LaxPower Back-Up Stick

Strange to have committed such a violent treasonous act as claimed by so many, then to be moved along so quickly through the system. It's almost like they are trying send a message that what took place was not really that big of deal or maybe you just have be nice in jail and they let you go really early.

This evening, on the way home from the dog park, an interview by Brian Lamb came on CSPAN Radio. I found it so interesting that I parked in my driveway for over an hour after arriving home to hear it to the end (while the dogs snoozed through a passing rain squall).

It was Episode 107 of Booknotes+ podcast. The interviewee was "Ellen", a longtime CSPAN employee & friend of Lamb's who served on the recent trial jury of several Oathkeepers. It's a Brian Lamb classic. Oral history at it's finest. It's worth a listen.

https://www.c-span.org/podcasts/subpage ... knotesplus

youthathletics wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 1:46 pm Strange to have committed such a violent treasonous act as claimed by so many, then to be moved along so quickly through the system. It's almost like they are trying send a message that what took place was not really that big of deal or maybe you just have be nice in jail and they let you go really early.

This is speculation without any knowledge of the criminal justice system, and given njbill's post just before yours, a willful effort to avoid that kind of knowledge. What is happening to this guy is completely routine. You seem to have turned a corner into conspiracy-thinking and meta-conspiracy thinking. He committed crimes, served a little time, transitioned to a halfway house, and will return to civil society as a felon who has done his time. Completely routine. You are banking into MTG land here. Maybe take a few weeks away from the algorithm.

Seacoaster(1) wrote: ↑Sun Apr 02, 2023 7:07 am

youthathletics wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 1:46 pm Strange to have committed such a violent treasonous act as claimed by so many, then to be moved along so quickly through the system. It's almost like they are trying send a message that what took place was not really that big of deal or maybe you just have be nice in jail and they let you go really early.

This is speculation without any knowledge of the criminal justice system, and given njbill's post just before yours, a willful effort to avoid that kind of knowledge. What is happening to this guy is completely routine. You seem to have turned a corner into conspiracy-thinking and meta-conspiracy thinking. He committed crimes, served a little time, transitioned to a halfway house, and will return to civil society as a felon who has done his time. Completely routine. You are banking into MTG land here. Maybe take a few weeks away from the algorithm.

YA believes judges and prosecutors can set their own sentencing guidelines in this country.

Buh buh bye bye….

https://www.wtnh.com/news/connecticut-m ... -riot/amp/

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/21/politics ... index.html

"In mid-January 2021, two men hired by former President Donald Trump’s legal team discussed over text message what to do with data obtained from a breached voting machine in a rural county in Georgia, including whether to use it as part of an attempt to decertify the state’s pending Senate runoff results.

The texts, sent two weeks after operatives breached a voting machine in Coffee County, Georgia, reveal for the first time that Trump allies considered using voting data not only to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, but also in an effort to keep a Republican hold on the US Senate. 

“Here’s the plan. Let’s keep this close hold,” Jim Penrose, a former NSA official working with Trump lawyer Sidney Powell to access voting machines in Georgia, wrote in a January 19 text to Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, a firm that purports to run audits of voting systems.

In the text, which was obtained by CNN and has not been previously reported, Penrose references the upcoming certification of Democrat Jon Ossoff’s win over Republican David Perdue.

“We only have until Saturday to decide if we are going to use this report to try to decertify the Senate run-off election or if we hold it for a bigger moment,” Penrose wrote, referring to a potential lawsuit.

Newly obtained surveillance video shows a Republican county official and a team of operatives working for Trump 2020 attorney Sidney Powell inside a restricted area of the elections office in Coffee County Georgia. Portions of this image were obscured to protect the identity of people unnamed in the report.

The plot to breach voting systems in Coffee County, coordinated by members of Trump’s legal team including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, is part of a broader criminal investigation into 2020 election interference led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Willis’ office is weighing a potential racketeering case against multiple defendants and is actively deciding who to bring charges against, sources tell CNN. Willis has subpoenaed a number of individuals involved in the Coffee County breach, including the two men who carried it out who were in touch with Penrose and Logan.

Willis has also subpoenaed Giuliani and Powell as part of her probe. Giuliani has been told he’s a target in the Fulton County probe, CNN previously reported. The special grand jury convened for the case recommended issuing multiple indictments in its final report completed in February, according to the jury foreperson.    

A source familiar with Willis’ investigation tells CNN that Willis and her team have in their possession evidence that Trump allies planned to use the breached voting data from Georgia to try to decertify the state’s senate runoff election. Emails obtained by CNN show Penrose and Powell arranged upfront payment to a cyber forensics firm that sent a team to Coffee County on January 7, 2021.

The Coffee County breach is also under investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Special Counsel Jack Smith also appears to be examining the broader effort to breach or seize voting machines as part of his federal probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. It’s unclear what if any evidence he has in his possession related to the Coffee County breach. 

Penrose and Logan were also named in a state-level criminal investigation in Michigan alleging they participated in a conspiracy to seize voting machines there.

An attorney for Giuliani declined to comment and referred CNN to his January 6 committee interview transcript.

Powell, Penrose and Logan did not respond to requests for comment.

A breached voting machine in Georgia

On January 7, 2021, the day after rioters stormed the US Capitol, two people walked into an elections office in Coffee County, Georgia, a rural part of the state that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020. A local election official helped them gain access to sensitive voting data which they downloaded onto a portable hard drive.    

That data was then uploaded to an encrypted server and shared with several Trump allies and operatives, including Logan, Penrose, Powell and Giuliani, according to access logs reviewed by CNN and testimony released by the January 6 committee.

Last year, a former Trump official testified under oath to the House January 6 committee that plans to access voting systems in Georgia were discussed in meetings at the White House, including during a now infamous Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020,  that included Trump. 

Derek Lyons, a former deputy White House counsel who was in that meeting, testified to the January 6 committee that Giuliani suggested accessing voting machines in Georgia as an alternative to ordering the military or Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines.  

“His point of view was that in some way the campaign, I believe, was going to be able to secure access to voting machines in Georgia through means other than seizure,” Lyons said about Giuliani, according to a transcript of his deposition. 

Lyons told the committee that Giuliani suggested the access would be “voluntary” and examination of those machines would “begin to show evidence of the allegations that were being made.”

“That evidence could then be leveraged to … gain access to additional machines,” Lyons said. “Georgia was the topic of discussion at that time.”  

Surveillance video shows Cathy Latham with Scott Hall entering the Coffee County Elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, along with a third unknown individual.
Newly obtained surveillance video shows fake Trump elector escorted operatives into Georgia county's elections office before voting machine breach
There is no evidence that the Coffee County voting data was used as part of a lawsuit to try to decertify the Senate runoff results. But the fact that the data has yet to be recovered has raised concerns among election security advocates about how it could be used potentially to disrupt future election results.  

In a December 2022 letter to the FBI, Susan Greenhalgh, a senior advisor for election security at the advocacy group Free Speech For People, described how copies of the voting data from Coffee County have been “shared covertly with an unknown number of election deniers.” The letter warned that the data “could be used to sow distrust in elections, fabricate evidence to challenge legitimate election results, or even to manipulate election results in the future.”

The advocacy group is among those involved in a civil case focused on election security in Georgia. Greenhalgh has asked the FBI to investigate the Coffee County breach as recently as this week.

Wider efforts

In their hunt for evidence to support their baseless claims of voter fraud, after the 2020 election Trump allies hired a little-known Texas-based security company called Allied Security Operations Group to investigate alleged voting machine irregularities in a handful of swing states that Trump lost, including Michigan, Arizona and Georgia. 

A few weeks before the Coffee County breach, in late December 2020, Trump allies were granted access to voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan, a county of roughly 24,000 people where Trump won 61% of the vote. 

The team then took that data and with the help of ASOG, produced a report alleging Dominion Voting Systems vulnerabilities. That report, which has since been widely debunked, formed the basis of a lawsuit filed by Powell in December 2020 challenging the election results in Michigan. That suit was one of more than 60 suits filed by Trump’s legal team challenging the election results that were roundly rejected in courts across the country. 

Still, Logan and Penrose, who were part of the team that produced the Antrim County report, considered using the Coffee County data in a similar way to challenge the Georgia Senate runoff. In their texts from January 19, the two men planned to create a report with the help of ASOG’s top lawyer, a man named Charles Bundren, who was deeply involved in earlier efforts to gain access to voting systems. 

“If you can draft a report for review on Friday morning with Charles Bundren, that would be best,” Penrose wrote to Logan as part of the January 19 text message. 

Bundren was part of the team enlisted by Trump’s lawyers to find evidence of widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election. Bundren helped oversee the multi-state push to access voting machines on behalf of the Trump legal team, according to several documents obtained by CNN. 

Bundren also had a hands-on-role developing some of the most extreme options considered by Trump’s inner circle, including helping draft executive orders in December 2020 directing the military and DHS to seize voting machines, according to a source with direct knowledge of Bundren’s role in the plan. The orders were never signed by Trump. 

Even after the report from Antrim County, Michigan was repeatedly debunked by local, state and federal officials, high-level Trump allies including Giuliani and Powell specifically recommended to legislators around the country that they should hire ASOG to conduct an audit of their 2020 election results. 

That was true in Pennsylvania where Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, one of Trump’s more reliable advocates for overturning the 2020 election results, urged county officials in his state  to not only initiate an outside audit but hire ASOG to carry it out, according to a letter obtained by CNN. 

Meadows texts reveal direct White House communications with pro-Trump operative behind plans to seize voting machines
In Arizona, state Republican officials initially  attempted to hire ASOG to carry out the partisan audit in Maricopa County but ultimately chose Logan’s Cyber Ninja’s instead due to public scrutiny over the Antrim report. 

But Bundren remained intimately involved in that process and coordinated directly with GOP officials overseeing  the sham audit. His ASOG associates even recommending Logan for the job once it was clear they could not be hired. 

Bundren and other ASOG employees also  quietly participated in the audit itself after they were hired as subcontractors working under companies with different names, text messages and other documents obtained by the group American Oversight and shared with CNN show. 

On all fronts, Bundren worked closely with fellow ASOG member Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel who was part of Giuliani’s team that was investigating allegations of voter fraud following the 2020 election and was central to the broader effort to access voting machines in key swing states. 

Logan testified in the Georgia court case that he did produce a report on the Coffee County data for Bundren and it appears to have made its way to Giuliani, who told the House January 6 committee that his team got access to voting machines in Coffee County, according to a transcript of his testimony released by the panel. 

Asked if someone gained access to machines in Coffee County and provided him with a report, Giuliani told the House committee, “yes,” recalling that individual was Waldron. Bundren and Waldron did not respond to requests for comment.

But wait, there's more:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents ... feej641823

The whole bunch of these clowns - downloaders, county election officials who provided machine access, GOP/Trump attorneys, Meadows, and Trump - need to be put away for a very long time.

SCLaxAttack wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 4:15 pm The whole bunch of these clowns - downloaders, county election officials who provided machine access, GOP/Trump attorneys, Meadows, and Trump - need to be put away for a very long time.

They all do it!

WHERE THE TRUMP INVESTIGATIONS STAND: THE JANUARY 6 CONSPIRACIES

As noted in this post, I started to write short summaries of where the three main investigations into Trump stand, but they turned into posts. So I’m posting them serially. I wrote about the Georgia investigation here and the [url=https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/04/30/w ... documents/]stolen documents investigation here.[url]

On Thursday, Mike Pence testified to the January 6 grand jury for over five hours. Many commentators have suggested — and I agree — that was one of the last major testimonial steps Jack Smith would need to take before deciding whether and if so how to charge Trump for inciting a mob to threaten to assassinate his Vice President.

But — in addition to Smith’s efforts to obtain recordings from Rudy Giuliani and others that former Fox producer Abby Grossberg has in her possession (which are going to make great evidence at trial) — there are still a few pieces that Smith’s prosecutors seem to be working on.

The most important of those may be continued appellate uncertainty regarding the law that Smith is likely to use to charge Trump and others in conjunction with January 6, obstruction of the vote certification, 18 USC 1512(c)(2), a charge successfully used against dozens of other January 6 defendants already. The DC Circuit will have a hearing on that, in an appeal former Virginia cop Thomas Robertson made of his obstruction conviction, on May 11.

To understand its import, let me explain how I think the various things Smith is investigating fit together. I think it likely that, in addition to some charges relating to the obstruction of this or the January 6 Committee’s investigation, Smith’s team is pursuing:

1. Conspiracy to defraud the United States for submitting fake elector certificates to the Archives (18 USC 371)
2. Obstruction of the vote certification and conspiracy to obstruct (18 USC 1512(c)(2) and (k))
3. Conspiracy to commit wire fraud (18 USC 1343; 1349)
4. Aiding and abetting assault (18 USC 111(b) and 2)

I've invested in a popcorn factory...

..

Interesting read if you are still invested in democracy:

https://www.justsecurity.org/86298/intr ... committee/

Intro:

"During the course of the January 6th House Select Committee’s work, investigative staff received dozens of statements from leading experts in law, academia, and other research. Although only some of these expert statements were ultimately cited in the Select Committee’s hearings and final report, many others helped to contextualize our work as we sought to uncover the full truth behind the attack on our democracy. The individuals and organizations who submitted these statements came from a broad range of disciplines and backgrounds, and therefore approached the events of January 6, 2021 from vastly different angles. Nevertheless, their statements coalesce in a single, frightening call to alarm, which warns us that former President Donald Trump’s attack on the rule of law and the ensuing insurrection was not an isolated event. Instead, the experts show that it should be seen as an inflection point in a violent, anti-democratic movement that has deep roots in America’s own history of racist violence and far-right extremism and fits within global patterns of political violence and lurches toward authoritarianism.

In collecting some of these statements and launching this collection, Just Security is providing an invaluable resource to all Americans, and others beyond, who still seek a more holistic understanding of January 6th, and who want to explore what the sobering conclusions of the Select Committee might mean for the future of our democracy.

First and foremost, these statements help to place the insurrection as part of a dark, American tradition of mob violence that has repeatedly tried to nullify the electoral triumph of multiracial coalitions and attack governments that support equal rights for Black Americans. Statements such as those from Professors Carol Anderson, Kellie Carter Jackson, Kate Masur, Gregory Downs, and Kathleen Belew, provide historical analysis and specific examples—ranging from Reconstruction to the modern white power movement—that demonstrates the continuity between January 6th and previous vigilante attempts to beat back progress toward a more inclusive and racially equitable America.

Other statements, like those from leaders at prominent, nonpartisan institutes like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Brennan Center, States United Democracy Center, and Campaign Legal Center, explain how this history of racial violence and disenfranchisement is intimately bound up in President Trump’s Big Lie, which singles out largely non-white cities as centers of voter fraud and has since been used as a justification for further restrictions on voting rights that disproportionately impact Black and Brown citizens. Related analyses we received explained how key actors in the insurrection were motivated by a toxic brew of racism, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, and conspiracy – the same beliefs that continue to motivate acts of mass violence and intimidation across the country. In a statement from the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (where I now work), Professor Mary McCord explains how January 6th also fits into a yearslong trend of increased mobilization by unlawful private paramilitary groups, which have continued to evolve since the attack.

Even more broadly, these assorted statements give a global perspective on the anti-democratic coalition that burst forth on January 6th. Leading experts on authoritarianism and fascism, such as Professors Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Jason Stanley, and Federico Finchelstein, remind us of the stakes of January 6th as a moment when vigilante violence and authoritarian schemes converged to assert control over democratic society, as we have seen replicated, in one form or another, throughout history to catastrophic effect. This moment of autocratic consolidation was enabled by a broader acceptance of political violence by mainstream politicians and their supporters, a phenomenon that is elucidated by experts like Rachel Kleinfeld and Professors Liliana Hall Mason and Nathan Kalmoe.

These statements can also help to shine a light on some of the less-examined elements of the broader story of January 6th, such as explanations of the role of Christian Nationalism and anti-government extremism in the attack, the FBI’s persistent failures to adequately address the threat of far-right violence, the crisis of extremist radicalization within the U.S. military, and the proliferation of violent, conspiratorial content on alternative social media platforms like Parler. Taken together, these expert analyses should help us reject narrow explanations for the insurrection, especially the kind that attempts to whitewash the violent extremism we saw on that day and try to sweep over the true, violent potential of the movements that fueled it.

The legacy of January 6th remains a fiercely contested issue, and it is vitally important that supporters of American democracy still speak loudly and clearly about the realities of that day. This collection will help us do just that, by providing explanations about why the insurrectionist forces have lingered on in our national life, through continued threats of political violence and anti-democratic instability. Over two years after the attack, groups like the Proud Boys continue to menace local governments and LGBTQ+ individuals, while an openly vengeful Trump embraces the insurrectionists and demonizes the same minority communities that are now in their crosshairs.

Seen in this light, January 6th never ended.

We are in the midst of the latest retelling of a very old, very dangerous story of authoritarianism and violence that both America and the world has seen before. That makes it all the more important for us to push for accountability whenever and wherever we can, and to guard against the resurgence of political violence as the next national election looms ever closer."

Good, alarming, sober review of the state of the country.

The anti-LGBTQ+ movement is an extension of this fascistic movement, a willingness to use violence if government won't expel "undesirables" from society and when they gain governmental control to do so with those powers.

Likewise, the willingness to use governmental powers to remove freedoms from those with less power, eg women seeking abortions and other healthcare, birth control, etc., reversing no-fault divorce...

Clearly the immense rise of anti-semitism over the past decade, and the rise in expression of anti-muslim sentiment, are part and parcel with this movement.

So, not all about "race" and white supremacy, but rather this Christian Nationalism extends to a full range of fascistic response to "undesirables".

Partial verdict in for the Proud Boys. Top line, 4 of the 5 found guilty of seditious conspiracy. A number of lesser charges found all 5 being convicted.

Proud Boys -- leader Enrique Tarrio, as well as members Joe Biggs, Zac Rehl and Ethan Nordean -- convicted of seditious conspiracy in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol this morning in DC federal district court.

Seacoaster(1) wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 11:18 am Proud Boys -- leader Enrique Tarrio, as well as members Joe Biggs, Zac Rehl and Ethan Nordean -- convicted of seditious conspiracy in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol this morning in DC federal district court.

Cheers!

Comer's "whistleblower"???

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/politics ... index.html

Seacoaster(1) wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 11:18 am Proud Boys -- leader Enrique Tarrio, as well as members Joe Biggs, Zac Rehl and Ethan Nordean -- convicted of seditious conspiracy in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol this morning in DC federal district court.

Wondering when more details about what was going on in the "Willard War Room" will start to come out. It's perhaps in that room that direct connections between the seditious rubes at the Capitol and the seditious rube sitting on his fat rump in the White House will start to be examined...

..

dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 8:40 pm

Seacoaster(1) wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 11:18 am Proud Boys -- leader Enrique Tarrio, as well as members Joe Biggs, Zac Rehl and Ethan Nordean -- convicted of seditious conspiracy in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol this morning in DC federal district court.

Wondering when more details about what was going on in the "Willard War Room" will start to come out. It's perhaps in that room that direct connections between the seditious rubes at the Capitol and the seditious rube sitting on his fat rump in the White House will start to be examined...

..

... I think that is where we will now head.

jhu72 wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 11:47 pm

dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 8:40 pm

Seacoaster(1) wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 11:18 am Proud Boys -- leader Enrique Tarrio, as well as members Joe Biggs, Zac Rehl and Ethan Nordean -- convicted of seditious conspiracy in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol this morning in DC federal district court.

Wondering when more details about what was going on in the "Willard War Room" will start to come out. It's perhaps in that room that direct connections between the seditious rubes at the Capitol and the seditious rube sitting on his fat rump in the White House will start to be examined...

..

... I think that is where we will now head.

Hoping so, but there haven't been any reported "flips" leading to charges. It's going to require hard evidence, text messages, etc between the various parties and perhaps direct testimony.

Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’
Keep those doggies rollin’

“More than half of the bogus Georgia electors who were convened in December 2020 to try to keep former President Donald J. Trump in power have taken immunity deals in the investigation into election interference there, according to a court filing on Friday and people with knowledge of the inquiry.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/us/t ... ation.html