freeroots
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</font></div><div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/ginni-thomas-attempts-influence-overturn/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/ginni-thomas-attempts-influence-overturn/</a></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">david b ncrm</font></div><div align="left"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ginni+Thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Ginni Thomas</strong></a>‘ efforts to influence the overturning of the 2020 presidential election are even wider than previously known. Thomas, a far-right activist and lobby who happens to also be the spouse of the most right-wing U.S. Supreme Court justice, not only engaged in a months-long pressure campaign to influence then-Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to help overturn the results of the election, and pressured <b>29 GOP lawmakers in Arizona to overturn the election, but also pressured lawmakers in another critical battleground state, Wisconsin, to do so as well.</b></font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/09/01/ginni-thomas-wisconsin-bernier-tauchen/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Washington Post</a> Thursday reports “new emails show that Thomas also messaged two Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin: state Sen. Kathy Bernier, then chair of the Senate elections committee, and state Rep. Gary Tauchen. Bernier and Tauchen received the email at 10:47 a.m. on Nov. 9, virtually the same time the Arizona lawmakers received a verbatim copy of the message from Thomas. The Bernier email was obtained by The Post, and the Tauchen email was obtained by the watchdog group Documented and provided to The Post.”</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Post published the text of the emails sent by Thomas.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/06/legal-experts-urge-committee-to-subpoena-ginni-thomas-after-she-backs-away-from-testifying/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Legal Experts Urge Committee to Subpoena Ginni Thomas After She Backs Away From Testifying</a></font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure,” the emails read. The Post notes they were sent “just days after major media organizations called the presidency for Biden.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our Constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen for our state,” they also say.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas has promoted vile conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and other events.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/06/emails-raise-obvious-suggestion-ginni-thomas-was-feeding-john-eastman-inside-information-carl-bernstein/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Emails Raise ‘Obvious Suggestion’ Ginni Thomas Was Feeding John Eastman Inside Information: Carl Bernstein</a></font></strong></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In posts on Facebook, she shared a George Soros conspiracy-theory meme and criticized the teenage survivors of the school massacre in Parkland, Fla., for supporting gun control,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The New York Times Magazine</a> reported in February. “She complained when a town near her Virginia home put up a banner in support of Black Lives Matter, saying the group was filled with extremists ‘seeking to foment a cultural revolution,’ and traded barbs on her public Facebook page.”</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas sits on the board of the highly-influential and highly-secretive religious right wing <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22Council+for+National+Policy%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Council for National Policy</strong></a>, which also includes more prominent members like <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22Turning+Point+USA%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Turning Point USA</strong></a>‘s Charlie Kirk, where Thomas has also served.</font></p></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Investigations</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ginni Thomas pressed Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory</b></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The conservative activist and wife of the Supreme Court justice emailed lawmakers in two states in the weeks after the election</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Emma Brown</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>September 1, 2022 </b></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, takes part in the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference at National Harbor in Maryland. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed lawmakers to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory not only in Arizona, as previously reported, but also in a second battleground state, Wisconsin, according to emails obtained under state public-records law.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Washington Post reported this year that Ginni Thomas emailed 29 Arizona state lawmakers, some of them twice, in November and December 2020. She urged them to set aside Biden’s popular-vote victory and “choose” their own presidential electors, despite the fact that the responsibility for choosing electors rests with voters under Arizona state law.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The new emails show that Thomas also messaged two Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin: state Sen. Kathy Bernier, then chair of the Senate elections committee, and state Rep. Gary Tauchen. Bernier and Tauchen received the email at 10:47 a.m. on Nov. 9, virtually the same time the Arizona lawmakers received a verbatim copy of the message from Thomas. The Bernier email was obtained by The Post, and the Tauchen email was obtained by the watchdog group Documented and provided to The Post.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Thomas sent all of the emails via FreeRoots</b>, an online platform that allowed people to send pre-written emails to multiple elected officials.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure,” read the emails sent Nov. 9, just days after major media organizations called the presidency for Biden. “Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our Constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen for our state.”</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Neither Thomas nor her lawyer, Mark Paoletta, responded to requests for comment. </b>A Supreme Court spokeswoman did not respond to a message seeking comment from Clarence Thomas.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas’s political activism is highly unusual for the spouse of a Supreme Court justice, and for years it has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest for her husband. She has said that the two of them keep their professional lives separate.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But scrutiny of the Thomases intensified this year after The Post and CBS News obtained copies of text messages that Ginni Thomas exchanged with Mark Meadows, then President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, in the weeks following the 2020 election. Thomas repeatedly urged Meadows to keep fighting to overturn the election results. After Congress certified Biden’s victory Jan. 6, 2021, she expressed anger at Vice President Mike Pence, who had refused to intervene to keep Trump in office. “We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas wrote to Meadows four days later.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas was also in touch during the post-election period with John Eastman, the pro-Trump lawyer who once clerked for her husband, and whose role in the effort to overturn Biden’s win has drawn scrutiny from both the Justice Department and the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In early December 2020, Thomas invited Eastman to speak at a meeting of Frontliners for Liberty, which she described as a group of grass-roots activists, according to an email that Eastman published online.</span></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The agenda for the meeting has not been publicly disclosed. But a federal judge ruling on which records had to be turned over in response to a subpoena from the committee wrote that the agenda shows Eastman discussed “State legislative actions that can reverse the media-called election for Joe Biden.” U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ordered Eastman to give congressional investigators emails related to Thomas and meetings of her<b> Frontliners group</b>, finding that the meetings “furthered a critical objective of the January 6 plan: to have contested states certify alternate slates of electors for President Trump.”</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The House committee asked Thomas to sit for a voluntary interview in June. The committee also sought a broad range of documents from her, including any related to plans to overturn the election and all communications with members of Congress and their staff and Justice Department employees, according to a copy of the request published by the conservative Daily Caller.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the time, Thomas indicated she would comply. “I can’t wait to clear up misconceptions. I look forward to talking to them,” Thomas told the Daily Caller, her former employer.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Less than two weeks later, on June 28, Paoletta told the committee that while Thomas remained willing to sit for an interview, he did not believe there was “sufficient basis” for her to do so.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a letter obtained by The Post, Paoletta — a longtime close associate of the Thomases — described Ginni Thomas’s text messages to Meadows as “entirely unremarkable” and said they do not suggest she had any role in the attack on the Capitol. <b>He cast her invitation to Eastman as simply an invitation to speak, not an endorsement of his views or “any indication of a working relationship.” He also said she played no role in organizing the email campaign to Arizona lawmakers and did not draft or edit the form letters she sent.</b></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In an interview, Bernier, the Wisconsin lawmaker, said it would have been appropriate for the state legislature to consider decertifying the 2020 results in the weeks following the election if evidence had emerged of significant voter fraud. “But as we went through the process and the legal challenges were made and discounted by the judicial system, there was nothing proven as far as actual voter fraud,” she said.</b></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bernier said she had not realized that Thomas was among the thousands of people who emailed her after the election, but she said Thomas “has a First Amendment right to speak her mind.”</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I was married for 20 years. I took on some identity of my husband, but I had my own mind,” Bernier said. “Just because you’re married to someone doesn’t mean that you’re a clone.”</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Tauchen did not respond to messages seeking comment.</b></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democratic lawmakers renewed calls to create a code of ethical conduct for the U.S. Supreme Court amid mounting scrutiny of Justice Thomas and his wife. (Video: The Washington Post)</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Thomas’s Nov. 9 email was one of thousands sent via the FreeRoots platform that inundated Bernier and Tauchen’s offices in the weeks after the election, records show.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Wisconsin State Journal reported in January 2021 that of more than 10,000 pages of emails received during that period by Bernier and state Rep. Ron Tusler (R), then the chair of his chamber’s elections committee, the majority were “mass-generated form letters making nonspecific claims about alleged irregularities, a right-wing fraud-finding effort and a clip from Fox’s Sean Hannity show.”</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The fact that Thomas sent one of the FreeRoots emails to Bernier has not been previously reported. “Please do your Constitutional duty!” read the subject line of the message she sent.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the records disclosed by Bernier’s office to The Post, Thomas was the fourth of more than 30 people who sent that particular form email Nov. 9 and 10<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. The first sender of that email, three hours before Thomas, was a person named Stephanie Coleman, according to the records.</span></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A woman named Stephanie Miller Coleman is the widow of one of Clarence Thomas’s former clerks. She was listed as the co-administrator, with Thomas, of a private Facebook group for Frontliners. The page listing the group’s administrators is no longer publicly visible.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Coleman did not respond to a message seeking comment.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ginni Thomas’s communications with key players in the effort to overturn the election have led to calls for her husband to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election and attempts to subvert it. Clarence Thomas has given no indication that he intends to do so.</b></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This year, eight Supreme Court justices declined Trump’s request to block congressional investigators from gaining access to White House records that might shed light on the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Thomas was the only justice to dissent, siding with Trump.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jacqueline Alemany contributed to this report.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More from Investigations</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">lnx</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...“Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed lawmakers to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory not only in Arizona, as previously reported, but also in a second battleground state, Wisconsin, according to emails obtained under state public-records law.</font></div><div class="teaser-content grid-center"><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p data-qa="drop-cap-letter" data-el="text" class="font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/06/10/ginni-thomas-election-arizona-lawmakers/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4" target="blank">reported </a>this year that Ginni Thomas emailed 29 Arizona state lawmakers, some of them twice, in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4" target="blank">November and December 2020</a>. She urged them to set aside Biden’s popular-vote victory and “choose” their own presidential electors, despite the fact that the responsibility for choosing electors rests with voters under Arizona state law.</font></p></div></div><div><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p data-qa="drop-cap-letter" data-el="text" class="font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new emails show that Thomas also messaged two Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin: state Sen. Kathy Bernier, then chair of the Senate elections committee, and state Rep. Gary Tauchen. Bernier and Tauchen received the email at 10:47 a.m. on Nov. 9, virtually the same time the Arizona lawmakers received a verbatim copy of the message from Thomas. The Bernier email was obtained by The Post, and the Tauchen email was obtained by the watchdog group Documented and provided to The Post.....</font></p></div><div align="left"><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p data-qa="drop-cap-letter" data-el="text" class="font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure,” read the emails sent Nov. 9, just days after major media organizations called the presidency for Biden. “Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our Constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen for our state.”</font></p></div><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p data-qa="drop-cap-letter" data-el="text" class="font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither Thomas nor her lawyer, Mark Paoletta, responded to requests for comment. A Supreme Court spokeswoman did not respond to a message seeking comment from Clarence Thomas.</font></p></div><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p data-qa="drop-cap-letter" data-el="text" class="font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas’s political activism is highly unusual for the spouse of a Supreme Court justice, and for years it has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest for her husband. She has said that the two of them keep their professional lives separate.</font></p></div><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p data-qa="drop-cap-letter" data-el="text" class="font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But scrutiny of the Thomases intensified this year after The Post and CBS News <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/?itid=lk_inline_manual_15">obtained </a>copies of text messages that Ginni Thomas exchanged with Mark Meadows, then President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, in the weeks following the 2020 election. Thomas repeatedly urged Meadows to keep fighting to overturn the election results. After Congress certified Biden’s victory Jan. 6, 2021, she expressed anger at Vice President Mike Pence, who had refused to intervene to keep Trump in office. “We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas wrote to Meadows four days later.</font></p><p data-qa="drop-cap-letter" data-el="text" class="font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thomas was also in touch during the post-election period with John Eastman, the pro-Trump lawyer who once clerked for her husband, and whose role in the effort to overturn Biden’s win has drawn scrutiny from both the Justice Department and the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot. In early December 2020, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/06/16/john-eastman-ginny-thomas-frontliners-substack/?itid=lk_inline_manual_17" target="blank">Thomas invited Eastman </a>to speak at a meeting of Frontliners for Liberty, which she described as a group of grass-roots activists, according to an email that Eastman published online.</font></p></div><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p data-qa="drop-cap-letter" data-el="text" class="font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The agenda for the meeting has not been publicly disclosed. But a federal judge ruling on which records had to be turned over in response to a subpoena from the committee wrote that the agenda shows Eastman discussed “State legislative actions that can reverse the media-called election for Joe Biden.” U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ordered Eastman to give congressional investigators emails related to Thomas and meetings of her Frontliners group, finding that the meetings “furthered a critical objective of the January 6 plan: to have contested states certify alternate slates of electors for President Trump.”</font></p></div><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p data-qa="drop-cap-letter" data-el="text" class="font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The House committee asked Thomas to sit for a voluntary interview in June. The committee also sought a broad range of documents from her, including any related to plans to overturn the election and all communications with members of Congress and their staff and Justice Department employees, according to a copy of the request published by the conservative <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2022/06/16/january-6-committee-letter-ginni-thomas-testimony-july/">Daily Caller</a>.</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></div><div><b>Ginni Thomas pressed 29 Ariz. lawmakers to help overturn Trump’s defeat, emails show</b></div><div>
</div><div>By Emma Brown</div><div><b>June 10, 2022 </b></div><div>Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, speaks at a conference in 2017. (Susan Walsh/AP)</div><div>
</div><div>Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed 29 Republican state lawmakers in Arizona — 27 more than previously known — to set aside Joe Biden’s popular vote victory and “choose” presidential electors, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post.</div><div>
</div><div>The Post reported last month that Thomas sent emails to two Arizona House members, in November and December 2020, urging them to help overturn Biden’s win by selecting presidential electors — a responsibility that belongs to Arizona voters under state law. Thomas sent the messages using FreeRoots, an online platform intended to make it easy to send pre-written emails to multiple elected officials.</div><div>Democratic lawmakers renewed calls to create a code of ethical conduct for the U.S. Supreme Court amid mounting scrutiny of Justice Thomas and his wife. (Video: The Washington Post)</div><div>
</div><div>New documents show that Thomas indeed used the platform to reach many lawmakers simultaneously. On Nov. 9, she sent identical emails to 20 members of the Arizona House and seven Arizona state senators. That represents more than half of the Republican members of the state legislature at the time.</div><div>
</div><div>The message, just days after media organizations called the race for Biden in Arizona and nationwide, urged lawmakers to “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure” and claimed that the responsibility to choose electors was “yours and yours alone.” They had “power to fight back against fraud” and “ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen,” the email said.</div><div>
</div><div>Among the lawmakers who received the email was then-Rep. Anthony Kern, a Stop the Steal supporter who lost his reelection bid in November 2020 and then joined U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) and others as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Vice President Mike Pence, a last-ditch effort to overturn Biden’s victory. Kern was photographed outside the Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6 but has said he did not enter the building, according to local media reports.</div><div>
</div><div>Kern did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. He is seeking his party’s nomination for a seat in the Arizona state Senate and has been endorsed by former president Donald Trump.</div><div>
</div><div>On Dec. 13, the day before members of the electoral college were slated to cast their votes and seal Biden’s victory, Thomas emailed 22 House members and one senator. “Before you choose your state’s Electors … consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don’t stand up and lead,” the email said. It linked to a video of a man urging swing-state lawmakers to “put things right” and “not give in to cowardice.”</div><div>
</div><div>Speaker of the House Russell “Rusty” Bowers and Rep. Shawnna Bolick, the two recipients previously identified, told The Post in May that the outreach from Thomas had no bearing on their decisions about how to handle claims of election fraud.</div><div>
</div><div>But the revelation that Ginni Thomas was directly involved in pressing them to override the popular vote — an act that would have been without precedent in the modern era — intensified questions about whether her husband should recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 presidential election and attempts to subvert it. Ginni Thomas’s status as a leading conservative political activist has set her apart from other spouses of Supreme Court justices.</div><div>
</div><div>Ginni Thomas did not respond to requests seeking comment for this report. She has long insisted that she and her husband operate in separate professional lanes.</div><div>
</div><div>A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court did not respond to questions for Clarence Thomas.</div><div>
</div><div>The Post obtained the emails under Arizona’s public records law, which — unlike the laws in some other key 2020 swing states — allows the public to access emails, text messages and other written communications to and from state lawmakers.</div><div>
</div><div>In March, The Post and CBS News obtained text messages that Ginni Thomas sent in the weeks after the 2020 election to Mark Meadows, then Trump’s chief of staff. The messages showed Thomas spreading false claims and urging Meadows to keep fighting for Trump to remain in the White House.</div><div>
</div><div>“That conflict of interest just screams at you,” said Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who serves on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, on MSNBC in response to The Post’s May report revealing the emails to Bolick and Bowers.</div><div>
</div><div>Schiff pointed to Clarence Thomas’s decision not to recuse when Trump went to the Supreme Court to try to block the House committee from getting access to his White House records. The high court declined to block the release of those documents. Thomas, siding with Trump, was the only justice to dissent.</div><div>
</div><div>“Here you have the wife of a Supreme Court justice,” Schiff said, trying to “get Arizona to improperly cast aside the votes of millions. And also, to add to it, her husband on the Supreme Court, writing a dissent in a case arguing against providing records to Congress that might have revealed some of these same e-mails.”</div><div>
</div><div>After the May article, Mark Paoletta — a longtime ally of the Thomases who, as a member of the George H.W. Bush administration, played a role in the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court — confirmed that Ginni Thomas signed the emails, but he sought to minimize her role.</div><div>
</div><div>“Ginni signed her name to a pre-written form letter that was signed by thousands of citizens and sent to state legislators across the country,” Paoletta wrote on Twitter on May 20. He described Thomas’s activities as “a private citizen joining a letter writing campaign” and added, sarcastically, “How disturbing, what a threat!”</div><div>
</div><div>The letter-writing campaigns were organized on FreeRoots.com, which advertised itself as a platform to amplify grass-roots advocacy across the political spectrum. A Post review of its archived webpages shows that it was heavily used in late 2020 by groups seeking to overturn the presidential election results.</div><div>
</div><div>One of those groups was Every Legal Vote, which organized the campaign to send the message that Ginni Thomas sent on Nov. 9. In those first days after the Nov. 3 election, Every Legal Vote described itself online as a “labor of love by American citizens, in partnership” with the nonprofit United in Purpose, according to webpages preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. United in Purpose, which harnesses data to galvanize conservative Christian voters, in recent years hosted luncheons where Thomas presented her Impact Awards to right-wing leaders.</div><div>
</div><div>On Dec. 14, 2020, Biden electors in Arizona cast their votes, after the election results were certified by Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) and Gov. Doug Ducey (R).</div><div>
</div><div>Trump electors met in Arizona that day and signed a document declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified Electors.” One of them was Kern, the outgoing state representative.</div><div>
</div><div>Kern was among more than a dozen lawmakers who signed on to a letter to Congress that same day calling for the state’s electoral votes to go to Trump or “be nullified completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted.”</div><div>
</div><div>The lawmakers’ letter was an exhibit in Kern and Gohmert’s lawsuit asking a federal court to rule that Pence had the “exclusive authority and sole discretion” in deciding which electoral votes to count for a given state. The plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to intervene after the case was dismissed in lower courts. The day after the Jan. 6 insurrection, the court declined in an unsigned order.</div><div>More from Investigations</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails">https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails</a>/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-is-ginni-thomas-saying-now-the-evolution-of-an-unusually-outspoken-supreme-court-spouse/2018/12/26/883da960-f753-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html">https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-is-ginni-thomas-saying-now-the-evolution-of-an-unusually-outspoken-supreme-court-spouse/2018/12/26/883da960-f753-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html</a>?itid=lk_inline_manual_28&itid=lk_inline_manual_16</div></div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wapo no lnx</font></div><div align="left">INVESTIGATIONS</div><div align="left"><b>John Eastman says Ginni Thomas invited him to speak on ‘election litigation’</b></div><div align="left"><b>
</b></div><div align="left">By Emma Brown, Jacqueline Alemany and Josh Dawsey </div><div align="left">June 16, 2022 </div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., on Feb. 23, 2017. (Susan Walsh/AP)</div><div align="left">John Eastman, the lawyer who played a key role in efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election, confirmed Thursday that the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas invited him a month after the election to speak at a meeting she was helping to organize.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Eastman’s disclosure came a day after The Washington Post reported that the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol had obtained email correspondence between him and Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist and staunch supporter of former president Donald Trump. Individuals involved in the investigation said the emails — which have not been made public — showed that Thomas’s efforts to help overturn the election were more extensive than previously known, The Post reported.</div><div align="left">=</div><div>
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</font></a></div><div><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<b>Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice, pressed Ariz. lawmakers to help reverse Trump’s loss, emails show</b>By Emma Brown
Updated May 20, 2022 at 2:36 p.m. EDT| Published <b>May 20, 2022 </b>
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virginia
“Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas, attends the swearing-in ceremony for Justice
Amy Coney Barrett at the White House on Oct. 26, 2020. (Patrick
Semansky/AP)
Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist
and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona
lawmakers after the 2020 election to set aside Joe Biden’s popular-vote
victory and choose “a clean slate of Electors,” according to emails
obtained by The Washington Post.
The emails, sent by Ginni Thomas
to a pair of lawmakers on Nov. 9, 2020, [--> 29?]argued that legislators needed
to intervene because the vote had been marred by fraud. Though she did
not mention either candidate by name, the context was clear.
Just
days after media organizations called the race for Biden in Arizona and
nationwide, Thomas urged the lawmakers to “stand strong in the face of
political and media pressure.” She told the lawmakers that the
responsibility to choose electors was “yours and yours alone” and said
they had “power to fight back against fraud.”
<b>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Thomas sent the
messages via an online platform [FREEROOTS?] </span>designed to make it easy to send
prewritten form emails to multiple elected officials, </b>according to a review of the emails, obtained under the state’s public-records law.
The
messages show that Thomas, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, was
more deeply involved in the effort to overturn Biden’s win than has been
previously reported. In sending the emails, Thomas played a role in the
extraordinary scheme to keep Trump in office by substituting the will
of legislatures for the will of voters.
Thomas’s actions also
underline concerns about potential conflicts of interest that her
husband has already faced — and may face in the future — in deciding
cases related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Those questions
intensified in March, when The Post and CBS News obtained text messages
that Thomas sent in late 2020 to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows,
pressing him to help reverse the election.
The emails were sent
to Russell “Rusty” Bowers, a veteran legislator and speaker of the
Arizona House, and Shawnna Bolick, who was first elected to the chamber
in 2018 and served on the House Elections Committee during the 2020
session.
<b>
“Article II of the United States Constitution gives
you an awesome responsibility: to choose our state’s Electors,” read the
Nov. 9 email. “… [P]lease take action to ensure that a clean slate of
Electors is chosen.”</b>
Thomas’s name also appears on an email
to the two representatives on Dec. 13, the day before members of the
electoral college met to cast their votes and seal Biden’s victory.
“Before you choose your state’s Electors … consider what will happen to
the nation we all love if you don’t stand up and lead,” the email said.
It
included a link to a video of a man delivering a message meant for
swing-state lawmakers, urging them to “put things right” and “not give
in to cowardice.”
“You have only hours to act,” said the<b> speaker, who is not identified in the video.</b>
By
December, the claim that legislators should override the popular vote
in key states and appoint Trump’s electors was also being pushed
publicly by John C. Eastman, a former law clerk to Clarence Thomas, and
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer.
Trump allies argued that
pandemic-era changes in election administration and supposedly
widespread fraud meant that elections had not been conducted in
accordance with state legislatures’ directions and that, under the U.S.
Constitution, the results therefore could be cast aside. Many legal
experts have called those arguments unpersuasive and anti-democratic,
and no state legislature complied. Efforts to persuade state lawmakers
to name new electors are among the issues under examination by the
congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Courts
turned back dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies in an
attempt to challenge the 2020 election outcome, and there is no evidence
of voting machine manipulation or other widespread fraud.
Ginni Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court did not respond to messages seeking comment from Clarence Thomas.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni
Thomas has insisted that she and her husband have kept their work
separate, but her political activism has set her apart from other
Supreme Court spouses. About a decade ago, she and Stephen K. Bannon —
who later became chief strategist in the Trump White House — were among
the organizers of<b> Groundswell, </b>a group formed to battle liberals
and establishment Republicans. Groundswell dedicated itself to “a 30
front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation,” according to
emails uncovered by Mother Jones at the time. “<b>Election integrity” was among the topics discussed in the group’s first months,</b> the emails show.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Thomas’s
influence in Washington grew during the Trump presidency as her views
moved into the GOP mainstream. Clarence and Ginni Thomas had lunch with
Trump at the White House in 2018, then attended a state dinner the
following year. Also in 2019, she and fellow right-wing activists
attended a White House luncheon, where the New York Times reported that
they told Trump his aides were blocking their preferred candidates for
administration appointments.</span>
Over those same years, at
annual luncheons, Thomas handed out “Impact Awards” to right-wing
figures. Recipients have included Meadows, then a congressman chairing
the hard-right Freedom Caucus; Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe;
and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Thomas is a member of the Council
for National Policy, a network of prominent conservative activists,
some of whom helped press claims of election fraud. She recently said
she attended the pro-Trump rally at the Ellipse in Washington on Jan. 6,
2021.
<b>Thomas sent the emails via <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">freeroots.com, </span>a website
meant to give political organizers an efficient means of conducting
email campaigns</b>. The email address of the sender in Thomas’s emails is displayed as <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Ginni Thomas<noreply /></span>@freeroots.com>.”
A representative of FreeRoots did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The
Nov. 9 email carried the subject line, “Please do your Constitutional
duty!” In addition to pushing the lawmakers to appoint electors, the
email asked for a meeting to discuss pursuing an “audit” of the vote.
Under
the U.S. Constitution, states appoint presidential electors “in such
manner” as the legislatures direct. Historically, some state
legislatures appointed electors directly, but in the modern era states
have delegated that responsibility to voters. In urging Arizona
lawmakers to “choose” electors after Biden had already prevailed,
Thomas’s messages claimed lawmakers could intervene in that process.
The
records obtained by The Post do not show any response from Bowers,
whose refusal to help overturn Biden’s victory in Arizona made him the
target of a recall campaign. When Trump’s legal team pressed to replace
Biden electors with Trump electors, Bowers released a public statement
explaining that they were asking legislators to do something forbidden
by state law.
“As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the
results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and
worked hard to reelect him,” it said. “But I cannot and will not
entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome
of a certified election.”
A spokesman for Bowers told The Post
that hundreds of thousands of messages were sent to the speaker’s office
in the post-election period. <b>“Speaker Bowers </b>did not see, much less
read, the vast majority of those messages, including the form email sent
by Mrs. Thomas,” said the spokesman, Andrew Wilder.
<b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bolick
is married to Clint Bolick, an associate justice of the Arizona Supreme
Court, who worked with Clarence Thomas early in his career and has said
he considers the justice a mentor.</b>
<b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Shawnna Bolick </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">wrote back to
Ginni Thomas on Nov. 10, 2020, “I hope you and Clarence are doing
great!” She gave Thomas guidance on how to submit complaints about any
of her experiences with voter fraud in Arizona.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bolick,
who is now seeking the Republican nomination to be Arizona’s secretary
of state, told The Post that she received tens of thousands of emails in
the months after the election and responded to Thomas in the same way
she responded to everyone else.
Thomas replied: “Fun that this came to you! Just part of our campaign to help states feel America’s eyes!!!”</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In
the reply, Thomas’s personal email address is visible, and it matches
an address she has used previously, The Post confirmed. Under her
message is an <b>unusual tag line that has appeared in other emails that
are confirmed to have been sent by Thomas, including in 2021 to the
staff of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R): “Sent from Ginni’s iPhone, a
by-product of entrepreneurial free market capitalism.</b> Competition, hard work, innovations and lack of government interference make great things possible! God bless America!”</span>
Thomas was then serving on the board of<b> CNP Action</b>,
the political advocacy arm of the Council for National Policy. CNP
Action was using its influence in Republican circles at the time to try
to keep Trump in office. On Nov. 13, 2020, CNP Action held a workshop
titled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?” featuring, among
other speakers, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Cleta Mitchell, </span>according
to an agenda that researcher Brent Allpress provided to the
left-leaning watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy, which
published it that same month. Mitchell, a lawyer, assisted Trump in his
efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia.
<b>After that workshop, the group circulated guidance to focus efforts on legislators in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona</b>.
“Demand that they not abandon their Constitutional responsibilities at a
time such as this,” read the guidance, which was also obtained by
Allpress and first published by the Center for Media and Democracy. It
said to push for new electors “in states where constitutional rights
have been violated and evidence of substantial fraud has been
established.”
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The guidance advised visiting the website everylegalvote.com “to report fraud and take action.”
Visitors
to the site could click a button and be taken to<b> freeroots.com</b>, </span>
according to webpages preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback
Machine. That landing page urged visitors to press the “take action”
button to “email every swing House and Senate leader in one easy click.”
<b>Because
that landing page is no longer online, it is no longer possible to
click through on the link. But language in Thomas’s first email aligns
closely with language that appears in a preview when a FreeRoots link
that was archived several days after that email is shared on messaging
platforms</b>.
<b>
</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The site everylegalvote.com initially said that it was produced in partnership </b>with <b>United in Purpose, </b>a
nonprofit group known for gathering and deploying data to galvanize
conservative Christian voters. That organization has hosted the
luncheons where Thomas presents her “Impact Awards.”</span>
<b>
</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>But
the reference to United in Purpose was deleted within days</b>. It was
replaced with language identifying three “Founding Sponsors”: the Texas
security firm <b>Allied Security Operations Group,</b> the Texas nonprofit
group Liberty Center for God and Country, and the online talk show
“Economic War Room.”</span>
Representatives of United in Purpose
and the three sponsors of everylegalvote.com did not respond to messages
seeking comment. All three sponsors have promoted election-fraud
claims, according to previous Post reports.
In the month after
the election, the Trump campaign and other Republicans filed dozens of
lawsuits challenging the outcome. By early December, Eastman and
Giuliani were telling lawmakers in key swing states won by Biden that
they had the authority and even the obligation to disregard the vote and
select their own electors.
“Your argument is that essentially we
have a failed election that would require the legislature to step in
and assign electors. Am I correct?” a Georgia senator asked Eastman
during a Dec. 3 hearing.
“Yes,” Eastman said.
The Dec. 13 emails repeated the claim that legislators could “choose” electors.
“As
state lawmakers, you have the Constitutional power and authority to
protect the integrity of our elections — and we need you to exercise
that power now!” the email said. “Never before in our nation’s history
have our elections been so threatened by fraud and unconstitutional
procedures.”
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The two-minute video it linked to, titled “A Word To
Heroic Legislators,” has since been removed from YouTube for violating
community guidelines. The video’s Web address, which is visible in the
email, was included in a December 2020 newsletter written by activist<b> Geoffrey Botkin,</b> who appears to be the person featured in the video.</span>
Botkin,
who has published numerous podcasts and videos about the election and
other matters, wrote in the newsletter that he had uploaded “A Word To
Heroic Legislators” to another video hosting service. The video remains
visible there.
“I’m asking you to stand up and lead heroically,” Botkin says in the video, urging lawmakers to appoint electors.
“We
have to admit, legally and politically it’s way too late for other
people to do it. Clever lawyers or the Supreme Court, they cannot now
come to the rescue,” he continues. “This is a moment, a unique moment in
American history, demanding that state legislators set America back on
her foundations by using a power that you may never have known that you
had — but you do have it.”
Botkin did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The
video link and some of the language in the email match language that
appears in an archived version of the landing page for a freeroots.com
email campaign organized by <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Act for America, a group that has accused
U.S. Muslim organizations of supporting terrorism and of trying to
impose Islamic law across the country.</span>
A representative of <b>Act for America </b>did not respond to requests for comment.
On
Dec. 14, 2020, Biden electors in Arizona cast their votes, after the
election results were certified by Democratic Secretary of State Katie
Hobbs and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
On that same day, Bolick was among dozens of Arizona lawmakers who
signed on to a letter to Congress calling for the state’s electoral
votes to go to Trump or “be nullified completely until a full forensic
audit can be conducted.”</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
Bolick
told The Post she signed on to that effort because she backed the idea
of an audit, not because of any communication she received from Thomas.</span>
Jacqueline Alemany and Alice Crites contributed to this report.
More from Investigations
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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.azmirror.com/2022/06/21/how-one-of-arizonas-fake-trump-electors-ginni-thomas-and-an-email-platform-for-activism-are-connected/">https://www.azmirror.com/2022/06/21/how-one-of-arizonas-fake-trump-electors-ginni-thomas-and-an-email-platform-for-activism-are-connected/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">w</font><span style="font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; box-sizing: border-box;">hen Virginia “Ginni” Thomas sent an email to Arizona lawmakers in November 2020 asking them to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state, she did so using an advocacy platform that a Republican legislator-elect would go on to own, the </span><i style="font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; box-sizing: border-box;">Arizona Mirror </i><span style="font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; box-sizing: border-box;">has discovered. </span></div><div><font face="Newsreader, serif"><span style="font-size: 20px;">
</span></font><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">FreeRoots, the email campaign service that makes it easy for people to send pre-written emails to elected officials that are created and promoted by activist groups was used by Thomas to encourage 29 Arizona lawmakers to use their “plenary powers” to choose Donald Trump over Joe Biden, according to reporting by the </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/06/10/ginni-thomas-election-arizona-lawmakers/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Post</i></a><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">. </i></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are continuing to </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105543882/jan-6-committee-ginni-thomas" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">press Thomas to testify</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"> about her role in pressuring lawmakers to overturn the results of the election which included emails from the FreeRoots platform. Queen Creek Republican<b> Jake Hoffman, </b>who </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2022/02/16/rep-jake-hoffman-asked-pence-not-accept-arizona-electoral-votes/6820511001/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"> asking him on January 5 to not accept the election results and was </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.azmirror.com/2022/02/01/trumps-fake-electors-heres-the-full-list/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">one of Arizona’s fake Trump electors</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">now seems to operate a website built on FreeRoots and has connections to the old platform’s owner.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">the company is owned by Eric Berger, who has previously worked at the </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.heritage.org/staff/eric-berger" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Heritage Foundation</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> and is an operative of the secretive and powerful political Christian group, </span><a target="blank" href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/08/30/membership-list-powerful-secretive-christian-right-america/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Council for National Policy</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">. </span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">But Berger is not the only one who is an operative of the group. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hoffman is a member of the CNP and in 2021 rallied alongside him and </span><a target="blank" href="https://truthout.org/articles/right-wing-groups-attack-election-and-ethics-reform-bill/#::text=CNP%20operatives%20that%20reportedly%20spoke%20at%20the%20rally%20include%3A%20Eric%20Berger%2C%20co%2Dfounder%20of%20FreeRoots%3B%20Jake%20Hoffman%2C%20president%20and%20CEO%20of%20Rally%20Forge" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">other members in West Virginia</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> against a comprehensive voting rights house resolution known as the “</span><a target="blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_People_Act" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">For the People Act</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">.” </span></b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a target="blank" href="https://freeroots.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">FreeRoots</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> doesn’t send out emails like it once did, it just shows you a landing page that states they and their parent company GPX LLC are looking to “secure SaaS (software as a service) offerings.” </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Enter AlignAct.com. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The campaign pages for AlignAct and FreeRoots look nearly identical when put side by side. Both companies offer the same service, an easy way for constituents to reach out to policymakers via email and phone and share the campaign on social media. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">While FreeRoots appeared to try to court people from across the political spectrum at one point in time, with people like Chris Cuomo </span><a target="blank" href="https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo/status/1338238420217450500?s=20&t=uxQEQHwXaeDMJDNefQF9ww" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">sharing campaigns aimed at pandemic assistance</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">,<b> AlignAct is aimed directly at conservatives. </b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The main landing page for AlignAct has campaigns directed at hot topics in the conservative ecosphere such as alleged vaccine passports, alleged grooming in schools and unfounded claims of election fraud. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A review of Hoffman’s financial disclosure statements for 2022 shows that the lawmaker lists AlignAct LLC along with two other “Align” related entities as a controlled business, meaning he owns 50% or more of the company. Hoffman did not respond to multiple requests for comment. </span></p><figure id="attachment_13897" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Barlow, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px; color: var(--dark_gray); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); max-width: 100%; width: 1800px;"><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-13897" src="https://www.azmirror.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Untitled-1.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1200" srcset="https://www.azmirror.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Untitled-1.jpg 1800w, https://www.azmirror.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Untitled-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.azmirror.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Untitled-1-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.azmirror.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Untitled-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.azmirror.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Untitled-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; height: auto; vertical-align: middle;" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 8px;"><span class="fas fa-camera" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; display: inline-block; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; text-rendering: auto; line-height: 1; font-family: " font="Font" awesome="Awesome" free="Free" font-weight="font-weight"> FreeRoots (left) and AlignAct (right) campaign landing pages.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" /></span></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The front page of AlignAct currently lists a campaign for one of Hoffman’s bills </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.azmirror.com/2022/03/16/bill-to-ban-books-with-descriptions-of-sex-from-arizona-schools-moves-forward/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">which would ban all books with descriptions of sex</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, claiming that the bill will </span><a target="blank" href="https://alignact.com/go/help-stop-sexual-grooming-in-arizona-schools" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">stop sexual grooming</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> in Arizona schools. The AlignAct page was started by his campaign committee.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The visual similarities on the website are not the only connections, the </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mirror</i><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> has found. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">On AlignAct’s website, users can download a worksheet to help them craft their campaign prior to creating one. <b>Metadata on the Microsoft Word document lists Eric Berger’s email address under the author section. </b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">After the </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mirror</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> reached out to both Hoffman and FreeRoots about the metadata contained within the document, the worksheet was changed to a .pdf and all metadata was scrubbed. </span></p><figure id="attachment_13903" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Barlow, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px; color: var(--dark_gray); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); max-width: 100%; width: 1018px;">
<figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 8px;"><span class="fas fa-camera" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; display: inline-block; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; text-rendering: auto; line-height: 1; font-family: " font="Font" awesome="Awesome" free="Free" font-weight="font-weight"> Metadata showing Eric Berger’s name<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" /></span></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">It is unclear how long Hoffman has been involved with FreeRoots and AlignAct. On his </span><a target="blank" href="https://apps.azsos.gov/election/Financial_Disclosure/2022/HouseRep/hoffman-jake-18599-14728.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">most recent financial disclosure</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> statement, he lists “n/a” when asked what type of business activity AlignAct conducts, only describing it as “Public Engagement Software.” </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hoffman has a track record of using technology for conservative political activism. His company, Rally Forge, was found to have created “troll farms” alongside Turning Point USA ahead of the 2018 midterms, operating Facebook accounts that </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/11/facebook-ads-turning-point-usa-rally-forge" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">appeared to be Democrats</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> but were in fact pushing conservative political messaging and disinformation. </span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The creation of the fake accounts, a majority of the accounts were run by teenagers, according to reporting by the </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/turning-point-teens-disinformation-trump/2020/09/15/c84091ae-f20a-11ea-b796-2dd09962649c_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Post</i></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, eventually led Facebook to </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/08/facebook-bans-media-consultancy-running-troll-farm-pro-trump-youth-group/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">permanently ban Hoffman and Rally Forge</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">. The company, and later Hoffman himself, were also </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2020/10/09/jake-hoffman-candidate-arizona-legislature-suspended-firm-rally-forge-banned/5940817002/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">permanently banned from Twitter</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">. </span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hoffman still lists the company in his financial disclosure statements. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">While AlignAct is not a “troll farm” like Hoffman’s other venture, it is connected to a number of organizations that have been spreading disinformation on a variety of subjects. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The email sent by Thomas came from a campaign organized by </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Act for America which initially started its life as an </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a target="blank" href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/act-america" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">anti-Muslim group</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> founded in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. It’s founder, Brigitte Gabriel, </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/americas-most-anti-muslim-activist-is-welcome-at-the-white-house/520323/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">has said that</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> any practicing Muslim “cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States.” </span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Thomas’ email to Arizona lawmakers came from an Act for America campaign that </span><a target="blank" href="https://twitter.com/natedog155/status/1535394322757074944?s=20&t=uxQEQHwXaeDMJDNefQF9ww" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">linked to a video</span></a></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> urging lawmakers to use their “plenary powers” to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory and instead declare that Donald Trump won. Arizona law does not allow the legislature to take such an action</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Other organizations with ties to extremism have continued to use Hoffman’s new platform, such as <b>America’s Frontline Doctors,</b> whose members </span><a target="blank" href="https://theintercept.com/2021/12/20/americas-frontline-doctors-covid-clinics/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">continue to push conspiracy theories</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> and false treatments for COVID-19 as well as being embroiled in Jan. 6. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">The </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.bustle.com/p/in-2020-the-eagle-forum-is-supporting-trump-22874855" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">anti-feminist, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Eagle Forum </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">also has a presence on the site, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">as do a number of Tea Party organizations. Their advocacy ranges from including border security to alleged election fraud to stopping the United Nations. </span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mirror</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> created an account to better understand campaigns and their creation on the platform. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">AlignAct allows for users to choose if they want to target federal, state, school board or “any other government figure.” The site also allows for “advocates” to add .csv files or choose from lists to “send their message to a strategic group of lawmakers in Congress!” </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">A donation feature is listed as coming soon. In his financial disclosure, Hoffman reported owning “AlignPay,” which he described as a “Payment Processing Solutions” business. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Those setting up a campaign can also check a box to ask “advocates” for their phone numbers so the campaign organizer can send them text messages at a later date. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hoffman did not respond to questions about what exactly his role is in AlignAct, what his involvement is in the day-to-day operations and if he was involved with FreeRoots when Thomas sent her emails. However, a </span><a target="_blank" href="https://www.cchfreedom.org/files/files/Letter%20to%20Approps%20to%20Stop%20UPI%20(COPY).pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">letter signed by Hoffman</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> and others lists him as the “President and CEO” of another Align related initiative called “Align for Freedom.” </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> Berger also did not respond to a request for comment. </span></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><a href="https://twitter.com/natedog155/status/1536052448795713544">https://twitter.com/natedog155/status/1536052448795713544</a></div><div>
</div><div>twit natedog</div><div>no pix twt</div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>·</div><div>Jun 12</div><div>thanks to </div><div>@visionsurreal</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> we now know Mark Finchem - an Arizona State Rep - whos currently running for Secretary of State - the top elections official in the state - shared the very same video of Geoffrey Botkin - though unclear to me if it was via Ginni Thomas or other sources.</span></div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>·</div><div>Jun 12</div><div>While I don't have a direct comment from Mark Finchem, since he shared the video I'll take that as a direct endorsement, as I do for Ginni Thomas. </div><div>The first Arizona SoS candidate we looked at, </div><div>@Bolick4Arizona</div><div> should probably comment though --></div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>·</div><div>Jun 12</div><div>--> @Bolick4Arizona posts stuff like this on her campaign account (though after the election to be fair).</div><div>I'm sure everything on her personal account </div><div>@slmbolick</div><div> is totally sane and grounded in reality.</div><div>Quote Tweet</div><div>Shawnna LM Bolick</div><div>@ShawnnaLMBolick</div><div> · Dec 29, 2020</div><div>Replying to @hkfp</div><div>Never forget this patriot. I traveled 2 Hong Kong & China in 2018.I have no desire 2 ever return 2 China even though I was issued a 10 yr visa. I the folks in Hong Kong who wave the flag. I wish we could export all of the communists in the US & trade them with those patriots</div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>·</div><div>Jun 12</div><div>that leaves us with two other candidates for Arizona GOP nomination for SoS - odds they shared the video too?</div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>·</div><div>Jun 12</div><div>.</div><div>@azpolitico22</div><div> who you got for Arizona SoS?</div><div>
</div><div>https://twitter.com/azpolitico22/status/1529979943936937985</div><div>This Tweet is unavailable.</div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>·</div><div>Jun 12</div><div>based</div><div>https://twitter.com/azpolitico22/status/1529983385002602497</div><div>This Tweet is unavailable.</div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>·</div><div>Jun 12</div><div>While on the topic of Arizona GOP candidates for SoS - </div><div>@beauforaz</div><div> - another candidate - doesn't have much on his Twitter, mainly just vague quotes about being a government outsider or being like Reagan, but he did agree with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas here.</div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>·</div><div>Jun 12</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Since[beau?] he's an Ad Agency exec according to </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">@jeremyduda</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> - to me it seems doubtful he would have received this video via Ginni Thomas</span>.</div><div>
</div><div>@beauforaz</div><div> could you do us a favor and let us know if you think this is acceptable stuff?</div><div>
</div><div>https://twitter.com/natedog155/status/1535394322757074944</div><div>
</div><div>https://azmirror.com/blog/ad-agency-exec-beau-lane-joins-gop-primary-for-secretary-of-state/</div><div>Quote Tweet</div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div> · Jun 10</div><div><b>Video Ginni Thomas shared with Rusty Bowers, Arizona state house representative, on 12/13/20.</b></div><div>Show this thread</div><div>
</div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>·</div><div>Jun 12</div><div>and one last thing </div><div>@beauforaz</div><div> - you should prob fix the cropping on your ballotpedia pic</div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>·</div><div>Jun 12</div><div>ooof not so easy to be a RINO out here huh</div><div>Quote Tweet</div><div>Yvonne Cahill</div><div>@cahillaz</div><div> · Jun 8</div><div>Replying to @beauforaz and @AzFRW</div><div>I understand you think there was no fraud in our last election?</div><div>
</div><div>Relevant people</div><div>'Nate dog'</div><div>@natedog155</div><div>Brooklyn Nets Enthusiast he/him</div><div>Trending now</div><div>
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