The Tiny Scandals and Trials

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This Arizona "audit"

Jeremy Duda
@jeremyduda
·
22h

.@jacksellers opens BOS meeting with sharp words for @FannKfann and her audit, which he called “a grift disguised as an audit”
Sellers: “This board is done explaining anything to these people.”

Sellers says the “the ninjas” can’t find the allegedly deleted filed “because they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Count recorder @stephen_richer says county doesn’t have Dominion passwords because they’re not needed to run elections, just like you can run Windows on your PC without the source code

Richer: Dominion gave passwords to auditors hired by county, only gives passwords to accredited companies, which isn’t Cyber Ninjas
Richer: “No files from the 2020 election have been deleted.”

Richer says he asked @FannKfann about @ArizonaAudit tweet accusing county of deleting files, and she said she has no control over the account. “This is not how a principal-agent relationship works,” Richer says.

Richer says Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan doesn’t know what he’s doing or understand elections, and “has indulged even the craziest election conspiracy theories.”

.@billgatesaz: it would’ve been easy for the GOP-controlled board to turn over machines, ballots, but they had legal concerns so they went to court. Wasn’t enough for Senate. “There were multiple members of the Senate who wanted to see us behind bars.”

Gates says supervisors won’t go to Senate tomorrow to take part in “political theater broadcast by @OANN.”

“The Arizona Senate is better than that. ... We’re not going to be a part of that.”

.@Steve_Gallardo: “Unfortunately Karen Fann has allowed this to happen,” says Fann comments on audit Twitter account show “failed leadership”
Gallardo says he hopes other members of the Senate ask Fann to put an end to the audit

Gallardo says “outside forces” have taken control of Senate and “President Fann does not have the political courage, the wisdom to stop it.”
.@Steve_Chucri: “There was doubt cast (on the election), so I supported the audit. What I didn’t support was a mockery, and that’s what this has become.”

In their response letter to Fann, all five supervisors plus @stephen_richer and @Penzone4sheriff call for an end to the audit. “You certainly must recognize that things are not going well at the Coliseum.”

They also say the contractors don’t know what they’re doing, don’t understand the laws, procedures and best practices for elections. “It is inevitable that they will arrive at questionable conclusions.”

Clint Hickman says audit shouldn’t Be making allegations by tweet. Do a proper investigation and send us a report, he says, “and we will answer in court.”

Sellers ends meeting by saying he’s done responding to Senate questions about this “sham audit,” says they need to finish their report and prepare to defend it in court

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1394 ... 20000.html

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Just your average tourist...

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[ponchi101]

Again and again, the position of the GOP is always the same: "if it doesn't, or didn't, affect me, it means it is/was menial".
They are truly incredible in that aspect. The level of psychopathy is always extreme.

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Interesting take from Joan Walsh

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House passes bill to create commission to investigate Jan. 6 attack on Capitol, but its chances in the Senate are dim
By
Mike DeBonis, Jacqueline Alemany and Colby Itkowitz

May 19, 2021 at 2:05 p.m. EDT

Republican leaders are trying to sink legislation establishing an independent commission on the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that would likely scrutinize former president Donald Trump’s role in the riot and his conversations with Republican lawmakers that day.

The bill passed the House on a 252 to 175 vote Wednesday with 35 Republicans supporting the measure, but it’s chances of clearing the Senate greatly dimmed after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) came out against the bill earlier in the day.

He said he opposes the legislation because it is a “slanted and unbalanced proposal” a day after he said his members were open to voting for the plan but needed a chance to read the “fine print.”

In between those comments, Trump released a statement Tuesday evening slamming the bill and decrying it as a “Democrat trap” while urging McConnell and other GOP leaders to start “listening.”

(...)

The attempts to undermine support for the commission by McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) are the latest evidence of the party’s continued loyalty to Trump and the fear among its leaders that crossing him will imperil their positions and the GOP’s efforts to win back both houses of Congress next year.

(...)

The legislation is modeled on the commission created to examine the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and it’s two leaders, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, came out in support of the bill on Wednesday.

“The January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was one of the darkest days in the history of our country. Americans deserve an objective and an accurate account of what happened,” they said in a statement.

The proposal also received support from the family of U.S. Capitol Police officer Howard Liebengood, who died by suicide days after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.

In recent weeks, some House Republicans have downplayed the events of Jan. 6, with one lawmaker suggesting images from inside the Capitol resembled a normal tourist visit and another questioning how anyone could be sure the rioters were Trump supporters.

But videos from that day show an angry mob, many clad in Trump’s signature Make America Great Again gear, waving Trump flags, violently beating and dragging police officers as they breached security barriers, climbed through broken windows and entered the Capitol.

They marched through the halls chanting, “Hang, Mike Pence” and “Where’s Nancy?” as they pounded on the door of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), terrorizing her staffers.

The assault on the Capitol resulted in the deaths of five people and 140 police officers were injured, many severely, including one who lost an eye.

The House vote exposed tension among House Republicans over how to respond to Jan. 6.

Last Friday, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the panel’s top Republican, Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), announced they had a deal on commission legislation.

McCarthy quickly distanced himself from that agreement, raising questions about why he empowered Katko, who voted to impeach Trump, to strike a deal if he wasn’t going to support it in the end.

“Thanks for not throwing me under the bus, Kevin,” Katko said sarcastically during a private GOP meeting Tuesday, according to a Republican aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private discussion.

“There may have been a miscommunication,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who opposed the bill, said about the situation between Katko and McCarthy. “Clearly something went awry.”

Katko defended the legislation during the floor debate Wednesday and urged colleagues from both sides of the aisle to support the proposal, which he noted is similar to a bill introduced earlier this year by Republicans.

“I encourage all members, Republicans and Democrats alike, to put down their swords for once, just for once, and support this bill,” he said.

Despite the overwhelming opposition to the bill among House Republicans, only four spoke against it during the debate.

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Democrats and some Republicans have noted that McCarthy, who did not speak during floor debate on the bill, is urging a no vote on legislation that would create a commission that would likely call him to testify because he spoke to Trump that day, pleading with him to publicly call on the mob to leave the Capitol.

“He absolutely should,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said during a recent interview with ABC News. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if he were subpoenaed. I think that he very clearly … said publicly that he’s got information about the president’s state of mind that day.”

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The House bill envisions that the commission would not only look at the security of the Capitol but also “the influencing factors that fomented such attack on American representative democracy while engaged in a constitutional process” and make recommendations for action. It could, for instance, seek to find out what role Trump played in encouraging the attack, as well as his response once it was taking place — something that co

Meagan Flynn and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this story.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

[ponchi101]

How long before the GOP starts wearing some sort of special clothing or uniforms to denote their position as a cult? Long robes, or brown shirts, or some other item to make it clear they are no longer a political party?
Some comedian must have said it already: they will block the creation of this committee, like innocent people always do.

[dryrunguy]

Please forgive me if that was already posted elsewhere. If so, I missed it. But yeah, this happened. Contains profanity and offensive terminology.

::

“They’re All F***ing Short-Bus People”: Capitol Riot Attorney Manages to Insult At Least Three Different Groups While Defending 1/6 Actions

Generally speaking, when a person is charged with a crime, they hire an attorney who they hope will strenuously defend them, probably not stopping to even entertain the idea that said attorney have a chat with a reporter and manage to insult millions of people in the process. And while it’s not clear if that’s the approach Jacob Chansley—a.k.a. the “QAnon Shaman,“ a.k.a. the shirtless guy who stormed the Capitol on January 6 wearing face paint and a furry hat with horns—took when assembling his legal team, in the future, he should probably plan to ask any potential lawyers, “You’re not going to use the phrase ‘(expletive) retarded’ while discussing my case, are you?”

Yes, that’s right. In an interview with Talking Points Memo, Chansley‘s lawyer, Albert Watkins, suggested that his client’s mental state, combined with the impact of Donald Trump’s “propaganda” efforts to convince people the election was stolen and that they should storm the Capitol, will play a part in his defense. All of which sounds reasonable! Then Watkins said this: “A lot of these defendants—and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully—but they’re all (expletive) short-bus people. These are people with brain damage, they’re (expletive) retarded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.”

There’s a lot to unpack here, but first, let’s pause to appreciate that Watkins thinks it might be offensive to use the phrase “short bus,” but he really can‘t be sure. The Missouri–based lawyer then goes on to conflate intellectual disabilities, brain damage, and Autism, which of course are three separate things. To say nothing of the fact that there’s no evidence that any of them cause people to act violently, or try to overturn presidential elections. After offending who knows how many people, Watkins—who, incidentally, defended the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter activists—charitably added: “But they’re our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, our coworkers—they’re part of our country. These aren’t bad people, they don’t have prior criminal history. (expletive), they were subjected to four-plus years of goddamn propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since (expletive) Hitler.”

Obviously, it’s entirely true that Trump and his allies spent months insisting that the election had been stolen, before inviting supporters to the “Stop the Steal” rally, and all but walking them to the Capitol. But that argument is unlikely to sway a judge. “It doesn’t matter if they were answering [Trump’s] call in terms of their own guilt or innocence,” Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney and former deputy assistant attorney general, told TPM reporter Matt Shuham. “The law doesn’t recognize it as an excuse. Whatever brought them there, whatever they were spurred on to do, social media postings or whatever, they’re equally guilty under the federal statutes.” In fact, it didn’t even work to get the QAnon Shaman released from jail before his trial, despite Watkins’s efforts, TPM noted. “Even taking defendant’s claim at face value, it does not persuade the Court that defendant would not pose a danger to others if released,” Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in March. “If defendant truly believes that the only reason he participated in an assault on the U.S. Capitol was to comply with President Trump’s orders, this shows defendant’s inability (or refusal) to exercise his independent judgment and conform his behavior to the law.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05 ... Y5-XsViNus