Raffensperger Was Just Ordered to Testify Against Mark Meadows in Georgia

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, one of the few Republicans to stand firm against Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud, was subpoenaed Thursday to testify in a hearing for one of Trump’s co-conspirators indicted in the Peach State.

Mark Meadows served as White House chief of staff at the end of Trump’s presidency. He was charged alongside Trump and 17 other co-defendants with felony racketeering for trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. Meadows has requested to move his case to federal court, arguing that his job as a federal employee makes him immune to state charges. A district court judge will hear Meadows’s request on Monday.

The prosecuting attorney, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, issued a subpoena Thursday for Raffensperger to testify at the hearing. She also subpoenaed Frances Watson, the chief investigator into whether Georgia’s election results were fraudulent. They were not.

Potential testimony from Raffensperger and Watson does not bode well for Meadows. Meadows organized and participated in the now-infamous phone call during which Trump begged Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes—the exact amount needed to flip the state’s election results to Trump.

But Raffensperger refused to cave then, and he has since resolutely maintained that his state’s election results are legitimate. “The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law,” he said after Willis issued the indictment. “You either have it, or you don’t.”

Meadows also traveled to Georgia in December 2020 and tried to watch ballots being audited for potential fraud. Watson was one of multiple people to whom Meadows spoke and who stopped him from entering the place where the audit was being carried out.

The indictment says that Meadows arranged a call between Trump and Watson, during which Trump insisted he had won the election and told Watson, “When the right answer comes out you’ll be praised.” The document also alleges that Meadows texted Watson asking her if it was possible to “speed up” the audit so that it would be completed before Congress certified the election results.

A top Israeli official has admitted that Israeli rights take priority over the rights of Palestinians.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir confessed on Wednesday that he believes his family’s rights are more important than the freedom of movement for Palestinians in the West Bank—exposing the truth of the two-tiered system of justice.

“Sorry Mohammad, but that’s just the reality,” Ben-Gvir told journalist Mohammad Magadli on Channel 12 News. “My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs,” he added, using another name for the occupied West Bank.

Ben-Gvir’s entitled statement came after Magadli asked him about violent crime and terrorism and the Israeli government’s failure to address it.

This isn’t the first time Ben-Givir has expressed anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab views: He has been convicted of eight charges for inciting racism and supporting Kach, a right-wing anti-Palestinian terrorist organization in Israel.

Rather than debate his fellow Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump appeared to condone civil war during an interview with Tucker Carlson.

Trump did not attend the first Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night. Instead, he released a pretaped interview with Carlson designed to steal the spotlight from the other candidates (and Fox News). At one point, Carlson asked Trump if he believed the United States is headed for “civil war.”

“There’s tremendous passion, and there’s tremendous love,” Trump said, before launching into praise for the people who rioted on January 6. He also lied that he had told the mob to go “peacefully and patriotically.”

“People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they’ve ever experienced. There was love in that crowd, there was love and unity. I have never seen such spirit, and such passion, and such love. And I’ve also never seen simultaneously and from the same people such hatred of what they’ve done to our country.”

Trump has now tacitly condoned civil war by portraying his supporters’ feelings as “passion” instead of “sedition.” This isn’t the first time that Trump appears to have encouraged violence among his followers. He notoriously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during the September 2020 presidential debate. And many of the people who participated in the January 6 insurrection said they did so because Trump had issued a call to arms.

Trump spent the rest of the interview attacking his Republican opponents, whining about all of the indictments against him, and warning people about the dangers of mosquitos.

Vivek Ramaswamy went out of his way to suck up to Donald Trump during the first Republican presidential debate, and it seems to have worked.

Trump praised Ramaswamy’s performance in a Truth Social post early Thursday morning and included a clip of Ramaswamy calling Trump, “the best president of the twenty-first century.”   

In the post, Trump expressed his pleasure with Ramaswamy. “This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of a thing called TRUTH. Thank you Vivek!” Trump wrote.

Ramaswamy snagging the Trump-bestowed title of winner has only fanned the flames of speculation around whether Ramaswamy is only running to secure a spot as Trump’s running mate in 2024.

During the debate, when the candidates were asked whether they would support Trump as a nominee even if he were convicted, Ramaswamy was the first to shoot his hand in the air, while other candidates seemed a little more hesitant. Still, seven of the eight Republican candidates ultimately raised their hands, showing just how much power Trump still has over the Republican Party.  

Trump has of course not yet made any formal indication of whom he would consider as his pick for vice president if he does snag the nomination, which it currently seems like he will. If Ramaswamy isn’t tapped by Trump, all of his cringy flattery, 9/11 denying, and conspiracy-theory spreading may have been for nothing.

Either way, how do Trump’s boots taste, Vivek?

Just hours before he is due to surrender to authorities in Fulton County, Georgia, Donald Trump has replaced his top defense lawyer.

Trump and 18 co-defendants have been charged with felony racketeering for their role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. The majority of the co-defendants, including Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, and Kenneth Chesebro, have already turned themselves in. Trump is set to surrender Thursday evening.

But Thursday morning, Trump added Atlanta defense lawyer Steve Sadow to his team, The New York Times reported. Sadow will replace Drew Findling, who was one of the key negotiators behind setting Trump’s $200,000 bond.

Sadow is reportedly considered to be one of Atlanta’s top criminal defense lawyers. He has experience working on racketeering cases and defending reality television celebrities. In one of his previous cases, he represented the rapper Gunna, who had been charged with racketeering. In another case, Sadow represented Howard K. Stern, who was accused of conspiring to give prescription drugs to his then-girlfriend Anna Nicole Smith, which contributed to her death. Stern was ultimately found guilty.

It’s not unusual for Trump either to change up his legal team or to throw last-minute Hail Marys. A day before he was arraigned the first time in New York for business fraud, Trump switched up his legal team and hired white-collar criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche as lead counsel.

Trump’s need for legal representation is growing rapidly, as his legal battles continue to pile up. In addition to the indictments in New York and Georgia, Trump has also been indicted in Florida for mishandling classified documents and in Washington for trying to overturn the 2020 election. He has been found liable of sexual assault and defamation, and he has another defamation lawsuit set to go to trial in January.

Good luck to all those lawyers getting paid, though. Giuliani recently flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to beg his employer to pay for Giuliani’s services—and Trump still refused to pay up.

Six of the eight Republican presidential candidates said during the debate Wednesday that they would support Donald Trump if he got the nomination, even if he were convicted in one of his many legal battles, a sign of how much influence he still has over the party.

The eight leading presidential candidates, minus frontrunner Trump, took the stage in Milwaukee. When moderator Brett Baier referred to Trump as “the elephant not in the room,” the crowd cheered.

Baier then asked the candidates to raise their hand if they would still support a convicted Trump as nominee, reminding them that they signed a pledge to support whoever wins the party nomination.

Doug Burgum, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Ron DeSantis all raised their hands. So did Mike Pence, despite the fact that an angry mob of Trump supporters wanted to hang him during the January 6 insurrection.

Chris Christie also half-heartedly raised his hand, but later clarified that it was in disapproval. “Here’s the bottom line: Someone has got to stop normalizing this conduct,” Christie said. “Whether or not you believe the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of president of the United States.” His comments were met with both cheers and boos.

Asa Hutchinson also did not raise his hand and said Trump has been “morally disqualified from being president again.”

Still, the majority’s weird hand-raising is a sign of how powerful Trump still is. He isn’t even at the debate, he is facing 91 charges and will be arrested for the fourth time later this week, and yet everyone is still too afraid to criticize him.

This article has been updated to clarify that Chris Christie raising his hand was in disapproval, not support, of Trump.

Chris Christie had the first zinger of the Republican debate Wednesday night, attacking Vivek Ramaswamy for being like Barack Obama.

The eight leading presidential candidates, minus front-runner Donald Trump, took the stage in Milwaukee. As Ramaswamy tried to portray himself as an outsider and a dark horse, Christie took aim.

“I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here,” the former New Jersey governor said. “The last person in one of these debates … who stood in the middle of the stage and said, ‘What’s a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here?’ was Barack Obama, and I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur standing on the stage tonight.”

While this was probably the most devastating comparison Christie could have made, it is also highly inaccurate. Obama is ideologically open-minded. Ramaswamy is a 9/11 denier who is mainly interested in battling “wokeness,” taking away rights, and, apparently, caving to Russia and China.

Eight presidential candidates have qualified for the Republican Party’s first primary debate on Wednesday evening.

Sure, the debate might not mean much when Donald Trump, the party’s front-runner, is skipping out on the whole thing. Still, it is a chance for the American public to hear directly from candidates on what they really stand for.

If you are watching the Republican debate, join us in a game of Bingo.

Secret Service agents were in contact with Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes before he helped lead an insurrection on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, according to a new report.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, published emails on Wednesday revealing that a member of the Secret Service told other agents in September 2020 that he had received a call from Rhodes informing him that the far-right white nationalist group planned to provide “security details” around Donald Trump’s visit to Fayetteville, North Carolina.

The email detailed that the Oath Keepers security detail would be composed of “primarily retired law enforcement/former military members who are very pro-LEO [law enforcement officer] and Pro Trump. Their stated purpose is to provide protection and medical attention to Trump supporters if they come under attack by leftist groups.”

The Secret Service member who spoke to Rhodes even admitted to other members in the agency that he was an Oath Keeper himself. “I am the unofficial liaison to the Oath Keepers (inching towards official),” he wrote.

The CREW report confirms Rhodes’ claims last year that the far-right group had a contact within the Secret Service. Rhodes admitted this during his trial, when he was charged with seditious conspiracy for attempting to stop Joe Biden’s presidential win.

It’s not clear from the CREW report whether the contact continued past September 2020, but the government watchdog notes that the agent claiming to be an “unofficial liaison” suggests a longer-term relationship.

In addition to having ties to the January 6 insurrection, Oath Keepers have worked alongside the Ku Klux Klan, deploying members at polling sites to watch voters, and have compared Hillary Clinton to Hitler on their website.

Nearly 400 “educational intimidation” bills have been introduced by state lawmakers over the last two and a half years, a troubling sign of where academic freedom in this country is headed. 

Between January 2021 and June 2023, Republicans in state legislatures introduced 392 educational intimidation bills, according to a new report published Wednesday from PEN America. While only 38 of those bills actually passed, this tidal wave of legislation represents an ongoing campaign to make teachers afraid to teach.

PEN America classifies educational intimidation bills as different from traditional “educational gag orders,” which explicitly prohibit materials and subject matter that can be taught in classrooms. Educational intimidation bills do not act as direct censorship, but rather encourage self-censorship from teachers, librarians, and administrators by creating environments where free speech is chilled. They often bill themselves as “parental rights” bills, hiding their radical nature behind more neutral language.

Missouri has introduced 30 such bills, the most of any state in the country, but all of the measures failed. Florida was able to pass the most, with 15 pieces of legislation signed into state law, thanks in large part to Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who has led a “war on woke” in education.    

According to PEN America, these bills have been able to become so popular because of clever rhetorical framing.

“By framing such bills in terms of ‘curriculum transparency’ and ‘parental rights,’ supporters hope to make them appear benign—as simple common sense,” the report by PEN America said. “They are not.”

The bills contain provisions allowing for enhanced inspection of curricula, teachers, and library facilities. Some allow opt-outs so that parents can remove their children from certain kinds of instruction, or institute opt-ins requiring parents to proactively approve certain material, thus making restriction the default of education. Many of the bills also expand student and classroom monitoring.

These educational intimidation bills are based on model legislation prepared by conservative think tanks such as the Manhattan Institute, the Goldwater Institute, No Left Turn in Education, and the Parental Rights Foundation.

Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo is quoted in the report, explaining the rhetorical shift from gag orders to educational intimidation.

“The Left will expect that, after passing so-called ‘CRT bans’ last year, we will overplay our hand. By moving to curriculum transparency, we will deflate that argument and bait the Left into opposing ‘transparency,’” Rufo said in 2022.

Around 45 percent of the bills PEN America tracked also included an anti-LGBTQ provision, like the mandatory outing of students via reporting mechanisms for parents to be alerted of any “perceived changes to students’ gender identity and sexual orientation.”

Other anti-LGBTQ provisions include banning the use of preferred pronouns, discouraging discussions about gender and sexuality, and placing pressure on teachers and administration to limit their speech, as well as to monitor and police the expression of their students.

So far in 2023, 17 educational intimidation bills have passed. Perhaps with the introduction of the “educational intimidation” label, the left will have its own rhetorical device to fight those who seek to limit free speech, the rights of students, and the rights of other parents.