Mike Pence

House To Vote On Election Law Overhaul In Response To Jan. 6

The bill would set new parameters around the Electoral Count Act and make it harder for lawmakers to object to a state’s electoral votes.

The House will vote on an overhaul of a centuries-old election law, an effort to prevent future presidential candidates from trying to subvert the popular will.

The legislation under consideration beginning Wednesday is a direct response to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and former President Donald Trump’s efforts to find a way around the Electoral Count Act, an arcane 1800s-era law that governs, along with the U.S. Constitution, how states and Congress certify electors and declare presidential election winners.

While that process has long been routine and ceremonial, Trump and a group of his aides and lawyers tried to exploit loopholes in the law in an attempt to overturn his defeat.

The bill, which the House will start debating on Wednesday, would set new parameters around the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress that happens every four years after a presidential election. The day turned violent last year after hundreds of Trump’s supporters interrupted the proceedings, broke into the building and threatened the lives of then-Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress. The rioters echoed Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud and wanted Pence to block Democrat Joe Biden’s victory as he presided over the joint session.

The legislation intends to ensure that future Jan. 6 sessions are “as the constitution envisioned, a ministerial day,” said Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican who co-sponsored the legislation with House Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. Both Cheney and Lofgren are also members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

“The American people are supposed to decide an election, not Congress,” Lofgren said.

The bill, which is similar to legislation moving through the Senate, would clarify in the law that the vice president’s role presiding over the count is only ceremonial and also sets out that each state can only send one certified set of electors. Trump’s allies had unsuccessfully tried to put together alternate slates of illegitimate pro-Trump electors in swing states where President Biden won.

The legislation would increase the threshold for individual lawmakers’ objections to any state’s electoral votes, requiring a third of the House and a third of the Senate to object to trigger votes on the results in both chambers. Currently, only one lawmaker in the House and one lawmaker in the Senate has to object. The House bill would set out very narrow grounds for those objections, an attempt to thwart baseless or politically motivated challenges. The legislation also would require courts to get involved if state or local officials want to delay a presidential vote or refuse to certify the results.

The House vote comes as the Senate is moving on a similar track with enough Republican support to virtually ensure passage before the end of the year. After months of talks, House Democrats introduced the legislation on Monday and are holding a quick vote two days later in order to send the bill across the Capitol and start to resolve differences. A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation this summer and a Senate committee is expected to vote on it next week.

While the House bill is more expansive than the Senate version, the two bills cover similar ground and members in both chambers are optimistic that they can work out the differences. While few House Republicans are expected to vote for the legislation — most are still allied with Trump — supporters are encouraged by the bipartisan effort in the Senate.

“Both sides have an incentive to want a set of clear rules, and this is an antiquated law that no one understands,” said Benjamin Ginsburg, a longtime GOP lawyer who consulted with lawmakers as they wrote the bill. “All parties benefit from clarity.”

House GOP leaders disagree, and are encouraging their members to vote against the legislation. They say the involvement of courts could drag out elections and that the bill would take rights away from states.

Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, Lofgren’s GOP counterpart on the House Administration Committee, said Tuesday that the bill would trample on state sovereignty and is “opening the door to mass litigation.”

Democrats are “desperately trying to talk about their favorite topic, and that is former president Donald Trump,” Davis said.

Cheney, a frequent Trump critic who was defeated in Wyoming’s GOP primary last month, says she hopes it receives votes from some of her Republican colleagues.

The bill would “ensure that in the future our election process reflects the will of the people,” she said.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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What’s Left As Jan. 6 Panel Sprints To Year-End Finish

The House Jan. 6 committee is coming close to a final report, but lawmakers say there is more to come than what’s already come to light.

With only three months left in the year, the House Jan. 6 committee is eyeing a close to its work and a final report laying out its findings about the U.S. Capitol insurrection. But, the investigation is not over.

The committee has already revealed much of its work at eight hearings over the summer, showing in detail how former President Donald Trump ignored many of his closest advisers and amplified his false claims of election fraud after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Witnesses interviewed by the panel — some of them Trump’s closest allies — recounted in videotaped testimony how the former president declined to act when hundreds of his supporters violently attacked the Capitol as Congress certified President Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.

Lawmakers say there is more to come. The nine-member panel — seven Democrats and two Republicans — interviewed witnesses through all of August, and they are hoping to have at least one hearing by the end of the month. Members met Tuesday to discuss the panel’s next steps.

Because the Jan. 6 panel is a temporary or “select” committee, it expires at the end of the current Congress. If Republicans take the majority in November’s elections, as they are favored to do, they are expected to dissolve the committee in January. So the panel is planning to issue a final report by the end of December.

As for hearings, the panel’s Democratic chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said after the private members’ meeting Tuesday in the Capitol that the committee’s goal is to hold a hearing Sept. 28, but that members were still discussing whether it would happen at all.

“We’ll we’re still in the process of talking,” Thompson said. “If it happens, it will be that date. We’re not sure at this point.”

Members of the committee had promised more hearings in September as they wrapped up the series of summer hearings. Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chairwoman, said the committee “has far more evidence to share with the American people and more to gather.”

“Doors have opened, new subpoenas have been issued and the dam has begun to break,” Cheney said at a July 21 hearing that was held in prime time and watched by 17.7 million people. “We have considerably more to do.”

It’s unclear if the hearing would provide a general overview of what the panel has learned or if they would be focused on new information and evidence. The committee conducted several interviews at the end of July and into August with Trump’s Cabinet secretaries, some of whom had discussed invoking the constitutional process in the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office after the insurrection.

For its witnesses, the panel has already interviewed more than 1,000 people, but lawmakers and staff are still pursuing new threads. The committee recently spoke to several of the Cabinet secretaries, including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in July and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao in August.

The committee also wants to get to the bottom of missing Secret Service texts from Jan. 5 to 6, 2021, which could shed further light on Trump’s actions during the insurrection, particularly after earlier testimony about his confrontation with security as he tried to join supporters at the Capitol. Thompson said Tuesday that the committee has recently obtained “thousands” of documents from the Secret Service.

The committee has also pursued an interview with conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, who’s married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Lawmakers want to know more about her role in trying to help Trump overturn the election. She contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin as part of that effort.

Members of the committee are still debating how aggressively to pursue testimony from Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.

Some have questioned whether the committee needs to call Pence, who resisted Trump’s pressure to try and block President Biden’s certification on Jan. 6. Many of his closest aides have already testified, including Greg Jacob, his top lawyer at the White House who was with him during the insurrection as they hid from rioters who were threatening the vice president’s life. Jacobs characterized much of Pence’s thought process during the time when Trump was pressuring him.

The panel has been in discussions with Pence’s lawyers for months, without any discernible progress. Still, the committee could invite Pence for closed-door testimony or ask him to answer written questions.

The calculation is different for the former president. Members have debated whether they should call Trump, who is the focus of their probe but also a witness who has fought against the investigation in court, denied much of the evidence and floated the idea of presidential pardons for Jan. 6 rioters. Trump is also facing scrutiny in several other investigations, including at the Justice Department and over the classified documents he took to his private club.

Another bit of unfinished business is the committee’s subpoenas to five House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.

In May the panel subpoenaed McCarthy and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Mo Brooks of Alabama. The panel has investigated McCarthy’s conversations with Trump the day of the attack and meetings the four other lawmakers had with the White House beforehand as Trump and some of his allies worked to overturn his election defeat.

The five Republicans, all of whom have repeatedly downplayed the investigation’s legitimacy, have simply ignored the request to testify. But the Jan. 6 committee seems unlikely to meet their defiance with contempt charges, as they have with other witnesses, in the weeks before the November elections. Not only would it be a politically risky move, but it is unclear what eventual recourse the panel would have against its own colleagues.

In all, the committee must shut down within a month after issuing a final report, per its rules. But lawmakers could issue some smaller reports before then, perhaps even before the November elections. Thompson said earlier this summer that there may be an interim report in the fall.

The release of the final report will likely come close to the end of the year so the panel can maximize its time. While much of the findings will already be known, the report is expected to thread the story together in a definitive way that lays out the committee’s conclusions for history.

The committee is expected to weigh in on possible legislative changes to the Electoral Count Act, which governs how a presidential election is certified by Congress.

A bipartisan group of senators released proposed changes over the summer that would clarify the way states submit electors and the vice president tallies the votes. Trump and his allies tried to find loopholes in that law ahead of Jan. 6 as the former president worked to overturn his defeat to President Biden and unsuccessfully pressured Pence to go along.

The Jan. 6 panel’s final report is expected to include a larger swath of legislative recommendations.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Pence Says He Didn’t Leave Office With Classified Material

By Associated Press
August 20, 2022

The disclosure comes after FBI agents seized classified and top secret information from his former boss’s Florida estate on Aug. 8.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that he didn’t take any classified information with him when he left office.

The disclosure — which would typically be unremarkable for a former vice president — is notable given that FBI agents seized classified and top secret information from his former boss’s Florida estate on Aug. 8 while investigating potential violations of three different federal laws. Former President Donald Trump has claimed that the documents seized by agents were “all declassified.”

Pence, asked directly if he had retained any classified information upon leaving office, told The Associated Press in an interview, “No, not to my knowledge.”

Despite the inclusion of material marked “top secret” in the government’s list of items recovered from Mar-a-Lago, Pence said, “I honestly don’t want to prejudge it before until we know all the facts.”

Pence was in Iowa on Friday as part of a two day-trip to the state, which hosts the leadoff Republican presidential caucuses. It comes as the former vice president has made stops in other early voting states as he takes steps toward mounting a 2024 White House campaign.

Pence also weighed in on Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney’s primary defeat earlier in the week to a rival backed by Trump. Cheney, who is arguably Trump’s most prominent Republican critic, has called the former president “a very grave threat and risk to our republic” and further raised his ire through her role as vice chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“My reaction was, the people of Wyoming have spoken,” said Pence, who was targeted at the Capitol that day by angry rioters, including some who chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” “And, you know, I accept their judgment about the kind of representation they want on Capitol Hill.”

Pence said he has “great respect” for Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who served two terms under President George W. Bush.

“And I appreciate the conservative stance Congresswoman Cheney has taken over the years,” Pence continued. “But I’ve been disappointed in the partisan taint of the Jan. 6 committee from early on.”

Pence’s aides said the committee contacted his legal team months ago to see if he would be willing to testify. Although Pence has said he would give “due consideration” to cooperating, he was adamant that the historic nature of such participation must be warranted and agreed upon.

“Beyond my concerns about the partisan nature of the Jan. 6 committee, there are profound constitutional issues that have to be considered,” he said. “No vice president has ever been summoned to testify before the Congress of the United States.”

Speaking further about the search of Mar-a-Lago, the former vice president raised the possibility, as he has previously, that the investigation was politically motivated and called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to disclose more details on what led authorities to conduct the search.

“The concern that millions of Americans felt is only going to be resolved with daylight,” Pence said Friday. “I know that’s not customary in an investigation. But this is unprecedented action by the Justice Department, and I think it merits an unprecedented transparency.”

The Jan. 6 insurrection marked the first in a number of public breaks between Trump and his once devout No. 2. But Pence has been careful not to alienate Republicans who have supported Trump but might be looking for another candidate in the 2024 election. Despite his reluctance to criticize the former president, Pence has occasionally spoken out against Trump, criticizing the attack at the U.S. Capitol and more recently urging his fellow Republicans to stop lashing out at the FBI over the search of Mar-a-Lago.

“The Republican Party is the party of law and order,” Pence said Wednesday at a political breakfast in New Hampshire. “Our party stands with the men and women who stand on the thin blue line at the federal and state and local level, and these attacks on the FBI must stop.”

Pence said Friday that he would make a decision early next year about whether to run for the White House, a move that his aides have said will be independent of what Trump decides to do.

Having visited the Iowa State Fair on Friday afternoon, Pence also headlined a fundraiser earlier in the day for Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and was scheduled to speak to a Christian conservative group and a northern Iowa county Republican Party fundraiser before leaving Saturday.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Wisconsin GOP Picks Trump-Backed Michels In Governor Primary

By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
August 10, 2022

Tim Michels defeated former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and will face Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the November midterm elections.

Tim Michels, a wealthy businessman endorsed by former President Donald Trump, won the Republican primary for Wisconsin governor on Tuesday and will face Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a contest that could reshape elections in the marquee battleground.

Michels defeated former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who was endorsed by former Vice President Mike Pence and had backing from establishment Republicans, including ex-Gov. Scott Walker.

In his victory speech, Michels said the race will be about “standing up for the hardworking people of Wisconsin. They have been left behind by the Democratic Party that just wants to focus on the social issues.”

He promised to focus on jobs and the economy.

Evers’ campaign called Michels “the most extreme and divisive nominee possible, one that will tell Donald Trump anything just to keep his endorsement.”

Both Michels and Kleefisch falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was rigged, a lie Trump has pushed in an effort to overturn his loss to Joe Biden.

Michels said decertifying the results of the 2020 contest was not a priority but said “everything will be on the table.”

He supports other changes to voting and elections, including dismantling the bipartisan commission that runs Wisconsin elections.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Republicans Expressing Outrage Against FBI Amid Mar-A-Lago Raid

Many Republicans are expressing their outrage with the FBI’s unannounced raid of Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate.

As the FBI sifts through the evidence it seized from Donald Trump’s Florida home, outrage from the former president’s supporters is only beginning.

24 hours later, the scene outside of Mar-A-Lago is still crowded with people holding signs and flags in support of Trump.

Online, Republican lawmakers are furiously posting their disapproval.

Former Vice President Mike Pence tweeted he “shares the deep concern of millions of Americans over the unprecedented search.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wrote he’d “seen enough,” calling for an investigation into the raid.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, tweeted in all caps “Defund the FBI.”

“If they can do it to a former president, imagine what they can do to you,” said Representative Jim Jordan.

And on TV strong words from President Trump’s former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. “I mean this is an outrage. And it’s not just the FBI. It’s our crooked Attorney General. And if the Republicans had any gumption, they’d begin an impeachment proceeding.”

Donald Trump has called the raid “dark times for our nation” claiming the search was unannounced and agents had broken into his safe. His son, Eric, claimed nothing was taken from that safe.

The former president wasn’t at Mar-A-Lago at the time of the search.

Official details are still scarce.

The FBI and the Justice Department have not commented yet, but sources tell The Associated Press the raid is in connection with documents, some classified, that Trump is accused of illegally taking with him from the White House.

“To have 30 FBI agents — actually, more than that descend on Mar-A-Lago, and gave absolutely no notice. They went through the gate, start ransacking an office, ransacking a closet,” said Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s son.

“They are terrified he’s going to announce any day that he’s running for president in 2024. This is a very convenient way to just throw a little more mud on Donald Trump as though they haven’t already done enough,” said Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife.

The raid is connected to just one of several investigations involving Trump.

The House Committee probing the January 6 riot by Trump supporters at the Capitol is scheduled to present more evidence against the former president in the coming weeks.

An Atlanta-area grand jury is hearing testimony into Trump’s alleged meddling in the 2020 election.

He’s also been accused of raising $250 million for a so-called “official election defense fund” which never existed. The scheme may now be under investigation as a potential wire fraud.

And in New York prosecutors are looking into claims Trump’s family real estate company misrepresented the values of its properties to get favorable bank loans and lower taxes.

Source: newsy.com

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Voters In 4 States Head To The Polls For Primary Elections

Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont and Connecticut are holding primary elections Tuesday to decide who’s on the ballot for the November midterms.

The Republican matchup in the Wisconsin governor’s race on Tuesday features competing candidates endorsed by former President Donald Trump and his estranged vice president, Mike Pence. Democrats are picking a candidate to face two-term GOP Sen. Ron Johnson for control of the closely divided chamber.

Meanwhile, voters in Vermont are choosing a replacement for U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy as the chamber’s longest-serving member retires. In Minnesota, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar faces a Democratic primary challenger who helped defeat a voter referendum to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety.

What to watch in Tuesday’s primary elections in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont and Connecticut:

WISCONSIN

Construction company co-owner Tim Michels has Trump’s endorsement in the governor’s race and has been spending millions of his own money, touting both the former president’s backing and his years working to build his family’s business into Wisconsin’s largest construction company. Michels casts himself as an outsider, although he previously lost a campaign to oust then-U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold in 2004 and has long been a prominent GOP donor.

Establishment Republicans including Pence and former Gov. Scott Walker have endorsed former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who along with Walker, survived a 2012 recall effort. She argues she has the experience and knowledge to pursue conservative priorities, including dismantling the bipartisan commission that runs elections.

With Senate control at stake, Democrats will also make their pick to take on Johnson. Democratic support coalesced around Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes late in the race, when his three top rivals dropped out and threw their support to him. He would become the state’s first Black senator if elected.

Several lesser-known candidates remain in the primary, but Johnson and Republicans have treated Barnes as the nominee, casting him as too liberal for Wisconsin, a state Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020.

Four Democrats are also running in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, a seat that opened up with the retirement of veteran Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Kind. The district has been trending Republican, and Derrick Van Orden — who narrowly lost to Kind in 2020 and has Trump’s endorsement — is running unopposed.

MINNESOTA

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz faces a little-known opponent as he seeks a second term. His likely challenger is Republican Scott Jensen, a physician and former state lawmaker who has made vaccine skepticism a centerpiece of his campaign and faces token opposition.

Both men have been waging a virtual campaign for months, with Jensen attacking Walz for his management of the pandemic and hammering the governor for rising crime around Minneapolis. Walz has highlighted his own support of abortion rights and suggested that Jensen would be a threat to chip away at the procedure’s legality in Minnesota.

Crime has emerged as the biggest issue in Rep. Omar’s Democratic primary. She faces a challenge from former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels, who opposes the movement to defund the police and last year helped defeat efforts to replace the city’s police department. Omar, who supported the referendum, has a substantial money advantage and is expected to benefit from a strong grassroots operation.

The most confusing part of Tuesday’s ballot was for the 1st Congressional District seat that was held by U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn, who died earlier this year from cancer. Republican former state Rep. Brad Finstad and Democrat Jeff Ettinger, a former Hormel CEO, are simultaneously competing in primaries to determine the November matchup for the next two-year term representing the southern Minnesota district, as well as a special election to finish the last few months of Hagedorn’s term.

CONNECTICUT

It’s been roughly three decades since Connecticut had a Republican in the U.S. Senate, but the party isn’t giving up.

In the GOP primary to take on Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the party has endorsed former state House Minority Leader Themis Klarides. She’s a social moderate who supports abortion rights and certain gun control measures and says she did not vote for Trump in 2020. Klarides contends her experience and positions can persuade voters to oppose Blumenthal, a two-term senator who in May registered a 45% job approval rating, his lowest in a Quinnipiac poll since taking office.

Klarides is being challenged by conservative attorney Peter Lumaj and Republican National Committee member Leora Levy, whom Trump endorsed last week. Both candidates oppose abortion rights and further gun restrictions, and they back Trump’s policies.

VERMONT

Leahy’s upcoming retirement has opened up two seats in Vermont’s tiny three-person congressional delegation — and the opportunity for the state to send a woman to represent it in Washington for the first time.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, the state’s at-large congressman, quickly launched his Senate bid after Leahy revealed he was stepping down. Leahy, who is president pro tempore of the Senate, has been hospitalized a couple of times over the last two years, including after breaking his hip this summer.

Welch has been endorsed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and is the odds-on favorite to win the seat in November. He faces two other Democrats in the primary: Isaac Evans-Frantz, an activist, and Dr. Niki Thran, an emergency physician.

On the Republican side, former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, retired U.S. Army officer Gerald Malloy and investment banker Myers Mermel are competing for the nomination.

The race to replace Welch has yielded Vermont’s first wide-open U.S. House campaign since 2006.

Two women, including Lt. Gov. Molly Gray and state Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, are the top Democratic candidates in the race. Gray, elected in 2020 in her first political bid, is a lawyer and a former assistant state attorney general.

The winner of the Democratic primary will be the heavy favorite to win the general election in the liberal state. In 2018, Vermont became the last state without female representation in Congress when Mississippi Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith was appointed to the Senate.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Trump Ally Kari Lake Wins Arizona GOP Primary For Governor

Lake will face Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the November midterm election.

Kari Lake, a former news anchor who walked away from her journalism career and was embraced by Donald Trump and his staunch supporters, won the Republican primary for Arizona governor on Thursday.

Lake’s victory was a blow to the GOP establishment that lined up behind lawyer and businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson in an attempt to push their party past the chaotic Trump era. Lake said she would not have certified President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and put false claims of election fraud at the center of her campaign.

“Arizonans who have been forgotten by the establishment just delivered a political earthquake,” Lake said in a statement after the race was called.

Republicans now enter the general election sprint with a slate of nominees closely allied with Trump who deny that President Biden was legitimately elected president. Lake will face Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the November election.

“This race for governor isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. It’s a choice between sanity and chaos,” Hobbs said Thursday night in a statement on Lake’s victory.

Early election results showing only mail ballots received before Election Day gave Robson a solid lead, but that was whittled down as votes from polling places were added to the tally. Lake’s victory became clear Thursday when Maricopa County released results from thousands of mail ballots dropped off at the polls on Tuesday.

“The voters of Arizona have spoken,” Robson said in a statement conceding to Lake late Thursday. “I accept the results, I trust the process and the people who administer it.”

In a midterm primary season with mixed results for Trump’s favored candidates, the former president came out on top in Arizona, a state that has been central to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and cast doubt on President Biden’s victory. In addition to Lake, Trump’s picks for U.S. Senate, secretary of state, attorney general, U.S. House and the state Legislature all won their GOP primaries.

If they win in November, Trump allies will hold sway over the administration of elections in a crucial battleground state as he considers another bid for the White House in 2024. The results also show that Trump remains a powerful figure in the GOP as longtime party stalwarts get increasingly bold in their efforts to reassert control ahead of the next presidential campaign.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie all campaigned for Robson in the days before the election.

Robson, who is married to one of Arizona’s richest men, largely self-funded her campaign. She called the 2020 election “unfair” but stopped short of calling it fraudulent and pushed for the GOP to look toward the future.

Lake now faces the daunting task of uniting the Republican Party after a bruising primary. On Wednesday, as Lake declared victory prematurely, she attempted to reach out to Robson and others she fiercely criticized as RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only, who don’t align with Trump on key issues.

“Frankly, this party needs her to come together, and I welcome her,” Lake said of Robson. “And I hope that she will come over for this.”

Robson said she’s spent her life supporting Republicans, “and it is my hope that our Republican nominees are successful in November.”

Like Trump, Lake courts controversy and confrontation. She berates journalists and dodges questions. She burned masks during the COVID-19 surge in the summer of 2021 and attacked Republicans like Ducey who allowed restrictions on businesses, though as a news anchor she encouraged people to follow public health guidance.

Lake spent the days leading up to her own election claiming there were signs of fraud, but she refused to provide any evidence. Once her victory was assured, she said voters should trust her win is legitimate.

“We outvoted the fraud,” Lake said. She pointed to problems in Pinal County, which ran out of ballots in some precincts and had to print more, but she and her attorney, Tim La Sota, refused to provide evidence backing up her claims of fraud.

She said she has no plans to stop talking about election fraud even as she needs to broaden her appeal beyond the loyalists who powered her primary victory.

Hobbs, Lake’s opponent in November, went after the candidate over her opposition to abortion rights and gun control and a proposal she floated to put cameras in every classroom to keep an eye on teachers.

Republicans, moving toward November as a divided party in Arizona, need to make an appeal to the independent voters who decide close races, said Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Republican strategist who left the party during the Trump era.

“I see it as a challenge the Republicans are going to have: How do they narrate to unaffiliated voters?” Coughlin said.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Lake, Robson In Tight GOP Primary For Governor In Arizona

Former news anchor Kari Lake and development attorney Karrin Taylor Robson are separated by a slim margin in the contentious race for governor.

Arizona Republicans were deciding Tuesday between a well-known former news anchor and a development attorney in the race for governor of a crucial battleground state.

Former President Donald Trump backed Kari Lake, who walked away from her nearly three-decade career in television news and embraced his lies about the 2020 election. She faced Karrin Taylor Robson, who was backed by prominent Republicans around the country looking to push their party to move on from Trump.

The race was too early to call, with Lake and Robson separated by a slim margin.

As the midterm primary season enters its final stretch this month, the Arizona races are poised to provide important clues about the GOP’s direction. Victories by Trump-backed candidates could provide the former president with allies who hold sway over the administration of elections as he considers another bid for the White House in 2024. Defeats, however, might suggest openness in the party to a different path forward.

The former president endorsed and campaigned for a slate of contenders who support his falsehoods, including Lake, who says she would have refused to certify President Joe Biden’s narrow Arizona victory. Robson said the GOP should focus on the future despite an election she called “unfair.”

In the race to oversee elections as Arizona secretary of state, Trump also backed a state lawmaker who was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and claims the former president was cheated out of victory.

The election is playing out on one of the biggest midterm primary nights of the year — one that had some warning signs for Republicans.

In Kansas, voters rejected a state constitutional amendment that would have allowed the Legislature to restrict or ban abortion. They were the first voters to weigh in on abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court revoked the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

The rejection in a conservative state is a sign of potential energy for Democrats, who hope the anger at the court’s abortion ruling will overcome inflation concerns and President Joe Biden’s flagging popularity.

But the contests are especially salient in Arizona, a longtime Republican stronghold that has become more favorable to Democrats in recent years because of explosive growth in and around Phoenix. The primary and the fall election will provide insight into whether President Biden’s success here in 2020 was a onetime event or the onset of a long-term shift away from the GOP.

Lake is well known in much of the state after anchoring the evening news in Phoenix for more than two decades. She ran as a fierce critic of the mainstream media, which she says is unfair to Republicans, and other enemies of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, including the late Sen. John McCain’s family.

A vocal supporter of Trump’s election lies, Lake said her campaign was “already detecting some stealing going on” in her own race, but she repeatedly refused to provide any evidence for the claim.

Robson, whose housing developer husband is one of the state’s richest men, is mostly self-financing her campaign. The GOP establishment, growing increasingly comfortable creating distance from Trump, rallied around her over the past month with a series of endorsements from Ducey, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Vice President Mike Pence.

The groundswell of establishment support for Robson drew national scrutiny to the race for what it says about the GOP base ahead of the crucial presidential primary in two years.

Robson is running a largely old-school Republican campaign focused on cutting taxes and regulations, securing the border and advancing school choice. She has also emphasized Lake’s prior support for Democrats, including a $350 contribution to the last Democratic president.

On the Democratic side, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs defeated Marco Lopez, a former mayor of Nogales and border enforcement official during Obama’s administration.

As Arizona’s top elections official, Hobbs endeared herself to Democrats with an impassioned defense of the integrity of the 2020 election, a stance that has drawn death threats. However, she’s been weighed down by a discrimination case won by a Black policy adviser from Hobbs’ time in the Legislature.

The Republican race for Arizona secretary of state was won by Mark Finchem, a Trump-backed candidate who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His competition included Shawnna Bolick, a state lawmaker who has pushed for legislation allowing the Legislature to overturn the will of the voters and decide which candidate gets the state’s 11 electoral votes for president. The GOP establishment rallied around advertising executive Beau Lane, who says there were no widespread problems with the 2020 election.

Republican state House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who gave testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee about Trump’s pressure campaign following the 2020 election, was defeated by a Trump-backed challenger in his bid to move up to the state Senate.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Voters In 5 States Head To The Polls Tuesday

The 2022 primaries continue to be a loyalty test for former President Trump. As for the Democrats, it’s the prospect of losing control of Congress.

On Tuesday, voters in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington State will take to the polls in the latest round of high-profile matchups.

Republicans in Arizona will make a major choice about the future of their party, by selecting who their nominee will be, to take on Senator Mark Kelly.

Mark Brnovich, the current Republican state Attorney General, or Blake Masters, who is endorsed by former President Trump and supported by Peter Thiel.

In the Governor’s race, facing off against Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, will it be Trump endorsed former news anchor Kari Lake or Mike Pence endorsed Karrin Taylor Robson?

In Kansas, voters will pick the Republican to face off against Democrat Laura Kelly.

And in Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer will learn who her Republican challenger will be.

In Missouri, in the Republican primary to replace retiring Senator Roy Blunt, will the state’s Attorney General Eric Schmitt, former Governor Eric Greitens, or representative Vicky Hartzler be victorious, in a race The Cook Political Report ranks a “solid republican hold.”

And in Washington state, two Republican reps who voted to impeach Donald Trump in 2020 will face primary challengers.

The 2022 primaries continue to be a loyalty test for former President Trump. As for the Democrats, it’s the prospect of losing control of Congress.

Source: newsy.com

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Jan. 6 Panel To Share 20 Transcripts With Justice Department

By Associated Press
July 30, 2022

It remains unclear whether prosecutors might seek to bring criminal charges against Trump, who denies any wrongdoing.

The House Jan. 6 committee will share 20 of its interview transcripts with the Justice Department as federal prosecutors have been increasingly focused on efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election.

A committee aide said that the panel will share the 20 transcripts but has “no plans to share additional transcripts at this time.” The person, who requested anonymity to discuss the confidential transaction, would not say which interviews the committee is sharing.

The information sharing comes after the committee had rejected a Justice Department request for transcripts in May. At the time, the committee’s chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, had said it was “premature” for the committee to share its work because the panel’s probe is ongoing.

Since then, the panel has been negotiating an agreement over the documents as the department has stepped up its probes. Several senior aides to former Vice President Mike Pence have appeared before a federal grand jury and prosecutors have seized records from a group of Republicans who served as fake electors in battleground states won by President Joe Biden. Trump and his allies pushed officials in those states to replace Biden’s duly selected electors with ones who supported him as they advanced claims that his victory had been stolen.

It remains unclear whether prosecutors might seek to bring criminal charges against Trump, who denies any wrongdoing.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who is facing mounting pressure from congressional Democrats to bring charges against the former president, has said prosecutors will hold anyone accountable — no matter their position — if they broke the law.

In an interview with NBC News this week, Garland said the Justice Department would “bring to justice everybody who was criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another.”

The committee has not said if it plans to eventually share all of its transcripts with the Justice Department or the public. The Jan. 6 panel has done more than 1,000 interviews, but not all of those were formally transcribed.

The Justice Department declined to comment Friday on the transcripts.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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