More bad news for Republicans
From Arizona to Washington, DC, there are recounts and subpoenas, oh my!
Joe Biden has had a bad couple of months, but the Republicans have had a very bad week themselves. Late-breaking news is that the results of the Arizona Senate’s forensic recount of Maricopa County are in and they affirm that Donald Trump lost the state… by more than previously believed.
The Arizona Republic reports that Cyber Ninjas, the lead contractor for the audit, has compiled a three-volume report that found that Joe Biden won the election by about 360 votes more than previous counts. The audit also found that Democrat Mark Kelly won the Senate election in Maricopa.
The Cyber Ninjas report is scheduled to be presented to the Senate on Friday. It took five months and an estimated $150,000 for Arizona voters to hear that the county’s official vote tally was essentially correct.
Further bad news for Republicans is that the January 6 committee has issued its first subpoenas. CNN reports that the four subpoenas were issued to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, former adviser Steve Bannon, and Kash Patel, a former chief of staff to then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller. The subpoenas are for private depositions and written records and are due by October 7.
During the Trump Administration, officials were protected from congressional subpoenas by Trump’s claims of executive privilege. Those claims no longer apply since Donald Trump is no longer president.
The subpoenas are a hint of things to come. There might eventually be public testimony from the people who have been named so far and we can also expect more subpoenas for other Trump Administration officials in the near future. Donald Trump himself might even be subpoenaed before the show is over.
I’m not in favor of criminalizing policy, but that is not what is happening here. Instead, Republicans have been politicizing crime. The party has spent the past year papering over Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the election, which court documents this week showed was based on a lie, and the subsequent attempt by his supporters to storm the Capitol and stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote.
As I’ve said since January 6, we need a thorough investigation not only of the events of January 6 but of the entire post-election period. Where crimes were committed, those individuals need to be prosecuted.
The Arizona recount is an example of the hold that Donald Trump had on some members of the Republican Party… and continues to have until this day. Senate Republicans in the state would probably not have spent the time and money on another recount unless they really believed the claims about election fraud.
However, in the end, believing the Trumps only resulted in embarrassment along with wasted time and money. The kicker is that I’ll bet that a great many Republicans still won’t believe the results of the audit that they paid for. They’ll prefer to keep believing the Big Lie about widespread election fraud.
The conspiracy net will have to be cast a little wider to include the Cyber Ninjas.
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"During the Trump Administration, officials were protected from congressional subpoenas by Trump’s claims of executive privilege. Those claims no longer apply since Donald Trump is no longer president."
"The subpoenas are a hint of things to come. There might eventually be public testimony from the people who have been named so far and we can also expect more subpoenas for other Trump Administration officials in the near future. Donald Trump himself might even be subpoenaed before the show is over."
There's been arguments that current Presidents should respect past Presidents' wishes when it came to respecting the confidentiality of their papers. The argument roughly runs that some level of confidentiality is needed to engage in effective decision-making where ALL options (popular and not) can be heard and debated to arrive at a popular policy decision. I was sympathetic to that view for most of my life, but with the crap Trump pulled, I think it's time Biden throws that tradition to the curb moving forward and assists the House in compelling testimony for the Jan. 6 insurrection in the form of providing or declassifying anything they ask for.
The old understanding was helpful when we had reasonable people occupying the White House. Given that we've broken with THAT tradition, and it looks like the electorate is such that it's willing to tolerate yahoos in the Oval Office, not only do we need this deference to past administrations' wishes to go away to account for the first violent transition of power in our nation's history, but to also put current and future Presidents on notice that just because they can use claims of executive privilege to cover for stupid, immoral, and self-serving crap during their current term, but that opacity won't extend past their term, so they need to be prepared for the sunlight to shine onto their actions and choices eventually. In addition to that, I'd also empower the National Archives and Records Administration to file suit against any administration official - including the President - for the destruction of documents and other records that would prevent a review of the current administration's actions in subsequent administrations, with some actual penalties for violations and hefty rewards for whistleblowers identifying non-compliance.
We have to decide if we really want to be a nation of presidents accountable to the people or 4-year kings only accountable to their reelection prospects. Without more transparency into these processes and actions, our current tendency to be able to pick and believe what's convenient to our respective tribes is only going to make things worse.
Arizona was for many years a solid red state. It always voted to the right of the national average by a substantial margin. It wasn't at all a competitive state for Democrats until Donald Trump came into the picture. It was still a very light red state as of 2020, as even as Biden won by 0.3 percent, AZ still was 4.15 percent more Republican than the average. But key to Biden's win was him winning Maricopa County, as it has more than three-fifths of the state's population. If you lose Maricopa, then you are almost certain to lose statewide. In Biden's case, he was the first Dem Presidential candidate to win Maricopa since Harry Truman in 1948. By peddling electoral fibs, these Arizona Republicans seem like they want to turn AZ into a blue state through their own efforts. Outside of the MAGA base, most other voters really don't like #StoptheSteal. What kept Maricopa County red in the past, was the then heavily GOP suburbs of Phoenix. They've rapidly turned purple in the Trump era, and the Republicans in AZ risk turning these suburbs blue, and put the state out of reach for them.
Senator Mark Kelly is up for election in 2022 for a full Senate term in his own right(The 2020 election was only to serve out the remainder of the late Sen. John McCain's term). Biden is unpopular and in a swing state with a light red lean, this would normally be a ripe opportunity for the GOP to pickup the seat. The Senate is going to be much harder for the Republicans to win in 2022 than the House. In order to do so, they need to run the tables in all the competitive races. With the Arizona GOP still stuck on #StoptheSteal mode, they could very well help re-elect Mark Kelly, and potentially cost the GOP in winning back the Senate majority. In other states, pushing electoral trutherisms could hurt GOP candidates in competitive races.
Obviously we are a long ways away from Nov. 2022. But it is possible that the Democrats may manage to retain the House and Senate and even potentially gain seats even if Biden remains unpopular, should Republicans keep trying to relitigate the 2020 election like what is going on in Arizona. Play stupid, win stupid prizes.