SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Election 2020
Watchdogs Vow Accountability for Trump Crimes Despite Presidential Win
Public Citizen said it would "mobilize Americans to resist Trump's agenda of cruelty and corruption."
Nov 06, 2024
Government watchdogs on Wednesday said they are "not going anywhere" and will continue pushing for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to face accountability for his 34 felony counts and other alleged crimes, even as the Republican and his allies threatened the special counsel who has been prosecuting him.
"Trump will still be sentenced for the 34 felony counts on which he has been convicted, and other pending legal proceedings must
also move forward,"
said Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, co-presidents of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, which spent Trump's first term exposing corruption and unethical profiteering in his administration.
The group pledged to "mobilize Americans to resist Trump's agenda of cruelty and corruption" as it was reported that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents and his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was in talks with the DOJ to wind down the federal prosecutions.
Under DOJ policy, a sitting president cannot face prosecution while in office.
Smith filed charges against Trump over the allegations, but the cases were thrown into uncertainty by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in July that held presidents have legal immunity for "official acts" while in office.
In legal filings that were unsealed last month, Smith argued Trump should not be entitled to immunity from prosecution because he "resorted to crimes" when he attempted to overturn the 2020 election results.
Trump said in recent weeks that he would fire Smith "within two seconds" if he won the presidency.
His allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), have also demanded an end to what they call "lawfare" against Trump, with Scalise
saying Wednesday that the election results proved American voters want federal and state officials in to "immediately terminate the politically motivated prosecutions of President Donald Trump."
Graham wrote on the social media platform X on Wednesday, addressing Smith and his team, that "it is time to look forward to a new chapter in your legal careers as these politically motivated charges against President Trump hit a wall."
Trump was convicted of 34 state felony counts in New York for falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. He is currently scheduled to be sentenced on November 26, but his lawyers are likely to ask for an indefinite delay.
There's also state case in Georgia stemming from Trump's attempts to reverse his 2020 loss.
The work of ensuring Trump is "not about the law," said Weissman and Gilbert, "will continue in earnest [and] will be more important in 2025 than ever before."
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said Trump's victory "is making the urgency of accountability and checks on the presidency clearer than ever before."
"We're going to keep standing up against corruption and authoritarianism," said CREW, "as we have been for years."
Public Citizen was among more than 200 groups that announced a virtual event called "Making Meaning of the Moment," planned for November 7 at 8:00 pm. More than 20,000 people had registered as of Wednesday evening.
Keep ReadingShow Less
GOP Already Preparing Big Lie 2.0 If Trump Loses, Experts Warn
"Undermining the legitimacy of an election is how demagogues destroy faith in democracy," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Nov 01, 2024
With Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his allies in key swing states already questioning voting processes and claiming Democrats and election officials are "cheating" days before Election Day, one policy strategist said Thursday that election deniers took one lesson away from their attempts to overturn the 2020 results.
"We saw it in 2020 and I think the lesson Trump and his allies have learned since is that they have to sow these ideas early," Kyle Miller of the advocacy group Protect Democracy toldReuters.
Trump wrote on social media Thursday that "we caught them CHEATING BIG" in Miller's home state of Pennsylvania, and calling for criminal prosecutions, but election officials have said there is no evidence of fraud in early voting processes that took place in October.
Trump's campaign took legal action on Wednesday against Bucks County election officials, saying voters wanting to submit early mail-in ballots had been unfairly turned away when authorities told them the early voting deadline had passed. A judge ordered the county to extend voting by one day.
"This week, we are seeing that Donald Trump is clearly worried that he's going to lose the election," said a campaign official for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday. "How do we know that? Well, we know it because he's ramping up baseless claims of election fraud and irregularities."
Election officials discovered potentially fraudulent registrations in Lancaster and York counties, which appeared to have been filled out in the same handwriting. But authorities said the flagged registrations did not raise the risk that ballots would be cast fraudulently and were likely tied to a paid "large-scale canvassing operation."
"This is a sign that the built-in safeguards in our voter registration process are working," Al Schmidt, secretary of the commonwealth, told Reuters.
Nevertheless, Trump and his allies have seized on the incidents as evidence that Democrats are attempting to steal the election.
Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), have both continued spreading the "Big Lie" that Trump did not lose the 2020 election, and both have expressed doubt that they will accept an election loss if Harris is declared the winner.
The former president said he will accept the results only if he finds them to be "fair and legal and good," and told rally attendees in September that "the only way we're gonna lose" would be if Democrats cheat.
Vance said in October that he would accept the results in Pennsylvania, a primary focus of election deniers in 2020, if "only legal American citizens vote," alluding to a push made by Republicans including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) this year to claim voting by noncitizens is rampant in U.S. elections—even though it is prohibited by federal law.
Republicans in the U.S. House passed a bill earlier this year to stop noncitizens from voting—legislation that experts say was designed to spread a false narrative that could then be used to deny the election results.
"This will be one of the primary, but among many, false claims made if Trump loses," David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, toldThe Guardian. "And it will be false, but it still could be dangerous because it could incite his supporters to believing a totally secure election was stolen."
In Michigan on Wednesday, The New York Times reported that a "well-organized network of election denial activists" amplified the news of a small glitch in voting report which made it appear that a single voter's name was used to cast multiple ballots. The error was quickly corrected, but the far-right website Gateway Pundit claimed it had a "bombshell" report about absentee ballots in the state.
The Guardian on Friday also reported on dozens polls being conducted by Republican-aligned groups in the last days before the election, which have shown Trump with a decisive lead—contrasting with highly regarded nonpartisan polls that have consistently shown Trump and Harris in a dead heat.
GOP-aligned groups have released 37 polls in recent days, according to a New York Times study, with all but seven showing Trump in the lead.
One survey by the Trafalgar Group had Trump winning by three points in North Carolina, while a CNN poll showed Harris winning by one point in the battleground state.
Trump told supporters at a New Mexico campaign event on Thursday that he is "leading big in the polls, all of the polls."
With 63% of Republicans reporting earlier this year that they believed Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election, Trump's claims about polling may be enough to garner significant support for another attempt to overturn the election results after November 5, experts say.
"It is vital to Donald Trump's effort if he tries to cheat and overturn the election results, he needs to have data showing that somehow he was winning the election," Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg told The Guardian. "The reason we have to call this out is that Donald Trump needs to go into Election Day with some set of data showing him winning, so if he loses, he can say we cheated."
On Friday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said it is all but certain that Trump will declare victory on November 5 and that he is setting the stage to accuse Democrats of "vote stealing."
At least 35 election officials who have refused to certify elections since 2020 are now serving on election boards, according to a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Pro-democracy advocates say the recent GOP-aligned polls, baseless claims about illegal voting, and laser focus on minor errors in voting processes are all likely to be used by Trump and his allies to stop the certification of a potential Harris victory.
"The effort to try to subvert the outcome," Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center for Justice told The Guardian, "is more thought-out, more strategic, more organized, more coordinated [than] in 2020."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Giuliani Ordered to Give NYC Penthouse, Luxury Items to Georgia Election Workers He Defamed
'This outcome should send a powerful message that there is a price to pay for those who choose to intentionally spread disinformation," said a lawyer representing the two women.
Oct 22, 2024
Rudy Giuliani, the disgraced and disbarred former New York City mayor and personal attorney for ex-President Donald Trump, was ordered by a federal judge on Tuesday to hand over all of his valuable possessions—including everything from a New York City penthouse co-op to his television set—to a pair of Georgia election workers whom he defamed in service of Trump's "Big Lie" that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by Democrats.
In August 2023, Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found Giuliani liable for defaming Ruby Freeman and ArShaye "Shaye" Moss—who worked as election officials in Fulton County, Georgia—by falsely accusing the pair of engaging in a nonexistent conspiracy to "steal" the 2020 U.S. presidential election from Trump by taking part in a fake ballot harvesting scheme. Freeman and Moss endured death threats and harassment from Trump supporters as a result of the bogus accusation.
Last December, a Washington, D.C. jury ordered Giuliani to pay $148 million in damages to the women. He subsequently declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
On Tuesday, Judge Lewis Liman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an order for Giuliani "to transfer all personal property specified" in an attached list, including "cash accounts, jewelry and valuables, a legal claim for unpaid attorneys' fees, and his interest in his Madison Avenue co-op apartment to a receivership" benefiting Freeman and Moss.
In addition to the co-op—which according to the real estate website Zillow has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and is worth an estimated $20.6 million—items on the list include watches gifted by European leaders after the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States, a 1980 Mercedes-Benz 500SL formerly owned by the actress Lauren Bacall, and sports memorabilia including a signed Joe DiMaggio jersey.
"We are proud that our clients will finally begin to receive some of the compensation to which they are entitled for Giuliani's actions," Aaron Nathan, an attorney who represented Freeman and Moss, said in a statement. "This outcome should send a powerful message that there is a price to pay for those who choose to intentionally spread disinformation."
"The road to justice for Ruby and Shaye has been long, but they have never wavered," Nathan added.
Giuliani has paid a heavy price for purveying election fraud lies that culminated in the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection by supporters of Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee. His credibility is now in tatters and he has been permanently stripped of his New York and Washington, D.C. law licenses.
And his troubles are far from over—Giuliani also faces criminal charges related to alleged election subversion in
Arizona and Georgia.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular