandal. "</b>The problem," the memo noted, "is Speaker Boehner and [Rep.] Mike Rogers (Intelligence Community) are refusing to deal" with the Benghazi issue. It added, "Leaders can and should be shamed into doing the right thing."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another problem for right-wingers, this memo pointed out, was that though "a group of freshmen and sophomore representatives in Congress…are willing and ready to stand up" for conservative causes, "no one is willing to step up and become that leader." Reflecting the dim view held by Groundswell members of House GOPers, the memo maintained that too many Republican lawmakers were co-opted by power and reluctant to challenge House Republican leaders: "The Speaker holds the control in the House. He controls committees, chairmanships, meeting rooms, etc. Conservatives sell out rationalizing their compromises will position them to advance their agenda through committee work. In reality they are being bought." Boehner, according to his memo, was too frightened to confront Obama head-on regarding budget issues because he "believes that Newt lost his speakership due to the government shutdown."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Venting about weak and squishy GOP leaders was a regular feature of Groundswell gatherings. One action item put it bluntly [24]:</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">GAP of REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP: how do we tell them they are failing their base; will lose in 2014 unless they fight for principles (as opposed to show disdain for them and accommodate Obama; O is dividing Rs and they seem clueless: IDEAS NEEDED!</font>

<b><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A week later, Newt Gingrich was scheduled to address the group [25] on the "lack of Republican Leadership right now, and Rove." For 10 minutes.</font></b>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the March 27 meeting, Groundswellers once more voiced their anger with the GOP establishment and Rove—ideological sellouts, they believed, who undercut conservative candidates in order to back Republicans deemed more electable. They discussed the efforts among conservatives to respond to the Republican Party's recently released autopsy [26] (PDF) of the 2012 elections, which called on the party to be more inclusive of minorities and less severe on social issues.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, the post-meeting memo huffed, "is sending messages to the party…If we were all gay illegal aliens, the party likes us. He is preparing the way for a change on social issues by giving a warning, 'don't go Old Testament' and advising the party to consider what Rove said about the next nominees could speak favorably of homosexual marriage in the campaign." The memo summed up Groundswell's preferred solution to GOP woes: "embrace the libertarian and conservative wing of the party."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I'm Going to Need Help Pushing Back"</font>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shortly after its creation, Groundswell started bolstering interactions between right-wing advocates and conservative members of the Senate and the House. On March 5, Gaston Mooney, a staffer for the Senate Republican Steering Committee, posted a message [27] to Groundswell's Google group asking for questions that could be posed to Gina McCarthy, Obama's nominee to lead the EPA, during confirmation hearings or in meetings between her and individual senators. (She was confirmed as EPA chief this month.)</font></span>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If we were all gay illegal aliens, the party likes us. [RNC chair Reince Priebus] is preparing the way for a change on social issues by giving a warning, 'don't go Old Testament.'"</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At an April 3 meeting [28], Groundswell members were encouraged to send<b> Paul Teller, executive director of the Republican Study Committee</b>, the caucus of House conservatives, "feasible asks in exchange for raised debt ceiling.</span>" The post-meeting memo noted, "House conservatives want clear consensus on what the conservative grassroots want to see negotiated." Here was a chance for Groundswellers to shape the next debt ceiling showdown.</font>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Groundswell's first months, one of the most active members in its Google group was Danielle Cutrona, chief counsel to Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions. She frequently placed information—speeches, articles, press releases—on Groundswell's Google group. In February, she posted opposition research material [29] regarding a judicial appointment and asked members to distribute it: "Any help is much appreciated." In another message to <b>Groundswell, she requested assistance in opposing the pro-immigration reform GOP establishment. "</b>I'm going to need help pushing back," [30] she wrote.</font></span>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">On one occasion [31], Cutrona promoted a column [32] from the conservative site RedState.com. Headlined "Who is Going to Put an End to the McCain/Graham Circus?" this RedState.com post excoriated Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham as "Benedict Arnolds" for retreating on their opposition to Chuck Hagel's nomination as defense secretary and for "their treachery on the issue of illegal immigration." Cutrona, who occasionally used her official Senate email to communicate with Groundswell members, was encouraging this band of conservatives to spread the word that two party colleagues of her boss were ideological traitors. A spokesman for Sessions says that this blog post did not reflect Cutrona's views and "was simply one of scores of diverse news and opinion pieces she emailed on immigration."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Even If the Idea Isn't Perfect, I Can Help Massage It"</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Several conservative journalists have enthusiastically participated in Groundswell's deliberations. In March,<b> Mark Tapscott, the executive editor of the conservative Washington Examiner,</b> sent his most recent column [33] to group members</span> [34]. It focused on a theme that Groundswellers had resolved to hype: President Obama is a divider. And after a meeting that month, Tapscott wrote to the group [35], "Enjoyed hearing from all of you who spoke earlier today. It's amazing how much we are accomplishing on so many fronts." But Tapscott tells Mother Jones that after attending one or two meetings at the <b>invitation of Ginni Thomas, he decided to stop participating: "The implication of attending is that you're participating in their planning, and, as a journalist, I don't think that's appropriate. Other journalists may think differently."</b></font>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At another Groundswell gathering, according to the minutes [8], the members decided to ask Breitbart's Stephen Bannon to arrange for his media organization "to get senators on the record regarding their support [or non-support]" of the filibuster that GOP Sens. Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz were threatening to mount against the gun control bill. This suggested that the Groundswellers thought they could task Breitbart News to pursue a story that would be strategically useful for the group. (Breitbart News was already covering the possible filibuster.)</font></span>

<b><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It's amazing how much we are accomplishing on so many fronts," the Washington Examiner's Mark Tapscott wrote to fellow Groundswell members.</font></b>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Groundswell has forged a particularly close relationship with Breitbart. Matthew Boyle, one of Breitbart's more prominent reporters, has attended Groundswell meetings, used the group as a source for tips and a mechanism to promote his stories, and joined in its efforts to whip up coordinated bullet points to be deployed by conservative advocacy shops</span>. In February, he tried to enlist the group [36] to push a story [37] he had written the year before at th<b>e Daily Caller, in which he maintained the Justice Department was in cahoots with the liberal group Media Matters to smear conservative whistleblowers and journalists</b>. In a long note addressed to all Groundswellers—written at a time when reporter Bob Woodward was making (what turned out to be inflated) claims about the Obama White House intimidating foes—Boyle said, "Figured this might be a good time to bring this story back up and see if there's a way to drive it."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Boyle said he was hoping to prompt congressional Republicans to launch an investigation.</b> He contended he had only revealed the "tip of the iceberg" and shared his suspicion that many government agencies (State, the CIA, the Pentagon, the EPA, and more) were conspiring with "far left wing groups" to undermine conservatives in the media: "I think we can get at the heart of the Obama admin's weaknesses here." He explained: "Any evidence obtained would be more proof of collusion between the administration and the media and far left groups, while at the same time serving as evidence of whatever ridiculously moronic <b>big government </b>policies they're pushing are."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The following month, Boyle sent a message to Groundswell members [38] seeking tips and offering to help shape stories Groundswellers wanted to disseminate: "I'm saying we can get pieces out fast on Breitbart. Whenever you have an idea, email or call me with a pitch and I'll do my best to get the story out there. Keep us on offense, them on defense. Even if the idea isn't perfect, I can help massage it to get there."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A high-priority cause for Groundswellers is voter identification efforts—what progressives would call voter suppression</b>—and when Groundswellers developed a thread on their Google group page exploring the best way to pitch the right's voter identification endeavors as a major voting rights case was pending in the Supreme Court, the coalition's friendly journalists joined right in. Dan Bongino, the ex-Secret Service agent and 2012 Senate candidate, kicked off the discussion [39]: "We need to reframe this. This narrative of the Left has already taken hold in MD. The words 'Voter ID' are already lost & equated with racism. Maybe a 'free and fair elections initiative' with a heavy emphasis on avoiding ANY voter disenfranchisement combined with an identification requirement which includes a broader range of documents."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sheryl Kaufman, communications director for Rep. Jim Bridenstine, chimed in: "'OBAMAGRATION'—I love it!! Communicates the similarity with Obamacare."  </font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In response, Tapscott suggested, "How about 'Election Integrity'?</b>" And Gaffney weighed in: "I like it." Fitton noted that Judicial Watch had an "Election Integrity Project." Boyle proposed, "Fair and equal elections," explaining, "Terms 'fair' and 'equal' connect with most people. It's why the left uses them." Then came True the Vote's Anita MonCrief: "We do a lot under the Election Integrity Banner. Does not resonate with the people. Voter Rights may be better. We really have been trying to get the messaging right."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Minutes later<b>, Breitbart's Mike Flynn</b> [general?] tried to change the conversation [40], noting that Boyle earlier in the week had reported that Obama's daughters had been vacationing in the Bahamas while the White House had suspended tours due to the sequester. "The Obama White House has never been so exposed to public criticism as they are right now, because of their decision to cancel WH tours," Flynn wrote. "Everything should be focused on that front." He declared, "We have to be willing to march to the sound of the guns</span>." (Earlier in the week, Boyle had posted his story on the Obama daughters on Groundswell's Google group page, noting, "I think this fits in nicely with that politics over public safety theme…Enjoy.") Ignoring Flynn's missive,<b> Engelbrecht, the president of True the Vote</b>, wrote, "We bill ourselves as an Election Integrity Initiative and have found it strikes the right tone."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a response to a request for comment regarding his participation in Groundswell's message-making, Flynn emailed, "We have reporters covering lots of meetings in DC, as I'm sure you do as well. As you know, it provides critical background to know what's happening on the Hill." In a subsequent email, Flynn insisted, "[N]either Boyle nor I have spent 1 minute on any messaging. We haven't spent any time creating talking points." Flynn added, "[W]e are journalists with a point of view. We are open about that. We attend meetings of conservatives. Where we are allowed, we attend meetings of leftist activists." Boyle did not respond to requests for comment.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We All Lament the Difficulty We Have Persuading Americans"</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In between the weekly meetings, Groundswellers keep on scheming, frequently using their Google group to share ideas and need-to-know information. The material is often routine: <b>a John Bolton op-ed [41], a press release opposing [42] the nomination of the EPA administrator, a call to rally support [43] for a Rand Paul filibuster.</b> Often the material reveals the group's ideological excesses, such as a PowerPoint supposedly proving that John Brennan, the Obama national security adviser who has become CIA chief, is soft on radical Islam. <b>In one post, Ginni Thomas encouraged Groundswell members to watch Agenda: Grinding America Down, a documentary [</b>44] that claims that progressives (including Obama) seek "a brave new world" based on the "failed policies and ideologies of communism" and that an evil left is purposefully "destroying the greatest country in all of world history."<b> MonCrief posted an email noting that the bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon were "similar to Bill Ayers' Weather Underground nail bomb."</b></font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But Groundswellers constantly brainstorm via their Google group in search of a magic talking point, or a silver bullet of messaging. On April 24, Keli Carender, the national grassroots coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, posted a message to the Google group, writing, "We should have a unified name for the immigration bill so that as the other side is calling it 'reform,'</span> we present a unified front against that notion. If we're all calling it different things, their 'reform' message will win. We only combat the idea that it is reform if we hammer back with one different phrase/name." She tossed out a few ideas: "Schumer-Rubio bill," "anti-security bill," and "amnesty bill." Sheryl Kaufman, the communications director for Rep. Jim Bridenstine, chimed in that she was fond of a phrase derived by MonCreif: "'OBAMAGRATION'—I love it!! Communicates the similarity with Obamacare."</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Campaign for America's Future, a progressive group, sent out an email regarding the sequester headlined "Don't let Republicans destroy the economy," Carender sent a message to Groundswell members via the Google group: "What about a 'stick with sequester' (or similar) mantra from our side?" Responding to Carender's note, Peter List of LaborUnionReport.com wrote, "Most Americans don't understand sequesters. We need to be more clever than the Left on this…Something amusing and easy for LIVs [low-information voters] to understand. Maybe a tie in to Humpty Dumpty (the economy) and all King Obama's men ('tax increases') not being able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. (I'm open to anything…and just made that up.)"</font>

<b><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">At another point, List emailed Ginni Thomas an idea for an anti-Obama ad [45] that he thought could go viral:</font></b>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 15 sec internet [YouTube ad] featuring ethnically diverse children on a merry-go-round [soft music]…</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nuclear explosion.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two bullet points on the facts.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Call to action:</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tell President Obama & Congress not to cut our nation's defense.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas posted the note for all in Groundswell to see. "Brilliant idea," she commented. "…Taker?"</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several months after Groundswell kicked off, Steven Sutton, vice president of development for the conservative<b> Leadership Institute </b>and a former chief of staff to several House GOPers, proposed a "strategic message development project" for the outfit. "What is needed," he wrote [46], "is an umbrella thematic message under which each specific issue can be magnified and maximized. For those familiar with it, this is an extension and development of the Leesburg Grid [47] (which the Left has co-opted and now uses extensively, and the Right has ignored and allowed to fall into disuse.)"</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sutton suggested using four main themes: Obama and liberal policies fail; Obama and liberal policies make things worse; there is a lack of leadership in the White House; and Obama "puts politics ahead of people/our country/America." These themes, he contended, "are best used sequentially, rather than randomly/haphazardly/isolated…The most important thing is to think thematically and drive these messages." Sutton went on:</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Issues matter. Details matter. Substance matters. But theme matters more. Substance matters only as it helps to reinforce the themes.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">We all lament the difficulty we have persuading Americans. After all, we have the facts, figures, and data to prove our points. Why can't we persuade? There are many tactics we can use to help persuade (telling stories, finding victims, tempering tone). But these tactics pale in comparison to the importance of providing a context…a theme…to help people organize their thoughts and opinions.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Groundswell has set itself up as the theme lab for the true-red activists of the conservative movement. Fearing that some hydra of the left has long been running wild, vanquishing the right, and bringing the nation closer to utter ruin, the members of Groundswell have birthed a hydra of their own.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Additional reporting by Kate Sheppard [48].</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source URL: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Links:</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[2] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-ginni-thomas-war-karl-rove</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[3] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/ginni-thomas-groundswell-conflict-interest</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[4] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/groundswell-right-wing-strategy-group-members-photos</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[5] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-declares-war-karl-rove</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/meet-craig-shirley-and-diana-banister-the-rights-pitch-perfect-conservatives/2013/07/21/63cea20e-dffe-11e2-b94a-452948b95ca8_story.html</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[7] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739843-redacted-gs-mtg-notes-3-27-2013-google-groups</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[8] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739869-redacted-groundswell-mtg-notes-3-27-2013-google</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[9] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/01/grover-norquist-soul-new-machine</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[10] http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/07/02/new-financial-forms-show-clarence-thomass-wife-continued-to-lobby-against-healthcare-in-2011</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[11] http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4773617&ct=9039331</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[12] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2010/07/journolist-daily-caller-sarah-palin</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[13] http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2010/06/29/Reward---100-000-for-Full-JournoList-Archive--Source-Fully-Protected</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[14] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/5/putting-politics-over-public-safety/</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[15] http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/weekly-updates/politics-over-public-safety/</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[16] http://www.redstate.com/tag/putting-politics-over-public-safety/</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[17] http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/26/Immigration-agents-ask-public-lawmakers-to-oppose-bill-on-eve-of-expected-vote</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[18] https://twitter.com/dbongino/status/350043418094870528</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[19] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/06/24/sen_ted_cruz_compares_senate_immigration_bill_to_obamacare.html</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[20] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/tom-perez-justice-department-trayvon-martin</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[21] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739816-redacted-gs-notes-and-action-items-from-meeting</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[22] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739865-redacted-groundswell-mtg-notes-3-20-2012-google</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[23] http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/09/20/the-fast-and-furious-gun-walking-scandal/</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[24] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739889-redacted-groundswell-notes-and-action-items-from</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[25] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739852-redacted-fwd-country-club-republicans-link-with</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[26] http://growthopp.gop.com/rnc_growth_opportunity_book_2013.pdf</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[27] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739855-redacted-epa-nominee-questions-google-groups</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[28] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739871-redacted-groundswell-mtg-note-april-3-2013-new</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[29] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739790-information-action-item-google-groups-2-27</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[30] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739525-information-google-groups-2-14</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[31] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739831-redacted-who-is-going-to-put-an-end-to-the</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[32] http://www.redstate.com/2013/02/27/who-is-going-to-put-an-end-to-the-mccaingraham-circus/</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[33] http://washingtonexaminer.com/mark-tapscott-one-dinner-does-not-a-great-divider-unmake/article/2523601</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[34] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739833-redacted-links-fr-mark-tapscott-obamacare-hhs-co</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[35] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739821-redacted-links-fr-mark-tapscott-obamacare-hhs-co</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[36] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739828-redacted-information-opportunity-obama</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[37] http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/18/emails-reveal-justice-dept-regularly-enlists-media-matters-to-spin-press/</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[38] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739827-redacted-we-can-get-information-out-fast-at</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[39] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739867-redacted-13-re-groundswellgroup-fwd-obama-takes</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[40] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739798-redacted-11-re-groundswellgroup-fwd-obama-takes</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[41] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739774-redacted-ambassador-boltons-op-ed-on-president</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[42] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739758-information-cei-press-release-mccarthy-redacted</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[43] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739830-redacted-action-rand-paul-filibuster-now-google</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[44] http://[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH8LkIqu1c8</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[45] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739609-re-groundswellgroup-fwd-idea-on-sequestration</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[46] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/739611-sutton-redraft-for-041013</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[47] http://www.yourpatriot.com/Leesburg_Diagram.aspx</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">[48] http://www.motherjones.com/authors/kate-sheppard</font></p>