2020 Election Fallout 17: More Trials, More Convictions

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Ozlsn]

Going to guess that plea deal required either admissions or testimony or both, and he figured there was a greater risk in flipping.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

More:

Spoiler

Just like so many of the sentences, I wish it was longer, but at least it's significant.

[GreyhoundFan]

[Dandruff]

30 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Amnesty for those convicted of threatening our democracy by a "president" who has been arrested for the same?  Sounds lovely.

[fraurosena]

Why is Tarrio’s ass not in jail? He has been sentenced to 22 years, so how come he’s out and about and still allowed to be spouting this drivel?

[Howl]

...and just like that, a Michigan fake elector has pled guilty! 

 

[CTRLZero]

It’s good to see Arizona is pursuing its fake electors.  CNN article on fake electors
Excerpts:

They called it “The Signing.” Eleven fake electors for President Donald Trump convened at the state Republican Party headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 14, 2020. They broadcast themselves preparing to sign the documents, allegedly provided by a Trump campaign attorney, claiming that they were the legitimate representatives of the state’s electoral votes.

By that time, Trump’s loss in the state – by less than 11,000 votes – had already been certified by the state’s Republican governor affirming that Joe Biden won Arizona in the 2020 presidential election.

. . . .

Now those fake electors find themselves under new legal scrutiny as the Arizona attorney general announced a broad investigation into their actions and their public campaign that could open the electors up to increased legal liability, according to experts who spoke with CNN.
. . . .

Of the 11 fake electors in Arizona, five were the most publicly vocal members advocating the scheme in the state: Kelli Ward, the chairperson of the state party and her spouse, Michael Ward; state Rep. Anthony Kern, then a sitting lawmaker; Jake Hoffman, a newly elected member of the Arizona House; and Tyler Bowyer, a top state official with the Republican National Committee.

. . . . 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting read. Perry should be indicted for his actions. 

 

[47of74]

The New York civil court gag order has been reinstated

Quote

A New York appellate court has reinstated a gag order prohibiting former President Donald Trump and attorneys from making public statements about the courtroom staff in the ongoing $250 million civil fraud trial.

Judge Arthur Engoron originally issued the order barring Trump from making public statements about his court’s staff after Trump made numerous comments about a clerk, who Trump says is biased against him.

Hundreds of threats against Engoron and the law clerk were made public last week. Engoron’s clerk has received 20 to 30 calls per day to her personal cell phone and 30 to 50 messages daily on social media platforms and two personal email addresses, according to court papers.

“Now, upon reading and filing the papers with respect to the motion, and due deliberation having been had thereon, It is ordered that the motion is denied; the interim relief granted by order of a Justice of this Court, dated November 16, 2023, is hereby vacated,” the latest appellate ruling says.

Fuck Face's lawyers all have a sad now over this.  Engoron announced the reinstatement during a break in the trial and said he intends to enforce the order "rigorously and vigorously."  I guess we'll see. 

[GreyhoundFan]

I hope more of them do this:

 

[SPHASH]

53 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I hope more of them do this:

 

I hope the family if Brian Sicnick (sp) sues 

[GreyhoundFan]

Another “about damned time” moment:

[fraurosena]

Also about damned time:

 

[CTRLZero]

AP article discussing early release of rioter Samuel Lazar.  He apparently cooperated with authorities in exchange for the shortened sentence.  I’m interested in what transpired in the last (bolded) paragraph.  If the sealed documents were released, even for a short time, they should be existing somewhere on the internet.  It could be enlightening to see what those documents contain, so I’ll be interested in finding out if there’s any additional info out there.  
 

Spoiler

By 

ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

The Associated Press

A Pennsylvania man who was sentenced in secret for his role in the U.S. Capitol riot cooperated with authorities investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and an unrelated case, according to court documents unsealed this week. 

The documents provide insight into the unusual secrecy in the case of Samuel Lazar, who had been released from federal custody in September after completing his sentence in his Capitol riot case. His case remained under seal even after his release, so there was no public record of a conviction or sentence.

The records unsealed this week show that Lazar, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, admitted to spraying a chemical irritant at police officers who were trying to defend the Capitol and to using a bullhorn to encourage other rioters to take officers’ weapons as he yelled, “Let’s get their guns!” He pleaded guilty to assaulting officers using a dangerous weapon and was sentenced to 30 months in prison during a sealed hearing in March.
 

More than 1,200 people have been charged with Jan. 6-related crimes, and hundreds of them have pleaded guilty. But it is rare for records of a guilty plea and sentence to be sealed, even in cases involving a defendant’s cooperation. Court hearings and records are supposed to be open and available to the public unless there’s a compelling need for secrecy.

The documents show that prosecutors asked the judge last year to sentence Lazar to a prison term below the federal guidelines range, citing Lazar’s “fulsome” cooperation with the government. That included providing “valuable information” to authorities investigating the Jan. 6 attack, prosecutors said in court papers.

An attorney for Lazar declined to comment Thursday. She told the judge that her client’s behavior Jan. 6 “was completely out of character for him as he is extremely respectful, law-abiding citizen who has deep respect and appreciation for law enforcement.”

“He blindly followed President Trump’s cry to ‘fight like hell to take back the country,’ ” lawyer Hope Lefeber wrote in a court filing. 

The documents were unsealed Wednesday after a coalition of news outlets, including The Associated Press, moved to publicly release records in his case. The documents, however, were then removed from the court docket after lawyers said they objected to the release of all of the documents and wanted the court to post only blacked-out versions.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Another whiner who fucked around and found out.

[CTRLZero]

Here is the DOJ info on rioter Rachel Powell.  She’s fortunate she’s been able to stay at home so long.  Buh bye.   DOJ press release on Rachel Powell - insurrectionist

[fraurosena]

Cheseboro is still talking, and naming names.

Recordings, emails show how Trump team flew fake elector ballots to DC in final push to overturn 2020 election

Spoiler

Two days before the January 6 insurrection, the Trump campaign’s plan to use fake electors to block President-elect Joe Biden from taking office faced a potentially crippling hiccup: The fake elector certificates from two critical battleground states were stuck in the mail.

So, Trump campaign operatives scrambled to fly copies of the phony certificates from Michigan and Wisconsin to the nation’s capital, relying on a haphazard chain of couriers, as well as help from two Republicans in Congress, to try to get the documents to then-Vice President Mike Pence while he presided over the Electoral College certification.

The operatives even considered chartering a jet to ensure the files reached Washington, DC, in time for the January 6, 2021, proceeding, according to emails and recordings obtained by CNN.

The new details provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the chaotic last-minute effort to keep Donald Trump in office. The fake electors scheme features prominently in special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal indictment against the former president, and some of the officials who were involved have spoken to Smith’s investigators.

The emails and recordings also indicate that a top Trump campaign lawyer was part of 11th-hour discussions about delivering the fake elector certificates to Pence, potentially undercutting his testimony to the House select committee that investigated January 6 that he had passed off responsibility and didn’t want to put the former vice president in a difficult spot.

These details largely come from pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who was an architect of the fake electors plot and is now a key cooperator in several state probes into the scheme. Chesebro pleaded guilty in October to a felony conspiracy charge in Georgia in connection with the electors’ plan, and has met with prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, who are investigating the sham GOP electors in their own states.

Chesebro is an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal election interference indictment against Trump.

CNN has obtained audio of Chesebro’s recent interview with Michigan investigators, and exclusively reported earlier this month that he also told them about a December 2020 Oval Office meeting where he briefed Trump about the fake electors plan and how it ties into January 6.

An attorney for Chesebro declined to comment. A spokesman for the special counsel’s office did not reply to a request for comment for this story.

‘A high-level decision’

Emails obtained by CNN corroborate what Chesebro told Michigan prosecutors: He communicated with the top Trump campaign lawyer, Matt Morgan, and another campaign official, Mike Roman, to ferry the documents to Washington on January 5.

From there, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and a Pennsylvania congressman assisted in the effort to get the documents into Pence’s hands.

“This is a high-level decision to get the Michigan and Wisconsin votes there,” Chesebro told Michigan prosecutors. “And they had to enlist, you know, a US senator to try to expedite it, to get it to Pence in time.”

Trump campaign considered chartering jet to fly ballots to DC, Chesebro says

Chesebro also discussed the episode with Wisconsin investigators last week when he sat for an interview with the attorney general’s office as part of a separate state probe into the fake electors plot, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Wisconsin prosecutors asked about the episode “extensively,” the source said, noting Chesebro discussed how a Wisconsin GOP staffer flew the certificate from Milwaukee to Washington and then handed it off to Chesebro.

The firsthand account from Chesebro’s perspective helps fill in the narrative behind the effort to hand-deliver elector slates to Pence, which is vaguely referenced in Smith’s federal indictment.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include conspiring with Chesebro and others to obstruct the January 6 certification proceeding. Before Chesebro’s guilty plea in Georgia, his attorneys reached out to Smith’s team. As of this week, he has not heard back from federal prosecutors, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Federal investigators have spoken with several individuals involved in the scramble with the phony elector certificates, according to a source familiar with the matter. This includes interviews with Trump staffers who were tapped to fly the papers to DC, and some fake electors who knew of the planning.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not reply to a request for comment.

Asked about the episode, a spokesperson for Johnson pointed to his previous comments, where he said, “my involvement in that attempt to deliver spanned the course of a couple seconds,” and that, “in the end, those electors were not delivered.”

‘Day-by-day’ coordination

According to the recordings of Chesebro’s sit-down with Michigan prosecutors, he explained how a legal memo he wrote for Wisconsin transformed into a nationwide operation, where Trump lawyers were “day-by-day coordinating the efforts of more than a dozen people with the GOP and with the Trump campaign.”

On January 4, 2021, Morgan sent an email to Chesebro and Roman asking for confirmation that all of the Trump elector slates had been received by Congress, according to the documents obtained by CNN.

Roman responded that the Michigan certificate had been mailed on December 15 but was still “in transit” at a US Postal Service facility in DC. Wisconsin’s certificate also had apparently not arrived.

Chesebro told prosecutors that Morgan was “freaked out” when the campaign realized the phony certificates from Michigan were still in the mail.

That same day, Morgan weighed in over email asking Chesebro and Roman to rethink how they would deliver the certificates to Pence.

“As I thought about this more, a courier will not be able to access the Capitol to deliver a sealed package,” Morgan wrote on January 4, according to emails obtained by CNN “You will probably need to enlist the help of a legislator who can deliver to the appropriate place(s). I strongly recommend you guys discuss a revised delivery plan with Rudy (Giuliani) to make sure this gets done the way he wants.”

‘Can we charter a flight?’

Roman was concerned the Wisconsin documents wouldn’t reach Washington in time.

“Can we charter a flight? The only available commercial from MKE (Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport) to DCA (Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) arrives at 2130 tomorrow night,” Roman wrote to Chesebro on January 4 at 11:24 p.m.

The job of physically flying the elector documents to Washington fell to two people: A Trump campaign staffer and a Wisconsin GOP official, according to the emails and what Chesebro told prosecutors.

The Wisconsin GOP official who had that state’s elector documents landed after 10 a.m. on January 5 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, according to the emails.

Trump campaign aide Michael Brown flew with the Michigan certificates to Washington National Airport with a scheduled arrival around 1 p.m., according to emails obtained by CNN.  A source familiar with the matter told CNN that Brown flew to DC from Atlanta, because the Trump staffers who had custody of the Michigan ballots were in Georgia for the Senate runoffs.

The campaign booked and paid for Brown’s flight on Southwest Airlines, the source said. Federal campaign finance records indicate that a pro-Trump super PAC paid the airline on the day of Brown’s flight for travel related to election “recount” efforts.

Trump Hotel meetup

The emails show that Brown and the Wisconsin GOP official were instructed to meet Chesebro at the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington to hand off the fake elector certificates. Chesebro said in an email that he’d keep the ballots in his hotel room safe until it was time to pass them along.

Wisconsin Republican Party officials were annoyed at the request to courier the fake elector certificates to Washington. “Freaking trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate President,” a Wisconsin GOP official wrote to then-state party chairman Andrew Hitt on January 4, according to the January 6 committee report.

Hitt – who has provided information to federal investigators about the efforts to get the fake elector certificates to Washington, according to a source familiar with the matter – told the January 6 committee that the couriering ended up being overkill, because the original documents that the state party had mailed to Washington actually made it in time.

Getting the certificates inside the Capitol

The documents still had to be hand-delivered to Pence’s Senate office in the Capitol.

The electors plot – as envisioned by Chesebro and other Trump allies – was that Pence could reject Biden’s legitimate electors and recognize Trump’s “alternate electors” on January 6, while lawmakers tallied the electoral votes from each state. Per federal law, the certificates need to be physically presented on the floor of Congress during the joint session, while lawmakers tally the electoral votes.

Chesebro told investigators that Roman connected him with an aide for a Pennsylvania GOP lawmaker that he believed was Rep. Scott Perry to turn over the documents. Chesebro wasn’t certain which congressman the staffer worked for – and the January 6 report says a staffer for a different Pennsylvania Republican, Rep. Mike Kelly, helped shuttle the documents that day.

“I had the Wisconsin stuff. [Trump campaign aide] Mike Brown had the Michigan stuff. We walked to the Longworth Office Building, and the guy with Perry, or whatever his name is, and some other fellow, that were like staff members of the House, took them and said, ‘We’re going to walk them over to the Senate and give it to a Senate staffer,’” Chesebro told Michigan prosecutors, according to the audio obtained by CNN.

“I don’t know why logistically we didn’t take it directly to Johnson. But that’s how we did it,” he added.

Kelly and Perry’s offices did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

Brown did not comment for this story. CNN previously reported that he testified in June to Smith’s grand jury in the Trump election subversion probe.

CNN previously reported that Roman sat for a proffer interview with Smith’s team before Trump was indicted.  He was also indicted in the sweeping Georgia election racketeering case, in connection with the fake electors scheme, and has pleaded not guilty.

Roman’s attorney did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The details from Chesebro put a finer point on how members of Congress, including a sitting US senator, were involved in making sure the electoral certificates for Trump ended up in Pence’s hands.

The January 6 committee first revealed last year Johnson’s involvement in trying unsuccessfully to deliver the fake elector certificates to Pence, who announced on the morning of the joint session that it would be unconstitutional to do what Trump wanted and unilaterally overturn the election results.

The committee revealed text messages during their hearings last year that Johnson aide Sean Riley sent to Pence aide Chris Hodgson, saying that Johnson “needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise.”

“What is it?” Hodgson asked.

“Alternate slates of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them,” Riley responded.

“Do not give that to him,” Hodgson said.

‘F**k these guys’

In his Michigan interview, Chesebro also dished on some of the internal disagreements among the Trump lawyers, campaign officials and other allies, who clashed over the purpose of the electors’ plan and how far to take things on January 6.

Chesebro has maintained – then, and now – that the plan was a lawful move to preserve Trump’s legal rights.

Even before the Trump electors met in their state capitals on December 14, 2020, to cast their fake ballots and sign the certificates, Chesebro heard about concerns from some of the electors about possible legal jeopardy, according to emails and text messages reported by the Detroit News and obtained by CNN.

Chesebro added hedging language for the faux certificates from Pennsylvania and New Mexico in response to those concerns. He proposed to Roman and Morgan that they add the contingency caveats to the paperwork for all seven states in the plan. But Roman rejected the idea, according to the emails.

“F**k these guys,” Roman texted Chesebro on December 12, 2020.

By this time, the Trump campaign had essentially cleaved in two. Top officials who had managed day-to-day activity for Trump up to the election, including in court, say they ceded responsibility to Rudy Giuliani and others, such as Chesebro, according to congressional testimony transcripts. Roman effectively switched teams to work under Giuliani’s structure, according to the testimony from Morgan and others.

A spokesperson for Giuliani did not reply to a request for comment.

‘It really went south on me’

Chesebro told Michigan investigators that his own emails show that Morgan remained deeply involved, including in the final hours before January 6, to ensure that the certificates reached DC.

“I don’t have a really warm feeling toward, at least, the top Trump lawyers that did this, hid from me what they were doing and then lied to Congress about me. So, it’s been really difficult,” Chesebro said.

In his congressional testimony, Morgan said he knew of the elector plan but wanted to distance himself from the effort, delegating the work to others, including those under Giuliani.

Morgan told the January 6 committee last year that he initially believed the electors were only meant to be used as a contingency. The electors, he believed, should meet in their state capitals and cast their electoral votes but “not necessarily submit” the certificates to Congress unless “we prevailed” in court.

Morgan told the committee that the plan changed in December, saying it morphed from a “cast-and-hold” operation and had “shifted to cast-and-send.” And that’s when Morgan told the committee that he backed out, testifying that he directed an aide to “email Mr. Chesebro politely to say, ‘this is your task. You are responsible for the Electoral College issues moving forward.’”

“This was my way of taking that responsibility to zero,” Morgan told the committee, later adding that he “moved on” after that email was sent.

Morgan explained that he was concerned that the new plan to try to count the fake electors on January 6 “would make the Vice President’s life harder, and I didn’t want to be a part of that.”

“Mr. Morgan stands by his congressional testimony,” his defense attorneys told CNN in response to his emails and Chesebro’s statements to investigators.

Ultimately, on the eve of the joint session of Congress, Morgan helped get the ballots in place, according to the emails and according to Chesebro, who blamed his legal troubles squarely on the Trump campaign’s legal team.

“I could have avoided all this,” Chesebro vented to Michigan prosecutors. “It’s been a real lesson in not working with people that you don’t know and are not sure you can trust, because it really went south on me.”

 

[CTRLZero]

15 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Cheseboro is still talking, and naming names.

I read through this article earlier, and was so amazed at the level of convoluted strategizing, effort, and money spent to get these fake elector slates to Pence’s people.  Glad Cheseboro is naming names.  It’s the least he can do. 

[Ozlsn]

18 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Chesebro has maintained – then, and now – that the plan was a lawful move to preserve Trump’s legal rights.

Even before the Trump electors met in their state capitals on December 14, 2020, to cast their fake ballots and sign the certificates, Chesebro heard about concerns from some of the electors about possible legal jeopardy, according to emails and text messages reported by the Detroit News and obtained by CNN.

Chesebro added hedging language for the faux certificates from Pennsylvania and New Mexico in response to those concerns.

I honestly don't understand how he thought this was a legally valid move to "preserve Trump's legal rights". If you're adding hedging language you know damn well it's a risk. 

18 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Per federal law, the certificates need to be physically presented on the floor of Congress during the joint session, while lawmakers tally the electoral votes.

There is something so bizarrely amusing about them going to the effort to make it all look legal and correct while knowingly trying to unilaterally declare the result they wanted.

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

This stuff is so sketchy. It continues to disturb me that this is what we are hearing about now. What else have we not heard about?

These people clearly thought rules don't apply to them. A large group of people seem to have come together at so many levels and said "yep, let's do this, anything goes!" Some of them are *now* saying they tried to slow it down or not be involved or didn't understand (which I do not believe at all/it's clearly legal posturing) but I'm not seeing very many people saying "I was tricked/lied to, this was wrong" or "things started to get crazy so I resigned." 

I guess only that one staffer - Cassidy Hutchinson - maybe there are others but I've not encountered it.  

I struggle to understand the MANY people that had to look the other way (at the minimum) for all this to even get past the first "let's consider these out of the box options..." discussions. People in the white house, people in the house, the senate, advisors, lawyers, low level staffers/paper pushers, GOP party people in several states....I'm not well enough informed to have a true guess...but surely hundreds of people had their moment to say "woah, wait a minute here." Many of these people have to be regular career political people and not just new people brought in by Trump. And those people would know the proper way to do things - and there must be sooooo many of these people that should have said "oh I'm not doing that, that's not the legal procedure" and yet didn't. They contributed in a thousand small ways to push this agenda. 

I don't know what the procedure is for recounts and possible legitimate reasons for alternate electors etc. But I'm pretty sure GOP people hand carrying questionable documents to Pence at the last minute can't be the normal procedure.

The fact that so many career politicians (not the MTGs) are still backing Trump, the stolen election, not calling out the supporters of these plots....it's very disturbing to me. Even if Trump dropped dead today and all his plans immediately stopped. These politicians and their supporters have crossed into a new level of corruption and I don't think they see a need to rein it back in. I think they've learned from Trump how to do this and they're clearly very motivated to continue in the same manner - Doing everything possible to stay in power and do what they want without any nod to truth, tradition, or people's trust.  

 

[SPHASH]

On 12/28/2023 at 8:07 PM, CTRLZero said:

Here is the DOJ info on rioter Rachel Powell.  She’s fortunate she’s been able to stay at home so long.  Buh bye.   DOJ press release on Rachel Powell - insurrectionist

The fact that Rachel is 43 and already has six grandkids is mind numbing.

[Ozlsn]

On 1/1/2024 at 1:14 AM, WatchingTheTireFireBurn said:

Many of these people have to be regular career political people and not just new people brought in by Trump. And those people would know the proper way to do things - and there must be sooooo many of these people that should have said "oh I'm not doing that, that's not the legal procedure" and yet didn't.

I think that is one reason for the spy vs spy handovers of the alternate ballots - to bring those people along. It looked correct, so you could push down any nagging doubts and assume that people higher up had checked and it was OK.

It is making me wonder more about the 2000 election outcome though...

[fraurosena]

Good grief, this is damning.  Thankfully these people are so stupid they put their treasonous intentions in writing.

 

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

It's been damning all along. Nobody (new) will care/cares/cared that it's in writing.

The people who are convinced are already convinced and the people who aren't convinced are weeping for the "terrible" treatment Trump is receiving. And the 2nd group evidentially accounts for approximately half the voting public and their affiliated congress people/judges/financial backers.