T.W.I.S.™ Notes
This week in subpoenas, the January 6 Committee subpoenaed Phil Waldron, the retired Army PsyOps specialist whose powerpoint helped inject into Trumpworld the claims that votes had been "switched" in multiple states and smart thermostats controlled by China changed votes. The committee is demanding that he actually show any evidence of those claims. That's one guy who might fail the test because he won't show his work…
Meanwhile, seven retired generals and admirals—a few people who outranked Waldron just a bit—wrote a scathing op-ed in the New York Times blasting Trump for a "dereliction of duty" as Commander-in-Chief on Jan. 6.
The Times also reported on the previously undisclosed role that a fringe right-wing lawyer played in pitching Trump on a plan to use martial law to block his election loss in late 2020.
And down in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who's leading the investigation into whether Trump and his allies illegally tried to overturn that state's 2020 election results, sent letters letting the 16 fake electors know that they're targets of a criminal probe.
That's a major escalation.
But the judge scolded Willis for hosting a political fundraiser for a candidate running against lieutenant governor candidate Burt Jones, one of the 16 fake electors targeted by the investigation. We'll see where the case goes from here—and how much damage Willis' fundraising did to her credibility.
Electoral Count Re-Act
In actual possible good news, a bipartisan group of senators announced they'd reached a compromise on a bill to reform the Electoral Count Act (that law whose poorly worded language Trump tried to leverage into a coup on Jan. 6) to make it absolutely clear that plots like his are illegal.
The bill, as outlined, has some very good elements.
It removes an archaic provision in old law that could let state legislatures declare a "failed election" and overturn their state's election results; explicitly says the vice president's role in certifying the election is purely ceremonial; declares that one official (in most states, the governor) is in charge of submitting the state's electors to Congress; increases the threshold it takes to object to a state's electors from one member in each chamber to one fifth of both the House and the Senate; and requires Congress "defer to slates of electors submitted by a state's executive pursuant to the judgments of state or federal courts." A separate bill seeks to protect election workers by increasing criminal punishments for threats, harassment, and violence against them.
That doesn't solve everything, though. A rogue governor (say, a Gov. Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania) could still create chaos under this scenario.
And some experts think the current law worked just fine, thank you, and are worried that introducing the new law tacitly acknowledges problems with the old one that they say don't actually exist, which legitimizes some of Trump's coup attempts, which were in fact illegal. Some also worry about unintended consequences the new bill could have.
Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and California Democratic Rep. Zoey Lofgren, two members of the House Jan. 6 Select Committee, made it clear they weren't happy with the Senate bill with this joint statement:
"As Greg Jacob, the Vice President's General Counsel testified, President Trump had no legal basis to pressure the Vice President to reject or refuse to count electoral votes. The Select Committee has been considering legislative recommendations based on its findings concerning the January 6 attack and will share those soon. These will include a bipartisan approach to the Electoral Count Act."
On Wisconsin
Even as the committee continues its work, Trump is still trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said that Trump called him last week in yet another attempt to reverse Wisconsin's 2020 presidential results. Not long after, Trump took to social media to attack Vos.
In related news: Trump's pick for Wisconsin governor repeatedly refused to rule out the possibility that he'd try to overturn Biden's 2020 win of the state if he's elected. Tim Michels said he'd "need to see the details." (Spoiler alert: This wouldn't be legally possible.)
Meanwhile, over in the Mitten, Michigan legislative Democrats filed a resolution that called on the DOJ to investigate 11 of their GOP colleagues for "seditious conspiracy" for their role in trying to block the certification of Biden's election victory in their state.
Feeling a bit Rusty
The Arizona Republican Party censured state Republican House Speaker Leader Rusty Bowers for testifying to the House Jan. 6 Select Committee. He's also facing an uphill battle in his primary election—and Trump put out a(nother) statement this week calling him " a weak and pathetic RINO who has blocked Election Integrity" and encouraging Arizona Republicans to vote for his opponent.
Old Bay-ond comprehension
Maryland had its primaries this week, and Republicans nominated for governor a man who organized buses to Washington on Jan. 6, tweeted during the Capitol riot that Mike Pence was a "traitor," tried to impeach Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan over his COVID-19 policies, and recently spoke at a QAnon conference. And he's not even the most extreme candidate they nominated on Tuesday.
Maryland state Del. Dan Cox won the GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday night, buoyed by an endorsement from former President Trump. And Michael Peroutka—a Christian nationalist and former board member of the neo-Confederate, secessionist League of the South whose extreme views are almost too numerous to enumerate—won the GOP's nomination for attorney general.
Hogan has already said he won't vote for Cox, and Peroutka's primary opponent told me before the primary he wasn't sure if he'd vote for Peroutka either.
I took a deep dive on Peroutka before the primary. Read it here.
Cox won partly because Democrats spent huge sums to help him—the latest extremist Republican they've aided in a primary in order to face a less electable opponent in the general. That's probably a safe move in a blue state like Maryland (or Illinois, where it worked in the governor's primary). But it's pretty damn risky in Pennsylvania, where they helped hardliner Doug Mastriano win the gubernatorial primary and now may be seeing the general election race tighten a bit. Folks in both parties, including Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney and New York Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice, are alarmed this might backfire and screw democracy.
2024 Pence, none the richer
Mike Pence, the quasi-hero of the Jan. 6 hearings, sure is acting like a 2024 presidential candidate. His aides are saying he'll likely run against his old boss. He stopped by Capitol Hill this week where he received a warm (if not overwhelming) reception from House Republicans and Texas Rep. Chip Roy reportedly praised him for his "courage and standing for the Constitution and certifying" Biden's win, and got "sustained applause." It'd be interesting to know who exactly was clapping, given that two-thirds of House Republicans voted against certifying Arizona and Pennsylvania immediately after the riot.
Polls have found Pence would badly trail Trump in a head-to-head with primary voters—and run a distant third of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis jumps in too.
We're doing great, guys!
Nearly half of Americans—48%—think that "it is at least somewhat likely that in the next few years, some elected officials will successfully overturn the results of a US election because their party did not win," according to a new CNN poll.
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