Category: 2020 Election

St. Cloud ‘Boogaloo Bois’ member charged with planning attack on Minnesota Capitol

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Boogaloo Bois member from St. Cloud is accused of plotting strike in St. Paul. 

Federal agents in Minnesota have arrested a St. Cloud man who claims allegiance to anti-government Boogaloo Bois and plotted a violent attack on the Minnesota State Capitol earlier this year, according to charges unsealed in Minnesota U.S. District Court on Wednesday.

Last December, Michael Paul Dahlager, 27, traveled to a “Stop the Steal” rally at the Capitol in St. Paul to take video of law enforcement numbers, scout tactical positions for the Boogaloo Bois and note which streets were being blocked off, according to the criminal complaint. He told a confidential informant, who recorded the conversation for the FBI, he was conducting reconnaissance for an attack on Jan. 17. Rallies to protest President Joe Biden’s election were planned for that date by a nonviolent group of Donald Trump supporters.

After the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Minnesota erected a fence around the Capitol, and hundreds of state police officers — which Dahlager called an “army” — stood guard on the perimeter in response to threats of more attacks. Continue reading.

There’s a surprising ending to all the 2020 election conflicts over absentee ballot deadlines

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One of the most heavily contested voting-policy issues in the 2020 election, in both the courts and the political arena, was the deadline for returning absentee ballots.

Going into the election, the policy in a majority of states was that ballots had to be received by election night to be valid. Lawsuits seeking an extension of these deadlines were brought around the country for two reasons: First, because of the pandemic, the fall election would see a massive surge in absentee ballots; and second, there were concerns about the competence and integrity of the U.S. Postal Service, particularly after President Trump appointed a major GOP donor as the new postmaster general.

The issue produced the Supreme Court’s most controversial decision  during the general election, which prohibited federal courts from extending the ballot-receipt deadlines in state election codes. Now that the data are available, a post-election audit provides perspective on what the actual effects of these deadlines turned out to be. Continue reading.

Arizona GOP Hires Conspiracy Theorist To Conduct Third 2020 Election ‘Audit’

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Arizona Senate President Karen Fann announced that she has hired Cyber Ninjas, a firm led by a Donald Trump supporter who was active in pushing “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, to conduct an audit of the state’s election results.

This is the third audit to be conducted in the state as Republicans continue to push the lie that the election was stolen from Trump due to mass voter fraud — a lie that’s been debunked multiple times by the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and two previous audits of Arizona’s ballots.

Fann said the third audit will consist of a full hand recount of 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state and formerly a Republican stronghold. Continue reading.

Florida firm hired to oversee Maricopa County, Arizona vote audit promoted Trump’s debunked election fraud lies

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Once a deep red state that was synonymous with the GOP conservatism of Sen. Barry Goldwater and his successor, Sen. John McCain, Arizona has evolved into a swing state where Democrats won the 2020 presidential election and now occupy both of its U.S. Senate seats. Democrats have fared especially well in Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix — and the Arizona State Senate has hired a technology company to oversee a recount of 2020 general election ballots in that county. According to the Arizona Republic, that company, the Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, has a history of promoting bogus election fraud claims.

Arizona Republic reporters Andrew Oxford, Jen Fifield and Ryan Randazzo explain, “Cyber Ninjas will lead a team that includes three other firms as part of a $150,000 contract the Senate has awarded to conduct an unprecedented audit of the election results in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county. But a deleted Twitter account that appears to belong to Cyber Ninjas founder Doug Logan suggests he has already made up his mind about the security of Arizona’s elections. It includes a litany of unsubstantiated allegations about fraud in the last election.”

A Twitter post that Logan shared in late 2020, according to the Arizona Republic reporters, read, “I’m tired of hearing people say there was no fraud. It happened, it’s real, and people better get wise fast.” And Logan, they add, “also appears to have shared posts by Sidney Powell, an attorney who supported former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results, and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about the last election.” Continue reading.

Trump Lawyer Who Urged Executing Pence Seeks GOP Chair

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Lin Wood, the far-right, pro-Trump attorney who lost multiple lawsuits attempting to overturn the 2020 election, has announced he is running to be chair of the South Carolina Republican Party, the Post and Courier reported on Monday.

“My decision to run for the office was heavily influenced by my well known desire to reform local and state political parties and return power to the people,” Wood told the paper. “Here, I want to return power and control of the South Carolina Republican Party to the members of the party.”

Wood is now well-known for filing lie-filled legal challenges alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election, with zero evidence to back them up. Continue reading.

Accused Capitol rioter arrested in T-shirt reading ‘I was there’ with Trump’s photo, insurrection date

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When police showed up at Garret Miller’s Dallas home earlier this year to arrest him on charges that he had participated in the Capitol riot, his wardrobe spoke for itself.

The 34-year-old unemployed man, who allegedly forced his way into the U.S. Capitol building and threatened a congresswoman and a police officer, was clad in a T-shirt emblazoned with a photograph of former president Donald Trump and text declaring: “I Was There, Washington D.C., January 6, 2021.”

New details of his Jan. 20 arrest were revealed this week in court documents as prosecutors urged a judge not to release him before his trial, noting that he allegedly admitted to bringing a gun into the Capitol during the deadly insurrection. Police also found an array of weapons and gear in Miller’s house, prosecutors said, including a grappling hook, ropes, body armor, night vision goggles, a crossbow and arrows, and multiple firearms with ammunition. Continue reading.

Secret until now, records reveal clash over the Trump DOJ’s demand for NC voter data

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Federal prosecutors have announced an end to a sweeping, four-year-long investigation into voter fraud in North Carolina, peeling back a veil of secrecy from a probe that pitted state and federal officials against each other over a massive demand for data on every one of the state’s registered voters.

The effort initiated by the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District resulted in a range of charges related to immigration, registration and election rules against about 70 people — more than 40 of whom were accused of casting ballots illegally. Dates of those charges, which involved activity during the 2016 election and prior, range from July 2018 to mid-February 2021.

Many of the latest indictments were announced for the first time Friday, but the totals fall far short of early suggestions by the federal government of “pervasive” or “systemic” fraud, suspicions the U.S. Attorney’s Office put before a federal judge in an effort to keep details of its inquiry secret for years. Continue reading.

Georgia Prosecutors Eye ‘False Statement’ Charges for Rudy Giuliani and Team Trump

Charging the ex-president’s lawyer with lying to officials would be unusual. But so were Rudy Giuliani’s antics after the election.

Local prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, are actively researching whether they can apply “false statement” charges against Rudy Giuliani and other members of Donald Trump’s team for their mendacity-packed attempts to meddle with the state’s 2020 election results, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer and a former New York City mayor, twice presented Georgia state legislators withfake evidence and wild allegations of a conspiracy theory to commit widespread election fraud. Separately, on two recorded phone calls to state election officials, then-President Trump made specific false claims that votes for him were discarded and suitcases full of votes for Joe Biden were trucked in.

In a Feb. 10 letter to state officials that was first made public by The New York Times, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis did note that her investigation includes—among other crimes—potential violations of Georgia laws prohibiting “the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies.” Continue reading.

Trump, My Dad and the Rightward Shift of Latino Men

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Why are Latino men moving away from Democrats? And how can liberals win them back? For me, it’s a topic that hits close to home.

In 2016, my dad, Charlie Garcia — a third-generation Mexican American and lifelong Republican — supported Sen. Ted Cruz in the GOP presidential nomination contest. Recently, he recalled that, of the 17 candidates who ran for the Republican nomination in 2016, “Trump was my 17th.” Toward the end of the election, I remember him saying that he would “hold my nose and vote for Trump.”

But by this past November, something had changed. As far as I can tell, my dad voted while breathing through his nose as clearly as somebody could when wearing a face mask. Not only did he enthusiastically support Donald Trump, he gave money to the Republican National Committee. Though he has supported every GOP presidential candidate since 1980, he now contrasts them all unfavorably with Trump. “They can’t compare with what Trump has done,” he told me recently. “And some of the things that he came up with I said, ‘Oh man, why did you do that, Trump? That’s not going to go over well.’ And it turns out, my God, what a brilliant move! I had no idea. He’s just a master.”

A native of San Antonio, my dad spent much of his career working in sales; these days, he runs residential care facilities for the elderly in Orange County, Calif. His mother and father were born in the United States. My grandfather’s mother was likely born in France, but his father was Mexican while my grandmother’s parents were likely from Monterrey, Mexico. That mix of Mexican and American is why he calls me both “son” and its Spanish equivalent, “mijo.” Continue reading.

Trump supporters hope to remove Biden from office in a ‘writ of quo warranto’: report

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Far-right activist Josh Bernstein revealed how Republicans are seeking to remove Joe Biden from office during an appearance on the Charles Moscowtiz podcast.

“I am part of the audit team where I’m at,” Bernstein revealed. “And we are also working with patriots in New Hampshire to get their audits done. And in Pennsylvania and in Georgia and in Michigan, okay?”

“We want a constitutional crisis,” Bernstein admitted. Continue reading.