U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

Any votes for Marjorie Taylor Greene will be 'discarded' if she's ruled ineligible to run for Congress: attorney



Controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) lost her committee assignments only a month after being sworn in to office and now the first-term lawmaker may not even make the ballot to stand for re-election.

Following Greene's attempts to overturn the 2020 election, her eligibility to run is being questioned under the Constitution's ban on insurrectionists holding office.

"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress...who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress...to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same," reads Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

The attorney behind the lawsuit, Ron Fein, was interviewed by MSNBC chief legal correspondent Ari Melber on Tuesday.

Melber noted Greene will be the first sitting legislator to be questioned under oath about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"If you win, what would happen?" Melber asked Fein.

"If we prevail in this hearing on Friday, then the judge will make a formal written recommendation, which of course could be appealed, but that would say that Marjorie Taylor Greene is disqualified from public office," he explained.

"And then the secretary of state would put instructions at all the polling places in her district in Georgia saying votes cast for her will not count and will be discarded.," he explained.

Melber also played clips of the QAnon congresswoman ranting about a "global cabal of Satan-worshipping ped*philes" and voicing 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Fein said Greene isn't being challenged because of her political views.

"Marjorie Taylor Greene has a wide range of despicable views, but that's not what this is about. This is about the Constitution of the United States and our principle of that Constitution that you can't take an oath to support the Constitution and then break that oath and engage in insurrection against the United States. You have to pick one side or another and Marjorie Taylor Greene picked her side," he explained. "Under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, she is not only a danger to the entire country, but she's disqualified from any public office."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Chad Mizelle, who was acting General Counsel for DHS in the Trump Administration, works at Jared Kushner’s new investment firm…AND is the husband of Trump appointed Judge Katherine Mizelle, who just ruled against the CDC mask mandate.

Such a small, small world and they are all connected.

Jared Kushner’s Investment Firm Hires Former Trump Staffers

Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners venture has drawn some controversy because Kushner has been seeking capital from some of the Middle Eastern countries that he dealt with in the White House, including Saudi Arabia.

January 20, 2022



Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and former senior adviser to former President Donald Trump, is relying on Washington as well as Wall Street to build out the staff of his new private equity firm.

Affinity Partners filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month reporting assets raised, names of several employees and strategies the firm will pursue.

Some of those numbers are already out of date. Affinity now has more than 20 staff, including four from the Trump Administration, said a person familiar with the firm.

Kushner, who brokered a deal between Israel and several Middle Eastern countries while working in the White House, plans to open an investment office there that will seek regional investments with neighbors in North Africa and the Gulf.

The firm also hopes to capitalize on macro trends, according to its Dec. 23 registration, which was filed under the name A Fin Management.

“Affinity believes that geo-political risks are creating competitive pressure for advanced industrial countries to increase investment in key industries,” including artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital payments, the firm said in the filing. “Affinity will seek to understand these trends to identify specific markets that it believes can achieve outsized growth.”

Kushner, who turned 41 earlier this month, began setting up Affinity Partners in June. The venture has drawn some controversy because Kushner has been seeking capital from some of the Middle Eastern countries that he dealt with in the White House, including Saudi Arabia, according to the New York Times.

Affinity Partners had raised $2 billion by the end of November, according to last month’s filing, which didn’t include details on the investors. The firm plans to update the filing in the next several weeks to reflect additional commitments, which now exceed $3 billion, according to the person.

Kushner hired private equity veterans Bret Pearlman and Asad Naqvi to select investments and negotiate deals for the Sunny Isles Beach, Florida-based firm.

Ian Brekke, who served as deputy general counsel and acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump, replaced Nicholas Butterfield as compliance officer in December. Butterfield, a former deputy White House policy coordinator, still works for the firm.

John Rader, who worked on U.S. trade relations with Mexico and Canada for the Trump administration, became Affinity Partners’ chief operating officer in September, the filing shows. Chad Mizelle, a former assistant counsel to the President, has also been hired, the person said.

Lauren Key, who most recently was as a managing director at Orion Energy Partners, joined Affinity Partners as chief financial officer in October.

Before joining the White House, Kushner worked for his family’s real estate firm, Kushner Cos., which his father built as a simple business buying and refurbishing suburban garden apartments on the East Coast. Jared, encouraged the firm to move aggressively into New York, including with the 2007 purchase of 666 Fifth Ave., a Manhattan office tower, bought for $1.8 billion that was soon hit by the financial crisis. Since Jared’s departure, the firm has reverted to less flashy investments outside of New York.

https://www.law.com/dailybusinessreview/2022/01/20/jared-kushners-investment-firm-hires-former-trump-staffers/

[Rick Plant]

REVEALED: Ginni Thomas texted friend whose boss tried to get Trump election challenges to Supreme Court



Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had more than just Mark Meadows as a texting buddy in the effort to overturn Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 presidential election.

She was also communicating with none other than Connie Hair, chief of staff to Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who signed on to two failed legal efforts to challenge the results -- one of which could have ended up before her husband and the U.S.Supreme Court, CNN reports.

Ginni Thomas' newly reported exchanges with Hair are amplifying calls for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from any election- or insurrection-related matters that might come before the court.

Stephen Gillers of NYU School of Law, is one of those calling a Thomas recusal. "Mrs. Thomas has a First Amendment right to speak publicly and forcefully on issues that might come before the Supreme Court without thereby forcing recusal of her husband," Gillers told CNN. "But in the current situation, her interests are caught up in cases that could come before the court."

Ginni Thomas reportedly has a years-long friendship with Hair, including attending social outings with her at which Clarence Thomas was present. Their text exchanges, which Ginni Thomas shared with Meadows, demonstrate the ardor with which she was working to subvert the voting will of the American people and promote discredited theories of massive fraud.

"Was on a call with the Trump campaign manager and legal folks for a briefing this morning. WE ARE SEEING THIS THROUGH TO THE END OF THE COURT/COUNT BATTLE," Hair posted on Nov. 7, four days after the election. And on Nov. 21, Hair posted: "Massive amounts of voter fraud in big cities throughout the contested states."

The Supreme Court ultimately decided not to take up Gohmert's lawsuit against then-vice president Mike Pence or a Texas case the lawmaker supported against states Trump lost.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/politics/ginni-thomas-mark-meadows-connie-hair-texts-january-6/index.html

[Rick Plant]

This 'coded' MTG tweet may be decisive in kicking her off the ballot: attorney



Before controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was permanently banned from Twitter for repeatedly pushing pandemic misinformation, the first-term member of Congress may have implicated herself in Donald Trump's coup attempt — and it could prevent her from seeking re-election.

On Friday, Greene will be forced to testify under oath about her role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in response to a lawsuit challenging her eligibility to seek re-election under the Constitution's ban on insurrectionists running for office.

"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress...who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress...to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same," reads Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Ron Fein, the attorney who will get to question Greene on Friday, was interviewed by MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin.

"As you know, I cannot give a sneak preview of the questions that we are going to ask a hostile witness, but even before we ask a single question, we know four things already," Fein said. "One is that she called for Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden to be executed for treason. She told her followers that they could not allow a peaceful transfer of power."

And then he pointed to a "coded" tweet than Greene sent on Jan. 5, 2021.

"She worked with the planners of some of the events of Jan. 6th and then the day before the attack, she signaled to her followers a code word, meant to storm federal buildings and supposedly overthrow tyrants. So, we are going to ask her about all of that and more," he explained.

The coded word referred to Greene referring to the blocking of the Electoral College as Republicans' "1776 moment."

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed, starting America's Revolutionary War.

"'1776' was used as a codeword for violence in the run-up to January 6. For instance, Ali Alexander, a violent extremist who listed Representative Greene as a speaker at his January 6 event, and referred to Greene as a 'friend,' replied to a tweet by Greene on December 30, 2020, promising that '1776 is *always* an option' if objections to certification were blocked. The responses indicate it was understood as a call to storm the Capitol," the complaint alleges.

"Alexander increasingly used references to '1776' between December 30 and January 6 as a call for violence if Trump was not installed as president for another four years," the complaint continues. "By this time, it was well known that events Alexander planned and promoted developed into violence. Similarly, Enrique Tarrio, until recently the leader of the 'Proud Boys,' had on hand a detailed plan for the far-right extremist group to distract police, swarm federal buildings, and obstruct their functioning. The title of the document describing the plan was '1776 Returns.'”

The complaint argues the tweet is a smoking gun.

"Greene’s references to '1776,' made two days after she took the oath to uphold and protect the Constitution, had a specific meaning to her intended audience, when taken in the context of her well-known history of advocating political violence, the widespread use of '1776' by violent extremists as a codeword for violence and for storming government buildings, and the widespread reports of planned violence on the Capitol. Specifically, her remarks had the intent and effect of signaling to her supporters that she was calling not for peaceful protest, but for violent resistance, to a peaceful transfer of power to the president-elect, in defiance of the Constitution," the lawsuit alleges.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Terrified of the Media Watching Her Testify Under Oath

The conspiracy theorist from Georgia is set to testify on Friday in a case seeking to disqualify her from office for her alleged role in the events of last Jan. 6



Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to appear in court on Friday. The media will be there, too, and she’s furious about it.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg ruled earlier this week that an effort to disqualify the conspiracy theorist from running for reelection over her alleged role in the attack on the Capitol last Jan. 6 can proceed. The group who filed the challenge, Free Speech for People, is alleging that Greene is in violation of the 14th Amendment, which states that if someone took an oath to defend the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion,” they can’t serve in Congress.

Totenberg’s decision means Greene will have to testify under oath on Friday. Greene seems a little worried, perhaps because she’s built her entire career on pushing lies and unfounded conspiracy theories — from Jewish-funded space lasers starting the California wildfires to the 2020 election being stolen — and has little experience telling the truth, which she’ll now have to do lest she open herself up to perjury charges.

"You want to talk about it? It’s a big lie,” she said recently on One America News. “They want to talk about the big lie, this is the big lie and it’s destroying democracy.”

Greene grew even more animated about the media presence in the courtroom. “I really hope you guys get a camera in that courtroom,” she continued. “You know what the Democrats and the media are going to do: They’re going to click and cut and paste so they can sell a lie on their networks every night.”

The Republican Accountability Project
@AccountableGOP
"The MTG meltdown continues"
Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1516585561280159748

Greene talking about “destroying democracy” is pretty rich. Rolling Stone reported last fall that Greene was one of several lawmakers who participated in the planning of the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the riot at the Capitol. She’s since valorized those who stormed the Capitol in attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. “If you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants,” she said in October.

Greene made the same argument against the media’s presence in the courtroom on The Jennis Ellis Show, hosted by Trump’s former election attorney. “It’s absurd what they are claiming and lying about,” she said on Tuesday. “They’re going to allow the press in the courtroom. They’re going to allow the whole thing to be videoed live. … You know what that’s going to look like. The Democrats and the nasty mainstream media … are going to be able to twist and turn and clip out any little piece they want.”

Ron Filipkowski
@RonFilipkowski
Marge getting scared for court Friday: “They’re going to allow the press in the courtroom. They’re going to allow the whole thing to be videoed live. They’re going to be able to clip out any little piece they want of the horrible things .. they’re going to say about me.”
Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1516546478076043270

Greene tried to block the effort to get her booted from the ballot earlier this month, arguing that the move is unconstitutional while “vigorously” denying that she “aided and engaged in insurrection.” Judge Totenberg didn’t buy it. “This case involves a whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests of public import,” the judge, who was appointed by President Obama, wrote. “The novelty of the factual and historical posture of this case — especially when assessed in the context of a preliminary injunction motion reviewed on a fast track — has made resolution of the complex legal issues at stake here particularly demanding.”

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Myers II, who was appointed by Trump, last week ruled in favor of Madison Cawthorn as the North Carolina representative moved to block a similar effort to disqualify him from Congress for his alleged involvement in the events of last Jan. 6. Cawthorn, like Greene, was mentioned in Rolling Stone‘s report about the organization of the rally that preceded the riot. Greene wasn’t as lucky as Cawthorn, but it will likely be hard to prove that she, or any of the other lawmakers who may have helped incite the riot, actually violated the 14th Amendment — even though the evidence against Greene in particular is pretty copious.

Regardless, Friday’s testimony could be illuminating. Up to this point, Greene has been free to peddle lies ad infinitum, and because Republican leadership doesn’t seem to care, the only real consequence she’s faced has been getting banned from Twitter. She’ll now have to speak not only under the specter of media scrutiny, but of perjury charges.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/marjorie-taylor-greene-media-testimony-disqualified-office-1340262/

[Rick Plant]

GOP candidate released a dramatic 'savior' ad – and it might be blowing up in his face



A Republican candidate looking to replace Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly is getting some blowback for a campaign ad, making it the third time this year his public messaging struck a sour note, according to the Phoenix New Times' Elias Weiss.

Self-funded political newcomer Jim Lamon ran an ad that has even some Christian Republicans raising their eyebrows. In the Easter-themed ad, Lamon hints that he's Arizona's savior. "It's a close marriage of church and state that doesn't sit right with everyone in his target audience, a departure from previous attempts," Weiss writes.

“These are dark times. Times of plague and turmoil," Lamon says in the ad, suggesting he knows God's plan to save America.

Speaking to the New Times, Chandler-based trial attorney Tom Ryan, who is a Christian and former GOP voter, said that the ad's offensiveness was due to the "whole notion that he is the Savior."

“It’s wholly inappropriate and offensive. It made me sick to my stomach when I saw that," Ryan said.

“There is a real rise of Christian dominionism, which is not true Christianity at all,” Ryan continued. “It should be concerning to everybody. By hitching their wagon to Christianity, they retain power, like in Nazi Germany.”

Lamon is among a group of prominent Republicans who falsely claimed to be an elector for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election and funded security efforts in the election audit in Maricopa County.

Darlene Packard, a straight-ticket Republican voter and devout Christian from Prescott, told the New Times that Lamon's rhetoric is the kind thing that will potentially be the GOP's "downfall."

“When you go too far to the right, you piss people off and they go the other way. I get offended at that ‘holier than thou’ attitude," Packard said.

Watch the ad below:

[Rick Plant]

Nice lame excuse Mike!

GOP's Mike Lee defends texts with Mark Meadows about overturning election: 'He knew I wasn't there to do his bidding'



Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee says that the text messages he exchanged with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, in which they discussed strategy for overturning the 2020 election results, don’t really mean that he wanted to overturn the election results.

In his first interview since CNN last week revealed dozens of his texts with Meadows, the Utah Republican told Deseret News in an interview on Wednesday that was simply trying figure out if Congress could exert any legal authority over the presidential election. He also denied that he was Donald Trump's lapdog.

Lee told the newspaper that the string of texts between Nov. 7, 2020, and Jan. 4, 2021, were written with "a level of informality that would be reserved for a friend."

“He knows that when I said things like, ‘Tell me what we ought to be saying,’ what I was just trying to figure out was, ‘What is your message?’ He knows me well enough to know that that doesn’t mean I will do your bidding, whatever it is,” Lee said in a 45-minute phone interview. “Conversations I had with him at the time on the phone and in person, he knew that. He knew I was not there to do his bidding,” Lee said of his conversations with Meadows.

Lee asserted that the release of his texts to Meadows was done for “political motives” and were “leaked” to hurt his re-election campaign.

Even today, though, Lee refuses to directly answer the question when asked if President Joe Biden is the rightly elected president. Lee said: “President Biden is the president of the United States. ... We know that he is the president of the United States because the Electoral College met on Dec. 14 and then cast electoral votes. Those electoral votes signaled the victory for President Biden.”

Asked if there was fraud in the 2020 election, Lee demurred, saying, “I’ve answered your question."

https://www.deseret.com/2022/4/20/23034383/what-mike-lee-says-about-text-messages-donald-trump-2020-election-mark-meadows-fraud