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Lake Loses Suit Over Her Defeat in Arizona Governor’s Race

A judge has thrown out Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, rejecting her claim that problems with ballot printers at some polling places on Election Day were the result of intentional misconduct.

In a decision Saturday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, who was appointed by former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, found that the court did not find clear and convincing evidence of the widespread misconduct that Lake had alleged had affected the result of the 2022 general election. Lake will appeal the ruling, she said in a statement.

The judge said Lake’s witnesses didn’t have any personal knowledge of intentional misconduct.

“The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence,” Thompson said.

Lake, who lost to Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, was among the most vocal 2022 Republicans promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most of the other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake has not. Instead, she asked the judge to either declare her the winner or order a revote in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of Arizona’s voters.

Hobbs takes office as governor on Jan. 2.

In the ruling, the judge acknowledged the “anger and frustration” of voters who were inconvenienced in the election and noted that setting aside the results of an election “has never been done in the history of the United States.”

“But this court’s duty is not solely to incline an ear to public outcry,” the judge continued. “It is to subject plaintiff’s claims and defendant’s actions to the light of the courtroom and scrutiny of the law.”

Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion.

County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted, since ballots affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at the elections department headquarters. They are in the process of investigating the root cause of the printer problems.

Lake’s attorneys also claimed the chain of custody for ballots was broken at an off-site facility, where a contractor scans mail ballots to prepare them for processing. They claimed workers at the facility put their own mail ballots into the pile, rather than sending their ballots through normal channels, and also that paperwork documenting the transfer of ballots was missing. The county disputes the claim.

Lake faced extremely long odds in her challenge, needing to prove not only that misconduct occurred, but also that it was intended to deny her victory and did in fact result in the wrong woman being declared the winner. 
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Georgia Special Grand Jury Wraps Up Probe of Trump, Allies

A special grand jury investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election in the southern U.S. state of Georgia appears to be wrapping up its work, but many questions remain.

The investigation is one of several that could result in criminal charges against the former president as he asks voters to return him to the White House in 2024.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who began investigating nearly two years ago, has said she will go where the facts lead. It would be an extraordinary step if she chooses to bring charges against Trump himself.

“Even if he’s acquitted by a jury, for him to face trial and to have a public trial with evidence on the record would be an epic thing for American history,” Georgia State University law professor Clark Cunningham said.

Here’s what we know as the special grand jury appears to be winding down:

What’s the latest?

Over about six months, the grand jurors have considered evidence and heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, including high-profile Trump associates and top state officials. A prosecutor on Willis’ team said during a hearing in November that they had few witnesses left and didn’t anticipate the special grand jury continuing much longer.

The grand jurors are expected to produce a final report with recommendations on potential further action. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s supervising the panel, will review the report and recommend to the court’s chief judge that the special grand jury be dissolved. The judges of the county Superior Court will then vote on whether to let the special grand jurors go or whether more investigation is necessary.

The special grand jury cannot issue indictments. Willis will decide whether to go to a regular grand jury to pursue criminal charges.

What have we learned about the investigation?

For more than a year after opening the investigation, Willis revealed little. But, ironically, once the special grand jury began meeting in June, its proceedings shrouded in mandatory secrecy, hints about where the investigation was headed began to come out.

That’s because whenever Willis wanted to compel the testimony of someone who lives outside Georgia, she had to file paperwork in a public court docket explaining why that person was a “necessary and material witness.” Additionally, anyone fighting a summons had to do so in public court filings and hearings.

In the paperwork Willis filed seeking to compel testimony from some Trump associates, she said she wanted to know about their communications with the Trump campaign and others “involved in the multi-state, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

Prominent Trump allies whose testimony was sought included former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, as well as John Eastman and other lawyers who participated in Trump’s attempts to stay in power.

“We learned from the identity of the witnesses that this is a far-ranging conspiracy that she’s looking at,” said Norm Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment and co-wrote a Brookings Institution report analyzing the “reported facts and applicable law” in the Fulton County investigation.

Have there been setbacks?

A number of Trump advisers and allies fought Willis’ attempts to bring them in for testimony, but Willis prevailed in most cases.

“I think that augurs well for the pretrial skirmishing to come if she charges,” Eisen said.

Willis had a notable misstep when she hosted a fundraiser for a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor even as her investigation zeroed in on the state’s fake electors, including Burt Jones, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor. McBurney said that created “a plain – and actual and untenable – conflict” and ruled that Willis could not question or pursue charges against Jones, who won election in November.

What’s been the focus of the investigation?

The information that has come out publicly has indicated that Willis was looking at the following:

Phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the wake of the 2020 election
A group of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state's “duly elected and qualified” electors
False allegations of election fraud made during meetings of state legislators at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020
The copying of data and software from election equipment in rural Coffee County by a computer forensics team hired by Trump allies
Alleged attempts to pressure Fulton County elections worker Ruby Freeman into falsely confessing to election fraud
The abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in January 2021

What about that infamous phone call?

In a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the president suggested that the state’s top elections official, a fellow Republican, could “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.

A month later, Willis sent letters to Raffensperger and other top state officials instructing them to retain records because she was investigating “attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia General Election.”

Trump told Raffensperger he needed 11,780 votes, one more than Biden won. That was a mistake, Cunningham said, because the specific and transactional nature of that comment makes it hard to say he was just generally urging Raffensperger to look into alleged fraud.

But other legal experts have said prosecutors could struggle to prove criminal intent, which requires showing that actions were taken purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently.

What charges might be considered?

In her February 2021 letters to state leaders, Willis said she was looking into potential crimes that included “solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”

Many believe Willis will pursue charges under the state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, commonly known as RICO. In a high-profile prosecution when she was an assistant district attorney, she used that law successfully to secure charges against Atlanta educators in a test cheating scandal. She has also used it more recently to target alleged gang activity.

The state RICO law, which is broader than the federal version, requires prosecutors to prove a pattern of criminal activity by an enterprise, which could be a single person or a group of associated individuals. It allows prosecutors to assert involvement in a pattern of criminality without having to prove that each person participated in every act.

Eisen said RICO seems “most commensurate with the nature of the people testifying and the questions that she wanted to ask.”

As the special grand jury was working, Willis informed some people that they were targets of the investigation, including Giuliani and the state’s 16 fake electors. It’s possible others received similar notifications but haven’t disclosed that publicly.

What has Trump said?

The former president has consistently called his phone call with Raffensperger “perfect” and has dismissed the Fulton County investigation as a witch hunt.

Criminal defense attorney Drew Findling, part of Trump’s legal team in Georgia, in August said the focus on Trump “is clearly an erroneous and politically driven persecution.”

Trump allies have also denied any wrongdoing. 
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Final Report on Jan. 6 Attack Points Finger at Trump

The committee formed by the House of Representatives to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol on Thursday released its final report, an 845-page set of documents supporting the committee’s claim that the attack was directly caused by former President Donald Trump and represented the final act in a “multipart conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election.”

The product of more than 17 months of investigation, the report is the distillation of evidence gathered from thousands of witness interviews, documents and subpoenaed electronic communications. According to the committee, “That evidence has led to an overriding and straight-forward conclusion: The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

Trump himself has consistently denounced the committee and its work, and has continued to insist, falsely, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Expansive report

In addition to examining the attack itself, the report describes Trump’s pressure on U.S. officials, states, legislators and then-Vice President Mike Pence to manipulate the system or violate the law.

The release of the report follows a final hearing by the committee, held on Monday, in which members accused the former president of committing multiple crimes and referred him to the Department of Justice for prosecution. The charges include insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to make a false statement.

The referral carries no legal weight, but the voluminous records produced by the committee will supplement evidence gathered by the Justice Department in its own investigation and could influence the final decision on whether to prosecute the former president.

Major findings

The report issued Thursday builds a case that former President Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, using multiple strategies, all of which ultimately failed.

It documents efforts to pressure state and local officials to challenge or throw out election results that showed a Biden victory, even after dozens of lawsuits challenging the results were dismissed in court challenges.

After other attempts were thwarted, Trump latched on to a theory proposed by attorney John Eastman, which claimed that Pence had the authority to refuse to count the votes of specific states when Congress convened on January 6, a strategy meant to buy time to persuade state legislatures to take action to overturn state-level results. Pence ultimately refused to go along with the plan, and evidence uncovered by the committee indicates that even as he proposed it, Eastman was aware that the scheme was illegal.

Effort to corrupt DOJ

The committee report also lays out in detail what it describes as an effort by the former president to “corrupt the Department of Justice.”

In the aftermath of the election, former Attorney General William Barr informed Trump that all of the investigations into election irregularities undertaken by the Department of Justice had failed to find evidence of fraud sufficiently large to overturn the results of the balloting. In the face of Trump’s continued claims of fraud, Barr announced his resignation in December 2020.

The report documents that, in the weeks that followed, Trump took a number of steps to try to persuade senior officials in the department to issue statements expressing doubt about the results of the election.

Trump found an ally in DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark, an official in the department’s Civil Division, who drafted a document for the department to send to election officials in Georgia, falsely claiming that the department had “significant concerns” about possible fraud that might have affected the election outcome there and in other states. The document, which was never transmitted, also urged the state legislature to consider overturning the election result in that state.

The report chronicles a dramatic showdown in the Oval Office, in which Trump proposed installing Clark as acting attorney general. The most senior officials in the department all told the president that if he took that step, they would immediately resign.

Trump knew claims were false

A crucial finding in the report, and one that was hammered home in public hearings, was that Trump knew that he had lost a fair election, having been told so unequivocally by a number of his top advisers.

The point is important, because demonstrating that the former president was not acting in good faith when he claimed that the election had been stolen and sought to have state officials produce alternative results is a key component of the fraud charges.

Trump pushed back against that claim in particular on his social media network, Truth Social, writing, “This is a total LIE. I never thought, for even a moment, that the Presidential Election of 2020 was not Rigged & Stolen, and my conviction became even stronger as time went by.”

Capitol assault

The investigative committee, formally the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, was originally conceived of as a bipartisan effort with support from leaders of both the Republican and Democratic caucuses in the House.

It was formed to gather facts and conclusions about the events of that day, when a thousands-strong crowd of Trump supporters attended a rally near the White House, at which Trump told them to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” The mob descended on the Capitol, where lawmakers had gathered to certify now-President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

The crowd quickly became violent, and despite the presence of more than 1,000 law enforcement officers, was able to force entry into the building and force members of Congress and Pence to flee. Members of the crowd were angry at the vice president for his refusal to illegally declare Trump the victor, and many were chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”

The report establishes that, during the hourslong attack, President Trump was aware of what was taking place, and nevertheless sent out a tweet attacking Pence, further inflaming the crowd. Witnesses produced by the committee said that Trump declined requests by aides and members of his family to ask the rioters to leave.

Trump was eventually persuaded to ask the mob to disperse, which he did in a video address that described the rioters as “very special.” Order was eventually restored late in the day, with the help of National Guard troops, and Congress formally certified Biden’s victory.

Born in controversy

In the immediate aftermath of the assault, condemnation of the attack was bipartisan, and a proposal to fully investigate its causes received strong support from leaders on both sides. However, in the weeks that followed the assault, Republican lawmakers, taking cues from Trump, tried to minimize the seriousness of the event.

When the committee was formed in the early summer of 2021, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy nominated five Republicans, including Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. Because Jordan, a close Trump ally, was likely to be a target of the investigation, and because Banks had publicly stated his unwillingness to cooperate with an investigation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected their appointments and requested that McCarthy name replacements. Instead, the Republican leader withdrew all five nominees and declined to offer new ones.

Pelosi replied by designating two Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom had continued to denounce the attack and Trump’s role in inciting it.

Beginning in the summer of 2022, the committee held a series of nine public hearings in which it laid out a comprehensive timeline of the assault itself and of the efforts to overturn the election that preceded it.

House Republican report

A competing report issued by the five House Republicans who were originally nominated to serve on the Jan. 6 committee was released Wednesday.

The report focused primarily on the security failures that led the Capitol Police and Washington Metropolitan Police Department to be underprepared for the violence at the Capitol. The report lays much of the blame for the results of the riot on Pelosi, claiming that she decided not to bring on additional security, including the National Guard, in advance of the riot.

The Republican report does not address the root causes of the riot, the actions of former President Trump on Jan. 6 and before, or the broader effort to overturn the results of the election.
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Biden White House Navigates Jan. 6 Committee Recommendation to Prosecute Trump

The House select committee probing the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol is scheduled to release its final report Thursday, referring former president Donald Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation and potential prosecution for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden.

As Attorney General Merrick Garland considers whether to accept the recommendation, the White House has been treading carefully to avoid the appearance it is targeting a potential political opponent in the 2024 election.

On numerous occasions White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has emphasized that the White House will not politicize the process.

“I just want to be very careful and refer you to the Department of Justice on those, because this administration and the DOJ conduct criminal investigation independently, free of any sort of — any kind of political interference or any interference at all,” she said earlier this week.

The report, released just two weeks shy of the two-year anniversary of the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters, caps an unprecedented chapter in American history where a committee of lawmakers, which included two Republicans, recommended the Justice Department pursue at least four criminal charges against Trump related to his alleged efforts to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and incitement, rebellion or insurrection.

No former U.S. president has ever been indicted for criminal conduct. Given the high stakes and sensitivity, it would be prudent for the administration at this point to simply get out of the way, said Peter Loge, director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University.

“The best thing that President Biden can do is what he’s doing, which is to say – you know, the House committee made a really compelling case. In my view, it’s really clear, I agree with their conclusions, we have to continue to defend and promote democracy, and now it’s up to the Department of Justice.”

Hold accountable those responsible

Last month after a jury in Washington convicted two members of the far-right group the Oath Keepers on seditious conspiracy charges for crimes related to the Capitol attack, Garland said the department will continue to work “to hold accountable those responsible for crimes related to the attack on our democracy on January 6, 2021.”

However, there are clearly political implications to investigating such a public and controversial figure as Trump, especially after his November announcement that he will be a candidate for president in 2024.

Running for president does not shield an individual from criminal probes: Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in 2016, was investigated beginning in 2015 on her use of a private email server. Also, the Justice Department for months has been running investigations related to Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, as well as potential attempts to nullify the 2020 election results. Still, officials must take extra caution to avoid even the appearance that the investigation of the former president is politically motivated.

Independence of Justice Department

The attorney general is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but the Justice Department has a degree of independence stemming from practices established after the 1974 Watergate scandal, when President Richard Nixon attempted to use department officials for his political agenda, ordering Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus refused, and also resigned.

There’s also the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 that allows investigations into misconduct to operate independently of presidential control, which provided the legal basis for Garland to appoint special counsel Jack Smith to lead the Trump investigations in November.

“Such an appointment underscores the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,” Garland said.

Many Republicans, including Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, say that even with the investigation being conducted by a special counsel, the Justice Department should not accept the committee’s recommendation.

“I would hope that they would not bring charges against the former president,” Pence said in an interview with FOX News earlier this week. “I think the president’s actions and words on January 6th were reckless. But I don’t know that it is criminal to take bad advice from lawyers. And so I hope the Justice Department is careful.”

Other observers say that despite the risk of widening political divisions even further, a full investigation is worth it.

“There’s at least the possibility of the genuine independence of the Department of Justice and a careful prosecution waged against a former president who in important ways was lawless, that will have the effect of shoring up the rule of law and protecting our democracy,” said William Howell, professor of American politics at the University of Chicago. “That’s the bet the Department of Justice is making.”

Howell said no matter how well Smith carries out the investigations, how much evidence he unearths and how carefully he abides by the law, expect Trump and his supporters to cry foul.

Trump already did. Last month he slammed Smith’s appointment and called it a continuation of what he calls the Democrats’ witch hunt against him.

“Over the years, I’ve given millions and millions of pages of documents, tax returns and everything else, and they have found nothing,” Trump said during a speech at Mar-a-Lago.

“Which means I’ve proven to be one of the most honest and innocent people ever in our country.”
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US Senate Passes $1.7 Trillion Bill to Fund Government, Ukraine Aid

The Senate passed a massive $1.7 trillion spending bill Thursday that finances federal agencies through September and provides another large round of aid to Ukraine one day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dramatic address to a joint meeting of Congress.

The bill, which runs for 4,155 pages, includes about $772.5 billion for domestic programs and $858 billion for defense and would finance federal agencies through the fiscal year at the end of September.

The bill passed by a vote of 68-29 and now goes to the House for a final vote before it can be sent to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

“This is one of the most significant appropriations packages we have done in a very long time,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. said moments before the vote. “The range of people it helps is large and deep,” 

Lawmakers were racing to get the bill approved before a partial government shutdown would occur at midnight Friday, and many were anxious to complete the task before a deep freeze and wintry conditions left them stranded in Washington for the holidays. Many also want to lock in government funding before a new GOP-controlled House next year could make it harder to find compromise on spending.

Lawmakers heard from Zelenskyy about the importance of U.S. aid to his country for its war with Russia on Wednesday night. The measure provides about $45 billion in military, economic and humanitarian assistance for the devastated nation and NATO allies, more than Biden requested, raising total assistance so far to more than $100 billion.

“Your money is not charity,” Zelenskyy told lawmakers and Americans watching from home. “It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”

The spending bill is supported by Schumer and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, though for different reasons.

McConnell cited the bill’s 10% boost in defense spending, which he says will give America’s armed forces the funding and certainty needed to ensure the country’s security.

“The world’s greatest military will get the funding increase that it needs, outpacing inflation,” McConnell said. “Meanwhile, non-defense, non-veterans spending will come in below the rate of inflation, for a real-dollar cut.”

McConnell faced pushback from many Republicans who don’t support the spending bill and resent being forced to vote on such a massive package with so little time before a potential shutdown and the Christmas holiday.

“There has not been enough time for a single person to have read this entire bill. The bill and process ignores soaring inflation, rising interest rates and our ballooning debt of $31 trillion,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. “Enough is enough.”

For two senators, the bill puts the finishing touches on their work in Washington. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is retiring after serving some 48 years in the Senate and as the current chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He negotiated the bill for months with Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the committee’s ranking Republican, who was elected to the Senate in 1986 and is also retiring.

“What a capstone to a brilliant career,” Schumer said.

The bill also contains roughly $40 billion in emergency spending in the U.S., mostly to assist communities across the country recovering from drought, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

And, of course, it includes scores of policy changes unrelated to spending that lawmakers sought to include in what is going to be the last major bill of the Congress.

One of the most notable examples was a historic revision to federal election law that aims to prevent any future presidents or presidential candidates from trying to overturn an election. The bipartisan overhaul of the Electoral Count Act is in direct response to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to convince Republican lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence to object to the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
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