Criming

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection. Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession. Trump and his henchmen were involved in violent intimidation. 

From AP:

About half of Americans believe former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, a new poll shows.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 48% of U.S. adults say the Republican former president should be charged with a crime for his role, while 31% say he should not be charged. An additional 20% say they don’t know enough to have an opinion. Fifty-eight percent say Trump bears a great deal or quite a bit of responsibility for what happened that day.

The poll was conducted after five public hearings by the House committee investigating Jan. 6, which has sought to paint Trump’s potential criminal culpability in the events that led to deadly insurrection. But it was taken before Tuesday’s surprise hearing featuring former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Her explosive testimony provided the most compelling evidence yet that the former president could be linked to a federal crime, experts say.

Trump's Ellipse Speech Backs Up Testimony

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection. Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession. Trump and his henchmen were involved in violent intimidation. 

We went back and watched Trump’s speech on January 6.

Sure seems to back up what Cassidy Hutchinson said under oath yesterday. pic.twitter.com/8XAU6yRRhd

— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) June 29, 2022

Trump Knew the Insurrectionists Were Armed

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection. Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession. Trump and his henchmen were involved in violent intimidation.

 Sebastian Murdock at HuffPo:

Former President Donald Trump knew his supporters were armed with weapons the day of the Jan 6, 2021, Capitol attack, but insisted they be allowed to watch him speak before the riot.

“I heard the president say something to the effect of, ‘I don’t f-ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f-ing mags [metal detectors] away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here,’” said Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

The new explosive testimony was aired during a surprise hearing on Tuesday. Hutchinson recalled that Trump had been informed by Secret Service that his supporters had brought weapons to his rally shortly before the attack on the Capitol. Those weapons included bear spray, spears, guns and flagpoles used as weapons.

Trump, however, was apparently fixated on the crowd size and demanded more of his supporters be allowed to bypass metal detectors to watch him speak, Hutchinson testified.

“He was furious because he wanted the arena we had at the ellipse to be maxed out to capacity,” Hutchinson said of Trump’s demeanor.

Following Trump’s rally, hundreds of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Five people died and more than 140 officers were injured.

The House GOP's Wingnut Future

 Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.

Alayna Treene at Axios:

Far-right candidates are surging in House races across the map: Republican leaders increasingly fear that a red wave will wash in a raft of conspiracy theorists and extremists.

Why it matters: The establishment grows ever weaker. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — on the doorstep of the speaker’s office — can expect to be saddled with new members who have zero loyalty or predictability.

What's happening: Many of the GOP candidates expected to cause leadership headaches are backed by former President Trump, whose grip on McCarthy is as strong as ever.

• They play well with Trump's MAGA base and are running in incredibly conservative districts.
• Several, like Loren Culp and Joe Kent in Washington, have made no secret of their disdain for McCarthy and GOP leadership overall.

What we're hearing: In cycles past, leadership has attempted to get involved in some races to stiff-arm candidates they find problematic.

• But this time, House GOP leadership is highly sensitive to the political downsides of interfering: Republicans need these candidates to take back the majority and make McCarthy speaker.
• McCarthy has been careful not to alienate them, hoping his hands-off approach will help earn their trust and foster goodwill down the line.

 Allan Smith at NBC:

Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 Republican in the House, rankled fellow House GOP leaders when she backed a New York congressional candidate with a history of racist and other controversial remarks, two sources said.

Stefanik endorsed Carl Paladino, a Buffalo developer, this month without consulting other members of a leadership team that includes Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, said a House GOP leadership aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly about the matter.

A House Republican familiar with GOP leadership's frustration with Stefanik, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, called her endorsement of Paladino “baffling” and “off-putting.”

Paladino made headlines in recent weeks for suggesting on Facebook that recent mass shootings were "false flag" operations and for an interview last year in which he said Adolf Hitler was the "kind of leader we need today," with news articles pointing out his connection to Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference. The sources said the appearance of a connection between Paladino and House leadership frustrated fellow top Republicans.

“When you’re in that No. 3 position, when you’re in leadership, anything you say is something that’s going to be interpreted as on behalf of the team,” the House leadership aide said, adding: “This is the reason we got rid of Liz Cheney. And now Elise is doing the same thing.”

Rep. Mary Miller, who once quoted Hitler at a conservative rally, claims she misspoke when she called the Supreme Court's dismantling of Roe v. Wade a "victory for white life." (via @MaddowBlog) https://t.co/09Y3DNJUAp

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 27, 2022

NEW: Yesli Vega, the Republican nominee running against Democrat Abigail Spanberger for Congress downplayed the possibility of becoming pregnant as a result of rape when asked about her abortion stance last month, according to audio obtained by Axios. https://t.co/J3pcsQcpkH

— Axios (@axios) June 27, 2022

Abortion and the Widening Gyre

 Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses how polarization has affected American life.  Abortion is a central issue in our national divide.

CBS Poll:

While the overturning of Roe has elicited strong feelings, it's not an issue most Americans say has made them any more or less likely to vote in the midterms this year. But for those who report a change in motivation right now, Democrats are more than twice as likely as Republicans to say the Supreme Court's decision will make them more likely to vote. 

And more Democrats are motivated now by the issue than they were before the decision. Fifty percent of Democrats report this decision will make them more likely to vote, up from 40% last month, when overturning Roe was a possibility, but not yet a reality.

 David French at The Dispatch:

In deep-red America, a wave of performative and punitive legislation is sweeping the land. In the abortion context, bounty-hunting laws in Texas, Idaho, and Oklahoma turn citizens against each other, incentivizing lawsuits even by people who haven’t been harmed by abortion. The pro-life movement, once solidly against prosecuting women who obtain abortions, is now split by an “abolitionist” wing that would not only impose criminal penalties on mothers, it even calls into questions legal protections for the life of the mother when a pregnancy is physically perilous.

The culture of political engagement centers around animosity. Church and family life is being transformed, congregation by congregation, household by household, by argument and division. The Dobbs ruling has landed in the midst of a sick culture, and the pro-life right is helping make it sick.

Writing in the New York Times, Ross Douthat rightly cautioned that “the vicissitudes of politics and its own compromises have linked the anti-abortion cause to various toxic forces on the right — some libertine and hyperindividualist, others simply hostile to synthesis, conciliation and majoritarian politics.”

That’s true, but it doesn’t go far enough. The vicissitudes of politics haven’t just linked the anti-abortion cause to various toxic forces on the right, they’ve transformed parts of the anti-abortion movement, making many of its members as toxic as their “libertine and hyperindividualist” allies.

Biden on Abortion

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

It is very unusual for a president to make an election appeal during a formal televised address to the nation.  Biden went there yesterday.

President Biden:

Let me be very clear and unambiguous: The only way we can secure a woman’s right to choose and the balance that existed is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law.

No executive action from the President can do that. And if Congress, as it appears, lacks the vote — votes to do that now, voters need to make their voices heard.

This fall, we must elect more senators and representatives who will codify a woman’s right to choose into federal law once again, elect more state leaders to protect this right at the local level.

We need to restore the protections of Roe as law of the land. We need to elect officials who will do that.

This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty, equality, they’re all on the ballot.

...

 I’ve warned about how this decision risks the broader right to privacy for everyone.  That’s because Roe recognized the fundamental right to privacy that has served as the basis for so many more rights that we have come to take — we’ve come to take for granted that are ingrained in the fabric of this country: the right to make the best decisions for your health; the right to use birth control — a married couple — in the privacy of their bedroom, for God’s sake; the right to marry the person you love. 

Now, Justice Thomas said as much today.  He explicitly called to reconsider the right of marriage equality, the right of couples to make their choices on contraception.  This is an extreme and dangerous path the Court is now taking us on. 

Justice Thomas Gives Democrats a Freebie

 Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses how polarization has affected American life.

Clarence Thomas, concurring, explicitly calls on the Supreme Court to overrule Griswold (right to contraception), Lawrence (right to same-sex intimacy), and Obergefell (right to same-sex marriage). https://t.co/bVOozFPA5d pic.twitter.com/yZLA6DhYh5

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) June 24, 2022

"My administration will remain vigilant as the implications of this decision play out," Mr. Biden said. "I've warned about how this decision risks the broader right to privacy for everyone. That's because Roe recognized the fundamental right to privacy that has served as the basis for so many more rights that — we've come to take for granted that are engrained in the fabric of this country — the right to make the best decisions for your health, the right to use birth control, the right to privacy of a couple in their bedroom, for God's sake, the right to marry the person you love. Justice Thomas said as much today, he explicitly called to reconsider the right of marriage equality, the right of couples to make their choices on contraception. This is an extreme and dangerous path that the court is now taking us on."

 John Wagner at WP:

Democrats seized on a concurring opinion released Friday by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested he and his colleagues “should reconsider” its past rulings codifying rights to contraception access and same-sex marriage.

“This decision also opens a door to overturning established precedent on many other important rights and freedoms enjoyed by Americans, including contraception access and the right of LGBTQ Americans to marry those they love,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D) said in a statement. “No right is safe from this activist group of Republican-appointed justices who see themselves as legislators.”

J6 Hearing

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  Trump and his henchmen were involved in violent intimidation.

Chris Cillizza at CNN:

Wandrea "Shaye" Moss was nervous.

She couldn't get the microphone in front of her to work. She initially struggled to find the words to express herself.

But as the former Georgia election worker unspooled her story of being unfairly targeted by then-President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday before the House select committee investigating January 6, she transformed into the single most powerful witness to appear in these public hearings so far.

Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, had been working in relative anonymity in Fulton County until, without warning, Giuliani and Trump fixated on the notion that they had somehow committed actions that were proof positive of votes being stolen for Democrats in the 2020 election.

Trump called Freeman a "professional vote scammer" and a "hustler." Giuliani said that Moss and Freeman had been passing around USB ports like "vials of cocaine or heroin." (Moss said at Tuesday's hearing that her mother had been handing her a "ginger mint," not a USB drive.)

In the wake of those false and racist allegations, Moss detailed how people had tried to barge into her grandmother's home and how Trump supporters had villainized her and her mother. (Her mother, who was known as "Lady Ruby," said she no longer liked being called that.) Moss said of the threats she had received: "A lot of them were racist. A lot of them were just hateful."

"I haven't been anywhere at all," she said through tears.

Her testimony drove home a powerful point that too often gets lost when we talk about the logistics of who knew what and when on January 6: The lies told by the former President and his ilk had real-world -- and deeply negative -- impacts on the lives of people who were, effectively, innocent bystanders.

Greitens Encourages Violence

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties.  The GOP has a violence problem. 

We are sick and tired of the Republicans in Name Only surrendering to Joe Biden & the radical Left.

Order your RINO Hunting Permit today! pic.twitter.com/XLMdJnAzSK

— Eric Greitens (@EricGreitens) June 20, 2022

He also featured bullets in this 2016 ad:

 

The Proud Boys Were the Tip of the J6 Spear

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   We now know that Trump fired up the mob against Pence after learning about the violence at the Capitol.  Was he trying to get them to kill Pence, or did he just not care one way or the other?  There was danger all around..

 

A confidential witness for the FBI told federal agents that members of the far-right group the Proud Boys “would have killed” then-Vice President Mike Pence during the Capitol riot “if given a chance,” according to a House investigator. https://t.co/2DtNkyeYSg

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 16, 2022

Texas GOP Platform

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

The 2022 Texas GOP platform:

• All attempts by the judiciary to rule in areas not constitutionally granted to the judiciary, including abuses of the “commerce clause,” the “general welfare clause,” and the “supremacy clause,” should be nullified. 
• We oppose all executive orders, whether by a president, a governor, or a loca official, that go beyond administration of executive authority and have the effect of legislation. We call upon the Texas Legislature or local lawmakers to nullify such executive orders.
• Repeal and/or nullify the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968.
• Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government. Therefore, federally mandated legislation that infringes upon the 10th Amendment rights of Texas should be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified. Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto.
• The State Legislature shall cause to be enacted a State Constitutional Amendment creating an electoral college consisting of electors selected by the popular votes cast within each individual state senatorial district, who shall then elect all statewide office holders.
• We urge that the Voting Rights Act of 1965, codified and updated in 1973, be repealed and not reauthorized.

J6 Danger

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   We now know that Trump fired up the mob against Pence after learning about the violence at the Capitol.  Was he trying to get them to kill Pence, or did he just not care one way or the other?  There was danger all around.

 Frank Figliuzzi at MSNBC:

Speaking about the threats to Pence on Jan. 6 and the shouts by rioters to hang him, Raskin said, “The vice president's Secret Service agents – including one who was carrying the nuclear football – ran down to an undisclosed place in the Capitol." Those agents, who Raskin said he suspects were reporting to Trump’s Secret Service agents, were trying to whisk Pence away from the Capitol. At that point, Raskin said, Pence "uttered what I think are the six most chilling words of this entire thing I've seen so far: 'I'm not getting in that car.'" According to Raskin, Pence "knew exactly what this inside coup they had planned for was going to do.”

The nation needs to know whether its vice president did or did not trust the Secret Service to do the right thing for democracy and uphold the oath taken by its agents to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution

Last year, Fred Kaplan wrote at Slate:

What about the mob? What could they do, had they grabbed the Football? First, it’s very unlikely that they could have grabbed it. The Secret Service agents around Pence would almost certainly meet any such attempt with deadly force. There would have been a dozen or more dead rioters scattered on the bloodied floor near the staircase where Pence, his family, and his entourage had gathered. If the mob’s survivors kept mauling and overpowering Pence and the others, they might not have thought to grab the Football, which is locked in a metal case tucked inside an ordinary-looking satchel. Even if they had grabbed the satchel, bashed the lock, and opened the case, they wouldn’t have known what to do with the stuff inside. Had they figured it out, the officers in the Pentagon would have known the signals were coming from an unauthorized source.

Could the mob have taken the Football and sold it to the Russians or some other adversary? It would be worth millions of dollars. Despite the militias’ self-image as “patriots,” it’s not out of the question. According to a U.S. District Court affidavit, Riley June Williams, the Pennsylvania woman accused of breaching the Capitol and stealing Pelosi’s laptop on Jan. 6, intended to give the computer “to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service.”

Whatever might have happened if the mob had caught up with Pence, we all escaped a disaster scene, almost certainly a bloodbath, and possibly a national security compromise by a much closer margin than we have known.

 

Trump Sicced the Mob on Pence

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection. 

The committee plays a video illustrating the impact Trump's criticism of Pence on January 6 had in making the insurrectionists very angry at the VP pic.twitter.com/28Zhs7lG3f

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 16, 2022

J6 Committee: Important Revelations, Modest Impact on Opinion

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

 Andrew Romano at Yahoo:

A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that most Democrats (55%) and Republicans (53%) now believe it is “likely” that America will “cease to be a democracy in the future” — a stunning expression of bipartisan despair about the direction of the country.

The J6 Committee has had only a modest impact on public opinion so far: ...

In fact, the new survey of 1,541 U.S. adults — which was conducted from June 10 (the day after the committee’s first hearing) to June 13 (the day of its second) — found that fewer than 1 in 4 (24%) say they watched last Thursday’s initial primetime broadcast live. Only slightly more (27%) say they caught news coverage later. Nearly half (49%) say they did not follow the hearings at all.

...

As usual, partisanship is key to understanding what’s happening here. Live viewership of the hearings was lowest among Donald Trump voters (9%), Republicans (13%) and Fox News viewers (22%); it was highest among Joe Biden voters (47%), Democrats (44%) and viewers of MSNBC (52%). Nearly three-quarters (72%) of those who watched identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents.

In part as a result, less than half of Americans (45%) say they believe the Democrat-led committee’s central claim: that the Jan. 6 attack “was part of a conspiracy to overturn the election.” The rest either say it was not (35%) or that they’re unsure (20%).

Likewise, just 37% of Americans believe there was a conspiracy and that “Donald Trump was at the center of [it]” — the committee’s other major argument.

Scoop: the Jan. 6 committee has obtained emails between John Eastman & Ginni Thomas & is now discussing whether they should spend time during hearings exploring Thomas's role. With @jdawsey1 & @emmersbrown > https://t.co/QjKYRW9lRL

— Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) June 15, 2022

Another Trump lawyer, Ken Chesebro, suggested the justices may be more inclined to weigh in if they had “fear” of “‘wild’ chaos” on Jan 6. He said it five days after Trump’s “wild” tweet about his Jan 6 rally https://t.co/aI1hXJOvnm

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 16, 2022

Yesterday's Results

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

Lloyd Green at The Guardian:

On Tuesday, Republicans flipped a congressional seat in a heavily Hispanic district in south Texas, sent packing a pro-impeachment Republican congressman from South Carolina and nominated a passel of Trump loyalists in Nevada. It was a good night for the 45th president and an even better one for his party.

In Texas’s 34th congressional district, Mayra Flores, a Republican, garnered 51% of the vote in a special election in a district that voted for Joe Biden by double digits. Flores is the first Republican elected from the district, and the first Latina Republican in Texas’s congressional delegation.

The Democrats have plenty to worry about. Flores campaigned on being born in Mexico and arriving in the US with her migrant parents. From the looks of things, the Democrats’ hold on Latino voters appears to be rapidly eroding. The cracks that appeared in the 2020 elections continue to grow.

...

In South Carolina’s seventh congressional district, incumbent representative Tom Rice suffered defeat after voting to impeach Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection.

The congressman lost to Russell Fry, a state legislator endorsed by Trump. Rice remained unrepentant to the end. “I was livid,” he said. “I took an oath to protect the constitution and I did it then and I would do it again tomorrow.” His constituents were unimpressed.

Elsewhere in South Carolina, Representative Nancy Mace defeated Katie Arrington, a one-term former state legislator who had Trump’s backing. Mace offended Trump by voting to certify Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election and criticizing the insurrection.

Unlike Rice, Mace opposed impeachment. Beyond that, on the campaign trail, she repeatedly stressed her personal support for Trump, and let his backers know that she still stood with them.

...

Trump loyalists also had a good night in Nevada. There, denial of Trump’s loss in the 2020 election emerged as the coin of the realm. Jim Marchant won the Republican nomination for secretary of state. His embrace of the big lie was a central tenet of his candidacy.

Elsewhere on the ballot, Trump’s pick for the US Senate, Adam Laxalt, prevailed in the Republican primary with a 55-36 win over Sam Brown, an Afghanistan war veteran. Laxalt is a former Nevada attorney general, and the grandson of the late Paul Laxalt, a US senator.

...
Likewise, Joe Lombardo, another Trump-backed candidate, won the Republican nod for governor. He is the sheriff of Clark county, and will take on Steve Sisolak, the Democratic incumbent.

Hearings held by the House special committee did not affect Tuesday’s primaries; they were irrelevant. Whether that is the case in November remains to be seen.

Picking Your Opponent

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

In the 2012 Missouri  Senate race, incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill ran ads during the GOP primary campaign saying that Todd Akin was "too conservative."  The idea of the "attack ad" was to drive GOP voters to Akin, her weakest potential foe.  It worked.  Other campaigns have tried variations of the "pick your opponent" ploy.  Even in California.

Sandra Fish at The Colorado Sun:

The Democratic Governors Association is financing a group running TV ads boosting the profile of Greg Lopez, one of two Republican candidates for governor in Colorado.

The DGA donated $1.5 million to Strong Colorado for All in recent weeks. That state-level super PAC then donated $600,000 to Colorado Information Network, another state-level super PAC that began airing the ads last week. The $600,000 is the only contribution Colorado Information Network reported in a filing made Monday with the Secretary of State’s Office.

The Colorado Information Network booked at least $915,000 worth of TV ads featuring Lopez to run through the June 28 primary. The group reported about $401,000 of that spending in its Monday report.

The ads stress Lopez’s conservative credentials on abortion, gay marriage and former President Donald Trump.

“Greg Lopez holds views that are too extreme and out-of-touch for Colorado,” DGA spokeswoman Christina Amestoy said. “Voters need to know what he believes in, what he would push on the state, and just how dangerous of a governor he could be.”

Although the ad features ominous music and concludes by saying that Lopez is “too conservative for Colorado,” it appears aimed at swaying conservative Republicans to select him over University of Colorado regent Heidi Ganahl in the gubernatorial primary.

More on the potential for the tactic to backfire:

 

How California’s unusual primary system can lead to unusual strategies and unusual results.

I wrote about a GOP-leaning senate district where two Dems may be on the Nov ballot and what it says about California’s 10 year top two experiment:https://t.co/xy5eQutXBq pic.twitter.com/PzDsl7w6ua

— Ben Christopher (@FromBenC) June 13, 2022

Insurrection Grift

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

The Select Committee is sending signals to the Justice Department.

Alex Griffing at Mediaite:

On Monday, the Jan. 6 House Select Committee revealed that former President Donald Trump raised over $250 million in emails pushing debunked voter fraud allegations for an “official election defense fund” that the committee found did not exist.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) disclosed the revelation during her closing statement. “Now that we understand the litigation efforts by President Trump and his allies, I would like to present additional action taken by the Trump campaign during this time,” Lofgren began.

“President Trump continued to push the stolen election narrative even though he and his allies knew that their litigation efforts making the same claim had failed. It is worth pointing out that litigation generally does not continue past the safe harbor date of December 14th,” she continued.

“But the fact that this litigation went on, well that decision makes more sense when you consider the Trump campaign’s fund-raising tactics. Because if the litigation had stopped on December 14th, there would have been no fight to defend the election, and no clear path to continue to raise millions of dollars,” Lofgren added.

“Mr. Chairman, at this time I would ask for unanimous consent to include in the record a video presentation describing how President Trump used the lies he told to raise millions of dollars from the American people. These fund-raising schemes were also part of the effort to disseminate the false claims of election fraud,” Lofgren continued, before the committee played a clip.

 LINK TO VIDEO

Rep. Zoe Lofgren tells @jaketapper that Kimberly Guilfoyle was paid $60,000 for introducing her fiancé Donald Trump Jr at Jan 6 rally that immediately preceded the Capitol riot.

“It’s a grift,” Lofgren said in an interview w/ CNN. Declined to comment on potential crime.

— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) June 13, 2022

California: Still Bad for Republicans

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

 Emily Hoeven at CalMatters:

Only three days have passed since California’s primary election, and at least 2.8 million ballots still have to be counted, local elections offices said Thursday. And it isn’t yet clear in four statewide and numerous congressional and legislative races which two candidates will advance to the general election in November.

Nevertheless, some key takeaways have started to come into focus, four of California’s top political experts said Thursday during an election post-mortem hosted by the Sacramento Press Club.

Here are some points that stood out to me during the hour-long discussion:

• One reason why it may be so difficult for no-party-preference candidates to gain traction — as evinced by the performances of Michael Shellenberger in the governor’s race and of Anne Marie Schubert in the attorney general’s race — is that no-party-preference voters often do, in fact, prefer one party over another. “There’s this overwhelming assumption that continues to persist that all people who are NPP voters are somehow in the middle, they’re all somehow between Republicans and Democrats,” said Republican political strategist Matt Rexroad. “And that’s just not true.” Indeed, a 2021 Public Policy Institute of California survey found that 52% of likely independent voters lean Democratic, while 36% lean Republican. As of May 23, around 47% of California voters were registered Democrats, compared to 24% Republicans and 23% no party preference.
• As shown by the numbers above, any Republican running for statewide office in California faces a formidable foe: math. So, although independent expenditure groups backing Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta sought to catapult his Trump-aligned opponent Eric Early into the November general election over the more moderate Nathan Hochman, “we didn’t care what Republican we got” in November, said Bonta campaign consultant Dana Williamson. And, although Republican controller candidate Lanhee Chen may have secured more votes than his four Democratic opponents in the primary, he will mathematically face an uphill battle in November when he squares off against just one Democrat, CalMatters’ Sameea Kamal reports.

The Perils of Trying to Pick the Other Side's Candidate

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

In the 2012 Missouri  Senate race, incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill ran ads during the GOP primary campaign saying that Todd Akin was "too conservative."  The idea of the "attack ad" was to drive GOP voters to Akin, her weakest potential foe.  It worked.  Other campaigns have tried variations of the "pick your opponent" ploy.  Even in California.

 Alex Tavlian at The San Joaquin Valley Sun 

While California Republicans confront low expectations with their slate of candidates on the statewide ballot, party activists and Central California Republicans are fuming about one outcome from Tuesday’s primary election: the fourth Senate District.

The seat, a San Joaquin Valley-Sierra foothill hybrid district, boasts a 3.38 percent Republican voter registration advantage, according to California’s pre-primary voter registration statistics.

By registration, it is the fourth most-conservative registered district in the 40-member body.

However, in a shocking twist, the voters in the heavily-GOP district will be represented by a Democrat come December 2022.

The seat, which became open when Sen. Andreas Borgeas (R–Fresno) opted against running for re-election in 2022, played host to a six-way fight among Republican contenders.

By comparison, Democrats fielded two.

As reported late Tuesday night, those two candidates – Tim Robertson (D–Keyes) and Marie Alvarado-Gil (D–Amador County) – are set to vie for the seat in November, courtesy of California’s jungle primary format.

Three Republican contenders split 46.8 percent of the vote three ways. 

GOP leaders in Stanislaus County held little back in expressing their displeasure at the unfortunate fate befalling the woebegone party.

“This is the nightmare scenario,” Joseph Day, chairman of the Stanislaus County Republican Party, told GVWire. “A lot of people thought that they would have a chance to win. So they jumped in, but they split the votes and that’s unfortunately what can happen.”

In an even stranger twist, the icing out of Republican contenders from the solidly Republican seat may have been sealed by efforts by the Senate GOP Leader Scott Wilk.

A wave of mailers directed at Democratic voters, sent by Wilk’s 2026 Lieutenant Governor campaign committee, pressed for voters to consolidate around Robertson, likely in the hopes of ensuring one of the six Republicans would advance.

The Select Committee Sends Signals to DOJ

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

The Select Committee is sending signals to the Justice Department.

Liz Cheney opening statement:

In our final two June hearings, you will hear how President Trump summoned a violent mob and directed them, illegally, to march on the U.S. Capitol. While the violence was underway, President Trump failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol.

CNN:

"President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack," Cheney said, echoing the statement she made in 2021 when she voted to impeach Trump.

A committee source later provided CNN the following description of the "sophisticated seven-part plan":

"President Trump oversaw a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the 2020 election and prevent the transition of presidential power.

1. President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to the American public claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him.
2. President Trump corruptly planned to replace the Acting Attorney General, so that the Department of Justice would support his fake election claims.
3. President Trump corruptly pressured Vice President Pence to refuse to count certified electoral votes in violation of the US Constitution and the law.
4. President Trump corruptly pressured state election officials, and state legislators, to change election results.
5. President Trump's legal team and other Trump associates instructed Republicans in multiple states to create false electoral slates and transmit those slates to Congress and the National Archives.
6. President Trump summoned and assembled a violent mob in Washington and directed them to march on the US Capitol.
7. As the violence was underway, President Trump ignored multiple pleas for assistance and failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol."

NOTE THE REPETITION OF THE WORD CORRUPTLY. 

GOP Extremes

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.  

Carl Paladino, whose House bid is backed by third-ranked House GOPer Elise Stefanik, said on radio last year that Hitler is "the kind of leader we need today. We need somebody inspirational. We need somebody that is a doer, has been there and done it.” https://t.co/pg24M23DNA pic.twitter.com/O1xgoeAEbX

— Eric Hananoki (@ehananoki) June 9, 2022

There is no chance whatsoever Navarro stops talking: “Merrick Garland .. that SOB allowed this to happen! You don’t do this, Merrick .. You don’t put people like me in leg irons!” pic.twitter.com/UdY9qIwTNy

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) June 9, 2022

BREAKING: Ryan Kelley, a Republican candidate for Michigan governor, has been charged with a misdemeanor for his role in the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Kelley was arrested in western Michigan and awaits a court hearing in Grand Rapids, FBI says. https://t.co/739ODzmlNX

— The Associated Press (@AP) June 9, 2022

California Primary

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

Politico CA Playbook:

San Francisco renounced their district attorney, Republican affiliation still matters, GOP House incumbents are exhaling, and we’re headed for an epic Los Angeles faceoff.

Two early race calls set the tone for last night’s primary. First we learned that Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle would advance to a November runoff with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, leaving independent Michael Shellenberger in the also-ran rack. And then the expected earthquake as San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin was recalled, succumbing to a confluence of crime concerns and massive opposition spending.

Boudin’s ouster was not exactly a surprise. The polls all augured his defeat as San Francicans developed buyers’ remorse after elevating the former public defender in 2019 — a rejection encouraged by a deep-pocketed coalition of tech and real estate interests. His loss is a blow to the national progressive prosecution movement, although an undiminished Boudin told supporters in a fiery speech that “the movement that got us elected in 2019 is alive and well.” Now San francisco Mayor London Breed gets to select a replacement — potentially a long-term one as voters were rejecting a measure barring her pick from seeking re-election.

Nor should Dahle’s victory have shocked you. Since Republicans’ long trudge through the statewide-office-less wilderness began, campaigns regularly contemplate a no-party-preference option as a more viable pick. But California’s five-million-plus Republicans often have other ideas. So it went in the attorney general’s race, where NPP Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert was running a distant third behind two Republicans: lead challenger and former U.S. Attorney Nathan Hochman, followed by attorney Eric Early. Gamesmanship by incumbent AG Rob Bonta and allies may have failed to elevate the preferred Early to November.

Speaking of Republicans: frontline Reps. Young Kim and David Valadao had reason to be nervous heading into last night. Both were facing surprisingly stiff Republican challenges (remember, Valadao was the only CA House Republican to vote for former President Donald Trump’s impeachment) that threatened to upend the party’s plans. But Kim and Valadao were leading their GOP rivals as early returns flowed in — although it’s still early, and Valadao's lead was slimmer.

Fact: Having NPP next to your name is a killer in June. Having an R next to your name is a killer in November. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

— Steven Maviglio 🇮🇹🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@stevenmaviglio) June 8, 2022

A fresh case study for critics of top two (though there is still a chance that the late-counted vote could put former Rep. George Radanovich into contention)

 

Oops. Are Republicans in CA State Senate District 4 getting boxed out of a seat with a 4-pt Rep registration advantage that voted for both Cox in ‘18 and Trump in ‘16 and ‘20. The top two so far are both Democrats. Best of the rest is George Radanivich at 17%. pic.twitter.com/IIKKXpGowj

— CA120 (@CA_120) June 8, 2022

CA’s idiotic jungle primary law strikes again. Senate District 4 is a plurality Republican district. So naturally, voters will get the “choice” of electing a Democrat…or a Democrat; even though 56% of voters in the primary supported a Republican. https://t.co/HEQ65qeYbq

— Ron Nehring (@RonNehring) June 8, 2022