2020 Election Fallout 15: More Information Is Being Revealed About The Big Lie

[Howl]

Tarrio was in his underwear when arrested -- his lawyer and everyone else was in the dark about this coming.  No leaks from DoJ. 

Speculation is that after the Reffitt conviction yesterday and the Tarrio arrest this morning -- a lot of plea deals will be accepted (if they are offered). 

[Cartmann99]

Colorado election official Tina Peters indicted as part of 2020 election probe

Quote

A grand jury indicted a Colorado election official on 1o counts as part of an investigation into tampering with the results of the 2020 election.

Driving the news: The criminal charges against Mesa County clerk Tina Peters announced Wednesday include seven felony counts for attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation and identify theft.

• She is also charged with official misconduct — a misdemeanor.
• A warrant has been issued for her arrest, the Mesa County district attorney's office said in a statement Wednesday.

Why it matters: Peters is a nationally known promoter of debunked election fraud conspiracies and a Republican candidate for secretary of state, the Colorado office that oversees elections.

The backstory: The indictment came after numerous local, state and federal investigations into election equipment tampering.

• Peters, a supporter of former President Trump, claims election files were discarded after the 2020 election, but her own department says that's untrue and the election results are securely archived.

 

[Howl]

18 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Colorado election official Tina Peters indicted as part of 2020 election probe

The Colorado Sun:    The Tina Peters saga, explained: Everything that’s happened with Mesa County’s clerk   Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday. Here’s an explanation of everything that’s happened so far.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Former Trump adviser Michael Flynn pleaded the Fifth during meeting with Jan. 6 committee"

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Michael Flynn, former president Donald Trump’s national security adviser, invoked his Fifth Amendment right Thursday during a deposition before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

Flynn — who was subpoenaed last November by the committee in connection with a meeting he had with Trump on Dec. 18, 2020, after the election — pleaded the Fifth “on advice of counsel,” his attorney, David A. Warrington, said in a statement.

Warrington argued that during Thursday’s deposition, “committee staff insinuated that General Flynn’s decision to decline to answer their questions constituted an admission of guilt.”

“According to the Supreme Court, ‘no implication of guilt could be drawn from [one’s] invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege,' ” Warrington noted, accusing the committee of holding views on the amendment that are “in conflict with nearly 250 years of American jurisprudence.”

Flynn has perpetuated Trump’s baseless claims that widespread voting fraud cost him the election, false complaints embraced by the mob that stormed the Capitol to stop the confirmation of Joe Biden’s electoral college win. The attack resulted in five dead and injuries to 140 members of law enforcement.

Warrington said the committee’s “insistence on proceeding with this deposition while this matter is still being litigated left General Flynn with no other choice” and called it “political theater.”

“Most of the questions lacked any relation to the legislative purpose contained in House Resolution 503, and many were clearly sourced from fringe news and conspiracy websites and rumors. No American should have to endure such harassment by the legislative branch of our government,” Warrington said.

Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who served as an adviser to the former president for the first 22 days of his administration, was subpoenaed by the committee last year along with five other top Trump advisers. According to the committee, all reportedly participated in discussions about challenging the election results.

In its letter to Flynn, the committee asked specifically about his attendance at the Dec. 18 meeting in the Oval Office “during which participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the message” that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud.

The letter noted that the previous day, Flynn had spoken with a Newsmax TV interviewer about seizing voting machines, foreign influence in the election, and the purported precedent for deploying military troops and declaring martial law to “rerun” the election. It asked Flynn for all documents and depositions related to these matters.

On March 1, the White House Counsel’s Office informed Flynn and former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro that President Biden would not back claims of executive privilege to shield them from testifying before the select committee.

In response to the White House counsel, Warrington said his client had not asserted executive privilege in connection with the select committee’s subpoena. In addition, Warrington said his client had never refused to appear before the panel.

Flynn sued the House special committee last December in an attempt to block the subpoena, but a judge denied Flynn’s motion for a temporary restraining order.

This would not be the first time Flynn pleaded the Fifth in connection to an investigation into the former president. In 2017, the former national security adviser invoked his right instead of complying with a Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena. At the time, the committee was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Trump has bashed the Fifth Amendment publicly several times, saying only “the mob takes the Fifth” in 2016. Back then, he was referencing former aides to Hillary Clinton, who pleaded the right during inquiries into the former secretary of state’s use of a private email server.

“If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” Trump said during the 2016 campaign, as he attacked Clinton and her staff.

 

[SassyPants]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Former Trump adviser Michael Flynn pleaded the Fifth during meeting with Jan. 6 committee"

 

“According to the Supreme Court, ‘no implication of guilt could be drawn from [one’s] invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege,' ” Warrington noted, accusing the committee of holding views on the amendment that are “in conflict with nearly 250years of American jurisprudence.”

 

People who do not have anything to hide do not plead the 5th; they tell the truth, period.  The Supreme Court be damned.

If I was being railroaded, I’d insist on telling my story.

Edited March 11, 2022 by SassyPants

[GreyhoundFan]

"RNC sues Jan 6. committee over subpoena of data from software vendor Salesforce"

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The Republican National Committee has filed a lawsuit against the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, seeking to block the congressional panel’s subpoena of data from Salesforce, an RNC software vendor.

According to a copy of the complaint, the Jan. 6 committee issued a subpoena to Salesforce on Feb. 23, seeking records on performance metrics and analytics related to email campaigns by or on behalf of President Donald Trump, his presidential campaign and the RNC. In its subpoena, the Jan. 6 committee said it needed the Salesforce data to investigate whether and how Trump and the RNC used the software vendor’s platform to disseminate false statements about the 2020 election, citing evidence that many rioters were motivated by those false claims.

The RNC’s lawsuit, filed Wednesday, argues that such a request goes beyond the scope of the congressional committee’s subpoena power. The bipartisan House panel is investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob trying to stop the confirmation of Joe Biden’s electoral college win, an attack that resulted in the deaths of one police officer and four other people and injured about 140 members of law enforcement.

The RNC’s complaint also names House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Jan. 6 committee’s individual members. It accuses them of “attempting to kneecap the RNC for political gain while trampling on free speech and freedom of political association” by requesting the Salesforce data.

“The RNC is challenging this unconstitutional overreach so that one of America’s two major political parties may not use the force of government to unlawfully seize the private and sensitive information of the other,” RNC chief counsel Justin Riemer said in a statement.

According to the complaint, Salesforce was required to turn the subpoenaed documents over to the committee by Wednesday and appear for a deposition on March 16. A Salesforce representative said Thursday the company was not commenting on the lawsuit.

The RNC’s complaint argues that the Salesforce subpoena seeks “unquestionably political information of the RNC” that is not limited to Jan. 6 and that “by any measure … exceeds the scope of Congress’ limited subpoena power.”

“The RNC had nothing to do with the violence that occurred at the Capitol and has repeatedly condemned it,” the RNC said in a statement. “In fact, the RNC was a target of violence and had a bomb placed outside of RNC headquarters, which put our staff in immediate danger and is something the committee has yet to investigate.”

Select committee spokesman Tim Mulvey said the subpoena of Salesforce had “absolutely nothing to do with getting the private information of voters or donors” but rather was issued to investigate how claims about a stolen election motivated pro-Trump rioters to storm the Capitol.

Mulvey noted that between November 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, both the Trump campaign and the RNC solicited donations by pushing false claims that the election was tainted by widespread fraud.

“These emails encouraged supporters to put pressure on Congress to keep President Trump in power,” Mulvey said. “The select committee issued a subpoena to an email fundraising vendor in order to help investigators understand the impact of false, inflammatory messages in the weeks before January 6th, the flow of funds, and whether contributions were actually directed to the purpose indicated.”

Trump has baselessly claimed for more than a year that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, even though there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud affecting the election’s outcome.

The Jan. 6 committee has ramped up its investigation in recent months, seeking voluntary cooperation from — and issuing subpoenas to — several high-profile members of Trump’s orbit, including members of his former legal team, Fox News host Sean Hannity and Ivanka Trump, the former president’s elder daughter and White House adviser.

The committee has also simultaneously been scrutinizing the money that Trump and his allies raised and spent on false claims that the election was stolen.

“People were swindled financially and psychologically,” Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), a member of the select committee, said this week. “People’s convictions were cynically exploited for Trump’s gain.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice, says she attended Jan. 6 ‘Stop-the-Steal’ rally before Capitol attack"

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Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, for the first time has publicly acknowledged that she participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 “Stop-the-Steal” rally on the Ellipse that preceded the storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, raising questions about the impartiality of her husband’s work.

In an interview with the conservative outlet the Washington Free Beacon that was published Monday, Thomas, who goes by Ginni, said she was part of the crowd that gathered at the Ellipse that morning to support President Donald Trump. Trump was claiming falsely that widespread voter fraud delivered the presidency to Democrat Joe Biden — a falsehood he continues to repeat.

Thomas said she was at the rally for a short period of time, got cold and went home before Trump took the stage at noon that day.

“I was disappointed and frustrated that there was violence that happened following a peaceful gathering of Trump supporters on the Ellipse on Jan. 6,” the conservative activist told the publication. “There are important and legitimate substantive questions about achieving goals like electoral integrity, racial equality, and political accountability that a democratic system like ours needs to be able to discuss and debate rationally in the political square. I fear we are losing that ability.”

A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In February 2021, Thomas apologized to her husband’s former law clerks after a rift developed among them over her election advocacy of Trump and endorsement of the Jan. 6 rally that led to violence and death at the Capitol.

The siege by the pro-Trump mob trying to stop the confirmation of Biden’s electoral college win left the Capitol vandalized and resulted in the deaths of five people and injuries to 140 members of law enforcement.

“I owe you all an apology. I have likely imposed on you my lifetime passions,” Thomas wrote to a private Thomas Clerk World email list of her husband’s staff over his three decades on the bench.

As an outspoken conservative activist, Ginni Thomas has drawn scrutiny to her husband’s work on the Court and his impartiality, most recently in connection to the Jan. 6 attack and the House select committee tasked with investigating the riot.

While Ginni Thomas’s activism has, in multiple instances, overlapped with cases that have been decided by her husband, her connection to the rally that preceded the insurrection has reignited fury among his critics, who say it illustrates a gaping hole in the court’s rules: Justices essentially decide for themselves whether they have a conflict of interest.

Last December, Ginni Thomas was among a group of conservative leaders who signed a letter criticizing the work of the bipartisan House committee as “overtly partisan political persecution.” The next month, the Supreme Court decided on Trump’s request to deny the committee White House records that Biden had ordered be released. Instead of recusing himself from the case, Clarence Thomas was the only justice to say he would grant Trump’s request.

In the interview, Ginni Thomas insisted that her work is separate from that of her husband.

“Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles, and aspirations for America,” Ginni Thomas said. “But we have our own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too. Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work.”

Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a nonpartisan advocacy group that advocates for reforms to the Supreme Court, said Ginni Thomas’s participation in the rally should have been enough of an excuse for Clarence Thomas to recuse from the House committee case.

The justice’s failure to do so, Roth said, is yet another example of how poorly Supreme Court justices follow the recusal standard.

While the Supreme Court is supposed to operate under regulations guiding all federal judges, including a requirement that a justice “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” there is no procedure to enforce that standard. Each justice can decide whether to recuse, and there is no way to appeal a Supreme Court member’s failure to do so.

“Because of her participation in that rally, which then led to the breach of the Capitol, which then led to the January 6 committee. … That means that you, as a justice, your impartiality still might reasonably be questioned,” Roth said.

Roth said it is not only Clarence Thomas who does not properly follow the recusal standard, noting as an example that Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Neil M. Gorsuch did not recuse when dealing with cases involving their book publisher, Penguin Random House. But the Thomases’ case, Roth said, is different because of the importance of the Jan. 6 riot in American history.

“There should be a recusal,” Roth said of the Thomases’ case. “But again, I’m sort of on the side of there should be more recusals … There is an exacting standard that exists and that’s simply not being followed through on and I think that is a shame and it hurts impugns the integrity of the institution.”

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

Spoiler

 

[Cartmann99]

Spoiler

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

On 3/22/2022 at 5:48 PM, Cartmann99 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Jesse Gemstone would appreciate if Evan quit copying his hairstyle. 

 

5 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

  Hide contents

 

What?! Trump is a McConnell puppet? Who knew??!! (Oh how I enjoy when the Trumpers whine when he turns on them.)

[Howl]

I find this Mo Brooks turn to be fascinating. Bridges? Burned!  Brooks has committed full MAGA treason; there is no coming back.  He has poked Trump in his most very sensitive narcissistic spots.

What's his game plan? Rat leaving an ostensibly sinking ship?  Working on avoiding legal liability?

 

[apple1]

13 hours ago, Howl said:

I find this Mo Brooks turn to be fascinating. Bridges? Burned!  Brooks has committed full MAGA treason; there is no coming back.  He has poked Trump in his most very sensitive narcissistic spots.

What's his game plan? Rat leaving an ostensibly sinking ship?  Working on avoiding legal liability?

 

Keeping in mind - nothing here but my guess.

He's still trying to have his cake and eat it too? He wants all the future votes in his state that he thinks supporting Trump will get him. He's confused at Trump's eating his own. (?)

[Cartmann99]

Videos from CBS News are under the spoiler:

Spoiler

 

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Cartmann99
added additional tweets

[Cartmann99]

 

[Becky]

We are screwed.  I am convinced the mid-terms will hand Congress to the Republicans, which means you can kiss the Jan. 6 commission goodbye. There is never going to be a full investigation, and no one is going to be held to account.  

[Audrey2]

23 minutes ago, Becky said:

We are screwed.  I am convinced the mid-terms will hand Congress to the Republicans, which means you can kiss the Jan. 6 commission goodbye. There is never going to be a full investigation, and no one is going to be held to account.  

And it will also give the crazies the green light to do this together political candidate doesn't win, especially if Trump runs in 2024.

[Howl]

10 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

Is Ginni Thomas a threat to the Supreme Court?  I want to scream in all caps, YES, she is and has been for years.  This is what corrupt influence looks like, at the highest level.  It's been blatantly obvious for a very long time and now it's super blatantly apparent.  

 On twitter, people are like, yes, he'll surely resign now!  Ridiculous. No, he'll never resign, he'll die while on the bench unless a Republican regime in control. 

I'm still amazed and horrified that the Trump legacy has exposed every single weakness in our system of government.  

1 hour ago, Becky said:

We are screwed.  I am convinced the mid-terms will hand Congress to the Republicans, which means you can kiss the Jan. 6 commission goodbye.

My fear as well, although I hate to admit it even to myself.   

A question, though.  Let's say Putin tanks over Ukraine (however that may manifest),  Russian troll farms shut down, Russian $$$ funneled to American politicians dries up, and whatever other Russian election influence skullduggery has been going on, do you think that will help shift the balance away from Republicans?  

I don't think America has come close to reckoning the extent of Russian influence in the electoral process on multiple levels. 

[Xan]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

I don't think America has come close to reckoning the extent of Russian influence in the electoral process on multiple levels. 

I think there are a lot of strong connections between the Russians and Trump/Republicans.  I also fear that if they don't unravel it all by the autumn, it will all stay hidden and the Republicans will regain power.  Then we're sunk.  The recent news about Alvin Bragg dumping the Trump case bothers me a lot.  That's NY and the evidence was obvious.  How is it possible that he can just refuse to try the case?

[Howl]

20 hours ago, Xan said:

The recent news about Alvin Bragg dumping the Trump case bothers me a lot.  That's NY and the evidence was obvious.  How is it possible that he can just refuse to try the case?

There are many enraged people asking this question, and a lot of them think Bragg is compromised in some way. 

[formergothardite]

There are so many horrible things going on right now that the democrats SHOULD be able to easily wipe the floor with the GOP in the next election. Except they won’t. They will drag their feet till it is too late. Why are they so terrible at this? Shit needs to get done yesterday. 

[apple1]

6 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

There are so many horrible things going on right now that the democrats SHOULD be able to easily wipe the floor with the GOP in the next election. Except they won’t. They will drag their feet till it is too late. Why are they so terrible at this? Shit needs to get done yesterday. 

In fairness - part (not all) of the issue is years of partisan redistricting.

[Audrey2]

32 minutes ago, apple1 said:

In fairness - part (not all) of the issue is years of partisan redistricting.

Also, years of Fox/ talk radio indoctrination, so more would NEVER vote for a Democrat, no matter what. They also believe crazy conspiracy theories.

[47of74]

Fuck Face staffer isn't getting protection from the Biden White House.

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The White House said earlier this month that it won't block House subpoenas to Dan Scavino, the former deputy chief of staff to then-President Donald Trump, related to related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

The Biden administration is not asserting executive privileges that could shield Scavino from being forced to answer questions about discussions in the Trump White House around January 6, 2021, or about attempts to use the Justice Department to prop up election fraud disinformation.

CNN has obtained the letter the White House sent to Scavino's attorney on March 15 telling him it would not assert privilege related to his House January 6 select committee subpoenas. In essence, this removes the legal shield Scavino had from being forced to testify.

The Biden White House says it's not even interested in sitting in on a Scavino deposition with the House -- a fairly standard approach when former officials testify that allows the administration to step in if they don't believe certain questions should be answered for secrecy reasons.

 

[Cartmann99]