Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certification

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NY Court Suspends Rudy Giuliani's Law License for Stream of "Uncontroverted" Lies About the Election
by Glenn Kirschner
Jun 24, 2021

In a stunning 33-page court order, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, suspended Rudy Giuliani's law license for his steady stream of what the court calls "uncontroverted lies" about the 2020 presidential election. The court sets out in excruciating detail the evidence that proves Giuliani lied about, among other things, voting in Pennsylvania, voting in Georgia, dead people voting, underage people voting, convicted felons voting, etc. The judges detailed how Giuliani lied at press conferences, at state legislative hearings, on radio interviews, podcasts, TV shows and in court.

This video reviews the highlights (or perhaps lowlights) of the court's findings about Giuliani's sweeping and systematic lies designed to undermine confidence in our free and fair elections.



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Giuliani Law License Suspended is Part 1 of Accountability: SDNY Criminal Investigation is Part 2
by Glenn Kirschner
Jun 25, 2021

A unanimous 5-judge panel of the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, suspended Rudy Giuliani's law license for his incessant, uncontroverted lies about the 2020 election. That is an important Part 1 of accountability for Giuliani's wrongdoing. Part 2 involves the ongoing criminal investigation the Department of Justice/Southern District of New York US Attorney's Office is conducting of Giuliani. Additionally, Part 3 of accountability should be an investigation of Giuliani's potential exposure for inciting the January 6 insurrection by urging the angry mob to engage in "trial by combat" right before the mob went to the US Capitol and got . . . combative.

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In the Matter of Rudolph W. Giuliani, An Attorney and Counselor-At-Law
by Attorney Grievance Committee for the First Judicial Department
Motion No. 2021-00491
May 3, 2021

Supreme Court of the State of New York
Appellate Division, First Judicial Department
Rolando T. Acosta, P.J.,
Dianne T. Renwick
Sallie Manzanet-Daniels
Judith J. Gische
Barbara R. Kapnick, JJ.

Motion No. 2021-00491
Case No. 2021-00506

In the Matter of
RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI
(ADMITTED AS RUDOLPH WILLIAM GIULIANI),
an attorney and counselor-at law:

ATTORNEY GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE FOR THE
FIRST JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT,
Petitioner,
RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI,
(OCA ATTY. REGISTRATION NO. 1080498),
Respondent.

Disciplinary proceedings instituted by the Attorney Grievance Committee for the First Judicial Department. Respondent was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York at a Term of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court for the Second Judicial Department on June 25, 1969.

Appearances:

Jorge Dopico, Chief Attorney,
Attorney Grievance Committee, New York
(Kevin M. Doyle, of counsel), for petitioner.

Barry Kamins, Esq. and John Leventhal, Esq., Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins, P.C., for respondent.

IN THE MATTER OF RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI, AN ATTORNEY

PER CURIAM

The Attorney Grievance Committee moves for an order, pursuant to Judiciary Law §90(2) and the Rules for Attorney Disciplinary Matters (22 NYCRR) §1240.9(a)(5), immediately suspending respondent from the practice of law based upon claimed violations of rules 3.3(a); 4.1; 8.4(c) and 8.4(h) of the Rules of Professional Conduct (22 NYCRR 1200.0) (Rules of Conduct or RPC). Respondent was admitted to practice as an attorney and counselor at law in the State of New York on June 25, 1969, under the name Rudolph William Giuliani. He maintains a law office within the First Judicial Department.

For the reasons that follow, we conclude that there is uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020. These false statements were made to improperly bolster respondent’s narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client. We conclude that respondent’s conduct immediately threatens the public interest and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law, pending further proceedings before the Attorney Grievance Committee (sometimes AGC or Committee).

The Nature of this Proceeding

During the course of this ongoing investigation into numerous complaints of respondent’s alleged professional misconduct, the AGC seeks respondent’s immediate suspension from the practice law in the State of New York. Under certain circumstances, such serious interim relief is available, pending a full formal disciplinary proceeding. Interim suspension is available even where formal charges have not yet been filed (22 NYCRR 1240.9[a]).

All attorneys who are licensed to practice law in New York are subject to the Rules of Conduct, which establish a framework for the ethical practice of the law and a lawyer’s duties as an officer of the legal system (Preamble to the Rules of Professional Conduct, ¶¶ 1, 8). Violation of these rules may lead to professional discipline (22 NYCRR 1240). The ultimate purpose of any disciplinary proceeding, however, is not to impose punishment for breaches of the Rules of Conduct, but rather "to protect the public in its reliance upon the integrity and responsibility of the legal profession" (Matter of Nearing, 16 AD2d 516, 518 [1st Dept 1962]; see Matter of Gould, 4 AD2d 174 [1st Dept 1957]).

Each Judicial Department of the Appellate Divisions of the New York Supreme Court is responsible for the enforcement of the Rules of Professional Conduct within its departmental jurisdiction (Judiciary Law § 90[2]). Attorney Grievance Committees, either upon receipt of a written complaint, or acting sua sponte, are charged with investigating misconduct through various means, including interviewing witnesses, directing the attorney under investigation to submit written responses or appear for a formal interview, and other actions necessary to investigate the complaint (22 NYCRR 1240.7). Once the investigation is complete, the Committee may commence a formal proceeding in which the attorney has the right to be heard. If the Committee concludes that the attorney may face public discipline, then, consistent with the objective of “protect[ing] the public, maintain[ing] the integrity and honor of the profession, or deter[ing] others from committing similar misconduct,” the matter is brought before the Appellate Division (22 NYCRR 1240.7[d][2][v]; see also 1240.8; Matter of Nearing, 16 AD2d at 518). The Court is tasked with the responsibility of reviewing the record and deciding whether there has been any misconduct and if so, what the appropriate discipline would be (22 NYCRR 1240.8).

In certain cases, the Committee may, during the pendency of its investigation, make a motion to the Court for an attorney’s interim suspension. Interim suspension is a serious remedy, available only in situations where it is immediately necessary to protect the public from the respondent’s violation of the Rules (22 NYCRR 1240.9; see Matter of Liebowitz, 2020 WL 7421390 [SD NY 2020]). At bar, the AGC is proceeding on the basis that there is uncontroverted evidence of professional misconduct (22 NYCRR 1240.9[a][5]; Matter of Aris, 162 AD3d 75, 81 [1st Dept 2018]; Matter of Pomerantz, 158 AD3d 26, 28 [1st Dept 2018]).1 Importantly, when an attorney is suspended on an interim basis, he or she nonetheless has an opportunity for a postsuspension hearing (22 NYCRR 1240.9[c]).

Uncontroverted Claims of Misconduct

Only uncontroverted claims of professional misconduct may serve as a basis for interim suspension on this motion. In connection with its claim that uncontroverted attorney misconduct has occurred, the AGC relies upon the following provisions of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct:

rule 3.3 which provides that: “(a) A lawyer shall not knowingly: (1) make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal . . . .”

rule 4.1 which provides that: “In the course of representing a client, a lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of fact or law to a third person,” and

rule 8.4 “A lawyer or law firm shall not: . . . (c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation, . . . or (h) engage in any other conduct that adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness as a lawyer.”

Under the Rules of Professional Conduct, the prohibition against false statements is broad and includes misleading statements as well as affirmatively false statements (Matter of Antoine, 74 AD3d 67, 72 [1st Dept 2010]; Matter of Piepes, 259 AD2d 135, 137 [2d Dept 1999]; see ABA Model Rule 4.1, commentary [“Misrepresentations can also occur by partially true, but misleading statements or omissions that are the equivalent of affirmative false statements”]). In addition, the Rules concern conduct both inside and outside of the courtroom (see Matter of Coyne, 136 AD3d 176 [1st Dept 2016]; Matter of Liotti, 111 AD3d 98 [1st Dept 2013], lv denied 22 NY3d 862 [2014]; Matter of Rios, 109 AD3d 64 [1st Dept 2013]; Matter of Krapacs, 189 AD3d 1962 [3d Dept 2020]).

In general, the AGC relies upon statements that respondent made following the 2020 election at press conferences, state legislative hearings, radio broadcasts (as both a guest and host), podcasts, television appearances and one court appearance. Respondent concedes that the statements attributed to him in this motion were all made in the context of his representation of Donald J. Trump and/or the Trump campaign (Giuliani affidavit ¶¶ 8, 32).

Preliminary Issues

Respondent raises an overarching argument that the AGC's investigation into his conduct violates his First Amendment right of free speech.2 He does not attack the constitutionality of the particular disciplinary rules; he seemingly claims that they are unconstitutional as applied to him. We reject respondent’s argument. This disciplinary proceeding concerns the professional restrictions imposed on respondent as an attorney to not knowingly misrepresent facts and make false statements in connection with his representation of a client. It is long recognized that “speech by an attorney is subject to greater regulation than speech by others" (Gentile v State Bar of Nevada, 501 US 1030, 1051 [1991]). Unlike lay persons, an attorney is "a professional trained in the art of persuasion" (Ohralik v Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 US 447, 465 [1978]). As officers of the court, attorneys are "an intimate and trusted and essential part of the machinery of justice" (Gentile v State Bar of Nevada, 501 US at 1072 [internal quotation marks omitted]). In other words, they are perceived by the public to be in a position of knowledge, and therefore, "a crucial source of information and opinion" (Gentile v State Bar of Nevada, 501 US at 1056 [internal quotations marks omitted]). This weighty responsibility is reflected in the "ultimate purpose of disciplinary proceedings [which] is to protect the public in its reliance upon the integrity and responsibility of the legal profession" (Matter of Nearing, 16 AD2d at 518). While there are limits on the extent to which a lawyer's right of free speech may be circumscribed, these limits are not implicated by the circumstances of the knowing misconduct that this Court relies upon in granting interim suspension in this case (see Kathleen M. Sullivan, The Intersection of Free Speech and the Legal Profession: Constraints on Lawyers’ First Amendment Rights, 67 Fordham L Rev 569 [1998] available at https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol67/iss2/11/ [last accessed June 1, 2021]). 3

Respondent also raises lack or absence of knowledge as a general defense, stating that even if his statements were false or misleading, he did not make the statements knowing they were false when he made them. We agree that the Rules of Professional Conduct only proscribe false and misleading statements that are knowingly made. Both rules 3.3 and 4.1, expressly provide for an element of knowingness. Rule 8.4 (c), however, contains no such express element. In New York there are no cases which directly hold that a violation of rule 8.4(c) must be knowing, although there is authority that implies it. In a Federal case applying New York’s Rules, the court found that there was a violation of rule 8.4(c) where false statements made by the offending attorney were not inadvertent, but were knowing (Matter of Gilly, 206 F Supp 3d 940, 944 [SD NY 2016]). This Court thereafter imposed reciprocal discipline based on that finding (Matter of Gilly, 149 AD3d 230 [1st Dept 2017]). Sister state jurisdictions have held that knowledge is a required element of misconduct in violation of rules identical to RPC 8.4(c) (see Office Of Disciplinary Counsel v Anonymous Attorney A., 552 Pa 223, 230, 714 A2d 402, 406 [1998] [listing sister states requiring a culpable mental state for violation of rule 8.4(c)]; see also Attorney Grievance Commn. of Maryland v Dore, 433 Md 685, 698, 73 A3d 161, 169 [2013][holding that violation of rule 8.4(c) requires a knowingly dishonest statement]). We, therefore, hold that in order to find a violation of RPC 8.4(c), the AGC is required to satisfy a knowing standard. Knowingness is expressly defined in the Rules of Professional Conduct. Rule 1.0(k) provides that “[k]nowingly,” “known,” “know” or “knows” “denotes actual knowledge of the fact in question. A person’s knowledge may be inferred from circumstances.” Thus, the element of knowingness must be considered in connection with each particular claim of misconduct.

On this motion, whenever the AGC has sustained its burden of proving that respondent made knowing false and misleading factual statements to support his claim that the presidential election was stolen from his client, respondent must then demonstrate that there is some legitimate dispute about whether the statement is false or whether the statement was made by him without knowledge it was false. Conclusory or vague arguments will not create a controverted issue as to whether there has been misconduct. Consequently, once the AGC has established its prima facie case, respondent’s references to affidavits he has not provided, or sources of information he has not disclosed or other nebulous unspecified information, will not prevent the Court from concluding that misconduct has occurred.4 Respondent cannot create a controverted issue of misconduct based upon what he does not submit to this Court (see S.J. Capelin Assoc. v Globe Mfg. Corp., 34 NY2d 338, 342 [1974] [the plaintiff did not raise issue of fact where affidavit merely stated bald, conclusory assertions and there was no claim that facts were not within the plaintiff’s control]; see also Primiano Elec. Co. v HTS-NY, LLC, 173 AD3d 620, 622 [1st Dept 2019] [the defendant failed to raise an issue of fact by relying on the contents of an expert report which was, in turn, based on an unsubmitted report of a third-party’s opinion]). Nor will offers to provide information at a later time, or only if the Court requests it, suffice.

Instances of Attorney Misconduct

In making this motion, the AGC primarily relies on claims that respondent made false and misleading factual statements to cast doubt on the reliability of the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joseph R. Biden was constitutionally certified and then inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. We find that the following false statements made by respondent constitute uncontroverted proof of respondent’s professional misconduct.

Respondent repeatedly stated that in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania more absentee ballots came in during the election than were sent out before the election. The factual “proof” he claimed supported his conclusion was that although Pennsylvania sent out only 1,823,148 absentee ballots before the election, 2,589,242 million absentee ballots were then counted in the election. This factual statement regarding the number of ballots mailed out before the election was simply untrue. The true facts are that 3.08 million absentee ballots were mailed out before the general election, which more than accounted for the over 2.5 million mail-in ballots that were actually tallied.

Notwithstanding the true facts, respondent repeatedly advanced false statements that there were 600,000 to 700,000 fabricated mail-in ballots, which were never sent to voters in advance of the election.5 Respondent made these false claims during his November 8, 2020 radio program, Uncovering the Truth with Rudy Giuliani & Dr. Maria Ryan, during a November 25, 2020 meeting of the Republican State Senate Majority Policy Committee in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during a December 2, 2020 meeting of the Michigan House Oversight Committee, during his December 17, 2020 broadcast of the radio show Chat with the Mayor, and he repeated it during an episode of Steve Bannon's the War Room: Pandemic podcast on December 24, 2020.

Respondent does not deny that his factual statement, that only 1.8 million mail-in ballots were requested, was untrue. His defense is that he did not make this misstatement knowingly. Respondent claims that he relied on some unidentified member of his “team” who “inadvertently” took the information from the Pennsylvania website, which had the information mistakenly listed (Giuliani affidavit ¶49). There is simply no proof to support this explanation. For instance, there is no affidavit from this supposed team member who is not identified by name or otherwise, nor is there any copy of the web page that purportedly listed the allegedly incorrect data. In fact, the only proof in this record is the official data on the Pennsylvania open data portal correctly listing the ballots requested as 3.08 million.

The above identified misstatements violate Rules of Professional Conduct 4.1 and 8.4(c).

On November 17, 2020 respondent appeared as the attorney for plaintiff on a matter captioned Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v Boockvar (Boockvar), in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania (502 F Supp 3d 899, affd 830 Fed Appx 377 [3d Cir 2020]). He was admitted pro hac vice based on his New York law license.

Respondent repeatedly represented to the court that his client, the plaintiff, was pursuing a fraud claim, when indisputably it was not. Respondent’s client had filed an amended complaint before the November 17, 2020 appearance in which the only remaining claim asserted was an equal protection claim, not based on fraud at all. The claim concerned the experience of two voters having their mail-in ballots rejected and challenged the notice and cure practices concerning mail-in ballots in different counties.

The plaintiff’s original complaint had included claims about canvassing practices. The plaintiff, however, voluntarily withdrew those claims when it served the amended complaint. Notwithstanding, respondent insisted on extensively arguing a fraud case based on the withdrawn canvassing claims. 6 7

Respondent’s mischaracterization of the case was not simply a passing mistake or inadvertent reference. Fraud was the crown of his personal argument before the court that day. In his opening remarks, respondent claimed that the allegations in the complaint concerned “widespread, nationwide voter fraud of which this is a part…." He persisted in making wide ranging conclusory claims of fraud in Pennsylvania elections and other jurisdictions allegedly occurring over a period of many years. Respondent argued that the plaintiff’s fraud arguments pertained to the canvassing claim, notwithstanding that there was neither a fraud nor a canvassing claim before the court. Respondent’s fraud argument spanned pages 12 to 31 of the transcript.

After opposing counsel pointed out, and respondent’s own co-counsel agreed, that the plaintiff had asserted no claims of fraud the court made the following inquiries and received the following answers from respondent:

"THE COURT: So it's correct to say then that you're not alleging fraud in the amended complaint?

"RESPONDENT: No, Your Honor, it is not, because we incorporate by reference in 150 all of the allegations that precede it, which include a long explanation of a fraudulent, fraudulent process, a planned fraudulent process.

"THE COURT: So you are alleging fraud?

RESPONDENT: Yes, Your Honor."

Later in the transcript, after the court pointed respondent to the amended complaint, the following further court inquiries and responses occurred:

"THE COURT: . . . So the amended complaint—does the amended complaint plead fraud with particularity?

"RESPONDENT: No, Your Honor. And it doesn’t plead fraud. It pleads the -- it pleads the plan or scheme that we lay out in 132 to 149 without characterizing it."

These proceedings were open by phone line to as many as 8,000 journalists and other members of the public. At the outset of the argument it was reported that at least 3,700 people had already dialed in.

It is considered a false and misleading statement under the Rules of Professional Conduct to mispresent the status of a pending proceeding, whether in or out of court (Matter of Zweig, 117 AD3d 96 [1st Dept 2014]; Matter of Napolitano, 78 AD3d 18 [2d Dept 2010]; Matter of Passetti, 53 AD3d 1031 [3d Dept 2008]). Stating that a case presents a fraud claim when it does not, is a false and misleading statement about the status of a pending proceeding.

Respondent argues that there was no misconduct because he truthfully told the court that day that there were no fraud claims. This defense rings hollow. Respondent’s original position, that there was a fraud claim, was made despite an amended complaint in which his very own client withdrew any fraud related claim. Respondent's own cocounsel represented, in respondent’s presence, that the plaintiff was not asserting a fraud claim and there was extensive argument by opposing counsel. It is indisputable that respondent had to be aware that there were no fraud claims in the case. Significant time and effort were expended on respondent's false misrepresentations to the court regarding the nature of the proceedings. This resulted in respondent’s arguments in support of fraud appearing to be seemingly unanswered on the record and misleading the listening public, because fraud was not a part of the case. Respondent’s so-called admission of the true status of the case did not occur until he was pressed by the court to concede the point at page 118 of the transcript.

The confusion respondent created by falsely insisting that there was a fraud/canvassing claim before the court persisted beyond that court appearance. The parties were given leave to submit briefs. Plaintiff’s brief included argument about the canvassers' claim, even though it had been withdrawn. Consequently, the court addressed the claim in its subsequent decision and dismissed it on the merits. In footnote 127 the court stated “Count I makes no mention of the poll-watching allegations, nor does it seek relief for any violation of law on the basis of those allegations. Out of an abundance of caution, however, the Court considers whether these allegations state a claim” (Boockvar, 502 F Supp 3d at 921 n 127).

The above identified misstatements violate RPC 8.4(c). These misstatements violate RPC 3.3 because they were made before a tribunal. These misstatements violate RPC 4.1 because they were made to third parties consisting of over 3,700 members of the press and the public.

Respondent repeatedly stated that dead people “voted” in Philadelphia in order to discredit the results of the vote in that city. He quantified the amount of dead people who voted at various times as 8,021; while also reporting the number as 30,000. As the anecdotal poster child to prove this point, he repeatedly stated that famous heavyweight boxer Joe Frazier continued to vote years after he was dead and stated on November 7, 2020 “he is still voting here.” The public records submitted on this motion unequivocally show that respondent’s statement is false. Public records show that Pennsylvania formally cancelled Mr. Frazier’s eligibility to vote on February 8, 2012, three months after he died.

As for respondent's argument that his misstatements were unknowing, respondent fails to provide a scintilla of evidence for any of the varying and wildly inconsistent numbers of dead people he factually represented voted in Philadelphia during the 2020 presidential election. Although respondent assured the public that he was investigating this claim, respondent has not provided this tribunal with any report or the results of any investigation which supports his statements about how many dead voters he claims voted in Philadelphia in the 2020 presidential election. Respondent claims his statements were justified because the state of Pennsylvania subsequently agreed to purge 21,000 dead voters from its rolls in 2021. This fact, even if true, is beside the point. This statistic concerns the whole state. Purging voter rolls does not prove that the purged voters actually voted in 2020 and per force it does not prove they voted in Philadelphia. It does not even prove that they were dead in November 2020. Moreover, the number of statewide purged voters (21,000) bears no correlation to the numbers of dead voters respondent factually asserted voted in Philadelphia alone (either 8,000 or 30,000). Clearly any statewide purging of voters from the voting rolls in 2021 could not have provided a basis for statements made by respondent in 2020, because the information did not exist. Regarding Mr. Frazier, respondent claims he reasonably relied on the reporting of a “blogger.” The blog article provided on this motion, however, never claims that Mr. Frazier voted in the 2020 election. Nor could it, because the claims made in the article (in which respondent was quoted) are based upon an alleged review of public records from 2017 and 2018.8

Respondent made these false statements at least twice before the AGC brought this motion; first at a November 7, 2020 press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping and again during the November 25, 2020 meeting of the Republican State Senate Majority Policy Committee in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Despite the unequivocal evidence provided in this very motion, that Mr. Frazier is not on the Pennsylvania voting rolls, respondent continued to endorse this fictionalized account in the March 4, March 11 and March 14, 2021 episodes of his broadcast radio show Chat with the Mayor, all of which aired after this motion was brought.

The above identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c ).

Respondent repeated to lawmakers and the public at large numerous false and misleading statements regarding the Georgia presidential election results. These statements, as particularized below, were all knowingly made with the object of casting doubt on the accuracy of the vote. Respondent's general claim, without providing this Court with any documentary support, that he relied on “hundreds of pages of affidavits and declarations in [respondent’s] possession that document gross irregularities…” will not suffice to controvert the specific findings that he knowingly made the false statements that are particularized below.

Respondent made extensive and wide-ranging claims about Dominion Voting Systems Inc.'s voting machines manipulating the vote tallies to support his narrative that votes were incorrectly reported. Georgia, however, had completed a hand count of all ballots cast in the presidential audit.9 The hand audit, which relied exclusively on the printed text on the ballot-marking device, or bubbled-in the choice of the absentee ballot, confirmed the results of the election with a zero percent risk limit. Respondent's statement that the vote count was inaccurate, without referencing the hand audits, was misleading. By law, this audit was required to take place following the election and be completed no later than December 31, 2020 (Ga Ann § 21-2-498). Respondent’s statements were made while the hand audit was proceeding and after it concluded. We understand that Dominion has sued respondent for defamation in connection with his claims about their voting machines (Complaint, US Dominion, Inc. v Giuliani, 1:21-cv- 00213, US District Court, District of Columbia [Washington], January 25, 2021). Consequently, we do not reach the issue of whether respondent’s claims about the Dominion voting machines were false, nor do we need to.

In view of the hand counts conducted in Georgia, we find that respondent’s statements about the results of the Georgia election count are false. Respondent provides no basis in this record for disputing the hand count audit. Respondent made these statements at least on December 3, 2020 when appearing before the Georgia Legislature’s Senate Judiciary Committee, during a December 6, 2020 episode of the radio show Uncovering the Truth, during a December 22, 2020 episode of his radio show Chat with the Mayor, he alluded to it in a December 27, 2020 episode of Uncovering the Truth, and then again during a January 5, 2021 episode of the War Room podcast.

The above identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c).

At various times, respondent claimed that 65,000 or 66,000 or 165,00 underage voters illegally voted in the Georgia 2020 election. The Georgia Office of the Secretary of State undertook an investigation of this claim. It compared the list of all of the people who voted in Georgia to their full birthdays. The audit revealed that there were zero (0) underage voters in the 2020 election. While a small number of voters (four) had requested a ballot prior to turning 18, they all turned 18 by the time the election was held in November 2020. Respondent does not expressly deny the truth of this information. Instead respondent claims that he reasonably relied on “expert” affidavits, including one by Bryan Geels, in believing the facts he stated were true. None of these affidavits were provided to the Court. Respondent claims that Mr. Geels opined that there were “more than 65,000 individuals who voted had registered to vote prior to their 17th birthday” (Giuliani affidavit ¶62). At a bare minimum, the statement attributed to Mr. Geels does not support respondent’s claim that the number of underage teenage voters was 165,000. But respondent’s statement about what was said to him is insufficient as to all of respondent’s statements on underage voters for other reasons. We do not have the affidavit that respondent claims Mr. Geels prepared and he relied on. We do not know when the affidavit was provided to respondent. We do not know what data or source information Mr. Geels relied on in reaching his conclusion, nor do we know what methodology Mr. Geels used for his analysis. Other than respondent calling him an “expert,” we do not know Mr. Geels' actual area of expertise or what qualifies him as such (see Guide to NY Evid Rule 7.01, Opinion of Expert Witness). Merely providing names and conclusory assertions that respondent had a basis for what he said, does not raise any disputed issue about whether misconduct has occurred.

Respondent made statements regarding underage voters in Georgia on his radio show, Chat with the Mayor, at least on January 5, January 7, and January 22, 2021. He then repeated this statement on the April 27th episode of his radio show, after this motion for interim suspension was brought.

The above identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c).

Respondent stated to lawmakers, and the public at large, that more than 2,500 Georgia felons voted illegally. The Georgia Secretary of State also investigated this claim. By comparing lists from the Departments of Corrections and Community Supervision, with the list of people who actually voted in November 2020, the Secretary of State identified a universe of 74 potential felony voters, who were then investigated. Even if all 74 identified persons actually voted illegally, the number is nowhere near the 2,500 that respondent claimed and the number would, in any event, be statically irrelevant in supporting a claim that the election was stolen (see Bognet v Secretary Commonwealth of Pa., 980 F3d 336, 351 [3d Cir 2020], cert granted, judgment vacated sub nom Bognet v Degraffenreid ---US---, 2021 WL 1520777, 2021 US LEXIS 1952 [2021] [for the plaintiff to have standing, challenged votes must be sufficient in number to change outcome]; Sibley v Alexander, 916 F Supp 2d 58, 62 [DC 2013] [the plaintiff failed to satisfy redressability element where the three challenged electoral votes would not change outcome of election]).10 Respondent’s statements that there were 2,500 voting felons is false.

Respondent claims to have relied on the unproduced affidavit of Mr. Geels for this information as well. Respondent states that Mr. Geels opined that “there could have been” more than 2,500 incarcerated felons who voted (Giuliani affidavit ¶62). This opinion, as phrased and as reported by respondent, is wholly speculative. It is also conclusory, rendering it insufficient for the same reasons as is Mr. Geels' reported opinion regarding underage voters.

On January 5, 2021, during a War Room podcast respondent stated that at least 2,500 felons voted in the Georgia election.

The above identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c).

Respondent stated that dead people voted in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election. He claimed that he had the names of 800 dead people who voted based upon the number of people who had passed away in 2020. Respondent further stated that this number was really in the thousands. At another point he claimed that 6,000 dead people had voted. This claim was refuted by the Georgia Secretary of State. After reviewing public records, the Secretary of State concluded that potentially two votes may have been improperly cast in the name of dead voters in the 2020 election and those instances were being investigated. Respondent's claim of thousands of dead voters is false. So is respondent’s claim of 800 dead voters. The two potentially dead voters discovered by the Secretary of State during its investigation is not statistically relevant to affect election results and does not support any narrative of fraud. Respondent does not claim that either of the identified experts he relied upon for information about the Georgia election made any statement to him whatsoever regarding the number of dead people in whose names votes were allegedly cast in the 2020 election and he does not provide any other source for the false numerical information he disseminated (Giuliani affidavit ¶62).

On December 22, 2020, during a War Room podcast, respondent stated that 6,000 dead people voted. On January 3, 2021, during an episode of Uncovering the Truth, respondent stated that 10,515 dead people voted. On January 5, 2021, during a War Room podcast, respondent stated that 800 or more dead people voted in the Georgia election. On the April 7, 2021 episode of his radio show Chat with the Mayor, respondent challenged the Georgia Secretary of State’s finding that only potentially two votes were cast in the name of dead voters, despite having no evidence to refute the facts developed after investigation of public records. The April 7th false statement was made after this motion for interim suspension was brought.

The above identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c).

Respondent represented that video evidence from security cameras depicted Georgia election officials engaging in the illegal counting of mail-in ballots. Although respondent acknowledged that he had viewed the surveillance videos in their entirety (this statement is available at https://rudygiulianics.com/episode/vide ... ncecaught- red-handed-trump-won-georgia-rudy-giuliani-ep-92/3:56 [last accessed June 1, 2021]) the version of the videos shown to the public was comprised only of snippets.11 The gist of his claim was that illegal ballots were being surreptitiously retrieved from suitcases hidden under a table and then tabulated. In fact, the entirety of the videos shows the “disputed” ballots were among those in a room filled with people, including election monitors, until about 10:00 pm. At about 10:00 p.m., the boxes – not suitcases – containing the ballots were placed under a table in preparation for the poll watchers to leave for the evening. Those boxes were reopened and their contents retrieved and scanned when the state official monitor intervened, instructing the workers that they should remain to tabulate the votes until 10:30 p.m. that evening. When viewed in full context and not as snippets, the videos do not show secreting and counting of illegal ballots. Based upon the claim, however, the Georgia Secretary of State conducted an investigation. The video tapes were viewed in their entirety by the Secretary’s office, law enforcement, and fact checkers who, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, all concluded that there was no improper activity.

Respondent's argument with respect to the video is that a reasonable observer could conclude that there was an illegal counting of the mail-in ballots. If, as respondent claims, he reviewed the entire video, he could not have reasonably reached a conclusion that illegal votes were being counted. We disagree that the video can be viewed as evidence of illegal conduct during the vote tabulation process or that it provided a reasonable basis for respondent’s conclusions.

Respondent showed the snippets of video and/or made false statements regarding its content on at least the following occasions: the podcast Rudy Giuliani’s Common Sense on December 4, 2020, the radio show Uncovering the Truth on December 6, 2020 and then again on the same radio show on December 27, 2020 and January 3, 2021; on December 3, 2020 at a hearing before the Georgia State Legislature; and yet again on December 8, 2020 and December 10, 2020 on respondent’s Chat with the Mayor radio program, and on December 19, 2020, and January 5, 2021 as a guest on the War Room podcast.

The above identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c).

Respondent made false and misleading statements that “illegal aliens” had voted in Arizona during the 2020 presidential election. These false facts were made by respondent to perpetuate his overall narrative that the election had been stolen from his client.

On November 30, 2020, respondent appeared before a group of Arizona legislators at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Phoenix. It was acknowledged during that session that no statewide check on undocumented noncitizens had been performed. In other words, there was no data available from which to draw any conclusion about undocumented noncitizens. Nonetheless, respondent persisted in stating, during that same session, that there were “say” five million “illegal aliens” in Arizona and that “[i]t is beyond credulity that a few hundred thousand didn’t vote . . . .” Undeterred by the lack of any empirical evidence, in a December 17, 2020 episode of Chat with the Mayor, respondent queried “Do you think more than 10,000 illegal aliens voted in Arizona?....We know that way more than 10,000 illegal immigrants voted.” During an appearance on the War Room podcast on December 24, 2020 respondent once again claimed with respect to the number of undocumented noncitizens who voted in Arizona that “the bare minimum is 40 or 50,000, the reality is probably about 250,000 . . . .” He then used these unsubstantiated figures to support a claim that Trump won Arizona by about 50,000 votes (id.). After the New Year, in another episode of the War Room podcast, the number of “illegal immigrants” respondent was claiming had voted illegally changed yet again. This time respondent claimed there were 32,000 of such illegal votes. Respondent admitted in the podcast that he did not have the “best sources” to justify this estimate, but stated that he was relying on “newspaper and records” for his claims (id.). Respondent later either reiterated and/or agreed with statements made by others, that undocumented noncitizens had voted in Arizona in the 2020 election; he made these statements during the March 9th, 11th, and April 27, 2021 broadcasts of his Chat with the Mayor radio show and on April 21, 2021 during an appearance on the War Room podcast. Respondent made these misstatements most recently after the AGC brought this motion for his interim suspension.

On their face, these numerical claims are so wildly divergent and irreconcilable, that they all cannot be true at the same time. Some of the wild divergences were even stated by respondent in the very same sentence. Moreover, at the November 30, 2020 hearing, when it was brought to respondent’s attention that no study to support the conclusions had been done, respondent persisted in making these false factual statements. In January 2021, respondent even admitted that he did not have the “best sources” to justify the numbers he was stating as fact. Nonetheless, respondent has failed to produce any sources, whether “best” or marginal, to support any of the figures he has presented to the public with authority. He has not identified, let alone produced the “newspaper and records” he claimed were the bases for his assertions when he made them.

Respondent argues that he reasonably relied on Arizona State Senator Kelly Townsend, who respondent claims collected information on noncitizen voters. Respondent does not tell us what Senator Townsend actually said to him or when she said it. We do not have an affidavit or any statement from Senator Townsend. We simply have none of the information Senator Townsend is claimed to have collected. Saying that Senator Townsend collected information does not explain any of respondent’s numbers, let alone why they are wildly divergent. Respondent’s claim, that he also relied on “other witnesses” who testified that thousands of individuals voted despite any proof of citizenship, lacks detail and is not specific enough to be considered by this Court as probative. Not one of those witnesses is identified, none of their testimony is provided, nor has respondent provided an affidavit from any of them. Respondent cannot rely on this “evidence” to controvert that he knowingly made false statements to the public about the number of "illegal aliens" or "illegal immigrants" voting in the Arizona 2020 presidential election.

The above identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c ).

We find that all of these acts of misconduct, when considered separately or taken together, also establish that respondent violated RPC 8.4 (h) because his conduct adversely reflects on his fitness as a lawyer.

We recognize that the AGC has identified other instances of respondent’s misconduct. We make no substantive decision on those additional claims at this time because the record is insufficiently developed on those claims in this motion for interim relief. The additional claims may be part of any formal charges that the AGC will interpose in the full disciplinary proceeding that will follow this interim suspension. We find, nonetheless, that the incidents we have identified in this decision satisfy the requirement of uncontroverted misconduct required for an interim suspension.

Immediate Threat to the Public Interest

Uncontroverted claims of misconduct alone will not provide a basis for interim suspension, unless there is a concomitant showing of an immediate threat to the public interest (22 NYCRR 1240.9[a]). We recognize that this case presents unique circumstances. Nonetheless, there are certain factors we generally consider in connection with whether an immediate threat of harm to the public has been established.

Violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct in and of themselves necessarily means that there is harm to the public (Matter of Nearing, 16 AD2d at 516). One obvious factor to consider on an interim suspension application is whether the misconduct is continuing (Matter of Singer, 301 AD2d 336, 337 [1st Dept 2002]). Even where there are no actual incidents of continuing misconduct, immediate harm threatening the public can be based on the risk of potential harm when considered in light of the seriousness of the underlying offense (Matter of Tannenbaum, 16 AD3d 66 [1st Dept 2005]). Many cases where the seriousness of the offending conduct alone satisfies the immediate threat requirement for an interim suspension concern the mishandling of money (see Matter of Hornstein, 121 AD3d 1 [1st Dept 2014]; Matter of Jackson, 103 AD3d 10 [1st Dept 2013]; Matter of Schachter, 100 AD3d 45 [1st Dept 2010]; Matter of Tannenbaum at 67). The broader principle to be drawn from these cases is that when the underlying uncontroverted evidence of professional misconduct is very serious, the continued risk of immediate harm to the public during the pendency of the underlying disciplinary proceeding is unacceptable. For example, we have ordered interim suspensions where the offense is serious, although the risk of recurrence is slight, because the attorney intends to resign from the practice of law (Matter of Kressner, 72 AD3d 112 [1st Dept 2010]). Another consideration, related to the seriousness factor, is whether the underlying misconduct is likely to result in a substantial sanction at the conclusion of the formal disciplinary hearing proceeding. We adopt this factor in reliance on sister state authority on the same issue (see Tapp v Ligon, 2013 Ark 259, 428 SW3d 492 [2013] [interim suspension likened to a preliminary injunction; substantial likelihood that significant sanction would be imposed]; In re Discipline of Trujillo, 24 P3d 972 [Utah 2001] [substantial likelihood, based on all the available evidence, that a significant sanction will be imposed on the attorney at the conclusion of any pending disciplinary proceeding]).

Consideration of these factors in this case leads us to conclude that the AGC has made a showing of an immediate threat to the public, justifying respondent’s interim suspension. We find that there is evidence of continuing misconduct, the underlying offense is incredibly serious, and the uncontroverted misconduct in itself will likely result in substantial permanent sanctions at the conclusion of these disciplinary proceedings.

Respondent argues that there is no immediate threat of future harm, because he has and will continue to exercise personal discipline to forbear from discussing these matters in public anymore. He also claims that because legal matters following the 2020 election have concluded, he will no longer be making any statements about the election under the authority of being an attorney.

Notwithstanding respondent’s claim that he has exercised self-restraint by not publicly commenting on the election, there are numerous instances demonstrating the opposite. Focusing only on the false statements that support our conclusion of uncontroverted misconduct (and not his statements about 2020 election matters generally), respondent has made or condoned the following false statements just since the AGC brought this application for his interim suspension: On his March 4, 2021 radio show Chat with the Mayor, respondent reprised his claim that Joe Frazier had voted from the grave. On the March 9th episode of his radio show Chat with the Mayor, respondent stated in substance that immigrants voted illegally in the 2020 presidential election. On the March 11th episode of his radio show Chat with the Mayor he again referred to Joe Frazier and “illegals” voting in Arizona. On the March 14th episode of Chat with the Mayor, respondent recounted the tale of Joe Frazier voting after he died and joked with his co-host about the Philadelphia cemeteries emptying on election day. On his April 8th episode of Chat with the Mayor, respondent disputed the fact that in Georgia only two dead people had voted, even though, as previously indicated, respondent had no informational basis for making that statement and disputing the results of Georgia’s investigation. On the April 27th episode respondent once again falsely stated that there were 65,000 underage teenage voters who had voted in Georgia. Respondent also stated that there were 38,000 “illegal immigrants” voting in Arizona, while at the same time estimating the number at maybe 5,000 or maybe 100,000 (id.). Imminent threat to the public is established by this continuing pattern of respondent’s offending conduct and behavior. We cannot rely on respondent’s representations that he will exercise restraint while these proceedings are pending.

Contrary to respondent’s assertion, there are many ongoing legal matters all over the United States that arise from the narrative of a stolen election. Respondent himself points to an ongoing audit of the 2020 ballots presently occurring in Maricopa County, Arizona (Arizona Public Integrity Alliance v Fontes, 250 Ariz 58, 475 P3d 303 [2020]). Another audit of the 2020 ballots has just been authorized in Fulton County, Georgia by Chief Judge Brian Amero of the Henry County Superior Court (see Julia Harte, Judge allows self-described anti-fraud group to review Georgia ballots [May 21, 2021], https://www.reuters.com/business/legal/ ... oupreview- georgia-ballots-2021-05-21/ [last accessed June 1, 2021]). The Federal government and many state legislators are actively engaged in enacting competing laws concerning voting in this country (see e.g. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act [S4263, 116th Cong. [2019-2020]; The Voting Rights Advancement Act [HR 4, 116th Cong. [2019-2020]; The Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019 [S561, 116th Cong. [2019]; For the People Act of 2021 [HR 1, SR 1, 117th Cong. [2021]; Iowa SF 413 [signed by the Governor of Iowa on March 8, 2021]; Georgia SB 202 [passed by the Georgia House and Senate on March 25, 2021]; Florida SB 90 [signed by the Governor of Florida on May 6, 2021], Texas S.B.7 12). Many of the state laws are facing serious court challenges (see e.g. League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa v Pate, ---F Supp 3d---, CVCV-061476 [Dist. Ct., Polk County Iowa]; New Georgia Project v Raffensperger 484 F Supp 3d 1265 [ND Ga 2020], Georgia NAACP v Raffensperger, --- F Supp 3d ---, No. 1:2021-CV-01259 [ND Ga 2021], AME Church v Kemp, ---F Supp 3d - --, No. 1:2021-CV-01284 [ND Ga 2021], Asian Americans Advancing Justice -Atlanta v Raffensperger, ---F Supp 3d ---, No. 1:2021-CV-01333 [ND Ga 2021], VoteAmerica v Raffensperger, ---F Supp 3d ---, No. 1:2021-CV-01390 [ND Ga 2021], Concerned Black Clergy v Raffensperger, ---F Supp 3d---, No. 1:2021-CV-01728 [ND Ga 2021], Coalition For Good Governance v Raffensperger, ---F Supp 3d---, No. 1:20-CV-01677 [ND Ga 2020], Florida Rising v Lee, ---F Supp 3d---, No. 4:21-CV-00201 [ND Fla 2021]).

The risk that respondent will continue to engage in future misconduct while this disciplinary proceeding is pending is further borne out by his past, persistent and pervasive dissemination of these false statements in the media. This is not a situation where the uncontroverted misconduct consisted of only a few isolated incidents. Rather, each of the false statements identified and analyzed herein were made multiple times on multiple platforms, reaching countless members of the public. They continued after this motion was brought, and despite respondent facing imminent suspension from the practice of law.

The seriousness of respondent’s uncontroverted misconduct cannot be overstated. This country is being torn apart by continued attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election and of our current president, Joseph R. Biden.13 The hallmark of our democracy is predicated on free and fair elections. False statements intended to foment a loss of confidence in our elections and resulting loss of confidence in government generally damage the proper functioning of a free society. When those false statements are made by an attorney, it also erodes the public’s confidence in the integrity of attorneys admitted to our bar and damages the profession’s role as a crucial source of reliable information (Matter of Nearing, 16 AD2d at 516). It tarnishes the reputation of the entire legal profession and its mandate to act as a trusted and essential part of the machinery of justice (Ohralik v Ohio State Bar Assn, 436 US at 447). Where, as here, the false statements are being made by respondent, acting with the authority of being an attorney, and using his large megaphone, the harm is magnified. One only has to look at the ongoing present public discord over the 2020 election, which erupted into violence, insurrection and death on January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol, to understand the extent of the damage that can be done when the public is misled by false information about the elections. The AGC contends that respondent’s misconduct directly inflamed tensions that bubbled over into the events of January 6, 2021 in this nation’s Capitol. Respondent’s response is that no causal nexus can be shown between his conduct and those events. We need not decide any issue of “causal nexus” to understand that the falsehoods themselves cause harm.14 This event only emphasizes the larger point that the broad dissemination of false statements, casting doubt on the legitimacy of thousands of validly cast votes, is corrosive to the public’s trust in our most important democratic institutions.

Before Judge Brann in the Boockvar case, respondent himself stated: “I don’t know what’s more serious than being denied your right to vote in a democracy.” We agree. It is the very reason why espousing false factual information to large segments of the public as a means of discrediting the rights of legitimate voters is so immediately harmful to it and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law.

Accordingly, the AGC’s motion should be granted and respondent is suspended from the practice of law in the State of New York, effective immediately, and until further order of this Court.

All concur.

It is Ordered that the motion is granted and respondent is suspended from the practice of law in the State of New York pursuant to Judiciary Law § 90(2) and 22 NYCRR 1240.9(a) (5), effective the date hereof, until such time as disciplinary matters pending before the Committee have been concluded, and until further order of this Court, and

It is further Ordered that respondent is commanded to desist and refrain from the practice of law in any form, either as principal or agent, clerk or employee of another; that respondent is forbidden to appear as an attorney or counselor-at-law before any court, judge, justice, board or commission or other public authority; that respondent is forbidden to give another an opinion as to the law or its application or advice in relation thereto, all effective the date hereof, until such time as disciplinary matters pending before the Committee have been concluded and until further order of this Court, and

It is further Ordered that respondent is directed to fully comply with the provisions of the Court's rules governing the conduct of disbarred or suspended attorneys (see 22 NYCRR 1240.15), which are made a part hereof, and

It is further Ordered that, within 20 days of the date of service of this decision, respondent may submit a request, in writing, to this Court for a post suspension hearing (see 22 NYCRR 1240.9[c]).

Entered: June 24, 2021

[Signed]
Susanna Molina Rojas
Clerk of the Court

_______________

Notes:

1 22 NYCRR 1240.9(a) states in pertinent part: “A respondent may be suspended from practice on an interim basis during the pendency of an investigation or proceeding on application or motion of a Committee…..upon a finding by the Court that the respondent has engaged in conduct immediately threatening the public interest. Such a finding may be based upon . . . (5) other uncontroverted evidence of professional misconduct.”

2 Giuliani affidavit ¶6 “. . . Petitioner’s allegations regarding statements that I made, violates my First Amendment right of free speech . . . " (see also Answer ¶¶ 25-26).

3 Notably, at least one Federal court has recently determined attorney efforts to undermine a legitimate presidential election warranted the attorney's referral to the grievance committee (Wisconsin Voters Alliance v Pence, 2021 WL 23298, *2, 2021 US Dist LEXIS 127, *4-6 [DDC Jan. 4, 2021 Civil Action No. 20-3791 (JEB)], and 2021 WL 6359, *1, 2021 US Dist LEXIS 35064, *6 [DDC Feb. 19, 2021]).

4 In opposition to this motion, respondent refers to affidavits he has not provided (Giuliani affidavit ¶¶11, 50, 61, 62, 66). He also relies on a “confidential informant” (Giuliani affidavit ¶82). We do not understand, nor does respondent explain why, as a private attorney seemingly unconnected to law enforcement he would have access to a “confidential informant” that we cannot also have access to. At yet another point respondent claims he relies on a Trump attorney who chooses not to be identified (Giuliani affidavit ¶43). Respondent also refers to hundreds of witnesses, experts, and investigative reports, none of which have been provided or identified (Giuliani affidavit ¶14) and an Excel spreadsheet, also not provided, purportedly listing the names of thousands of deceased voters who allegedly cast ballots in Michigan (Giuliani affidavit ¶51).

5 These numbers roughly correlate to mail-in ballots received, less the false amount of mail-in ballots respondent claims were sent out, as adjusted for the overall percentage of mail-in votes that were cast for Biden.

6 We accept for purposes of this proceeding respondent’s characterization of the withdrawn claim as a fraud claim. It is not clear to us that this characterization is correct, but it does not affect our analysis.

7 Coincidently, while the parties were in court that day, they received word that the state claims regarding canvassing had been decided against the plaintiff in the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania (In re Canvassing Observation, 241 A3d 339 [Pa 2020], cert denied sub nom Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v Degraffenreid, ---US---, 141 SCt 1451 [2021]). The plaintiff’s subsequent efforts to reinstate the voluntarily withdrawn federal claim concerning the canvassers was also denied in Boockvar.

8 The blogger's representation regarding what the public record revealed was inaccurate.

9 In this motion, because the AGC only relies on the audit referred to in the Georgia Secretary of State’s January 6, 2021 letter to Congress, we only consider this one audit. Georgia’s election results were, however, actually audited three times, and no evidence of widespread fraud was discovered (Daniel Funke, Fact check: No evidence of fraud in Georgia election results (June 1, 2021), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/fac ... rgiaaudit- hasnt-found-30-000-fake-ballots/5253184001/ [last accessed June 12, 2021]).

10 On December 1, 2020, former Attorney General William Barr stated that the Department of Justice had uncovered nothing indicating massive election fraud and that there was nothing showing that the outcome of the election would be different.

11 The full videos are found at https://securevotega.com/factcheck/. The snippets shown during respondent’s show, while once available on YouTube, have been taken down for violating their community standards (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PchtaUsRH70 [last accessed June 2, 2021])


12 As of May 28, 2021, the Brennan Center for Justice reports that more than 14 states have enacted new laws this year that will restrict voting rights (Voting Laws Roundup: May 2021, BrennanCenter.org (May 28, 2021), https://www.brennancenter.org/ourwork/ research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-May-2021 [last accessed June 2, 2021]).

13 E.g. A May 17-19 national poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos reported that while only 3% of Democrats believe that Trump won the 2020 election, 53% of Republicans so believe (Reuters, 53% of Republicans view Trump as true U.S. president, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/53-rep ... tersipsos- 2021-05-24/ [last accessed June 2, 2021])

14 Legal causation is an issue in criminal and civil actions that have arisen in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots. We understand that respondent is a defendant in at least one civil action seeking to hold him responsible for the January 6, 2021 riots (Thompson v Trump, Giuliani, ---F Supp 3d---, 1:21-cv-00400, US District Court, District of Columbia [Washington], January 25, 2021).

[admin]

The Senator Who Decided to Tell the Truth: A Michigan Republican spent eight months searching for evidence of election fraud, but all he found was lies.
by Tim Alberta
The Atlantic
JUNE 30, 2021

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Ed McBroom

-- REPORT ON THE NOVEMBER 2020 ELECTION IN MICHIGAN, by COMMITTEE MEMBERS Senator Edward McBroom – Chair Senator Lana Theis – Majority Vice Chair Senator Jeff Irwin – Minority Vice Chair Senator John Bizon, 6/23/21

VULCAN, Michigan—Right around the time Donald Trump was flexing his conspiratorial muscles on Saturday night, recycling old ruses and inventing new boogeymen in his first public speech since inciting a siege of the U.S. Capitol in January, a dairy farmer in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula sat down to supper. It had been a trying day.

The farmer, Ed McBroom, battled sidewinding rain while working his 320 acres, loading feed and breeding livestock and at one point delivering a distressed calf backwards from its mother’s womb, before hanging the newborn animal by its hind legs for respiratory drainage. Now, having slipped off his manure-caked rubber boots, McBroom groaned as he leaned into his home-grown meal of unpasteurized milk and spaghetti with hamburger sauce. He would dine peacefully at his banquet-length antique table, surrounded by his family of 15, unaware that in nearby Ohio, the former president was accusing him—thankfully, this time not by name—of covering up the greatest crime in American history.

A few days earlier, McBroom, a Republican state senator who chairs the Oversight Committee, had released a report detailing his eight-month-long investigation into the legitimacy of the 2020 election. The stakes could hardly have been higher. Against a backdrop of confusion and suspicion and frightening civic friction—with Trump claiming he’d been cheated out of victory, and anecdotes about fraud coursing through every corner of the state—McBroom had led an exhaustive probe of Michigan’s electoral integrity. His committee interviewed scores of witnesses, subpoenaed and reviewed thousands of pages of documents, dissected the procedural mechanics of Michigan’s highly decentralized elections system, and scrutinized the most trafficked claims about corruption at the state’s ballot box in November. McBroom’s conclusion hit Lansing like a meteor: It was all a bunch of nonsense.

“Our clear finding is that citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan,” McBroom wrote in the report. “There is no evidence presented at this time to prove either significant acts of fraud or that an organized, wide-scale effort to commit fraudulent activity was perpetrated in order to subvert the will of Michigan voters.”

For good measure, McBroom added: “The Committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain.”

This reflected a pattern throughout the report—a clear and clinical statement of facts, accompanied by more animated language that expressed disgust with the grifters selling deception to the masses and disappointment with the voters who were buying it. Sitting at his dinner table, I told the senator that his writing occasionally took a tone of anger. He smirked. “I don’t know that I ever wrote angry,” McBroom replied. “But I tried to leave no room for doubt.”

So much for that. Soon after the report was released, Trump issued a thundering statement calling McBroom’s investigation “a cover up, and a method of getting out of a Forensic Audit for the examination of the Presidential contest.” The former president then published the office phone numbers for McBroom and Michigan’s GOP Senate majority leader, Mike Shirkey, urging his followers to “call those two Senators now and get them to do the right thing, or vote them the hell out of office!”

McBroom had grown up a “history nerd.” He idolized the revolutionary Founders. He inhaled biographies of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt. He revered the institution of the American presidency. And here was the 45th president, calling him out by name, accusing him of unthinkable treachery.

“Surreal,” McBroom said quietly. He leaned back, running his hands through a mess of sweaty blond hair. Then he folded his thick arms, which bulged from a red cutoff button-up shirt, staring heavenward in search of the words. Some 30 seconds went by. “Just … surreal.”

Perhaps trying to cheer himself, McBroom told me he doubted whether Trump had personally written that statement. He doubted even more whether Trump had actually read the report. (If he had, Trump would understand why an Arizona-style “forensic audit” would be pointless.) But this was cold comfort. In many ways, Trump was a stand-in for the constituents McBroom knew who insisted that the election was stolen, who raged against the scheming Democrats and the spineless Republicans, who believed that America was succumbing to an illegitimate leftist takeover. Most of them, McBroom realized, would not read the report, either. And he wasn’t sure what more he was supposed to do for them.

“I can’t make people believe me,” McBroom said, an air of exasperation in his voice. “All I can hope is that people use their discernment and judgment, to look at the facts I’ve laid out for them, and then look at these theories out there, and ask the question: Does any of this make sense?”

McBroom admitted to being a bit discouraged. It’s hard enough for an elected official to convince the public of something it doesn’t want to accept. Yet here he was, a lowly state lawmaker from the pastures of Dickinson County, struggling to win the hearts and minds of Trump voters while engaged in a zero-sum showdown with Trump himself.

“All politicians lie. That’s what people believe, right?” McBroom said. “Well, somebody is lying. It’s either me or—”

He stopped himself. “Somebody else.”

Mcbroom didn’t ask for any of this.

A fourth-generation farm boy from the U.P., he studied music education and social studies at Northern Michigan University, harboring dreams of being a teacher and leading a church choir. (He went one-for-two. McBroom is the music director at nearby First Baptist of Norway.) When several of his siblings passed on the opportunity to take over the family farm, McBroom assumed responsibility. He moved his wife, Sarah, whom he’d met at a college choir outing, and their young family to the farm. Joining them were McBroom’s younger brother, Carl; his wife (and Sarah’s sister), Susan; and their children. Together, Ed and Carl planned to grow the family business and raise their two clans as one on the sprawling McBroom compound.

Before long, however, Ed came to a detour. Having joined a host of farm-related civic organizations in the region, he found himself networking with politicians, and soon, unwittingly, being groomed to run for office himself. (Michigan has some of the tightest term limits in the nation and churns through legislators, which presents a constant demand for neophyte recruits.) McBroom had his doubts. Politics seemed an ugly, undignified game for a pious young farmer. And yet, he glowed with certain passions—outlawing abortion, preserving family values, fighting bureaucrats on behalf of the little guy—that could not be championed in the stables.

With the blessing of Carl, who committed to carrying the load on the homestead, McBroom ran for the state House of Representatives in 2010. Harnessing the energy of the Tea Party to defeat an incumbent Democrat—back when Democrats still represented rural northern Michigan—McBroom arrived in Lansing with visions of being a great conservative reformer.

They didn’t last. The Tea Party movement, he realized, was more interested in union-busting and ideological one-upmanship than in achieving tangible results. Meanwhile, his perch on the Agriculture Committee was proving ineffectual; state agencies so regularly pushed around the policy makers that McBroom wondered why he was even bothering to pass legislation. Feeling outmatched, he contemplated quitting the legislature. Only in the twilight of his time in the House did McBroom discover what seemed like his salvation, and what could later be considered his curse: the Oversight Committee. Realizing that the panel had the power to touch all areas of policy while holding the executive branch and Lansing bureaucracy to account, McBroom recommitted himself to politics. He picked the right horse for speaker of the House, maneuvered onto the committee, and positioned himself to continue oversight work if promoted to the Senate.

It was no foregone conclusion that he would seek higher office; in fact, McBroom took two years off from Lansing after his term-limited retirement in 2016. But by 2018 he was ready to resume his legislative career, running for a Senate seat that was his for the taking. Then tragedy struck: On July 7 of that year, Carl was killed in a car wreck near the farm. McBroom froze his campaign. He was now responsible not only for the entirety of a massive agricultural enterprise, and for his own five children, but for Carl’s seven children—plus the one Susan was carrying. He wasn’t sure how the farm would function with him being gone four days a week. But even if he worked the farm full-time, he wasn’t sure it could stay afloat. A Senate salary might offer a bridge to survival.

Having prayed and prayed on the decision, McBroom continued with the campaign. He felt God telling him he was needed in Lansing. After winning the seat, McBroom was promptly named chair of the Senate Oversight Committee. This offered an ideal work-life balance, granting him the autonomy to work odd hours that accommodated his 400-mile commute. It was a dream job—until the nightmare of November 2020.

“Two days after the election, Mike Shirkey calls me, and he says, ‘What do you think about all of this?’” McBroom recalled. “And I said, ‘I think people deserve answers.’”

At that moment, Michigan had emerged as America’s epicenter of electoral dysfunction. Despite boasting a wider margin than other contested states—Joe Biden led Trump by roughly 155,000 votes in the unofficial tally—Michigan was plagued by a series of episodes that lent themselves easily to misinformation and outright conspiracy. There was the reporting error in rural Antrim County, a Republican stronghold, that showed Biden trouncing Trump by an impossible margin. There was the late-night ballot dump at the TCF Center in Detroit, where poll workers covered the windows to prevent harassment from unsanctioned visitors. There were the widespread rumors about excess mail ballots floating around the state, a notion that found traction because of the historic swarm of voters taking advantage of a newly adopted no-excuse absentee-voting law. There was, above all, mass confusion about why the vote was taking so long to tabulate—and why Biden appeared to be the beneficiary.

“At the beginning, even before the investigation, I had a lot of those questions in my own heart,” McBroom told me. “Like, you watch the news or look on Facebook, and some of this seems really strange. What was going on over there? How did those votes get switched? Where did all those ballots come from in the middle of the night? These are legitimate questions, and it would have been unfair to just toss them aside.”

On November 6, McBroom announced that his committee would convene an investigation, beginning the next day, into allegations of misconduct in Michigan’s election. “Many of you have asked me to weigh in on the current election turmoil. I’ve been getting it from both sides who are fervent for the victory of their candidate,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “I guess I haven’t been inclined because my fervent desire is for a fair and honest result.”

Not everyone in Lansing knew what to make of McBroom and his investigation. Some Democrats saw a Trump-supporting, anti-abortion zealot from a deep-red district where failure to wave the “Stop the Steal” flag might be fatal. Some Republicans saw an unfailingly earnest, devoutly religious man who was offended by the president’s antics and wouldn’t hesitate to wield a righteous hammer against his own party. As the committee got to work, and concerns piled up across the ideological spectrum, one person never doubted where McBroom’s conclusion was headed. “He is a good and honest person,” said Aaron Van Langevelde, a longtime friend of McBroom and the former GOP canvassing official who received death threats after voting to certify Biden’s statewide victory. “[He] is always going to put his service to the people above politics.”

When he began investigating Detroit’s late-night dump of absentee votes—ballots that are uniquely numbered and require signature verification—McBroom said his mental cinema played scenes from The Italian Job. “You know, someone climbs up into the truck through a manhole cover underneath, puts new boxes in, takes old boxes out,” he said. “And so, you ask yourself, Is that even possible?”

He continued: “Okay, sure. Somebody could break into the truck, whether it’s through the manhole cover, or the driver's complicit, or whatever. But then what? What are you switching the ballots with? Is somebody going to go to find thousands of ballots, match the numbers and signatures on all of them, then swap them out, all in a very limited amount of time, just to push Trump down to 10 percent, instead of 12 percent? … As I ran through all the possible calculations, I was able to reassure myself, like, This is not how you would steal an election.”

In his report, McBroom made clear that other conclusions were even simpler to reach.

What about dead voters? The committee reviewed a list of 200 deceased Wayne County residents who allegedly voted from the grave; it found two instances in which ballots were cast under those names, and both cases were clerical errors. (One man mistakenly voted under the identity of a dead relative who had the same name; one woman returned her absentee ballot, then died four days before the election.)

What about jurisdictions with more votes than registered voters? There were none to be found.

Julian Sanchez: Trump is looking for fraud in all the wrong places

What about absentee ballots being counted multiple times? Nope—the poll books would have registered a disparity. (It’s not uncommon for poll books to be out of balance by a handful of votes; anything more would invite scrutiny and a recount that would invalidate ballots counted twice.)

What about tabulators being hacked with vote-switching software? Impossible, the report found, because the tabulators, no matter what Mike Lindell claims, were not connected to the internet to begin with.

While McBroom’s report crackled with annoyance at certain far-flung beliefs, he saved his saltiest language for the Antrim County saga. To recap: On the morning after Election Day, with all 16,044 votes in the county tallied, an unofficial count showed Biden leading Trump by 3,200 votes. The county clerk quickly determined that an inputting error was publishing the candidates’ totals in the wrong database fields; then, in the race to correct that mistake, officials made an additional inputting error. All of this was resolved within 24 hours, and the county’s updated totals reflected exactly what the tabulators had counted—a 3,800 vote lead for Trump. But this net swing of some 7,000 votes, and the underlying confusion about computer inputs, spawned a nationwide campaign to uncover codes in Dominion voting machines, like the ones used in Antrim County, that changed Trump votes to Biden votes.

The only problem? Dominion’s tabulators had counted the vote accurately, as confirmed by subsequent canvassing efforts and a hand recount. Human inputting error was responsible for the initial bad numbers, a fact obvious to everyone except those who stood to benefit from pretending otherwise. “All compelling theories that sprang forth from the rumors surrounding Antrim County are diminished so significantly as for it to be a complete waste of time to consider them further,” McBroom wrote in the report. “The Committee finds [that] those promoting Antrim County as the prime evidence of a nationwide conspiracy to steal the election place all other statements and actions they make in a position of zero credibility.”

He didn’t stop there. Galvanized by the shameless grifting he’d encountered during the course of his investigation, McBroom stunned his GOP colleagues by referring to Michigan’s attorney general for possible prosecution “those who have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends.”

This represented the one plot twist in McBroom’s report. (Some Democrats expressed surprise at McBroom’s recommending enhanced election-security policies, but most of his proposals are not new, and he has distanced himself from some of his party’s more restrictive new measures.) Concluding that the election wasn’t stolen is one thing. Suggesting that certain people who alleged a stolen election ought to be prosecuted—by a progressive attorney general who is loathed by the conservative base—is another thing entirely.

McBroom is aware of the risks. He will be accused of trying to silence conservatives, of censoring his own constituents, of punishing anyone who dares to question the legitimacy of the Biden administration and the U.S. elections system. But he makes no apologies. “Fraud is fraud,” he shrugged. “If they lied to people to make money off people, that’s a crime.”

I asked McBroom whether, under that standard, Trump—whose affiliated entities raised enormous sums of money under the guise of a legal strategy to overturn the election results—might be vulnerable to prosecution. He laughed nervously. “We didn’t investigate Trump. The report didn’t investigate him. So I have to stick to what the report says.”

Whatever the report says, its findings make evident that Trump, in concert with an unruly apparatus of right-wing personalities and causes, systematically tricked large portions of the American public into believing something that simply is not true. And yet, even while he recommends possible prosecutions, the urgency McBroom feels at this moment has less to do with going after bad actors and more to do with reaching “the good people who are buying this junk.” This includes people in his own district, friends and community members McBroom has known his entire life who refuse to accept what he is telling them.

“It’s been very discouraging, and very sad, to have people I know who have supported me, and always said they respected me and found me to be honest, who suddenly don’t trust me because of what some guy told them on the internet,” McBroom said. “And they’re like, ‘Yeah, but this is a good guy too.’ And I’m like, ‘How do you know that? Have you met him? You’ve met me. So why are you choosing to believe him instead of me?’”

After having kept quiet for much of the day—cooking, sweeping, applying Band-Aids, directing traffic, shooing the children outside to complete their chores—Sarah McBroom spoke up.

“That’s what has struck me. It’s seeing people that we know—some of them we know very well—who are choosing not to believe Ed, because they believe someone on Facebook they’ve never met,” she said. “I just don’t understand. Like, really? You believe that person over Ed?”

A little while earlier, when discussing the scourge of social media, Ed McBroom joked about quitting Facebook to keep his sanity. Then he rattled off the incoming fire he’s been dealing with daily—not just social-media posts and messages, but angry emails and texts from random numbers. Some people accuse him of being in league with Biden; others claim that China bought him off. Occasionally the screeds get nasty and downright threatening, though he said the most disturbing communications of that nature are delivered in middle-of-the-night phone calls. The senator knows that people can locate his farm easily enough, and worries about being gone so much during the week, leaving Sarah and Susan alone with the 13 children. (Both women, he noted, are trained and highly qualified to operate the collection of rifles that hung in a cabinet behind us.)

Still, whatever fleeting dread he feels about personal backlash is diminished by his concern for the country’s sudden epistemological crisis. Not long ago, McBroom said, he would have defaulted to dismissing any notions of mass societal irrationality. He is not dismissive anymore. He sees large portions of the voting public rejecting the basic tenets of civic education and sequestering into “this alternate world” of social media. He hears from constituents about “enemies” on the other side of political disputes and a looming civil conflict to resolve them. And he wonders, as an amateur historian, whether the “very real trouble” we’re in can be escaped.

“It’s easy to look at the current status of American culture, American politics, the American church, and be really apoplectic right now. It’s very easy to give in to that sense of panic,” McBroom told me. “But we go through different cycles in this country. I’m hoping we’re in a cycle of riots and demonstrations on and off, [and not] the cycle where we end up in civil war. I’ve encountered some folks who are like, ‘Maybe it’s time to rise up’—you know, ‘refreshing the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots,’ that stuff. And I say to them, ‘Are you seriously going to go looking for people with biden signs in their yards? I mean, is that what you’re going to do? Make a list? Is this what this is coming to? You’re ready to go out and fight your neighbors? Because I don’t think you really are. I think you’re talking stupid.’”

McBroom closed his eyes and took a heavy breath. “These are good people, and they’re being lied to, and they’re believing the lies,” he said. “And it’s really dangerous.”

Tim Alberta is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

[admin]

Another Republican Telling The Truth Becomes The Target Of Trump: The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta discusses his profile of Michigan State Senator Ed McBroom who debunked claims of voter fraud in his state, and how that has drawn the ire of the former president.
MSNBC
Jul 2, 2021

-- REPORT ON THE NOVEMBER 2020 ELECTION IN MICHIGAN, by COMMITTEE MEMBERS Senator Edward McBroom – Chair Senator Lana Theis – Majority Vice Chair Senator Jeff Irwin – Minority Vice Chair Senator John Bizon, 6/23/21

It was 12 hours, or 15 hours, after McBroom’s report was published that Trump put out a press release publishing McBroom’s phone number, and accusing him of a “cover-up”. Those were his words.



****************************

Trump Calls McBroom's Michigan Election Report a 'Cover Up,' Asks Supporters to Call His Office
by Zoe Kalen Hill
Newsweek
6/24/21 AT 3:16 PM EDT

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Former President Donald Trump called Michigan State Senate's election investigation a "cover up" concerning the 2020 presidential election, and urged his supporters to contact two state senators and have them "do the right thing."

Since last November's contest, Trump continues to allege that fraud took place in the election that saw Joe Biden win, even though there has been no evidence to corroborate such a claim. Biden took Michigan with 16 electoral votes.

Trump's Save America PAC sent out an email with a statement from the former president. In the message, Trump called out two Republican Michigan state senators: Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Ed McBroom.

"Michigan State Senators Mike Shirkey and Ed McBroom are doing everything possible to stop voter audits in order to hide the truth about November 3rd," Trump's statement began.

"The Senate 'investigation' of the election is a cover up, and a method of getting out of a Forensic Audit for the examination of the Presidential contest."

Trump referenced Michigan's Senate Oversight Committee report on the November 2020 general election, which was released Wednesday night, in his statement. He implied that the report's findings warranted a forensic audit.

"Instead of doing a Forensic Audit, they want to investigate the Patriots who have fought for the truth and who are exposing a very possibly Rigged Election. The truth will come out and RINO's will pay at the polls, especially with primary voters and expected challenges," he wrote.

In the statement, Trump also referred to the city of Detroit as the "most corrupt election city in the U.S.," and alleged that "corrupt" politicians are wrong in saying Michigan had no voter fraud.

McBroom, who lead the investigation into the 2020 election, said that the committee investigated every major concern including dead people voting and issues with a voting center in Detroit.

"People are, understandably, confused by recent changes to election laws, as well as by practices, orders and determinations made by state and local governments in response to the pandemic. They are right to demand answers and deserve nothing less than the truth amidst so much shouting and misrepresentation from both sides of the political spectrum," McBroom said in a statement about the report.

"This investigation was lengthy, thorough, and revealing. We found both real vulnerabilities and resiliency within the state's elections system. We also discovered the extent to which our elections officials go to facilitate them," he also said.

"After innumerable hours over many months, watching, listening, and reading both in-person testimony and various other accounts, I am confident in asserting that the results of the November 2020 General Election in Michigan were accurately represented by the certified and audited results."

Meanwhile, the former president called on his supporters to take action and listed the apparent office numbers for both senators at the end of the released statement.

"Our County was based on free and fair elections and that's what we must have!" Trump concluded. "Call those two senators now and get them to do the right thing, or vote them the hell out of office.

Newsweek reached out to McBroom and Shirkey for comment.

[admin]

Why the Trump Org Criminal Charges May Open the Indictment Flood Gates: A Matter of Precedent
by Glenn Kirschner
Jul 6, 2021

Other countries prosecute their criminal leaders - Presidents, Prime Ministers, etc. For example, France, South Korea, South Africa and Italy have all prosecuted former leaders for crimes they committed while in office. However, in the United States there is no precedent for prosecuting a criminal former president.

Prosecutors generally don't like to take maiden legal voyages, that is, bring a case that is unprecedented. Prosecutors like to have legal precedent as a blueprint. They like to have the comfort and cover of being able to point to an appellate court opinion - legal precedent - and say, "this has been done before, so I am not breaking new legal ground."

However, logic and common sense dictate that, if you require precedent to indict a criminal former president then we could NEVER charge a criminal former president. Indeed, the way prosecutors create precedent is by doing something for the first time.

The real question is - is there anything prohibiting the prosecution of a former president for crimes he committed while in office. The answer is a definitive NO - there is no law, no statute, no appellate court opinion and no Supreme Court precedent prohibiting the prosecution of a former president.

This video discusses prosecutorial considerations in taking a maiden legal voyage - brining a novel case for which there is no legal precedent and relates example of when such novel legal cases have been brought in the courts of Washington, DC.

[admin]

No. 45 Offers Nothing New At Rambling Ohio Rally
by Stephen Colbert
The Late Show
Jun 28, 2021

Even some of his most fervent supporters changed the channel during the former president's speech last weekend, finding little new content amid his litany of old punchlines and complaints. #Colbert #Comedy #Monologue

[admin]

Giuliani Urged Trump To 'Just Say We Won' On Election Night, Book Claims
by MSNBC
Jul 14, 2021

The new book 'I Alone Can Fix It', in part, details former President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani on the election night of 2020 urging Trump to declare victory over Joe Biden ahead of the polls. The Morning Joe panel discusses.



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Rudy Giuliani urged Donald Trump to falsely claim election victory, new book says
by ABC.net.au
7/14/21

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Mr Giuliani reportedly encouraged Mr Trump to declare victory despite the vote count.(Reuters: Jonathan Ernst/File photo)

As Donald Trump's hopes for a second term as US president began to fade on election night 2020, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani repeatedly urged him to simply declare himself the winner, a new book claims.

Key points:

* Rudy Giuliani reportedly advised Donald Trump claim he was winning despite the vote going in Joe Biden's favour

* Mr Trump's advisers, the book says, tried to shoot down the suggestion in private

* On Monday Mr Giuliani claimed without evidence antifa was behind the shooting of a US Capitol rioter

An excerpt from the book I Alone Can Fix It published by the Washington Post describes in detail the chaotic, angry scenes at the White House as the election results began to go current US president Joe Biden's way.

Mr Giuliani, who at the time was Mr Trump's personal lawyer, initially outlined the "strategy" to the then-president's advisers, Bill Stepien, Mark Meadows and Jason Miller.

A viewing party was underway at the White House and "some people thought Giuliani may have been drinking too much".

The advisers took Mr Giuliani and they went through each of the key battleground states, which at that point were too early to call.

“Just say we won,” Mr Giuliani said about each.

"Giuliani’s grand plan was to just say Trump won, state after state, based on nothing. Stepien, Miller and Meadows thought his argument was both incoherent and irresponsible," according to the book.


Mr Trump's advisers reportedly said it was difficult to rein in Mr Trump's impulses when Mr Giuliani was telling him what he wanted to hear.(Reuters: Mike Segar)

“We can’t do that,” Mr Meadows reportedly said, raising his voice.

Later, when Fox News dramatically and unexpectedly called hotly contested Arizona for Mr Biden, Mr Trump became incensed.

“What the f--- is Fox doing?” Trump screamed. Then he barked orders to [Jared] Kushner: “Call Rupert! Call James and Lachlan!” And to Jason Miller: “Get Sammon. Get Hemmer. They’ve got to reverse this.” The president was referring to Fox owner Rupert Murdoch and his sons, James and Lachlan, as well as Bill Sammon, a top news executive at Fox.

Trump’s tirade continued. “What the f---?” he bellowed. “What the f--- are these guys doing? How could they call this this early?”

At this point Mr Giuliani stepped in to spruik his strategy and urged Mr Trump to ignore the Arizona call.

“Just go declare victory right now,” Giuliani told Trump. “You’ve got to go declare victory now.”

The suggestion infuriated Mr Trump's advisers, who had already shot it down in private.

One of the advisers recalled that it was difficult to be the "responsible parent" in the room when there was a "cool uncle around taking the kid to the movies and driving him around in a Corvette", referring to Mr Trump as the child.

By this point, the authors say, Mr Trump was already claiming "something nefarious was at play" as the election continued to slip away.

"They’re stealing this from us," Mr Trump reportedly said.

"We have this thing won. I won in a landslide and they’re taking it back."

About 2:00am, he spoke at the viewing party, falsely claiming to have won states such as Georgia and North Carolina that were at that point too close to call, and to be winning others such as Michigan and Wisconsin where he was behind.

“This is a fraud on the American public,” Mr Trump reportedly said.

"This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election."

Giuliani in hot water


Mr Giuliani speaks to media outside his apartment building after the suspension of his law licence in New York City.(Reuters: Andrew Kelly)

Last month, Mr Giuliani had his law licence suspended by a New York Appeals Court because he made false statements while trying to get courts to overturn Mr Trump's loss in the presidential race.

Last week, a District of Columbia Court of Appeals suspended his licence pending the disposition of his New York suspension, though his licence in Washington was already inactive.

Undeterred, Mr Giuliani on Monday gave an interview to Newsmax, a right-wing US news channel, in which he asserted without evidence that the police shooting of Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt on January 6 was a "completely phony operation" and part of a "plot" by antifa.

ABC/AP

[admin]

The FBI Allegedly Used At Least 12 Informants In The Michigan Kidnapping Case: Defense attorneys said they will argue that the FBI “induced or persuaded” the defendants to go along with the violent scheme.
by Jessica Garrison and Ken Bensinger
BuzzFeed
July 12, 2021

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Toward capturing the votes of the center bloc the first step is to identify and count the members. That done, everything else depends on where they are to sit. The best technique is to detail off known and stalwart supporters to enter into conversation with named middle-bloc types before the meeting actually begins. In this preliminary chat the stalwarts will carefully avoid mentioning the main subject of debate. They will be trained to use the opening gambits listed below, corresponding to the categories a to f, into which the middle bloc naturally falls:

a. "Waste of time, I call it, producing all these documents. I have thrown most of mine away."

b. "I expect we shall be dazzled by eloquence before long. I often wish people would talk less and come to the point. They are too clever by half, if you ask me."

c. "The acoustics of this hall are simply terrible. You would have thought these scientific chaps could do something about it. For half the time I CAN'T HEAR WHAT IS BEING SAID. CAN YOU?"

d. "What a rotten place to meet! I think there is something the matter with the ventilation. It makes me feel almost unwell. What about you?"

e. "My goodness, I don't know how you do it! Tell me the secret. Is it what you have for breakfast?"

f. "There's so much to be said on both sides of the 18 question that I really don't know which side to support. What do you feel about it?"

If these gambits are correctly played, each stalwart will start a lively conversation, in the midst of which he will steer his middle-blocsman toward the forum. As he does this, another stalwart will place himself just ahead of the pair and moving in the same direction. The drill is best illustrated by a concrete example. We will suppose that stalwart X (Mr. Sturdy) is steering middle-blocsman Y (Mr. Waverley, type f) toward a seat near the front. Ahead goes stalwart Z (Mr. Staunch), who presently takes a seat without appearing to notice the two men following him. Staunch turns in the opposite direction and waves to someone in the distance. Then he leans over to make a few remarks to the man in front of him. Only when Waverley has sat down will Staunch presently turn toward him and say, "My dear fellow--how nice to see you!" Only some minutes later again will he catch sight of Sturdy and start visibly with surprise. "Hallo, Sturdy--I didn't think you would be here!" "I've recovered now," replies Sturdy. "It was only a chill." The seating order is thus made to appear completely accidental, casual, and friendly. That completes Phase I of the operation, and it would be much the same whatever the exact category in which the middle-blocsman is believed to fall.

Phase II has to be adjusted according to the character of the man to be influenced. In the case of Waverley (Type f) the object in Phase II is to avoid any discussion of the matter at issue but to produce the impression that the thing is already decided. Seated near the front, Waverley will be unable to see much of the other members and can be given the impression that they practically all think alike.

"Really," says Sturdy, "I don't know why I bothered to come. I gather that Item Four is pretty well agreed. All the fellows I meet seem to have made up their minds to vote for it." (Or against it, as the case may be.)

"Curious," says Staunch. "I was just going to say the same thing. The issue hardly seems to be in doubt."

"I had not really made up my own mind," says Sturdy. 20 "There was much to be said on either side. But opposition would really be a waste of time. What do you think, Waverley?"

"Well," says Waverley, "I must admit that I find the question rather baffling. On the one hand, there is good reason to agree to the motion ... As against that ... Do you think it will pass?"

"My dear Waverley, I would trust your judgment in this. You were saying just now that it is already agreed."

"Oh, was I? Well, there does seem to be a majority. ... Or perhaps I should say ..."

"Thank you, Waverley," says Staunch, "for your opinion. I think just the same but am particularly interested to find you agree with me. There is no one whose opinion I value more."

Sturdy, meanwhile, is leaning over to talk to someone in the row behind. What he actually says, in a low voice, is this, "How is your wife now? Is she out of hospital?" When he turns back again, however, it is to announce that the people behind all think the same. The motion is as good as passed. And so it is if the drill goes according to plan.

While the other side has been busy preparing speeches and phrasing amendments, the side with the superior technique will have concentrated on pinning each middle-blocsman between two reliable supporters. When the crucial moment comes, the raising of a hand on either side will practically compel the waverer to follow suit. Should he be actually asleep, as often happens with middle-blocsman in categories d and e, his hand will be raised for him by the member on his right. This rule is merely to obviate both his hands being raised, a gesture that has been known to attract unfavorable comment. With the middle bloc thus secured, the motion will be carried with a comfortable margin; or else rejected, if that is thought preferable. In nearly every matter of controversy to be decided by the will of the people, we can assume that the people who will decide are members of the middle bloc. Delivery of speeches is therefore a waste of time. The one party will never agree and the other party has agreed already. Remains the middle bloc, the members of which divide into those who cannot hear what is being said and those who would not understand it even if they did. To secure their votes what is needed is primarily the example of others voting on either side of them. Their votes can thus be swayed by accident. How much better, by contrast, to sway them by design!

-- Parkinson's Law and Other Studies in Administration, by C. Northcote Parkinson

Members of the armed extremist group Wolverine Watchmen inside the Michigan Capitol in April 2020. Seth Herald / Reuters

The government employed at least a dozen confidential informants to infiltrate groups of armed extremists who allegedly plotted to kidnap the governor of Michigan, according to a new filing in federal court on Monday.

The filing, made by one of the five defendants in the federal case, asked that prosecutors be ordered to share more information about those informants, their relationship with the FBI, and the specific roles they played in building the case. It came among a blizzard of 15 new defense motions in the high-profile case, including requests to move it to a different district, to suppress evidence from a search warrant, and to try at least one defendant separately from the others.

Taken together, the new court papers offered a glimpse of the evolving defense strategies in the case, with several attorneys saying that they plan to argue that the FBI “induced or persuaded” the men to go along with the scheme.

The alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer made international headlines last October, when the Department of Justice announced it had charged six men in a kidnapping conspiracy. Five of the defendants — Barry Croft, Adam Fox, Daniel Harris, Kaleb Franks, and Brandon Caserta — have all pleaded not guilty and have been held without bail since their arrests. A sixth, Ty Garbin, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in the case in January.

According to the Justice Department, the men met and trained over a six-month period in 2020, during which time they developed a plan to kidnap Whitmer from her second home and possibly take her out of state where she could be put on “trial” for being a “tyrant.” No plan was ever executed before authorities made arrests.

Eight other men were charged under Michigan’s anti-terrorism statutes for providing material support to the plotters. Half of the defendants in the combined cases were members of a militant group known as the Wolverine Watchmen, which was associated with the Three Percenters extremist movement. All but two are from the state of Michigan.

A trial in the federal case is currently scheduled for October. Monday marked a filing deadline for defense motions in that case.

Although prosecutors have acknowledged using informants to build the case, the court file to date has provided very little detail on their activities or identities save for one informant, who testified in March. According to an attorney for Franks, the government has shared ID numbers linked to 12 confidential informants but, with one exception, has not provided background on how they were recruited, what payments they may have received from the FBI, where they are based, or what their names are.

Such information would be crucial to “preparation of a defense to the charges,” Franks’ lawyer, Scott Graham, claimed.

Franks, meanwhile, asked that the case be moved out of the Western District of Michigan, on the grounds that “press coverage of (and participation in) this matter has corrupted the potential trial atmosphere to the point that Mr. Franks will be denied a fair trial in Michigan.”

Graham specifically cited a motion filed by BuzzFeed News to obtain access to exhibits shown in a hearing in the case in January as an example of the media involvement in the case and the risk of “prejudice in this case based on the extensive, negative, pervasive press coverage of the allegations.”

Franks also asked to be tried separately because he is not facing a bomb charge that was added to the case earlier this year. That count, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, applies to three of the other defendants who are alleged to have tried to build explosive devices or procure bomb-making materials. According to attorney Graham, potential allegations by prosecutors in court about that charge “will certainly go far in frightening jurors and eliciting emotional decisions from them.”

In yet another motion, filed late on Sunday, an attorney for Croft claimed that prosecutors had provided more than 5,000 duplicate files as it shared evidence, including no fewer than 15 copies of the same audio recording, significantly increasing the burden on the defense.

Separately the attorney, Joshua Blanchard, asked the court to exclude from evidence some items that were recovered from Croft’s Delaware residence during an FBI search in October because, he claims, they were outside the scope of the warrant. Among those items were a 1-kilogram silver bar, a handwritten code cipher, and “Mr. Croft’s hat.”

Croft, a long-haul truck driver and father of three girls, is known among Three Percenters for often wearing a tricorn hat like those from the time of the American Revolution.

[admin]

Former Acting Attorney General Testifies About Trump’s Efforts to Subvert Election: The testimony highlights the former president’s desire to batter the Justice Department into advancing his personal agenda.
by Katie by Benner
New York Times
Aug. 7, 2021

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WASHINGTON — Jeffrey A. Rosen, who was acting attorney general during the Trump administration, has told the Justice Department watchdog and congressional investigators that one of his deputies tried to help former President Donald J. Trump subvert the results of the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the interviews.

Mr. Rosen had a two-hour meeting on Friday with the Justice Department’s office of the inspector general and provided closed-door testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Saturday.

The investigations were opened after a New York Times article that detailed efforts by Jeffrey Clark, the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division, to push top leaders to falsely and publicly assert that continuing election fraud investigations cast doubt on the Electoral College results. That prompted Mr. Trump to consider ousting Mr. Rosen and installing Mr. Clark at the top of the department to carry out that plan.

Mr. Trump never fired Mr. Rosen, but the plot highlights the former president’s desire to batter the Justice Department into advancing his personal agenda.

Mr. Clark, who did not respond to requests for comment, said in January that all of his official communications with the White House “were consistent with law,” and that he had engaged in “a candid discussion of options and pros and cons with the president.”

Mr. Rosen did not respond to requests for comment. The inspector general’s spokesman declined to comment.

Mr. Rosen has emerged as a key witness in multiple investigations that focus on Mr. Trump’s efforts to undermine the results of the election. He has publicly stated that the Justice Department did not find enough fraud to affect the outcome of the election.

On Friday Mr. Rosen told investigators from the inspector general’s office about five encounters with Mr. Clark, including one in late December during which his deputy admitted to meeting with Mr. Trump and pledged that he would not do so again, according to a person familiar with the interview.

Mr. Rosen also described subsequent exchanges with Mr. Clark, who continued to press colleagues to make statements about the election that they found to be untrue, according to a person familiar with the interview.

He also discovered that Mr. Clark had been engaging in unauthorized conversations with Mr. Trump about ways to have the Justice Department publicly cast doubt on President Biden’s victory, particularly in battleground states that Mr. Trump was fixated on, like Georgia. Mr. Clark drafted a letter that he asked Mr. Rosen to send to Georgia state legislators, wrongly asserting that they should void Mr. Biden’s victory because the Justice Department was investigating accusations of voter fraud in the state.

New records show how fiercely Trump DOJ loyalists fought to help — and resist — his effort to steal the 2020 election
by Peter Weber
The Week
August 5, 2021

With much of the news media focused on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) Tuesday night, ABC News published a Dec. 28, 2020, letter from Jeffrey Clark, then the acting head of the Justice Department's civil division, to acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and his acting deputy, Richard Donoghue. Clark's letter is "the single most damning piece of evidence yet" on former President Donald Trump's "comprehensive" and "dangerous" attempt to overturn his 2020 loss, Chris Hayes said on MSNBC Wednesday night.

Clark wanted Rosen and Donoghue to sign his draft letter telling Georgia's leaders the Justice Department "is investigating various irregularities in the 2020 election" and has "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states." If Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) declined to call a special session to address "this important and urgent matter," Clark's draft letter claimed, the Justice Department believes "the Georgia General Assembly has implied authority under the Constitution of the United States to call itself into special session" and appoint its own presidential electors.

Clark's letter was, "in other words, a road map to overthrowing the will of voters," The Washington Post's Philip Bump wrote Wednesday. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) told MSNBC on Wednesday night that Clark had drafted similar letters to six states Trump lost, encouraging Republicans to overturn President Biden's win.

Rosen and Donoghue flatly refused. "There is no chance that I would sign this letter or anything remotely like this," Donoghue emailed Clark a few hours after receiving the draft. Rosen added later he "confirmed again today that I am not prepared to sign such a letter."

"By itself, this back-and-forth is probably without precedent," Bump writes. "But slotted into the other events we know were occurring at the same time, we see just how desperately Trump was scrambling to gain a toehold in his efforts to upend a Biden presidency" — and how close he came.

On Jan. 3, for example, Trump nearly replaced Rosen with Clark in a fraught Oval Office meeting. On Wednesday, Politico published an email senior DOJ official Patrick Hovakimian wrote in preparation for Rosen's expected ouster. Rosen had "repeatedly refused the president's direct instructions" to misuse the DOJ's "law enforcement powers," so he and Donoghue "resign from the department, effusively immediacy," Hovakimian's unsent email said.

University of Texas Law professor Steve Vladeck said "Clark's (insane) draft letter lays bare" that Trump's legal effort was always just a "thinly veiled cover for overturning the result of a democratic election."

Steve Vladeck @steve_vladeck Aug 3, 2021
Replying to @steve+vladeck
You may say "there's nothing new here." But there is: It's evidence of just how far lawyers *inside* the administration were willing to go to effectuate a coup (yes, it would've been an "autogolpe," but you get the gist). That Clark's superiors shut this down is a relief, but...

Steve Vladeck
@steve_vladeck

...the fact that it even got this far drives home (1) just how close we were to things being even worse; and (2) just how much it was people *inside* the administration, and not just outside, who were trying to prevent the peaceful transition of power from actually taking place.
7:01 PM Aug 3, 2021

MSNBC's Hayes was more dramatic, arguing Clark should face consequences for having "aimed a nuclear weapon at the United States of America's democracy."

A newly released letter tells us more about Trump’s last-ditch push to steal the election: The insurrection before the insurrection
by Philip Bump
National correspondent
The Washington Post
August 4, 2021 at 10:59 a.m. EDT

Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election by 7 million actual votes and 74 electoral votes, a fate that was cemented in early November after states finished counting ballots. But to Trump, that was simply the starting point of the second phase of the battle to steal Joe Biden’s victory by any means possible.

Trump had spent months — years, really — laying the groundwork. He’d repeatedly sowed doubt about the security of elections, without evidence, leveraging long-standing Republican rhetoric about election fraud as a personal defense mechanism. The advent of the coronavirus pandemic allowed Trump to apply a new sheen to the old claims, focusing on an increase in mail-in ballots as a conduit for what he insisted would be an avalanche of fraudulent voting. It allowed him to falsely suggest that anything counted after, say, midnight on Election Day was suspect — which he did, over and over.

Many Americans justifiably see the riot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6 as the apex of the effort to keep Trump in office. It was certainly the most dangerous moment and the most striking, but even it was nearly matched a few hours later when a majority of the House Republican caucus voted to block the counting of electoral votes from two states, precisely the outcome that the rioters hoped to effect. In recent months, though, we’ve learned that Trump’s most direct effort to steal the election unfolded about a week prior, over the last few days of 2020.

On Tuesday, ABC News published a letter circulated by the then-acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division, a man named Jeffrey Clark. Addressed to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and state legislative leaders, the draft letter dated Dec. 28 claimed that the department was “investigating various irregularities” in the presidential contest and that it had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election.” The stated recommendation was that the legislature “convene in special session so that its legislators are in a position to take additional testimony, receive new evidence, and deliberate on the matter” — something that the letter describes as “consistent with its duties under the U.S. Constitution” as it pertains to the selection of presidential electors.

The letter went on to suggest that an alternative slate of electors — that is, electors for Trump — might be accepted on Jan. 6 should the legislature demand that happen. Understanding that Kemp had already risen to the defense of the results in the state, Clark claimed in the letter that the legislature could simply call itself into session to make that determination.

It was, in other words, a road map to overthrowing the will of voters. The amount of detail given to the mechanism for handing the electors to Trump was matched by the dearth of specificity about the alleged “irregularities” in the state.

The acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, and acting deputy attorney general, Richard Donoghue, rejected the letter out of hand — a well-founded decision that nonetheless prevented a dicey situation from getting worse. Donoghue’s lengthy response, one probably written with an eye toward it eventually being read by external eyes, made all of the points you might expect. The purported “irregularities” amounted to nothing more than a few ticky-tack questions about individual votes, concerns “that are of such a small scale that they simply would not impact the outcome of the Presidential Election,” Donoghue wrote. Nothing he knew of, he added, would amount to “significant concerns” elsewhere that would similarly call the results into question.

“More importantly,” he added, “I do not think the Department’s role should include making recommendations to a State legislature about how they should meet their Constitutional obligation to appoint Electors.” In other words: It is not the Justice Department’s place to tell states how to overturn election results.

Sending the letter, he concluded, was “not even within the realm of possibility.”

By itself, this back-and-forth is probably without precedent. But slotted into the other events we know were occurring at the same time, we see just how desperately Trump was scrambling to gain a toehold in his efforts to upend a Biden presidency.

Remember, this was after every state had already certified its results (something that Trump and his allies tried desperately to prevent, coming close in Michigan). It was after the electors had met Dec. 14 and finalized their formal votes to be transmitted to D.C. (That Georgia Republicans held their own invalid vote on Trump’s behalf was an element of Clark’s proposal.) In other words, there was no real way for the results to shift, barring something exceptional. So Trump and his allies tried to gin up something exceptional, with a particular focus on Georgia.

The attorney general who served Trump so loyally in the second half of his administration, William P. Barr, left the administration on Dec. 23, elevating Rosen to that position. Barr had already publicly rejected the idea that rampant fraud had occurred, earning Trump’s ire. Barr’s departure was announced Dec. 14 — and Trump’s team wasted no time in pressuring Rosen on their fraud claims. Trump’s assistant sent Rosen a document that afternoon purporting to show fraud in Michigan. On Dec. 15, the president called Rosen into the Oval Office to insist that he file legal arguments claiming that the election was stolen. Rosen refused.

On Dec. 27, with Rosen now running the Justice Department, Trump called the acting attorney general. Notes from the call taken by Donoghue that were released last week show the thrust of the conversation.

Trump suggested that Rosen's team “may not be following the internet the way I do,” which was certainly true, given that Trump was busily elevating many obviously unreliable online claims to his millions of followers on social media. Trump needed to “understand that the DOJ can’t + won’t snap its fingers + change the outcome of the election, doesn’t work that way,” Rosen replied, according to Donoghue's notes.

“[ i] don’t expect you to do that,” Trump said in response, “just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen.”

That latter assurance was probably centered on Trump’s looking forward to lawmakers challenging the vote on Jan. 6, as they in fact did. (Trump had also already begun encouraging his supporters to come to D.C. that day, promising in a tweet on Dec. 19 that the day “will be wild!”) But Trump clearly felt that the lawmakers would need something more substantive in hand before the day arrived. On Dec. 29, for example, Trump’s assistant sent Rosen and Donoghue a draft lawsuit the president hoped would be filed with the Supreme Court. It mirrored a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas that the court had already declined to hear.

The day after the “just say the election was corrupt” call, Clark circulated his letter that just said exactly that. But Clark’s letter was almost certainly not something that occurred independently of Trump. Clark was introduced to Trump by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), and he began talking with Trump directly. (Perry at another point also forwarded Donoghue a document detailing debunked claims about fraud in his state.) Trump began speculating about tossing Rosen in favor of the more acquiescent Clark, something Clark obviously favored. On Dec. 31, Rosen and Donoghue met with Clark to tell him to back off his false claims about the election, unaware that he had Trump’s ear.

On Jan. 2, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and said members of his team just “need more time” to uncover “the big numbers” of fraudulent ballots, a search that remains unrequited. He accused Raffensperger of violating the law by not taking steps to acknowledge Trump’s imaginary fraudulent ballots.

“All I want to do is this,” Trump said. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”

Then just leave the rest to him.

The next day, Clark told Rosen that he was going to be made acting attorney general by Trump. That led to a contentious meeting in the Oval Office involving all three men in which Trump weighed making such a switch to advance his fraud claims. A number of senior Justice Department officials had promised to resign should it happen, which the New York Times credits with helping preserve Rosen’s job. But that outcome was by no means certain. Replacing Rosen would probably have meant a quick issuance of Clark’s letter and a public rationalization for Georgia’s Republican-led legislature to act in support of Trump’s effort to snatch away the state’s electoral votes.

With Jan. 6 approaching, Trump continued to try to shake free Georgia’s electoral votes. The U.S. attorney for Georgia, a Trump appointee, resigned on Jan. 4 after receiving a call spurred by the White House complaining about his failure to launch investigations of alleged fraud. (The president of Ukraine can empathize.) But it was soon too late to redirect the vote-counting on Jan. 6, save for the efforts of the pro-Trump rioters.

That does not mean the effort has stopped. Trump continues to try to gin up doubt about the election results, despite the lack of a mechanism for being reinstated as president. Even now, his approach is the same as it was seven months ago: Just get someone, somewhere to say that something untoward happened, and leave the rest to him.

Top DOJ official drafted resignation email amid Trump election pressure: The never-sent email, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, highlights the pressures at the department as the former president tried to overturn his loss.
by Betsy Woodruff Swan and Nicholas Wu
politico.com
08/04/2021 01:41 PM EDT
Updated: 08/05/2021 10:55 AM EDT

In early January 2021, one top Justice Department official was so concerned that then-President Donald Trump might fire his acting attorney general that he drafted an email announcing he and a second top official would resign in response.

The official, Patrick Hovakimian, prepared the email announcing his own resignation and that of the department's second-in-command, Richard Donoghue, as Trump considered axing acting attorney general Jeff Rosen. At the time, Hovakimian was an associate deputy attorney general and a senior adviser to Rosen.

But Trump didn’t fire Rosen, and Hovakimian's draft email — a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO — remained unsent. The fact that Trump-era DOJ officials went that far highlights the serious pressures they faced in the waning days of the administration as the former president tried to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.

“This evening, after Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen over the course of the last week repeatedly refused the President’s direct instructions to utilize the Department of Justice’s law enforcement powers for improper ends, the President removed Jeff from the Department,” Hovakimian wrote in his never-sent email. “PADAG Rich Donoghue and I resign from the Department, effective immediately.”

Hovakimian then wrote that preserving DOJ’s institutional integrity was Rosen’s top concern.

“The decision of whether and when to resign and whether the ends of justice are best served by resigning is a highly individual question, informed by personal and family circumstances,” he continued. “Jeff asked me to pass on to each of you that whatever your own decision, he knows you will adhere always to the highest standards of justice and act always – and only – in the interests of the United States.”

Hovakimian drafted the email on Jan. 3 from the Justice Department’s headquarters after Rosen and Donoghue departed for a meeting with then-President Trump at the White House, according to a person familiar with the matter.

His draft email has not previously been published. Raphael Prober, a partner at Akin Gump and lawyer for Hovakimian, declined to comment.

The officials’ threat to resign was first reported by the New York Times, which said the group of Justice Department officials had taken part in a conference call organized by Donoghue. The officials had agreed on the call to resign together if Trump sacked Rosen.

The Hovakimian letter’s disclosure comes as the House Oversight Committee steps up its investigation into the tumultuous final weeks of the Trump administration and Trump’s attempts to pressure the Department of Justice to intervene in the 2020 election. Hovakimian sat for a closed-door, transcribed interview before the committee’s staff on Tuesday morning, and a Department of Justice memo cleared the way for others to testify as well.

The House Oversight committee has obtained a copy of the draft email. A spokesperson for the panel did not immediately provide comment.

Trump, for his part, has signaled he will not immediately try to block the officials from testifying. On Monday, his lawyer Doug Collins sent a letter saying the former president would not immediately sue to try to block former DOJ officials’ participation in the multiple probes scrutinizing Trump’s last weeks in office.

But Collins, a former House GOP lawmaker, appeared to walk back the letter in a Tuesday interview with Fox News where he seemed to suggest former DOJ officials should refuse to answer some congressional inquiries.

Collins “railed against the DOJ waiver as ‘political’ and said he hopes the former officials will withhold any information from Congress that would fall under executive privilege,” wrote Fox News reporter Tyler Olson.

“The former president still believes those are privileged communications that are covered under executive privilege,” Collins said, according to the Fox News article.

It is unclear what exactly Trump wants from the former DOJ officials and why he refuses to take legal action to protect communications that he believes should be covered by executive privilege. Collins did not immediately respond to a request for comment from POLITICO.

And his team doesn’t have much time to get their messaging straight. Hovakimian answered questions from congressional investigators the morning after Collins’ letter went out. Two other former DOJ officials are also scheduled to sit for interviews with House Oversight in the next two weeks, according to two people familiar with the committee’s plans.

In a Thursday morning statement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi lauded Maloney's investigation into Trump's efforts to interfere with the Justice Department, calling the oversight push "historic" and adding that it would "contribute greatly to the work" the select committee was doing to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), confirmed in a Thursday morning interview that Donoghue and Rosen were also set to sit for interviews with his panel.

"They are on the list of people we’re going to interview," he said. Attorneys for Donoghue and Rosen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this report misstated the year Patrick Hovakimian drafted the email.

Such a letter would effectively undermine efforts by Mr. Clark’s colleagues to prevent the White House from overturning the election results, and Mr. Rosen and his top deputy, Richard P. Donoghue, rejected the proposal.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said Mr. Rosen discussed previously reported episodes, including his interactions with Mr. Clark, with the Senate Judiciary Committee. He called Mr. Rosen’s account “dramatic evidence of how intent Trump was in overthrowing the election.”

Mr. Blumenthal was one of a handful of senators, including Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, and Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, who sat through most of Mr. Rosen’s more than six hours of testimony. Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the committee; Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa; Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota; Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska; and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, attended parts of the interview.

Mr. Blumenthal said Mr. Rosen presented new facts and evidence that led him to believe that the committee would need to answer “profound and important questions” about the roles that individuals in Mr. Trump’s orbit played in the effort to undermine the peaceful transition of power, “which is what Trump tried to do, intently and concertedly.”

As details of Mr. Clark’s actions emerge, it is unclear what, if any, consequences he could face. The Justice Department’s inspector general could make a determination about whether Mr. Clark crossed the line into potentially criminal behavior. In that case, the inspector general could refer the matter to federal prosecutors.

Mr. Rosen has spent much of the year in discussions with the Justice Department over what information he could provide to investigators, given that decision-making conversations between administration officials are usually kept confidential.

Douglas A. Collins, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said last week that the former president would not seek to bar former Justice Department officials from speaking with investigators. But Mr. Collins said he might take some undisclosed legal action if congressional investigators sought “privileged information.”

Mr. Rosen quickly scheduled interviews with congressional investigators to get as much of his version of events on the record before any players could ask the courts to block the proceedings, according to two people familiar with those discussions who are not authorized to speak about continuing investigations.

He also reached out directly to Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, and pledged to cooperate with his investigation, according to a person briefed on those talks.

Katie Benner covers the Justice Department. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @ktbenner

[admin]

Trump's New Lawyer, Doug Collins, Sends a Remarkable Letter to Jeff Rosen on Executive Privilege
by Glenn Kirschner
Aug 4, 2021

Former Congressman Doug Collin is now representing Donald Trump (I assume he got his retainer check up front). Collins just sent a truly remarkable letter to former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen regarding Rosen's upcoming appearances before Congress to testify about his conversations with Donald Trump. In a letter that should be studied by law students in a class called "Bad Lawyering 101", Collins asserts that it is unlawful for the Biden administration/the Department of Justice to waive executive privilege and allow Rosen and other DOJ officials to testify. But rather than saying that Collins will therefore bring a legal challenge to prevent the testimony, he instead says that because Donald Trump doesn't want to create a "distraction", they will not "seek judicial intervention" to stop the DOJ officials to testify about their conversations with Trump.

Wait . . .what???

Here is a breakdown of what's really at the heart of this absurd letter by Doug Collins.



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Trump says he will not try to stop former Justice Dept. officials from testifying to Congress.
by Katie Benner
New York Times
Published Aug. 3, 2021
Updated Aug. 7, 2021

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Former President Donald J. Trump said this week that he would not move to stop former Justice Department officials from testifying before two committees that are investigating the Trump administration’s efforts to subvert the results of the presidential election, according to letters from his lawyer obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Trump said he would not sue to prevent six former Justice Department officials from testifying, according to letters sent to them on Monday by Douglas A. Collins, who was known as one of Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters when he served in Congress and who is now one of the former president’s lawyers.

Mr. Collins said Mr. Trump might take some undisclosed legal action if congressional investigators sought “privileged information” from “any other Trump administration officials or advisers,” including “all necessary and appropriate steps, on President Trump’s behalf, to defend the office of the presidency.”

The letters were not sent to the congressional committees, but rather to the potential witnesses, who cannot control whom Congress contacts for testimony or what information it seeks.

By allowing his former Justice Department officials to speak with investigators, Mr. Trump has paved the way for new details to emerge about his efforts to delegitimize the outcome of the election.

Even though department officials, including the former acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen and the former Attorney General William P. Barr, told him that President Biden had won the election, Mr. Trump pressed them to take actions that would cast the election results in doubt and to publicly declare it corrupt.

Mr. Trump and his allies have continued to falsely assert in public statements that the election was rigged and the results were fraudulent.

Mr. Rosen, Richard P. Donoghue, a former acting deputy attorney general, and others have agreed to sit down for closed-door, transcribed interviews with the House Oversight and Reform and Senate Judiciary Committees. The sessions are expected to begin as soon as this week, according to three people familiar with those interviews.

Last week, the Justice Department told former officials from the agency that they were allowed to provide “unrestricted testimony” to the committees, as long as it does not reveal grand-jury information, classified information or information about pending criminal cases.

The committees asked the Justice Department to allow former officials to testify after they opened investigations this year into the Trump White House’s efforts to undermine Mr. Biden’s victory, a pressure campaign that occurred in the weeks before Mr. Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol as Congress met to certify the electoral results.

The Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office generally deny such requests because they believe deliberative conversations between administration officials should be protected from public scrutiny.

But they ultimately decided to allow the interviews to proceed, saying in letters to the potential witnesses that the scope of the investigation concerned “extraordinary events,” including whether Mr. Trump tried to improperly use the Justice Department to advance his “personal political interests,” and thus constituted “exceptional circumstances.”

In his letter, which was reported earlier by Politico, Mr. Collins also said Mr. Trump continued to believe that the information sought by the committees “is and should be protected from disclosure by executive privilege.”

Mr. Collins said that no president had the power to unilaterally waive that privilege, and that the Biden administration had “not sought or considered” Mr. Trump’s views in deciding not to invoke it.

“Such consideration is the minimum that should be required before a president waives the executive privilege protecting the communications of a predecessor,” Mr. Collins wrote.

The committees have also received a slew of emails, handwritten notes and other documents from the department that show how Mr. Trump, Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, and others pushed the department to look into voter fraud allegations not supported by evidence, to ask the Supreme Court to vacate the election results and to publicly cast doubt on the outcome.

Congress has asked six former officials to testify in addition to Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue. That list includes Patrick Hovakimian, Mr. Rosen’s former chief of staff; Byung J. Pak, the former U.S. attorney in Atlanta; Bobby L. Christine, the former U.S. attorney in Savannah, Ga.; and Jeffrey Clark, the former acting head of the Civil Division.

Katie Benner covers the Justice Department. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @ktbenner

A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 4, 2021, Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Says He Will Not Sue To Stop Officials From Testifying.

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Letter: Trump legal team not trying to block testimony of former DOJ officials
The Biden Justice Department issued a recent memo making clear it would not stand in the way of Congress seeking testimony from its predecessor’s DOJ.
by Betsy Woodruff Swan and Nicholas Wu
politico.com
08/02/2021 09:42 PM EDT
Updated: 08/02/2021 09:50 PM EDT

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Donald Trump's legal team signaled Monday that it will not immediately try to block testimony from former Justice Department officials who have been called before Congress, potentially clearing a roadblock from multiple investigations touching on the former president’s tenure.

In a letter to one of six Trump-era DOJ officials whose cooperation is being sought in congressional oversight efforts, former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), a member of Trump’s legal team, suggested that it would not try to block testimony by those six. The letter's unusual verbiage makes Trump's position slightly opaque, but Collins also indicated that the former president’s team would try to contest all attempts to secure testimony from ex-DOJ officials if Congress sought cooperation from more than those six.

“[W]ithout in any way otherwise waiving the executive privilege associated with the matters the committees are purporting to investigate, President Trump will agree not to seek judicial intervention to prevent your testimony or the testimony of the five other former Department officials … who have already received letters from the Department ... so long as the committees do not seek privileged information from any other Trump administration officials or advisors,” Collins wrote. “If the committees do seek such information, however, we will take all necessary and appropriate steps on President Trump’s behalf to defend the office of the presidency.”

House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) is seeking testimony from several former Trump officials in connection with Trump’s attempts to pressure the Justice Department to overturn the 2020 election. Maloney asked for interviews with, among other officials, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former Associate Deputy Attorney General Patrick Hovakimian.

Three other Trump-era DOJ officials have received requests for interviews from Maloney’s committee: former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Byung Jin Pak and former acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Bobby Christine.

Democratic lawmakers have expressed confidence that the ex-DOJ officials’ testimony could be expedited by a recent memo from the Biden Justice Department that made clear it would not stand in the way of Congress seeking testimony from its predecessor’s DOJ. Beyond Maloney’s committee, the select panel on the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and the Senate Judiciary Committee are also poised to ramp up their investigations into the Trump administration in the coming weeks.

During his presidency, the Trump administration broadly asserted executive privilege and fought Democrats’ subpoenas, stymying Democrats’ attempts to investigate the administration.

But Democrats shouldn’t view testimony from ex-Trump DOJ officials as a done deal. The phrasing of the Collins-signed letter leaves open the possibility that the former president’s lawyers could later put up major legal fights if they conclude congressional Democrats have overstepped.

Collins did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Andrew Desiderio contributed to this report.