2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[N.E. Brigand]

The Republicans relented and certified the results. They just needed to make fools of themselves and the rest of us first, I guess.

I was just coming to post that, but you beat me to it!

Have you seen anything in which the Republican chair of the board, Monica Palmer, or the other GOP member, explained why they switched their position (other than that they needed to make fools of themselves first)?

I believe that their initial decision was followed by a period of public commentary (via video) from hundreds of people who didn't hold back.

This seems to be an example.

Interesting point he makes about Palmer having said she would be willing to certify all of Wayne County except for Detroit (which is 80% black) despite the fact that Livonia (which is 95% white) apparently had worse discrepancies. "Your grandchildren are going to think of you like Bull Conner or George Wallace."

In between the two votes, reporters learned that the other Republican board member, William Hartmann, likes to post questionable memes and conspiracy theories.

Detroit News: "Trump recorded pressuring Wayne County canvassers not to certify 2020 vote."

Then-President Donald Trump personally pressured two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by The Detroit News and revealed publicly for the first time.

On a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, which also involved Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, they'd look "terrible" if they signed the documents after they first voted in opposition and then later in the same meeting voted to approve certification of the county’s election results, according to the recordings.

"We've got to fight for our country," said Trump on the recordings, made by a person who was present for the call with Palmer and Hartmann. "We can't let these people take our country away from us."

As previously noted in this thread, Hartmann died of Covid-19 in Dec. 2021.

[N.E. Brigand]

Michigan's Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, says that from her perspective:

the absolute lowest moment in the post-election battle we endured to protect Michigan’s accurate and legitimate election results in 2020 was not when armed protestors stormed my home. It was the night of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting. I distinctly remember coming home that evening feeling completely defeated. We knew about the pressure not to certify (though until tonight I did not know about the recording). We were prepared to go to court to successfully ensure certification at the local and state level - and we were confident we’d win in court. But blocking certification in Wayne County and pushing this to the courts would still delay and create enough doubt and uncertainty to enable the Trump campaign to push Pennsylvania, which was certifying the next week, to delay as well. And we knew other dominos would fall after that.

While Benson didn't know about this newly-revealed recorded call, she was aware that President Trump was pressuring officials. She credits the caustic public commentary I mentioned at the time as the turning point.

I hadn't read deeply into the Detroit story yesterday. I noticed that Ronna McDaniel (the Republican Party chair) was on the fourteen-minute call that then-President Trump made to these county election officials, but I hadn't observed that she told them, "If you can go home tonight, do not sign it" (i.e., the election certification) and "We will get you attorneys".

[N.E. Brigand]

NBC reports about how "Jan. 6 rioters the far right claimed were antifa keep getting unmasked as Trump supporters. Misinformation about the Capitol attack continues to go viral on the right, but the claims are slowly getting debunked, federal case by federal case."

One example is William Lewis of Illinois, who was charged only last month "with felony counts of assaulting officers and civil disorder. Lewis was wearing mostly black and used 'what appears to be a baton' to smash in a Capitol window ... Lewis also deployed what appeared to be a can of wasp and hornet spray at officers on three separate occasions on Jan. 6," per the charging documents.

For three years, right-wing conspiracy theorists claimed that footage of the then-unidentified Lewis breaking windows revealed a member of Antifa who was there to make Donald Trump's supporters look bad. Nope. Lewis's social media feed includes "anti-Hunter Biden memes, a celebration of the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett, reposts of both Donald Trump Jr. and then-Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, as well as praise for former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany: 'Savage, Patriot, Fearless, Warrior .'"

[N.E. Brigand]

Politico reports that Col. Earl Matthews, fromerly with the National Guard in the District of Columbia, has provided the House Select Committee investigating January 6 with a 36-page memo claiming that a Dept. of Defense inspector general report on the events of January 6 was whitewashed and that two generals (Charles Flynn and Walter Piatt) lied to Congress about what happened on that day.

Charles Flynn is one brother of the former National Security Director and undisclosed Turkish lobbyist Michael Flynn. There have been questions raised before about Gen. Charles Flynn's role on January 6, but previously, to my knowledge, no suggestion of impropriety.

Now there is ... Previously there was mainly some astonishment that the brother of Trump's felonious former factotum was among the military decision makers that day.

More than two years later, the New York Times has new reporting about Col. Matthews's testimony.

[N.E. Brigand]

Mother Jones has obtained audio of Steve Bannon on Oct. 31, 2020 discussing election strategy with Guo Wengui, the exiled Chinese billionaire on whose yacht Bannon had been arrested earlier that year. The article is titled "Bannon Bragged That He Used Porn to Help Smear Hunter Biden." Bannon praised Guo's "editorial creativity" in mixing apparently genuine explicit content from Hunter's laptop -- which Bannon says he gave to Guo (apparently having received it from Rudy Giuliani?) -- with "false claims about the material":

First, [Guo] told [his staff who were posting the material online] to say the files included images of Hunter Biden with underage Chinese girls. There is no evidence at all supporting this allegation. Second, Guo told subordinates to claim that the Chinese government had obtained the material and used it to blackmail Hunter and his father, Joe Biden. That, too, was a lie, people involved in publishing the material told me.

In the recordings, Bannon also says -- more than a week before the election -- that the lies Guo spread about Hunter Biden were keeping Donald Trump close enough in the polls that Joe Biden would not be able to win in a blowout, which meant that Trump could adopt his backup "strategy" of claiming that there was fraud and declaring victory even if he was behind in the votes. Bannon went on: "So my point is, any peaceful resolution of this [election] is probably gone."

I'd never encountered the term "Faraday bag" before reading today's news about Guo Wengui (real name Ho Wan Kwok), the exiled Chinese billionaire and Steve Bannon's erstwhile funder and host. Guo was charged today in a $1 billion fraud scheme. In a request for detention, the government explains:

"A faraday bag is a type of shielding device or enclosure that blocks the passage of radio frequency emissions and is used to, among other things, prevent electronic devices from electronic surveillance by blocking the transmission of radio waves that may be used to intercept or listen in on communications."

It turns out that the government searched Guo's home in 2019 in connection with some other unrelated investigation, and in that search they found some 96 cell phones, "44 of which were located inside Faraday bags in safes."

Additional charges have been brought against Steve Bannon's backer, Guo Wengui. "Bannon is not referenced in the indictment, but the companies that he promoted and ran with Guo are."

[N.E. Brigand]

I appreciate this little graphic from the New York Times:

[N.E. Brigand]

"Then-President Donald Trump's campaign directly orchestrated the filing of a certificate, signed by 16 Michigan Republicans, that falsely claimed he won the state's 2020 election, according to internal campaign emails obtained by The Detroit News."

[N.E. Brigand]

Earlier today, a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a unanimous opinion written by Judge Karen Henderson (a Bush Sr. appointee), upheld the convictions and sentence issued to a Jan. 6th defendant by District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan (an Obama appointee).

This is interesting because next week, Judge Henderson is on the panel hearing Donald Trump's appeal of Judge Chutkan's ruling that he does not have immunity.

But it's also interesting for other reasons. The defendant, Russell Alford, was sentenced to a year's imprisonment after being convicted by a jury of "disorderly or disruptive conduct" even though, as Judge Henderson writes, the "trial evidence indicated that, during Alford's brief time within the Capitol, he was neither violent nor destructive." That doesn't matter, writes Judge Henderson, "because a jury could rationally find that his unauthorized presence in the Capitol as part of an unruly mob contributed to the disruption of the Congress's electoral certifications and jeopardized public safety."

[N.E. Brigand]

Carlos Ayala, a member of Maryland's state board of elections in Maryland, has resigned "after being being charged this week with a felony and multiple misdemeanor counts for allegedly joining an effort to breach the Senate Wing doors on Jan. 6."

[N.E. Brigand]

Republicans in swing districts are distancing themselves from MAGA claims that the January 6th defendants are "hostages."

[N.E. Brigand]

It turns out that Joe Biden's margin of victory over Donald Trump in 2020 was 3,975 votes greater than previously known.

In 2022, Virginia's new Attorney General, Jason Miyares, a Republican, created an Election Integrity Unit, as he had promised to do during the 2021 campaign in an effort to appeal to right-wing election deniers. The unit found evidence to support just one criminal prosecution, but it seemed serious: in 2022, they charged Michelle White, the registrar of Prince William County in northern Virginia with two felonies -- corrupt conduct and making a false statement -- and one misdemeanor: willful neglect of duty. At the time, the unit provided very few public details about the charges beyond saying that they pertained to the 2020 election and they didn't affect the outcome of any race in that election.

But last month the felony charges were dropped after the unit got new evidence and a witness revised testimony, and last week the midemeanor charge was dropped too.

There were a number of errors in the Prince William count, but in the end it seems they were not deliberate.

In a statement, the county's current registrar, Eric Olsen, emphasized that the mistakes did not come close to affecting the outcome of any race and “did not consistently favor one party or candidate but were likely due to a lack of proper planning, a difficult election environment, and human error.”

In the presidential race, the county mistakenly shorted Biden by 1,648 votes, and overreported Trump's count by 2,327 votes. The 3,975-vote error in the margin of victory was immaterial in a contest that Biden won by 450,000 votes in Virginia and by more than 60,000 votes in Prince William County.

In the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Mark Warner was shorted by 1,589 votes and Republican Daniel Gade was shorted by 107 votes. Warner won statewide by more than 500,000 votes.

And in a U.S. House race, Republican Robert Wittman was shorted by 293 votes. He won by more than 80,000.

[N.E. Brigand]

In Politico: "Trump signals intent to block testimony in Jeff Clark disciplinary proceedings."

I still don't get how executive privilege works. If I work for a President, and I'm later called to testify about conversations I had with the President, and the President says no, why can't I just say, "I don't care: I'm testifying anyway"? What possible punishment could I face? Nobody ever points to a law against disclosing the content of these conversations. What if the courts uphold the privilege and bar me from testifying, but I then write it all down in a post here at HOF? Do the courts have to pretend this thread doesn't exist? Does V get sued by the government for publishing my words?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I certainly hope not!

More seriously, I would think that you would risk being held in contempt if you violated a court order holding that conversations that you had with the president were privileged, up to and including being imprisoned.

[N.E. Brigand]

I certainly hope not!

More seriously, I would think that you would risk being held in contempt if you violated a court order holding that conversations that you had with the president were privileged, up to and including being imprisoned.

Thanks. I guess I should look up some examples for myself to see if that's ever happened. It seems to me that the court would have to rule not only that the information was privileged (and thus inadmissible) but also to impose a gag order forbidding any public disclosure of what was said.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not aware of any such circumstances but I wouldn't necessarily.

[N.E. Brigand]

Are you going to January 6th?
Parsley, sage, bear spray, and thyme?

Politico reporter Kyle Cheney notes the Dept. of Justice cites these diary pages (and more) in the sentencing memo for their author, Felicia Konold:



She was also proud to be part of the first force who "occupied the Capitol building in Washington since the British."

[N.E. Brigand]

A judge issued one of the longer January 6th sentences today to Marc Bru, who is associated with the Proud Boys and who apparently told police officers that day, "You'll die for the corporation!" as he shoved the barricades. The Dept. of Justice alerted the judge today that Bru has been regularly calling a pro-Jan. 6th protest group and that Bru told that group just yesterday that "I'm going to turn to the marshals and command them to arrest the judge and the prosecutor for human trafficking."

The judge sentenced Bru to six years' imprisonment.

[RoseMorninStar]

We really need more mental health assistance in this country.

[N.E. Brigand]

The jury has been deliberating since before lunchtime in Peter Navarro's contempt of congress case. They have already deliberated longer than the 2 and a half hours that another jury took to convict Steve Bannon on the same charge.

ETA: But it looks like there might be a verdict.

As your next post after that one in September noted, Peter Navarro was found guilty.

And just now, the judge sentenced Navarro to four months in prison.

[N.E. Brigand]

The jury has been deliberating since before lunchtime in Peter Navarro's contempt of congress case. They have already deliberated longer than the 2 and a half hours that another jury took to convict Steve Bannon on the same charge.

ETA: But it looks like there might be a verdict.

As your next post after that one in September noted, Peter Navarro was found guilty.

And just now, the judge sentenced Navarro to four months in prison.

That's the same sentence that was issued to Steve Bannon. (Bannon is appealing and the sentence was stayed pending the outcome of that.) And speaking of Bannon, the judge pointed to the fact that when Navarro refused to comply with the subpoena, it was already two months after Bannon had been indicted for the same.

Navarro declined to speak on his own behalf today. When Navarro's lawyer pointed to another Trump aide, Dan Scavino, who also refused to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6th Committee and was not referred for contempt, the judge said: that's just more evidence against your argument that this was a political prosecution. (Scavino's role was more formal than Navarro's or Bannon's, and thus he would have a better argument about executive privilege.)