Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certification

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Trump ARIZONA CRIMINAL PLOT is Finally EXPOSED
by Ben Meiselas
MeidasTouch
Jul 3, 2023

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas discusses the latest Washington Post report that Donald Trump threatened the former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey after the 2020 election. Calling Jack Smith!



Transcript

I'm Ben Meiselas from the Meidas touch
Network we know that last week's special
counsel Jack Smith and his team took a
trip to Atlanta and met with the
secretary of state of Georgia Brad
raffensberger Brad raffensberger
Republican Secretary of State of Georgia
received the phone call from Donald
Trump after the 2020 election Brad I
need you to find me 11,780
votes to overturn the results of the
election in Georgia or else Brad bad
things are going to happen to you Brad
raffensberger and his team were
recording that phone call because they
know they were being extorted by Donald
Trump Donald Trump says that was a
perfect phone call nobody was yelling at
him on the phone call that's how he
knows it was perfect nobody was throwing
ketchup so that's also why he thinks it
was perfect and he claims that the only
crime that was committed was that he was
being recorded without his consent of
course Donald Trump is a liar and a
criminal and every single thing he says
is completely and utterly preposterous
and false and just propaganda to his
base who evidently do not care about the
facts and reality but Donald Trump's
calls to Brad raffensberger many legal
observers including myself believe it
was criminal well
um uh special counsel Jack Smith's not
just stopping when it comes to Brad
raffensberger special counsel Jack Smith
may also be focused on other threats
that we haven't necessarily been focused
on here and the Washington Post is
reporting for example that Donald Trump
was not just pressuring Brad
raffensberger they shouldn't come as a
surprise though because we know Trump
was press pressuring lots of officials
but Trump was also pressuring Arizona
governor Doug Ducey to overturn the
results in Arizona the results of the
2020 election a new exclusive Washington
Post report that broke this weekend says
Trump pressured Arizona governor Doug
Ducey to overturn the 2020 election
results in a phone call in late 2020
Donald Trump tried to pressure Arizona
governor Doug Ducey to overturn the
state's presidential election results
saying that if enough fraudulent votes
could be found it would overcome Trump's
loss in Arizona three people familiar
with the matter talked to Washington
Post for this article Trump also
reportedly spoke with uh Pence and told
Pence to basically put pressure on Ducey
Pence called Ducey multiple times but
did not do any of the things that Donald
Trump said that he should do to do see
that is important as well because you
will recall that former vice president
Pence has testified before special
counsel Jack Smith and all of that
special counsel Jack Smith has now
learned so all of the individuals
whether it was Doug Ducey or other
people that Trump was getting Pence to
try to call and threaten special counsel
Jack Smith has that information and
Pence according to the sources in this
article never carried out Donald Trump's
wishes because doesn't say this in the
article but let me fill in the because
Pence knew it was Criminal
so clearly when Jack Smith had former
vice president Pence before a grand jury
he would have asked pencil name me all
of the times Donald Trump told you to
call people why didn't you say the
things that Donald Trump wanted you to
say oh because it was a crime the
article goes on to say that the extent
of Trump's efforts to they use the word
control I'll use the word threaten Ducey
into helping him stay in power has not
yet been reported The Washington Post
reported on it first even though other
efforts by Donald Trump uh and Trump's
lawyers threatening other Arizona
officials has been reported as well
according to people who heard about
these stories from Ducey Ducey described
the pressure he was under after Trump's
loss to numerous people the account was
confirmed by others aware of the call
Ducey told the donor he was surprised
that special counsel Jack Smith's team
had not inquired about his phone call
with Trump and Pence as part of the
Justice Department's investigation into
former president Trump's attempt to
overturn the 2020 election well the
reality is though is that it should have
come as a surprise you now know what the
Midas touch Network why Jack Smith has
the info he has the info from the other
people that he's spoken to and that's
what Jack Smith is
nailing down.
the article says that Ducey did not
record the phone call the way Brad
raffensberger uh recorded the phone call
now at a public office it says Ducey
declined through a spokesperson to
answer specific questions about his
interactions quote this is neither new
nor is it news to anyone following the
issue the last two years spokesman
Daniel scarpinato said in a statement
Governor Ducey defend the results of
Arizona's 2020 election he certified the
election and he made it clear that the
certification provided a trigger for
credible complaints backed by evidence
to be brought forward none were ever
brought forward the government stands by
his action to certify the election and
consider the issue to be in the rear
view mirror
uh the article then goes on to cite a
trump spokesperson who just says oh it's
a Witch Hunt it's a Witch Hunt it's a
Witch Hunt the article goes on to say
it's unclear if Ducey has been contacted
by Smith's office since meeting with
this donor it is unclear if prosecutors
plan to eventually bring charges or how
the calls figure into their
investigation prosecutors have shown
interest into Trump's efforts to
conscript Pence into helping him
according to Witnesses and and subpoenas
previously reviewed by The Washington
Post the article goes on to say how
Trump phoned the governor's cell phone
on November 30th 2020 as Ducey was in
the middle of signing documents certify
you remember this certifying Biden's win
in this state during a live stream video
ceremony Trump's Outreach was
immediately clear to those watching
because Governor ducey's phone as he was
certifying Biden he had the ringtone set
to hell to the chief playing on his
phone Ducey pulled out his phone from
his suit jacket muted the incoming call
and put his phone aside as he was
signing the certification saying that
Biden won that's when Trump was calling
him as the certification was being
signed the article goes on to say four
people familiar with the call said Trump
spoke specifically about his shortfall
of more than ten thousand votes in
Arizona and then espoused a range of
false claims that would show he
overwhelmingly won the election in the
state and encouraged Ducey to study them
at the time Trump's attorneys and allies
spread false claims to explain his loss
including that voters who had died and
non-citizens had cast ballots
after Trump's call to Ducey Trump
directed Pence a former governor who had
known Ducey for years to frequently
check in with Ducey for any progress
uncovering claims of voting
improprieties according to people with
knowledge Pence was expected to report
back his findings and was peppered with
conspiracy theories from Trump and his
team Pence did not pressure Ducey but
told him to call if he found anything
because Trump was looking for evidence a
representative for Pence declined to
comment on the story then it goes on to
say in Arizona Trump and his attorney
Rudy Giuliani called the speaker of the
house remember this Rusty Bowers on
November 22nd 2020 they asked the
speaker to convene the legislature to
investigate their unsubstantiated claims
a voter fraud which included that votes
were cast in Mass by undocumented
immigrants and in the names of deceased
people weeks later on December 31 2020
the White House switchboard left a
message for the chair of the Maricopa
County Board of Supervisors and you
recall all the threats that were
directed at Rusty bowers's way and now
of course we know as well Rudy Giuliani
is cooperating with special counsel Jack
Smith and gave a proper agreement and
provided an interview with Jack Smith's
team right very recently we reported on
it this week so
this is big folks the fact that we now
are alerting that again not just
directed at the secretary of state of
Georgia threats also being directed at
Doug Ducey uh then governor of Arizona
Pence was the conduit of it Pence didn't
execute the threats Pence spoke before
the grand jury Giuliani offered a proper
agreement all of this is shaping up
to be certainly put in the indictment
that we expect to be brought against
Donald Trump so stay tuned the
indictment for election interference I
said is going to be massive my
prediction is going to have hundreds of
criminal counts so just get ready for
that
I'm Ben Meiselas from the Meidas touch
Network hit subscribe we're on our way
to 1.5 million subscribers thanks to
your support check us out at patreon.com
minus touch and make sure you subscribe
to our YouTube channel it is free

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

Trump pressured Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to overturn 2020 election
by Leigh Ann Caldwell, Josh Dawsey and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez
Washington Post
July 1, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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President Donald Trump speaks with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) as they participate in a working lunch with governors at the White House on June 13, 2019. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

In a phone call in late 2020, President Donald Trump tried to pressure Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) to overturn the state’s presidential election results, saying that if enough fraudulent votes could be found it would overcome Trump’s narrow loss in Arizona, according to three people familiar with the call.

Trump also repeatedly asked Vice President Mike Pence to call Ducey and prod him to find the evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims of fraud, according to two of these people. Pence called Ducey several times to discuss the election, they said, though he did not follow Trump’s directions to pressure the governor.

The extent of Trump’s efforts to cajole Ducey into helping him stay in power has not before been reported, even as other efforts by Trump’s lawyer and allies to pressure Arizona officials have been made public. Ducey told reporters in December 2020 that he and Trump had spoken, but he declined to disclose the contents of the call then or in the more than two years since. Although he disagreed with Trump about the outcome of the election, Ducey has sought to avoid a public battle with Trump.

Ducey described the “pressure” he was under after Trump’s loss to a prominent Republican donor over a meal in Arizona earlier this year, according to the donor, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. The account was confirmed by others aware of the call. Ducey told the donor he was surprised that special counsel Jack Smith’s team had not inquired about his phone calls with Trump and Pence as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into the former president’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the donor said.

Ducey did not record the call, people familiar with the matter said.

Now out of public office, the former governor declined through a spokesman to answer specific questions about his interactions with Trump and his administration.

“This is neither new nor is it news to anyone following this issue the last two years,” spokesman Daniel Scarpinato said in a statement. “Governor Ducey defended the results of Arizona’s 2020 election, he certified the election, and he made it clear that the certification provided a trigger for credible complaints backed by evidence to be brought forward. None were ever brought forward. The Governor stands by his action to certify the election and considers the issue to be in the rear view mirror.”

A spokesman for Trump declined to respond to questions about the call with Ducey and instead falsely declared in a statement that “the 2020 Presidential election was rigged and stolen.” The spokesman said Trump should be credited for “doing the right thing — working to make sure that all the fraud was investigated and dealt with.”

It is unclear if Ducey has been contacted by Smith’s office since meeting with the donor. Investigators in the special counsel’s office have asked witnesses about Trump’s calls with governors, including the one to Ducey, according to two people familiar with the matter. It is unclear if prosecutors plan to eventually bring charges or how the calls figure into their investigation. Prosecutors have also shown interest in Trump’s efforts to conscript Pence into helping him, according to witnesses and subpoenas previously reviewed by The Washington Post.

Trump phoned the governor’s cellphone on Nov. 30, 2020, as Ducey was in the middle of signing documents certifying President Biden’s win in the state during a live-streamed video ceremony. Trump’s outreach was immediately clear to those watching. They heard “Hail to the Chief” play on the governor’s ringtone. Ducey pulled his phone from out of his suit jacket, muted the incoming call and put his phone aside. On Dec. 2, he told reporters he spoke to the president after the ceremony, but he declined to fully detail the nature of the conversation. Ducey said the president had “an inquisitive mind” but did not ask the governor to withhold his signature certifying the election results.

But four people familiar with the call said Trump spoke specifically about his shortfall of more than 10,000 votes in Arizona and then espoused a range of false claims that would show he overwhelmingly won the election in the state and encouraged Ducey to study them. At the time, Trump’s attorneys and allies spread false claims to explain his loss, including that voters who had died and noncitizens had cast ballots.

After Trump’s call to Ducey, Trump directed Pence, a former governor who had known Ducey for years, to frequently check in with the governor for any progress on uncovering claims of voting improprieties, according to two people with knowledge of the effort.

Pence was expected to report back his findings and was peppered with conspiracy theories from Trump and his team, the person said. Pence did not pressure Ducey, but told him to please call if he found anything because Trump was looking for evidence, according to those familiar with the calls.

A representative for Pence declined to comment.

In each of the calls, Ducey reiterated that officials in the state had searched for alleged widespread illegal activity and followed up on every lead but had not discovered anything that would have changed the outcome of the election results, according to Ducey’s recounting to the donor.

After learning that Ducey was not being supportive of his claims, Trump grew angry and publicly attacked him.

It is unclear if Ducey and Trump had additional conversations. Publicly, the governor said the state’s election systems should be trusted, even as Trump and his allies sought to reverse his loss.

In Arizona, Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, called then Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers (R) on Nov. 22, 2020. They asked the speaker to convene the legislature to investigate their unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, which included that votes had been cast en masse by undocumented immigrants and in the names of deceased people. Weeks later, on Dec. 31, 2020 the White House switchboard left a message for the chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Clint Hickman, seeking to connect him with Trump. The supervisor, a Republican, did not return the call.

Trump and his allies made similar appeals to officials in Michigan and Georgia. On Jan. 2, 2021, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) and said he wanted to undo his loss there by finding additional votes. The next night, the White House switchboard left Hickman another voice mail seeking to connect him to Trump. Hickman did not call back.

Investigators with Smith’s office interviewed Raffensperger this week, and they interviewed Giuliani last week. “The appearance was entirely voluntary and conducted in a professional manner,” said Giuliani spokesman Ted Goodman.

More than half a dozen past and current officials in Arizona contacted by Trump or his allies after his defeat have either been interviewed by Smith’s team or have received grand jury subpoenas seeking records, according to four people familiar with the interviews. Those interviewed include Bowers, the former Arizona House speaker, and three current members of the governing board of Maricopa County, the largest voting jurisdiction in the state that affirmed that Biden won.

Spokespeople for Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D), told The Post this week that their offices have not received correspondence from Smith’s team seeking records about the 2020 election. The Arizona Secretary of State’s office received a grand jury subpoena dated Nov. 22, 2022, that sought information about communications with Trump, his campaign and his representatives, according to an official familiar with the document but not authorized to publicly speak about it.

During his time as governor, Ducey navigated a hot-and-cold relationship with Trump. Ducey, who struck a more conventional approach to governing, was slow to embrace Trump during his first bid for the White House. The two men warmed to each other, and amid the pandemic and Trump’s second bid for the White House, Ducey campaigned for him.

But after Ducey certified Arizona’s election results, affirming the wins of Biden and other Democrats, Trump ridiculed him on social media: “Why is he rushing to put a Democrat in office, especially when so many horrible things concerning voter fraud are being revealed at the hearing going on right now … What is going on with @dougducey?”

That same day, allies of the president gathered in Phoenix to air unproven claims of widespread fraud and claim that state lawmakers could reject the will of voters. Giuliani attended the event, along with Republican lawmakers and activists; Trump dialed in.

The president invoked Ducey repeatedly in the days that followed, according to an archive of his tweets. On Dec. 3, Trump asked if “allowing a strong check of ballots” in Arizona would “be easier on him and the great State of Arizona.” On Dec. 5, Trump wrote that Ducey and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) “fight harder against us than do the Radical Left Dems.”

A week later, Trump attacked the men again, asking “Who is a worse governor?” He labeled them “RINO Republicans” and baselessly claimed that “They allowed states that I won easily to be stolen.”

Ducey, long eyed by national Republicans as a formidable candidate for the U.S. Senate, passed on a 2024 bid after his standing with the Trump base cratered after Trump’s attacks. After leaving office in January, he was a fellow at the Sine Institute of Policy & Politics at American University, where he spoke about the policies he enacted while in office. Earlier this month, Ducey announced that he is leading a free-enterprise focused political action committee, Citizens for Free Enterprise.

Jacqueline Alemany contributed to this report.

By Leigh Ann Caldwell
Leigh Ann Caldwell is co-author of The Washington Post’s Early 202 and focuses on Congress and politics. She is also an anchor for Washington Post Live, conducting high-impact newsmaking interviews. Before joining The Post in 2022, Caldwell was a correspondent at NBC News, most recently as a member of its congressional unit. Twitter

By Josh Dawsey
Josh Dawsey is a political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the paper in 2017 and previously covered the White House. Before that, he covered the White House for Politico, and New York City Hall and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the Wall Street Journal. Twitter

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez
Yvonne Wingett Sanchez writes about voting issues in Arizona for The Washington Post. She previously covered politics for the Arizona Republic. Twitter

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

Trump Pressed Arizona Gov. Ducey To Overturn 2020 Election Results, Report Says
by Ty Roush
Forbes Staff
Jul 1, 2023,05:10pm EDT

TOPLINE

President Donald Trump called Gov. Doug Ducey (R-Ariz.) in 2020 to overturn Arizona’s presidential election results, according to the Washington Post, not long before Trump made a similar request to Georgia state officials, which sparked an ongoing criminal probe into Trump’s actions.

KEY FACTS

>> Trump called Ducey in November 2020 to see whether the state would investigate claims of election fraud in the state, unnamed sources told the Washington Post.

>> Trump also requested Vice President Mike Pence to frequently contact and pressure Ducey, who said in December 2020 that Trump had contacted him, though Pence did not follow through on pressuring him.

>> Ducey also told Pence and Trump—who later accused Ducey of “total corruption”—that the state had already investigated claims of election fraud, noting it had not discovered any evidence.

>> Ducey described the call during a Republican donor event earlier this year, according to the Post, adding that Ducey was surprised special counsel Jack Smith had not contacted him about details of the call as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump.

CHIEF CRITIC

A spokesperson for Ducey told the Post that reports about Trump pressuring Ducey to overturn the election “is neither new nor is it news to anyone following this issue the last two years.” The spokesperson added Ducey stands by his decision to certify Arizona’s election results because no “credible complaints” of election fraud were brought forward.

TANGENT

The Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney’s office has been investigating Trump since 2021 for a similar phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R-Ga.), in which Trump asked Raffensberger to “find” votes to overturn the state’s election results. Trump also reportedly pressured other state legislators to decertify the state’s election results. Trump’s legal team previously requested the investigation be thrown out. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in April she would announce possible criminal charges as a result of the investigation between July 11 and September 1, though it is unclear whether charges will be brought against Trump.

BIG NUMBER

74. That’s how many more electoral college votes President Joe Biden had than Trump in winning the presidency, 306 to 232. Even with Arizona’s 11 votes, combined with Georgia’s 16, Trump would not have won.

KEY BACKGROUND

Ducey—the former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery—served as Arizona’s governor from 2015 to 2023 after first being elected as state treasurer in 2010. He serves as the CEO of the Citizens for Free Enterprise political action committee. Trump trailed President Joe Biden by just under 11,000 votes in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election. Trump and his campaign have repeatedly claimed there was widespread election fraud during the election while calling for results to be overturned, while subsequent legal challenges failed and no evidence has ever emerged. Claims of election fraud in Arizona centered on Maricopa County, in which some Republican legislators—including gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake—falsely claimed ballot results were skewed.

Ty Roush: I cover breaking news for Forbes. Before Forbes, I worked as a reporter for USA Today in Asheville and Black Mountain, North Carolina.

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

Trump pressured former Arizona governor to overturn 2020 election results: Trump narrowly lost to Joe Biden in Arizona.
by Rachel Scott, Katherine Faulders, and Lucien Bruggeman
abc news
July 1, 2023, 3:46 PM

Former President Donald Trump attempted to pressure then-Gov. Doug Ducey to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The Washington Post first reported the allegations.

Sources also confirm to ABC News that Trump dispatched [ordered] former Vice President Mike Pence to pressure Ducey to find fraudulent votes in the state, and that while Pence did call Ducey multiple times in the aftermath of the election, he did not follow those orders.

Trump narrowly lost Arizona to Joe Biden in November 2020.

No recording of the call was made, sources told ABC News.

A spokesperson for Ducey called this reporting "nothing more than a 'copy and paste' of a compilation of articles from the past two years, disguised as something new."

"Governor Ducey defended the results of Arizona’s 2020 election, he certified the election, and he made it clear that the certification provided a trigger for credible complaints backed by evidence to be brought forward. None were ever brought forward. The Governor stands by his action to certify the election and considers the issue to be in the rear view mirror — it’s time to move on," the spokesperson said in a statement.

Trump's campaign, in response to the reporting, reiterated the former president's view that "the 2020 Presidential election was rigged and stolen," but did not refute the story.

"These witch-hunts are designed to interfere and meddle in the 2024 election in an attempt to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House to make this country great again," the statement from Trump's campaign said.

[admin]

Trump: My First Arrest Review before My Next Arrest!
by John Di Domenico
Jun 10, 2023

John Di Domenico the #1 Donald Trump impersonator in the world based on TV, Film, Commercial, Voice Overs and Live appearances.

John has been seen and heard as Trump on Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Howard Stern, Chelsea Handler, James Corden and many more!



Transcript

hello everybody so great to be back here
in Marla with some of the people I
haven't seen some of you in a while
but it's great to be back here and out
of the crime infested New York City
we're looting rioting murder rats and
Mayhem are happening 24 hours a day I
don't know how I live there like
Marjorie Taylor green said it's a Gotham
City but oh roly-poly Alvin Brad cares
about are my business jaywalking
violations but he cost them 34 felony
counts over some teeny tiny bookkeeping
errors there's no real crime in this
case other than the turncoat Michael
Cohen who was arrested indicted went to
court and then set the jail for a couple
of short years for everything I told him
to do but he deserved it
but for me it's different they're
crucifying me for being white and
successful and Jesus like so much
winning and by the way Jesus was very
very rich no one talks about that that's
why they hated him I think we all know
what's going on with my corrupt case all
right they call it the r word the r word
Reverse Racism but April 4th was the
greatest day in history and I said it
and I meant it it was a beautiful day in
New York we left Trump Tower tremendous
building I put my fist in the air over
my head to show I'm down with the
struggle
I kept a low profile just like Jesus did
before he was driven to his persecution
we drove down with 11 car motorcade to
the courthouse the fake Courthouse you
know what Jesus said he said it's easier
for a camel to pass through the eye of a
needle than a rich man to get a fair
Shake but what if it's a really teeny
tiny camel who knows the New York Police
Department did a great job I got to the
courthouse building everyone was hugging
me taking selfies
apologizing big strong policemen were
crying their eyes out on their knees
underneath begging me begging me for
forgiveness sure sure president Trump
sir we're so sorry about this sir like
Jesus I forgave them but not the guy who
let the door close in my face he's going
to hell but to everyone else I said it's
not you it's the corrupt communist
socialist Marxist woke Disney system
that has taken over our country with
trans beer and African-American mermaids
that I was led into the room where the
fingerprints are taken the fingerprint
room the officer did it officer Diaz
Diaz very attractive like a curvy Salma
Hayek she said she couldn't believe how
large sexy and masculine my hands were
right she cried and said I had the most
beautiful fingerprints in the history of
fingerprints with very deep grooves that
made the printing process printing
process very easy
I didn't know this but they're called
friction skin this right here friction
ridges that's what a fingerprint is no
one talks about that no one talks about
that she gave me a big hug told me she
loves me loves me and donated to my
campaign on the spot she also said she'd
come and visit me in my cell anytime
she's maybe a five a little Broad in the
beam but you know
you know what I'm talking about but I'm
not going to say no to a handy if I'm
stuck in a Cell for a couple of days or
a couple of weeks then it was mug shot
time they walked me over I asked how
many poses do you want
they only wanted three so I went with
blue steel latigra and Magnum that's the
one who have the very serious face
Magnum they loved it the officer took
the photograph said that he had
photographed literally thousands of
people being indicted arrested and
arraigned but only I captured the depth
the soul of everything that was going
through my brain in just three photos so
incredible that I was taken upstairs and
arraigned in front of the Crooked judge
judge Juan La Cucaracha
I have to be honest I was a little I was
a little concerned I mean all I could
think of was when I was entering my my
plea
the one time I write a check for sex I
get screwed the one time can you believe
it and I have to say stormy was not
worth this mess I have to tell you you
know it was like a cavern in there
honestly I could hear Echoes I mean she
takes on eight guys at a time of course
I'm small compared to Mandingo I mean
it's amazing what you think about in a
moment like that and I thought I used to
hold the nuclear codes in a briefcase
and now I'm in a holding cell and they
won't even allow me my own belt
it's just so crazy
I was zoning out and then someone read
the people of the state of New York
against Donald J Trump J for genius
indictment number I'll never forget it
715-43-23 has been unsealed
I couldn't hear anything all of a sudden
it was loud my vision was blurry it was
like that war movie shaving Ryan's
privates on the beach with Tom Hank he
lost his hearing to Boom it was back and
then judge Jose guacamole asked me how
do I plead guilty or not guilty and I
said El JoJo corrupto very not guilty
extremely unguilty the least guilty
person in the history of guildiness so
unbelievably guilty major negative
guiltiness hugely unguilty maximum not
guilty
then because I'm bilateral I said I am
muy innocente capiche even the bailiff
tough guy tears in his eyes he said he'd
never seen anyone so not guilty then
every police officer and everyone in the
court started that slow clap they did in
every 80s movie
the disgrace judge banged his Mexican
gavel into the pinata trying to quiet
them but they kept clapping then they
started chanting Trump Trump trump
the judge broke his gavel trying to shut
everybody up order order
tears streaming down their faces Trump
trump
I said you're out of order judge you're
out of order I said screw this
I'm out of here the police put me on
their shoulders carried me out to the
motorcade women were throwing their
pennies at me children were throwing
rose petals a guy in a wheelchair wrote
up to me wrote up to me in the
wheelchair I touched him on the shoulder
and he got right up he could walk I told
him you can walk without that chair and
he did the crowd went wild and threw
money
then we headed to the airport the fake
news covered every move I made they were
tracking me like I was Santa Claus
because well technically on the way to
the airport I thought about a brand new
show instead of The Apprentice which was
the number one reality show in the
history of Television how about the
apprehended we take all of my indicted
friends and we see who can get their
case dismissed first
as I look back
on the entire court proceeding that day
it was a breeze and I don't have to be
back in court until December 4th
December 4th that's like a year from now
or eight months whatever comes first and
when I'm there I'm gonna say Merry
Christmas to judge antifa not happy
holidays like the Communists do
the best news is I've been fundraising
like crazy I reached over five million
dollars by the end of my arrayment day
with numbers like that arrest me every
day getting arrested was the best thing
that could have happened to me on the
other hand it was a total travesty of
justice and never should have happened
but I'm glad it did but it was terrible
but in a good way
between now and December 4th everything
could change the case could be dismissed
all of the witnesses could suddenly die
in the same plane crash or Subway judge
wonton tomato could end up with a
toaster in his bathtub you never know
we'll have to wait and see if you know
what I mean to my incredible followers I
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Newly Unearthed Emails Show Trump Attorneys Coordinating Fake Electors: Two Nevada electors reportedly received immunity for testimony in Jack Smith's investigation.
by Josh Kovensky
Talking Points Memo
June 30, 2023 7:00 a.m.
Updated June 30, 2023 8:55 p.m.

Faced with loss in the 2020 election, Trump campaign attorneys built an elaborate mind palace in which the former president could steal victory from the jaws of defeat.

The problem was, building that universe required persuading real people to lie — not in the imaginary world where Trump reversed his loss, but in the actual world where lying has consequences.

Emails first released by the Jan. 6 Committee that have not previously been reported on in detail reveal how several key Trump attorneys coordinated the actions of two fake electors from the state of Nevada — both of whom have now reportedly received immunity in exchange for testimony in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation.

The emails show Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro directing would-be fake electors Jim DeGraffenreid and Michael McDonald how to become fake electors — a topic now at the center of Smith’s review of Trump’s effort to reverse the 2020 election. Private messages, also released by the committee, show that McDonald, DeGraffenreid, and other Nevada fake electors were eager to participate in what Chesebro described to them as an effort to “keep alive the possibility that the votes could be flipped to Trump and Biden.”

In Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 01:20 Kenneth Chesebro [DELETE] wrote:
Thanks for passing this along.

No, the COA need not be attached to the electoral votes -- the purpose of having the electoral votes sent in to Congress is to provide the opportunity to debate the election irregularities in Congress, and to keep alive the possibility that the votes could be flipped to Trump and Biden.

In that connection, you can tell me whether all court challenges Nevada are final? I'm wondering if there will an effort to seek Supreme Court review of this decision:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -biden-win

Thanks again!

But the messages also show that the electors were aware, and at times concerned, about the potential legal issues at play. In one message that DeGraffenreid sent to another fake elector the day before they cast their ballots on Dec. 14 the two discussed the procedures needed under state law to cast the electoral votes, with DeGraffenreid writing that “facts and legalities don’t matter – only what you can burn someone with.”

The next day, the fake electors would take the first step towards what may end up being a scheme to defraud the United States via the creation of fake legal documents submitted to Congress and the National Archives. DeGraffenreid and McDonald didn’t return TPM’s requests for comment. Chesebro did not return a request for comment.

One GOP operative familiar with the fake electors effort told TPM that the electors themselves had been misled.

“These guys were innocent people just doing what folks they trusted had asked them to do,” the person said, telling TPM that senior Trump campaign officials in the state understood that The Donald had lost Nevada. “They knew they couldn’t win in Nevada.”

Legal experts and former federal prosecutors have long described the fake electors scheme as the most direct, provable crime in Trump’s attempt to reverse his 2020 loss. While filling out a document proclaiming yourself an elector for a losing candidate is not a crime, lying to the federal government — or presenting a document to federal agencies or Congress saying that you are an elector — is.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that one of the Trump allies involved in the scheme, Rudy Giuliani, spoke with Smith’s office this week under a proffer agreement — often, but not always, the prelude to a cooperation agreement. CNN reported that Mike Roman, a Trump campaign official who delivered the fake elector ballots to Congress, is cooperating with the special counsel.

In the materials released by the January 6 Committee, the pace of messages — between DeGraffenreid, McDonald, other fake electors, RNC operatives, and Trump campaign attorneys including Chesebro — picked up on Dec. 10, 2020, as the Trump campaign organized fake electors in Nevada.

Chesebro described Nevada in a Dec. 9, 2020 memo to Wisconsin Trump attorney Jim Troupis as “extremely problematic” because that state’s laws imposed more requirements on the electors than others did.

The next day, Chesebro made his pitch to the Nevada electors themselves. Introducing himself as an attorney who was contacting them at Giuliani’s direction, Chesebro explained over a series of messages how they would become “alternate electors,” and how he would ensure that it was legal.

Mr. DeGraffenried,

Mayor Giuliani and others with the Trump-Pence campaign (including Justin Clark and Nick Trainer) asked me to reach out to you and the other Nevada electors to run point on the plan to have all Trump-Pence electors in all six contested States meet and transmit their votes to Congress on Monday, Dec. 14.

I'm one of the lawyers handling the state-court litigation in Wisconsin, the first State which made definite plans to have our electors vote on Monday.

Confidentially, so you can understand how we're messaging it, below is a draft press release by our lead lawyer in WI, which would be released only after we file papers in the WI Supreme Court (following an expected loss in the lower court), which we expect to do Saturday.

I'd appreciate if you or someone else on your team could get in touch with me as soon as possible. I have two memos explaining the rationale for the electors voting on Monday (though you may already have those), and I am preparing drafts of the documents that the electors in Nevada could sign to effect their votes, in case having drafts in hand would be of help.

Call or write anytime, night or day.

Sincerely,

Ken Chesebro

Chesebro attached copies of the memos that he had circulated within the Trump campaign, telling the electors that their ballots would go to Congress with two purposes in mind: to debate “election irregularities,” and to “keep alive the possibility that the votes could be flipped to Trump and Biden.” In a separate message, Chesebro sent a manual on how to cast Electoral College votes in Nevada, drafts of Nevada Electoral College ballots, a draft certificate of Trump-Pence elector votes, and a form to fill Electoral College vacancies in Nevada to a group of RNC regional political directors. That message was forwarded on to DeGraffenreid and McDonald — both of whom have now received immunity.

David Becker, executive director of the center for election innovation and research, told TPM that the ballots were bogus partly because, by Dec. 14, 2020, the courts had ruled decisively on the Trump campaign’s challenges to the election.

“By that point, we already knew who won those elections,” he said.

The messages show that Chesebro was aware of the issue, asking DeGraffenreid on Dec. 11 if he knew whether “all court challenges in Nevada are final.” DeGraffenreid forwarded the message to Jesse Binnall, another Trump campaign attorney involved in the 2020 election litigation.

While the fake electors themselves at times seem to understand that what they were involved in was legally perilous and, at other times, appear to believe that the reasoning provided by Chesebro gave them a path forward.

Later that day, DeGraffenreid forwarded Chesebro’s messages to other electors, saying that they explained the “process and the justification for our actions.”

After receiving direction from Chesebro on how to become fake electors, and discussing it among themselves, DeGrafffenreid and others acted: they cast ballots presenting themselves as Nevada’s electors. Now, they’ve reportedly received immunity to testify about the experience.

Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor and of counsel to Lawyers Defending Democracy, told TPM that the Trump attorneys could lead investigators further upwards.

“Chesebro was working very closely with [John] Eastman and certainly [Boris] Epshteyn,” he said. “They are all one short step away from Trump.”

[admin]

Attorney disciplinary committee recommends Rudy Giuliani be disbarred for 2020 election legal work
by Katelyn Polantz
CNN Reporter, Crime and Justice
Updated 2:44 PM EDT, Fri July 7, 2023

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23868881/dc-bar-report-and-recommendation-on-rudy-giuliani.pdf

An attorney disciplinary committee has recommended Rudy Giuliani be disbarred in Washington, DC, for his efforts on behalf of then-President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election results.

The committee, which weighs cases of legal ethics and attorney misconduct in the District of Columbia, issued the report and recommendation on Giuliani on Friday following a lawyer misconduct hearing for Giuliani in December that functioned like a trial.

“He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it,” the committee wrote. “By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court, forfeited his right to practice law. He should be disbarred.”

The panel’s recommendation is not final; the case against Giuliani still must be considered by DC’s Board on Professional Responsibility and by the DC court of appeals.

The committee specifically criticized Giuliani for dishonesty following the 2020 election and what they called “calculated” attempts to undermine trust in elections, when he falsely claimed in a Pennsylvania federal court there had been election fraud that could overturn Joe Biden’s win of the state.

“Mr. Giuliani has not acknowledged or accepted responsibility for his misconduct. To the contrary, he has declared his indignation over being subjected to the disciplinary process,” the committee wrote in its report. “We are convinced that a sanction must be enhanced to ensure that it adequately deters both Respondent (Giuliani) and other attorneys from acting similarly in the future.”

The three-person committee, comprised of two attorneys and a member of the public, was unanimous in recommending Giuliani be disbarred.

Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, called the report a “great injustice,” and said “the decision-makers at the DC Bar Association are nothing more than an arm of the permanent regime in Washington.”

Giuliani’s attorneys had argued to the committee that he had a reasonable basis to believe the claims in litigation were true and that he was relying on what others working with the Trump campaign told him about the fraud allegations.

Giuliani, the former top federal prosecutor in Manhattan and a lawyer for Trump, is also facing an attorney ethics review in New York. His law license at this time is temporarily suspended, marking a substantial downfall for the once highly regarded American political and legal figurehead.

“We have considered in mitigation Mr. Giuliani’s conduct following the September 11 attacks as well as his prior service in the Justice Department and as Mayor of New York City. But all of that happened long ago,” the report said on Friday. “The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments.”

[admin]

Part 1 of 2

Report and Recommendation of Ad Hoc Hearing Committee Re: Preliminary Order of Discipline Charging Rudolph W. Giuliani with violating Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct based on his prosecution of a lawsuit in Pennsylvania following the 2020 presidential election.
by Robert C. Bernius, Esq., Chair
Board on Professional Responsibility, Ad Hoc Hearing Cmte.
July 7, 2023

THIS REPORT IS NOT A FINAL ORDER OF DISCIPLINE* [* Consult the ‘Disciplinary Decisions’ tab on the Board on Professional Responsibility’s website (http://www.dcattorneydiscipline.org) to view any subsequent decisions in this case.]

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS
BOARD ON PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
AD HOC HEARING COMMITTEE

In the Matter of:
RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI,
Respondent.
A Temporarily Suspended Member of the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (Bar Registration No. 237255)

Board Docket No. 22-BD-027
Disciplinary Docket No. 2020-D253

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION OF AD HOC HEARING COMMITTEE

INTRODUCTION

Disciplinary Counsel charged Respondent Rudolph W. Giuliani with violating Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct 3.1 and 8.4(d), based on his prosecution of a lawsuit in Pennsylvania following the 2020 presidential election.

The hearing in this disciplinary matter took place on December 5-8 and 15, 2022. Former President Donald Trump waived his attorney-client privilege, and Respondent testified at the hearing about all matters relevant to post-election litigation. Tr. 1207.1

Disciplinary Counsel proved by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Giuliani violated Rules 3.1 and 8.4(d). See Board Rule 11.6; In re Cater, 887 A.2d 1, 24 (D.C. 2005). He violated Pennsylvania Rule 3.1 by filing a lawsuit seeking to change the result of the 2020 presidential election when he had no factual basis, and consequently no legitimate legal grounds, to do so. His prosecution of the lawsuit also seriously undermined the administration of justice and violated Pennsylvania Rule 8.4(d).

The right to vote is the “essence of a democratic society.” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 555 (1964). Respondent’s frivolous lawsuit attempted unjustifiably and without precedent to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania voters, and ultimately sought to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election. He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it. By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court, forfeited his right to practice law. He should be disbarred.

I. FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Respondent Rudolph W. Giuliani is a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, admitted on December 2, 1976 and assigned Bar Number 237255. DCX 01. He took inactive (non-practicing) status on December 12, 2002. DCX 02 at 0001; Respondent’s Answer to Specification of Charges at 1. On June 24, 2021, the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department suspended him pending final disposition of disciplinary proceedings in that jurisdiction. In re Giuliani, 146 N.Y.S.3d 226, 283 (App. Div. 2021) (per curiam). On July 7, 2021, the D.C. Court of Appeals suspended him based on the New York action. Order, In re Giuliani, D.C. App. No. 21-BG-423 (July 7, 2021).

A. 2020 Election Law in Pennsylvania

2. In 2019, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania enacted Act 77, which permitted any registered voter to vote by mail upon request. 2019 Pa. Legis. Serv. Act 2019-77 (S.B. 421), sec. 8, § 1301-D; Tr. 552 (Ortiz). The liberalized vote-bymail procedures, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, led to an increase in Pennsylvania mail-in ballots from 266,208 in the 2016 election to 2,653,688 in 2020.2 RX 06 at 4, ¶ 19. In the 2020 general election, more than one third of Pennsylvanians voted by mail. DCX 16 at 0007.

3. To vote by mail, voters were required to apply for a ballot, but did not have to specify a reason for doing so. Once the application was approved the county election board sent the voter a package which contained a ballot and two envelopes: a smaller, “secrecy” envelope marked “Official Election Ballot” and a larger, outer envelope preprinted with a bar code and voter declaration. DCX 17 at 0021; DCX 18 at 0029; DCX 21 at 0009. Voters were instructed to mark their ballot, seal it in the smaller envelope and, in turn, seal that envelope in the larger envelope. Id. Voters then filled out, dated, and signed a declaration printed on the larger envelope, and mailed it or delivered it in person to the county board of election. Id. On election day, officials “canvassed” the mail-in ballots to verify that the appropriate information was on the outside of the larger envelope, and that nothing written on the secrecy envelope would reveal the voter’s identity, political affiliation, or candidate preference. DCX 17 at 0021. The secrecy ballot was then opened, and the ballot was counted. DCX 18 at 0028-29.

4. Following enactment of Act 77, several lawsuits were filed before the 2020 election to clarify or challenge the new procedures. Tr. 554 (Ortiz). In Pennsylvania Democratic Party v. Boockvar, 238 A.3d 345 (Pa. 2020), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that if a county election board determined from the outside envelope that a mail-in ballot was deficient – for example, if the voter failed to sign the declaration – the Act did not require the county board to notify the voter and provide an opportunity to correct the mistake (“Notice and Cure”). DCX 17 at 0019-21; Tr. 554-55 (Ortiz); Tr. 134-35 (Giuliani). The Court, on the other hand, did not preclude counties from doing so. Tr. 135 (Giuliani). In the wake of that decision, some counties chose to implement “Notice and Cure”; others did not. DCX 14 at 0009; Tr. 135-36 (Giuliani).3

5. In In re Nov. 3, 2020 Gen. Election, 240 A.3d 591 (Pa. 2020), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that: (a) Act 77 does not permit election boards to compare the signatures on mail-in ballot envelopes with those on voter registration forms; and (b) the Act does not permit partisan election observers to challenge mailin ballots during the canvassing process. DCX 19 at 0012-13; Tr. 556-57 (Ortiz); Tr. 136-38 (Giuliani).

6. In a case brought by the Trump campaign, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Boockvar, 493 F. Supp. 3d 331 (W.D. Pa. 2020), the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania held that the campaign lacked standing to challenge various Pennsylvania election procedures on a vote dilution theory, which included challenges based on the Electors and Election Clauses of the U.S. Constitution. DCX 18 at 0036-40. In the alternative, the court held that the absence of a signature-comparison process for mail-in ballots did not violate equal protection or substantive due process. DCX 18 at 0052, 0056-60; Tr. 557-561 (Ortiz). The campaign did not appeal that decision. DCX 08 at 0053.

7. On election day, to implement pandemic-compelled social distancing between election workers canvassing mail-in ballots and partisan observers, county election officials erected observational barriers tailored to the physical layouts of individual canvassing sites. DCX 20 at 0003. The Trump campaign objected to the barriers in Philadelphia, but a state trial court denied its request to allow its observers closer access. An intermediate appellate court reversed that decision, (RX 16 at 3 (In re Canvassing Observation, No. 1094, 2020 WL 6551316, at *4 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Nov. 5, 2020)); Tr. 562-63 (Ortiz)), but on further appeal the Pennsylvania Supreme Court approved the barrier placements, holding that “the Election Code does not specify minimum distance parameters for the location” of observers. DCX 20 at 0009 (In re Canvassing Observation, 241 A.3d 339, 351 (Pa. 2020)); Tr. 141-47 (Giuliani); Tr. 563-64 (Ortiz). In the interim, a federal judge worked out an informal settlement to allow observers in Philadelphia closer proximity to canvassing operations. Tr. 564-65 (Ortiz).

B. Post-Election Trump Litigation

8. President Biden won Pennsylvania by a margin of more than 80,000 votes. DCX 22 at 0001-02.

9. The day after the election, November 4, 2020, then-President Trump asked Mr. Giuliani to take charge of post-election litigation challenging the voting results. Tr. 42-43, 45, 481-82, 877-78 (Giuliani). Mr. Giuliani went to a war room in Arlington, Virginia where he immediately met with other attorneys to prepare to bring litigation in approximately ten states (including Pennsylvania). Tr. 483-84 (Giuliani). He intended all of those cases to raise similar claims so they could be consolidated in a single lawsuit that would eventually be heard in the U.S. Supreme Court. Tr. 42-46, 49, 53-54, 483-84, 879, 1188-1190 (Giuliani).

10. The litigation team working for Respondent included multiple attorneys as well as Bernard Kerik (formerly Police Commissioner of New York City (Tr. 812- 13 (Kerik))), whom Respondent engaged as chief investigator. Tr. 457 (Giuliani); Tr. 800 (Bobb); Tr. 821-22, 824-25 (Kerik). Mr. Kerik was asked to coordinate efforts to find evidence of voting improprieties or fraud. Tr. 824-29, 854 (Kerik). In addition, Respondent engaged John Droz (who described his career as “trying to defend science” (Tr. 752-55 (Droz)) to assemble statistical models testing the “legitimacy” of the election. Tr. 758-60, 764, 769-770 (Droz).

11. Mr. Giuliani started to work on litigation specific to Pennsylvania after receiving a telephone call complaining about observational boundaries in Philadelphia during the mail-in ballot canvassing there. Tr. 46-47, 49, 882-86 (Giuliani); Tr. 740-42 (Lewandowski).

12. Election challenges based on state law were required to be brought in state court. Tr. 52-54, 513-16 (Giuliani); DCX 40 at 0006 & n.2. The campaign had lost other cases in the state courts, and local counsel “felt it was a lost cause” to bring post-election challenges there. Tr. 515 (Giuliani). Respondent consequently worked with Pittsburgh attorney Ronald Hicks to prepare a case to be filed in Pennsylvania federal court. DCX 34 at 0141-42; see DCX 05 at 0084; Tr. 51-53, 486-88 (Giuliani).

13. Mr. Giuliani helped draft a complaint on behalf of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. and on behalf of two individual voters who had mailed defective ballots but had not been given the opportunity to cure them. DCX 05; Tr. 55-56 (Giuliani). The complaint contained seven counts asserting violations of the plaintiffs’ civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Electors and Elections Clauses of the U.S. Constitution. It named as defendants the Pennsylvania Secretary of State and the election boards of seven counties that had returned majorities for President Biden. DCX 05 at 0001, 0011; Tr. 56-57 (Giuliani); Tr. 566 (Ortiz).

14. The initial Complaint was filed on November 9, 2020, in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. DCX 05 at 0001; Tr. 59 (Giuliani); Tr. 566 (Ortiz). Even though he drafted a meaningful portion (up to 30%) of it, Mr. Giuliani was not admitted to practice in the Middle District and did not sign it. Tr. 57, 59, 489, 899 (Giuliani); see DCX 07.

15. Mr. Hicks withdrew his appearance immediately after filing the Complaint. DCX 09 at 0003; Tr. 61-62 (Giuliani). On November 15, 2020, plaintiffs filed a First Amended Complaint authored by another group of lawyers; it eliminated all but two of the seven original counts. DCX 06; Tr. 61, 490 (Giuliani). Mr. Giuliani did not work on that complaint and did not agree with its more circumscribed approach. Tr. 60-63 (Giuliani).

16. The court admitted Mr. Giuliani pro hac vice on November 17, 2020. DCX 07 at 0002. That same day, he personally argued in opposition to a motion to dismiss the First Amended Complaint. DCX 08. By that time, Mr. Giuliani had prepared a Second Amended Complaint. Tr. 71-72 (Giuliani). He believed that the First Amended Complaint wrongly deleted allegations about widespread election fraud that were important to his national litigation strategy. Tr. 64-68 (Giuliani). During the oral argument, he advised District Judge Matthew Brann that he intended to file another complaint. DCX 08 at 0013; Tr. 71-72 (Giuliani).

17. The day after the oral argument, Mr. Giuliani moved for leave to file the Second Amended Complaint, which reintroduced allegations from the original Complaint and added additional counts, all of which were based either on 42 U.S.C. § 1983 or on the Due Process or Electors and Elections Clauses. DCX 09 at 0001- 04; Tr. 491 (Giuliani). At the core of the additional counts were plaintiffs’ claims of systemic election fraud arising from the establishment of observational boundaries. DCX 09 at 0110-0122. The next day, November 19, 2020, plaintiffs sought a temporary restraining order barring defendants from certifying the result of the 2020 election. DCX 10; DCX 11; Tr. 569 (Ortiz).

18. On November 21, 2020, Judge Brann dismissed the First Amended Complaint and denied leave to file the Second Amended Complaint. He also denied plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief. DCX 14 at 0017 (Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Boockvar, 502 F. Supp. 3d 899, 923 (M.D. Pa. 2020)).

19. Plaintiffs filed a Notice of Appeal on November 22, 2020, signed by Mr. Giuliani. DCX 15. The only issue raised on appeal was whether Judge Brann properly denied leave to file the Second Amended Complaint. DCX 16 at 0005; Tr. 594 (Ortiz).

20. The Third Circuit affirmed dismissal of the case. DCX 16 at 0005 (Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Sec’y of Pennsylvania, 830 Fed. Appx. 377, 382 (3d Cir. 2020)). The court held that the Second Amended Complaint did not contain a sufficient factual basis to state a facially plausible claim to relief. DCX 16 at 0008.

C. The Giuliani Complaints Were Factually Deficient

21. The Complaint and Second Amended Complaint (“Giuliani Complaints”) challenged the location of observational barriers and the existence of Notice and Cure procedures, but neither complaint factually linked either of those circumstances to widespread improper voting. See generally DCX 05; DCX 09. They contained only vague and speculative allegations about random and isolated electoral irregularities which did not and could not support Respondent’s inflated legal claims. See ODC Proposed Finding of Fact (“PFF”) 34 (listing the 26 factual allegations in the two complaints); ODC Reply Br. at 4-5.4

22. For that reason, the District Court found that plaintiffs had presented only “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence.” DCX 14 at 0008 (502 F. Supp. 3d at 906).

23. The Third Circuit agreed, holding that the Second Amended Complaint:

never alleges that any ballot was fraudulent or cast by an illegal voter. It never alleges that any defendant treated the Trump campaign or its votes worse than it treated the Biden campaign or its votes. Calling something discrimination does not make it so.

DCX 16 at 0012 (830 Fed. Appx. at 391).

D. Respondent’s Oral Argument to the District Court

24. When Mr. Giuliani opposed the motion to dismiss before Judge Brann, the First Amended Complaint was in effect. It had eliminated claims that were based on observational barriers and fraud. Tr. 60, 71, 490 (Giuliani). Compare DCX 05, with DCX 06. Mr. Giuliani, however, had already drafted the Second Amended Complaint reasserting that observational barriers and Notice and Cure practices had caused widespread fraud. Tr. 71-72, 944 (Giuliani). He justified the amendment “because as compared to last week, we have twice as much evidence this week.” DCX 08 at 0022; see DCX 09 at 0001 (seeking leave to add claims in a second amended complaint “based on newly learned facts”).

25. Mr. Giuliani’s oral argument for the most part elaborated on the observational boundary fraud claims of his Second Amended Complaint. DCX 08 at 0012-18; Tr. 71-73 (Giuliani); Tr. 582-86 (Ortiz).

26. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in In re Canvassing Observation, 241 A.3d at 346-47, noted that the Election Board in Philadelphia County had established its observational distancing requirements based “on its perceived need for protecting its workers’ safety from COVID-19 and physical assault from those individuals who have contact with its workers; ensuring security of the ballots; efficiently processing large numbers of ballots; protecting the privacy of voters; and ensuring campaign access to the canvassing proceedings . . . .” DCX 20 at 0006.

27. Mr. Giuliani, however, contended that observational boundaries were a per se fraud that he had “personally witnessed” (Tr. 49 (Giuliani)). He claimed they were “a deliberate scheme of intentional and purposeful discrimination” against the Trump campaign (DCX 09 at 0079-0080, ¶ 167), concluding that Democrats “stole an election . . . in this Commonwealth” (DCX 08 at 0027) and that he had “hundreds of affidavits” supporting his assertion (DCX 08 at 0027-28). These claims were simply not true.

28. Mr. Giuliani did not offer any evidence that fraudulent mail-in votes were actually cast or counted. Tr. 381-82 (Giuliani); Tr. 593 (Ortiz); DCX 40 at 0013-27; see DCX 08. In his view, the existence of observational boundaries was enough: the voter “might not have done anything wrong, but [because of the boundaries] the person counting did something wrong and therefore they’re not counted.” Tr. 334 (Giuliani). The only evidence he offered to the court were photographs showing that observers could not see the details of ballots at canvassing sites in Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties. DCX 08 at 0029-31. Because canvassing absentee and mail ballots subject to observational boundaries was a “planned fraudulent process,” he argued, virtually all of the 682,770 mail-in ballots in Philadelphia and Allegheny counties should not have been counted. Id. at 0023- 26, 0116-17; see also Tr. 383-85, 388-89 (Giuliani). Acknowledging that observational boundaries applied equally to both parties, he rationalized that “Democrats weren’t allowed to see it because they couldn’t count on the fact that all Democrats are crooked.” DCX 08 at 0026-27; see also Tr. 194-95 (Giuliani).

29. Mr. Giuliani’s observational boundaries theory was premised on a conclusive presumption of irregularity, i.e., the wholly unfounded supposition that observational boundaries necessarily led to fraudulent counting of mail-in ballots to favor President Biden. See DCX 05 at 0070 (“Consequently, Defendants created a system whereby it was physically impossible for the candidates and political parties to view the ballots and verify that illegally cast ballots were not opened and counted.”); DCX 09 at 0080 (“Defendant County Election Boards carried out this scheme knowing that the absentee and mail ballots which should have been disqualified would overwhelmingly favor Biden . . . .”); id. at 0088 (same). While the number of Democrats voting by mail was expected greatly to surpass the number of Republicans voting by mail, nothing in the record supports Respondent’s thesis that the observational barriers were put in place to avoid detection of a scheme illegally to count Biden votes.

30. The day that Mr. Giuliani made his oral argument, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the observational boundaries did not violate the election code. DCX 20 at 0009 (In re Canvassing Observation, 241 A.3d at 351).

31. Distinct from the observational boundaries claim, Mr. Giuliani’s Notice and Cure claim was lodged on behalf of two individuals who had mailed in defective ballots that were properly rejected by election officials. DCX 08 at 0019-0020. Rather than seeking to have their votes counted, Mr. Giuliani sued seven other counties that had implemented a Notice and Cure process, seeking on an equal protection theory to take away votes in those defendant counties or even “declar[e] a new election.” Tr. 187 (Giuliani).

32. Claiming that time constraints precluded him from doing so, Mr. Giuliani’s pre-litigation investigation unearthed no evidence of systemic fraud. DCX 08 at 0022-23; Tr. 382 (Giuliani). He briefly visited Philadelphia, and while there focused his attention on the observational boundary restrictions. Tr. 468-475, 1163-1173 (Giuliani). Most of the inspectors with whom he spoke were “in a state of shock” over how the new boundaries differed from practices under prior law. Tr. 1170 (Giuliani); see also Tr. 1173, 1199 (Giuliani).5 None of his interactions, however, unearthed credible proof that observational boundaries or Notice and Cure procedures facilitated widespread fraud. Tr. 234-240, 956-971 (Giuliani).

33. Respondent thus commenced litigation without evidence that its core factual claim was true. He admits as much, maintaining that the “fastmoving” case “did not permit him to investigate fully his client’s position as he would normally do in any other case.” Respondent’s Br. at 2. Even without supporting evidence, he claims, it was reasonable for him to “draw an inference and make an argument that the vote count was illegal and contrary to law.” Id. at 3. We reject this argument.6

34. Despite the lack of proof, Respondent sought an order prohibiting the defendants from counting ballots that had been “cured” and any ballots that had been pre-canvassed or canvassed without “meaningful observation” from poll watchers. DCX 09 at 0113, 0123. Such a remedy would mean disqualifying all mail-in ballots in the defendant counties. Tr. 178-79 (Giuliani). His complaints sought injunctive relief ranging from a prohibition on certifying the results of the 2020 general election (DCX 05 at 0084; DCX 06 at 0062; DCX 09 at 0020, 0122-23; Tr. 577-79 (Ortiz as to DCX 09)) to ordering the Pennsylvania General Assembly to choose the electors (DCX 09 at 0123; Tr. 579-581 (Ortiz)). In his motion for leave to file the Second Amended Complaint, he stated that “[u]ltimately, Plaintiffs will seek the remedy of Trump being declared the winner of the legal votes cast in Pennsylvania . . . and, thus, the recipient of Pennsylvania’s electors.” DCX 09 at 0008-09; Tr. 576 (Ortiz).

35. Four days after the oral argument, the District Court dismissed the case and denied leave to replead. DCX 14.

36. The chief factual objective of the hearing in this disciplinary matter was to ascertain whether Disciplinary Counsel proved by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Giuliani lacked material evidence to support his claims that observational boundaries and Notice and Cure procedures facilitated widespread, systemic voter fraud and justified the nullification of hundreds of thousands of votes in Pennsylvania. The hearing clearly and convincingly disclosed that there was no such evidence: Respondent based the Pennsylvania litigation only on speculation, mistrust, and suspicion.

E. Observational Boundaries Did Not Facilitate Systemic Election Fraud

37. The record of this disciplinary proceeding includes: (a) all documents in the possession of Mr. Hicks’s firm (DCX 23 & 24); (b) all documents in the possession of Linda Kerns, who signed the Complaint (DCX 05 at 0084-85) and the First Amended Complaint (DCX 06 at 0063) (DCX 25 & 26); (c) all documents in the possession of the law firm that authored the Second Amended Complaint (DCX 09 at 0124) (DCX 27 & 28); (d) all documents in the possession of Mr. Giuliani (DCX 32, 35, 36, 37; Tr. 506-510 (Giuliani)); and (e) the transcript of a Pennsylvania legislative hearing in which Mr. Giuliani participated on November 25, 2020 (DCX 29), which, he claimed, demonstrated “a pattern in Pennsylvania of so many gross irregularities that . . . presents a very solid evidentiary base, direct and circumstantial, supporting responsible allegations of voter fraud.” DCX 32 at 0002.

38. At the hearing in this case Mr. Giuliani belatedly produced another set of declarations and affidavits, RX 01, along with some emails and text messages, RX 02. Tr. 85-86 (Giuliani). His testimony raised the possibility that some relevant materials may have been lost or not turned over, but the only “missing” document he could think of was already included in his document production, albeit without an unknown number of affidavits he “thought” were attached to it. Tr. 90-94, 210- 14 (Giuliani); DCX 32 at 0072-75. He subsequently testified that there might be other missing documents but, if so, they concerned “an illegal voter, it’s one or two.” Tr. 298-99 (Giuliani). Between the time Disciplinary Counsel commenced its investigation of Respondent and the hearing in this matter, Mr. Giuliani reached out to those with whom he had worked and retrieved relevant documents from them which, in turn, he produced to Disciplinary Counsel. Tr. 509-510 (Giuliani).

39. We conclude therefore that the record of the disciplinary hearing contains all the material evidence gathered by Mr. Giuliani, and on his behalf, to support his claims in the Pennsylvania litigation. His nebulous allusions to the existence of additional material documentation are not credible.

40. The documentary evidence that Respondent did produce is fundamentally vague, speculative, or facially incredible. We have reviewed it and have examined with particularity the materials cited by Respondent in his posthearing filings. Respondent’s PFF 36-37. Although the materials identify a handful of isolated election irregularities, they completely fail to demonstrate that the observational boundaries or Notice and Cure procedures facilitated any meaningful fraud or misconduct that could have possibly affected the outcome of the presidential election.

41. At the disciplinary hearing Mr. Giuliani also offered the testimony of Bernard Kerik and John Droz, who produced additional materials purporting to show election fraud. Tr. 751-787 (Droz) (RX 11); Tr. 810-857 (Kerik) (RX 40-43).

42. Mr. Giuliani did not include Mr. Kerik’s documents in his responses to Disciplinary Counsel’s request for evidence (DCX 32, 35, 36, 37; Tr. 97-98 (Giuliani)) and the three subpoenaed law firms did not produce them. DCX 24, 26, 28. Mr. Giuliani did not mention them in the oral argument before Judge Brann (DCX 08), and Mr. Kerik did not testify at the November 25, 2020 legislative hearing (DCX 29). At the disciplinary hearing Mr. Giuliani at first said he did not recall if or when he may have seen the Kerik materials (Tr. 98 (Giuliani)), and later testified that he saw them before the oral argument in the District Court but could not attest to their veracity. Tr. 456-460 (Giuliani).

43. Even if Mr. Giuliani did have the Kerik documents at a relevant time (and it does not appear that he did), they do not show any connection between observational boundaries or Notice and Cure procedures and election fraud. Mr. Kerik (like Mr. Giuliani) could not and would not confirm that the information contained in the Kerik documents was true (Tr. 827-29 (Kerik)) and could not identify its sources. Tr. 839-842 (Kerik). The content of the Kerik documents is in many instances facially incredible. Indeed, Respondent did not offer the Kerik materials in evidence at the disciplinary hearing for their truth, and they were not admitted for that purpose. Tr. 920. For these reasons, we conclude that the Kerik exhibits (RX 40-43) have no probative value in this matter and do not support the allegations made by Mr. Giuliani in the Pennsylvania litigation.

44. Mr. Droz, who acknowledged no expertise in statistics, testified about an exhibit containing statistical “analyses” prepared by third parties, none of whom testified in this disciplinary matter. Tr. 759 (Droz); see RX 11. Mr. Droz could not and would not attest to the veracity of the exhibit, which Respondent again did not offer into evidence for the truth of its content. Tr. 772-73. Mr. Giuliani knew nothing about the credentials of the exhibit’s authors, or about the underlying data they used. Tr. 943-45 (Giuliani). Although he had the exhibit in his possession and claims to have been impressed with aspects of it (Tr. 906-911 (Giuliani)), he did not submit it to the District Court or rely upon it when making his oral argument. Tr. 944-45 (Giuliani). The Droz exhibit fails to establish any causal connection between observational boundaries or Notice and Cure procedures and election fraud. For these reasons we conclude that the Droz exhibit (RX 11) has no probative value in this matter and does not support the allegations in the Pennsylvania litigation.

F. The Notice and Cure Claim Had No Factual Merit

45. The individual plaintiffs lived in counties that did not adopt Notice and Cure procedures, so defective ballots mailed to those counties were not counted. DCX 05 at 0010 (¶¶ 19 & 20); DCX 06 at 0006-07 (¶¶ 15 & 16), 0058-59 (¶ 158); DCX 09 at 0023-25 (¶¶ 22 & 23), 0096-0103 (Count IV), 0105-109 (Count VI). But Mr. Giuliani did not sue the boards of elections in the counties that disqualified the plaintiffs’ ballots and did not seek to have them counted. Tr. 187 (Giuliani).

46. Instead, Respondent sued seven county boards that did offer Notice and Cure to their voters and sought to disqualify the ballots that had been cast in those counties after voters were notified of a defect in their mail-in ballot. DCX 05 at 0001; DCX 06 at 0001; DCX 09 at 0001; DCX 14 at 0011-12; Tr. 176, 187, 495- 502, 510-12 (Giuliani).

47. In Mr. Giuliani’s view, the divergent Notice and Cure practices among the counties constituted an intentional scheme by the seven counties and the Secretary of State to harm the Trump Campaign. Tr. 76 (Giuliani). However, he produced no evidence to support that claim.

48. In any event, the four most populous defendant counties had an aggregate total of approximately 6,500 Notice and Cure votes. DCX 16 at 0011. Respondent did not dispute that number, nor did he proffer a different one.7 The Third Circuit held that even if the Notice and Cure votes in the remaining counties brought the total to 10,000 voters (and even assuming they all voted for President Biden), the result of the election would not have changed. Id.

49. Mr. Giuliani had no evidence to support a claim that the Notice and Cure procedures affected votes in the defendant counties sufficient to approach President Biden’s 80,000-vote victory margin. Tr. 185 (Giuliani). Without such evidence Mr. Giuliani had no legitimate grounds based on Notice and Cure to seek an “injunction that prohibits Defendants from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential general election in Pennsylvania on a statewide basis . . . and/or [an] injunction that the results of the 2020 presidential general election are defective and providing for the Pennsylvania General Assembly to choose Pennsylvania’s electors.” DCX 09 at 0103-05, 0123.8

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Part 2 of 2

II. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

Respondent’s conduct took place in connection with a matter pending in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, which has adopted the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct. See M.D. Pa. L.R. 83.23.2. Disciplinary Counsel therefore charged Respondent with violating Pennsylvania’s Rules of Professional Conduct 3.1 and 8.4(d). See D.C. Rule of Professional Conduct 8.5(b)(1) (“For conduct in connection with a matter pending before a tribunal, the rules to be applied shall be the rules of the jurisdiction in which the tribunal sits, unless the rules of the tribunal provide otherwise . . . .”).

Pennsylvania Rule 3.1 states in relevant part that “[a] lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law.” See also D.C. Rule 3.1 (same).

Both the District Court and Third Circuit summarily dismissed Respondent’s case, finding that it lacked factual or legal merit. Although suggestive of the result in this disciplinary matter, those decisions do not compel a conclusion that Respondent violated Pennsylvania Rule 3.1. Even though the courts found that Respondent’s litigation had no merit, we must determine whether Respondent’s deficient claims were also “frivolous.”

In that regard, Pennsylvania Rule 3.1 sets forth an objective test. Adams v. Dept. of Pub. Welfare, 781 A.2d 217, 220 n.2 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2001). Both parties have directed the Hearing Committee to In re Spikes, 881 A.2d 1118, 1125 (D.C. 2005) as a guide to our analysis. Spikes held that a claim is frivolous if, after undertaking “an ‘objective appraisal of merit’ . . . , a reasonable attorney would have concluded that there was not even a ‘faint hope of success on the legal merits’ of the action being considered.” 881 A.2d at 1125 (quoting Tupling v. Britton, 411 A.2d 349, 352 (D.C. 1980) and Slater v. Biehl, 793 A.2d 1268, 1278 (D.C. 2002)).

Spikes recognized that “the law is not always clear and never is static,” and that the prohibition of frivolous litigation should not chill zealous advocacy on behalf of a client to press for change and reform in the law. Id. (quoting D.C. Rule 3.1, cmt. [1]); see also Pa. Rule 3.1, cmt. [1]. However, Spikes warned that this “safe harbor” requires a position that is reasoned and supported. Id.; see also Pa. Rule 3.1, cmt. [1] (“The advocate has a duty to use legal procedure for the fullest benefit of the client’s cause, but also a duty not to abuse legal procedure.”); D.C. Rule 3.1, cmt. [1] (same).

Rule 3.1 applies to claims for relief as well as to theories of liability: where claims for relief are “utterly frivolous, implausible to the point of having ‘not even a faint hope of success,’” they too violate Rule 3.1. In re Pearson, 228 A.3d 417, 426 (D.C. 2020) (per curiam) (quoting Spikes, 881 A.2d at 1125).

A. Disciplinary Counsel Proved by Clear and Convincing Evidence that Respondent Violated Pennsylvania Rule 3.1

In the Second Amended Complaint, Respondent alleged that the Defendants implemented “observational barriers” that prevented Trump poll watchers from meaningfully observing the canvassing of mail-in ballots, and by doing so engaged in a “deliberate scheme of intentional and purposeful discrimination” to favor Joseph Biden over Donald Trump. DCX 09 at 0079-0080, 0088, 0096, 0106. Respondent also alleged that the Boards of Elections unlawfully allowed voters to cure facially deficient absentee ballots (Notice and Cure). DCX 09 at 0071, 0087, 0102-05, 0108- 09.

1. The Standing Argument Did Not Violate Pennsylvania Rule 3.1

Disciplinary Counsel argues that none of the Plaintiffs had standing to assert the claims in the Second Amended Complaint, citing Bognet v. Sec’y Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 980 F.3d 336, 348-52 (3d Cir. 2020), decided a little more than a week before Respondent filed that document. See ODC Br. at 32- 33.

Before the District Court, however, Respondent noted his disagreement with Bognet and his intent to preserve the standing issue for appeal. DCX 13 at 0017; see Respondent’s Br. at 28-38 (relying in part on a series of Ninth Circuit cases). Respondent argues to the Hearing Committee that the District Court’s standing analysis erroneously relied on Mecinas v. Hobbs, 468 F. Supp. 3d 1186 (D. Ariz. 2020), a case that was later overturned by the Ninth Circuit when it endorsed a broad theory of “competitive standing” and cited other cases to the same effect. Respondent’s Br. at 32-33 (citing Mecinas v. Hobbs, 30 F.4th 890 (9th Cir. 2022)). Respondent also seeks to distinguish Bognet’s standing ruling based on its differing factual context. Id. at 38-40; DCX 08 at 0021-22.

Given the complexity of the standing issue, Respondent’s acknowledgement of the Bognet holding, and the line of Ninth Circuit cases supporting Respondent’s rational argument for distinguishing Mecinas, Respondent’s standing arguments had at least a faint hope of success and did not violate Pennsylvania Rule 3.1.

2. The Observational Barriers Claim Violated Pennsylvania Rule 3.1

The Pennsylvania election code set forth detailed mail-in ballot procedures to be followed by voters and election workers.

With respect to voters, the code mandated that ballot return envelopes “contain among other things a statement of the electors [sic] qualifications, together with a statement that such elector has not already voted in such primary or election.” 25 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 3146.4 (absentee ballots); see 25 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 3150.14(b) (mail-in ballots). It also provided that after placing the ballot inside the secrecy envelope, the voter must place the secrecy envelope in the ballot return envelope. “The elector shall then fill out, date and sign the declaration printed on such envelope.” 25 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 3146.6(a) (absentee ballots); 25 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 3150.16(a) (mail-in ballots).

Section 3146.8 of the law set forth the procedures to be followed by election workers during the canvassing process, which included examining the voter declarations and ensuring that the voter was eligible to vote.

The code also provided that poll watchers “shall be permitted to be present when the envelopes containing official absentee ballots and mail-in ballots are opened and when such ballots are counted and recorded” (25 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 3146.8(b)) and “be permitted to remain in the room in which the absentee ballots and mail-in ballots are pre-canvassed.” 25 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 3146.8(g)(1.1).

However, the code did not allow poll watchers to challenge ballots at canvassing. In re Nov. 3, 2020 Gen. Election, 240 A.3d 591, 610 (Pa. 2020). By the time that Respondent filed the Second Amended Complaint, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had held that although observers had to be “in the room,” they did not have to be within any minimum distance of canvassing activities because they were not permitted to challenge individual ballots during the canvassing process. DCX 20 at 0008 (In re Canvassing Observation, 241 A.3d at 350). Even with observational barriers, poll watchers:

had the opportunity to observe the mechanics of the canvassing process. [They] witnessed Board employees inspecting the back of ballot envelopes containing the voter’s declaration, before sending them on for processing; witnessed ballots being removed from their secrecy envelopes, and naked ballots which had been delivered to the Board without a secrecy envelope being segregated from ballots which arrived within such envelopes; saw that the ballot processing methods utilized by the Board were not destroying the ballot envelopes containing the voter’s declaration; and perceived that the ballot secrecy envelopes were being preserved during their processing. . . . Although [they] could not view the actual declarations on the ballot envelopes, nor examine individual secrecy envelopes for improper markings, . . . this information would only be necessary if [they] were making challenges to individual ballots . . . . [S]uch challenges are not permissible under the Election Code.

Id. at 0009 (In re Canvassing Observation, 241 A.3d at 350-51).

Despite these rulings, Respondent alleged that the observational boundaries facilitated a sinister scheme by Democrats fraudulently to steal the election from Donald Trump (FF 28) and award it to Joseph Biden:

Democrats who controlled the Defendant County Election Boards engaged in a deliberate scheme of intentional and purposeful discrimination . . . by excluding Republican and Trump Campaign observers from the canvassing of the mail ballots in order to conceal their decision not to enforce [certain ballot] requirements . . . [and] to count absentee and mail ballots which should have been disqualified.9

DCX 09 at 0079-0080, ¶ 167 (Second Amended Complaint). Respondent claimed that the observational barriers “created a system whereby it was physically impossible for the candidates and political parties to view the ballots and verify that illegally cast ballots were not opened and counted.” Id. at 0086, ¶ 188.

The Second Amended Complaint sought an emergency order to stop the certification of the election or, in the alternative, prohibit the counting of absentee and mail-in ballots that “Trump Campaign’s watchers were prevented from observing.” Id. at 0020-21, ¶ 18. It “estimated that 680,770 ballots were processed by the Allegheny and Philadelphia County Boards of Elections when no observation was allowed.” Id. at 0075, ¶ 155. Thus, Respondent asked the court to throw out 680,770 ballots merely because Trump poll watchers had not observed those votes being canvassed. Id. at 0021, ¶ 18; DCX 08 at 0107-0112; FF 28. The Second Amended Complaint also alleged that “[u]pon information and belief, a substantial portion of the approximately 1.5 million absentee and mail-in votes in Defendant Counties should not have been counted,” and that the vast majority of those votes favored Biden, “thus resulting in returns indicating Biden won Pennsylvania.” DCX 09 at 0097, ¶ 223.

In short, Respondent claimed that if observers were not close enough to meticulously inspect ballots during canvassing, those ballots should not be counted. Yet, as the Third Circuit noted, the Second Amended Complaint failed to “allege[] facts showing improper vote counting.” DCX 16 at 0010. And we have found that Respondent possessed no evidence of widespread fraud or impropriety. FF 37-44. His claim instead rested on the unsupported conclusive presumption that ballots canvassed without close third-party oversight were fraudulent and must not be counted. FF 29.

Mr. Giuliani’s argument that he did not have time fully to investigate his case before filing it is singularly unimpressive. He sought to upend the presidential election but never had evidence to support that effort. Surely Rule 3.1 required more.

After an objective appraisal of the facts, a reasonable attorney would have concluded that there was not even a faint hope of success of the observational barriers claim. Comment [1] to Pennsylvania Rule 3.1 makes clear that, when representing his client, a lawyer may only pursue “lawful and ethical measures.” A lawyer with “excessive and misplaced zeal” breaches his ethical obligations when he litigates a case that has no factual basis. See Office of Disciplinary Counsel v. Malloy, No. 178 DB 2014, at 29 (Pa. D. Bd. Rpt. Apr. 26, 2016), recommendation adopted, Order, No. 178 DB 2014 (Pa. June 30, 2016). That is exactly what happened here. Respondent violated Pennsylvania Rule 3.1.

3. The Notice and Cure Claim Violated Pennsylvania Rule 3.1

The ballots of Respondent’s individual clients were defective and properly rejected, but their home counties did not permit them to cure the flaws. FF 31. Respondent did not sue the counties that rejected his clients’ votes. Instead, he sued seven other counties that did give notice and permitted their voters to cure. Id. He claimed that the Pennsylvania election code (1) did not permit Notice and Cure, and (2) that its inconsistent use resulted in disparate treatment of voters based on their county of residence and denied his clients equal protection under the law. See Respondent’s Br. at 42.

Disciplinary Counsel argues that the Notice and Cure claims were frivolous because the individual plaintiffs should have sought to force their home counties to count their votes, rather than seek to prohibit the seven defendant counties from counting cured ballots. ODC Br. at 13-14.

Respondent’s argument that Pennsylvania election law did not permit notice and cure was based on 25 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 3146.8(a) (election boards “shall safely keep the ballots in sealed or locked containers until they are to be canvassed by the county board of elections”) and 25 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 3146.8(g)(1.1) (prohibiting the disclosure of “any portion of any pre-canvass meeting prior to the close of the polls”). See DCX 11 at 0013, 0022-23. He contended before the Hearing Committee that it was reasonable for him to rely on Boockvar to argue that notice and cure “was not allowed to be implemented by the Executive Branch of government (Secretary of State), and only the Legislature could enact such a procedure,” Respondent’s Br. at 13, relying on the following language from Boockvar:

[T]he Election Code . . . does not provide for the “notice and opportunity to cure” . . . . To the extent that a voter is at risk for having his or her ballot rejected due to minor errors made in contravention of those requirements, we agree that the decision to provide a “notice and opportunity to cure” procedure to alleviate that risk is one best suited for the Legislature.

238 A.3d at 374 (emphasis added); see Respondent’s Br. at 13-14. We agree with Respondent that his theory challenging the use of Notice and Cure had at least a faint hope of success on the merits. Accord Republican Nat’l Comm. v. Chapman, No. 447 M.D. 2022, 2022 WL 16754061, at *17 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Sept. 29, 2022), aff’d by an equally divided court, without op., Order, 284 A.3d 207 (Pa. 2022) (per curiam).

We also agree with Respondent that his equal protection theory based on the divergent uses of Notice and Cure was not frivolous. In Pierce v. Allegheny County Bd. of Elections, 324 F. Supp. 2d 684 (W.D. Pa. 2003), the court considered an equal protection challenge arising out of disparate treatment of absentee ballots. The relevant Pennsylvania statute provided that “an elector voting by absentee ballot is to mail the absentee ballot or deliver it in person.” Id. at 691 (citing 25 Pa. Stat. § 3146.6(a)). The precise question in Pierce was whether the phrase “in person” permitted third-party hand-delivery of absentee ballots. Id.

Allegheny County initially permitted third parties to hand deliver absentee ballots without restriction. It then reversed course and prohibited third-party hand- delivery, before finally allowing third-party hand-delivery with a certification from the person who delivered the ballot. Id. at 690. Philadelphia County did not permit third-party hand-delivery. Id. at 698.

Pierce sua sponte considered the effect of these different policies, recognizing that the permissibility of third-party hand-delivery of absentee ballots was an unsettled question of Pennsylvania law. Id. at 699. Pierce concluded that if the in-person requirement was directory and not mandatory:

then different standards have been employed in different counties across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to determine whether an absentee ballot should be counted. That kind of disparate treatment implicates the equal protection clause because uniform standards will not be used statewide to discern the legality of a vote in a statewide election. . . . Because of these different statewide standards, plaintiffs state a justiciable claim that defendant’s policies violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and this federal claim cannot be dismissed.

Id. at 699 (first emphasis added). Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), also provides some arguable support to Respondent. In Bush, the Supreme Court halted a statewide recount following the 2000 election because the use of standardless manual recounts violated the Equal Protection clause. 531 U.S. at 103. Bush involved a statewide recount, not the manner in which individual counties treated absentee ballots, and Bush also observed that “[t]he question before the Court is not whether local entities, in the exercise of their expertise, may develop different systems for implementing elections.” Id. at 109. Nonetheless, Bush asserted that:

The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another.

Id. at 104.

Considering the discussion in Pierce and the ambiguities in the Bush opinion, we conclude that there was at least a faint hope of success in Respondent’s legal argument that disparate Notice and Cure treatment of similarly situated voters by county officials violated the Equal Protection clause. See also Charfauros v. Bd. of Elections, 249 F.3d 941, 945, 953 (9th Cir. 2001) (finding an equal protection violation where the elections board “changed the rules of the game midstream” for challenges to voter eligibility).

That is not the end of the analysis, however. Disciplinary Counsel argues that Respondent’s proposed remedy – an injunction prohibiting certification of the presidential election or tendering the election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly – was itself frivolous. ODC Br. at 14.

Respondent does not directly respond to Disciplinary Counsel’s argument that he had no basis to halt certification of the election simply because a few thousand mail-in voters were allowed to cure defects. Rather he argues generally that it is inappropriate to sanction an advocate for a requested remedy, especially at the early stages in litigation, and asks us to focus on the preliminary relief requested in the motion for a temporary restraining order – to bar certification of the election pending further Court order – rather than on the ultimate relief requested in the Second Amended Complaint. Respondent’s Br. at 53-55.

Pennsylvania courts liberally construe election law in favor of the right to vote. In re Canvass of Absentee Ballots of Nov. 4, 2003 Gen. Election, 843 A.2d 1223, 1231 (Pa. 2004). However, they will not permit the counting of votes cast in violation of the election code. See id. at 1234. Thus, in In re Canvass of Absentee Ballots of Nov. 4, 2003 Gen. Election (Appeal of Pierce), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined that the requirement of in-person delivery was mandatory and voided fifty-six ballots “delivered in contravention of this mandatory provision.” Id.; accord Boockvar, 238 A.3d at 376, 378 (rejecting the argument that “no voter should be disenfranchised for failing to place his or her mail-in ballot in the secrecy envelope before returning it to the Boards”). But even though Respondent could properly seek to invalidate votes that were cured, his request for relief was frivolous because even if all “notice and cure” ballots were assumed to be Biden votes, and all were disqualified, President Biden would have won Pennsylvania by 70,000 votes instead of 80,000 votes. FF 48.

Had Respondent sought more circumscribed relief appropriate to the supposed Notice and Cure injury, the Rule 3.1 calculus may have been different. However, Respondent attempted to parlay the appropriate denial of his clients’ two invalid votes into the nullification of massive numbers of legally-cast ballots. Respondent’s claimed right to a draconian injunction (FF 49) was, as Judge Brann noted, “unhinged”:

Even assuming that they can establish that their right to vote has been denied, which they cannot, Plaintiffs seek to remedy the denial of their votes by invalidating the votes of millions of others. Rather than requesting that their votes be counted, they seek to discredit scores of other votes, but only for one race. This is simply not how the Constitution works.

DCX 14 at 0016.

The Notice and Cure claim for relief is clearly “shocking in itself” and “outlandish.” See Pearson, 228 A.3d at 425. Respondent’s assertion of it violated Pennsylvania Rule 3.1.

B. Disciplinary Counsel Proved By Clear and Convincing Evidence that Respondent Violated Pennsylvania Rule 8.4(d)

Pennsylvania Rule 8.4(d) prohibits a lawyer from engaging in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice. Clogging the courts with unnecessary and frivolous cases is such a violation. See, e.g., Office of Disciplinary Counsel v. Altman, 228 A.3d 508, 513-14 (Pa. 2020) (violations of Rule 8.4(d) for filing meritless request for attorney’s fees and motion for protective order to preclude discovery). Frivolous cases impose an “unnecessary burden” on the judicial system, waste the time and resources of the court, delay the hearing of cases with merit, and cause unwarranted expense to other litigants. Spikes, 881 A.2d at 1126-27 (citing Slater, 793 A.2d at 1277) (violation of D.C. Rule 8.4(d) for filing meritless defamation action based on privileged communication to Disciplinary Counsel). Mr. Giuliani brought a case that had no factual support. It caused an astonishing waste of the resources of the District Court, the Third Circuit, and multiple defendants in a compressed time frame. Respondent violated Rule 8.4(d).

III. SANCTION

Disciplinary Counsel recommends that Respondent be disbarred. Respondent, on the other hand, contends that if he is found to have violated any Rules, he should receive only an informal admonition or reprimand or, at most, a 30-day suspension.

Although Respondent violated the Pennsylvania Rules, District of Columbia law fixes the sanction to be imposed on him. See In re Tun, 286 A.3d 538, 543 (D.C. 2022).

Discipline is not intended to punish a respondent, but it should serve to deter a respondent and others from engaging in similar misconduct. In re Hutchinson, 534 A.2d 919, 924 (D.C. 1987) (en banc); In re Reback, 513 A.2d 226, 231 (D.C. 1986) (en banc). In a sanction determination, the Court typically assesses (1) the seriousness of the conduct at issue; (2) the prejudice, if any, to the client resulting from the misconduct; (3) whether the misconduct involved dishonesty; (4) violations of other provisions of the disciplinary rules; (5) previous disciplinary history; (6) whether or not the attorney acknowledges his misconduct; and (7) circumstances in aggravation or mitigation. See, e.g., In re Martin, 67 A.3d 1032, 1053 (D.C. 2013). The Court also considers “‘the moral fitness of the attorney’ and ‘the need to protect the public, the courts, and the legal profession.’” In re Rodriguez-Quesada, 122 A.3d 913, 921 (D.C. 2015) (quoting In re Howes, 52 A.3d 1, 15 (D.C. 2012)). Finally, a sanction should be consistent with that imposed for comparable misconduct, D.C. Bar R. XI, § 9(h)(1), while recognizing that “each case must be decided on its particular facts.” Hutchinson, 534 A.2d at 924 (quoting In re Haupt, 422 A.2d 768, 771 (D.C. 1980) (per curiam)).

In this case, Mr. Giuliani committed two disciplinary rule violations, but since the Rule 8.4(d) violation is based on the same conduct as the Rule 3.1 violation, we do not view it as an aggravating factor. Moreover, even though Respondent has been suspended by the New York Courts, that action is not final and therefore we do not consider it as prior discipline. As well, prejudice to Mr. Giuliani’s clients is not a relevant consideration in this case.

The issue of dishonesty strikes closer to the mark. We cannot clearly and convincingly say that Mr. Giuliani intentionally lied to the District Court in connection with the Pennsylvania litigation, and he was not charged with doing so. But his hyperbolic claims of election fraud and the core thesis of the Pennsylvania litigation were utterly false, and recklessly so. Mr. Giuliani’s rash overstatement claiming that the election was stolen had no evidence to support it. FF 28. His utter disregard for facts denigrates the legal profession:

False statements intended to foment a loss of confidence in our elections . . . 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 . . . . 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 . . . .

Giuliani, 146 N.Y.S.3d at 283 (citations omitted).

Moreover, Mr. Giuliani has not acknowledged or accepted responsibility for his misconduct. Tr. 1254-56 (Giuliani). To the contrary, he has declared his indignation (he is “shocked and offended” (Tr. 343 (Giuliani))) over being subjected to the disciplinary process (“I really believe I’ve been persecuted for three or four years” (Tr. 68 (Giuliani))) and suggests merely an informal admonition or reprimand as an appropriate sanction. Respondent’s Br. at 62. In view of Respondent’s intransigence, we are convinced that a sanction must be enhanced to ensure that it adequately deters both Respondent and other attorneys from acting similarly in the future. See Cater, 887 A.2d at 17.

Finally, public confidence in our courts, the law, and the legal profession are very much at stake in this unprecedented case. We cannot blind ourselves to the broader context in which Mr. Giuliani’s misconduct took place. It was calculated to undermine the basic premise of our democratic form of government: that elections are determined by the voters. The Pennsylvania claims were carefully calibrated to blend into a nationwide cascade of litigation intended to overturn the presidential election. FF 9. Since John Adams established the precedent in 1800, no president – until 2020 – refused to accept defeat and step away from that office. And no lawyer – until 2020 – used frivolous claims of election fraud to impede the peaceful transition of presidential power and disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters.

Mr. Giuliani’s effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election has helped destabilize our democracy. His malicious and meritless claims have done lasting damage and are antagonistic to the oath to “support the Constitution of the United States of America” that he swore when he was admitted to the Bar. This is not a partisan political view; prominent conservatives who spent “most of [their] adult lives working to support the Constitution and the conservative principles upon which it is based” have concluded that “[r]epetition of these false charges causes real harm to the basic foundations of the country, with 30 percent of the population lacking faith in the results of our elections” and “is not sustainable in a democracy.” Sen. John Danforth et al., Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election, at 1, 3, 6 (July 2022), https://lostnotstolen.org/wp-content/up ... tolen-The- Conservative-Case-that-Trump-Lost-and-Biden-Won-the-2020-Presidential- Election-July-2022.pdf.

We are well aware of the sanctions imposed in Spikes, 881 A.2d at 1128 (30- day suspension), in In re Yelverton, 105 A.3d 413, 431-32 (D.C. 2014) (30-day suspension with fitness), and in Pearson, 228 A.3d at 417 (90-day suspension). We appreciate too that our sanction recommendation is constrained by the sanctions imposed for comparable misconduct. Yet even though the respondents in Pearson, Yelverton, and Spikes were found to have violated the same rules as Respondent, the misconduct underlying his violations is immensely more acute. His frivolous claims impacted not only the court and parties involved but threatened irreparable harm to the entire nation.

We have considered in mitigation Mr. Giuliani’s conduct following the September 11 attacks as well as his prior service in the Justice Department and as Mayor of New York City. But all of that happened long ago. The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments. It was unparalleled in its destructive purpose and effect. He sought to disrupt a presidential election and persists in his refusal to acknowledge the wrong he has done. For these reasons, we unanimously recommend that Mr. Giuliani be disbarred.

IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Hearing Committee finds that Respondent Rudolph W. Giuliani violated Pennsylvania Rules 3.1 and 8.4(d) and should be disbarred from the practice of law in the District of Columbia. See D.C. Bar Rule XI, § 1(a). We further recommend that Respondent’s attention be directed to the requirements of D.C. Bar R. XI, § 14, and their effect on eligibility for reinstatement. See D.C. Bar R. XI, § 16(c).

AD HOC HEARING COMMITTEE

Robert C. Bernius, Esq., Chair

Carolyn Haynesworth-Murrell, Public Member

Jay A. Brozost, Esq., Attorney Member

______________

Notes:

1 The hearing transcript is designated as “Tr.” Disciplinary Counsel’s and  Respondent’s exhibits are designated “DCX” and “RX,” respectively. “FF”  indicates our Findings of Fact.
 
2 See U.S. Election Assistance Comm’n, Election Administration and Voting  Survey 2020 Comprehensive Report i, 34 (Aug. 16, 2021); U.S. Election Assistance  Comm’n, The Election Administration and Voting Survey 2016 Comprehensive  Report 24 (June 29, 2017).
 
3 Respondent asserted that the counties that implemented Notice and Cure  engaged in an illegal scheme to dilute votes in those counties that chose not to  implement the process. See FF 47-49, infra.
 
4 “Disciplinary Counsel has never disputed whether Mr. Giuliani had some  basis . . . to allege the scattering of minor election improprieties . . . . The question  is not whether the allegations of the complaints had some factual basis, but whether  those facts, assuming them to be true, supported the legal claims alleged in the  complaints.” ODC Reply Br. at 5.
 
5 The observational boundaries permitted under the new law were also compelled  by COVID-19 social distancing considerations. FF 26; Tr. 138-39 (Giuliani). It is  not surprising, therefore, that the boundaries created distrust among some veteran (and  partisan) poll watchers.
 
6 Respondent testified that “a complaint is a prediction. It’s not a statement of  what you definitely are going to get, what you’re definitely going to prove.” Tr. 390  (Giuliani). He further stated that “[a]ll those questions have to be answered, which  you can’t answer at this stage of the litigation, so you put out all the allegations you  have, the ones that help you, the ones that don’t, and then you work your way through  it in the litigation.” Tr. 192-93 (Giuliani). Compare Respondent’s statement with  Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009), which held that “a complaint must  contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is  plausible on its face’” (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570  (2007)). “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere  conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555).
 
7 The Second Amended Complaint predicted that there were 70,000 cured  ballots, DCX 09 at 0021, but in truth Mr. Giuliani “had no idea how many – how  broad the practice was of [notice and] cure.” Tr. 501 (Giuliani); see Tr. 168-69  (Giuliani).
 
8 The Third Circuit described this request for relief as “breathtaking,” a “drastic  remedy” for which Mr. Giuliani could cite no authority. DCX 16 at 0010.
 
9 The Third Circuit found this claim to be “conclusory” with “no specific facts”  to back it up. DCX 16 at 0009.

[admin]

Part 1 of 3

NEW Filing in Giuliani Defamation Case EXPOSE More TRUMP CRIMES
by Michael Popok
MeidasTouch
Jul 12, 2023 Legal AF Podcast - Full Episodes

Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on new documents just disclosed in the Federal civil defamation case against Giuliani that show the extent of the election stealing conspiracy, including how close Trump was to seizing voting machines, suspending the Constitution, and declaring Martial Law to stay in power.



Transcript


This is Michael Popok. Civil cases produce evidence that prosecutors can use in criminal cases. That's so important that I'm going to say it again: civil cases and their discovery mechanism produce documents and evidence that somebody like Jack Smith can use in criminal prosecutions. We're seeing it all over again in a civil case brought by two Fulton County election workers, Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman against Rudy Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani, who's been a lawyer for well, he's now suspended in one state, and soon to be disbarred in another, but was a lawyer for 50 years, is screwing up the exchange of documents so badly that he's given the opponents, the plaintiffs' lawyers, the opportunity to file a motion for sanctions, which they did on 7-11-23 -- what an unlucky date for Rudy Giuliani -- against him telling the judge that Rudy Giuliani in the last 18 months has not meaningfully participated in discovery, in producing documents or evidence in this case, despite his requirement under the law and a court order to do so, and as a result he should get the equivalent of a civil case death penalty -- the case should be decided against him at this junction without even going to trial -- that a default judgment should be entered against him because of what he's doing. That is the first headline for the motion that was just filed by Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman's lawyers. Rudy Giuliani could likely be hit with a default judgment as a result of game-playing and failure to cooperate in his good faith obligations and discovery headline.

Headline two is that Rudy produced privileged logs, which I'm going to explain on a little bit of a breakout session of legal AF right here, privilege logs listing in 25 pages all of the documents he is not at the moment going to produce, but that he has in his possession, claiming some sort of privilege, which means it has to ultimately be decided by the judge after seeing those documents in camera -- a Latin way of saying only the judge gets to see them first -- and then decide whether they go over to the other side.

Now you're supposed to -- let me give you the teaser first for the privilege log, and then I'll tell you how poorly done the privilege log was for Rudy Giuliani, further compounding his problems.

Firstly let's talk about the names that are in there, even if I don't know what's in it. If you ever had any doubt, in the relevant time-period of the end of the election in early November through Jan 6 and beyond, who Rudy Giuliani was working for, and who was in his group, his gang, a civil conspiracy, his criminal conspiracy gang, well just look at his text message lists, and you'll have no doubt.

So if you go through there you see the following names, and groups, and combinations of text messages: Bernie Kerik, distressed, disgraced, former police commander in New York, who went to jail and was pardoned, or had a sentence commuted, by Donald Trump. Jenna Ellis, who just barely didn't lose her law license, for all the work she did with Giuliani, as an incompetent election lawyer, spreading falsehoods about the election, where she had to admit to her Bar Association, her bar grievance committee, that she told untruths about the election. Christina Bobb, right, who's cooperating with the Department of Justice, and was the lawyer for Donald Trump for all things Mar-A-Lago and beyond, and signed the certificate falsely claiming that everything in this envelope was all of the top secret information that Donald Trump retained at Mar-A-Lago. And that was a lie. So you also have a Victoria Toensing. Victoria Toensing is a woman who practices law with her husband [Joseph diGenova],and is right-wing Maga. I mean she just posted -- we'll put it up here in my hot take -- she just posted on her own social media that the arrest, the indictment in abstention, because the guy fled the country to Cyprus, this spy for China of Israeli and U.S citizenship, that whole Chinese-illegal-lobbying-arms-brokering-selling-oil-for-the-Iranians-while-an-American-citizen -- that's all made up, because he was also going to be a whistleblower against Joe Biden. That Vic. So that was her tweet. We just saw that Victoria Toensing, of course, is inside this QAnon fake election huddle with Team Crazy, and it's Captain Rudy Giuliani, while they're trying to overthrow the election, at least in the court system. So Victoria Toensing.

Victoria Toensing
@VicToensing
No surprise. @SDNY indicted Biden corruption whistleblower, @GalLuft. SDNY pursues anyone who has info re Biden corruption. Foreign Agents Registration Act is a favorite weapon. SDNY made up FARA violation when illegally executing search warrants vs. @RudyGiuliani and me.
11:04 AM - Jul 11, 2023

Victoria Toensing
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/12/23


Toensing in 2002

Born: Victoria Ann Long, October 16, 1941 (age 81)[1], Colón, Panama
Education: Indiana University, Bloomington (BS); University of Detroit (JD)
Political party: Republican
Spouse(s): Trent Toensing, ​(m. 1962; div. 1976)​[2][3]; Joseph diGenova ​(m. 1981)​[4]
Children: 3, including Amy Toensing

Victoria Ann Toensing (née Long; born October 16, 1941) is an American attorney, Republican Party operative[5][6][7][8] and with her husband, Joseph diGenova, a partner in the Washington law firm diGenova & Toensing.[8][9] Toensing and diGenova frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels, until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros, leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network.[10] In 2019, Toensing and diGenova began representing Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in his efforts to block extradition to the United States under a federal indictment and became embroiled in the Trump–Ukraine scandal. The couple has worked with Rudy Giuliani in support of President Donald Trump beginning in 2018, and was named to join a legal team led by Giuliani to overturn the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in which Trump was defeated.[8][11][12][13]

Early life and education

Toensing graduated from Indiana University in 1962 with a degree in education. Toensing was active with the Republican Party in Michigan. She taught high-school English until she entered law school, earning a J.D. from the University of Detroit School of Law in 1975.[14][12]

She joined the U.S. attorney's office in Detroit, where she prosecuted narcotics cases.[12]

In 1981, Toensing became chief counsel to Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,[15] where she helped draft the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.

News and politics

Reagan administration

Toensing was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration. She led a counterterrorist investigation into the 15 May Organization for the bombing and attempted bombing of two Pan Am jets in 1982.[14]

Clinton investigations

DiGenova and Toensing established their law firm, diGenova & Toensing, in January 1996.[12][9]

Emily Bazelon of Slate has called Toensing "a blanketer of the airwaves about the tawdriness of the Lewinsky affair."[15] Toensing and her husband made regular appearances on television claiming that they were the target of investigations by the Clinton administration.[16]

Commenting on their role in the 1998 House of Representatives Teamsters investigation, Rep. Bill Clay, a Missouri Democrat, said, "They've become a public spectacle, which means they can't be impartial... It's a payoff from Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party to both Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova.... They have been on television over 200 times and not once have they been talking about an issue we're paying them $25,000 a month to handle for the Congress. It's a hell of a part-time job."[16]

The WISH List

Toensing was a founder and board member of The WISH List, a PAC seeking to elect pro-choice Republican women to public office.[17] The PAC was inspired by EMILY's List, a pro-choice Democratic PAC, and Toensing advocated for a "big tent" Republican Party that includes both pro-life and pro-choice members.[18]

Valerie Plame investigation

Toensing was a frequent Republican commentator in the media during the Plame affair, a political scandal that led to the conviction of Scooter Libby, assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney.[19][20] The scandal involved the public outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent, shortly after Plame's husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson, wrote an op-ed in 2003 alleging that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.[21][22] In March 2005, Toensing submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of Matt Cooper and Judith Miller, two journalists who were subpoenaed in the Plame investigation for refusing to reveal information obtained from confidential sources. In the brief, she "argued that the law couldn't have been broken when Valerie Plame's cover as a CIA agent was blown because her status wasn't really covert."[15] She also contended that Plame did not have a cover to be blown, citing a July 23, 2004, article in The Washington Times that argued that her status as an undercover CIA agent may have been known to Russian and Cuban intelligence operations prior to the article (by Robert Novak) that revealed her status as a CIA employee.

In April 2018, Toensing represented Scooter Libby at the time when President Donald Trump pardoned him.[23] Libby, the assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney, had been convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury in 2007 regarding the leak of Plame's identity.[20]

2008 election

Toensing supported former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson in the Republican primaries for the 2008 presidential election.[15]

Involvement with Trump, his associates and Ukraine

On March 19, 2018, Toensing and her husband, diGenova, were hired by President Donald Trump to serve on his legal team for the Special Counsel investigation.[24][25] DiGenova served as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1983 to 1988.[26][27] However, Trump cancelled the hires several days later due to potential conflicts of interest, though Trump personal attorney Jay Sekulow said they might assist in other legal matters.[28][29]

Toensing represents Mark Corallo, who had previously served as a spokesman for Trump's private legal team during the investigation into possible collusion between members of Trump's 2016 campaign and the Russian government.[30][31] Robert Mueller interviewed Corallo as part of the Special Counsel investigation.[32][33]

Toensing has also represented Sam Clovis, a former Trump campaign co-chair, and Erik Prince, the founder of the private military company Blackwater, who has informally advised Trump.[27]

In spring 2019, Toensing began representing former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin and then-prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko. Giuliani and his associates met with Lutsenko in early 2019 to discuss possible investigations of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Then-United States ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch had openly criticized Lutsenko for his poor anti-corruption record, and Lutsenko spread false allegations about Yovanovitch, which he later recanted. Giuliani considered Yovanovitch an obstacle to investigations of the Bidens and persuaded Trump to remove her from office in spring 2019. By April 2021, a continuing federal investigation was examining Yovanovitch's removal and evidence relating to Toensing.[34][35]

In July 2019, Toensing and her husband were hired by the Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash to defend him from extradition to the United States on a bribery indictment.[36][37][38] He has been living in Austria since being arrested there at the request of American authorities in 2014 and released on $155 million bail.[39] In 2017, the United States Justice Department described Firtash as an "upper-echelon [associate] of Russian organized crime."[40] As a middleman for the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, Firtash was known for funneling money to campaigns of pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine[41] and is also a onetime business partner of Paul Manafort, a Trump 2016 campaign chairman.[42] Firtash obtained his middleman position with the agreement of Russian president Vladimir Putin and, according to Firtash, Russian organized crime boss Semion Mogilevich.[43][39] When he was vice president, Biden had urged the Ukrainian government to eliminate middlemen such as Firtash from the country's natural gas industry, and to reduce the country's reliance on imports of Russian natural gas.[44]

After Firtash hired diGenova and Toensing, Giuliani acquired a statement[45] from former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin that falsely alleged Biden had pressured Ukraine to fire him in an effort to cover up corruption committed by himself and his son. Shokin's statement noted that it was prepared "at the request of lawyers acting for Dmitry Firtash ('DF'), for use in legal proceedings in Austria."[46][47] Giuliani had presented the Shokin statement during television appearances, and Bloomberg News reported that its sources told them Giuliani's publicity of the Shokin statement had greatly reduced the chances of the Justice Department dropping the charges against Firtash, as it would appear to be a political quid pro quo.[48]

In August 2019, Toensing and diGenova met with Attorney General William Barr to argue against the charges on Firtash. Prior to that meeting, Barr had been briefed in detail on the initial Trump-Ukraine scandal whistleblower complaint within the CIA that had been forwarded to the Justice Department, as well as on Giuliani's activities in Ukraine. Barr declined to intercede in the case, according to sources who talked to The Washington Post.[49][44]

In October 2019, Lev Parnas, a businessman who was working for diGenova and Toensing's firm as an interpreter in the Firtash case, was one of two men arrested at Dulles International Airport and accused by federal prosecutors of funneling foreign money into U.S. elections.[50] The New York Times reported in November 2019 that Giuliani had directed Parnas to approach Firtash with the recommendation to hire diGenova and Toensing, with the proposition that Firtash could help to provide compromising information on Biden, an arrangement Parnas' attorney Joseph Bondy described was "part of any potential resolution to [Firtash's] extradition matter."[44] In November 2019, Bondy told The Washington Post that Parnas had been part of a group that met frequently in spring 2019 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Biden matter, among other topics. The group, according to Bondy, was convened by Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, and included Parnas, his business associate Igor Fruman, as well as journalist John Solomon and Toensing and diGenova.[51] Phone records unearthed during impeachment proceedings in 2019 revealed that there were regular contacts between Solomon, Giuliani, Toensing, Toensing's client and Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, and other Trump allies.[52]

Toensing and diGenova were frequent guests on Fox News and Fox Business throughout 2019.[10] In November 2019, diGenova used an appearance on Fox Business to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros and make unevidenced claims that Soros controlled the State Department. After that appearance, which resulted in widespread calls for Fox to ban diGenova, Toensing and diGenova stopped appearing on the network.[53]

In November 2020, Trump named Toensing, diGenova, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis to join a legal team led by Giuliani to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election in which Trump was defeated.[13]

On April 28, 2021, federal agents executed a search warrant related to the Justice Department's ongoing criminal probe into Giuliani's pro-Trump political activities in Ukraine, at the home of Toensing, taking her cell phone.[54] Her law firm released a statement asserting she had been told she was not a target of an investigation.[55] In a May 2021 court filing, investigators disclosed that in late 2019 they acquired a search warrant for Toensing's iCloud account, and that of Giuliani, and for an email account belonging to her. Toensing and Giuiliani demanded to review the documents underlying the warrants, asserting their attorney-client privilege with clients may have been violated, which investigators disputed, arguing the attorneys had no special privilege to review the documents prior to any charges. Investigators said they employed a "filter team" to prevent them from seeing information potentially protected by attorney-client privilege.[56][57][58]

Toensing and her husband were among several Trump associates who were emailed by OANN anchor Christina Bobb on December 13, 2020 regarding efforts by Republicans in seven states to appoint false electors and create fraudulent certificates of ascertainment to be submitted to vice president Mike Pence for certification on January 6, 2021.[59]

Personal life

The former Victoria Long married Trent Toensing in 1962; the couple divorced in 1976.[3] In 1981, she married Joseph diGenova.[4] DiGenova and Toensing are partners in the eponymous Washington, D.C. law firm.[60]

Toensing has three children from her first marriage, including Todd Toensing of Jericho, Vermont; Amy Toensing, a photojournalist;[61] and Brady Toensing, who joined the Justice Department in June 2019 as senior counsel in its Office of Legal Policy.[62][63] Formerly, Brady Toensing was vice chair of the Vermont Republican Party, as well as a high-profile and controversial Vermont lawyer, and partner in his mother's and step-father's law firm.[60][64][65] The Justice Department has said that Brady Toensing is recused from matters involving the diGenova & Toensing law firm, including the Trump–Ukraine scandal.[66] It was asserted that he helped to choose judicial nominees for Trump.[66]

You have Katherine Friess. Where is Catherine Friess? We have to put her on the back of a milk carton, because Katherine Friess used to be a lawyer who was very proud to work with Rudy Giuliani and all the others, but she's nowhere to be found. She's so nowhere to be found, that the lawyers in this defamation case against Rudy Giuliani, have moved the judge to try to serve her, to find her, to serve her through alternate methods. She doesn't want anything to do with this case. She's a bar member somewhere, but they can't get her served. But at one time she was happily and notoriously tweeting, and texting, and emailing with Rudy Giuliani. So she's in the text, in the emails.

Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Antrim lawsuit witness Katherine Friess
by Mardi Link mlink@record-eagle.com
Record Eagle
Mar 3, 2022


Matthew DePerno and Katherine Friess are greeted by Antrim County Administrator Peter Garwood outside of the Antrim County Building in Bellaire on Dec. 6, 2020. Record-Eagle file photo/Mike Krebs

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A political operative who in November 2020 twice visited Antrim County via private jet as part of a team consulting on a local election-related lawsuit, has been subpoenaed by the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Katherine Friess, of Arlington, Virginia and Vail, Colorado — listed in court documents as an expert witness in a since-dismissed civil suit accusing Antrim County of voter fraud — must produce documents and appear for a deposition March 29, a letter from Committee Chair Bennie G. Thompson to Friess and dated March 1, states.

The letter references documents already on file with the committee, as well as previous reporting by Politico and the Record-Eagle.

“Between mid-November 2020 and January 6, 2021 (and thereafter), you actively promoted claims of election fraud on behalf of former President Trump and sought to convince state and federal officials to take steps to overturn the results,” the letter from Thompson to Friess states.

“You were also involved in efforts to subpoena voting machines from county election boards and, at one point, traveled to Michigan in an attempt to obtain voting machine data directly from local officials,” the letter states.

Members of the Select Committee last month subpoenaed Friess’ phone, text, private message and other communication records, sent or received between Nov. 1, 2020 and Jan. 31, 2021, a timeframe which includes dates Friess traveled to Antrim County.

Friess did not respond to a request for comment nor did her attorney, Raymond A. Mansolillo, of Boston.

Local officials previously said Friess was among out-of-state visitors who arrived in Antrim County on or about Nov. 27, 2020, and visited municipal offices in Star Township and the Village of Mancelona as well as Central Lake Township, where they were shown tape from a precinct tabulator.

A sign-in sheet, provided to the Record-Eagle in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, also lists Friess as among those at the Antrim County Building Dec. 6, 2020, to conduct a “forensic examination” of the county’s election equipment.

Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy predicted the phone records, if provided to the Select Committee, would show several calls in November 2020 from Friess to Guy’s office.

“She called me several times and wanted me to open everything up, open up the machines,” Guy said Monday, of calls she received from Friess, where Friess requested access to the county’s voting equipment.

“This was before the lawsuit was filed and Bill Bailey was the one who put her onto me,” Guy said. “He wanted me to talk with her. I told her I did not have the authority to do what she wanted. Then I stopped taking her calls.”

Bailey is a local realtor and former member of the county’s planning commission, who, on Nov. 23, 2020, filed suit in 13th Circuit Court, accusing the county of violating his constitutional rights and of using voting equipment which he claimed had been pre-programmed for fraud.

Bailey deferred comment to his attorney, Matthew DePerno.

DePerno did not return a request seeking comment.

Antrim County has been the subject of repeated and false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election, following acknowledged mistakes by Guy and staff in her office.

In November 2020 Guy acknowledged her office did not properly update Dominion Voting Systems software to accommodate ballot changes in some precincts prior to the election.

Days after Bailey sued the county in 2020, Judge Kevin Elsenheimer granted a request filed by Bailey’s attorney, DePerno, allowing the Dec. 6, 2020 exam of the county’s voting equipment.

Guy said Monday it was her understanding Friess was the organizer of this team; a resulting report, authored by Russell Ramsland, of Texas-based Allied Security Operations Group, accusing Dominion Voting Systems of deliberately altering election results, has been repeatedly debunked by state and national elections experts.

An aide to then-President Trump emailed a copy of the ASOG report to Jeffrey A. Rosen, then the incoming acting U.S. Attorney General, emails posted on a public government website show.

The same report was also referenced in other documents provided to the Select Committee, including a “Strategic Communications Plan” of the “Giuliani Presidential Legal Defense Team” seeking to put pressure on Republican senators in six states — including Michigan — between Dec. 27, 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, the plan states.

Bernard Kerik, a former New York City Police commissioner hired by Trump’s legal team as an investigator tasked with looking into claims of election fraud, provided the plan document to the Select Committee in December.

Friess is listed in a related “privilege log,” also provided by Kerik to the Select Committee, describing additional documents in Kerik’s possession he planned to withhold, citing attorney work product privilege held by former President Trump.

Friess is fighting the phone records subpoena in court, last month arguing in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado, it violates her First Amendment rights and attorney-client privilege.

“Since November 2019, Katherine Friess has counseled the President and his legal team full time in her position as a staff attorney to President Donald Trump,” the complaint seeking to quash the subpoena, filed Feb. 22 by Mansolillo on behalf of Friess, states. “She also derives meaning and satisfaction from her work outside politics as an attorney.”

Friess said in an affidavit filed with the complaint she volunteered as an election integrity attorney, observing ballot counting for the 2020 national elections while continuing to serve other clients.

Friess is not the first attorney to assist as a volunteer in Trump’s effort to discredit the results of the 2020 Presidential election, then argue attorney-client privilege in an apparent attempt to deflect a subpoena by the Jan. 6 Select Committee.

Attorney John Eastman, an ally of Trump who promoted a strategy that then-Vice President Mike Pence could decline to certify the 2020 Presidential election results, received notice from Verizon Communications Dec. 3, 2021, that his calls, texts and emails during the same three-month period had been subpoenaed by the Select Committee.

Eastman, too, filed suit against Thompson, the Select Committee and a cellphone carrier — in this case Verizon — and also states in court filings the subpoena violates attorney client privilege.

An attorney for the Select Committee, House Counsel Douglas Letter, has argued in court filings Eastman has provided no evidence of any legal relationship with the former president, however.

Eastman did, in court filings, provide a Dec. 5, 2020 engagement letter for legal services to Trump and the Trump campaign, but it was not signed by Eastman or Trump.

Bailey’s lawsuit was dismissed in May by Judge Elsenheimer, who also stayed other pending legal issues.

In June, DePerno appealed that decision, on behalf of Bailey, to the state Court of Appeals.

Appellate briefs have been filed and oral arguments requested; it is unclear when the Court of Appeals will hear the case and rule.

In the meantime, DePerno in July announced his candidacy in the Republican primary for Michigan Attorney General and in September was endorsed by Trump.

Lara Logan, right wing Maga journalist.

Lara Logan, Once a Star at CBS News, Is Now One for the Far Right: The former chief foreign affairs correspondent is now a popular guest on podcasts hosted by vaccine skeptics and deniers of the 2020 election.
by Jeremy W. Peters
New York Times
May 22, 2022


Lara Logan in 2016. Some of her former CBS News colleagues recalled that when they worked together, her politics were not always easy to categorize. Credit...Amanda Friedman/Trunk Archive

When Lara Logan reached the heights of American journalism more than a decade ago, as the chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, her bosses didn’t think twice about sending her to cover the biggest stories in the world. Producers clamored to work with her as she landed interviews with a Taliban commander, chronicled the Arab Spring and tracked the Ebola outbreak. Former President Barack Obama called her to wish her well after the most traumatic event of what seemed like a limitless career: She was sexually assaulted while covering a demonstration in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011.

But today Ms. Logan cuts a far different figure in American media. Instead of on national news broadcasts, she can be found as a guest on right-wing podcasts or speaking at a rally for fringe causes, promoting falsehoods about deaths from Covid vaccines and conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

Recently, she downplayed the seriousness of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol on one of those shows. “This is now the crime of the century?” she asked sarcastically. She has echoed pro-Kremlin attacks on the United States, accusing Americans of “arming the Nazis of Ukraine.” And she has compared Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Hillary Clinton to some of Hitler’s most notorious henchmen.

Her latest project is a forthcoming documentary on voting machines called “Selection Code” that is being financed by Mike Lindell, the chief executive of My Pillow, who has helped spread some of the most outrageous myths about the 2020 presidential election.

From the outside, Ms. Logan’s path has been one of the most puzzling in the modern history of television news. Her reporting for “60 Minutes” and the “CBS Evening News” helped inform the nation’s understanding of the toll that a decade of military conflict was taking on American forces. CBS News executives envisioned her as a next-generation star in the mold of a Mike Wallace or Dan Rather.

But her transformation, into a star of far-right media, is one that former colleagues who worked closely with her said did not completely come out of nowhere.

More than half a dozen journalists and executives who worked with Ms. Logan at “60 Minutes,” most of whom spoke anonymously to discuss private interactions with her, said she sometimes revealed political leanings that made them question whether she could objectively cover the Obama administration’s military and foreign policy moves. She appeared increasingly conservative in her politics over the years, they said, and more outspoken about her suspicions of the White House’s motives and war strategy.

Some said her opinions started to dovetail with the views of Obama critics she relied on as sources then who have since become close allies of former President Donald J. Trump, including Lindsey Graham, the hawkish Republican senator from South Carolina, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who aided efforts to attempt to overturn the 2020 election and has embraced numerous other conspiracy theories.

Still, Ms. Logan’s turn has disappointed many who considered her bright and fearless and admired her for returning again and again to Iraq and Afghanistan despite nearly losing her life in 2003, when an American military vehicle she was in was hit by Taliban fire. She lay unconscious while her crew and military personnel scrambled to drag her to safety, thinking she was dead.

“She was extraordinarily courageous in her war reporting,” said Ira Rosen, a former “60 Minutes” producer who wrote a book about his years with the network, “Ticking Clock.”

“When I think of Lara,” Mr. Rosen added, “I want to remember the Lara who put her life on the line reporting for CBS News in Afghanistan and Egypt. The one now I almost don’t even want to know about.”

When reached for comment, Ms. Logan said she wouldn’t participate in “a hit piece,” and added, “I’m not interested,” before abruptly hanging up. But today she speaks often to conservative talk show hosts about her days at CBS, describing what she views as a culture of conformity in the mainstream media.

“The moment I wasn’t toeing the line, then I was, ‘Oh, she used to be great, what happened to her?’” Ms. Logan said on a recent episode of Mr. Lindell’s web show, “The Lindell Report.”

“‘Oh, she’s unhinged and disgraced,’” Ms. Logan added, referring to the criticism and ostracism she has faced in recent months after making disparaging comments about public health officials like Dr. Fauci, among others.


Ms. Logan on Fox News. Her employment at a production company that made a show on the Fox News streaming service ended after she made a series of inflammatory remarks. Credit...Fox News

In November, after she compared Dr. Fauci to Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who performed inhumane experiments on concentration camp prisoners, Ms. Logan was dumped by the production company that made a show she starred in on Fox Nation, the streaming service for Fox News. Her longtime talent agency also severed ties with her, according to one news executive.

Since then, she has been relegated even further into the periphery of conservative media, where vaccine skeptics and election deniers host her and hail her as a whistleblower who, in their telling, is exposing mainstream media cover-ups. In interviews in recent weeks, she has taken aim at a range of seemingly unrelated targets — railing against “open border ideologues” and the United Nations bureaucrats she accuses of supporting them, so-called smart meters that record energy consumption in homes, and activists working to reverse climate change, which she has called “another load of B.S.”

Though she expresses views that are hard right today, some former CBS News colleagues recalled that her politics were not always easy to pigeonhole as conservative when they worked together. One said that Ms. Logan, who was raised in South Africa, once expressed dismay at the prevalence of guns in the United States and said she did not understand the affinity that many Americans have for the Second Amendment. She spoke with pride about her family when she described them as dedicated opponents of apartheid, they said.


Ms. Logan in 2005, reviewing footage from Iraq with her producer at the time, Josh Yager, right, at CBS’s studio in Manhattan. Credit... Ruth Fremson/ The New York Times

Several who worked alongside her said her fearlessness in war zones was double-edged — it produced some good television but also sometimes made them question her judgment. On occasion, they said, she led her producers and crew into situations that they thought were not worth the risk. Some cameramen refused to work with her, one of the former colleagues added, and she could be dismissive of the security teams the network hired to keep its journalists safe.

One former CBS producer who worked with her, Peter Klein, said in an interview that the structure of a large newsroom was a moderating influence. “There’s a system in place in newsrooms that offer checks and balances,” said Mr. Klein, founder of the Global Reporting Centre in British Columbia, a nonprofit. “Most of us need that system — but she really needed that system. And we knew that from the beginning,” he said.

“Now she’s just unfiltered,” Mr. Klein added.

The former CBS journalists said that spending more than a decade reporting from war zones started to take its toll on her emotionally, as it would on almost anyone repeatedly subjected to the trauma of combat. And they said they noticed a considerable change in her demeanor — seemingly more paranoid at times, erratic and deferential to her military sources — after she was sexually assaulted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011. In that attack, a mob of men grabbed her, separated her from her crew and tore off her clothes in what she described as a “merciless” attack. She was hospitalized for several days.

The next year, Ms. Logan gave a speech that would presage her downfall at CBS. The American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, had just been attacked, killing four Americans and igniting a firestorm among Republicans who accused Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, the secretary of state at the time, of underestimating the threat terrorists posed to Americans.

Sounding more like an advocate for the military than a reporter, Ms. Logan told her audience in Chicago that she hoped the government was getting ready to deploy its “best clandestine warriors” to “exact revenge.” The world should know, she added, that the United States would not be attacked and then “stand by and do nothing about it.” And she accused the Obama administration of playing down the threat from the Taliban, and of lying “about who they really are.”

Then, about a year later, she began telling people she was working on a story that “was going to blow the lid off Benghazi,” according to one person’s recollection.


Ms. Logan appeared on a “60 Minutes’” segment on Oct. 27, 2013, about the attack on the United States Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya. The report was later retracted. Credit...CBS

The story she came up with was the kind of work known inside “60 Minutes” somewhat dismissively as a “book report” because it was based in part on a forthcoming book. Ms. Logan interviewed the author, a security contractor stationed in Libya, who said in a segment that aired on Oct. 27, 2013, that he had helped defend the compound on the night of the attack. He described in harrowing detail how he came face to face with the enemy.

The New York Times reported several weeks later that the contractor had, in fact, told the F.B.I. that he was not inside the compound that night. After initially defending Ms. Logan and the report, CBS News retracted it and apologized. Ms. Logan and her producer were placed on a leave of absence, and she acknowledged having made a “disappointing” mistake.

The network’s chief and executive producer of “60 Minutes” at the time, Jeffrey Fager, later called the story “the worst mistake on my 10-year watch.”

Ms. Logan quietly left the network in 2018 after her contract expired. In a defamation lawsuit she filed in 2019 against New York magazine over a 2014 profile she claimed had harmed her ability to find other work, she said CBS cut her salary to $750,000 in 2015 from $2,150,000 in 2014. (A federal judge dismissed the case.) She moved from Washington to the Hill Country of Texas with her husband and children, a relocation she told People magazine in 2016 allowed her to focus more on being a mother, especially to her son with a learning disability.

Ms. Logan’s banishment from mainstream media has hardly restricted her access to the center of gravity in the Republican Party.

This month, she made a trip to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida estate, for a screening of a new film by the conservative author Dinesh D’Souza. Other guests included General Flynn, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, and Kyle Rittenhouse, the man acquitted of murdering two people during a political demonstration that turned violent in Kenosha, Wis., in 2020. As guests mingled on the grounds, Mr. Rittenhouse stopped to have his picture taken with Ms. Logan.

A correction was made on May 22, 2022: An earlier version of a caption in this article misstated Lara Logan’s affiliation with Fox News. She was employed and then let go from a production company that did work for Fox Nation, a streaming service for Fox News. She was not directly employed by Fox News. When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.

Jeremy W. Peters covers media and its intersection with politics, law and culture. He is the author of “Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted.”

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Part 2 of 3

Mark Meadows is all over these texts with Rudy Giuliani during these relevant time periods -- November through January.

Sidney Powell -- she should be disbarred as well.

Cleta Mitchell, a subject of criminal investigation by Jack Smith and the Department of Justice.

[AZ State] Senator [Kelly] Townsend -- why not throw him [her?????] in there?

Election fraud sideshow continues as an Arizona legislator asks the AG to investigate
Opinion: Rudy Giuliani may have moved on, but the side show in Arizona continues as a state legislator presses for an investigation into claims the election was stolen.
by Laurie Roberts
Arizona Republic
Published 2:18 pm MTDec 2, 2020 Updated 2:39 pm MT Dec 2, 2020

President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani listens to presenters at a public meeting where Trump supporters disputed his defeat in the 2020 election, citing election fraud and other concerns, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, on Nov. 30, 2020.

The Rudy Giuliani Traveling Side Show may have left town but the spectacle continues.

A member of the Arizona Legislature is now demanding that the state’s attorney general investigate “each claim made” by a parade of Trump supporters and imported experts who testified that the fix was in for Joe Biden during last month’s election.

“In light of the hours of testimony that we received yesterday in a public hearing regarding election fraud, I hereby request that you investigate each claim made,” state Sen.-elect Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, wrote, in an Tuesday email to the Attorney General's Office. “Understanding that this was an unusual method of delivery (barring the ability to have a formal hearing) I request that you accept it as a sufficient method to give initial testimony in the first effort to find action/relief.”

The first effort, that is, after five lawsuits – four of which have thus far been summarily tossed into the trash. (The fifth, which doesn’t allege any fraud, will be heard on Thursday.)

A lot of claims, but no evidence

Townsend has asked that Attorney General Mark Brnovich respond within 24 to 48 hours.

Given that Brnovich will first have to watch Monday’s 10-hour hearing, that doesn’t give him much time should he choose to chase after the various claims that skullduggery was afoot.

Like the complaint from the poll worker who says she voted but she doesn't know if her vote actually went to the candidate she voted for and besides that, a homeless guy voted and besides that, the elections worker who was watching a box of ballots looked "frail". (It's worth noting that homeless guys can, in fact, vote.)

Like the complaint from Trump attorney/Chief Ringmaster Rudy Giuliani who said, without evidence, that “a few hundred thousand” of the state’s 5 million “illegal aliens” probably voted – a claim that, if true, means that nearly five out of every seven Arizona residents are here illegally. (Our total state population being just 7.29 million.)

How's he supposed to investigate that?

Or the one from Giuliani’s “information warfare officer,” Army Lt. Phil Waldron, who said the Dominion Voting Systems machines used in Arizona could have been hacked or even manipulated at polling places to change the outcome of the election.

But, of course, he had no evidence that Arizona's machines were hacked or manipulated. In fact, it would have been a neat trick given that elections officials say the machines aren’t even connected to the internet.

Meanwhile, a post-election test — comparing a legally mandated sample of hand counted paper ballots with the machine count and witnessed by members of both parties — came up as 100% accurate.

Or maybe Brnovich should investigate the anonymous email claiming that 35,000 votes were “embedded” for each Democratic candidate in Pima County. Again, no evidence and not even a person willing to step forward to say it is so.

So… what? Brnovich is supposed to march in and seize Pima County’s voting machines without first obtaining evidence or a search warrant (which requires evidence)?

Some absolutely believe there is fraud

Townsend didn’t return my call to talk about it, but I’m betting that in any other circumstance, she would be at the front of the parade, screaming about abuse of prosecutorial power.

And she'd be right to do it.

But hey, don’t let a little thing like the need for evidence stand in the way of the campaign to root out the supposed criminal scheme to deny Donald Trump a second election.

I’m sure Joseph McCarthy would approve.

Sadly, so do a fair number of Arizona voters who, thanks to our president, absolutely believe that no longer can you trust the backbone of democracy, our elections.

People like Tamela, who responded after reading my account of Monday’s hearing.

“Anybody with half a brain who have been watching these hearings and listening to the testimony from these witnesses can clearly see that there was definitely fraudulent acts being played out to change the vote from Trump over to the just as corrupt as you, Biden. For you to spout all these lies, saying there is no proof and that they are clowns makes you a deplorable, p.o.s. lying, corrupt journalist wannabe …”

People like Pamela:

“Are you deaf, blind and a moron? Did you listen to the 14 hours of testimony on Monday? Statistics don’t lie. Anyone with even half a brain can see that the entire election was fraudulent six ways to Sunday. The Democrats used every possible way to steal the votes of honest citizens. If you have FACTS to refute the testimony let’s see them.”

Innocent until proven guilty, right?

Or if you have facts that reasonably suggest a crime happened here, you could produce them.

That is the way it works in America, isn't it?

Or perhaps not, any more.

In her request for an AG's investigation, Sen.-elect Townsend was unable to provide any evidence or even a summary account of the widespread fraud she wants investigated.

All she had to offer was a link to the YouTube video of Monday's hearing and a statement -- "I am not confident that fraud did not exist in the 2020 general election" -- and a demand that Brnovich "investigate each claim made."

And the calliope plays on.

Laurie Robers is an opinion columnist. Reach her at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.

FBI subpoenas records of Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, state Sen. Kelly Townsend
by Ray Stern and Mary Jo Pitzl
Arizona Republic
Published 11:18 pm MT June 30, 2022 Updated 6:53 pm MT July 1, 2022


Arizona state Sen. Kelly Townsend (top) and Arizona Senate President Karen Fann.

The FBI has issued subpoenas to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann and state Sen. Kelly Townsend, compelling them to release records believed related to former President Donald Trump's effort to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.

Fann, the longtime Republican lawmaker from Prescott who ordered the partisan review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, told The Arizona Republic the FBI issued a Freedom of Information Act request "in the form of a subpoena for my emails and communications. I'm instructed not to discuss."

She wouldn't confirm another report stating that the probe sought records about contacts from Trump and his team following the November 2020 election. But she added, "pretty sure everything they've asked for has already been foiaed numerous times over the past 18 months," using an acronym for the information act.

The Yellow Sheet, a political newsletter, first reported the subpoenas.

In mid-November 2020, Fann told House Speaker Rusty Bowers that Trump's advocates had called her repeatedly, encouraging her to help him find a way to get ahead of Joe Biden in Arizona, where Trump lost by about 10,500 votes.

Public records also show that on Dec. 28, Fann told a constituent she was in “numerous conversations with Rudy Giuliani over the past weeks trying to get this done. I have the full support of him and a personal call from President Trump thanking us for pushing to prove any fraud."

Townsend, who lives in Apache Junction and has served in the Legislature since 2013, told The Republic that she had received a subpoena but did not comment further. She told 12 News that the FBI sought communications records with Trump's lawyers and that she and her staff were complying.

Last week, Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the state Republican Party and her husband Michael, were subpoenaed by the Department of Justice regarding their roles in creating and attempting to submit a slate of fake electors for the November 2020 election.

The Washington Post last week reported that two of the other 11 fake electors — Loraine Pellegrino and Nancy Cottle — also received subpoenas from a federal grand jury. The two women were subpoenaed earlier this year by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The congressional panel also subpoenaed the Wards for their phone records, which the couple is fighting in federal court. The case is pending.

The congressional panel in February subpoenaed Kelli Ward for her testimony and documents as well as state Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley. Finchem had convened an informal panel to dispute the results of the 2020 presidential election, a meeting that was attended by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as well as other members of Trump’s team.

Speaker of the Georgia house [David] Ralston. Well, we know what that one was about, because that was recorded, and Fani Willis, the prosecutor in Fulton County, is investigating this phone call between Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, and the Speaker of the House [David] Ralston in Georgia. The same kind of phone call that Rudy and Donald Trump made to Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers in Arizona trying to get him to throw out the election, and participate in the fake elector conspiracy.  

Grand jury heard phone call of Trump pressuring Georgia speaker to overturn Biden's victory: The special grand jury's foreperson told NBC News that Trump tried to pressure the then-speaker into calling a special legislative session to overturn the results in the battleground state.
by Blayne Alexander, Charlie Gile and Summer Concepcion
NBC News
March 16, 2023, 7:47 AM MDT

The Fulton County special grand jury heard a phone call between former President Donald Trump and Georgia House Speaker David Ralston as part of its investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, the jury's foreperson, Emily Kohrs, told NBC News on Wednesday.

During the December call, Trump attempted to pressure the then-speaker into calling a special legislative session to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the battleground state, Kohrs said.

The call recording, which was first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, lasted about 10 minutes, Kohrs said. She recalled that Trump asked Ralston who would stop him from holding a special session. According to Kohrs, Ralston responded, “A federal judge, that’s who.”

Ralston, a Republican who spent more than a decade as Georgia's House speaker, died in November.

Georgia House Speaker Ralston has died at age 68
by Jeff Amy
AP News
Published 4:39 PM MDT, November 16, 2022

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia House Speaker David Ralston died Wednesday at 68, spokesperson Kaleb McMichen said, less than two weeks after he announced he was stepping down because of health concerns.

A statement issued by McMichen said only that Ralston had died after “an extended illness.” The Blue Ridge Republican became Georgia state government’s second most powerful leader during his 13 years leading the 180-member House.

“A great pine tree has fallen in the Georgia House of Representatives,” said Democrat Calvin Smyre of Columbus, the longest-serving member of the House and a friend of Ralston.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp ordered flags flown at half-staff until Ralston is buried and said his body will lie in repose at the Georgia Capitol.

“Our state lost one of its true giants,” Kemp said in a statement.

A lawyer from the north Georgia mountains, Ralston had said he hoped to continue as a member of the House even after stepping down as speaker after 13 years.

Until the current legislative term ends in January, House Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones, a Milton Republican, will become speaker, as called for by the state constitution. She will be the first female speaker in Georgia history. Republicans on Monday nominated Jon Burns of Newington to replace Ralston when the newly elected General Assembly convenes Jan. 9, an effort at continuity supported by Ralston’s closest allies.

“David Ralston spent his career in public service trying to lift others up and move our state forward,” Jones said in a statement. “He knew the awesome power of bringing people together — reasoning together — and finding common ground. Regardless of political ideology, he treated everyone with respect and was a model of civility.”

Ralston is survived by his wife, Sheree, and two adult children. Funeral arrangements will be announced later.

As the paramount leader of the House, Ralston shaped taxes, spending and laws.

In one example, he muscled through changes this year to how mental health benefits are provided by private insurers and how the state provides mental health services. He could also put bills in the garbage can, stopping a state takeover of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in 2019.

Ralston was first elected to the Georgia Senate in 1992 when Democrats were in the majority, serving six years. He lost a race for attorney general to Democrat Thurbert Baker in 1998 before being elected to the House in 2002.

The longest-serving state house speaker in the United States at the time of his death, Ralston was cut from the mold of Tom Murphy, the west Georgia Democrat who commanded the House from 1973 to 2003. Ralston took office after a chaotic period when the first Republican speaker in more than 130 years, Glenn Richardson, resigned following a suicide attempt and revelations of an extramarital affair with a lobbyist. Ralston had lost a speaker’s bid against Richardson in 2008.

“He brought a calm and steady hand to the House when it was in need of a calm and steady hand,” outgoing House Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry England, an Auburn Republican and Ralston confidant, said earlier this month.

Ralston survived a challenge to his power after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed he had used his position as lawmaker to delay court proceedings for people he was representing in court. Most of the hard-core conservatives who rebelled left the House after failing to unseat Ralston, with the speaker engineering the defeat of some.

Ralston shepherded a wide range of Republican priorities and was always ready to cut taxes, boasting of a state income tax cut passed this year that could ultimately total $2 billion. He also championed rural development.

A guardian of the powers of the legislative branch, Ralston initially clashed with Kemp before settling into a close working relationship. He was an enthusiastic lover of legislative give-and-take, often besting the Senate in negotiations, frequently roasting critics with a quip from the speaker’s dais and relishing interplay with reporters.

But some Republicans saw Ralston as too friendly to Democrats. He helped rescue a hate crimes bill from legislative purgatory after the 2020 death of Ahmaud Arbery, and stifled efforts to pass religious liberty legislation that liberals said would have legalized discrimination.

“He saw the reality that the House needed to be a leader for some level of moderation in the face of a Republican Party that has turned dramatically to the right,” said Mary Margaret Oliver, a Decatur Democrat who co-sponsored this year’s mental health bill and was one of Ralston’s warmest friends in the General Assembly.

The close ties to her and Smyre meant Democrats could get a respectful hearing from Ralston, and sometimes get a little of what they wanted in legislation.

“We forged progress where we could, and did not hold grudges when we went in different directions,” tweeted Rep. Scott Holcomb, an Atlanta Democrat.

Ralston’s former spokesperson and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

The grand jury, which conducted a criminal investigation into whether Trump and his allies made any “coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections” in the state, completed its work in January, submitting a report on its findings to District Attorney Fani Willis.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled last month that parts of the grand jury’s report can be made public. McBurney also said in the ruling that the report includes recommendations for “who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what,” but those parts would remain sealed for now.

A group of news organizations had petitioned him to make the report public, and he agreed with some of their reasoning.

“[W]hile publication may not be convenient for the pacing of the district attorney’s investigation, the compelling public interest in these proceedings and the unquestionable value and importance of transparency require their release,” McBurney wrote.

Willis’ office had asked that the entire report remain under wraps for the time being.

In unsealed parts of the report released last month, grand jurors said they believe some witnesses may have lied under oath.

“A majority of the grand jury believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it,” said a section of the report released last month. “The grand jury recommends that the District Attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling.”

In an interview with NBC News' “Nightly News” last month, Kohrs said the grand jury recommended indicting over a dozen people, which “might” include the former president.

“There are certainly names that you will recognize, yes. There are names also you might not recognize,” Kohrs said in the interview.

She said the list of recommended indictments is “not a short list,” and there were “definitely some names you expect," declining to name anyone specifically in accordance with the judge's instructions.

“I don’t think that there are any giant plot twists coming," Kohrs said. "I don’t think there’s any giant ‘that’s not the way I expected this to go at all’ moments. I would not expect you to be shocked.”

Blayne Alexander is an NBC News correspondent, based in Atlanta.

Ken Cheesebro -- come on down. You're on the text and email chain with Rudy Giuliani, as we suspected. He's one of the architects of using the Jan 6 Congress hearing, and fake electors, to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

Lawyers Group Asks Court to Punish an Author of Trump Electors Scheme: An ethics complaint in New York against Kenneth Chesebro is the latest example of legal troubles for lawyers who helped Donald J. Trump try to overturn the 2020 election.
by Charlie Savage
New York Times
Published Oct. 12, 2022
Updated Oct. 18, 2022

Kenneth Chesebro wrote the earliest known memo putting forward a proposal for having a slate of fake electors to help President Donald J. Trump overturn the election.

WASHINGTON — In the emerging history of how a small group of lawyers aided former President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election, Kenneth Chesebro has received far less attention than others like Rudolph W. Giuliani and John Eastman.

But documents show that Mr. Chesebro played a central part in developing the idea of having Trump supporters pretend to be electors from states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., then claiming that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to cite the purported existence of rival slates to delay counting or to discard real Electoral College votes for Mr. Biden on Jan. 6, 2021.

On Wednesday, several dozen prominent legal figures submitted an ethics complaint to the Supreme Court of New York’s attorney grievance committee, calling Mr. Chesebro “the apparent mastermind behind key aspects of the fake elector ploy” and accusing him of conspiring “with Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Eastman and others to subvert our democracy.”

The complaint said Mr. Chesebro had acted with “dishonesty, fraud, deceit or reckless or intentional misrepresentation” in violation of rules of conduct for lawyers who, like him, are licensed to practice in New York.

The request was organized by Lawyers Defending American Democracy; a similar request by the group helped lead to the suspension of Mr. Giuliani’s law license in June 2021 and to a continuing investigation by the State Bar of California into Mr. Eastman. The complaint against Mr. Chesebro did not explicitly call for him to lose his license but asked for an investigation and “appropriate sanctions.”

Adam S. Kaufmann, a lawyer for Mr. Chesebro, condemned the complaint against his client, warning that it was dangerous to attack lawyers for providing legal theories to political candidates. Drawing on a 1960 precedent involving a close vote in Hawaii, he said Mr. Chesebro was offering the Trump campaign advice for “keeping its options open” through Jan. 6 as a “contingency” in case the courts found electoral fraud in any of the swing states where Mr. Trump’s team was disputing the outcome.

The idea that Mr. Pence could delay or block the electoral vote count on Jan. 6 was a key part of the events leading to the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters. Some of those supporters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” because the vice president — whose lawyers told him there was no legal basis for him to delay or discard the official state-certified votes for Mr. Biden — rejected Mr. Trump’s pressure to do so anyway.

On Nov. 18, 2020, Mr. Chesebro wrote the earliest known memo putting forward a proposal for having a slate of Trump supporters purport to be electors, in that case for Wisconsin. He expanded the proposal for other states, including in a letter to Mr. Giuliani on Dec. 13, 2020.

An email by a Trump campaign lawyer in Arizona on Dec. 8, 2020, cited Mr. Chesebro as having had the idea for “sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence,” even though they would not be legal because the governor had not signed them.

The complaint filed on Wednesday characterized Mr. Chesebro as a participant and not only a supplier of theories, referring to his help with a fake electors effort in Georgia, one of the swing states Mr. Biden won. Mr. Chesebro has fought a subpoena to testify before a grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., where a prosecutor is investigating efforts to overturn the election results there.

A Georgia judge weighs release of a grand jury report into 2020 election interference
by Stephen Fowler
NPR, Georgia Public Broadcasting
January 24, 2023 5:00 AM ET


In this May 2022 file photo, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney speaks during proceedings to seat a special purpose grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., to look into the actions of former President Donald Trump and his supporters who tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Ben Gray/AP

A Georgia judge will soon decide what, if any, parts of a special grand jury report will be made public following an eight-month investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the state's 2020 election results.

The special purpose grand jury, which was dissolved earlier this month after completing its work, did not have indictment powers but could use gathered evidence and testimony to recommend that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis seek charges. Several people, ranging from Trump's onetime personal attorney to Republicans who falsely claimed to be presidential electors, were informed they were targets of the investigation.

Jurors voted to release their report to the public, but the extremely rare nature of the special grand jury and limited legal authority have led to hurdles that could delay disclosure of the findings.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney will hold a hearing Tuesday to determine if releasing all or parts of the report would conflict with other laws and precedents that have historically prevented grand jury reports from making allegations of criminal wrongdoing without an accompanying indictment — which this panel could not recommend.

At the hearing, the DA's office, media outlets and potential targets of the investigation that might be named in the report are expected to argue their cases for releasing — or redacting — relevant sections of the findings.

What could be in the report?

Georgia was one of several key states that saw a coordinated, sustained effort to challenge the 2020 presidential results, in which Joe Biden defeated Trump.

In February 2021, Willis announced an investigation into efforts to undo Trump's defeat in Georgia, asking state officials to preserve records from the election, and in January 2022 she requested a special purpose grand jury be convened to investigate "the facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to possible attempts to disrupt the lawful administration of the 2020 elections in the State of Georgia."

At the time, Willis listed several potential crimes, ranging from solicitation of election fraud to making false statements to governmental officials to racketeering.

Broadly, the work of the 26-person panel centered around two major themes:

1. The pressure campaign to reverse Trump's roughly 12,000-vote loss in Georgia's thrice-counted election;

2. And the coordinated effort to send so-called "alternate" slates of Republican presidential electors in states won by Biden.

The most infamous example of the former is Trump's phone call to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, exhorting him to "find 11,780 votes" and undo Biden's victory ahead of the counting of Electoral College votes.

There were other calls, too, like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham's conversation with Raffensperger regarding absentee ballots, and another leaked call Trump had with Georgia's top election investigator about a review of ballot envelopes.

Other areas of interest that have appeared in court filings include: a number of unofficial legislative hearings where Rudy Giuliani and others spread falsehoods about the state's election system and results, and attacked a pair of Fulton County poll workers with baseless claims that led to death threats; the resignation of U.S. Attorney BJay Pak amid turmoil with the Justice Department over pursuing false claims of voter fraud; and unauthorized access of voting equipment in a rural Georgia county.


Rudy Giuliani arrives at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta on Aug. 17, 2022, to testify in front of a special grand jury investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. John Bazemore/AP

On the second front, Willis and the special purpose grand jury appear to have narrowed in on the efforts across multiple swing states, including Georgia, to send documents from Republicans falsely claiming to be official presidential electors.

At least 17 people so far have been informed they could be prosecuted for their actions, including the 16 fake electors and Giuliani. Willis has been disqualified from investigating one of the sham electors, newly elected Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, after Jones argued a fundraiser that Willis hosted for his eventual general election opponent created a conflict of interest.

The report could also name other incidents that prosecutors should look into further, other people who should be interviewed and other crimes that might have been committed.

Who has been interviewed?

The special grand jury used subpoena power to compel dozens of people to testify over the last several months, though faced difficulties from out-of-state witnesses.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Attorney General Chris Carr, Raffensperger and other state employees appeared before the panel, as did local election officials and elected officials who played both large and small roles in defending, running or attacking the election.

Some subpoenaed witnesses — like Trump-aligned attorneys John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro — tried unsuccessfully to fight their testimony in court but ultimately had to appear. Sen. Graham's efforts to halt his testimony were argued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to block a lower court's ruling that Graham was protected from questioning about activities related to being a lawmaker but could answer for other statements and actions.

Giuliani — who is also being sued for defamation by the two Fulton County election workers he accused of fraudulently counting ballots and "surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine" — testified for hours behind closed doors after failed attempts to delay his appearance before the grand jury.

The report could also shed light on others who testified without needing a subpoena, as well as evidence used to draw conclusions about potential violations of state law.

What about Trump?

One potential witness who was never issued a subpoena to testify is Trump himself. Many of his actions and statements were in the public domain, uncovered via reporting or shared through testimony from others, but it is unclear why the panel did not seek out Trump's testimony firsthand, as he is a central figure in the investigation.

It is not clear what the report will say about Trump's role or likelihood he could face charges, though Trump has retained several Georgia-based lawyers including Drew Findling, a high-profile attorney best known for defending celebrity rap artists (and for past anti-Trump comments on social media). Campaign finance records show that over the second half of 2022, pro-Trump political action committees paid out nearly half a million dollars for "legal consulting" to Findling's law firm and another attorney, Jennifer Little.

In a statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Monday, Trump's attorneys said they would not be involved in Tuesday's hearing and have never been a part of the special grand jury process. "He was never subpoenaed nor asked to come in voluntarily by this grand jury or anyone in the Fulton County District Attorney's office," the statement reads in part. "Therefore, we can assume that the grand jury did their job and looked at the facts and the law, as we have, and concluded there were no violations of the law by President Trump."

But it is possible the report could still implicate the former president in wrongdoing, and the district attorney could still seek an indictment.

What's next?

After the hearing, Judge McBurney could rule that the report should be made public in its entirety, with redactions regarding specific people and specific laws they might have broken, or opt to keep the entire thing under wraps pending further review.

Any of those rulings could be appealed.

The district attorney's office has received the full report and can issue indictments through a regular grand jury process with or without the report being publicized. Willis might also push to keep the report from the public until her office makes decisions about charges.

Fulton County's investigation into election interference is one of several inquiries Trump is facing, along with a federal probe into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and Trump's role in the leadup to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and New York-based investigations into Trump's business empire.

Judge releases part of Georgia grand jury report on alleged 2020 election tampering: “No widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election,” grand jury says in final report.
by Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein
Politico
02/16/2023 11:46 AM EST
Updated: 02/16/2023 04:56 PM EST

Former President Donald Trump has denounced the investigation as a political vendetta.

A Georgia grand jury believes at least one witness may have lied under oath as it pursued an investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election, according to excerpts of the panel’s final report released Thursday.

The handful of pages that a state judge ordered released do not identify precisely whom the panel recommended for prosecution, but the excerpts do reveal that the entire special grand jury rejected Trump’s repeated claims that extensive fraud tainted Joe Biden’s win in the state.

“We find by unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election,” the grand jury’s report says, describing its conclusions that detailed testimony from experts disproved such allegations.

The bulk of the report, including recommendations about potential criminal charges for Trump and his allies, remains under seal.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who opposed release of any portion of the report at this time, said during a court hearing about three weeks ago that her decisions about potential prosecutions were “imminent.” She has not provided a further update.

Trump, who has denounced the investigation as a political vendetta, claimed on Thursday that the release of the report excerpts exonerated him by omitting any mention of him — even though a judge ruled that all references to individuals in the report be withheld from the public for now.

“Thank you to the Special Grand Jury in the Great State of Georgia for your Patriotism & Courage. Total exoneration. The USA is very proud of you!!!” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social.

The report underscores the extensive investigation that Willis undertook, noting that the panel heard from 75 witnesses, as well as investigators who helped them comb through voluminous documents related to the probe.

The partial release also makes clear that many grand jurors believe that some of the testimony they heard from witnesses subpoenaed to discuss election-related issues and incidents was false.

“A majority of the grand jury believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it,” the report says. “ The Grand Jury recommends that the district attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling.”

Willis has spent the last year investigating Trump and his allies’ bid to reverse the election results in Georgia, despite losing the state by 11,000 votes. Willis’ probe focused on Trump’s Jan. 2 phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” just enough votes to put Trump ahead of Joe Biden in the state.

Raffensperger declined the request and told Trump that investigators found his claims of fraud to be baseless.

Trump on Thursday defended that call as “perfect” and stressed that there were “many officials and attorneys on the line, including the Secretary of State of Georgia, and no one objected, even slightly protested, or hung up.”

The report underscores the wide-ranging investigation that Willis undertook, noting that the panel heard from 75 witnesses, as well as investigators who helped them comb through voluminous documents related to the probe.

Willis has also pursued evidence about Trump’s broader national effort to subvert the election, calling before the special grand jury top aides like his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, attorney John Eastman and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Those issues are also the subject of an ongoing federal investigation based in Washington now being headed by special counsel Jack Smith. No charges have yet been brought in that probe.

Under Georgia law, the special grand jury which was sworn in last May could subpoena witnesses and documents, but could not return indictments. Willis would have to seek such charges another, regular grand jury, but can present the evidence and testimony gathered by the special panel.

Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said in a ruling Monday that state law compelled him to publicly release the special grand jury’s findings, although he agreed to defer publishing portions of the report that discuss potential charges against individuals. The special grand jurors had urged the court to make their findings public.

The special grand jury also seemed in its report to seek to assert some independence from Willis’ prosecutors. “That Office had nothing to do with the recommendations contained herein,” the report says, signed by the foreperson and deputy foreperson. The signatures and names of the jury’s leaders were redacted from the excerpts released Thursday.

Mr. Kaufmann said the only communication Mr. Chesebro had with anyone in Georgia regarding alternate electors was sending ballot forms to a state Republican leader.

Mr. Eastman wrote two memos laying out steps that could result in Mr. Trump being declared the winner of the election that hinged on a disputed claim about Mr. Pence and alternate “electors.” Mr. Chesebro helped edit the first, emails obtained by the Jan. 6 committee show.

The complaint says that “while Mr. Eastman and Mr. Giuliani have received more attention, the public record amply demonstrates Mr. Chesebro’s central role. As the original author of the fake elector scheme, Mr. Chesebro bears special responsibility for it and its consequences.”

In an email exchange with Mr. Eastman on Dec. 24, 2020, Mr. Chesebro also wrote that the odds of a Supreme Court intervention would “become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”

Another organization, The 65 Project, filed a similar ethics complaint against Mr. Chesebro in July. The group has filed complaints against about 55 lawyers associated with aspects of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. There has been no public sign of action in response to its complaint about Mr. Chesebro, but its director Michael Teter, said on Wednesday that an investigator has been assigned to it.

The new filing was distinguished by a list of high-profile legal figures who endorsed it, such as past presidents of the New York State Bar Association and of the American Bar Association, retired judges, current and former deans of major law schools, and other legal scholars and prominent lawyers.

Among them was Laurence H. Tribe, a liberal Harvard Law School professor. He said in an interview that as a law student in the mid-1980s, Mr. Chesebro had been one of his research assistants and continued to help him with volunteer litigation after graduating — including when Mr. Tribe represented Vice President Al Gore before the Supreme Court in the disputed 2000 election.

Mr. Tribe said he attended Mr. Chesebro’s wedding and once considered him a friend, but then gradually came to see him as an “ideological chameleon” who had adopted “the posture he thought would appeal to me” and “came to distrust Ken’s sense of boundaries and his moral compass.”

A correction was made on Oct. 18, 2022: An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the director of The 65 Project. He is Michael Teter, not Teeter.

[admin]

Part 3 of 3

And then you have interesting emails with re lines, regarding lines, that I'm sure Jack Smith is super excited about, like a 12/16/2020 text, or email, that says "POTUS findings." P-O-T-U-S. That is exactly the moment leading to the December 18th meeting in the White House that went on for six hours, involving Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani, and the overstock.com guy [Patrick Byrne]. They threw him in there to talk about suspending the Constitution, invoking martial law, and seizing the election equipment, in order for Trump to cling to power, and make presidential findings, to support that conduct.

Inside the 'unhinged' West Wing meeting on Dec. 18
by Barbara Sprunt
NPR
July 12, 20223:16 PM ET


Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone is seen on a video display during the seventh hearing held by the House Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday. Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

In its seventh public hearing, the House select committee detailed an explosive meeting at the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, in which outside advisers to then-President Donald Trump and White House officials clashed over election fraud conspiracy theories and plots to keep Trump in power.

The committee meticulously reconstructed the meeting, playing clips of sworn testimony from various participants, including White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who met with the committee behind closed doors on Friday.

The chaotic White House meeting took place four days after electors met across the country and made Joe Biden the president-elect, and lasted over six hours, beginning in the Oval Office and ending in Trump's private residence.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who co-led Tuesday's hearing, described how attorney Sidney Powell, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne and former national security adviser Michael Flynn accessed the White House with the help of a junior staffer and spoke with Trump alone for 10-15 minutes before White House officials learned of the meeting and made their way to join.

"I bet Pat Cipollone set a new land speed record," Powell said of the White House Counsel.

For his part, Cipollone expressed frustration at the group assembled before the president, telling the committee he "was not happy to see the people in the Oval Office."

"First of all, the Overstock person, I didn't know who this guy was. Actually, the first thing I did, I walked in, I looked at him and I said, 'Who are you?' And he told me," he recounted. "I don't think any of these people were providing the president with good advice and I didn't understand how they had gotten in."

Derek Lyons, former White House staff secretary, said the two camps were "shouting at each other, throwing insults at each other — it wasn't just sort of people sitting around a couch chit-chatting."

Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said the outside group suggested that Venezuela had meddled with the election and that Nest brand thermostats hooked up to the internet were changing votes.

Cipollone recalled "pushing back" on the group of Trump's outside advisors by asking them to provide any evidence that the election was fraudulent.

He said the group showed a "general disregard for the importance of actually backing up what you say."

The outside group of Trump's advisors repeatedly accused the White House team of being too weak to further contest the election results.

"I would categorically describe it as: 'You guys aren't tough enough,' " former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said in a video clip of testimony.

"What they were proposing, I thought, was nuts," said Herschman, and recalled an exchange with Powell about the integrity of judges who had ruled on the Trump team's legal challenges.

"She says, 'Well, the judges are corrupt,' " he recounted. "I'm like — 'Every one? Every single case in the country you guys lost? Every one of them is corrupt? Even the ones we appointed?' I'm being nice, I was much more harsh to her."

Raskin displayed texts from Cassidy Hutchinson — who has already delivered bombshell testimony before the committee — describing the meeting to Tony Ornato, then-White House deputy chief of staff for operations, saying, "the West Wing is unhinged."

The committee also shared a photograph Hutchinson took of then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows escorting Giulinai off-campus "to make sure he didn't wander back into the mansion."

Cipollone also testified that he spoke out against a plan to appoint Powell as a special counsel in charge of investigating seized voting machines and prosecuting election-related crimes.

"I was vehemently opposed," he said. "I didn't think she should be appointed anything."

It was in the hours after this meeting that Trump tweeted that his supporters should come to D.C. on Jan. 6: "Be there, will be wild!"

So they were up to the point of Presidential findings to support martial law, and that's in this cache of documents currently being withheld, but soon to be sent over to the lawyers in the Shaye Moss/Ruby Freeman civil defamation case. You see how I said at the top of this hot-take -- civil cases as a byproduct pay dividends that can be used in a criminal case. And we're seeing it here. Boris Epstein -- there's somebody who's likely to be indicted very soon by Jack Smith -- is currently a lawyer for Donald Trump, and that never stopped. Everybody else who was a lawyer for Donald Trump is either getting indicted, arrested, or put in jail, and Boris Epstein is probably next on that list based on his conduct. He, Bernie Kerik, Jason Miller -- a very close advisor to Donald Trump -- and Christina Bobb, are having texts and emails all during the relevant time-period. The head of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel -- come on down. You're going to be caught up in this conspiracy.

Ronna McDaniel
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/12/23


Ronna Romney McDaniel

Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee
Incumbent
Assumed office: January 19, 2017
Preceded by: Reince Priebus
Chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party
In office: February 21, 2015 – January 19, 2017
Preceded by: Bobby Schostak
Succeeded by: Ronald Weiser
Personal details
Born: Ronna Romney, March 20, 1973 (age 50), Austin, Texas, U.S.
Political party: Republican
Spouse: Patrick McDaniel
Children: 2
Parents: Scott Romney; Ronna Stern
Relatives: Romney family
Education: Brigham Young University (BA)

Ronna McDaniel (née Romney; born March 20, 1973) is an American politician and political strategist serving as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) since 2017. A member of the Republican Party and the Romney family, she was chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party from 2015 to 2017. Since McDaniel's 2017 election as chairwoman of the RNC, the Republican Party has had a net loss of seven governorships, three seats in the United States Senate, 19 seats in the House of Representatives, and the presidency. In December 2022, Axios wrote that McDaniel "has thus far failed to preside over a single positive election cycle."[1]

A granddaughter of Michigan Governor and businessman George W. Romney and a niece of Massachusetts Governor and U.S. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, McDaniel has been known for her prolific fundraising and staunch support for President Donald Trump as RNC chair.[2][3] Under her leadership, the RNC ran ads for Trump's 2020 campaign as early as 2018, put numerous Trump campaign workers and affiliates on the RNC payroll, spent considerable funds at Trump-owned properties, covered his legal fees in the Russian interference investigation, hosted Trump's Fake News Awards, and criticized Trump critics within the Republican Party.[2]

After Joe Biden won the 2020 election and Trump refused to concede, McDaniel and the RNC made claims of voter fraud[4] and attempted to overturn Biden's victory. In 2022, she orchestrated a censure of Republicans who participated in a bipartisan committee to investigate the January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.[5] The censure characterized the violent pro-Trump mob as having engaged in "legitimate political discourse".[5][6] During its fourth public hearing, the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack presented a video excerpt of a deposition from McDaniel where she revealed that, at the request of Trump and John Eastman, she had the RNC help organize fake electors for the Trump fake electors plot.[7]

Early life and education

McDaniel was born Ronna Romney on March 20, 1973,[8] in Austin, Texas. The third of five children born to Ronna Stern Romney and Scott Romney, the older brother of Mitt Romney, McDaniel is a granddaughter of three-term Michigan Governor George W. Romney. Her mother ran for the U.S. Senate in 1996 against Carl Levin, served on the Republican National Committee, and was a delegate to the 1988 Republican National Convention. Romney's grandmother, Lenore Romney, ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970.[9] McDaniel has said her career in politics was inspired by her family.[10]

She attended Lahser High School in Bloomfield Township, Oakland County, Michigan,[9] and earned an undergraduate degree in English from Brigham Young University.[11][12]

Career

McDaniel worked for SRCP Media as a production manager. She also worked for the production company Mills James as a business manager and as a manager at the staffing firm Ajilon.[13]

McDaniel worked in Michigan for her uncle Mitt's 2012 campaign for President of the United States. She was elected Michigan's representative to the Republican National Committee (RNC) in 2014.[13] In 2015, McDaniel ran to be chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, receiving support from both the party establishment and Tea Party activists. At the party's convention in February 2015, she defeated Norm Hughes and Kim Shmina, receiving 55% of the vote in the first ballot. She succeeded Bobby Schostak as chairwoman and stepped down from her position at the RNC.[14][13]

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, McDaniel served as a delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention for Donald Trump.[14] Following the 2016 presidential election, McDaniel became a candidate to chairwoman the Republican National Committee.[15] McDaniel was an early supporter of Donald Trump. McDaniel had activist Wendy Day removed from her party position as grassroots vice-chairwoman due to her refusal to support Trump.[16]

RNC chairwoman

Election as chairwoman


Ronna McDaniel at the 2018 Young Women's Leadership Summit

On November 13, 2016, Reince Priebus, chairman of the RNC, was announced as the new White House Chief of Staff, thereby turning the RNC chairman election into an open seat election. Soon afterward, several candidates were reported as likely to seek the position, including McDaniel.[17] On December 14, 2016, McDaniel was chosen by then president-elect Trump as his recommendation to replace Priebus.[18][2] She served as deputy chairwoman before her formal election.[16] She was officially elected as RNC chairwoman on January 19, 2017 by unanimous vote, becoming the second woman (after Mary Louise Smith) in RNC history to hold the post.[19] According to The Washington Post, Trump requested that she stop using her maiden name, and McDaniel subsequently did not use it in official communications.[20] McDaniel denies that Trump pressured her to change the name.[12]

McDaniel was re-elected as RNC chairwoman in unanimous elections in both 2019 and 2021, with the endorsement of Trump in both elections.[21][22]

On January 27, 2023, McDaniel was re-elected to stand as the Chairwoman for the RNC going into the 2024 US presidential election, fending off challenges from Harmeet Dhillon and Mike Lindell and winning a fourth term. After her victory, McDaniel stated that she would not seek a fifth term as RNC Chairwoman.[23][24][25][26] She is the longest-served RNC chairwoman since the Civil War.[27]

Fundraising efforts

In 2018, McDaniel spent up to six hours daily calling donors. Under McDaniel's leadership, the RNC had what The Washington Post described as "a huge financial edge heading into the 2018 midterm elections".[28] As of January 2018, the RNC had almost $40 million banked while the Democratic National Committee had $6.3 million.[3] As of July 17, the Republican National Committee had raised about $213 million for the election cycle with $50.7 million in cash on hand and no debt. In comparison, the Democratic National Committee raised $101 million during the same period.[29] After many white suburban female voters switched to vote for Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, McDaniel said that the party would engage in a "deep data dive" to learn why.[30]

LGBT Issues

In 2021, McDaniel issued a statement supporting and celebrating LGBT Pride Month, but she did not issue a similar statement in 2022 and 2023 following backlash from social conservatives.[31] McDaniel had also announced the creation of the RNC Pride Coalition in coordination with the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of LGBTQ Republicans.[32][33] Following the backlash, she apologized for not communicating the initiative prior to the announcement and clarified that the Pride Coalition does not change the GOP's platform on same-sex marriage.[34] McDaniel also said that the initiative was not advocating for any policy issue or change to the platform.[35] She faced calls to resign from some state-level Republican leadership.[36] The RNC dismissed the calls for her to resign.[37]

Support for Trump

The New York Times described McDaniel as "unfailingly loyal to Trump".[3] According to a 2018 study in The Journal of Politics, under her leadership the RNC has sought to consistently promote Trump and his policies.[2] This includes running ads for Trump's 2020 campaign as early as in 2018, putting a considerable number of Trump campaign workers and affiliates on the RNC payroll, spending considerable funds at Trump-owned properties, covering Trump's legal fees in the Russian interference investigation, hosting Trump's "Fake News Awards", and harshly criticizing Trump critics within the Republican Party.[2] The day after Republican congressman Mark Sanford, known for his criticism of Trump, lost his primary against a pro-Trump candidate, McDaniel tweeted that those who do not embrace Trump's agenda "will be making a mistake".[38][39] In April 2018, McDaniel praised Trump as a "moral leader".[40]

Politico reported that after Trump endorsed Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore just days before the special Alabama Senate election, the White House influenced McDaniel to resume RNC funding for Moore, who lost in a narrow election to Democrat Doug Jones in December 2017. According to two people close to McDaniel, she privately complained about spending time and money on Moore's behalf. McDaniel was reportedly shocked by Trump's decision to endorse Moore but felt that she had little choice but to follow the president's wishes.[41]

In January 2019, Mitt Romney penned an editorial for The Washington Post criticizing President Trump's moral character. McDaniel said the editorial by her uncle, "an incoming Republican freshman senator", "feeds into what the Democrats and mainstream media want" and was "disappointing and unproductive".[42] In March 2019, McDaniel stated she would not support "the nicest, most moral person in the world" to be president if they were not "aligned with [her] politics".[43]

In May 2019, when House Representative Justin Amash became the first Republican member of Congress to call for Trump's impeachment, citing the evidence of obstruction of justice in the Mueller Report, McDaniel criticized Amash, saying he was "parroting the Democrats' talking points on Russia".[44] While she did not explicitly express support for a primary challenge against Amash, she tweeted, "voters in Amash's district strongly support this president".[45]

In September 2020, following the release of audio recordings from February 2020 where President Trump said he was intentionally downplaying the coronavirus, McDaniel defended Trump's handling of the coronavirus. She said, "history will look back on him well as how he handled this pandemic."[46]

By November 2021, RNC was still covering the legal fees for former president Trump related to investigations into his financial practices in New York.[47]

False claims of fraud in the 2020 election

By May 2020, the RNC had allocated $20 million to oppose Democratic lawsuits to make voting easier during the coronavirus pandemic, in particular expanding vote-by-mail to states that had not adopted it previously.[48][49] McDaniel accused Democrats of trying to "destroy" and "assault" the integrity of elections.[50][49] McDaniel said, "a national vote by mail system would open the door to a new set of problems, such as potential election fraud."[48] According to Deseret News, "Election experts say while voting by mail can be abused, it's rare and inconsequential."[48] In general, research has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the United States.[51]

In June 2020, McDaniel shared a RNC video warning about extensive voter fraud in the upcoming 2020 election due to expansions of vote-by-mail related to the coronavirus pandemic.[52] The Washington Post fact-checker wrote that the video "tortures the facts to create a narrative of an election about to be stolen. The illegality being satirized here is a phantom. State election officials, in many cases Republicans, are expanding vote-by-mail as a public health precaution to prevent the risk of spreading the coronavirus — not to rig the outcome."[52]

After Joe Biden won the 2020 election, McDaniel claimed without evidence that there was large-scale electoral fraud and voter fraud, and had the RNC promote falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the election.[53][54][55][56] At the same time that she was making baseless claims of fraud, President Trump endorsed her to continue to lead the RNC in the January 2021 RNC chairman election.[4][57][56]

In 2022, McDaniel led efforts within the RNC to censure Republican members of Congress Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who had voted to impeach Trump over his incitement of a pro-Trump mob in the U.S. Capitol attack and served on a bipartisan committee to investigate the attack.[58][5] Within the Republican Party, Cheney had a consistently conservative record, aside from her criticisms of Trump.[58] The censure that McDaniel orchestrated characterized the U.S. Capitol attack as "legitimate political discourse".[5]

Campaign donations controversies

In October 2017 after Harvey Weinstein, a major donor to the Democratic Party, was accused of sexual abuse, McDaniel said that "returning Weinstein's dirty money should be a no-brainer"; the Democratic Party did give away some of Weinstein's contributions. In January 2018, Steve Wynn resigned as RNC finance chairman after he was accused of sexual misconduct and McDaniel came under pressure to return his donations. McDaniel said that Wynn should be allowed "due process" and that his donations would only be returned after the allegations were investigated by the Wynn Resorts board of directors.[59][60][61] In May 2019, it was reported that Wynn had donated nearly $400,000 to the national Republican Party, most of it to the RNC, the previous month. In 2017, Wynn and his wife donated $375,000 to the RNC. As of May 2019, none of the money has been returned by the RNC. Steve Wynn has never been convicted of the allegations.[62][63]

In September 2019, McDaniel emailed Doug Manchester, whose nomination to become Ambassador to the Bahamas was stalled in the Senate, asking for $500,000 in donations to the Republican Party. Manchester responded, noting that his wife had given $100,000 and that his family would "respond" once he was confirmed by the Republican-led Senate to the ambassadorship. Manchester copied the email to aides of two U.S. senators whose support he needed to win confirmation. CBS News described McDaniel's action as a "possible pay-for-play scheme" for the ambassadorship.[64][65] The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in May 2021 that a federal grand jury had issued a subpoena in a criminal investigation into Manchester's nomination, apparently focused on the RNC, McDaniel and RNC co-chairman Tommy Hicks, and possibly members of Congress. The Union-Tribune reported the investigation began in 2020.[66]

Other controversies

Under McDaniel's leadership, the RNC set up a website in April 2018 which attacked and sought to undermine former FBI Director James Comey and called him "Lyin' Comey".[67] McDaniel said Comey was a liar and a leaker, and said that the RNC would "make sure the American people understand why he has no one but himself to blame for his complete lack of credibility".[67][68]

In late July 2018, McDaniel falsely[69][70] claimed that Twitter was shadow banning Republicans, including herself.[71] Twitter did not shadowban Republicans, but due to a glitch, several prominent conservative and left-leaning Twitter accounts were not automatically suggested in the site's drop-down search results.[72][73][71] Twitter responded, saying it would fix the bug.[74]

Politico reported in November 2018 that McDaniel called on the Republican candidate Martha McSally to be more aggressive during the ballot counting process in the Arizona Senate race. The Arizona Senate race remained undecided for several days after election night while all ballots were being accounted in a close contest.[75] McSally held a lead by the end of election night, but her lead narrowed over the next few days, as more ballots were counted.[75] Reportedly, the McSally campaign was being pressured from McDaniel for not being aggressive enough.[75][76][77]

On May 13, 2020 ProPublica reported that big RNC contracts were awarded by McDaniel to companies closely connected to her.[78] Contracts went to her husband's company and companies that supported her 2015 run for the chairmanship of the Republican Party in Michigan.[78]

On October 18, 2020, McDaniel refused to condemn QAnon on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.[79]

On October 27, 2022, McDaniel openly mocked prominent Democratic politicians such as then-Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania and U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman and President Joe Biden for suffering speech impediments. Fetterman was recovering from a stroke at the time.[80]

Personal life

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,[81] she has two children with her husband, Patrick McDaniel.[9] They live in Northville, Michigan.[11]

And then there's somebody interesting -- and I'm going to put a tweet up on this one -- Mirna Tarraf, who people are saying at home, Popok, you've lost your mind. Who is Mirna Tarraf? Well, according to Jenna Ellis in a tweet that she put out, she, Jenna Ellis -- and I gotta get you the rest of this list, because it's just fascinating, were all part of a phony election integrity board that was formed by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani to run around as if they were trying to protect the election, and not steal it, from Joe Biden and the voters. And on this board, which are all part of this chain of conspiracy and in the emails and text messages of Rudy Giuliani, here's the list on the tweet: Jenna Ellis; Ken Paxton, the soon to be impeached Attorney General of Texas; RealPNavarro -- Peter Navarro, who's also a subject, if not a target of criminal investigation by Jack Smith because of his role in the fake electors scandal; Bernie Kerik -- we've talked about him already; Seb Gorka, right-wing extremist; and Mirna Tarraf. Good for you Mirna. Glad to see that Rudy Giuliani had to now throw you under the bus, and properly reveal these things

Jenna Ellis · May 5, 2021
@JennaEllisEsq
NEW: The Election Integrity Alliance
We are continuing the work to restore American election integrity through a central hub of allies.
National Board Members:
@JennaEllisEsq
@KenPaxtonTX
@RealPNavarro
@BarnardKerik
@SebGorka
@donnelly_mp
@mirnatarraf

Trump attorney, other allies launch voter fraud organization
The Election Integrity Alliance’s board includes former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis and other notable supporters.

Jenna Ellis
@JennaEllisEsq
Join us at http://AmericanGreatnessFund.com

Trump attorney, other allies launch voter fraud organization: The Election Integrity Alliance’s board includes former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis and other notable supporters.
by Alex Isenstadt
05/05/2021 04:30 AM EDT
Updated: 05/06/2021 12:01 PM EDT


Jenna Ellis, a former member of Donald Trump's legal team, speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

Former President Donald Trump has been fixated on election fraud since leaving the White House, and now a group of prominent allies are launching a new initiative focused on it.

The American Greatness Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group aligned with the ex-president, is set to unveil the formation of the Election Integrity Alliance on Wednesday, which it says will be “focused on ending election fraud and strengthening election safeguards by providing information, resources, endorsements of allies’ efforts, and solutions to secure free and fair elections.”

Ballot fraud has become an animating issue for Trump supporters, since the former president has baselessly claimed the 2020 election was tainted by it. Several of the alliance’s board members, including former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik became prominent voices in the former president’s failed effort to fight the election outcome.


State Attorney General Ken Paxton waits on the flight line. | AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez

“The Election Integrity Alliance’s National Board is comprised of individuals who have fought for election integrity at great personal risk and who are champions for free and fair elections,” the organization said in a statement.

People familiar with the project say it is intended to be a centralized hub for providing information on issues related to ballot fraud and election security. It is also aimed at coordinating with other organizations that are focused on election integrity.

American Greatness Fund, which was founded by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, is part of an ever-expanding web of Trump-aligned advocacy groups that have popped up since the 2020 election. Former Trump senior advisers Brooke Rollins and Larry Kudlow have started the America First Policy Institute; Ben Carson, who served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump administration, has launched the American Cornerstone Institute; Russ Vought, who oversaw Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, has unveiled the Center for Renewing America.

Another recent entrant is former Trump speechwriter Stephen Miller, who has formed America First Legal, an outfit aimed at combating the Biden White House.

Conservatives say they view the groups as key in a broader effort to match a formidable liberal “dark money” machine. The Conservative Policy Institute, an organization overseen by Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and ex-South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint which provides support to non-profit groups, convened a group of major donors at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last month to discuss a path forward.

CLARIFICATION: This report has been updated with the new name of Russ Vought’s group, which was founded as the Center for American Restoration and changed its name to the Center for Renewing America.

Now I said at the top of this hot-take that his privilege log was garbage. Privilege log garbage. Why? Because I've been doing this for 33 years, and in a privilege log you have to list enough data and information not to reveal the privilege you're allegedly protecting -- if you do have such a privilege -- and enough for the judge, and the other side, to be able to have a coherent conversation about what the document is. So you don't have to reveal the privilege, but if you have a document -- I'll give you an example -- if Rudy Giuliani emailed Donald Trump to talk about the fake elector scandal, then it should be listed on the privilege log as author: Giuliani; recipient: Donald Trump; CC's: if there are any list them; subject matter: then you'd have to come up with something that doesn't reveal the privilege, like elector certificates in battleground states -- that would be enough; and then the date of that. And then you have to give it what's called a Bates number, a serial number at the bottom that's assigned to the case by the lawyers so they can keep track of these things. And then you can have this debate, and the judge can take a look at it in camera, which is again, she gets to see it first, not the other side, and then make the decision. But his log -- I will put up one page of it -- his log is completely incoherent. Sometimes he doesn't even list the people's last names. He's like "Andrew." I assume one of the texts is with his son Andrew Giuliani, with all these other people, which would effectively waive the privilege, but who knows? He puts "Michael." What's interesting is there doesn't seem to be any text with POTUS, with Trump, which is totally ridiculous. The other thing that is hanging Rudy Giuliani on a short rope of his own making is that -- let me tell you that in cases, lawyers go out to get documents from third parties. It's called "Third-party discovery practice." You use a subpoena, and you go to somebody like Christina Bobb and say, "give me all the documents you have of communications with Rudy Giuliani." And she produced those, and so did other people. And the problem for Rudy is they produced things that he didn't produce, which means he's hiding them, or he's lost them. And that's what the lawyers have said in their motion for sanctions, "We don't know if he destroyed them, if he has them, or if he doesn't have them." But it doesn't matter, because he had an obligation to preserve them. And the Judge, in the March, April, and May hearings, warned him that he needed to preserve them. And his lawyers have come to court and said. "Well, we think he preserved them. We're not sure if he preserved them. Maybe he preserved them." Wrong. These are the wrong responses in federal court, to a federal judge.

And then let me just bring it full circle. The federal judge that's presiding over this case is Beryl Howell. For those that follow LegalAF, and hot-takes like mine regularly, that name will ring a bell. She was until recently the chief judge of the DC circuit court. And when she's not trying civil cases like this one, she had responsibility over all of the grand juries, including Jack Smith's grand juries. That's my stage voice, my stage whisper. And in that capacity she evaluated whether, for instance, the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege applied to strip Donald Trump from attorney-client privilege, and therefore have those documents go to the government, because they were no longer covered by privilege. And she forced lawyers like Pat Cipollone, White House General counselor; White House counsel Eric Herschmann; Deputy White House counsel; ultimately Rudy Giuliani; Evan Corcoran; Christina Bobb, and found that they had to testify. Donald Trump couldn't stop it because Donald Trump was more likely than not participating in a crime or fraud concerning the Mar-A-Lago documents, for example, and therefore did not have the attorney-client privilege. There's a good way to sum up in one sentence, and three uses of privilege. The same thing could happen here. This judge is educated. She has a learning curve when it comes to crime-fraud for Trump and others. So if the lawyers don't get the default judgment that they want, and they go for these documents, which they're going to tell the judge that "even if you found that there was an initial proper assertion of privilege over them, judge, there's the crime-fraud exception. They're all participating in a crime. You know that from the work that you did, your honor, related to Jack Smith's prosecutions." You see how this civil criminal ecosystem, this flow, these trade winds, all kind of run into each other. And that's what we're talking about here on this hot-take.

So to summarize, civil cases help criminal cases because discovery sometimes is even more extensive there. And you get golden nuggets that tumble out just the way that the Dominion case against Fox News -- right? -- created dividends for Jack Smith, and also got Tucker Carlson fired. Same thing here. The Ruby Freeman/Shaye Moss case -- which should have been settled a long time ago by Rudy Giuliani. In fact the lawyers even mentioned that he had the potential for a settlement in his hands, and he let it slip through because he's cheap, and he's stupid. And I don't care what he was in the 90s in New York, because that's what he is today. And he's soon to be a disgraced former lawyer, a disgrace to the profession. So they said, "Oh well, he had it. He could have had a settlement with us, but he blew it, just like he's blowing the case." We shouldn't even be talking about documents that they obtained. We wouldn't even know about them if he had settled the case. But Attention, Jack Smith! If you don't already have all the documents that they got in their discovery, go subpoena them, and I'm sure they'll turn them over that same day all the documents that Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman's lawyers have in their disposal, of what they got from Rudy Giuliani. And since you've already taken a Proffer-- remember, Rudy Giuliani went in two weeks ago and testified under oath, not to the grand jury, but to the Department of Justice and Jack Smith's team. He was given a Queen-for-the-day immunity, meaning as long as he doesn't lie at that moment, they won't use anything that he tells them against him if they decide to indict him. If they have the information independently, then there's no deal. But they won't use his exact words against him as long as he's telling the truth.

Now the prosecutors have to be wondering whether, based on these texts and emails that are now currently covered by privilege -- but they'll be able to see soon whether he was telling the truth, when he testified under oath to them, or if he wasn't. And when Rudy Giuliani -- not if -- is indicted, which I've already predicted on LegalAF, they will include a new count for lying under oath to the federal government when he came in, bringing to a conclusion my hot-take about how civil cases can positively impact criminal cases.

I do hot-takes just like this one, connecting dots that you see, and some that you don't even see, and I didn't even see, until I started preparing the hot-take, only on the MeidasTouch Network. We pull it all together in a long format podcast on YouTube. You can subscribe for free on the MeidasTouch Network. We call it Legal AF. I do it on Wednesdays, and I do it on Saturdays, with my co-anchors Ben Meiselas and Karen Friedman Agnifolo. I'm Michael Popok. You can follow me on all things social media, including Threads. This is Michael Popok, LegalAF, reporting.

[admin]

Trump receives a target letter in Jan. 6 special counsel investigation
by Caroline Linton, Robert Costa, Robert Legare, Graham Kates, Melissa Quinn, Fin Gomez
CBS News
UPDATED ON: JULY 18, 2023 / 5:48 PM / CBS NEWS

Former President Donald Trump posted on social media on Tuesday that he has received a letter indicating he is the target of a criminal investigation by a grand jury investigating attempts to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election.

Multiple sources confirmed to CBS News that the former president's post is accurate, and a senior Trump source said that Trump did receive a target letter on Sunday night to report to the grand jury, which was related to special counsel's Jan. 6 probe.

The former president said on Truth Social, his social media platform, that he had received a letter saying he's "a TARGET" of an investigation from special counsel Jack Smith Sunday night. Trump said he was given four days to report to the grand jury.

He repeated his claim that the special counsel is engaged in a "witch hunt" and criticized the investigation as a "complete and total political weaponization of law enforcement."

What is the special counsel investigating?

Smith, according to sources close to witnesses, is building a sprawling case focused on how Trump acted after he was informed by many of his allies — and especially his own lawyers — that claiming the election had been rigged could put him at legal risk.

Smith is also examining whether Trump criminally conspired to block congressional certification of the Electoral College votes by unlawfully applying what many of his attorneys told him was a baseless legal theory authored by constitutional scholar John Eastman as a means of asking then Vice President Mike Pence to not take steps to certify the election on Jan. 6, 2021, until further action was taken in several states.

At the same time, the special counsel is also probing how Trump pressured Republicans in states to consider sending alternate slates of electors declaring that he won Georgia and other states. Smith is also looking into any efforts by Trump to urge state officials and governors to make statements to make it seem like there was a basis for overturning Mr. Biden's victories in those states.

Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani's efforts to assist Trump with his election fraud claims have been extensively discussed in questioning of witnesses, and the special counsel is building and expanding a chronology of Trump's pressure campaign with more evidence, according to the sources.

Giuliani has not received a target letter, according to his attorney, Robert Costello. Attorneys for Eastman also said their client has not received a target letter.

Sources close to the investigation believe Trump occupies the center of Smith's investigation, as a driver and instigator, not as an accomplice, though possible charges against the former president are not yet clear. The focus on conspiracy and fraud, however, suggests where the special counsel could be leaning.

The special counsel's office has examined a meeting at the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, where Trump talked about bringing in attorney Sidney Powell as special counsel at the White House and seizing voting machines by an executive order.

Earlier this month, CBS News' Robert Costa reported special counsel investigators are digging into whether Trump believed the fraudulent claims of election fraud raised at that meeting, weeks ahead of Jan. 6, even though White House lawyers told him in person that night — and after — the claims were not true.

Several members of Trump's inner circle have testified as part of the special counsel's probe, including former Vice President Mike Pence, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, national security adviser Robert O'Brien, top aide Stephen Miller and close ally Steve Bannon.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump asked in a phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, to "find" 11,780 votes — just enough to give Georgia's electoral votes to the former president — has also testified in the probe.

In addition to the attempts to "find" votes in Georgia, a group of phony electors from battleground states won by President Biden met in December 2020 and signed a certificate falsely declaring that Trump had won the presidential election in their states and that they themselves were the state's "duly elected and qualified" electors.

Ahead of the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump also publicly pressured Pence to "do the right thing" and refuse to accept the election results. At a rally near the White House ahead of the joint session, Trump encouraged followers to "walk down" to the Capitol to support him as Congress conducted the largely ceremonial affirmation of the Electoral College votes.

Thousands of Trump's supporters then stormed the Capitol, and lawmakers were sent fleeing amid the violence, delaying the certification of the election results for hours. Pence finally announced Mr. Biden as the winner of the election after 1 a.m. on Jan. 7.

Other investigations into Trump

Smith was appointed last November by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate not only the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol but also Trump's handling of national defense-related documents since leaving office. In June, Trump and longtime aide Walt Nauta were charged with multiple federal felony counts related to the documents. Trump pleaded not guilty on June 13 to the 37 charges against him.

A special purpose grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, earlier this year wrapped up its investigation into alleged attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said she will announce decisions on possible charges related to that investigation this summer.

Trump has also separately been charged in New York for allegedly falsifying business records in connection to a "hush money" payout to porn star Stormy Daniels. He pleaded not guilty in April to those state charges.

What is a target letter?

Target letters are sent by federal prosecutors to individuals to inform them of their status in a criminal investigation. The Justice Department defines a "target" as "a person as to whom the prosecutor or the grand jury has substantial evidence linking him or her to the commission of a crime and who, in the judgment of the prosecutor, is a putative defendant."

This differs from being the "subject" of an investigation — a person whose conduct is "within the scope of the grand jury's investigation."

Sending a target letter is often one of the final steps a prosecutor will take before charging a person with a federal crime.

A target letter can also be sent to an individual who is being required to testify before a grand jury.