News Roundup: Demands for Accountability in Fake-Electors Plot

The brazen scheme to subvert the 2020 vote by having pro-Trump electors submit false electoral certificates — which American Oversight obtained through FOIA — has heightened demands for accountability.

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Picture of the capitol riot, fake election certificates, and Doug Logan.

Inquiriespress@americanoversight.org

The Big Story

The brazen scheme to subvert the 2020 vote by having pro-Trump electors submit false electoral certificates — which American Oversight obtained through FOIA and published — has not only garnered renewed attention, but also heightened demands for accountability.

The attorney general of Michigan, one of the states with such “alternate” electors, has asked federal prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into the officials behind the fake certificate. So did New Mexico’s attorney general.
A Milwaukee prosecutor sent a letter on Wednesday after consulting with the Wisconsin attorney general, saying that either the state or federal government was best suited for investigating the matter.
The Nevada attorney general issued a statement saying that he could not confirm the existence of an investigation, but told people to “rest assured that this matter is on our radar, and we take seriously any efforts to rob Nevadans of their votes.”

On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani “oversaw the effort” and that he was “assisted at times” by Christina Bobb, an anchor from the right-wing One America News.

American Oversight has previously obtained records from December 2020 showing Bobb sent Arizona Senate President Karen Fann purported “evidence” of voter fraud that had been provided by Giuliani. At the time, the state Senate was gearing up to eventually launch its widely discredited “audit” of Maricopa County ballots.
According to the Post, the Trump campaign “also worked to find replacements for the electors who were unable to participate, or unwilling.”
Investigating the fake-electors scheme is an “important step toward uncovering the scope and depth of the attempted plot to steal the election and keep former President Donald Trump in power,” wrote Melanie Sloan, American Oversight’s senior adviser, in Slate. Sloan and co-author Dennis Aftergut outline why the U.S. Department of Justice needs to take up the matter.

As the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection focuses on those phony certificates, it will also be receiving from the National Archives a set of Trump White House documents concerning the attack.

The former president had attempted to shield those documents from investigators, but on Wednesday the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s bid.
The committee has issued new subpoenas this past week, including for the phone records of Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle, as well as to prominent white nationalist figures and to members of Trump’s legal team, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis. It also requested cooperation from Ivanka Trump.
On Thursday, the district attorney in Georgia’s Fulton County — home to Atlanta, and a particular target of Trump’s voter-fraud lies — requested a special grand jury in the investigation into the effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.

Election Investigations

This week, American Oversight obtained new expense records related to the partisan election review in Wisconsin, which is being run by Michael Gableman. The documents reveal that the investigation’s salary expenses for the month of December were nearly twice what they were in September. And as the operation has dragged on past it’s original end date, the number of people on Gableman’s payroll has also gone up.

We published records that shine a light on conservative officials’ attacks on the state’s bipartisan elections committee. The records also contain emails sent to state Rep. Janel Brandtjen from Erick Kaardal, a lawyer who tried to prevent the certification of Biden’s win and who, as previously reported by American Oversight, has been in close contact with Gableman.
Brandtjen, the chair of the State Assembly’s elections committee, has criticized Gableman’s review for not going far enough and has been pursuing her own investigation.
Recent articles have pointed to internal disagreements within the Assembly’s Republican caucus about how to handle Gableman’s election review. Speaker Robin Vos, who hired Gableman, said that he had not authorized Brandtjen’s contract with an attorney who is defending her committee from a lawsuit over the investigation.
On Thursday, Vos imposed sanctions on state Rep. Timothy Ramthun, a vocal election denier, after Ramthun made false claims about Vos making a deal with attorneys for Hillary Clinton. Ramthun also proposed legislation seeking to revoke Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes for President Joe Biden; Vos reiterated that this was not possible (it’s not) and that the purpose of his election review was not to change the last election’s results.
Meanwhile, Gableman has issued more subpoenas, this time to voting machine companies for documents related to the location of equipment during the 2020 elections.

In Arizona, a judge ordered Cyber Ninjas and CEO Doug Logan to answer questions under oath from American Oversight regarding the company’s failure to turn over documents from its work on the Arizona Senate’s sham election “audit.” The deposition is scheduled for Jan. 27. That lawsuit has been consolidated with that of the Arizona Republic, which has also sued for records.

We’ve also sued Pennsylvania’s Fulton County for missing documents related to an election review it conducted at the behest of Trump allies in the state Senate. The state Senate is conducting a partisan investigation of the 2020 election, led by state Sen. Cris Dush.
The Pennsylvania state Supreme Court last Friday placed a temporary hold on an inspection of voting machines in Fulton County, which the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf had sought to block until there is an agreement over procedure. In December, Dush had requested “digital data” from the county; Dush’s office told the Associated Press that the Fulton County inspection was not covered under the Senate’s $270,000 contract with the firm conducting its election review.
Meanwhile, Otero County in New Mexico is set to spend $49,750 on an “audit” of the 2020 election.
The Michigan Board of State Canvassers approved summary language for a ballot initiative that would call for an audit of the 2020 election and would set criteria for audits of future elections.

The Coronavirus Pandemic

The Biden administration announced its plan to make 400 million non-surgical N95 masks from the Strategic National Stockpile available to the public for free. Starting next week, adults will be able to obtain three masks each at pharmacies and community health centers around the country. U.S. households can now also order four free at-home Covid-19 tests at www.covidtests.gov.

Case numbers have begun to decline in some metropolitan areas, while some regions have yet to peak. This week, hospitalizations were at a daily average of more than 158,000 and deaths were slightly above a daily average of 1,900, both figures rising by more than 40 percent in the past two weeks.

The Florida Department of Health confirmed that Orange County Medical Director Raul Pino had been placed on administrative leave after he sent an email to employees in early January encouraging them to get vaccinated.
Covid-19 infections among immigrants in detention centers have jumped by 520 percent since the start of 2022, increasing from 285 to 1,766 since Jan. 3.
Health care workers in 24 states where vaccine mandates were not in effect will have until March 15 to get shots following last week’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the Biden administration’s vaccination mandate for hospitals.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision blocking the administration’s vaccine mandate for large companies, Starbucks and General Electric are among major employers that have ended their requirements that workers be fully vaccinated or get tested weekly.

On the Records

‘Election Integrity’ Calls
The Guardian reported this week on allegations by Everett Stern, who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania and spoke with the Jan. 6 committee and the FBI, that allies of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn had worked to dig up dirt on two Republican members of Congress to push them into backing an audit of the 2020 election.

Two of those allies, Alan Hartman and Ivan Raiklin, have pushed for audits in key states that Biden won. The Guardian cites records uncovered by American Oversight showing that Raiklin and Hartman led a series of “Election Integrity” calls with Trump allies and donors to discuss what they called the “election remediation process at state level.”

Fast-Tracked Deportations
Last summer, the federal immigration court in San Francisco began fast-tracking hearings for immigrants whose mail was returned as undeliverable. According to records we obtained and shared with the San Francisco Chronicle, judges celebrated the fact that this process resulted in a high percentage of absentia deportations. Read more here.

News Roundup: Demands for Accountability in Fake-Electors Plot

The Big Story

Election Investigations

The Coronavirus Pandemic

On the Records

Other Stories We’re Following

Jan. 6 and the Attempted Coup

National News

In the States

Trump Accountability