2020 Election Fallout 13: Sedition And Arrests

[Cartmann99]

 

[47of74]

6 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

Ah Dinesh - along with the likes of Stone - the biggest fucking reason to completely overhaul the pardon power and ability to commute sentences in this country.  I had my way it would not be up to the President's discretion to grant pardons and his or her ability to commute sentences would be very limited.  And no President would be able to pardon previous Presidents.   Have it be that pardons be treated like laws and require passage in both houses of Congress then on to the President to approve.

[SPHASH]

Dinesh is a fucking asshole.  I hate that guy.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Bamboo fibers? Seriously?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

So, who else is completely not surprised that the big GQP "recount" in AZ is not being done securely? "Observers report ballots and laptop computers have been left unattended in Arizona recount, according to secretary of state"

Quote

Ballots have been left unattended on counting tables.

Laptop computers sit abandoned, at times — open, unlocked and unmonitored.

Procedures are constantly shifting, with untrained workers using different rules to count ballots.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) on Wednesday sent a letter outlining a string of problems that she said observers from her office have witnessed at a Republican-led recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona’s largest county.

In the six-page letter, Hobbs wrote that elections are “governed by a complex framework of laws and procedures designed to ensure accuracy, security, and transparency” but that the procedures governing the ongoing recount in Phoenix “ensure none of those things.”

Former Arizona secretary of state Ken Bennett (R), who is acting as a spokesman for the audit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the audit’s Twitter account, @ArizonaAudit, tweeted that Hobbs’s allegations were “baseless claimes [sic].”

“The audit continues!” read the tweet.

On Wednesday, a top official in the Justice Department’s civil rights division wrote in a letter to the state Senate president that information reviewed by the department “raises concerns,” asking that the Arizona Senate provide information to ensure federal laws were not being violated. She wrote that reports suggested that ballots were “not being adequately safeguarded by contractors at an insecure facility, and are at risk of being lost, stolen, altered, compromised or destroyed.”

The recount of Maricopa County’s nearly 2.1 million ballots was ordered by the GOP-led state Senate, despite the fact that county officials, as well as state and federal judges, found no merit to claims that the vote was tainted by fraud or other problems.

Republicans hired a Florida-based private contractor called Cyber Ninjas, whose chief executive has echoed former president Donald Trump’s false allegations of fraud, to handle the recount.

The company has been criticized for running an opaque process and failing to follow state rules for elections and recounts. Its audit has been embraced by Trump and his allies as the key to overturning his election loss, and has spawned a wave of unfounded theories about how the Maricopa vote could have been rigged.

Fueling the speculation have been the unorthodox practices of the contractors, who have been conducting physical examinations of the ballots, including inspecting their weight and thickness and examining folds on ballots under microscopes. At one point, workers were holding ballots up to UV lights.

The purpose of such inspections has not been clear. Bennett at one point said the workers were hunting for watermarks — though county officials have said the Maricopa County ballots don’t bear watermarks.

In her letter, Hobbs wrote that steps such as the paper analysis are “completely unnecessary” and “do little other than further marginalize the professionalism and intent of this ‘audit.’ ”

In an interview Wednesday with a local CBS affiliate, John Brakey — an assistant to Bennett who has described himself as a Democrat who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2020 — said workers were looking for traces of bamboo.

Brakey cited unfounded accusations that 40,000 ballots were flown from Asia into Arizona. He added that he himself does not believe that theory.

“What they’re doing is to find out if there’s bamboo in the paper,” he said, adding: “They’re doing all sorts of testing to prove if it was or wasn’t, and that’s very important, because the only way you’re going to persuade people on changing is having facts, and we’re on a mission for facts.”

Bennett did not immediately respond to a question about whether workers are indeed searching for traces of bamboo.

Independent observers had initially been barred from monitoring the recount, but were allowed in after Hobbs and the Arizona Democratic Party filed a lawsuit against the audit, calling the process a violation of state law.

Hobbs and the party agreed to settle that suit Wednesday.

As part of the settlement, the state Senate and Cyber Ninjas agreed in writing that they would maintain the confidentiality of voter information and the security of ballots and voting equipment, which they obtained from Maricopa County using a subpoena. They also agreed they would continue to allow access for Hobbs’s observers, as well as the news media, which has had inconsistent access to the audit.

Hobbs wrote in her letter Wednesday that she has serious concerns about the process, based both on what observers have seen so far and how Cyber Ninjas has described the process it is using.

Among the problems she outlined: She said it is not clear how the dozens of audit workers are going about determining voter intent to decide how they should count each ballot — a process that generally involves detailed guidelines and training for election workers.

Though each ballot is being tallied by three workers, she wrote that observers in some cases observed workers discussing how to count a ballot with one another or being instructed how to count it by a third worker — both violations of best practices.

Hobbs said that observers also saw inconsistent treatment of ballots once they were unpacked from boxes, raising the possibility that counted and uncounted ballots could become intermingled.

She questioned whether procedures were in place to hire qualified, unbiased people to serve as ballot counters, noting that reporters have spotted former state Rep. Anthony Kern (R) among the ballot counters. Kern was on the November ballot and was photographed attending pro-Trump rallies in Washington on Jan. 6.

She also said the auditors were able to provide no information as to how they will go about adding up information from the tens of thousands of hand-completed tally sheets being produced by employees as they sift through ballots.

“This is not transparency,” she wrote.

The Senate agreed to pay $150,000 for the audit, but funding has been supplemented by private donations being raised by Trump allies.

People who have interacted with Trump at Mar-a-Lago recently say that he has become fixated on the Arizona count and convinced it could spark other states to reexamine their votes as well.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they found thousands and thousands and thousands of votes,” Trump told a crowd attending a party at Mar-a-Lago last week, according to a video posted online by an attendee. “So we’re going to watch that very closely. And after that, you’ll watch Pennsylvania and you’ll watch Georgia and you’re going to watch Michigan and Wisconsin. You’re watching New Hampshire. . . . Because this was a rigged election, everybody knows it.”

President Biden won Arizona in November by more than two points, becoming the first Democrat to win the state since Bill Clinton.

While Senate President Karen Fann (R) and Bennett promised the recount of the 2020 ballots would be transparent, Cyber Ninjas fought to keep documents outlining its procedures secret. The company was previously forced to publish some documents describing its practices by the judge in the suit.

Media access to the Veterans Memorial Coliseum was for a time barred completely and later severely restricted. Some portions of the audit — including forensic analysis of voting equipment — is being conducted entirely out of public view.

The audit recruited volunteer observers to roam the floor during the count, but Bennett has conceded that most are Republicans. ABC15 in Phoenix reported this week that the audit’s official observers are being required to sign nondisclosure agreements.

Hobbs and the state Democratic Party, along with a Democratic member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, agreed to settle their lawsuit after a state judge declined last month to temporarily halt the count while the litigation proceeded. The judge had also signaled that if the lawsuit went forward, he might rule that virtually no state election laws apply to post-election audits, such as the one being run by the state Senate — potentially opening the door to routine partisan-led challenges of election results in the future.

Roopali Desai, a lawyer for the Democratic Party, said the lawsuit led to important concessions that will bring more transparency to a process that has been criticized for being opaque and failing to follow state rules for elections and recounts.

If Cyber Ninjas violates the terms of the agreement, including by blocking access to Hobbs’s observers, the secretary of state or the party could seek new intervention from the court, she said.

“We have won a significant victory in being able to get information and access,” Desai said.

As part of the settlement, Cyber Ninjas also formalized its previous assurance that it is not attempting to compare signatures on the envelopes of ballots sent by mail with voter signatures maintained on file. It requires that the company and Senate provide at least 48 hours’ notice should they decide to attempt to perform a signature match, so Democrats could potentially first seek a court intervention.

Trump and his supporters had expressed particular concern with how the county attempted to verify signatures on mail-in ballots. But election experts say authenticating signatures on ballots requires special expertise and also requires examining some personal information about voters.

 

[Alisamer]

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the recount ended with a Trump win - and ballots suspiciously covered in white-out and crayon. 

[Cartmann99]

19 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the recount ended with a Trump win - and ballots suspiciously covered in white-out and crayon. 

 Freedom Liquid and Patriot Sticks.

[Cartmann99]

Wasn't exactly sure where to put this:

 

[47of74]

Here's another Branch Trumpvidian stick of fuck

Quote

During an expletive-laden verbal tirade in which he lambasted everyone from a U.S. District Court judge to federal prosecutors, and even interrupted another defendant's hearing, Capitol Riot suspect Landon Kenneth Copeland accused the government of mishandling his criminal case and seemingly threatened to evade authorities if they attempted to revoke his pre-trail release.

“I’m going to tell you what you’re going to do,” Copeland yelled at Magistrate Judge Robin Meriweather. “You’re going to give me what the (expletive) I want! You’re going to do what the (expletive) I tell you to do! I’m in the middle of the desert! You can’t (expletive) find me! You can’t (expletive) come get me! You’re going to give me what the (expletive) I want.”

Copeland’s erratic behavior led the judge to question whether or not he is mentally competent to stand trial. She ordered Copeland to undergo a mental evaluation, the results of which will be discussed at a status hearing regarding Copeland’s competency on May 18 at 3:30 p.m. The judge said the hearing will also serve as a continuation of Thursday’s initial appearance, which was unable to be completed do Copeland's outbursts.

Copeland’s conduct may also lead to the loss of his pre-trial release. Prosecutors indicated based on Copeland’s erratic behavior at Thursday’s hearing they may file a motion to detain Copeland before trail.

I'd tell him that I don't care if one is a veteran or how badly they had been wounded, once they attempted the violent overthrow of the United States Government he and any other veterans who participated became fucking traitors as far as I'm concerned.  I have no sympathy for the terrorists who attacked our Capitol on January 6 and he should be doing 250 to the heat death of the universe in the fucking pen as far as I'm concerned. 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is an excellent letter. Unfortunately GQP members couldn't care less.

 

[Howl]

On 5/6/2021 at 9:12 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

So, who else is completely not surprised that the big GQP "recount" in AZ is not being done securely?

 I hadn't been paying attention and wondered how this ever came about -- what election official would allow this to happen?  So...I found this excellent clarification. 

CNN's Chris Cillizza (April 26) interviewed Jen Fifield, who is covering the recount, to clarify how the recount came about and how the AZ Senate handled it. 

Arizona Republicans are conducting a baffling and completely secretive recount of the 2020 election

<Snip>

Quote

Cillizza: Who is overseeing this recount? Are state election officials involved?

Fifield: The county judge granted the Arizona Senate access to the ballots, voting machines and voter data, so this is technically the Senate's audit. But the Senate has relinquished control of the audit to private contractors.

The Senate is paying Cyber Ninjas, a cybersecurity firm, $150,000 to conduct the audit and hire its own contractors. The Arizona Republic found that the CEO of the firm, Doug Logan, had touted conspiracy theories about the election on social media and had participated in a previous attempt to overturn Michigan election results. Logan told reporters at a news conference last week that the audit is costing more than $150,000, but he would not say how much or who is paying his company. He also will not give information about everyone involved. Nonpartisan election auditing experts have indicated this audit will cost millions.

 

Edited May 8, 2021 by Howl

[Ozlsn]

If I lived in Arizona I would be making a lot of noise about this being an utter waste of taxpayer money.

[47of74]

Another idiot learned the hard way that bragging about committing crimes on Facebook is a bad idea. 

Quote

A Chuluota man who bragged on social media about being inside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot was arrested Monday, adding to the growing list of Central Florida residents involved in the deadly ordeal, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.

John Maron Nassif, 55, also was captured on surveillance footage inside the Capitol rotunda, an arrest affidavit said.

“You know I was there, right?” Nassif wrote on Jan. 8, the affidavit said. “You don’t find it odd that police officer is welcoming everybody in? Considering the narrative that’s being pushed?”

On Jan. 20, Nassif again posted to social media to say he was inside the Capitol, the affidavit said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Body-cam footage shows Capitol rioter celebrating as D.C. cop is beaten and Tasered: ‘I got one!’"

Quote

Surrounded by rioters who had dragged him down the U.S. Capitol steps, beaten him and Tasered him, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone screamed in pain.

“I got one!” one of the rioters yelled triumphantly.

As the crowd pushed in, grabbing at his head, Fanone screamed again and then pleaded for help. “I got kids!” he yelled.

The intense scene plays out in body-camera footage of the attack broadcast by CNN on Wednesday evening, casting new light on Fanone’s struggle to escape a clash he later described as “the most brutal, savage hand-to-hand combat of my entire life.” Fanone suffered a mild heart attack and a concussion in the melee.

The vivid violence in the clip stands in stark contrast to claims by some Republicans on Wednesday, who sought to downplay the severity of the deadly insurrection — with one GOP lawmaker even describing the attack as a “normal tourist visit.”

CNN host Don Lemon, who has interviewed Fanone at length in the past, teared up as he showed the body camera footage and called on Republicans to acknowledge the reality faced by police in the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“For all the people who are [saying] ‘hugs and kisses, didn’t happen,’ come on. That’s the reality of what happened to Officer Michael Fanone that day,” Lemon said. “Dragged down the steps, Tased with his own weapon, and then you heard him yelling, ‘I have kids.' ”

Fanone, 40, has emerged as one of the loudest voices among the police who battled a pro-Trump mob at the Capitol, speaking at length about his battles with PTSD and a traumatic brain injury in the wake of the insurrection and calling on Republicans to speak truthfully about the violence.

He was among more than 850 D.C. police officers who responded to the Capitol as thousands of insurrectionists stormed the building in a bid to stop Congress from certifying President Biden’s victory. Fanone joined a group of police trying to keep the mob out of the West Terrace, where he encountered what he later called a “medieval battle scene.”

The new body camera footage shows his perspective in an attack that has led to charges against two of the men prosecutors say beat him and Tasered him after he was dragged away from his colleagues.

In the footage, which starts around 3:15 p.m. on Jan. 6, Fanone is already prone on the ground and screaming in agony. Amid the chaos, someone in the crowd appears to step in to help, saying, “Don’t hurt him. We’re better than this!”

After Fanone, who has two daughters, yells to the crowd that he has children, a path is eventually cleared and he’s dragged back up the steps where a group of police officers is still holding a doorway.

Fanone told CNN that he was knocked unconscious at some point. The video shows other police pulling him inside, laying him on the floor and then yelling for a medic. His partner later rushes to his side and urges the other officers to take off his vest, yelling, “He’s having trouble breathing!”

CNN aired the video hours after a number of Republicans used a House Oversight Committee hearing about Jan. 6 to recast and downplay the insurrection, The Washington Post’s Colby Itkowitz reported.

The hearing came shortly after House Republicans removed Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her caucus leadership role for denouncing President Donald Trump’s repeated falsehoods about the election in the lead-up to the riots.

Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.) suggested it was a “boldfaced lie” to call the attacks an “insurrection.”

“You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit,” he said.

The riots resulted in five deaths and injuries to 140 police officers, including one hurt by an attacker who attempted to gouge his eyes out. Fanone has previously described the terror of being beaten by the mob.

“I don’t know how you can watch my body-worn camera footage and deny that Jan. 6 was anything other than violent and brutal,” Fanone told CNN last month.

 

I think that every single repug who tries to deny that there was a violent insurrection on January 6th should lose access to any security. Maybe they'd rethink things then.

[GreyhoundFan]

The asshole GQPers trying to retcon January 6th make me want to punch something. My poor couch cushions have taken a beating recently.

 

[Ozlsn]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit,” he said.

Yeah if you only saw the bit where they were in public areas at a rally taking selfies and not the bit where they broke into buildings, assaulted police and stole stuff you'd say it was totally normal. Like, you know, if you only see the footage of the crowd at the college football game before they lost, and not the footage when they were smashing shop windows you'd say it was a totally normal game. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Marine Corps officer is first known active-duty service member charged in Capitol riot"

Quote

A Marine Corps officer was arrested Thursday for alleged crimes during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, becoming the first known active-duty service member charged in the violent attempt to thwart the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president.

Maj. Christopher Warnagiris, 40, stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico, was charged with five counts, including assaulting and obstructing police during a civil disorder and obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, federal prosecutors said. He made his first appearance in federal court in Alexandria on Wednesday afternoon.

The attack on the Capitol prompted the Pentagon to refocus efforts on weeding possible extremists out of the active-duty ranks, with a recent military-wide “stand-down” for service members to discuss the issue.

Warnagiris joined the Marine Corps in 2002 and serves as a field artillery officer, officials said. He served on four deployments, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. His current assignment includes training to “improve the warfighting skills” of senior commanders.

“There is no place for racial hatred or extremism in the Marine Corps,” said Maj. J.A. Hernandez, a Marine Corps spokesman. “Our strength is derived from the individual excellence of every Marine regardless of background. Bigotry and racial extremism run contrary to our core values.”

Four other people who have military ties and were charged in the riot serve part-time in the National Guard or Army Reserve. At least 42 others are military veterans, according to service records obtained by The Washington Post, of more than 400 arrested on federal charges.

An FBI agent attested that Warnagiris was the first individual to push himself through the East Rotunda doors about 2:25 p.m. on Jan. 6, after three other people who entered the Capitol from elsewhere pushed through police and tried to force the doors open from the inside.

Charging papers alleged that security camera footage shows that Warnagiris then used his body to keep the doors open, pulled others inside and pushed back an officer trying to shut the doors.

In a screenshot of security footage included in the FBI affidavit, Warnagiris, dressed in a dark jacket, “military green backpack” and black-and-tan gloves, allegedly appears to struggle with the officer, identified as A.W., who was trying to block doors.

A witness on March 16 identified Warnagiris to the FBI on the basis of photos the agency released of suspects wanted in the assaults on officers on Jan. 6, the FBI said.

Investigators said they corroborated Warnagiris’s identification through two government photographs of him and a co-worker at his military command who sees him several times a week and who recognized him from security and news footage of the event.

During his appearance in court Wednesday, he said he is seeking an attorney and was released on personal recognizance. The government did not seek to keep him detained.

In the first 120 days after the Jan. 6 riots, approximately 411 individuals have been arrested on federal charges, including more than 125 people charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

Although the percentage of male veterans charged in the riot is roughly equal to the portion of male veterans in the U.S. population overall, analysts and experts have said that military connections are “force multipliers” for extremist and militant groups, bringing military training and social capital to the organizations and their causes.

Several far-right and extremist groups, such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, participated in the riot and count veterans among their members.

Under a review launched by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Defense Department officials are reexamining rules governing troops’ affiliations with anti-government and white supremacist movements, ties that currently are permissible to a limited degree.

 

[fraurosena]

Smug-faced lying coward. When the reporter doesn't back down, he refuses to answer and decides to flee in his car.

 

 

[fraurosena]

Good news!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, more voter fraud from trumpsters. This one has the bonus of a murder. You couldn't make this up.

 

[Ozlsn]

So they're finally waking up to the fact that they got hung out to dry - how long I wonder before they wake up and realise they were used.

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

Not a good look...

 

[fraurosena]

Interesting…