artl III pjt mike davis
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primary 9 24 press thuggery, troglodyte ~ Liz C pow snap
ntbcw city of quartz
no merri
OMFG YT MERGER FIXER WOODWARD?
RUDOFSKY HON FAIL? ~ 4 GOP SEN? 11 26
FORUM SHOP RUSSIAGATE BS LAWFARE POSO AILEEN CANNON PAL REDING Q
SEE BANNON PULTE BIG LIE GOP STEAL ELECTION
SEE ED FUCKING MARTIN DOJ 3 BONDI CLETA EMIL BOVE PAOLETTA
DON JR?
HEGS 2
rww Tag Mike Davis
7 24 subs for jailled bannon
chevron doctrine
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AN 11 26
On Friday, it was revealed that a last-minute attempt to jam through a judicial confirmation has pitted President Donald Trump against several Republican senators. According to attorney Mike Davis – who served as Chief Counsel for Nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a clerk for Justice Neil Gorsuch – the senators in question have committed an “unforgivable sin” by opposing Trump and blocking their own party’s nominee.
As Davis notes, Trump has nominated Lee Rudofsky – the current U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas – to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, an appellate court that covers Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. After the midterms, however, which dealt a generational blow against the GOP, eliminating the party’s majority in both the House and Senate, the clock is ticking before Democrats assume control over Congress in January, which will make it virtually impossible for Trump to have nominees like Rudofsky confirmed.
But if the narrow window to act wasn’t obstacle enough, the president is also facing opposition from his own party. According to Davis, “Arkansas' two Republican home-state senators – [John Boozman] and [Tom Cotton] – are blocking Rudofsky, as they wanted someone else.” According to Davis, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-SC) are acting as the public face of the blocking effort, as both are leaving the Senate at the end of the term and therefore can oppose Trump without worrying about drawing his wrath. But regardless of whether the departing senators take the blame, Davis asserts that the effort is an “unforgivable sin for Boozman and Cotton.” If they don’t change their minds fast, notes Davis, “Republicans will lose this key appellate court seat.”
Trump’s judicial appointments may represent his longest-lasting legacy. As Politico explains, “Trump has already, over the course of his two terms, appointed nearly 300 judges who, collectively, will pull the federal bench to the right for a generation. His second-term judges, in particular, have often proven to be outliers even among the conservative judiciary. But the lame-duck president will be able to confirm few, if any, new judges once Democrats formally take over the Senate in January.” What’s more, “Assuming the Senate maintains its longstanding ‘blue slip’ rule giving senators veto power over judicial nominees in their state, newly elected Democrats will have the ability to block appointments in states like Texas, Kansas and South Carolina until 2033 — even if the GOP manages to regain control of the chamber and a Republican keeps the White House in 2029.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, Rudofsky is a staunch constitutional originalist who played a key role in gutting the Voting Rights Act when his 2022 decision ruled that private parties can’t sue under the act’s Section 2 anti-discrimination provisions. Then, in 2026, the Supreme Court essentially ended the protections offered by Section 2 altogether.
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DCK 10 26
Search Assist
Mike Davis and Stanley Woodward were both involved in controversial dealings related to Hewlett Packard Enterprise's merger with Juniper Networks, where they pressured officials to approve the deal despite objections from the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. Gail Slater, who was the assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, faced significant pressure from both Davis and Woodward during this process.
Wikipedia
The American Prospect
Involvement of Mike Davis and Stanley Woodward with Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Overview of the Controversy
Mike Davis and Stanley Woodward played significant roles in the controversial merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Juniper Networks. Their actions raised concerns regarding the integrity of the approval process, particularly in relation to antitrust regulations.
Key Players
| Name | Role | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|
| Mike Davis | Conservative political strategist and lobbyist | Article III Project, Trump ally |
| Stanley Woodward | Associate Attorney General | U.S. Department of Justice |
| Gail Slater | Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust | U.S. Department of Justice |
Pressure Tactics
Both Davis and Woodward were reported to have pressured Gail Slater to approve the merger despite objections from the Antitrust Division. This included:
Threats: Woodward allegedly threatened to fire Slater's deputies if she did not sign off on the settlement related to the merger.
Political Influence: Their close ties to the Trump administration and lobbying efforts were seen as significant factors in the approval process.
Outcome
The merger faced scrutiny due to the manner in which it was approved, with allegations of a "pay-to-play" environment influencing decisions within the Department of Justice. This situation highlighted concerns about the intersection of politics and legal processes in high-stakes corporate mergers.
Wikipedia
The American Prospect
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FLY PENG
What a Million Dollars Now Buys at the DOJ: Mike Davis
February 16, 2026 Davi OttenheimeR
A conservative legal activist, who collected at least $1 million in success fees for getting the DOJ to approve the Hewlett Packard Enterprise-Juniper Networks merger and another million for the Compass-Anywhere deal, used social media this month to celebrate pushing out the DOJ Antitrust Chief Gail Slater.
Mike Davis used an ethnic slur in his attacks on Slater, reminding everyone who’s back in charge.
Former MAGA Attorney Goes Scorched Earth…. Mike Davis and Arthur Schwartz have made a Faustian bargain of trading on relationships with powerful people to reportedly earn million-dollar success fees by helping corporations undermine Trump’s antitrust agenda, hurt working class Americans, break the rules, and then try to cover it up.
When Mike Davis dropped the professional pretense and spread a racist nickname for a Senate-confirmed official he just pushed out, he’s not worried about consequences.
He’s advertising pay-to-play impunity.
The Mechanism
Here’s the simple math. Slater had been confirmed 78-19, in the most bipartisan vote of Trump’s second term after Rubio. She was supposed to be the whole face of “MAGA antitrust,” the populist enforcement wing that would take on Big Tech and corporate monopolies.
Then she discovered MAGA isn’t about rule of law. It’s a dictatorship — chaotic by design, because stability would mean someone could hold the rules steady long enough to enforce them. She found the antitrust division was being bypassed entirely, not to serve policy but to serve whoever could pay the right fixer.
Live Nation hired Davis and Kellyanne Conway to negotiate a settlement directly with senior DOJ officials, cutting the antitrust division and Slater out. When Slater opposed settling the HPE-Juniper merger, AG Bondi’s chief of staff overruled her and fired two top deputies. When Slater and her lawyers recommended an extended review of the Compass-Anywhere real estate merger, DOJ leadership cleared it after Compass’s lawyers went directly to Deputy AG Todd Blanche.
Davis is now gloating that he wrecked antitrust. In a group chat called “Frenemies Fight Club,” he wrote: “Gail was a disaster. I recommended her hiring. And her firing.”
The Cover Story
The Daily Caller reprinted the empty-headed official version: Slater went to a conference in Paris and Bondi canceled her credit cards while alleging lack of authorization for the trip. Slater allegedly lied about HPE. She allegedly leaked to the press.
These read like the standard retaliation template. Cancelled her credit cards? Give the friendly outlet a petty management anecdote about a Paris trip to pollute the news. If the conference had been in South Dakota the disinformation wouldn’t be as barbed. The cover-up wouldn’t land so hard. Who is talking about the million-dollar success fees that have been flowing to the lobbyist who got the antitrust chief fired for doing her job?
What Comes Next
Live Nation’s stock jumped 5.8% when Slater’s departure was announced. The market said what the administration’s talking points are designed to obscure: antitrust enforcement in America is now a concierge service for those who can afford the right lobbyist. The rich get control, to get richer.
The Live Nation trial is set for March 2. Slater’s deputy overseeing the case, Mark Hamer, also left. The division is now run by Omeed Assefi, who Davis describes as “very well liked and respected”, which means compliant. Such a pretty smile, never talks.
Sounds like capture complete.
However there’s a wrinkle. A federal judge has authorized Tunney Act depositions of Davis, Arthur Schwartz, and William Levi for the HPE-Juniper case. That hearing window opens March 23-27. For the first time, the people who ran this dangerous bypass operation will have to answer questions under oath, to an authority they can’t lobby.
Davis calling Slater an ethnic slur isn’t a mistake. It’s his brazen MAGA receipt.
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AInvest
Justice Department Official Accuses Colleagues of "Perverted Justice ...
Aug 18, 2025Former DOJ attorney Roger Alford accuses colleagues Chad Mizelle and Stanley Woodward of "perverting justice" in the antitrust settlement over Hewlett Packard Enterprise's $13 billion takeover of Juniper Networks. Alford calls for a court to block the deal and expresses hope for personnel changes within the DOJ.
flyingpenguin.com
https://www.flyingpenguin.com › what-a-million-dollars-now-buys-at-the-doj
What a Million Dollars Now Buys at the DOJ: Mike Davis
Feb 16, 2026A conservative legal activist, who collected at least $1 million in success fees for getting the DOJ to approve the Hewlett Packard Enterprise-Juniper Networks merger and another million for the Compass-Anywhere deal, used social media this month to celebrate pushing out the DOJ Antitrust
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7 26 We Talked to a Trump Whistleblower. What He Saw Will Shock You.
Jul 7, 2026
There's a set of MAGA lobbyists in DC who can get you anything you want from the White House, legal or not. Ticketmaster, Paramount, crypto companies — they're all exploiting this pay-to-play system.
KROGER REALPAGE UNITED HEALTH AMAZON GGL LINA KHAN // JDV?!
GAIL S ROGER ALFORD BOSS
1:33
1 minute, 33 seconds
[Liz Scheltens] For the last 40 years, across administrations from both parties, politicians have mostly been content to let corporations keep getting bigger and more powerful.
1:43
1 minute, 43 seconds
But in recent years, something has started to shift. [Anchor] The federal government is suing to block the largest supermarket merger in U.S. history...
1:52
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...arguing that it would reduce the number of supermarkets, which would mean higher prices.
1:55
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Today, the Justice Department and eight states sued software company RealPage, alleging it illegally helped landlords unfairly fix prices and raise rents throughout the country.
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At the end of the first Trump administration, there were very large and significant monopoly cases that were brought against Facebook and against Google.
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[Liz Scheltens] When Lina Khan took over the Federal Trade Commission under President Biden, she and her colleagues in the Department of Justice continued those suits, and filed dozens more.
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[Anchor] Department of Justice has launched an antitrust probe into UnitedHealth. The move is part of the Biden administration’s push to lower drug prices.
...5:15
:TRUMP:
We want him in a very high capacity. Mike Davis. Mike. Thank you, Mike. Where is Mike? Mike is great.
5:24
5 minutes, 24 seconds
Mike Davis actually recommended Gail Slater to President Trump for the top antitrust job. Davis has denied the threatening phone call.
5:32
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But it is true that a couple of weeks after the election, he started getting big checks from corporations like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, who wanted him to use his connections to push their mergers through.
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[Roger Alford] His salary is $300,000 a month. He has a contingency fee of over $1 million for any successful mergers.
5:51
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They hire this lobbyist and the lobbyist starts talking to higher-ups, saying, you like us, we're on your team.
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Just tell them to drop the case. [Liz Scheltens] And they did.
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DOJ sources told the Wall Street Journal that a couple of weeks after the threatening phone call, Gail Slater's boss, quote, “placed a document on her desk.”
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It was a settlement deal written by Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s own lawyers. It was a genuine shock.
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When Gail Slater asked her boss what would happen if she refused to sign it, he told her, quote, “She was too difficult to fire, but he would fire her deputies.” She signed, and then he fired them anyway.
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And we all basically strongly suggested that that was inappropriate. And as a result of that, I was terminated.
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[Anchor] Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, they're up more than 12%, after the DOJ gave the green light for the proposed $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks.
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This is oligarchy in action: company gets sued, they hire a million-dollar fixer with the president's ear to leverage his loyalty and make sure that the suit goes away.
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They get a sweetheart deal, and then, when someone like Roger Alford gets in the way, they make sure he gets fired.
7:04
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This type of, let's call it, pay-for-play politics hadn't happened since Watergate. They're dropping cases because they decided someone's a friend.
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That's not the rule of law. That's the opposite of the rule of law.
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A few months later, one of America's most hated companies decided to try the same play for themselves.
7:24
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[Anchor] Outrage over Ticketmaster and Live Nation gouging consumers on big concerts.
...
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A bunch of state attorneys general signed on to the suit as well, including Phil Weiser of Colorado and Jonathan Skrmetti of Tennessee.
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I mean, there was tremendous evidence of very aggressive, almost mafia-like tactics.
8:02
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We had some witnesses, they would get a phone call and it was basically like, “Hey, nice arena you have there.
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Be a shame if anything happened to it.” You know, we have the internal conversations laughing about how dumb their customers are and how great it is that they can rip ’em off.
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[Anchor] The messages between two ticketing directors saying, “These people are so stupid.” Another message saying, “Robbing them blind, baby.”
8:25
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[Liz Scheltens] When President Trump took office in 2025, his Department of Justice decided to continue the Ticketmaster suit. Ticketmaster thought they would try the same play as Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
8:35
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They hired Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former campaign manager, as a fixer. They donated to Trump's inaugural fund.
8:41
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And they hired Mike Davis, the same fixer who got Hewlett Packard Enterprise their sweetheart deal.
8:48
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Davis went after Roger Alford's boss, Gail Slater.
8:52
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[Roger Alford] Once it became clear that Gail Slater was going to resolve these cases on the merits and wasn't going to listen to Mike Davis based on arguments other than the merits, he turned on her.
9:02
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He directly lobbied the president of the United States to get someone who was committed to enforcing antitrust laws on the merits to be removed.
9:10
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[Anchor] The head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division is out.
9:14
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Gail Slater was fired today from the role after months of tension with the Trump administration. [Liz Scheltens] The moment Gail Slater's firing hit the news, Live Nation’s stock price skyrocketed.
9:24
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Shareholders were anticipating big payouts on the backs of consumers. [echo] Robbing them blind, baby. And then, two weeks after she was fired...
9:32
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[Anchor] The Justice Department has reached a settlement with Live Nation in its antitrust case. Not everyone is on board. The proposed settlement didn’t even rise to the level of a slap on the wrist.
9:41
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[Liz Scheltens] Live Nation wouldn't have to sell off Ticketmaster, just a handful of venues.
9:46
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So it looked like the same play had worked again: get sued, hire a fixer, get a sweetheart deal.
9:53
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But there was one wrinkle for Ticketmaster.
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From my perspective, this was not a sufficient settlement to take care of Tennessee consumers.
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A bunch of those state AGs decided to continue with the suit, even after the Department of Justice settled.
...
10:51
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[Phil Weiser] The president put up a social media post and said, let the deal through.
10:55
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Now, we don't know exactly what happened behind those scenes, but I want to underscore how unusual that is.
11:01
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There was no DOJ investigation when the country's largest real estate brokerage, Compass, wanted to buy its rival Anywhere.
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Now, they're free to saddle middle-class homebuyers with even more junk fees in a housing market we can already barely afford.
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Compass even hired Mike Davis, the same fixer that got HPE and Live Nation their deals.
11:22
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But nothing has made the corruption more clear than the Department of Justice's recent approval of the merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers.
11:31
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The deal puts one of Trump's top political donors at the head of a media empire that will include CNN, CBS and HBO.
11:40
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And according to the Wall Street Journal, the staff attorneys in the antitrust division were leaning toward suing to prevent this merger.
11:48
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But again, they were overruled by the top brass at the Department of Justice.
11:53
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State AGS are teaming up to challenge the HPE, Nexstar, and Compass mergers in court, and they're considering whether to do the same for Paramount.
...
4:12
Hewlett Packard Enterprise looking to buy Juniper Networks.
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DUCK 7 26
DNyuz
'I will destroy you': Trump fixer accused of threatening ... - DNyuz
Mar 21, 2026President Donald Trump's influential MAGA ally Mike Davis is facing new scrutiny after allegedly threatening to stop a Justice Department official during negotiations over a major tech merger, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.
The American Prospect
https://prospect.org › 2026 › 02 › 12 › trump-justice-department-ticketmaster-live-nation-monopoly
Trump Justice Department Poised to Preserve Ticketmaster Monopoly
Feb 12, 2026It also includes former Trump campaign manager and senior aide Kellyanne Conway and attorney/MAGA influencer Mike Davis, who reportedly earned a $1 million "success fee" for getting DOJ to drop its challenge to the $14 billion Hewlett Packard Enterprise-Juniper Networks merger.
Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com › mike-davis-2676483294
'I will destroy you': Trump fixer accused of threatening DOJ official ...
President Donald Trump's influential MAGA ally Mike Davis is facing new scrutiny after allegedly threatening to stop a Justice Department official during negotiations over a major tech merger ...
The Lever
https://www.levernews.com › top-monopoly-cop-forced-out-amid-lobbying-bonanza
Top Monopoly Cop Forced Out Amid Lobbying Bonanza
Feb 17, 2026One of Live Nation's lobbyists, Mike Davis — a corporate "fixer" for mergers and acquisitions — reportedly "accelerated" Slater's removal after criticizing her in a meeting with the president, according to Bloomberg. He also publicly attacked Slater online.
Democratic Underground
https://www.democraticunderground.com › 10143636241
'I will destroy you': Trump fixer accused of threatening DOJ official ...
Mar 21, 2026'I will destroy you': Trump fixer accused of threatening DOJ official -- then got her fired Source: Raw Story March 20, 2026 10:37PM ET President Donald Trump's influential MAGA ally Mike Davis is facing new scrutiny after allegedly threatening to stop a Justice Department official during
...
[
Fox Business
MIKE DAVIS: 30 years of Section 230 is more than enough
129 days agoThirty year ago, Congress passed Section 230 to protect startups, but now it shields Big Tech monopolies from accountability while enabling censorship.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/fox-news-opinion/mike-davis-30-years-section-230-more-than-enough)
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MMA
Trump suggested that Bill Pulte at DNI may investigate “rigged elections.” Steve Bannon's War Room podcast is thrilled.
Bannon's War Room has been a longtime hub for election denial and was instrumental in stirring up the January 6 riots
Written by Sophie Lawton
Research contributions from John Knefel
Published 06/23/26
On his podcast War Room, Steve Bannon and his guests are celebrating Bill Pulte's position as acting director of National Intelligence, claiming he will “get to the bottom of the 2020 stolen election." Earlier this month, discussing the appointment, President Trump himself said that Pulte “may find out some things about the rigged elections.”
Pulte started in the role last week after President Donald Trump intervened to stop the Senate confirmation hearing of his DNI nominee, Jay Clayton, despite congressional backlash to Pulte's original appointment as acting DNI. Bannon has been pushing for Pulte as DNI since Trump originally appointed him in early June, calling him “a patriot” and claiming, “It's time now for smash mouth” with members of Congress who opposed his appointment. Even Republican senators have noted objections to Pulte.
Bannon has made it clear that his focus on Pulte's role is absolutely about elections, saying, “Bill Pulte is the perfect choice, the perfect choice to run DNI right now. It also shouldn't be lost on anybody that these elections, the stolen elections, which they're now in your face of how they're going to do it with the mail-in ballots.”
Bannon's War Room has been a longtime hub for election denial and was instrumental in stirring up the January 6 riots. Bannon has already begun laying groundwork for interfering in the midterm elections or denying their legitimacy on the show. Now, he and his guests are suggesting Pulte's time in office will lead to proof that the 2020 election was stolen.
Before Pulte started as acting DNI, Bannon suggested Pulte use the position to “maybe look around the files, maybe actually check into the, you know, some of the election files of 2020.”
In a June 20 interview with former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Bannon explicitly said, “The reason Jay Clayton ain't at DNI right now and Bill Pulte is … is to get to the bottom of the 2020 stolen election.” Bannon then noted that both John Solomon, an election conspiracy theorist, and Pulte are now working together and “they need to stay at DNI.” Giuliani argued Pulte's appointment was important because the California primary elections “look like it was so crooked that nobody will believe it, so either they're cheating or they're making everybody believe they cheat.”
Video
Citation
From the June 20, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
Giuliani also praised Pulte and specifically his work on elections, saying that “he knows what happened for real,” an apparent reference to the 2020 election that Giuliani has claimed was stolen. He then asked, “How do we have a republic if we don't have free elections?”
On the June 19 edition of War Room, Bannon suggested those opposing Pulte’s appointment are “afraid Pulte's going to get his hands on” proof the 2020 election was stolen and that they're “damn right” that MAGA will “use it in the midterm.” Bannon added, “Bill Pulte's in, and he and Solomon are going to get their hands on it, and you're going to have to live with it. The American people are going to see the receipts.”
Video
Citation
From the June 19, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
Article III Project founder and regular War Room guest Mike Davis told Bannon about Pulte: “He'll go in there and he'll rip apart that place for as long as President Trump needs Bill Pulte to rip apart that place.” He said, “President Trump can keep Bill Pulte as the acting DNI for as long as he wants and I love it,” adding “There is so much that needs to be exposed at the DNI, and Bill Pulte is the perfect man to do it.”
Another frequent War Room guest and election conspiracy theorist, Jack Posobiec appeared on Bannon's show and suggested members of Congress were scared to confirm Pulte because they did not want to expose election fraud, saying, “Could it be that there was some kind of foreign interference or some kind of penetration of those election systems down there in Fulton County that leads to a massive, massive problem with that 2020 count?"
Now, after weeks of focusing on Pulte uncovering election fraud, Bannon and guests are questioning whether Pulte's priority in office should be prosecuting former director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci.
//
06/18/26 12:51 PM EDT
06/18/26 6:28 PM EDT
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mma
05/04/26
After VRA ruling, Benny Johnson suggests the Trump administration “should go full speed ahead in bringing the full force of the federal government against these DEI districts”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 05/04/26
Video
Citation
From the May 4, 2026, edition of The Benny Show, posted to YouTube
BENNY JOHNSON (HOST): Harmeet Dhillon, who, of course, is a favorite of our show ... she said that she is going to be suing in order to ensure that there are reparations for hard-working Americans who have been disenfranchised through Eric Holder and Barack Obama's racism in creating congressional ghettos and DEI districts. Your take on that, how should Harmeet Dhillon ensure that maps are as fair and equitable as possible for the 2026 elections?
MIKE DAVIS (GUEST): I love Harmeet Dhillon, and I always say this: my favorite Americans are women and minority conservatives because they are absolutely the most bold and fearless people on the planet. They're great -- whether it's Byron Donalds or Harmeet Dhillon -- these are the types of people who I want in these offices. People who are going to fight every day for America, for the West, for our way of life, for our Judeo-Christian traditions. Harmeet is phenomenal.
...
The best thing about Harmeet, the best thing about this new version of the Trump administration, is prior Republicans, George W. Bush Republicans — and I worked in the George W. Bush White House — we were, those Republicans who were so scared of being labeled as racists or sexist or homophobe or transphobe or whatever phobe the Democrats come out with. And my response to those Republicans is to say to those Democrats, ‘Go to hell. You're not going to be able to use your Marxist division and cow us like you've done in the past.' We are the party of opportunity for poor Black people trapped in these Democrat ghettos and these DEI districts. Democrats want to keep minorities trapped in intergenerational poverty. They want victims. They want misery. Because that's the Marxist playbook. So, people like Harmeet Dhillon, people like Byron Donalds, they are the all-stars.
JOHNSON: So, Harmeet should go full speed ahead in bringing the full force of the federal government against these DEI districts and lawfare Democrats who want to sue in order to create these congressional ghettos?
DAVIS: Absolutely. The Supreme Court just ruled that we, you can have political gerrymandering, but you cannot have racial gerrymandering. It was a brilliant opinion by Justice Sam Alito, and Harmeet can go after every one of these districts, these House districts where these Democrats in these blue states intentionally sliced and diced the population to have a DEI district, to have some loser Democrat minority be the House representative and go grift and make millions of dollars and do nothing for their poor Black or poor Hispanic constituents.
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maj rept
April 21, 2026. Elie Mystal, justice correspondent and columnist at The Nation magazine, joins the program for a conversation about Justice Alito’s future and other recent Supreme Court activity.
ho mascot and ----
kennedy breyer leak? all pol $ no law
...
15:40
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this because Andy Olm is coming and Jennifer Mascot is coming and James Ho is coming, people are just like, "Oh god, that sounds bad." Anyway, a rant.
15:48
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When Chuck Grasserly said, "We should nominate Ted Cruz." My social media blew up. Just liberals just, "Oh my god, we...
22:41
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like when I look at a James Hoe and we're talking about how Clarence Thomas is on uh uh Harlon and Crow's uh uh uh play payroll, you know where James Hoe,
22:51
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the current fifth circuit judge, James Hoe, you know where he was sworn in to be a fifth circuit judge in Harlon Crow's library by Justiceclarence
....
39
26 minutes, 39 seconds
point they all look the same to me. Like there there three archetypes of Republicans. You've got the superch Christian uh uh uh warrior Republican.
26:48
26 minutes, 48 seconds
You've got the super business I'm on Epstein Islands Republican. And I'm not saying those two are mutually exclusive,
26:55
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right? And then you got the Mara Lago woman Republican. Like those are your you know the the internalized patriarchy Republican. Like those are your three.
27:03
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And they just kind of like, you know,
27:06
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find pick one of the three. I think they throw a dart on the board and be like, "Oh, it's time for the Mara Lago face.
...
memory because the Federal Society has
29:23
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controlled Republican judicial picks going back to George HW Bush and now they're kind of on the outs. So, I got
29:31
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two answers for that in the time we have left. One, the new guy to look out is Mike Davis. Um he's a former Neil
29:37
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Gorsuch clerk. He was formerly Chuck Grassly who's the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Um, uh, he was his
29:45
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guy picking clerks. He is a an odious man. He is a mean person. I personally
29:51
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do not like him. Um uh uh uh he's probably the person who is gonna be in
...
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AN 12 25
Former CIA Director John Brennan is fearing that a judge who has frequently ruled in President Donald Trump's favor could be handling a case concerning him and several others. Now, he's asking the court to directly intervene.
The New York Times reported Monday that Brennan – who served in former President Barack Obama's administration – is officially petitioning the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida to prevent U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (who Trump appointed in 2020) from handling a case in which he has been subpoenaed. Brennan's subpoena is part of a Department of Justice investigation into the role former Obama administration officials played in launching the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein, who is representing Brennan, acknowledged that his client's request may be unusual, but argued it was not unwarranted. He maintained that the administration sought to "manipulate grand jury and case assignment procedures" to make sure the investigation that ensnared Brennan ended up in Cannon's hands.
"[W]ere we in a normal time, we might hesitate to question the propriety of the government's actions in the grand jury process. However, we are no longer in a normal time," he wrote. "We are now in a time when the Justice Department has surrendered much of its independence and the President is directly commanding his Attorney General and her leadership team to use their prosecutorial authorities against his perceived political adversaries."
Wainstein's letter further questioned the influence that MAGA political operative Mike Davis was having on U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones, who helms the DOJ's operations in the Southern District of Florida and signed off on Brennan's subpoena. Wainstein noted that Davis has previously referred to Quiñones as his "buddy" and "good friend." Quiñones has empaneled an extra grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida, where Judge Cannon is based.
As Wainstein documented, Davis has played an outsized role in publicizing the investigation that has singled out Brennan, along with former Obama administration officials James Clapper (the former director of national intelligence) and former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page among others. In November, Davis posted a selfie to social media of him and Quiñones with the caption: "Justice is coming."
Brennan's attorney urged chief judge Cecilia M. Altonaga "to defend and reinforce the rule of law in our criminal justice system at this fragile moment in our Nation's history."
"We urge Your Honor to exercise your supervisory authority as chief judge to ensure the United States Attorney does not steer this matter to the Fort Pierce Division and to the courtroom of Judge Aileen Cannon," he wrote.
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mma
MAGA media interviews suggest Trump’s denaturalization push is driven by pure Islamophobia
Recent guests on Steve Bannon and Jack Posobiec’s podcasts aren’t hiding who they want to target
Written by John Knefel
Research contributions from Sophie Lawton
Published 12/18/25
Two recent clips from high-profile MAGA media podcasters suggest that a new effort by President Donald Trump to ramp up denaturalizations is driven largely by anti-Muslim bigotry.
According to The New York Times, the Trump administration is setting a goal of bringing 100-200 denaturalization cases per month in fiscal year 2026, up from just over 120 cases in total brought between 2017 and the present.
In segments on War Room, hosted by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Human Events Daily, hosted by Pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec, guests with close ties to the White House made it clear that they would want Trump’s denaturalization ramp-up to target Muslims specifically.
On December 15, Posobiec interviewed the Article III Project’s Will Chamberlain about immigration in general. Article III is headed by Mike Davis, a close ally of Trump’s who presents himself as the administration’s outside enforcer.
“Islam is not compatible with Western civilization, and mass Muslim migration is not compatible with Western societies, and it’s time to say this experiment has run its course and it needs to stop,” Chamberlain said.
Chamberlain added that “we're not going to, you know, denaturalize unless we have legal reason to do so” but that “we want there to be net-negative Muslim migration to the United States.”
Chamberlain’s legalistic caveat aside, achieving “net-negative Muslim migration” would likely require finding a “legal reason” to bring many more denaturalization cases. Chamberlain, for example, called for journalist Mehdi Hasan to be denaturalized and deported in response to Hasan posting “Abolish ICE” on social media.
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Citation
From the December 15, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's Human Events Daily
Days earlier, Bannon interviewed Wade Miller of the Center for Renewing America, a MAGA-affiliated think tank. CRA was founded by Russ Vought, a Christian nationalist currently reprising his role as the head of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget.
“I'm not saying that there's no such thing as a nice and decent Muslim — those exist in our country,” Miller said. “But nowhere in the world do those people manifest themselves in majorities. And there's a reason for that, and at the center of it is radical Islam.”
Miller added, “We want to get ahead of this before it becomes the problem that it is in Europe and start denaturalizing, start moving, taking away people's legal status for immigration fraud, whatever we need to do.”
“Well, now that we're past the screening and that, when you talk about denaturalization, what then is to be done?” Bannon prompted.
“If someone raised their hands and took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and became a citizen, and now they're out there advocating for sharia courts and the undermining of our entire constitutional order, then those should be grounds to denaturalize,” Miller responded.
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From the December 11, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
As Media Matters reported in March, right-wing media figures were already waging a campaign to denaturalize and deport their political opponents, many of whom are Muslim. That effort has only increased over the course of the year, and whatever taboos may have previously constrained open Islamophobia in conservative media seem to have all but been destroyed. As Chamberlain’s comments make clear, his aim is “net-negative Muslim migration,” part of a larger right-wing media embrace of “remigration,” a term for ethnic cleansing.
OMFG
FORUM SHOP RUSSIAGATE BS LAWFARE ARTL III AILEEN CANNON
an 11 25
Far-right influencers are looking to Miami as a venue to pursue "long-promised charges of a 'grand conspiracy'" against President Donald Trump’s perceived adversaries, according to a New York Times report.
The influencers have even found a federal prosecutor there— Jason A. Reding Quiñones, Trump-appointed United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who was sworn into office in August 2025 and is currently a central figure in a high-profile investigation into a 2017 intelligence community assessment regarding Russian election interference.
As for their alleged 'grand conspiracy,' the Times explains that its theory is "still unsupported by the evidence."
"A cabal of Democrats and 'deep-state' operatives, possibly led by former President Barack Obama, has worked to destroy Mr. Trump in a yearslong plot spanning the inquiry into his 2016 campaign to the charges he faced after leaving office," the Times explains.
Last week, however, Reding Quiñones issued over two dozen subpoenas, including to officials who took part in the inquiry into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, the Times writes.
Among the recipients include familiar Trump foils: James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; Peter Strzok, a former F.B.I. counterintelligence agent who helped run the Russia investigation; and Lisa Page, a former lawyer at the bureau.
The Florida investigation currently focuses on a "January 2017 intelligence community assessment about Russian interference in the 2016 election, particularly the role played by John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, in drafting the document," the Times says.
The Brennan investigation started "after criminal referrals to the Justice Department by top Trump intelligence officials," the Times writes, and was assigned to David Metcalf, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, "who was given special authority to scrutinize and possibly prosecute Mr. Brennan, according to four people with knowledge of his actions who requested anonymity to discuss an open matter."
Metcalf held senior Justice Department positions during the first Trump administration.
The Brennan case, however, was transfered from Metcalf to Reding Quiñones, "as part of a decision to greatly expand the scope of the Brennan investigation into other, unspecified activities, according to two people with knowledge of the situation," the Times explains.
The Florida subpoenas, the Times explains, "seek documents or communications related to the intelligence community assessment from July 1, 2016, through Feb. 28, 2017, according to people familiar with them. It commands the recipients to provide them to prosecutors in Miami by Nov. 20."
Despite the dubious nature of these investigations, the Times says, they do have one thing on its side.
"Reding Quiñones, a military veteran, has pursued his mandate to hunt down Mr. Trump’s foes with a gung-ho attitude that has endeared him to the president and the small but influential cadre of loyalists pushing hardest for prosecutions," notes the Times.
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BLOOMB
DOJ Miami Office Readies Conspiracy Probe Into Trump Enemies (2)
Nov. 7, 2025
Jason A. Reding Quiñones, US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, speaks during a press conference on August 25, 2025 in New York City.
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Trump Ally Pushing Conspiracy Case Says Grand Jury Empaneled (1)
Oct. 22, 2025, 7:26 AM PDT
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The South Florida US attorney’s office is recruiting prosecutors and restructuring its chain of command in preparation for a grand jury investigation expected to target former Justice Department officials and others involved in cases against President Donald Trump.
Under the leadership of a Trump-loyalist US attorney, Jason Reding Quiñones, the Miami-based office has been inviting current staff and outside lawyers to join the new investigative team to be housed within its national security unit, said four people familiar with the situation.
The exact scope of the grand jury effort—which one of the individuals described as “special counsel oversight”—remains unclear.
A federal judge recently empaneled a new grand jury to convene Jan. 12 in Fort Pierce, Fla. That prompted close Trump allies to strongly indicate this will be the venue to review what they allege is a broad Democratic conspiracy to thwart Trump, including Russian collusion claims and indictments over Mar-a-Lago documents and election interference.
Scott Strauss, a law school classmate of Reding Quiñones who worked with him as a South Florida federal prosecutor, is playing a potentially significant role in the plans, said the people, who spoke anonymously to avoid reprisal.
Less than two years into the job, Strauss was pushed out of the US attorney’s office for trying to launch baseless 2020 voting fraud conspiracy investigations, the individuals added. He proceeded to help lead Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ election crimes office in 2022.
People close to the office are waiting to learn if Strauss will return to head up the grand jury project, or if a respected career prosecutor currently running the national security section will remain in charge of it. Strauss recently asked at least one attorney from outside the office to join the South Florida grand jury team, three people familiar with the matter said.
A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment.
An email to Strauss’ currently listed work account bounced back, suggesting he’s switched jobs. Strauss declined to comment via text message, including on whether he’s in the process of returning to DOJ.
Two of the office’s recently-hired line prosecutors abruptly resigned under duress after being asked this week to join the grand jury investigation, said three individuals.
They exited following a tense meeting in which superiors accused them of leaking information about their new assignment to the media or discussing it with colleagues.
MAGA Pressure
The national security unit has long been organized as a section within the office’s criminal division, but Reding Quiñones this week informed staff that he stripped the criminal chief’s authority by ordering the national security group to start reporting directly to the US attorney’s executive office, according to a Nov. 3 email obtained by Bloomberg Law.
That announcement came 14 hours after prominent MAGA influencer Jack Posobiec denounced the criminal chief, Peter Forand, on X for donating $2,300 to the 2024 Kamala Harris presidential campaign and other Democratic causes.
Forand will “be in charge of” of the newly empaneled grand juries “to investigate Crossfire Hurricane and the Mar-a-Lago raid conspiracy,” Posobiec posted. “Can Forand be trusted to fairly investigate the Biden regime and Jack Smith if he’s friends with them and donates thousands of dollars to them?”
About two hours after Reding Quiñones emailed out the new leadership structure, Posobiec referenced his earlier Forand criticism in a new post to his 3.2 million followers: “UPDATE: Hearing good things on this.”
Forand, who former colleagues say has operated as a nonpartisan prosecutor willing to implement any administration’s objectives, had previously been removed from an office directly outside of Reding Quiñones’ executive suite to a different part of the building, three people said.
That office space is now occupied by a newly hired chief of staff to the US attorney—an unusual position under any top prosecutor. That chief of staff, Jim Poland, is an FBI agent on detail, who’s overseeing the office’s “non-litigation and administrative functions,” Reding Quiñones wrote to staff Nov. 3.
As his team lays the groundwork for the January grand jury, Reding Quiñones has been taking extra precautions in warning staff about keeping office business confidential.
Late last month, Reding Quiñones messaged all employees—flagged with a red high-priority notice—to remind them about DOJ rules forbidding unauthorized communications with the press, according to a copy of the note obtained by Bloomberg Law.
The two resigning assistant US attorneys—one a registered Republican and the other a military veteran—were both considered promising prosecutors inside the office, said three people.
Trump Adviser
The Miami office’s preparations come as Mike Davis, an influential Trump legal adviser, has called for his friend, Reding Quiñones, to investigate what he’s termed “lawfare Democrats” under a Reconstruction-era “conspiracy against rights” statute designed to combat the Ku Klux Klan.
“For the last three-and-a-half years since the Mar-a-Lago raid I have very publicly called for a grand jury in Fort Pierce,” Davis told Bloomberg Law on Thursday. He added, “I hope my very good friend Jason Reding Quiñones” will hold them accountable for the “Russian collusion hoax” and the “Mar-a-Lago raid.”
Reding Quiñones was sworn into office in August, after serving as a state trial court judge in Miami-Dade County.
He’s pushed the South Florida district—one of the largest and most historically significant US attorney’s offices in the country—closer to the president’s agenda. His mission statement includes the phrase “restore impartial justice.”
In an Oct. 29 Truth Social post, Trump singled out former officials such as Special Counsel Jack Smith and several members of his team, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and FBI Director Chris Wray as people who are “a disgrace to our Nation” and “should be investigated, immediately.”
MSNBC reported Thursday that Reding Quiñones’ office is also readying grand jury subpoenas for an investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan related to the 2017 intelligence assessment about Russian election interference.
Fort Pierce, which is more than a two hour drive north of Miami, offers a majority conservative jury pool and a small courthouse with only one district court judge. That jurist, Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon, issued several ruling favorable to the then-former president while presiding over his classified documents case.
(Updated with reporting on two prosecutor resignations.)
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Penn in Washington at bpenn@bloomberglaw.com
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Seth Stern at sstern@bloomberglaw.com; Rob Tricchinelli at rtricchinelli@bloombergindustry.com
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ABC
A key Trump ally says a federal grand jury has been empaneled in Florida that will begin meeting in January to investigate what he calls a decade-long conspiracy against President Donald Trump.
In a series of interviews with conservative podcasters over the last week, conservative attorney Mike Davis -- a close friend and informal adviser to Attorney General Pam Bondi and other top Trump administration officials -- has claimed that the grand jury will consider whether to bring criminal charges against top Democratic figures that Davis claims have colluded over the last decade to impede Trump, beginning with the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election through the criminal cases against the president.
The Federalist Society's Mike Davis speaks with Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt at the CPAC DC conference at the Gaylord National Resort in Oxon Hill, MD on Thursday, 20, 2025. (
"I've been publicly calling for this for three years. I'm going to make damn sure that these lawfare Democrats go to prison during the four years of President Trump's second term," _{{Davis told}_}_{ }_conservative commentator Benny Johnson on Friday.
While Davis does not hold a government position, _{{court documents}_}_{ }_confirm that a federal judge last month ordered a grand jury to be empaneled in Fort Pierce, Florida, beginning in January at the request of the Trump administration.
A representative of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the purpose of the grand jury.
A conservative lawyer who helped shepherd Trump's nominees through the Supreme Court confirmation process, Davis now runs the Article III Project, an organization that describes itself as devoted to helping "fight leftist lawfare to defend the rule of law."
Trump has recently called for the prosecution of some of the same officials accused by Davis of using lawfare to target him.
"They cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election," Trump wrote on social media Saturday. "These Radical Left Lunatics should be prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior!"
Trump has not yet commented on Davis' remarks on the conservative podcasts.
In an interview on "The Charlie Kirk Show," Davis said his "buddy" Jason Quiñones -- the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida -- moved to empanel the grand jury after Davis "pushed very hard" to investigate what he says is a conspiracy against Trump.
Davis has suggested that top officials, including former Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, FBI Director Chris Wray and Special Counsel Jack Smith should be compelled to testify before the grand jury to answer questions about what Davis says is the politicized use of the legal system.
Quiñones and representatives from the Southern District of Florida did not immediately respond to ABC News' requests for comment.
Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason A. Reding Quinones speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Attorney's Office on August 25, 2025 in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough in New York City.
Davis has argued that the former Biden administration officials and others violated a section of federal law, known as 18 U.S.C. § 241, by conspiring to interfere with federally protected rights.
### House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan calls on Jack Smith to testify over Trump investigations
Created in response to a surge in violence during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, the law has historically been used to protect the civil rights of Black Americans, though prosecutors have expanded it to apply to broader election-related and police-misconduct offenses.
Notably, Trump was accused of violating the statute after he allegedly sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election, though the case was dismissed after he won the 2024 election.
Davis claims that a wide array of actions -- including the FBI's investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection -- were coordinated efforts by Democrats to impede and ultimately imprison Trump.
Davis also argues the criminal and civil cases against Trump, purported issues with Trump's Secret Service protection ahead of two assassination attempts last year and the efforts to remove Trump from the ballot in 2024 could also be violations of federal law.
"They took the country to the break. They tried to bankrupt Trump for non-fraud. They tried to throw him in prison four times for non-crimes. They tried to take him off the ballot in Colorado and made it elsewhere unconstitutionally. They tried to take off his head when Joe Biden underfunded Trump's Secret Service protection, said he was the biggest threat to democracy and to put a bull's eye on Trump," Davis said on Friday on the Johnson podcast.
With some Republican senators now raising concerns over the scope of the federal investigation of the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election -- including the subpoenaing of phone records of multiple senators -- Davis has argued he has enough support to carry out a sweeping investigation.
[:{The Alto Lee Adams Sr. United States Courthouse where U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon scheduled former President Donald Trump's trial to begin Aug. 14 in her courtroom on June 20, 2023 in Fort Pierce, Florida.
"There's now a special grand jury that Jason [Quiñones] just motioned the court and the Southern District of Florida to open in Fort Pierce. That's going to be empaneled in January. I think that sounds like a great place to open up this grand jury on Crossfire Hurricane and against these lawfare Democrats," Davis said Friday.
The setting for the grand jury in Fort Pierce's federal courthouse is a familiar one for Trump and his allies -- it's the same courthouse where he attended multiple hearings in his criminal case for allegedly retaining classified documents and obstructing justice. Davis claims the classified documents case,which was dismissed by a federal judge before the 2024 election, is part of the conspiracy against Trump as well.
"As I promised and as I will deliver, justice is definitely coming," Davis said Friday on Johnson's podcast.
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an 1`0 25
'Stop reproducing': Republicans 'can’t seem to decide' how to treat hungry voters
With President Donald Trump proclaiming on Friday that “I do NOT want Americans to go hungry,” it appears that Trump’s Republican Party is indeed the party of the people.
But MSNBC producer Ja’han Jones said don’t be fooled. This is just one empathetic proclamation from one person at one particular moment. There’s still a whole party saying something else.
“Democrats have been in virtual lockstep in their support for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and the need to continue aid to its beneficiaries, which include millions of children and working-class Americans,” said Jones. “Republicans, on the other hand, can’t seem to decide whether their message should be that SNAP recipients are the [Democrats’] victims of a shutdown …, or that they are lazy grifters finally getting the harsh wakeup call they deserve.”
The Trump administration may post messages cooing over “mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us” falling victim to Democrats’ stubbornness, but the administration’s “performative compassion hasn’t been embraced across the Republican Party or among conservative influencers,” said Jones.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) ranted about “a lot of young men on SNAP that should be working,” despite data showing “39% of SNAP participants were children, 20% were elderly, and 10% were nonelderly individuals with a disability,” in 2023, and additional federal data confirming that millions of SNAP recipients are already working full time.
U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, (R-La.) posted on X that SNAP beneficiaries should have been stocking up for the shutdown in advance — so it’s on them.
“Any American who has been receiving $4,200 per year of free groceries and does NOT have at least 1 month of groceries stocked should never again receive SNAP, because wow, stop smoking crack,” Higgins said.
Jones said MAGA influencers are even more judgmental, with Trump ally Mike Davis, “who previously clerked for Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch and assisted Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh during their confirmation hearings” saying in a social media post that “it’s outrageous 40MM people get food stamps.”
“Get off your fat, ghetto a——,” wrote Davis. “Get a job. Stop reproducing. Change your s—— culture.”
Politifact debunked the argument, promoted by people like Davis, falsely claiming the bulk of SNAP benefits go to non-white people and immigrants, but that doesn’t stop MAGA types like Conservative podcaster Adam Carolla from blithely suggesting that “nobody could benefit from a nice fast more than the SNAP recipients.”
“While some conservatives want to use the potential of SNAP recipients going hungry as a cudgel to force Democrats to give up their demands and end the government shutdown, that messaging is being clouded by more vocal conservatives who seem perfectly fine with — if not giddy about — the suffering of SNAP recipients, said Jones.
Jones added that, so far, the public does not appear to be buying Trump’s sympathetic act over the braying of his fellow Republicans. Recent polling data shows that a plurality of the country blames Republicans, not Democrats, for the shutdown.
Read the MSNBC report at this link.
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piling on attack of rogue judges? 3/25
// context
an 3 25
One of the most famous lines of Donald Trump's 2024 campaign was "I am your retribution." That line wasn't aimed at swing voters — some of whom were drawn to Trump's economic messaging and were frustrated over inflation — but at hardcore MAGA base voters who had voted for him in 2016 and 2020.
Hardcore MAGA Republicans applauded Trump's message of revenge against political enemies — a theme he continued to embrace after returning to the White House on January 20.
In an article published on March 21, Axios' Zachary Basu details the ways in which Trump — now two months into his second presidency — is trying to get back at those he considers political enemies.
READ MORE: Trump official urging Fox viewers to buy Tesla stock decried as 'abuse of power'
"In the final days of the 2024 campaign," Basu explains, "Axios identified a list of perceived adversaries who fit what Trump ominously described as 'the enemies from within.' As president, he has taken steps to retaliate against virtually all of them…. Trump has revoked security clearances from former President (Joe) Biden, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco."
Basu continues, "The FBI is investigating the Biden Administration's handling of an EPA grant program, after a senior (Department of Justice) official resigned rather than pursue a criminal inquiry that she believed was baseless.… On Monday, (March 17), Trump announced he was terminating Secret Service protection for Biden's son and daughter, Hunter and Ashley, 'effective immediately.'"
The Axios reporter notes that some of Trump's targets are Republicans who served in his first administration. For example, Trump removed U.S. Secret Service protection for former National Security Director John Bolton and ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (who is also a former CIA director) despite threats against them from Iran.
"Trump despises his former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, (Gen. Mark Milley), who called the president 'fascist to the core' in 2023," Basu observes. "Trump yanked both his security clearance and personal security detail…. Trump claimed, this week, that Biden's preemptive pardons of (former Rep. Liz) Cheney and other members of the January 6 Committee are 'void' because of Biden's alleged use of an autopen."
READ MORE:'Red flag': Alarm as judges face threats of violence after ruling against Trump
Trump, Basu adds, also "stripped security clearances from New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in retaliation for their investigations into his business practices" and "fired and demoted federal prosecutors and FBI officials involved in the investigation of the January 6 riot, while pardoning thousands of his supporters who were convicted for breaking into the Capitol."
"Trump's plans to accelerate his grudge tour were laid bare in an extraordinary speech last week at the Justice Department, in which he falsely referred to himself as 'the chief law enforcement officer in the country," Basu writes. "That's actually his attorney general, Pam Bondi. Addressing an agency that has long prided itself on its independence, Trump attacked his political enemies as "scum" and called for them to be jailed."
READ MORE:'Clear and present danger': Experts alarmed at 'insanity' of Musk getting secret war plans
*Read the full Axios article at this link.
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mma
Mike Davis to Steve Bannon: “It'd be a great way to get rid of these mayors in these Democrat hell holes is just charge them with federal felonies”
01/08/25
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an 12 24
In March, about 100 gathered in Judge James Wynn Jr.’s hometown of Robersonville to throw him a surprise retirement party.
Nine months later, Wynn revealed his own surprise: he’s not giving up his seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals after all.
In a letter Wynn, 70, wrote to President Joe Biden Friday that was released the following afternoon by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — who rebuked the judge’s decision — he rescinded his January announcement that he would assume senior status, a form of semi-retirement where federal judges hear a reduced caseload and vacate their permanent seat on the court.
“I write to advise that, after careful consideration, I have decided to continue in regular active service as a United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit,” Wynn wrote. “I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused.”
Wynn’s decision to remain in active service is the culmination of a monthslong drama over his seat on the bench. Biden named North Carolina Solicitor General Ryan Park as his choice to succeed Wynn, an Obama appointee, in July — and was immediately met with strident opposition from North Carolina Senators Tillis and Ted Budd.
“This nomination is a non-starter and the White House has already been informed they do not have the votes for confirmation,” the senators wrote in a joint statement at the time. “We still hope to work together to find a consensus nominee who can earn bipartisan support and be confirmed.”
The results in the Senate backed up that threat. In a deal to advance a slate of district court nominees, the Biden administration raised the white flag on his four remaining circuit court nominees, all of whom were said to lack the votes for confirmation. Park formally withdrew himself from consideration Thursday, and the following day, Wynn announced his reversal.
Tillis called Wynn’s decision “brazenly partisan” and a “slap in the face to the U.S. Senate” after the deal to hold the seat for Trump to fill. He urged the Senate Judiciary Committee — set to be controlled by Republicans beginning in January — to hold a hearing on the matter.
Carl Tobias, an expert on the federal judiciary who teaches at the University of Richmond, said he was not surprised by Wynn’s decision given the politicized process that prevented Park’s confirmation — Tobias had called Park an “extraordinary nominee” and a “consummate lawyer.”
“Judge Wynn certainly can retract his decision, and he’s done that, and I think partly due to what happened during the confirmation process for his successor,” Tobias said. “Article III judges are independent and they do whatever they need to do.”
The reversal denies Trump the opportunity to name what would have been his fourth appointee to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in a second term where he looks set to reshape the federal courts that cover North Carolina. The court has a roster of 15 active status judges, plus three who are on senior status. Wynn is the second federal judge from the state to “unretire” in the wake of the 2024 election, after Judge Max Cogburn Jr. for the Western District of North Carolina did the same in November.
Since that decision, Cogburn has been the subject of ethics complaints calling into question his integrity and impartiality. The conservative Article III Project submitted a letter to the Fourth Circuit alleging that Cogburn’s decision violated Canons 2 and 5 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges — which require upholding impartiality and avoiding political activity, respectively.
Such complaints are certain to follow for Wynn from judicial activists on the right. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said prior to his announcement that should any circuit judge go back on their decision to take senior status, that would warrant “significant ethics complaints.”
“Never before has a circuit judge unretired after a presidential election. It’s literally unprecedented,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “As I have repeatedly warned the judiciary in other matters, if you play political games, expect political prizes.”
Xiao Wang, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who has studied retirements in the federal judiciary, said the precedent Wynn has set could pose challenges to future deals like the one to advance several Biden district court nominees. He said it may also encourage conservative judges to take senior status decisions that appear political, particularly as Trump takes office and seeks to fill as many vacancies as possible.
Wynn is not the first circuit judge to go back on a planned retirement. Judge Robert King, a Clinton appointee who serves with Wynn on the Fourth Circuit, also rescinded his plans to take senior status after Biden opted not to name his preferred successor. Judge Michael Kanne, a Reagan appointee who served on the Seventh Circuit, did the same for similar reasons.
With Wynn choosing to remain on the bench, judicial observers are turning their attention to Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch, 71, who serves on the Sixth Circuit and like Wynn, announced plans to take senior status only to see her planned successor, a former clerk of hers, fail to get a vote in the Senate.
Wang said the backlash to Wynn’s decision, including the ethics complaints he is expected to receive, could serve as a deterrent to other judges considering the same.
“The first one certainly makes it possible that there could be a second one,” Wang said. “Just depending on what the reaction is and if there are any consequences for this.”
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an 12 24
During a late November interview with The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell, attorney and NeverTrump conservative George Conway predicted that many GOP senators, in 2025, will be too "spineless" to reject Donald Trump's most "appalling" nominees. Conway, however, noted that Republicans will have only a small U.S. Senate majority next year, and that Trump's nominees could "go down" if a handful of GOP senators have enough of a "spine" to reject them.}:
Trump's MAGA allies, according to Conway and other Trump critics, won't hesitate to threaten and bully Senate Republicans who refuse to confirm his more controversial nominees.
MAGA Republicans often threaten members of their party with primary challenges if they stand up to the president-elect. And far-right MAGA attorney Mike Davis, during an interview for Politico's Playbook column, threatened non-compliant Senate Republicans withanother tactic: hiring private investigators to probe their backgrounds.
READ MORE:'Appalling': George Conway has a prediction about 'spineless' GOP senators
Politico's Adam Wren, in a Playbook column published on December 8, reports that Davis is "mobilizing his Article III Project to become the tip of the spear in building pressure from the base on Republican senators to confirm" former Fox News host Pete Hegseth (Trump's pick for defense secretary).
Davis told Politico, "The Article III Project is very excited about this new standard that drinking and womanizing is disqualifying for public office. I'm very happy to hire investigators for senators and use that standard."
Davis has never shied away from violent or inflammatory rhetoric.
In a November 6 post on X, formerly Twitter, the attorney said of Democrats, "Here's my current mood: I want to drag their dead political bodies through the streets, burn them, and throw them off the wall. (Legally, politically, and financially, of course."
READ MORE:'Palpable shift': MAGA 'pressure' campaign may save Trump’s embattled defense nominee
*Read Adam Wren's full Politico Playbook column at this link
ref
...PETE’S DRAGON — PETE HEGSETH’s week started on shaky ground, but it’s ending on firmer terrain.
This morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” President-elect DONALD TRUMPdefended his embattled pick to lead the Pentagon. Asked by moderator Kristen Welker whether he still has confidence in Hegseth, Trump said, “Yes I do. He’s a very smart guy. I’ve known him through Fox, but I’ve known him for a very long time. And he’s basically a military guy.” Trump added that he’s “had a lot of senators call me up saying he’s fantastic.” Asked if he is concerned about Hegseth’s drinking: “I’ve spoken to people who know him very well, and they say he does not have a drinking problem.” Video from “Meet the Press”
That came on the heels of Sen. JONI ERNST(R-Iowa) posting on X Friday that she wants to give Hegseth a “fair hearing.” That may sound unremarkable, but it’s a reminder of something that is: No Republican — not even Ernst — is yet willing to publicly and explicitly oppose his nomination.
Now, a new pressure campaignaims to keep it that way.
MIKE DAVIS —the former top Senate GOP aide who is perhaps Trump’s fiercest legal defender — is something of an outside adviser on the transition. And he’s mobilizing his Article III Project to become the tip of the spear in building pressure from the base on Republican senators to confirm Hegseth.
In recent days, after a blitz of appearances on conservative media, Davis has driven tens of thousands of phone calls, emails and social posts targeting senators on not only Hegseth’s nomination, but also that of would-be FBI director KASH PATEL’s.:{:{}:
In numbers shared first with POLITICO, as of last night, Davis marshalled 3,481 advocates for Hegseth (people who have seen his media appearances on conservative outlets and gone to Article III’s action page), driving what he says are 9,377 “connections” with senators. Meanwhile, for Patel, he generated 8,059 advocates and delivered 23,729 connections.}:
But that’s cornhole compared to what Davis is promising next.
The Iowan is amping up his rhetoric— and the stakes — around Trump’s cabinet picks to the point where he’s questioning whether senators operate with a moral double standard. Earlier this week, he posted to X: “Let’s get this straight: Pete Hegseth used to drink too much and couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. He’d make a great senator.”
In an interview with Playbook, Davis went further, threatening to hire private investigators to sift through the backgrounds of any potential Senate GOP holdouts.
“The Article III projectis very excited about this new standard that drinking and womanizing is disqualifying for public office,” Davis tells Playbook. “I’m very happy to hire investigators for senators and use that standard.”
HOW WE GOT HERE: However you feel about Davis’ tactics, it’s impossible not to see them as the outgrowth of Supreme Court Justice BRETT KAVANAUGH’s 2018 confirmation process.
In that battle, Republicans effectively “made it the rule” that the accuser must (a)come forward publicly and (b)bear the burden of proof, says Davis.
Now, Hegseth’s team is calling that same play.
On Thursday night, Hegseth’s attorney, TIM PARLATORE, practically dared his client’s accuser to share her story (he said she is not barred by an NDA after accusing Hegseth of rape in 2017, though also said if she publicly makes the accusation, he’ll sue her for defamation).
It’s a sign of a post-Kavanaugh standard.“In order to disqualify a qualified cabinet nominee, you have to come forward,” Davis tells Playbook. “The burden is on the accuser to come forward with clear and convincing evidence that they’re not fit for the current job based upon their prior misconduct. It has to be testimony and not innuendo. It has to be testimony, not anonymous sources.”
Adds Davis, ‘You make an allegation, and then Kavanaugh is guilty until he proves his innocence? I said, ‘Fuck that. We’re gonna do the American presumption of innocence.’”
Davis, interestingly, made no effort todefend Hegseth on the merits, particularly on the alleged rape that took place in 2017 — which Hegseth has denied. “We’re not solving crimes,” Davis says. “We’re not canonizing saints during this process. It’s, ‘Do they have the current character and fitness to serve?’”
Few GOP insiders are better equipped to force the argument for Hegseth. After being radicalized by the Kavanaugh confirmation fight, Davis launched the Article III Project, his brass knuckles advocacy group. And he is newly confident — predicting publicly and telling Trump in private — that Hegseth will get confirmed.
He’s not the only one thinking that way on account of the post-Kavanaugh standard and Davis’ new pressure tactics.
STEVE BANNON, speaking on his podcast “The War Room,” said that this technique is already working. “You saw with [withdrawn AG nominee MATT] GAETZ, I said, ‘Stick it out — by Christmas, he’d be drawing fire and they’d be freaking out. You wouldn’t hear Pete’s name. Kash would glide in.’ Fast-tracking works — flood the zone, overwhelm the system. It’s info warfare. … You’ve got to fight back.”
Davis is vowing to do exactly that. Trump, Davis told Playbook, “doesn’t need to fight this, because I’m going to do it for him.”
Is this just Davis’ trademark bluster? Will he actually follow through and hire private investigators to dig into GOP senators’ backgrounds? “Fuck yes I will,” he says.
Good Sunday morning.Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop me a line at awren@politico.com.....
---
an 12 24
A former Republican staffer who has made headlines for his social media comments — and was once rumored to be on President-elect Donald Trump's list for attorney general — delivered another threat on Monday evening, this time to former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).
Cheney, a vocal critic of Trump, said in a statement Monday that Trump's suggestion that she and other members of the Jan. 6 committee see jail time "is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law."
"Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power," Cheney said in a statement obtained by Fox News. "He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave."
Cheney later hit back at Trump’s claims the committee destroyed evidence, calling his statement "ridiculous and false."
"There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting – a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee – and any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct," Cheney said.
Her statement caught the attention of right-wing allies on social media, including MAGA attorney Mike Davis, who served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and was the chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee under Chairman Chuck Grassley during the Trump administration. He played a significant role in the confirmation processes of several federal judges, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
"Try it, @LizCheney. When we sue your a-- into the ground, your daddy won’t be able to save you," he wrote Monday night.
Davis also reposted other MAGA accounts accusing her of suppressing evidence in the Jan. 6 probe.
---
AN 11 24
//
Donald Trump is the first president-elect in U.S. history to win an election while awaiting sentencing on 34 criminal counts.
It remains to be seen what type of sentence Justice Juan Merchan will impose if the sentencing goes ahead as scheduled in late November. Meanwhile, special counsel Jack Smith's two federal cases against Trump were doomed when Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris on Election Night 2024. And Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' election interference/RICO case against Trump and a long list of allies remains in limbo.
During a Thursday, November 7 broadcast of Fox News' "The Five," two of the hosts — Greg Gutfield and Dana Perino — called for "the death penalty" for Trump's prosecutors.
READ MORE:**'Listen here, sweetheart': Possible Trump AG pick threatens NY’s Letitia James with 'prison'**
Gutfield mockingly told his colleagues, "A lot of the people that were on this and wanted it so badly, how are they going to survive? Do you think they need therapy?”
Perino responded, "Yes, they definitely need therapy, and maybe also the death penalty."
Gutfield agreed, saying, "Yes, I think the death penalty."
Some legal experts are recommending that Smith write final reports on both of his cases against Trump, putting them to rest before Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2025.
READ MORE:[Path forward' to Democrats winning may come sooner than you think: analysis
The Daily Beast's Grace Harrington points out that Trump, as president, will have the ability to parDon federal charges but not charges at the state level.
"There are currently ongoing state cases against him in New York, for giving hush money to a porn star, and in Georgia for election interference," Harrington notes. "Trump cannot pardon himself for state crimes. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting Trump's case in Georgia, just won reelection."
READ MORE:[How Garland’s 'truly historic legal missteps' let Trump dodge accountability
Watch the Fox News video and read Grace Harrington's Daily Beast article[at this link.
an 11 24
Having enjoyed a decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris on Election Night 2024, President-elect Donald Trump and his MAGA allies are now in the process of putting together a new administration. The fact that Republicans flipped the U.S. Senate will make it easier for Trump's Cabinet picks to be confirmed.
It remains to be seen who Trump will nominate for U.S. attorney general. Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee who dismissed special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents case, is being mentioned as a possibility.
Another is MAGA lawyer Mike Davis, who called for retaliation against Democrats following Trump's victory.
READ MORE:Kamala Harris concedes with powerful message: Only when it’s darkest can you see stars
In a November 6 post on X, formerly Twitter, Davis wrote, "Here's my current mood: I want to drag their dead political bodies through the streets, burn them, and throw them off the wall. (Legally, politically, and financially, of course.)."
In a separate tweet, Davis blamed Democrats for the assassination attempts Trump survived during his 2024 campaign.
Davis tweeted, "F*** unity. We have the votes. And they tried to kill Trump."
GOP fundraiser Caroline Wren, in a recent interview with Politico, predicted that Trump would use Davis in some capacity if he won the election.
:{READ MORE:'Scared and stressed': Robert Reich details game plan for surviving Trump 2.0
Wren told Politico, "If he isn't the attorney general, he's going to play some sort of role."
The Independent's Rhian Lubin notes, "Davis is one of Trump's biggest defenders on social media and has said he would help the president-elect 'appoint even more bold and fearless judges' in his second term. He also praised Trump for 'transforming' the Supreme Court. Prior to his inflammatory post on X, Davis has come under fire for other controversial 'jokes' about the press, for threatening to 'cage children' and for vowing to throw rivals in 'the gulag.'"
===
YouTube let right-wing figures undermine the 2024 election results even before any votes were cast
Media Matters found at least 22 right-wing channels on YouTube that pushed election misinformation from May through August, such as baselessly claiming the 2024 contest would be “rigged” against Trump
Written by Payton Armstrong, Jack Winstanley, Noah Dowe, Ben Van Bloem & Kayla Gogarty
Published 10/31/24 mma
After rolling back its election misinformation policy last year, YouTube allowed right-wing media figures to undermine confidence in the 2024 election results even before any votes were cast, with streamers asserting that “the only way this election can be won from the left is if it's stolen,” suggesting that “illegal ballots” might be “slipped in” in Pennsylvania, and claiming that Democrats are trying “to rig and steal the election” including with an “illegal alien push.”
In December 2020, after states certified their election results, YouTube began removing content with false claims that widespread fraud had changed the outcome of the election, but the platform reversed that policy in June 2023, saying that it would “stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US Presidential elections.” (The decision was cheered by right-wing media.)
Over the last year, right-wing creators have exploited YouTube’s policy rollback, especially in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election. In July, for instance, Media Matters reported that after becoming co-chair of the Republican National Committee in March, Lara Trump repeatedly engaged in election denial on her show that streams on YouTube.
Right-wing podcaster Steven Crowder even acknowledged the policy change during an August stream on the platform, saying, “Here’s another way that they try to steal this election from you. And we’re allowed to say that on YouTube now, which is great.”
New Media Matters study finds hundreds of videos on YouTube with election misinformation
In a new study, Media Matters reviewed YouTube content streamed or uploaded between May 1 and August 31 by 30 right-wing channels or channels that hosted notable right-wing figures. We found 286 videos — totaling at least 44 million views and including at least 93 monetized videos — that contained misinformation about the 2020, 2022, and/or 2024 elections.
According to our study, former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was the most prolific election misinformer, accounting for 77 of the 286 videos, and right-wing streamer Benny Johnson had the most videos that we observed with preroll ads.
We found that in the two months after WABC canceled Giuliani’s radio shows (May 10 through July 12), he relentlessly claimed on YouTube that the 2020 election was “stolen” and Democrats were “going to cheat” in the 2024 election. More details on these findings can be found here.
We also found Johnson pushed election misinformation in dozens of monetized YouTube videos from May through August. These videos — which each included preroll ads, paid promotions, and/or Super Chats — have earned millions of views. More details on these findings can be found here.
## On YouTube, right-wing figures are priming their audiences to doubt the 2024 election results if Trump loses
In the months leading up to the 2024 election, conservative media figures on YouTube have feverishly prepared their audiences to doubt any result other than a Trump victory. Among the 30 channels we examined, we found at least 22 channels that have echoed false claims about the 2024 election, totaling at least 115 videos.
These claims included that the election process is “rigged” against Trump, that the legal cases against him constitute “election interference,” that Democrats want and are enabling noncitizens to vote in order to win the election, and that Kamala Harris was “illegally installed” as the Democratic nominee in a “coup” against Joe Biden.
## Right-wing figures portrayed the election process as “rigged” against Trump
Ahead of the 2024 election, right-wing figures on YouTube have repeatedly suggested that the election will be “compromised” and Democrats will “cheat” and “resort to electoral dirty tricks,” including the use of alleged “illegal ballots.” Some figures, like Rudy Giuliani, have even continued to parrot baseless or debunked claims that the 2020 election was “fixed” and full of “outright cheating,” suggesting that “the fraud in the 2020 election has to be addressed if you don't want it to repeat itself in 2024.”
Some examples Media Matters identified include:
Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Jeremy Carl said he hoped Trump “takes no prisoners” because of “this system just being completely rigged against him in the context of the election and everything that’s going on.” On an episode of American Moment’s Moment of Truth podcast, Carl said, “We're going to have to do some incredibly forward things legally. We're going to need brave attorneys to say, ‘Yep, I’m good with that, that’s legal.’” YouTube, [5/13/24]
Salem Media’s Eric Metaxas said it was “very clear to me [the left] stole the last election.” Metaxas continued, “We need to be clear about this, that this is a wicked thing, and that they don't need to poll well if they know how to cheat, if they know how to game the system.” YouTube, [6/3/24]
Conservative streamer Benny Johnson suggested Democrats are “paying for votes with packs of cigarettes and welfare cards.” Johnson continued, “This is why I love the ‘too big to rig, too big to rig’ nomenclature of the Trump campaign this time around.” YouTube, [6/20/24]
Video
Share
CitationFrom the June 20, 2024, video streamed on YouTube by Benny Johnson
Johnson also complained in June that Democrats can win Illinois only because the “hellscape city” of Chicago is a “rigged system.” Johnson: “There's your rigged system right there. How many of those people are actually voting, right? … How many of those people knew that they voted?” YouTube, [6/7/24]
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld suggested Democrats would “resort to electoral dirty tricks” with “the votes, legal or illegal,” admitting that he had “very little evidence on that, but that hasn’t stopped me before.” Co-host Jesse Watters added, “We have to win so big you can't rig.” YouTube, [5/13/24]
The Gateway Pundit’s Jordan Conradson interviewed a Trump rally attendee who implied “dead people voted for Biden” in 2020 and claimed Democrats “let all these migrants in to vote.” After Conradson suggested that “illegal immigrants flooding across the border” were “probably going to vote in this next election,” the interviewee responded, “They’re trying to get the Democratic vote, but it’s not going to work.” YouTube, [5/23/24]
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton argued “the 2024 election has already been compromised” and announced plans by his organization to sue states in order to “overcome the election rigging.” In a speech delivered at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference, Fitton — who has repeatedly attempted to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 election with baseless allegations of voter fraud tied to Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines — decried “counting votes of ballots that arrive after election day” and said the practice was “illegal.” YouTube, [6/26/24; Media Matters, 2/25/21]
* Donald Trump Jr.: “Democrats to me today could show up on the evening of November 5 with five billion ballots … and with a straight face, tell us it was a landslide in the freest and fairest election in the history of the world.” In an interview conducted at the Republican National Convention, Trump Jr. argued “there’s nothing they won’t do.” YouTube, [7/18/24]
Conservative attorney Harmeet Dhillon called on Republicans to “overwhelm the margin of chicanery, shenanigans, and even outright cheating that the Democrats did in 2020.” Dhillon, who leads Trump’s “election integrity” operation in Arizona, continued, “The Democrats are so confident of winning, they could put up any regime puppet and expect to win the election.” YouTube, [7/23/24; Axios, 10/9/24]
Video
CitationFrom a July 23, 2024, video uploaded to YouTube by Just the News
Fox host Mark Levin said Democrats “will do anything for votes — imprison Trump, steal elections.” Speaking on his radio show which is also uploaded on YouTube, Levin alleged that Democrats would “change the electoral process” to get more votes. YouTube, [5/7/24]
Daily Wire host Michael Knowles accused “libs” of “doing everything they can to rig the election against Trump.” While discussing a new variant of COVID-19, Knowles asked, “Are the libs once again going to use COVID to shut down at least our country and then change all the election rules and rig the election for Joe Biden — again? Are they going to do that? They’re going to try.” YouTube, [5/14/24]
Knowles also claimed that “elections are rigged all the time” and argued “the people who oppose paper ballots want to rig the elections.” After the Baltimore City Council discovered a discrepancy “during a routine double check of results” which led to an overcount of 590 votes in a local race, Knowles stated: “The people who oppose paper ballots want to rig the elections. They want the elections to be riggable.” YouTube, [5/22/24; The Baltimore Sun, 5/17/24]
PBD Podcast co-host Vincent Oshana fearmongered that Biden would institute martial law in order to “shut down the election if they can.” Oshana: “I think this is one of their tactics if their cheating doesn't work. … I know they're going to try to do it because, obviously, we're seeing Trump as the frontrunner. Without a shadow of a doubt he's going to win unless something nefarious happens.” YouTube, [7/9/24; Media Matters, 5/13/24]
On the PBD Podcast, podcaster Bret Weinstein said Democrats “cheat in every conceivable way” and called to “defeat them so decisively that we get past the cheat margin.” Weinstein also declared, “Frankly, I don’t trust them. They cheat in every conceivable way that we can see, right? … And the question is, how far does that go? Do we really believe the people who would cheat in every conceivable way that we can see won’t cheat in ways that we can’t see? I find that unlikely.” YouTube, [8/23/24]
In an apparent attack on the owner of WABC, who canceled Rudy Giuliani’s radio show in May, Giuliani suggested it's “more likely” Democrats “cheat in 2024” if “we are submitted to the dictate of John Catsimatidis.” Giuliani also asked, “Isn't it much more likely they won't cheat if their prior cheating is laid out and they end this protection they're getting for what they did in 2020, which nobody else would get other than crooked Biden Democrats?” YouTube, [5/13/24]
Giuliani called on his audience to watch his show on YouTube to “send a message to WABC that you want news that comes out about the 2020 election because it might help prevent cheating in the 2024 election.” Giuliani also listed supposed examples of fraud, including “news like 375,000 ballots are missing in Georgia, news like 3,000 ballots were discovered double-counted.” Notably, these claims have been debunked by elections officials, as well as news outlets. YouTube, [5/20/24; USA Today, 5/23/24; The Associated Press, 11/28/23]
Giuliani argued that “if we get cowered into not talking about the 2020 election, they're going to feel much more empowered to cheat heavily in 2024.” Giuliani went on to declare that Democrats are “going to cheat in 2024” because “Democrats have probably cheated in every election since Boss Tweed.” He added, “It's a crooked party; crooked parties cheat.” YouTube, [5/27/24]
Giuliani baselessly claimed that “the capacity for cheating is well known” in Arizona. The comments came as Giuliani celebrated that Trump was leading then-candidate Biden in Arizona polls. YouTube, [6/10/24]
Giuliani argued that “the fraud in the 2020 election has to be addressed if you don’t want it to repeat itself in 2024.” Giuliani added, “We can’t be stopped from talking about it, as, you know, they try to do with me.” YouTube, [6/12/24]
Giuliani baselessly claimed Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro “helped to steal the 2020 election.” Giuliani argued, “It’s Democrat crooked Philadelphia and Pittsburgh where the election was fixed.” YouTube, [7/22/24]
Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman argued Democrats have “been cheating every election … going back to 1960.” Goodman continued, “Every election we’ve won, we beat the cheat.” YouTube, [8/12/24]
Giuliani also said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had “already committed election fraud in the 2024 election … a continuation of what she did in 2020, in trying to fix the election of 2020.” Giuliani argued Benson had “already committed election fraud in the 2024 election with regard to taking Trump off the ballot,” even though Benson herself clearly articulated her opposition to such a measure in 2023. YouTube, [8/29/24; The Washington Post, 9/13/23]
Right-wing radio host Steve Deace said Democrats would be “dropping ballots” and “bussing people in … to keep the spigot going until they get what they want” on Election Day. Deace continued, “All they’re trying to do is make her credible enough so they can fortify this thing at the end here.” YouTube, [7/24/24]
Deace also alleged that the Democrats’ “game plan” is to get polls “within their narrative margin to justify cheating.” Deace explained, “Biden is not gone, OK, because they couldn't get the votes they wanted, but because no one was going to buy that he could get the votes that they got.” YouTube, [8/28/24]
Right-wing podcaster Steven Crowder: “The only way this election can be won from the left is if it's stolen.” He prefaced the claim by saying, “I don't care if we're not on YouTube anymore.” Crowder, who also streams on Rumble, was demonetized on YouTube in 2021, meaning he has seemingly been unable to earn ad revenue from his streams on the platform. YouTube, [7/18/24; The Nation, 7/11/23; The Verge, 3/30/21]
Video
CitationFrom a July 18, 2024, video streamed on YouTube by StevenCrowder
Crowder also announced plans to have “boots on the ground” on Election Day because “this already is election theft.” During the stream, Crowder called on viewers to “help out” if they are in any of several listed cities, stating that they would be “compensated.” YouTube, [8/12/24]
While promoting his Election Day plans, Crowder declared that “the steal is already taking place” and said he was “willing to bet that YouTube is going to suspend us.” Crowder also suggested that his “electoral integrity map” would mean “no more Arizonas, no more pipes bursting in the middle of the night with no substantiation and they change the story the next day.” YouTube, [8/14/24]
Lara Trump claimed that “as the co-chair” of the Republican National Committee, she was “well aware of all the ways that they are trying to sway the election and rig it in every single state.” Trump continued, “The problem is that the Democrats want to make it easier to cheat and harder to vote for people, and we’re trying to do the opposite.” YouTube, [6/4/24]
In another apparent attack on Democrats, Lara Trump declared: “We don't cheat at the ballot box. We don't do crazy things with drop boxes all over the country. We don't allow illegals to vote.” YouTube, [6/5/24]
On Tucker Carlson’s show, The Blaze’s Jason Whitlock accused California of “manipulat[ing] voting,” and Carlson claimed Kamala Harris “didn’t win any elections” and was “chosen by the unions in California and installed.” Carlson also said, “There is no democracy in California. It’s fake.” Whitlock added that “they have a system in place to manipulate voting and all that.” YouTube, [8/23/24]
## Right-wing figures called the multiple legal cases against Trump “election interference led by Joe Biden”
Several right-wing pundits made efforts to repeatedly claim that the legal cases against Trump are really “lawfare” or “election interference” intended to tarnish his image and overwhelm his supporters. Mike Davis, a conservative lawyer and frequent guest on Steve Bannon’s War Room, was especially prolific in blaming these cases directly on the supposed political strategy of Biden and other Democrats.
Trump has faced four criminal cases. In May, a jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records after the presentation of extensive dockets of evidence detailing many of his violations of New York law. In the federal election subversion case, special counsel Jack Smith recently released documents revealing some of the evidence against Trump. In the other cases, the evidence related to the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago has been well documented, and the Georgia indictment against Trump relied at least partially on public accounts of Trump asking Gov. Brian Kemp to “find 11,780 votes.”
Some examples Media Matters identified include:
Appearing on The Benny Show in May, Article III Project founder and Trump ally Mike Davis claimed that Trump’s criminal hush money trial was “obviously Democrat lawfare and election interference.” In another appearance, Davis promised “retribution” if Trump won in November, saying, “We are going to crush you after January 20, 2025, after what you've done. … There is absolutely going to be retribution.” YouTube, [5/13/24, 5/31/24]
During an interview uploaded to Article III Project’s YouTube page, Davis called for Trump to “ensure there are severe legal, financial, and political consequences to this Republic ending lawfare and election interference led by Joe Biden.” He later called for revenge for the legal cases against Trump and said “we need to give them retribution.” YouTube, [5/22/24, 7/3/24]
Video
CitationFrom a May 22, 2024, video uploaded to YouTube by The Article III Project
On YouTube, Davis repeatedly attacked the legal cases against Trump, many times asserting that they were “lawfare” and a form of “election interference.” On May 30, Davis complained: “This is lawfare, this is election interference, this is a criminal conspiracy to violate the … constitutional rights of Trump.” In another video, Davis also referenced the cases, criticizing “this Biden Democrat lawfare and election interference on many different fronts, the four criminal indictments” as a “house of cards.” YouTube, [5/30/24, 7/3/24]
Davis claimed prosecutions were “blatant lawfare and election interference.” He argued that the cases were “unconstitutional” and “part of the Democrats’ criminal conspiracy against President Trump.” In a later appearance, he said that Democrats had “crossed the Rubicon.” YouTube, [5/20/24, 6/7/24]
Davis criticized “unprecedented republic-ending lawfare and election interference by President Biden and his attorney general, Merrick Garland.” Davis again blamed Biden for having “brought our country to the brink with this republic-ending lawfare and election interference” in a later appearance. YouTube, [7/15/24, 7/17/24]
Davis also criticized Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing Trump’s hush money case, and directly accused him of election interference. “He set the sentencing hearing for like four days before the Republican National Convention starts,” Davis complained, calling it “obvious election interference by this judge — continued election interference by this judge.” In a later appearance, Davis called Merchan “the Forrest Gump of this Biden-Democrat lawfare against President Trump.” YouTube, [6/4/24, 6/10/24]
In one appearance, Davis called for Merchan, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and other “bad actors” to be arrested and charged with “criminal conspiracy,” calling the hush money case against Trump “blatant Biden-Democrat lawfare and election interference.” “Frankly, after January 20, 2025, the Trump 47 Justice Department should arrest and charge Judge Merchan and Alvin Bragg ... and all these bad actors, charge them with criminal conspiracy.” YouTube, [6/14/24]
Video
CitationFrom a June 14, 2024, video uploaded to YouTube by The Article III Project
Davis attacked DOJ officials and claimed they were supporting “republic-ending lawfare and election interference” and “political persecution.”He complained that “all of this unprecedented, republic-ending lawfare and election interference by President Biden and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, and their special counsel, Jack Smith, … this is political persecution.” Davis later said, “This is obviously election interference, continued Biden and Kamala lawfare,” claiming, “Jack Smith once again is ignoring the law.” YouTube, [7/15/24, 8/28/24]
On PBD Podcast, Tom Fitton declared that “the election already is compromised” because of Trump’s criminal trials. Fitton added, “If Trump loses, many people are rightly going to say, well, they had their thumb on the scale, so it's no surprise.” YouTube, [6/7/24; Media Matters, 5/13/24]
Trump campaign fundraiser and political adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle claimed the cases against Trump are simply “efforts to undermine election integrity.” Guilfoyle added that “all these people are working together in concert to try to undermine American elections, to try to defeat Donald Trump because they don't want to face him at the ballot box, and bankrolling these efforts — this lawfare against him.” YouTube, [5/9/24]
On NTD News, former Trump national security adviser Kash Patel said the guilty verdicts in Trump’s hush money trial are part of a “system of rigged election-interfering justice.” “And that is a loss for the world, not just America,” Patel said. “So we’ve got to get behind Donald Trump's movement, and make sure that we can fix this system of rigged, election-interfering justice.” YouTube, [5/30/24]
Just the News, No Noise host Amanda Head declared that the prosecutions against Trump were “election interference.” YouTube, [7/10/24]
Rudy Giuliani argued that Trump’s New York hush money trial was “a political prosecution intended for the purpose of rigging the 2024 election.” He also claimed “these are the kinds of verdicts that occur in dictatorships and Third World and banana republic governments.” YouTube, [5/30/24]
Giuliani directly attacked the courts and prosecutors in Trump’s cases, claiming that “they're working on a massive election interference conspiracy, and they're one part of it.” YouTube, [6/7/24]
Gateway Pundit host Elijah Schaffer claimed that the criminal prosecutions against Trump are “lawfare cases” and “the goal is to try to get him removed off the ballot or to put him in a place where he can't run — like, kill him.” YouTube, [6/6/24]
## Right-wing figures claimed that Democrats want — or are enabling — noncitizens to vote so they’ll win the election
Several right-wing media figures and outlets on YouTube peddled baseless claims that the Democratic Party is actively courting noncitizens and allowing them into the country for the purpose of ensuring a “permanent Democrat majority.” Many of these claims, including that Democrats are “fine with the possibility of voter fraud” or that they “just don't want a fair and free election,” were made during discussions of the SAVE Act, which is Republican-championed legislation aimed at making it illegal for noncitizens to vote, even though noncitizen voting is already illegal and extremely rare.
Some examples Media Matters identified include:
In a June 17 video, The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro suggested that Democrats who oppose the SAVE Act are “fine with the possibility of voter fraud.” Shapiro said: “Why Democrats would oppose this is absolutely beyond me. Unless they are very, very much fine with the possibility of people not actually showing ID to vote. Which suggests they are fine with the possibility of voter fraud.” YouTube, [6/17/24]
In a video posted in August, Shapiro characterized Democrats’ voting rights initiatives as “full-scale national ballot harvesting.” He stated, “So all of the talk about how, ‘No, don't worry. Illegal immigration, that's never going to be a matter of voting or demography or anything like that.’ Well, then why are Democrats so hellfire bent on actually amnesty-ing 10 to 15 million people? They've already said they're going to do this, by the way. This is their comprehensive immigration reform plan, a pathway to citizenship, by which they mean everybody here illegally gets citizenship in the hopes that they will all vote Democrat.” YouTube, [8/21/24]
Benny Johnson claimed opponents of the SAVE Act “want illegal criminal aliens to vote in our election.” YouTube, [7/11/24]
Johnson also claimed in a monetized video that “alarming numbers of people” should not be on voter rolls, including “criminal aliens.” Johnson speculated that “the steal is on to actually get people to deliver ballots, early ballots, and they're not American citizens,” and he asked Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump how she would “stop that.” YouTube, [8/19/24, 8/19/24]
Video
CitationFrom an August 19, 2024, video streamed on YouTube by Benny Johnson
In another stream, Johnson claimed that Democrats have a “goal of bringing in 30 million criminal aliens” in order to ensure a Democrat victory. Johnson claimed, “Joe Biden only ‘won’ the election by 40,000-some-odd votes. So if you bring in 30 million new people, you're gonna be able to really scrape off the top the margins that you need forever to beat Republicans forever. Right? And we've already seen this with Kamala Harris, fake crowds, fake support, fake election, fake influencers, and a fake campaign.” YouTube, [8/23/24]
Johnson also questioned why Biden and Harris haven’t “closed the border,” saying “it’s obvious” and that “they want to horse trade amnesty through Congress” to ultimately get “30 million new Democrat voters and a permanent Democrat majority forever.” Johnson described a supposed plan to “rachet up the social pressure, rachet up the pain for the actual citizens of the country, until people just give in” to amnesty and ultimately give Democrats 30 million new voters. YouTube, [8/30/24]
In an interview streamed on YouTube, Project 2025 adviser and former Trump personal aide John McEntee claimed that Democrats “definitely want” noncitizens to vote. McEntee said: “Democrats will say, ‘Well, illegals can't vote.’ Like, for sure some do and even if they don't know they are, people are filling out the ballots.” YouTube, [5/1/24; Media Matters, 2/16/24]
In an appearance on Fox News’ Hannity posted to YouTube, former Trump adviser Stephen Miller claimed that the Biden administration is making “a conscious choice to let illegal aliens vote.” YouTube, [7/11/24]
Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich claimed during an appearance on Hannity that was posted to YouTube that Harris wants “to have millions of immigrants come in illegally, vote illegally.” YouTube, [7/25/24]
In a video uploaded to Judicial Watch’s account, president Tom Fitton stated that “of course, they're [noncitizens] gonna be voting in elections.” Fitton said that “we have the issue of noncitizens voting — or the potential of noncitizens voting.” He also said that the law prevents it, “but there’s no check. … Of course they’re gonna be voting in elections.” He also called the current voter registration system “fraud waiting to happen,” adding that “that's one danger to our democracy with the presence of tens of millions of foreign nationals here in the United States.” YouTube, [5/15/24]
In another video, Fitton claimed that Democrats “want to make it easier for noncitizens to illegally vote in elections, generally, and they want, generally, noncitizens in principle to vote in all elections.” Fitton also claimed that votes from noncitizens are “essentially negating the votes of citizens.” YouTube, [7/17/24]
Fitton also stated during an appearance on Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria, which was uploaded to YouTube, that “the Democrat-controlled administration is knowingly offering the opportunity to vote to these illegal migrants.” Fitton added that, “if you're registered to vote, even a voter ID isn't gonna stop you from voting because many aliens, both illegal and legal, have the necessary documents to show their ID in order to vote. So the more people you have here who are noncitizens, because we have virtually no effective checks in place, the increased likelihood of them voting. And a major study showed about 80% of aliens who vote tend to vote Democrat.” YouTube, [7/29/24]
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On Just the News, No Noise, conservative lawyer and former assistant secretary of state Robert Charles, claimed that the Biden administration was “pulling illegals into this country as fast as they can pull them in, dispatching them at night to places like Portland, Maine, and middle of Montana, and trying to turn red states purple and then blue with these illegal votes.” Charles added, “The bottom line is: This is not just a random ‘might be’; this is a real thing. It is happening.” YouTube, [6/13/24]
Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform initiative and a Project 2025 contributor, claimed on Just the News, No Noise that “the evidence is clear” that noncitizens are voting. Von Spakovsky added, “It tells you something that, for example, on the alien voting issue, only five Democrats supported a bill to do something as simple as telling states: verify citizenship.” YouTube, [7/11/24; The Guardian, 7/10/24]
Video
CitationFrom a July 11, 2024, video streamed on YouTube by Just the News
Right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec called on Republicans to “start gumming up the works” with lawsuits because of potential “illegal ballots” from noncitizens in Pennsylvania. After Real America’s Voice host Brian Glenn fearmongered about “how many illegals are registered to vote in this election,” Posobiec said, “You need to start gumming up the works because there’s no question that if those illegal ballots are slipped in, once they come out of those envelopes, we know that it is going to be counted as a vote for Joe Biden or, excuse me, Kamala Harris.” YouTube, [7/31/24]
Article III Project founder Mike Davis, appearing on Just the News, No Noise, claimed that “the next thing they're going to do is they're going to try to rig and steal the election … by registering illegal immigrants and other noncitizens to vote and make it very hard to get those illegal immigrants and other noncitizens off the rolls before November 5.” YouTube, [8/17/24; Media Matters, 2/29/24]
The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles claimed that the Biden administration has “imported tens of millions of illegal aliens” in an attempt to “rig the elections.” Knowles claimed, “We've seen record numbers of them come into the country. They're rolling out the red carpet for them. They're releasing them into the country. They're flying them to the center of the country in some cases, into crucial areas. Why are they doing that? They're doing that to rig the elections.” He also suggested that, short of winning the election, Democrats are “doing that to increase the population in their own states because seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned not by the number of citizens but just by the number of people.” YouTube, [7/11/24]
On PBD Podcast, Christina Bobb, who is senior counsel to the Republican National Committee’s election integrity team, claimed that Democrats are making an “illegal alien push” to win the 2024 election. Bobb claimed, “We've got information that leads me to believe that they are trying to register a lot of these people coming across the border to vote in all 50 states.” She also suggested that this was being done to supplement the Democrats supposed election fraud practices from 2020, adding, “I don't think they're shying away from 2020 with the mail-in ballots and, you know, don't go to polls, mail everything in. They're trying to play the same game that they played in 2020, but it's not gonna be as effective, and it's not gonna have near the impact. So they're trying to supplement it.” YouTube, [6/3/24; The Washington Post, 4/26/24; Media Matters, 5/13/24]
In a June 4 video posted to YouTube, Giuliani baselessly suggested that there were “ineligible voters” on the rolls in Arizona in 2020 and 2022. Giuliani claimed that “people move and they stay registered there for 10, 12 years. Why? So the crooked Democratic Party can vote them, and they hook them up with a phony registration. And they did it enough to turn around the election of 2020 and get the electoral votes in Arizona.” YouTube, [6/4/24]
In a separate July 11 stream, Giuliani suggested that noncitizens would vote in the 2024 election and that some Democrats “believe that noncitizens should vote.” During a monetized stream, Giuliani said: “198 Democrats in the House of Representatives believe that noncitizens should vote in your elections, and you’re going to vote for them? What, do you belong to some other country? I would think, Republican or Democrat, we should all agree that in order to vote you got to have a stake in the country, which is citizen.” YouTube, [7/11/24, accessed 7/24/24]
During an episode of Louder with Crowder streamed on YouTube, Steven Crowder claimed that Biden “cannot deport these people because he depends on them for votes.” YouTube, [5/7/24; Mashable, 5/19/23]
Without evidence, Lara Trump suggested that Democrats “cheat at the ballot box,” “do crazy things with drop boxes,” and “allow illegals to vote.” YouTube, [6/5/24]
Video file
Video
CitationFrom a June 5, 2024, video uploaded to YouTube by The Right View with Lara Trump
Lara Trump pushed a conspiracy theory that Biden “is obviously banking on illegals voting in this election to get him over the line.” Echoing the white nationalist “great replacement” theory, Trump said it’s “pretty clear” that Biden is allowing migrants to cross the border to vote for him for president, adding, “That’s the whole goal.” YouTube, [5/1/24; Media Matters, 1/12/24]
On Timcast IRL, former Trump adviser Kash Patel claimed that Democrats are planning to “inject another rig job into an election by allowing, what is it, 10-plus million people so far. Half of them are getting voter IDs.” YouTube, [5/27/24]
In a segment of his show Tucker Carlson Uncensored posted to YouTube, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed that “foreigners” were “a brand-new electorate” for Democrats. Carlson added, “It's illegal, you say, for illegal aliens to vote in a federal election. Well, actually, it's not illegal, it turns out.” YouTube, [5/7/24]
Tucker Carlson, while interviewing Ben Carson, who served as secretary of housing and urban development under Trump, asked if “letting in tens of millions of people illegally” will impact the election, to which Carson responded, “That's the whole purpose of it.” Carlson also remarked that, “I don’t think we’re allowed to talk about voter fraud on YouTube, which tells you that it’s real.” YouTube, [7/25/24]
Video
CitationFrom a July 25, 2024, video uploaded to YouTube by Tucker Carlson
## Right-wing personalities said Harris is “illegitimate” as the Democratic nominee over Biden
Right-wing media figures claimed that Harris is not the legitimate Democratic nominee for president, often using this allegation to suggest that Democrats will “cheat” in the general election. Multiple election law experts have debunked this point — as Biden was not yet the official nominee, his decision to withdraw from the race weeks before he was expected to be nominated at the DNC “does not present any legal or constitutional problems,” according to PolitiFact.
Some examples Media Matters identified include:
Benny Johnson insisted that Democrats “cheated” by having Harris “illegally installed” as their presidential nominee, arguing: “They're hoping that the sugar high is enough to, like, get them within the margin of fraud, right? And then shenanigans.” YouTube, [8/13/24]
Johnson again claimed that “Democrats cheated” by nominating Harris, calling her “illegitimate.” “We have the candidate that actually has been elected, right?” Johnson said. “That's a real candidate. People actually voted for them. They didn't cheat — we didn't cheat with Trump. Democrats cheated. They knew they were going to lose, so they changed the player in spite of 15 million votes. It's illegitimate. Kamala Harris is illegitimate. Don’t care what you do, that’s the truth.” YouTube, [8/15/24]
Mark Levin claimed Democrats “stole the election from their own primary voters and they're going to install somebody who hasn't gotten a single delegate on her own.” YouTube, [7/22/24]
Louder with Crowder host Steven Crowder suggested Democrats had planned to “install somebody, coronate Kamala Harris even though she didn’t receive any votes,” and he insisted that Democrats would cheat in the election. Crowder said: “Biden's fine until the polls show Americans don't believe it. Cheat, install somebody, coronate Kamala Harris even though she didn't receive any votes. It's going to be the same thing right now. Lie, lie, lie, lie. ... And when it doesn't work, cheat. That's what they're going to do in the election.” YouTube, [8/30/24]
Tucker Carlson called Harris’ nomination a “coup” against Biden. Carlson said: “They just prosecuted a coup against a sitting supposedly elected president who got, like, several billion votes, they've told us for the past four years. And they just took him out because they didn't like his polling.” YouTube, [7/30/24]
===
===
[vid]
Article III Project founder Mike Davis lists judges and law enforcement officials Trump should investigate “on day one”
Davis also listed New York Judge Juan Merchan's daughter for retaliatory investigation
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 10/23/24
Video
CitationFrom the October 22, 2024 edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
MIKE DAVIS: I think this has the Democrats panicking and they’re trying to figure out who the hell I am, who the hell we are at the Article III Project and if we’re actually serious about putting these reporters in the gulag.
NATALIE WINTERS (CO-HOST): Well, I think you are, and I hope you are. I know the audience shares that sentiment.
…
DAVIS: Here’s the bottom line. On January 20th after Trump is sworn in, Trump’s acting attorney general on day one must open a criminal probe on all of these partisan Democrat clowns who have engaged in this illegal conspiracy against Trump, his top aides like Steve Bannon who is unfairly, unjustly sitting in prison right now, Peter Navarro –
WINTERS: Mike, can you give the audience some names of the people that you think need to be investigated that are sort of that apparatchik hack class?
DAVIS: Yeah, I would say that it’s Jack Smith, Jay Bratt, his counselor, you have big Fani Willis, her dumb, unqualified boyfriend Nathan Wade. You have big Tish James in New York, you have the New York Attorney General who is engaged in this illegal lawfare and election interference, this criminal conspiracy against rights. Judge Juan Merchan, his daughter Loren Merchan, Judge Arthur Engoren, I mean it never ends, how many people are involved with this criminal conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C, Section 241.
It’s not just people inside of government, it’s also people outside of government who colluded with them, who conspired with them to push these bogus indictments for non-crimes for the purpose of interfering in the election.
10/23/24
10/23/24
10/22/24
Article III Project founder Mike Davis suggests leading voting rights lawyer is being funded by Iran and China
Davis: “George Soros may have a say at funding. I just can imagine that would happen. And maybe Iran, maybe China. I say that, kind of, half-jokingly.”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 10/22/24
Video pix of bossie w relig icons
CitationFrom the October 22, 2024, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
DAVID BOSSIE (HOST): Marc Elias — most of people on, you know, in America have never heard of. He is an invisible hand. And I think you're exactly right. He is incredibly smart, vicious, and talented. You know, say it for what it is. He is — and he's completely dedicated to it. But he's also — maybe you know. How does — how has this been organized and funded? How has Elias's operations over the last many years been funded? Do you know, Mike?
MIKE DAVIS (GUEST): I would imagine that George Soros may have a say at funding. I just can imagine that would happen. And maybe Iran, maybe China. I say that, kind of, half-jokingly, but I would say that —
BOSSIE: The Soros part is right. Yeah. The Soros part is right.
DAVIS: I would imagine that George Soros is giving him a blank check.
an 1024
In his first term, former President Donald Trump leaned on the conservative establishment to help him vet federal judges. But in a potential second term, that job would likely go to a far-right media personality who would prioritize loyalty to the MAGA agenda.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that attorney-turned-pundit Mike Davis is positioning himself to be Trump's go-to authority on who to appoint to vacant Article III judgeships. That marks a sharply rightward shift from Trump's previous dependence on the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo, who helped elevate alumni like Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Davis — who once clerked for Gorsuch — is a regular on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast who has now become "a key adviser on legal issues and judicial selection," according to the Post. The former president has described Davis as "tough as hell" and promised he would serve "in a very high capacity" in a second Trump White House.
READ MORE:**'Push the envelope': How Trump plans to confirm hundreds of far-right judges in 2nd term**
As a lawyer who worked for former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Davis helped move hundreds of Trump's hand-picked federal judges through the U.S. Senate to various district and circuit-level positions. And after Leo and the Federalist Society put Trump at arms' length in the wake of the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Davis has positioned himself at the head of the ex-president's judicial vetting operation.
“A broad spectrum of conservatives were pleased with judicial selection in Trump’s first term, but I don’t think we can have faith that his nominees in a second term will live up to that standard, especially if he’s more likely to listen to a faction that wants a more aggressively right-wing judiciary,” Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law, told the Post. “I do worry that in a second administration, Trump and his allies will be more willing to apply personal or political loyalty tests.”
Davis' most high-profile role was being the lead counsel to oversee Kavanaugh's controversial nomination in 2018. The conservative jurist's appointment was nearly derailed after Christine Blasey Ford went under oath before the committee to describe her sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh (the Post recently reported that the Trump White House made sure the FBI investigation he authorized into the allegations went nowhere). Davis told the Post that he was undeterred by Blasey Ford's testimony.
"There was no way in hell I was going to let Kavanaugh fail, even if the allegations were true," he said.
READ MORE:**Why the conservative activist behind SCOTUS' right-wing supermajority set his sights on Maine**
Michael Zona, who served as Grassley's communications director during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, said Davis "simply didn't sleep" as he battled to get Kavanaugh across the finish line.
"He would update allies, reporters, and other offices so many times a day with everything from talking points to data and analysis that it was tough to keep up — or manage," he said. "By the end of the Kavanaugh confirmation, there was no china left for Mike to break."
If he wins the November election, Trump may get to appoint two new Supreme Court justices in a second term, as both Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are well into their seventies. If Trump replaces them, he would have appointed five of nine justices on the High Court.
Click here to read the Post's full article (subscription required).
READ MORE:['The real villain': How the Supreme Court is quietly working to keep Trump out of jail
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10/16/24 mma
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Trump ally Mike Davis: “Retribution is a key component of justice”
10/15/24 10:09 AM EDT
10/15/24 mma
===
Take Trumpist threats to jail journalists seriously
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 09/23/24 mma
Last year, after I criticized the Republican political operative Mike Davis, he publicly declared that he had added me to a list he maintains of Americans he would imprison if he led the Justice Department. I am far from alone: The former Senate Judiciary Committee staffer has issued similar threats to several of my colleagues as well as journalists at other outlets.
When Davis is challenged about his openly fascistic musings, he retreats to claiming that his deranged threats are only trolling. But two disturbing reports last week show that if Davis is just kidding about punishing the press and other presumed Trump critics, portions of the MAGA movement — including Donald Trump himself — are not in on the joke.
Indeed, Davis’ psychotic behavior helped turn him into a MAGA favorite who gets floated for a high-ranking role in a second Trump administration — perhaps even attorney general. The former president’s most zealous supporters, who frequently call for politicized prosecutions against his foes, can’t get enough of Davis’ authoritarian diatribes.
It’s not just trolling: Trump is an authoritarian leading an authoritarian movement, and if he returns to the White House, he will again try to carry out his authoritarian impulses. And journalists, whom the former president often describes as the “enemy of the people,” will not be spared.
*A Mike Davis post from X/Twitter. Davis claims to have “five lists, ready to go,” if he becomes attorney general; List 2 is people he would indict and List 4 is people he would imprison in the “DC gulag” or Guantanamo Bay.
Davis told a Politico reporter he was trolling. Then MAGA thugs cornered the reporter.
In a profile of Davis published Friday, Politico reporter Adam Wren discussed being accosted by Trumpist goons while he was reporting from the Republican National Convention.
Wren’s piece chronicles how Davis’ star has risen within the MAGA movement due to his willingness to defend Trump in the wake of his indictments on state and federal changes. Wren particularly highlights Davis’ incendiary calls for retaliatory prosecutions if Trump is elected in November, such as his August 2023 statement that he would use a “three-week reign of terror” as attorney general to carry out his “five lists” of people to fire, indict, deport, imprison, and pardon.
But in interviews for the piece, Davis maintained to Wren that his statements about sending people like me to a “gulag” shouldn’t be taken literally. From the profile (emphasis in the original):
Davis will admit to being quite serious about much of what he says in the media, including wanting to dismantle the power of the federal government, an idea he has held onto since his Gingrich days. But he told me he is obviously joking about some of the more inflammatory promises — putting kids in cages and detaining journalists in a gulag. He later told me the sound bite was “a self-inflicted wound,” but also said he “didn’t want to back down from it.”
“It’s hilarious that it’s so easy to trigger these people. I’m obviously trolling them,” Davis told me of Democrats.
Davis’ allies are apparently not quite so sure.
Wren writes that when he accompanied Davis to a ninth-floor hotel bar frequented by the Trump family and their hangers-on during the Republican National Convention, he observed Davis being “greeted by Republican revelers like a caesar” — and overheard Donald Trump Jr. telling the GOP operative, “I want you to be my father’s attorney general for all four years.”
Then a woman “demanded” that Wren either delete his notes of that interaction or hand over his phone, “recruited four men to block the elevators” when he refused, and issued a not-terribly-veiled threat. Unable to access the elevators to leave the bar, Wren wrote that he fled down the stairs, pursued by two of the goons.
Wren further described the incident in an interview with The Bulwark:
Davis, Wren explained in his piece, subsequently “confronted the aide near the elevators and dressed her down” and told the reporter what happened was “fucking shocking.”
The Politico profile concludes with an adviser to Donald Trump Jr. telling Wren that the behavior he had experienced was unacceptable — and also that Don Jr.’s comments to Davis about serving as attorney general were merely “trolling.”
Donald Trump spent his White House years demanding — and receiving — probes of his enemies
In a lengthy investigation published over the weekend, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt reviewed the cases of 10 individuals who “faced federal pressure of one kind or another” following Trump’s “public or private demands for them to be targeted by the government” during his presidency.
Schmidt revealed:
In the spring of 2018, Trump told White House counsel Donald McGahn “that he wanted to order” Attorney General Jeff Sessions “to prosecute” Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey, “and that if Mr. Sessions refused he would take matters into his own hands.”
Lawyers in the White House counsel’s office subsequently authored a memo to the then-president which “made clear that Mr. Trump did not have the authority ‘to initiate an investigation or prosecution yourself or circumvent the attorney general by directing a different official to pursue a prosecution or investigation,’ as one draft memo put it.”
Nonetheless, “within a month, Mr. Trump plunged ahead with one of his most successful efforts to have a Democratic critic investigated. He publicly demanded and ultimately got an inquiry by federal prosecutors into” former secretary of state John Kerry.
“Through the rest of Mr. Trump’s time in office, he never let up on pressuring federal agencies to take action against his perceived enemies even as he was counseled against it by aides like Mr. McGahn and John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff from the middle of 2017 until the beginning of 2019.”
“In a few of the cases where Mr. Trump wanted investigations, there was legitimate basis for action. But in many others, there was little or no legal justification. None resulted in a criminal conviction.”
“There is no record of the inquiries and other actions coming about as a result of a formal, signed order from Mr. Trump. Instead, he repeatedly signaled what he wanted, publicly and privately, leaving no doubt among subordinates.”
“At least two other West Wing officials defied Mr. Trump’s repeated instructions not to take notes and wrote down accounts of Mr. Trump’s eruptions about using the federal government to target his perceived enemies. Those notes were taken from the White House as well to ensure there was documentation.”
Schmidt’s list of investigations Trump demanded into his foes is lengthy but by no means exhaustive. It mentions, for example, that “federal prosecutors and a special counsel examined nearly all the issues and conspiracy theories Mr. Trump raised about Mrs. Clinton, her campaign and the Clinton Foundation,” but it omits the ultimately fruitless two-year review of her role as secretary of state in the sale of the company known as Uranium One that he had sought.
Nor does it reference every instance in which Trump sought government retaliation against his critics. Schmidt’s list notes that “the Justice Department obtained phone and email records for reporters for CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times” as part of leak investigations, but it does not detail Trump’s efforts to use federal regulatory powers to punish news outlets.
Nevertheless, it shows quite clearly that Trump’s impulse to prosecute his political foes found few restraints during his presidency — and could be even more dangerous in a second term.
The staffing plans developed under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 are intended to empower loyalists while keeping out people like McGahn, who reportedly tried to prevent Trump from exercising his whims. Meanwhile, presidential efforts to pressure Justice Department officials to take action were specifically rendered immune from federal prosecution thanks to the radical doctrine the Supreme Court enshrined over the summer in Trump v. United States.
Trump, for his part, continues to regularly accuse his political opponents of crimes. That has critics worried he would once again urge the Justice Department to initiate investigations if he returned to office. But Trump’s supporters say such claims are overwrought. “His defenders often seek to explain away Mr. Trump’s threats to take legal action against opponents as campaign trail bluster,” Schmidt wrote.
In other words, they’re claiming that Trump is just trolling.
Related
11/10/23 11:39 AM EST
### “Trump's viceroy of DC”: The violent threats and bigotry of MAGA media favorite Mike Davis
02/29/24 11:08 AM EST
### Trump is threatening to use the government to “come down hard” on the free press. Believe him.
11/30/23
===
off bs
no pay? cred?
Michael Davis
Alumni Advisory Board
Biography
Mike Davis, the former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, is the founder and president of the Article III Project (A3P). A3P defends constitutionalist judges and the rule of law. Davis also leads the Internet Accountability Project (IAP), an advocacy organization fighting to rein in Big Tech, along with Unsilenced Majority, an organization dedicated to opposing Cancel Culture and fighting back against the woke mob and their enablers.
As Chief Counsel for Nominations, Davis advised Chairman Grassley and other senators on the confirmation of federal judges and senior Executive Branch appointees, serving as staff lead for 30 hearings and 41 markup meetings. He oversaw the floor votes for 278 nominees, including the confirmations of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the record number of circuit judges confirmed during President Trump’s first two years in office.
Davis has served in all three branches of the federal government, including for President George W. Bush, the Justice Department, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and current Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Davis also led the outside support team for Justice Gorsuch’s successful confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Before returning to public service in 2017, Davis spent nearly ten years as a civil litigator in Denver, working at one of the largest law firms in the world and one of the top-ranked law firms in Colorado before running his own law practice for more than five years.
Davis is from Des Moines, Iowa. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 2000 and Juris Doctor in 2004, both from the University of Iowa. In 2017, Davis received Iowa Law’s “Emerging Leader Award.” Davis also serves on the University of Iowa Political Science Advisory Board.
politico
here is a list of things the Republican lawyer turned MAGA-media talking head Mike Davis has said:He wants to send journalists to the “gulag.”
He wants to put migrant children in “cages.”
He wants to “rain hell” on Washington.
He wants the Supreme Court to “dismantle most of the federal government.”
How much of it does he actually mean? Well, it’s unclear, because he often says he’s “trolling.” Equally unclear is what power he might have to accomplish any of it. Steve Bannon and Donald Trump Jr. float him as an attorney general candidate, but he could conceivably end up as White House counsel, chief of staff at the Department of Justice or an outside adviser to Trump to select a candidate for any of those roles.
“In this way, Davis encapsulates a defining feature of conservatives in the Trump era: the dissolving barrier between reality and trolling, between serious political ideas and winking provocation,” writes National Political Correspondent Adam Wren in this week’s Friday Read, a truly eye-popping profile of the MAGA firebrand. “He seems to relish keeping people guessing about who he really is, what he really wants and what he will really help Trump accomplish.”
What is the line between trolling and reality? “Whatever you can get passed,” Davis says.
politco 2
mike
Davis was steamed.
The frenetic Republican lawyer and former Senate aide — currently Trump’s most fanatical defender on X and conservative media — had been in the middle of one of his near-daily appearances on the “War Room” with Steve Bannon when a protester materialized over his shoulder and began screaming into his ear.
From his makeshift TV-hit setup outside the Supreme Court, Davis tried to continue to explain to Bannon and his audience the legal intricacies going on inside the building behind him. There, nine justices were hearing oral arguments over whether Trump was immune from prosecution in a case charging him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“They must have let people out of the mental health asylum for today’s Supreme Court hearing,” Davis said, grinning, but only for the camera. “We have our friend here — it looks like an MSNBC correspondent behind me.”
Bannon chimed in from the cozy confines of his studio with a warning for the protester.
“Mike Davis is gonna punch your lights out,” he said.
Davis is, at least according to Donald Trump Jr. and Bannon, a possible attorney general in a second Trump administration. But today, he was feeling powerless. After the “War Room” hit was over, Davis bolted off his set and zipped toward the Supreme Court Police nearby to complain about the protester. “You do not have a First Amendment right to scream in someone’s ear,” Davis argued to an officer. “I used to work in this building — I know what the fucking law is.”
The officer took off his sunglasses. Recognition passed over Davis’ face. He knew this guy. “I remember you,” the officer told Davis. They both agreed he needed to talk to Patricia, the Supreme Court press wrangler. Davis knew exactly who she was; he called her and asked for access to the press corral.
Patricia, who also remembered Davis, granted him special access inside, marking the first time Bannon’s show had a credentialed Supreme Court correspondent.
Broadcast journalists set up equipment and protestors hold signs in front of the Supreme Court on June 28. Inside, nine justices were hearing oral arguments over whether former President Donald Trump was immune from prosecution. | Samuel Corum for POLITICO
That day outside the Supreme Court, Davis showed the full, often at-odds, range of his roles in Trump world. He is the former president’s troll-in-chief, a frequent talking head in MAGA-aligned media known for his provocative, no-holds-barred defense of the president and crusade against Trump’s perceived enemies, especially in his legal battles. He rages against the “weaponization” of the Justice Department.
He has promised to “rain hell” on Washington from a Trump administration perch come January 2025 and to eviscerate institutions that he says treat Trump unfairly. He calls Democrats “Marxists” and “evil” and has joked — in ways that many others don’t always take jokingly — that he would send journalists and former GOP personalities including George Conway and Tim Miller to “the gulag” and would put migrant kids in “cages.” “My goal,” he once told me, “is for the Supreme Court to dismantle most of the federal government.”
Davis, 46, also happens to have a deep familiarity with and understanding of those same institutions, which often works to his and Trump’s benefit.
He did once work at the Supreme Court, as a clerk in 2017. He was also the chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley during the Trump administration and, as an outside adviser, led confirmation battles for two of those justices hearing oral arguments inside the building that spring day: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
“Mike Davis was a standard-stock Republican, Federalist Society lawyer, right? Standard stuff. Played by the rules. Helped get guys confirmed, could play tough, but painted inside the lines,” Bannon told me.
Mike Davis prepares to make an appearance on Steve Bannon’s "War Room" in front of the Supreme Court on June 28 in Washington. Davis is Trump’s most fanatical defender on X. | Samuel Corum for POLITICO
Now, though? “He’s a full fucking MAGA warrior.”
Davis, a stocky, redheaded lapsed Irish Catholic who calls himself Trump’s “viceroy,” is not officially affiliated with the Trump campaign. But he is undoubtedly close to Trump. In addition to being openly discussed as a candidate for attorney general, or acting attorney general, there is the more likely possibility of a position as White House counsel, chief of staff at the Department of Justice or as an outside adviser to Trump to select a candidate for any of those roles.
“Donald Trump loves him,” Caroline Wren, the GOP fundraiser (no relation to me), told me, adding that she hears from Republican mega-donors and senators who salivate over Davis’ appearances on Bannon’s “War Room.”
“If he isn’t the attorney general, he’s going to play some sort of role,” she said.
Donald Trump Jr. called Davis in a statement to POLITICO “the tip of the spear defending my father from these corrupt Democrat prosecutors.” He added: “He’s exactly the type of fighter that I’d like to see involved in a second Trump administration.”
Even less clear than what role Davis will fill in a potential Trump administration, though, is what he’d actually do in that role — and how much of what he proposes is, as he says, just “trolling.” In this way, Davis encapsulates a defining feature of conservatives in the Trump era: the dissolving barrier between reality and trolling, between serious political ideas and winking provocation. He seems to relish keeping people guessing about who he really is, what he really wants and what he will really help Trump accomplish.
I’ve had hours of conversations with Davis dating back to December from time I spent with him in Washington, Milwaukee and Manhattan. Davis is more cooperative with mainstream journalists than his rhetoric and his appearances on “War Room” would lead one to believe, but he was also unusually open with me, perhaps because I’m a national reporter who still lives in flyover country. In those conversations, along with those with nearly two dozen people who have intersected with his life, it became clear to me that even Davis isn’t always sure about when he’s being serious.
That guessing only begins with the question of where Trump will put him if he wins in November — and whether the idea of Attorney General Mike Davis is the biggest troll of all.
Chairman Charles Grassley (center) speaks with Davis during a Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 27, 2018. Davis worked for Grassley as chief counsel for nominations and led confirmation battles for two justices. | Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP
In sixth grade, Davis’ teachers in Des Moines, Iowa, bestowed on him the Alex P. Keaton award. It was an honor they created specifically for him because he had such radically different views from his liberal parents, who prioritized service trips and social-justice teaching. At his liberal Catholic school, he was known for arguing with teachers, claiming that welfare trapped people in poverty.
In college at the University of Iowa in the late 90s, he found himself taken with House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s talk of welfare reform. He bombarded Gingrich’s office with letters and emails — then a very new technology — asking about internships. Gingrich’s intern director eventually relented. “I think just to shut me up,” Davis said. He made his way to Washington for the first time in a “crappy” Dodge, driving straight through the night from Iowa. “I thought it was going to be me and Newt working together to dismantle the government.”
It was, of course, not that. But it introduced him to the levers of power in a town where he would later work them to great effect.
Even in college, Davis was known for his provocative nature. “He’ll say things to kind of get people agitated and see what kind of reaction he gets from people,” Tim Hagle, his constitutional law professor, told me. Hagle served as the faculty adviser to the Students for Bush group that Davis organized. It became the second-largest group on campus — only surpassed by the alumni association.
After law school at the University of Iowa, Davis volunteered on the 2004 Bush reelect, which got him a job in the White House in 2005. As associate director of political affairs, his job was to vet people. “My impressions of him were, ‘He’s incredibly smart,’” said Scott Jennings, the former White House deputy director of political affairs, who was Davis’ boss. “Incredibly aggressive.”
He was in the White House for a year, and bounced to the Bush Justice Department for a seven-month stint. He then moved to Colorado, where he clerked for Gorsuch on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals before working in private practice and the Colorado attorney general’s office.
It was in Denver that he began sporting a red MAGA cap. “It’s bold to do that in Denver, Colorado,” said May Davis Mailman, the former senior adviser to Trump who got to know Davis while she was on the Tenth Circuit as a clerk, though not at the same time as him.
Davis, he said, saw the realignment happening in real time back in Iowa looking at the WHO TV13 corn kernel presidential poll. He took a picture of the overflowing kernels in Trump’s jar and put it on Facebook.
In the beginning, Davis wasn’t with Trump on every issue. Not on trade. Not on immigration. “I used to be much more globalist on trade and on immigration,” he said. He was, he said, “very Chamber of Cuck.” But he says he saw NAFTA destroy Midwestern manufacturing and send jobs to Mexico. He saw the middle class he grew up in hollow out. “The uni-party does not care about real Americans — Flyover Country, working class Americans in Iowa and Indiana and Ohio,” he told me. “That’s a problem.” He voted for Trump in 2016.
In 2017, Davis reunited with Gorsuch, who would take him to the Supreme Court as his law clerk, a role he served in for four months — a stub term through the final months of the court’s 2016-2017 run. Then, from July 2017 to January 2019, he worked for Grassley as chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
There, Davis was at the center of what is arguably Trump’s most significant conservative victory: remaking the judiciary. Davis oversaw the floor votes for 278 federal judges and senior executive branch appointees, including Amy Coney Barrett to the Seventh Circuit. In 2019, Davis left the Senate and launched the Article III project, which he described to The New York Times as a “brass knuckles” advocacy group to remake the judiciary into a tougher, more conservative version of itself — “a hell of a lot more conservative,” he told me. Article III, which has a staff of eight and a slew of volunteers, also operates as a legal think tank committed to defending Trump in the courtroom and media. The organization, which runs entirely on donations, has no offices; Davis works mostly out of Colorado and makes periodic trips to Washington, where he also has a house.
Trump's residence in Mar-A-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, on Aug. 9, 2022. When the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in 2022, Davis says he began to think the forces of the DOJ and what he calls the Democratic “regime” were fully aligned against Trump. | Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images
It was when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 that Davis says he began to think the forces of the DOJ and what he calls the Democratic “regime” were fully aligned against Trump. He was suddenly everywhere, on X and Fox News and Bannon’s War Room, framing the Democratic case against Trump as “lawfare” — a phrase he popularized among MAGA supporters. Since then, he estimates, he has racked up more than 4,000 hits defending Trump since August of 2022, meaning he has done an average of more than five a day — though it’s often been more like 10. “It was pretty lonely around Trump world after the Mar-a-Lago raid. Trump’s going to remember who ran to him and who ran from him,” he told me.
As much as conservative media and Trump allies thrill to his most outrageous statements, it’s his establishment cred that gives the conservative intelligentsia ammunition to fight Trump’s convictions.
In hallway remarks to reporters during the tail end of his Manhattan trial one day in May, Trump looked down at a sheaf of papers, his lawyer Todd Blanche standing next to him. “Mike Davis,” he said, “highly respected.” He then read an X post in which Davis called that day’s proceedings “blatant lawfare.”
For his loyalty, Davis has prospered: Trump’s leadership PAC, even while struggling to pay its legal bills, made a $150,000 contribution to Article III. In 2022, the latest year for which records are available, the organization listed a budget of $50,000. But ahead of the election, the group is running a flight of ads in swing states warning undocumented immigrants that voting as a noncitizen is illegal, a campaign that costs $1 million alone — suggesting the budget has greatly increased in the past two years. (Davis, in just one example of how he courts the mainstream media at the same time he denigrates them, gave NBC the exclusive.)
Davis has lunch with his communications advisor Otto Heck on June 28, 2024 in Washington. Davis described the Article III Project as a “brass knuckles” advocacy group for the judiciary. | Samuel Corum for POLITICO
Throughout one morning and afternoon I spent with him, Davis abruptly got up and left to take what he told me were important calls: at 11:19 a.m., 11:41 a.m. and 1:21 p.m. When I checked later, all the times corresponded with Trump’s courtroom breaks back in Manhattan where he was waylaid in week two of his criminal hush money trial. I asked Davis if Trump had been calling him for advice. He told me he does not discuss such matters.
For Davis, his MAGA transformation wasn’t so much of a transformation but an evolution from his days as a disciple of Gingrich.
“I’ve never been establishment,” Davis told me. “I’ve worked for establishment people like George W. Bush. But I’ve never been establishment. I told people very early on that President Donald Trump will be president and Neil Gorsuch will be on the Supreme Court. And I made that my mission to get Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. And people thought it was absolutely nuts.”
Over the past decade, he has emerged as an ideal fighter for Trump: someone with an understanding of how to get things done on the inside who also has the grievances and background of a flyover country native. He has a fighting instinct and a commitment to finishing the job, regardless of how he might be hurting himself in the long run.
On the morning of Gorsuch’s nomination battle in 2017, Davis said he was crossing Pennsylvania Avenue when what he described as a “6-4, 350-pound” bike messenger slammed into him. Paramedics insisted on taking Davis to George Washington University Hospital. He told me he declined. He was not yet a judiciary committee aide, but still wanted to be involved in the process. “I had to run the Gorsuch confirmation from the outside,” he told me.
He hobbled to a nearby CVS Pharmacy. His lungs burned as he inhaled and exhaled. One of his ribs felt out of place. A friend he called would later find him slumped over near the photo aisle.
The friend, who confirmed this story to me, insisted Davis go to the emergency room. There, doctors told him he had a broken arm, a broken rib, a dislocated rib and a punctured lung. They told him he’d need a chest tube and two surgeries. He showed me a photo on his cell phone with a 5:23 p.m. time stamp that day. In the photo, he is lying in a hospital bed wearing an oxygen mask and giving two thumbs up. Gorsuch wanted to come to the hospital, but Davis refused, because he thought the nominee needed to make the rounds to glad hand senators.
Davis decided to refuse the surgeries and leave the hospital so he could quarterback the confirmation process. But a longtime friend insisted he go back to his house and recover.
“They kept me trapped,” Davis said. “Like, they kidnapped me, basically.”
When he heard his caretakers leave to run an errand, he said he “Jean-Claude Van Dammed” his way back to his apartment. “Look, we had to get Gorsuch confirmed,” he told me. “I’m not going to be in a hospital for several days and do surgeries and all that crap.” He resumed work from his Capitol Hill apartment. He never got the surgeries.
Davis speaks in front of the Supreme Court on June 28, in Washington. Davis has outlined a dystopian agenda for what he would do during a “three-week reign of terror” if selected Trump’s acting attorney general. | Samuel Corum for POLITICO
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Last September, Davis made headlines for an appearance vid] on
in which he outlined a dystopian agenda for what he would do during a “three-week reign of terror” as Trump’s “acting attorney general before I get chased out of town with my Trump pardon.” His list included firing “deep state” employees, indicting Joe Biden, deporting millions of immigrants and putting “kids in cages,” detaining people in the “D.C. gulag” and pardoning Jan. 6 defendants,“especially my hero, horn man.”
“It’s going to be glorious,” he said.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Davis becomes Trump’s Senate-confirmed attorney general. Even Davis himself thinks it is far-fetched: “It would require 100 Republican senators to get me confirmed,” he once told me. Still, those close to the former president, including Bannon and Trump Jr., have mentioned his name to me as a possible acting attorney general and White House counsel or high-level DOJ appointee. “That’s Attorney General Mike Davis,” Bannon first responded when I asked him if he could talk about Davis for this piece earlier this year, not long before he reported to a prison for blowing off a House subpoena.
Democrats appear concerned about the possibility — or, at least, have deemed it a fruitful possibility to raise money off of. The Biden campaign in April posted the clip of Davis on Johnson’s show to social media. “Trump’s potential Attorney General pick Mike Davis: Trump’s going to make me Attorney General and it will be a reign of terror.”
Davis (center) and Trump's campaign adviser Jason Miller talk outside a courtroom on Oct. 30, 2023, in Denver. Over the past decade, Davis has emerged as an ideal fighter for Trump: someone with an understanding of how to get things done and a fighting instinct to match. | Pool photo by Jack Dempsey
Mehdi Hasan, the former MSNBC host, highlighted Davis’ remarks last November, saying “Mike Davis is exactly what the Trump administration lacked last time around: a skilled, even competent veteran of Beltway legal politics and rightwing causes, one who seems keen to transform Trump’s darkest fascist impulses into an actual policy agenda. He’s a microcosm of the mainstream GOP establishment’s move to the far right in the age of Trump.” (Davis’ reply on X: “I already have his spot picked out in the DC gulag. But I’ll put him in the women’s cell block, with [the Never-Trump commentator Tim] Miller.”)
Months later, over lunch, I spoke to Davis about the Biden campaign’s use of his quotes. Davis will admit to being quite serious about much of what he says in the media, including wanting to dismantle the power of the federal government, an idea he has held onto since his Gingrich days. But he told me he is obviously joking about some of the more inflammatory promises — putting kids in cages and detaining journalists in a gulag. He later told me the sound bite was “a self-inflicted wound,” but also said he “didn’t want to back down from it.”
“It’s hilarious that it’s so easy to trigger these people. I’m obviously trolling them,” Davis told me of Democrats. “And I would say that I’m glad that President Obama and President Biden have changed their position that they no longer want to put kids in cages” — referencing the Obama administration’s use of chain-link fencing in border facilities that housed migrants.
“So you don’t actually believe kids should be in cages?” I asked him.
“No. I’m trolling you.”
Trolling is useful for Davis, as it has been for Trump.
“To get attention on MAGA social media, and gain followers and get booked on Steve Bannon’s show, the best way to do it is to say outlandish things like this,” said Miller, the onetime Jeb Bush communications director who now is a Bulwark writer and MSNBC analyst.
Davis does an interview for Real America's Voice in front of the courthouse where Donald Trump's trial was held in New York. | Adam Wren/POLITICO
People who know him suspect Davis’ core ideological beliefs are obscured by his over-the-top behavior and absurd pronouncements. “I think he’s warm and kind,” said May Davis Mailman. “He actually cares about the movement, and is thoughtful about it. So, you know, I don’t want to say anti-establishment. But yeah, a little bit of that brand. Because he did work in the Bush White House. So you can only be so anti-establishment and work in the Bush White House.”
Regina Schofield was Davis’ supervisor for a time when he worked in the Bush White House. She has vouched for him at nearly all of his official appointments, and she told me she once confronted him about an X spat he had with Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
“I go home, Boss,” he told her, according to her recollection of the conversation, “and I just keep drinking the red wine and the next thing I know, my fingers are going crazy.” (“She knows I’m joking,” he told me of her anecdote. “I don’t drink and drive. Or drink and tweet.”)
She told me another story. During the Kavanaugh hearings, Davis posted to X, “Unfazed and determined. We will confirm Brett Kavanaugh.” But initially, she said, Davis was lukewarm about Kavanaugh, and it wasn’t until the heated confirmation hearing where Democrats repeatedly questioned the nominee about allegations that he had sexually assaulted a woman in high school that Davis felt the need to fight back with a strong defense. It was this fight that ultimately led Davis to launching Article III. “I think he’s less of an ideologue,” she told me. “And he’s more of someone who wants to just throw bombs.”
Davis’ inflammatory statements have gone too far for Schofield. Last October, Davis posted to X that the “The violent Black underclass is a danger to America.” He argued for the “mass incarceration of these thugs.” “The monsters,” he wrote, “will kill.” Schofield, who is Black, told me she found that post racist.
“I laugh at people who call me racist,” he said to me when I told him about Schofield’s reaction. “I’ve donated tens of thousands of dollars to poor Black kids who I don’t know so they can go to good schools. The real people who are racists are the white Democrats who trap these kids in failed government schools because they’re beholden to the teachers union.” (When asked for specifics, Davis pointed to his donations to the Alliance for Choice in Education, a group that provides low-income students with scholarships to attend private schools. A spokesperson for the Alliance for Choice in Education confirmed that Davis served on an advisory board from 2009 to 2017 and donated approximately $31,000.)
But with Davis, as with many in Trump’s orbit, the trolling is so constant that the line between what’s reality and what’s a joke, or provocation, isn’t always clear.
Miller quoted the late novelist Kurt Vonnegut, who wrote that “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” “I think a lot of times, they are joking,” Miller said. “But like, eventually, you kind of become this caricature, and eventually, the trolling, the stuff that begins as a troll, you end up finding yourself defending or believing or buying your own bullshit.”
Davis is quick to dismiss that he would put children in “cages.” But the Trump administration did separate immigrant children from their parents at the border. “If you were advising or were Trump’s AG in a second term, what would you say about a family separation policy?” I asked Davis as this story was going to press.
He didn’t answer my question. He told me Harris and Biden had lost hundreds of thousands of migrant kids, exposing them to “child enslavement, sex trafficking, and other horrific violence.” (He told me he was referencing a Department of Homeland Security inspector-general report that found that, as of May 2024, 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children had not been given notices to appear in court and 32,000 were unaccounted for after failing to comply with their notices to appear.)
On “Day 1,” he said “Trump will do what it takes to fix our broken border again — and reunite families.” I asked him whether this meant he had believed family separation was a mistake. He wouldn’t go there. It was the kind of non-response that walked up to the edge of acknowledging the horrors of the policy while refusing to deny it could happen again.
Recently, I was surprised to see Davis share cat-eating memes from Springfield, Ohio, and posts suggesting Kamala Harris had used AI-generated crowd images, and I told him so. This type of misinformation seemed to go further than what I had seen from him before. I had been to Springfield, Ohio, and talked to local Republicans there and, like almost every official from the city and state, found no evidence of animals being abducted and eaten.
“There is more corroborating evidence that migrants are eating geese and cats in Ohio than Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford,” he responded. (In 2018, Blasey Ford, the woman who alleged that Kavanaugh assaulted her, provided as corroborating evidence a polygraph test that she took in August of that year and notes from her couples therapist from a 2012 session. Her lawyers also submitted affidavits from acquaintances who said Blasey Ford told them about the attack. Kavanaugh denies the allegations.)
“What is the line in the modern-day Republican Party between trolling and legislating?” I asked Davis one day over lunch at a Capitol Hill restaurant after his confrontation in front of the Supreme Court.
“Whatever you can get passed,” he said. He stabbed his sandwich.
What did Davis actually want out of a second Trump term?
“I use a lot of fiery language — hyperbole — to get my point across and force people to pay attention.”
“But there was no point to that video clip?” I asked about his turn on Johnson’s show last fall. “Was it just you trolling?
“The point was that a politicized and weaponized legal system is very dangerous and destructive for your country,” Davis told me. “And if you’re going to politicize and weaponize our justice system against your political enemies, that could come back and bite you.”
His phone was ringing. He excused himself. Back in Manhattan, Trump had another break.
Donald Trump arrives to speak during the final night of the Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 18. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
Inside the 9th floor bar at The Trade Hotel, the unofficial watering hole of the Trump family during the Republican National Convention, victory was in the air. The Trump entourage, including Donald Trump Jr., his fiance Kimberly Guilfoyle, Eric Trump and Eric’s wife Lara, held court on one side of the bar, while I stood off to the other side.
An hour earlier, I had been with Davis on the convention floor as Trump gave his speech. Davis had marveled to me about what then seemed like the former president’s amazing week, not only surviving the assassination attempt and coming to the convention like a kind of caesar, but also a judge’s dismissal of his classified documents case.
“Trump dodged the real bullet,” he said of the dismissal as Trump’s speech to delegates wore on.
Davis attends the RNC in Milwaukee in July 2024. At the RNC, Davis said to David Bossie, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, that “[Democrats] don’t know what’s coming in January 2025." | Adam Wren/POLITICO
Now, Davis entered the bar, where he was greeted by Republican revelers like a caesar himself. He told one to see him about a judgeship in January 2025. (Davis later told me he was joking.) He bragged to another that he had helped Trump get “six votes” on the Supreme Court.
“The viceroy is fucking coming,” Davis said to David Bossie, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager. “[Democrats] don’t know what’s coming in January 2025.”
Davis made his way over to Trump Jr. I trailed, hoping for a quote, but stood a few feet away to give them some space.
A tall, thick man standing beside Trump Jr. began eyeing me and my yellow media lanyard. I retreated to the other side of the bar. A woman with the man who later identified herself as doing work for Guilfoyle came over to me and two other reporters and chastised us for gawking. (Caroline Wren, speaking for Guilfoyle, later denied this woman did work for Guilfoyle.)
A few minutes later, close to closing time, Trump Jr. and his entourage started to leave. They passed behind me and Davis, who had come back over to talk to me, but not before Trump Jr. could give him a message.
“I want you to be my father’s attorney general for all four years,” he told Davis, grinning. Davis said he would give Trump three weeks as his viceroy. “All four years,” Trump Jr. said.
As I pecked notes on my phone, the woman who had told us to stop staring scolded me for chronicling the exchange and began recording me. She demanded that I delete the notes or give her my phone. When I tried to leave, she recruited four men to block the elevators. They stared menacingly at me and demanded I turn over my phone or delete my notes.
I was trapped. I wouldn’t delete my notes, and I was getting nervous. I called Davis, who had disappeared. He asked me where I was, and I told him.
I explained to the woman I had to catch a flight to go home to my family in the next few hours.
“You should have thought about your kids before you did what you did,” she replied.
After roughly 15 minutes of this standoff, I searched for another exit. I ran down a hallway into a stairwell. Two people followed me.
When I was out on the street, Davis called me. By this point, Davis had confronted the aide near the elevators and dressed her down.
You don’t ask a reporter to delete their notes, he told her, according to both Davis and a second person he recounted his remarks to briefly after. This isn’t North Korea.
Davis had sworn to me he was not really serious about retaliating against journalists and throwing them in “gulags.” Now, he seemed rattled that others in Trump world might not be in on the joke.
He told me he had never seen anything like that in his career. “Fucking shocking,” he said.
Over the next few days, Davis checked in on me at least a couple of times a day, asking me if I was “OK.” He spoke with my editor. He called an adviser for Trump Jr., who then called me to express displeasure and say that the person responsible was not affiliated with Trump Jr. or the Trump campaign.
The adviser wanted me to know something else. When Trump Jr. told Davis he wanted him to be attorney general, he wasn’t serious.
Trump Jr.’s words to Davis, he told me, amounted to little more than just “trolling.”
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mma 7 24
MIKE DAVIS (GUEST): What saved President Trump here is presidential immunity must be immediately decided.
DAVE BRAT (HOST): Right, right, right.
DAVIS: Meaning you have to decide it before the trial, not after the trial. And I would say this, that Trump’s lawyers, John Sauer and Will Scharf, are the ones who came up with this argument on presidential immunity, they saved President Trump’s legal behind here, and if they didn’t raise this argument, Trump would be in prison right now after Jack Smith railroaded him in D.C.
…
JEFFREY CLARK (GUEST): Look, first, I’ve got to say, on the Supreme Court immunity decision, this decision is huge. It is the most important constitutional decision in a very long time. It cements the framers’ vision of the presidency. I think it undoes significant amounts of damage done to the presidency as a result to the weak period when the Congress went after President Nixon and tried to strike while he was weak. I think this undoes a lot of that damage.
And, look, it creates a, a trifurcation where at the top level, the president is absolutely immune for things within the core of his office. Then at a middle level, there's a presumptive immunity for other official acts.
And then finally, there's no immunity for acts that are unofficial. And where does he put — and you raised the issue, Dave, of, you know, where does he the the the Supreme Court put the issue that relates to me about President Trump working with the Justice Department? Well, it says that the president has absolute authority to investigate whom he chooses and to prosecute whom he chooses because he is the chief prosecutor of the United States. So that means that falls into the absolute immunity category, which means that, you know, just from a personal standpoint, I shouldn't be having to deal with all the stuff I've had to deal with over the last 3 and a half years. So I love the vindication of that.
You know, my opponents in the bar and my opponents, like Fani Willis, etc. are gonna be seeing new briefing on that. And, look, I think that this also, gives great ammunition to President Trump to fight against the office of Jack Smith because Jack Smith was, essentially established as a kind of independent official. But the whole logic of this immunity case is that there are no independent officials at the Justice Department. So this is a major vitamin shot in the arm to President Trump's arguments in front of Judge Cannon down in that documents case. I hope it, you know, foretells the dismissal of that case.
I also think it restrengthens executive privilege, which is on the line in terms of, Steve Bannon going to jail. Right? I think that that's been watered down since the Nixonian era. I think this will, portend a, you know, a strengthening of executive privilege. So it's just great all across the board.
And then, Dave, you asked the question about what can we do as a matter of solutions. The first and most important solution is to get President Trump back in the White House because the Justice Department can be reformed with new regulations, with new policies, with new presidential directives to stop this ridiculous lawfare, but to pursue righteous cases against true lawbreakers. And then second, we need, as a matter of federalism, for the states to step up. The bars have become weaponized, and state legislatures can pass new laws to block that — block that kind of lawfare in front of bars and ensure that complainers are people who actually have firsthand knowledge of the lawyer-client relationship, which none of the complaints against any of the people tied to President Trump, you know, really fit into.
And then also, look. If, you know, people in the private sector need to do their, their work. Right? It's action action action. And if they're gonna fight with this lawfare on the Democrat side all the time, they need to face lawfare coming back from the people of United States against Democrat officials. And then once they get a taste of it, I think they'll stop this nonsense, and we'll get closer to the vision of the republic that the framers had in mind.
===
April 26, 2024 mma
Travis Gettys @ Raw Story: ‘I hated that dog’: Kristi Noem recalls gunning down family’s ‘worthless’ pup
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a frontrunner to be named as Donald Trump’s running mate, admitted to killing her family dog for misbehavior.
Christian Right Observer Weekly: Volume 13
CROW’s 7 stories on the Christian Right that you need read this week.
David Gilbert @ Wired: No, a Shadowy Figure Is Not Buying Tents for Columbia Student Protesters
Conspiracies about outside forces funding and orchestrating the university protests at Columbia and NYU have taken hold online, primarily on X.
Media Matters: On Steve Bannon’s show, Mike Davis threatens to “rain hell on these Biden Democrats” and warns them to “lawyer up”
Davis calls Trump criminal trial “lawfare” and threatens “the most severe legal, political and financial consequences come January 20, 2025.”
Joe Jervis: Judge Upholds $360,000 Judgment Against Kim Davis
A federal judge denied an appeal by former Rowan County clerk Kim Davis. Davis made national headlines when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples while acting as Rowan County clerk in 2015.
Gil Duran @ The New Republic: The Tech Baron Seeking to “Ethnically Cleanse” San Francisco
To fully grasp the current situation in San Francisco, where venture capitalists are trying to take control of City Hall, you must listen to Balaji Srinivasan. Before you do, steel yourself for what’s to come: A normal person could easily mistake his rambling train wrecks of thought for a crackpot’s ravings, but influential Silicon Valley billionaires regard him as a genius.
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an 11 23
he’s vowed to inflict a “reign of terror” and said it will be “glorious” when he puts migrant kids in cages. Now he wants to throw MSNBC host Medhi Hasan into a “gulag.” It would all be ludicrous if he weren’t connected to powerful Republicans in the Senate, the Supreme Court, throughout government, and the private sector, and if he hadn’t already been floated as a possible Trump attorney general.
At the Federalist Society, Mike Davis’ bio says he “has served in all three branches of the federal government, including for President George W. Bush, the Justice Department, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and current Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.”
He was Chief Counsel for Nominations to then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, but his current job is the one that is causing grave concern to those who see a second Trump term as ushering in fascism, and are worried about “the very future of American democracy.”
Like MSNBC host Medhi Hasan, who provided viewers on Sunday with an overview of Davis, and other possible top Trump officials should the ex-president get re-elected.
Davis heads Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-funded $20 million plan to gut the executive branch and install only Trump loyalists at every level and in every building.
READ MORE: ‘Terrible, Wrong and Brutal for Minorities’: Appeals Court Guts Voting Rights Act
“According to a new NBC News poll out just this morning for the first time, Donald Trump is now leading in a hypothetical general election matchup,” Hasan noted on Sunday (video below). “Now, this isn’t just bad news for President Biden, this is terrible news for the very future of American democracy.”
“For weeks we’ve been warning you on this show about the dangers of a second Trump term. The former president, after all has promised retribution, pledged to round up protesters with the military and suggested using the Justice Department to go after his political enemies,” the MSNBC host continued. “These are plans that should terrify each and every single one of us. But tonight, I want to pull back the curtain and take a look at who could be tasked with carrying out Trump’s radical agenda come 2025 and answer the question: what would a second Trump presidency without any human guardrails, without any adults in the room actually look like?”
After looking at a possible Vice President Tucker Carlson, and (again) a possible National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Hasan focused on “a man a lot of people may not have heard of yet, Mike Davis.”
“He’s the man many in Trump’s inner circle including his own son Don Jr. and Steve Bannon are pitching to be the country’s next possible Attorney General. Earlier this week over on my Peacock show,” Hasan explained, “I dove deep into the conservative lawyer’s record from Davis’ threats to send journalists to the ‘DC Gulag.’ He has repeatedly called on social media for his followers to quote ‘arm up against the violent Black underclass,’ and it appears I may have struck a nerve.”
“Davis has since responded to my monologue from earlier this week, pledging to indict me when he’s AG for what I’m not sure but he’s also threatened to send me to the DC Gulag.”
READ MORE: Trump Lawyer Trips Over His Own Argument as Judges Appear Skeptical of Gag Order Appeal
“That’s a totally normal, non-fascistic response from a man trying to become the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.”
Indeed, Davis on Monday afternoon doubled down on his vow to send Hasan to the “DC Gulag.”
(For those wondering, “gulag” is a Russian term referring to forced labor camps under Lenin and Stalin. In America, we don’t have gulags.)
Monday afternoon, Davis wrote on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, that Hasan “is now on my Lists 2 (indict), 4 (detain), 6 (denaturalize), and 3 (deport).”
“I already have his spot picked out in the DC gulag,” Davis reiterated, before attacking MSNBC contributor Tim Miller.
“But I’ll put him in the women’s cell block, with @Timodc,” he added. “So these whiny leftists don’t get beat up as often.”
Davis also posted a link to Hasan’s NBC Peacock segment on him, and called it his “application” to become AG.
READ MORE: Hate Group Stages Boycott of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Over Nonbinary Broadway Actors
“Dear President Trump,” Davis wrote. “Here’s my application to serve as your next Attorney General. (And if you pick me, I promise to put @mehdirhasan on Lists 2, 4, and 6.)”
Watch Hasan’s segment below or at this link.
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wiki
Article III Project is a 501(c)(4) non-profit advocacy organization that aims to promote the confirmation of rightwing justices to the Supreme Court. Article III Project says it "will defend new judges, protect the integrity of the confirmation process, and oppose the radical court-packing, term-limit, and judicial impeachment schemes".[1] It seeks to educate the public through its website, social media activity, public forum events, informational mailings, and advertising. It also works to mobilize grassroots advocacy and participate in lobbying.[1]
:{Article III Project named itself after the section of the third Article of the Constitution, which set up the judiciary. It was founded by Michael Davis, a former clerk for the Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. The New York Times reported that "Gorsuch privately called Mr. Davis 'the general' of his confirmation".[2]
Davis was also instrumental in the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, with the Times reporting, "Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, singled him out for special praise after the successful vote to confirm Justice Kavanaugh following the tumultuous hearings. Former Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah praised Mr. Davis as the 'tip of the spear' in that clash."[2]}:
Contents
1.1A3P's Strategy during Biden Presidency
1.2A3P's Misleading Narrative about Judge Brown Jackson
1.3Involvement in Coney Barrett Confirmation
1.4Involvement in Kavanaugh Confirmation
News and Controversy
A3P's Strategy during Biden Presidency
True North Research reports, "A3P's strategy includes a new ad campaign tarring their opponents with misleading claims accusing Senate Democrats of being hypocritical on diversity in court nominations."[3] The A3P website includes a list of "women and minority" conservative judicial nominees, with the page reading, "Actions speak louder than words. Democrats talk a lot about diversity, but Democrats opposed the confirmation of each of these highly qualified minority and women judicial nominees". The page includes black and white pictures of each nominee.[4] True North reports, "The reality is that Biden's court appointments have been some of the most diverse ever, including appointing the first Muslim man to be a federal judge and openly LGBTQ woman to the federal appeals court. In stark contrast to Trump's overwhelming white male nominees, which Davis helped shepherd, 75 percent of Biden's nominees have been women and 65% have been people of color."[3]
A3P's Misleading Narrative about Judge Brown Jackson
A3P opposed the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, publishing the "Jackson Docs" on their website, which made the misleading claim that Brown Jackson "has a well-documented 25-year history of extreme leniency for sex predators of kids".[5] The Washington Post reported why this attitude was taking Brown Jackson's rulings and statements out of legal context.[6]
Involvement in Coney Barrett Confirmation
:{A3P launched a web base for Justice Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court. The site supplied information about Coney Barrett's career and a way to donate to A3P's cause. Following her confirmation, A3P released a statement saying, "we will have a true conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
This means that the Supreme Court will protect everyday Americans for government over reach and mob rule, whether it's liberal politicians attempting to chase away Christians and other believers from the public square or otherwise punish them for their religious beliefs, silence conservatives on college campuses or cancelling Americans who express differing views in other public places, ban law-abiding Americans from owning guns to protect themselves and their families, or destroy American entrepreneurs and jobs through the unelected and largely unaccountable administrative state."[7]}:
Involvement in Kavanaugh Confirmation
Founder Mike Davis served as staff leader in the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh, the New York Times reported. During the process, he was called out for a tweet assuring that Kavanaugh would be confirmed despite the sexual misconduct allegations against him. He later deleted the tweet.[2] However, Kavanaugh was confirmed, and he was quoted by the Times as calling Davis "a warrior" for his confirmation.[2]
Funding
Most of Article III Project's funders are currently unknown. Open Secrets reports, "A3P was launched as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit... indicating it will not disclose its donors...funding from individuals or opaque entities like limited-liability companies may remain hidden from the pubilc".[8]
Judicial Crisis Network: $249,999 (2018-2019)
Core Financials
2021[9]
Total Revenue: $4,366
Total Expenses: $5,612
Net Assets: $9,747
2020[10]
Total Revenue: $21,205
Total Expenses: $22,789
Net Assets: $10,993
2019[11]
Total Revenue: $259,106
Total Expenses: $246,529
Net Assets: $12,577
Personnel
Staff Members as of May 2023:[12]
Mike Davis, Director and President
Will Chamberlain, Senior Counsel
Ian Prior, Senior Counsel
William Lane, Senior Counsel
Board of Directors as of 2022:[9]
Mike Davis, President
Mark Lucas, Treasurer,
Ian Prior, Secretary
Former Board Members
Cleta Mitchell, Treasurer
Karen Blackistone Oaks, Secretary
Contact Information
Employer Identification Number (EIN): 81-5252744
Article III Project
PO Box 90992
Austin, TX 78709
Website: https://article3project.org/
Phone number: (202) 596-1579
Email: info@article3project.org
Twitter: @Article3Project
Facebook: @article3project
YouTube: The Article III Project
Articles and Resources
IRS 990 Filings....
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wiki ref kessler
One of the most influential “dark money” groups you’ve probably never heard of has officially shut its doors.
The Wellspring Committee’s existence has come to an apparent end, according to state incorporation records showing the dark money group’s termination. Wellspring was just shy of eleven years old.
The group died as it lived, surreptitiously. Officially shutting down in December 2018, its fate was not discovered until May 19, 2019.
The name Wellspring Committee may already be forgotten — or entirely unknown — to most, but its life’s efforts were certainly not in vain.
Many of the facets of modern-day society that we now take for granted, such as the multi-million dollar price tag on each Supreme Court confirmation fight, can be traced back to Wellspring’s efforts. What Wellspring lacked in name recognition, it made up in largesse. Operating behind the scenes, Wellspring leaves behind countless dark money groups it helped sire and judges now on the bench thanks in part to its anonymous financiers’ generosity.
Wellspring is survived by Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), another 501(c)(4) nonprofit that has established itself the preeminent vehicle for deep-pocketed donors to funnel millions of dollars behind or against judicial nominees in Supreme Court confirmation fights, largely bankrolled by Wellspring.
Since Wellspring’s birth from a short-lived union of the Koch network and GOP political operatives leading up to the 2008 election, it has accounted for more than 90 percent of JCN’s total funding.
Wellspring’s delivery into the world came at the hands of Republican operative Ann Corkery while her husband Neil took the reigns of the more publicly visible JCN and an allied 501(c)(3) “charitable” nonprofit, Judicial Education Project. Like JCN, it’s sister “charity” has received considerable funding from Wellspring and other closely-tied dark money groups like DonorsTrust, a pass-through vessel managing the money flow from wealthy donors to conservative and libertarian groups — including other groups in Corkery’s network — while allowing the donors to remain anonymous that has earned it the reputation of being a Koch-linked “dark money ATM.”
Wearing multiple hats for various groups in the network, Neil Corkery worked impossibly hard. At one point tax returns showed him working a combined 100 hours a week between his various nonprofits.
JCN’s existence has not always hinged entirely on Wellspring. For its first three years in operation under the Judicial Confirmation Network moniker before rebranding following Obama’s 2008 election, JCN received initial support from California “foreclosure king” Robin Arkley II and raked in seed money from the American Center for Law and Justice under Jay Sekulow, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and a member of the Federalist Society, the influential conservative and libertarian lawyers network that does disclose its donors in annual reports.
Since then, the organizations had been inseparable. Sitting at the crux a powerful network of dark money groups, Wellspring and JCN have existed in this symbiotic relationship for over a decade, with JCN operating as the operation’s public-facing mouthpiece and Wellspring as its money bag.
After all that, years of investigations and speculation about the identity of donors bankrolling the operation have yet to produce a definitive answer about the ultimate source of the operations funds.
Tax returns have revealed the groups behind a few hundred thousand in grants from other dark money groups like American Democracy Alliance and Rosebush. But that accounts for a drop in the bucket — less than a percent — of Wellspring’s overall earnings and, even then, the ultimate financier behind those groups remains a secret.
A central player in orchestrating Wellspring’s dark money network has been Leonard Leo, Trump’s judicial adviser and a longtime executive at the Federalist Society.
While the identity of their donors remains a secret, dark money groups like JCN and Wellspring are required to disclose the amount received from different donors. In their most recent tax returns, JCN received most of its funds from two multi-million dollar donors, with roughly 90 percent of that accounted for by Wellspring and the remainder for a mystery donor. Most of Wellspring’s funds came from three multi-million dollar secret donors, a shift from prior years in which the biggest amount the group received from a single mystery donor increased with each passing year. Wellspring’s largest donor in their most recent tax return accounted for $8.9 million, another gave $5.5 million and a third provided $2 million. All of their identities remain hidden.
Financial information for Wellspring’s final year of operation is not required to be reported until months following the end of their final fiscal year, long after the group’s official termination.
While much of its money has ended up in the judicial advocacy space, Wellspring helped seed a number of other politically active nonprofits that took on a life other their own and went on to have other significant impacts. A few that gained particular notoriety in recent years include American Job Security, the pro-Trump 45Committee and the American Dream Initiative, which was later rebranded as the pro-Trump Great America Alliance.
Conservative activists have continued honoring the memory of the recently deceased group by doing what it loved best: creating opaque vehicles to secretly funnel millions of dollars into groups aiming to reshape the legal system.
At least one new group has already risen from Wellspring’s ashes: the Article III Project (A3P).
Formed to “fight to confirm President Trump’s judicial nominees” and defend sitting judges, A3P was launched as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit May 18, indicating it will not disclose its donors. Any money funneled to A3P through another nonprofit organization is not required to be disclosed until tax returns are due months after the end of the fiscal year when that payment took place, and other funding from individuals or opaque entities like limited-liability companies may remain hidden from the public.
A3P was sculpted in the mold of its predecessors and plans to work closely with JCN. “Excited to work hand-in-glove with @JCNSeverino, my other longtime friends at JCN, and many others on the outside who understand the critical importance of the judicial fight,” A3P president Mike Davis tweeted.
Davis was chief counsel for Senate Judiciary Committee during the most recent Supreme Court confirmation battles and Justice Neil Gorsuch’s former law clerk. His talks at Federalist Society events have earned the distinction of being included in the congressional record at the request of his former employer, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). During Davis’ time at the Senate, he played a pivotal role in securing votes for Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Dubbed the Kavanaugh confirmation fight’s “warrior” and the “general” of the Gorsuch confirmation battle, Davis has differentiated A3P from other groups with a more militant approach, promising to “punch back” with a “brass knuckles approach.”
According to Davis, these punches are warranted. A3P was launched partly in response to Demand Justice, a liberal dark money group launched in 2018 as the left’s counterweight to Wellspring and JCN. Demand Justice’s arrival on the scene brought with it a significant shift to the judicial money race, which has traditionally been one-sided with the vast majority of funds from the right, most of which can be traced to JCN and Wellspring.
Indeed, Wellspring’s legacy lives on not only in the conservative dark money infrastructure it helped build but also in the inspiration it provided to their equivalent on the left.
Wellspring may be gone, but its indelible impact on the American legal landscape will long be remembered.
In addition to its enduring judicial legacy through attempts to reshape the legal system, Wellspring and the operatives behind it have reshaped the way the game is played. By helping shepherd in their chosen judges onto the Supreme court and across the federal judiciary, Wellspring and its operatives ushered in a new era of increasingly expensive judicial battles largely fueled by deep-pocketed donors whose identities remain secret.
As groups on the left put the same clandestine tactics and big money traditionally characteristic of more conservative judicial advocacy groups into play, those battles across the country may have given way to a full-blown war for the future of the judiciary.
But conservative judicial activists are not just building a covert network anymore, they’re building an army.
mma 11 23
## Wallace and Chutkan are presiding over two Trump cases
Colorado District Court Judge Sarah Wallace is presiding over a 14th Amendment case against Trump, which will decide whether Trump should be disqualified from having his name on the ballot in the state in 2024 over his alleged role on January 6. Reuters, [10/30/23]
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan is overseeing Trump’s litigation in D.C. and recently reinstated a gag order on the former president following a temporary freeze after Trump appealed.CNN, [10/30/23;Axios, 10/20/23]
## Right-wing media have attacked Colorado Judge Wallace
Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire suggested that Wallace’s decision to allow a lawsuit regarding Trump's eligibility for office under the 14th Amendment to move forward could result in another civil war. Knowles remarked: “Civil wars happen. And the liberals would appear to be cultivating the conditions to make it much more likely.” Media Matters, [10/24/23]
On X, Fox News host Mark Levin shared an NBC News article about the case, adding, “We have a real problem in America with tyrannical leftwing judges who run their courtrooms like political circuses.”Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
On his show War Room, Steve Bannon called Wallace “radical” while his guest, Mike Davis, a right-wing judicial activist, called on her to recuse herself from the case.Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [10/30/23]
Later on, Bannon claimed the case is happening in a kangaroo court that’s “every bit as deadly as the Nazi judges and Stalin show trial.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [10/30/23]
Davis also made an appearance on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle and called Wallace “biased” and cited a $100 donation to the Colorado Turnout Project she made prior to taking the bench. He went on: “I think she’s going to rule for these Democrat operatives and try to take President Trump off the ballot here in Colorado. And I think that Democrats are going to try to use that precedent to go to other states like Minnesota and Michigan. So, it looks like the Supreme Court of the United States is going to have to step in here and fix this eventually.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [10/30/23; Colorado Politics, 10/30/23]
On X, Mike Davis wrote: “New Denver District Judge Sarah Wallace, a Democrat Donor, Commits Reversible Error By Refusing to Recuse from Trump January 6th Case After Donating to Anti-Trump January 6th PAC.”He went on to ask, “Will the public reasonably believe she can give Trump a fair January 6th-related bench trial after she donated to an anti-Trump January 6th PAC ? The answer is clearly not.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
Davis also posted on X a clip of his appearance on War Room, adding, “Anyone with a brain can see that she can’t objectively be fair to President Trump given her past donation to a leftist cause.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
Replying to Davis’ post, bigoted social media personality Mike Cernovich wrote, “Judges are overtly flaunting the law as a show of force. It’s Stalin era tactics.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
On GETTR, Bannon wrote: “Crazed Left Wing Judge and Radical Secretary of State for Colorado Attempt to Remove President Trump from Ballot in 2024.” GETTR, [10/30/23]
Davis joined Jack Posobiec on his show Human Events Daily and called Wallace “clearly biased,” adding, “No one in their right mind thinks that this judge is going to be fair.” Posobiec described Wallace as a “left-wing judge” and called the case “a bench trial,” referring to a type of trial with no jury. Real America’s Voice, *Human Events Daily*, [10/30/23]
On X, previously known as Twitter, pro-Trump troll and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer called Judge Wallace “another political hack” and “a MAJOR Trump-hater.”Loomer also went after Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, calling her “a communist who was funded by George Soros.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
Loomer also took aim at Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) for not attacking Wallace, claiming she’s been “silent” about the case.She asked, “How come you don’t have any condemnation for Judge Sarah Wallace and the efforts to take Trump off the ballot in Colorado, which you supposedly ‘represent’ when you aren’t getting drunk on dates with Democrats?” In a separate post, Loomer said that if “Boebert is too dumb to see how this lawsuit will ultimately impact her race, then she doesn’t deserve to be in Congress.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23, 10/30/23]
In another post, Loomer described Wallace as “the radical Leftist judge overseeing the anti—Trump trial in Colorado.” She then claimed the case is “direct ELECTION INTERFERENCE” and “pure lawfare, orchestrated by partisan Democrats and their left-wing financiers to cheat the American electoral system and deprive the American voters of their rightful choice for a President.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
The right-wing publication National Pulse ran a headline on an article about the lawsuit reading, “NOW: Soros’s ‘Kick Trump Off Ballot’ Case Begins, With Far-Left, Democrat Donor Judge.” The National Pulse, [10/30/23]
Breitbart wrote: “Democrat-Appointed Colorado Judge Greenlights Effort to Kick Trump Off 2024 Ballot.”Breitbart, [10/23/23]
Sean Spicer, former press secretary and communications director for Trump and current host of The Sean Spicer Show, wrote on X, “Talk about election interference.... Colorado judge paves way for trial on whether 14th Amendment disqualifies Trump from office.” Twitter/X, [10/26/23]
Right-wing commentator Rogan O’Handley, or DC_Draino, complained on X that “Democrat” Wallace refused to recuse herself.He added, “FAKE SHOW TRIAL!” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
On X, Catturd wrote, “The reason Democrats are trying to get Trump off the ballot in Colorado is because cheating is the only way they can win elections. It’s really that simple.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
## MAGA media figures and trolls have renewed attacks against D.C. Judge Chutkan
Users on 4chan have unleashed a barrage of racist images and antisemitic rhetoric against Judge Chutkan. 4chan, [10/31/23, 10/31/23, 10/30/23]
In a post on X, pro-Trump troll and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer called Chutkan “the Obama appointed affirmative action poster child.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
Fox News host Mark Levin posted on X calling Judge Chutkan “a disgrace.”He went on to argue, “The DC courts need to be broken up, its jurisdiction for high profile cases withdrawn, and the judicial seats and subject-matter jurisdictions should be moved to other parts of the country.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
On Fox News, host Laura Ingraham said, “The Democrats are getting a lot of help from federal Judge Tanya Chutkan.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [10/30/23]
Right-wing judicial activist Mike Davis called Chutkan an “obnoxiously partisan DC Obama judge” on X.Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
Conservative commentator Julie Kelly also posted on X that “Chutkan shouldn’t be within 100 miles of this case given her inflammatory, biased, and inaccurate statements in court about Trump and Jan 6. But here we are.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit wrote in a headline, “Obama-Appointed Judge Chutkan Reinstates Gag Order on President Trump.” In the piece, Hoft describes her as the “Jamaican-born Obama- appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan.” The Gateway Pundit, [10/29/23]
On X, Tom Fitton of the conservative legal organization Judicial Watch reposted an earlier tweet of his in light of the reinstatement, saying, “Judge Chutkan has now effectively taken over Trump's presidential campaign.” Twitter/X, [10/17/23]
In another post, Fitton called the developments in the case “election interference by the Biden regime and anti-Trump judge.....” Twitter/X, [10/29/23]
Responding to a piece from Conservative Brief on the gag order, far-right political commentator Sebastian Gorka wrote, “This is no longer Republican vs Democrat. It's The People vs The Establishment. Good vs Evil.” Twitter/X, [10/30/23]
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August 24, 2023
John Fea @ Current: Jenna Ellis jumped on the Trump train. Now she has a mug shot.
David Gilbert @ Vice News: Jan. 6 Rally Organizer Created Her Own Mugshot Because She Felt Left Out.
Tyler Kingkade @ NBC News: How Oklahoma’s schools superintendent became the state’s top culture warrior.
Justin Baragona @ The Daily Beast: The Far Right Turns on ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Singer for Touting Diversity.
Media Matters: Mike Davis promises a “reign of terror” if Trump appoints him as acting attorney general.
Tags: Amy Kremer Jenna Ellis Mike Davis Ryan Walters Round-Up
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mma 8 23
right-wing media this week responded to former President Donald Trump’s fourth criminal indictment — this time, for conspiring to subvert the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia — by arguing that the charges signal the end of American democracy and the start of a potential civil war.
On August 14, Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted in the state of Georgia on charges of felony racketeering and conspiracy for their attempts to subvert the 2020 election. The 98-page indictment was handed down by a grand jury that reviewed evidence gathered during a two-and-a-half year investigation headed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Right-wing media have defended Trump using inflammatory rhetoric, accusing Democrats of sedition and totalitarianism. The extreme reactions from the right echo previous attempts by conservative media to shield the former president from accountability for his various charges.
Right-wing media bemoaned the indictment as an attack on democracy, a display of tyranny, and a constitutional crisis
Right-wing podcaster Tim Pool responded to a post claiming that the “Fulton County DA went insane” with the comment “Civil war.” He later posted that “the only path forward is escalation. Either Trump is a cult leader trying to overthrow the US Or Democrats are engaged in seditious conspiracy to steal power.” Twitter/X, [8/15/23, 8/15/23]
On Hannity, Fox News contributor and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich decried the consequences of the indictment for the future of the country, comparing it to “the rise of secession and the Civil War.” He said, “I think what you're seeing tonight is one tree in a forest and I think we are drifting toward the greatest constitutional crisis since the 1850s and the rise of secession and the Civil War. I don't mean that as hyperbole.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [8/14/23]
Article III Project founder Mike Davis argued on Steve Bannon’s War Room that “there's no way they can come up with this before the election if he’s going to get a fair trial.”He then claimed that “this is going to have a very chilling effect on democracy” because “you can't get more dangerous than telling people if you dare to question elections in America, you face going to prison for many, many years.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [8/15/23]
Fox News host Mark Levin said indictments of Trump are “an attack on the people. Every indictment is an attack on our freedom, our ability to vote.” Levin claimed, “Every indictment is an attack on our freedom, our ability to vote. The Democrats don't care about voting. They care about winning at all costs. The Democrat Party wants to be the monopoly party in this country.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [8/15/23]
Far-right troll Mike Cernovich claimed the indictment was evidence that Democrats are forming “a totalitarian regime.” He posted, “We are occupied by the same totalitarian regime that we used to read about. It’s here. They are emboldened. Evil never stops. It’s going to get worse.” Twitter/X, [8/14/23]
Levin similarly claimed that “Stalin would be proud. I'm sure Putin’s proud. I’m sure our enemies are celebrating.” He continued, “Congress is supposed to make all these final decisions. You're not supposed to criminalize the challenging of electors or dual electors or counting of votes and that sort of thing." Fox News, *Hannity*, [8/14/23]
Breitbart Senior Editor-at-Large Joel Pollak decried the indictment as “political persecution of the opposition.” He posted that the indictment “recalls trials by totalitarian regimes” and that prosecutors are “doomed to fail.” Twitter/X, [8/15/23]
Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro posted, “Whatever you think of the Trump indictments, one thing is for certain: the glass has now been broken over and over again.” Shapiro added, “Political opponents can be targeted by legal enemies. Running for office now carries the legal risk of going to jail -- on all sides.” Twitter/X, [8/15/23]
Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk labeled Trump’s indictment as “an attempt to nullify the United States Constitution.”He also called the charges “psychological warfare.” Salem Media Group, The Charlie Kirk Show, [8/15/23]
Former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs labeled prosecutors as “Marxist” and claimed that they have “trampled President Trump's rights and the Constitution.” He then argued that “the Left is an evil force that must be held accountable.” Twitter/X, [8/15/23]
:{:{Failed Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake said on Steve Bannon’s War Room}:, “I think we’ll end up seeing another indictment,” before claiming that “:{they’ll eventually come for you.”}::{ She continued, “They’re going to go after grandmas and grandpas and people who were these alternate electors. }:This is :{political persecution of people who support America. … And if you don't think they'll eventually come for you, you are living in a fantasy land. They will eventually be coming after all of us}:.” :{Real America’s Voice, War Room:(style="background-color:#ff9900ff"):}:, [8/15/23]}:
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Revolving Door: Mike R Davis Employment Summary | OpenSecrets
| 2019- | Article III Project Revolving Door Personnel: (1) | Founder & President | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-2019 | Senate Judiciary Committee Revolving Door Personnel: (251) | Chief Counsel for Nominations |  Cong Cmte profile |
| 2017-2017 | Supreme Court of the US Revolving Door Personnel: (20) | Law Clerk (Gorsuch) | |
| 2008-2017 | Attorney Revolving Door Personnel: (10) | ||
Dept of Justice Revolving Door Personnel: (252) | Prosecutor |  Agency lobbying profile | |
Gingrich, Newt Revolving Door Personnel: (12) |  Member profile | ||
US Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit Revolving Door Personnel: (5) | Law Clerk (Gorsuch) | ||
White House Revolving Door Personnel: (813) | Aide |  Agency lobbying profile Major Donor profile |
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[### Our History - A3P
The Article III Project
https://article3project.org › our-history](https://article3project.org/our-history/)
MIKE DAVIS. A3P Founder. Mike Davis, the former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, is the founder and president of the ...
[### The Article III Project: What We Do - A3P
The Article III Project
https://article3project.org](https://article3project.org/)
A3P defends constitutionalist judges, punches back on radical assaults on judicial independence (like court-packing), and opposes judicial and other nominees ...
[### Mike Davis
The Federalist Society
https://fedsoc.org › contributors › mike-r-davis](https://fedsoc.org/contributors/mike-r-davis)
Dec 13, 2021 — Founder, Article III Project ... Mike Davis, the former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, is the founder ...
[### Article III Project | C-SPAN.org
C-SPAN
https://www.c-span.org › organization › Article-III-P...](https://www.c-span.org/organization/?133920/Article-III-Project)
Number of Programs. Mike Davis. Founder and President, Article III Project. 4 Videos · See all Article III Project people. About C-SPAN. Our Mission · Our ...
[### Conservative Group Wants to Bring 'Brass Knuckles ...
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/us/politics/conservatives-judicial-nominees.html)
May 18, 2019 — Named the Article III Project for the section of the Constitution that established the judiciary, the organization will be led by Mike Davis, a ...
[### Mike Davis, Founder of Article III Project on Fulton's 18 ...
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com › watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ0g_3nWjvU)
Aug 16, 2023 — Mike Davis, Founder of the Article III Project, analyzes the legal situation of the 18 individuals who were indicted in addition to former ...
[### Mike Davis on Opposition to Expanding the Size of ... - C-SPAN
C-SPAN
https://www.c-span.org › video › mike-davis-oppositio...](https://www.c-span.org/video/?511292-4/mike-davis-opposition-expanding-size-supreme-court)
[
29:24](https://www.c-span.org/video/?511292-4/mike-davis-opposition-expanding-size-supreme-court)
Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project, talked about efforts to oppose expanding the size of the Supreme Court.
C-SPAN · Apr 28, 2021
[### Mike Davis, Author at The Federalist
The Federalist
https://thefederalist.com › author › mikedavis](https://thefederalist.com/author/mikedavis/)
Mike Davis is the founder and president of both the Article III Project (A3P), which defends constitutionalist judges, and Unsilenced Majority, ...
[### How one outside group sees the Supreme Court battle
Politico
https://www.politico.com › newsletters › 2020/09/28](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2020/09/28/how-one-outside-group-sees-the-supreme-court-battle-790666)
Sep 28, 2020 — Davis last year started the Article III Project, which is now one of a constellation of outside groups working to make sure the Senate ...
[### Mike Davis
IMDb
https://www.imdb.com › name](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm12289217/)
Self - Fmr. Law Clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch. 2023 • 2 eps. Frank Clips. TV Series. Self; Self - Article 3 Project. 2022–2023 • 47 eps.
[### Mike Davis
Substack
https://substack.com › @mikedavis](https://substack.com/@mikedavis)
Mike Davis is the founder and president of the Internet Accountability Project (IAP), Article III Project (A3P), and the Unsilenced Majority. Unfazed and ...
[### October 9, 2020 The Honorable Lindsey Graham ...
Senate Judiciary Committee (.gov)
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov › media › doc](https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/3.%20A3P.pdf)
Oct 9, 2020 — ... Senate to confirm Judge Barrett's nomination by the end of the month. Sincerely,. Mike Davis. Founder and President. The Article III Project ( ...
[### Speakers: 2019 Fall Legal Strategy Forum - events.heritage.com
The Heritage Foundation
https://events.heritage.org › lsf › speakers](https://events.heritage.org/lsf/speakers)
Mike Davis is the founder and president of the Article III Project (A3P), a ... Davis has served in all three branches of the federal government, including for ...
[### Mike Davis (politician)
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Mike_Davis_(politic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Davis_%28politician%29)
Mike Davis serves as President Pro Tem of the Board and liaison to Contract Administration where he serves as an expert on achieving diversity, public ...
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