New Mexico

Subterms

    Latest story

    225 Shares60 Views

    A physician, a lawyer, a CEO: the 84 fake electors who allegedly tried to steal the 2020 election

    by

    With the indictment announced in Arizona this week, 36 out of 84 people who signed certificates falsely alleging they were electors for Donald Trump have now been criminally charged.Kris Mayes is the third state attorney general to indict part of the slate of people who signed the false documents with plans to turn them over to Mike Pence, the US vice-president, to steal the election from Joe Biden. Attorneys general in Michigan and Nevada have also brought charges, and in Wisconsin, fake electors face a civil lawsuit.
    36 have been criminally indicted (one has had charges dropped)
    10 face a civil lawsuit
    14 have been subpoenaed by Congress as part of the January 6 investigation
    This year, as the country prepares for a rematch between Trump and Biden, the majority of the 84 people have not been prosecuted criminally. Some of the fake electors, including those in Pennsylvania, are unlikely to be charged because of how the document they signed there was worded; their documents said their electoral votes would only be counted if they were determined to be the “duly elected and qualified electors” for Pennsylvania.A small number of the 84 people – who in 2020 mostly were local Republican party leaders and activists – have been elected to public office or appointed to positions of power since the scheme.
    Seven have been elected to office
    Seven have lost elections
    Four have been appointed or nominated to positions of power
    One is currently running for federal office
    It’s unclear whether Trump and his allies would use a similar playbook to try to steal the next election if he loses in November. He and others in his orbit are already laying the groundwork to claim voter fraud.As of now, a number of the people who signed false elector certificates have positions of authority and could help Trump if he were to attempt something similar again.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenArizona (11)On Wednesday, Kris Mayes, the state attorney general, announced that Arizona’s 11 fake electors and seven other Trump allies had been indicted for their role in the scheme.Tyler Bowyer: Bowyer is the chief operating officer of Turning Point USA, a Phoenix-based non-profit organization, and an Arizona committee member for the Republican National Committee. He has called on the RNC to “immediately indemnify” those who participated in what he calls the “contingent elector plan”. Recently he has also led trainings for Turning Point to encourage Republicans to cast early ballots.Nancy Cottle: Cottle was one of two Arizona fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. She was the chair of Arizona’s fake elector delegation.Jake Hoffman: Hoffman is an Arizona state senator, elected in 2022, and was previously a state representative. He founded the legislature’s far-right freedom caucus and announced in March that he’s running to represent the state as a member of the Republican National Committee. He also runs a conservative digital-marketing company, Rally Forge, that was banned from Facebook and suspended from Twitter for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on behalf of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA.Anthony T Kern: Kern is an Arizona state senator, elected in 2022, and is currently running for a seat in the US Congress to represent Arizona’s eighth district. He was an Arizona state representative from 2015 until he lost his seat in the 2020 election. He has introduced a senate proposal calling for the state legislature to decide on presidential electors instead of adhering to a popular vote. Kern participated in the January 6 riots in Washington, which he has called a peaceful demonstration.James Lamon: Lamon ran for the US Senate to represent Arizona in 2022, losing in the Republican primary.Robert Montgomery: Montgomery was appointed to a seat on the Palominas fire district board in 2022 and is the former head of the Cochise county Republican committee.Samuel I Moorhead: Moorhead serves as the second vice-chair of the Gila county Arizona Republican party.Loraine B Pellegrino: Pellegrino, the secretary of Arizona’s fake elector delegation, was also subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. Pellegrino has served as president of Ahwatukee Republican Women and was previously president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women.Greg Safsten: Safsten was the executive director of the Republican party of Arizona during the 2020 election. Records show that he had been in communication with Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump ally and the architect of the fake elector plan, with instructions on how to carry out the plan.Kelli Ward: Ward is an osteopathic physician who served as the chair of the Arizona Republican party from 2019 to 2023. Following the 2020 election, Ward filed a number of lawsuits to nullify Arizona’s results, in support of Trump’s effort to prove the election had been stolen. She previously served in the Arizona state senate. Records show that Ward had also been in communication with Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump ally and the architect of the fake elector plan, with instructions on how to carry out the plan. Two days before the Arizona delegation gathered, Ward emailed various people connected to Trump’s campaign about the effort, according to records. She was subponead in 2022 as part of the January 6 select committee’s investigation, and filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to block the subpoena.Michael Ward: Kelli Ward’s husband is an emergency medicine physician. He was also subpoenaed in 2022 as part of the January 6 select committee’s investigation and, with Kelli Ward, filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to block it.Georgia (16)Three of Georgia’s fake electors were named in the Fulton county indictment of Trump and 18 of his allies for efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. Several other fake electors struck immunity deals or plea agreements with the office of Fani Willis, Fulton county’s district attorney.Mark Amick: Amick is a member of the election feasibility committee in Milton, Georgia, and the Georgia Republican Foundation. In 2020, he served as a poll watcher in Milton county and testified in a hearing after the election that he saw more than 9,000 votes wrongly go to Joe Biden during the first Georgia recount.Joseph Brannan: Brannan is the former treasurer of the Georgia Republican party. He is reportedly “unindicted co-conspirator individual 9” in Fani Willis’s indictment of Trump and his allies in Fulton county. He received an email from Kenneth Chesebro before the scheme with logistics on how the Trump campaign hoped alternate electors would cast their votes.James “Ken” Carroll: Carroll, formerly the assistant secretary for the Georgia Republican party, recently ran unsuccessfully to be the state GOP’s second vice-chair. He told the Washington Post that, knowing what he does now, he would not have agreed to cast an electoral college vote for Trump. Carroll is a witness for the state in the prosecution of Trump and others in Fulton county, according to a court filing.Brad Carver: Carver, a lawyer and member of the Republican National Lawyers Association, was also investigated by the Georgia state bar in 2022 for his role in the scheme following a complaint by a legal watchdog.Vikki Townsend Consiglio: Consiglio is a former assistant treasurer for the Georgia Republican party. In 2022, Brian Kemp, the Georgia governor, reappointed her to the state soil and water conservation commission. Townsend is a witness for the state in the prosecution of Trump and others in Fulton county, according to a court filing.John Downey: Downey was involved with the Cobb county Republican party in 2020.Carolyn Hall Fisher: Fisher is a former first vice-chair for the Georgia Republican party. She is a witness for the state in the prosecution of Trump and others in Fulton county, according to a court filing.Gloria Kay Godwin: Godwin is a local Republican party leader in Blackshear. She is a witness for the state in the prosecution of Trump and others in Fulton county, according to a court filing.David G Hanna: Hanna was the CEO and co-founder of a financial technology company.Mark W Hennessy: In 2023, Brian Kemp, the Georgia governor, named Hennessy, the owner of several Georgia car dealerships, to the board of natural resources.Burt Jones: Jones is currently the lieutenant governor of Georgia, a position he’s held since being elected in 2022. Previously he was a member of the Georgia state senate for 10 years. Before January 6, Jones planned to deliver a letter to Mike Pence calling on him to delay the tally of electoral college votes, but he never delivered it, according to reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 2022, a judge ruled that Fani Willis cannot target Jones in Fulton county alongside Trump and others because of a conflict of interest (Willis held a fundraiser for his eventual Democratic opponent in the lieutenant governor’s race), but state prosecutor Pete Skandalakis said recently that he will lead the investigation into Jones’ alleged role in trying to overturn the election. Jones is reportedly “unindicted co-conspirator individual 8” in Fani Willis’s indictment of Trump in Fulton county.Cathy Latham: Latham, who was the Coffee county Republican party chair during the 2020 election, was indicted along with Trump and 17 others in Fulton county for her efforts to help Trump overturn the election. Latham allegedly helped breach and tamper with election equipment in Coffee county.Daryl Moody: Moody, an attorney, is chair of the board of governors for the Georgia Republican Foundation. In 2022 the Georgia state bar investigated him for his role in the scheme following a complaint by a legal watchdog.David Shafer: Shafer, who was the chair of the state GOP during the 2020 election, was indicted along with Trump and 17 others in Fulton county for his efforts to help Trump overturn the election. According to prosecutors, Shafer played a key role in organizing the slate of fake electors, convening them in the state capitol and telling them that “thousands of people” voted illegally in the state. He was also a Georgia state senator from 2003 to 2019. In 2018, he ran for lieutenant governor and lost in the primary. He was subpoenaed by the January 6 committee in Congress.View image in fullscreenShawn Still: Still is a state senator in Georgia, elected in 2022. He was finance chair of the Georgia GOP during the 2020 election, and was indicted along with Trump and 17 others in Fulton county for his efforts to help Trump overturn the election. He was the secretary of the fake elector meeting in the state capitol. He was also subpoenaed by the January 6 committee in Congress. In September 2023, a three-person panel appointed by the governor didn’t recommend that he be removed from the state senate while the Fulton county case is pending.CB Yadav: A small-business owner in Camden county, Yadav is a member of the Georgians First commission under the governor’s office.Michigan (16)In July 2023, Dana Nessel, the Michigan attorney general, charged all 16 of the state’s fake electors with eight felonies each. They all pleaded not guilty. One has since had his charges dropped. A judge is currently considering whether to send the rest to trial.Kathy Berden: Berden is a national committee member of the Republican party of Michigan. She was one of two Michigan fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Hank Choate: Choate, a dairy farmer, served as chair of the Jackson county Republican party.Amy Facchinello: Facchinello was elected in 2020 to serve on the school board in Grand Blanc and has been the subject of protests over her QAnon social media posts. Facchinello refused to resign, though there have been efforts to recall her.Clifford Frost: A real estate agent, Frost ran unsuccessfully for the Macomb county board of commissioners in 2022. He has also run unsuccessfully to represent the 28th district in the Michigan house. He is one of two of the state’s fake electors to try to get the felony charges against them dismissed because of comments made by the attorney general Dana Nessel, that the electors had been “brainwashed”.Stanley Grot: Grot is the Shelby township clerk, appointed in 2012, and ran unsuccessfully for the Michigan house in 2022. After the Michigan attorney general charged Grot, the state stripped him of his ability to administer elections, but he remains in office.John Haggard: Haggard was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Michigan officials in which he sought to overturn the 2020 election results.Mari-Ann Henry: Henry is treasurer of the seventh congressional district Republican committee. She is one of two of the state’s fake electors to try to get the felony charges against them dismissed because of comments made by the attorney general Dana Nessel, that the electors had been “brainwashed”.Timothy King: King was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Michigan officials in which he sought to overturn the 2020 election results.Michele Lundgren: Lundgren was the Republican nominee in 2022 for a Detroit-based seat in the Michigan house, but lost in the general election.Meshawn Maddock: Maddock is the former Michigan Republican party co-chair and is the co-owner of A-1 Bail Bonds, along with her spouse, the state representative Matt Maddock. CNN reported that she bragged about the Trump campaign’s involvement in the fake elector scheme. She and her husband spoke at a pro-Trump event in DC the day before the January 6 insurrection.James Renner: Renner has served as a precinct delegate and volunteer with the Michigan Republican party. He is the only Michigan fake elector to get his felony charges dropped after he agreed to “cooperate fully” with the attorney general’s investigation. He then testified in February that he did not know how the electoral process worked and “never would have challenged it” had he known it was illegal.Mayra Rodriguez: Rodriguez served as the chair and secretary of Michigan’s Republican electors. She was one of two Michigan fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Rose Rook: Rook is the former Van Buren county GOP chair.Marian Sheridan: Sheridan is grassroots vice-chair for the Michigan Republican party. She was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Michigan officials in which she sought to overturn the 2020 election results.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKen Thompson: Thompson was brought in to replace a GOP elector who was “uncomfortable with the whole thing” and refused to participate, a state GOP official testified to the House January 6 commission.Kent Vanderwood: Vanderwood is the mayor of Wyoming, Michigan, winning election in 2022. He was previously a longtime member of the city council in Wyoming, a small city near Grand Rapids.New Mexico (5)New Mexico prosecutors investigated the state’s fake elector scheme and determined that nothing in state election law applies to the participants’ conduct, according to the department’s final report issued in January.Anissa Ford-Tinnin: Ford-Tinnin is the former executive director of the state Republican party.Lupe Garcia: Garcia is a business owner.Deborah W Maestas: Maestas is former chair of the Republican party of New Mexico. She was one of two New Mexico fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Jewll Powdrell: Powdrell chaired the state fake elector meeting and was one of two New Mexico fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Rosie Tripp: Tripp was a national committee member for the Republican party of New Mexico, a former Socorro county commissioner and a former city council member in Socorro.Nevada (6)A Nevada grand jury in December indicted the six state fake electors and charged them with two felonies each. They have all pleaded not guilty. Under the current schedule, they will not stand trial until next year.James DeGraffenreid: DeGraffenreid has served as vice-chair of the Nevada Republican party. He was one of two New Mexico fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. He was summoned to testify by Fulton county prosecutors about his communications with Kenneth Chesebro about the scheme and was also called to testify in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation of Trump.Jim Hindle: Hindle runs elections in Storey county, Nevada, where he was elected clerk in 2022. He was previously vice-chair of the Nevada Republican committee.Jesse Law: Law is chair of the Clark county Republican party and was a staffer on the Trump campaign. He announced in December that he’s running for state assembly.Michael J McDonald: The chair of the Nevada Republican party, McDonald is a former member of the Las Vegas city council. He was one of two Nevada fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. He was also called to testify in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation of Trump.Shawn Meehan: Meehan is a retired air force veteran who serves on the Nevada Republican central committee and the Douglas county Republican party. He recently said he launched an effort to “guard” the constitution.Eileen Rice: Rice serves on the board of the Douglas county Republican party.Pennsylvania (20)Pennsylvania’s 20 fake electors are unlikely to face criminal charges because of the stipulation written on their electoral vote documents.Bill Bachenberg: Bachenberg, who chaired the state’s slate of fake electors, is the millionaire owner of Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays. He allegedly funded efforts to uncover voter fraud in Pennsylvania and other states. He was involved in Arizona’s sham “audit” and was subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Lou Barletta: Barletta served as a member of the US House from 2011 to 2019, and as mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, from 2000 to 2010. In 2022, he unsuccessfully ran in the Republican gubernatorial primary.Tom Carroll: Carroll ran unsuccessfully in 2019 for district attorney in Northampton county and refused to concede the race because of “overwhelming irregularities” in how the election was administered. He brought a lawsuit against state and local officials alleging election law violations in the 2020 election.Ted Christian: Christian was the Pennsylvania state director for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.Chuck Coccodrilli: Coccodrilli was a board member with the Pennsylvania Great Frontier Pac. He died in October 2021 after an illness.Bernadette Comfort: Comfort is the vice-chair for the Pennsylvania Republican party.View image in fullscreenSam DeMarco III: DeMarco has been an at-large representative on the Allegheny county council since 2016. He is also the chair of the Republican committee of Allegheny county. In 2022, he was interviewed by the FBI about his role in the scheme. He recently filed a lawsuit challenging the use of ballot drop off locations in the county, and the county agreed to a settlement.Marcela Diaz-Myers: Diaz-Myers is the chair of the Pennsylvania GOP Hispanic Advisory Council.Christie DiEsposti: DiEsposti is an account representative at Pure Water Technology. She has reportedly moved to Florida.Josephine Ferro: Ferro was Monroe county register from 2015 until losing reelection in 2023. She is the former president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Republican Women. In 2020 and 2022, she was a plaintiff in lawsuits seeking to block voters from being able to correct defective ballots and to stop pre-canvassing of ballots.Charlie Gerow: Gerow is a Republican strategist who ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for governor in 2022. He is also former vice-chair of the American Conservative Union, and the CEO of Quantum Communications, a Harrisburg-based public relations firm, where the fake electors met in Pennsylvania in December 2020.Kevin Harley: Harley works with Gerow as managing director of Quantum Communications and has served as a spokesperson for Gerow. He has also worked as press secretary for Tom Corbett, the former Pennsylvania governor.Leah Hoopes: Hoopes served as a poll watcher in 2020 and co-wrote a book about election fraud. She filed a lawsuit against Delaware county, accusing it of mishandling ballots in the 2020 election. She was named as a defendant in a Delaware county voting machine supervisor’s lawsuit alleging that Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that election officials tampered with the election made the supervisor the subject of physical threats.Ash Khare: An immigrant from India and retired engineer, Khare is a member of the Warren county GOP committee.Andre McCoy: McCoy was present at the Maricopa county ballot recount and was involved in the Arizona sham “audit”.Lisa Patton: Patton was the secretary of Pennsylvania’s slate of fake electors and was a member of the Pennsylvania Women for Trump leadership team. She was subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.View image in fullscreenPat Poprik: Poprik is the chair of the Bucks county Republican committee.Andy Reilly: Reilly is a national committee member for the Republican party of Pennsylvania and former secretary for the party. Reilly was previously elected twice to serve as a member of the Delaware county council.Suk Smith: Smith was on the advisory board of Gun Owners/Sportsmen for Trump in 2020.Calvin Tucker: Tucker was deputy chair and director of engagement and advancement for the Pennsylvania Republican party. In 2016, he served as a media surrogate and African-American adviser to Trump’s campaign.Wisconsin (10)A civil lawsuit over the fake electors scheme settled in December. The 10 Republicans acknowledged Biden’s victory and agreed not to serve in the electoral college this year.Mary Buestrin: A former national committee member of the Republican party of Wisconsin.Carol Brunner: Brunner is the former vice-chair of Wisconsin’s first congressional district Republican party.Darryl Carlson: Carlson is the former chair of the sixth congressional district GOP. He ran an unsuccessful campaign in 2014 for the Wisconsin state assembly.Bill Feehan: Feehan is the chair of the third congressional district GOP. In 2022, he sat on an advisory board for the gubernatorial campaign of Rebecca Kleefisch, an election denier who has sued the Wisconsin election commission (WEC) over its administration of the 2020 election, according to American Oversight.Scott Grabins: Grabins is former chair of the Dane county Republican party.Andrew Hitt: The chair of the Republican party of Wisconsin from 2019 until 2021, Hitt was one of two Wisconsin fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. He was interviewed on 60 Minutes in February and said he feared for his family’s safety if he didn’t sign the fake elector papers.Kathy Kiernan: Kiernan is the second vice-chair of the state Republican party.Kelly Ruh: Ruh is chair of the eighth congressional district Republican party, former alderperson for De Pere, and was one of two Wisconsin fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Bob Spindell: Spindell has been a Republican commissioner on the Wisconsin election commission since 2019 and is the chair of the Republican fourth congressional district. He was previously the Milwaukee election commissioner for more than 18 years. In 2021, he refused to recuse himself from a vote on whether the WEC should investigate Wisconsin’s false electors.Pam Travis: Travis was the vice-chair of the seventh congressional district GOP and is a former staffer for the US senator Ron Johnson’s 2022 re-election campaign. More

    More stories

    • 75 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Bird Flu Spreads to Dairy Cows

      by

      U.S. regulators confirmed that sick cattle in Texas, Kansas and possibly in New Mexico contracted avian influenza. They stressed that the nation’s milk supply is safe, saying pasteurization kills viruses.A highly fatal form of avian influenza, or bird flu, has been confirmed in U.S. cattle in Texas and Kansas, the Department of Agriculture announced on Monday.It is the first time that cows infected with the virus have been identified.The cows appear to have been infected by wild birds, and dead birds were reported on some farms, the agency said. The results were announced after multiple federal and state agencies began investigating reports of sick cows in Texas, Kansas and New Mexico.In several cases, the virus was detected in unpasteurized samples of milk collected from sick cows. Because pasteurization kills viruses, officials emphasized that there was little risk to the nation’s milk supply.“At this stage, there is no concern about the safety of the commercial milk supply or that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health,” the agency said in a statement.Outside experts agreed. “It has only been found in milk that is grossly abnormal,” said Dr. Jim Lowe, a veterinarian and influenza researcher at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.In those cases, the milk was described as thick and syrupy, he said, and was discarded. The agency said that dairies are required to divert or destroy milk from sick animals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Supreme court rules insurrection clause bars local official despite sparing Trump

      by

      The US supreme court declined an appeal on Monday from a former New Mexico county commissioner who was removed from office for his role in the January 6 attack, leaving intact a significant decision that enforced a constitutional ban on insurrectionists holding office.The commissioner, Couy Griffin, is the only US public official thus far who has been removed from office for his role in the January 6 attack. Citing language in the 14th amendment that bars insurrectionists from holding office, a New Mexico judge removed him in 2022 after he was convicted of trespassing on the Capitol grounds. The New Mexico supreme court dismissed an initial appeal in the state.The US supreme court’s decision not to revisit the case comes two weeks after they said states could not use the 14th amendment to bar Trump from running for president absent legislation from Congress. While the supreme court said states cannot use the 14th amendment to disqualify people from federal office, it made it clear that “States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office.”The court gave no reason for its decision to reject Griffin’s appeal and there were no noted dissents. Griffin said he was disappointed in the court’s decision.“It’s a disappointment like I haven’t felt in a long time,” he wrote in a text message. “As I sit right now the only office I can run for is the executive office. Trump needs a vice president who can stand strong through the hardest of times. And I can only pray I’d be considered.”Griffin’s case was widely seen as one of the first tests of whether the language on the 14th amendment, drafted in the 19th century after the civil war, could be applied to actions taken on 6 January.He was one of three commissioners in Otero county, which has about 69,000 people and sits on the border with Texas. Trump overwhelmingly won the county in 2020. As a member of the body responsible for certifying the election, Griffin encouraged David Clements, a well-known election denier, to question election results in the county. In 2022, he and the other commissioners refused to certify the election, citing vague concerns of voter fraud. The New Mexico secretary of state sued the county to force them to certify the election, which they eventually did.Griffin was also the co-founder of the group Cowboys for Trump, and recruited people as part of a bus tour to come to Washington on 6 January. He appeared at events alongside violent groups and tried to normalize the idea of using violence to stay in power, Judge Francis Mathew wrote in his decision removing Griffin from office.“By refusing to take up this appeal, the Supreme Court keeps in place the finding that January 6 was an insurrection, and ensures that states can still apply the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause to state officials,” said Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), a non-profit that backed the effort to remove Griffin.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Crucially, this decision reinforces that every decision-making body that has substantively considered the issue has found that January 6 was an insurrection, and Donald Trump engaged in that insurrection. Now it is up to the states to fulfill their duty under Section 3 to remove from office anyone who broke their oath by participating in the January 6 insurrection.” More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Alec Baldwin Seeks Dismissal of ‘Rust’ Manslaughter Indictment

      by

      Lawyers for the actor have begun his defense by denouncing the way the prosecutors carried out grand jury proceedings.Lawyers for Alec Baldwin filed court papers on Thursday seeking to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter indictment against him related to the fatal shooting on the “Rust” movie set, arguing that prosecutors did not properly present the grand jury with evidence that could have supported his case.Mr. Baldwin — who was practicing drawing a gun he had been told was safe when it discharged a live bullet, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, in 2021 — has been largely quiet about the criminal case since it was revived in January by prosecutors who have accused him of failing to observe firearm safety measures on set.But in the 52-page filing on Thursday, Mr. Baldwin’s lawyers made a full-throated denunciation of the case against the actor, asserting that the prosecutors have “publicly dragged Baldwin through the cesspool created by their improprieties,” resulting in the criminal case “hanging over his head” for more than two years.“Enough is enough,” said the filing, which was signed by Luke Nikas, a member of Mr. Baldwin’s team of lawyers. “This is an abuse of the system, and an abuse of an innocent person whose rights have been trampled to the extreme.”The filing by Mr. Baldwin’s lawyers cited a New Mexico Supreme Court decision in which the court dismissed an indictment after finding that the prosecution “prevented the grand jury from inquiring into the facts demonstrating probable cause” and “failed to act in a fair and impartial manner when instructing the grand jury.”The lead prosecutor, Kari T. Morrissey, declined to comment on the specifics of the motion but said, “Our response will be filed with the court.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The downwinders: New Mexicans sickened by atomic bomb testing fight for compensation

      by

      Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández watched Oppenheimer – a top winner at Sunday’s Academy Awards and Christopher Nolan’s treatment on the physicist who guided testing of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico – months ago.And soon after the scene where Cillian Murphy, as J Robert Oppenheimer, peered through safety goggles in a fortified shed at the huge mushroom cloud, the New Mexico Democrat realized “the untold story” lay on the cutting room floor.“We see nothing on the impact the bomb had on people living in northern New Mexico,” Fernández said. “There’s no way [Manhattan Project physicists] could not have been aware of the radiation’s impact on the communities downwind of the Trinity bomb site.”As a 17th-generation descendant of Mexicans who became New Mexicans, Fernández, 65, speaks of “people living off the land, hanging their clothes, coated with [radioactive] ash, chickens picking in the yard, the lingering effects of what fell onto the ground and crops and was absorbed by animals and people” – for decades to come after the testing of the bomb.Fernández was awakened to the vast reach of the radiation after winning her congressional seat in 2020, meeting constituents and befriending Tina Cordova, the leader of “downwinders” – survivors and descendants of multigenerational illnesses discovered well after the 1945 Trinity bomb.View image in fullscreenCordova, who earned a master’s degree in biology before becoming the owner of an Albuquerque roofing company, is a survivor of thyroid cancer. Her 24-year-old niece has also grappled with the same condition – and is a fifth-generation family member afflicted with one form of cancer or another.Cordova is the protagonist of Lois Lipman’s award-winning documentary, First We Bombed New Mexico, which also played a role in Fernández’s grasp of bomb-related injustices.Cordova was not yet born when radioactive ash settled across a vast area of the state’s western desert. But her father, Anastacio Cordova, was four at the time, living in Tularosa, a farming village 45 miles from the bomb site. The genetic line of cancers began with him.In sharing the details of her family’s plight, Cordova said: “I sensed a level of sadness in [Fernández]. She said she had lost family members but didn’t go into detail.”A non-smoker, Anastacio had part of his tongue removed at 61, before treatment for the spread of cancer necessitating “high levels of radiation in his head and neck”, Cordova said.“All his teeth had to be extracted,” she said. “Then he got prostate cancer. Eight years after the primary oral cancer he had a second primary lesion on his tongue. The doctor said they could remove the tumor but he couldn’t have any more radiation because in the first bout with cancer he had been treated with the maximum amount of radiation.”Cordova’s father died in 2013 after nine years of illness and repeat trips to Houston’s MD Anderson cancer center.Listening to the stories of Cordova and other downwinders indeed had resonance for Fernández, the congresswoman said. Her mother came from Colonias, a village in Guadalupe county “within the concentric circles of people exposed to radiation”.“I am not a downwinder,” Fernández said. “I will not be a claimant” – if pending legislation for survivors, which she has co-sponsored, passes Congress. “These people are part of who I am.“My maternal grandmother died of leukemia blood cancer. My mother, a non-smoker, died of lung cancer. Both were in their 70s.”Her maternal grandfather also died of cancer.She made it a point to say that there was no speculation among her relatives at the time that their illnesses stemmed from the nuclear bomb in New Mexico. But she made clear that their pasts – combined with that of people like Cordova – made her realize “we’ve never as a nation apologized to the people of New Mexico”.And Fernández, a graduate of Yale and Stanford law school who worked as a public interest attorney before Congress, is working to fix that.Her efforts come in the form of fighting for passage of a bill first filed by Ben Ray Lujan, Fernandez’s congressional predecessor who was elected to the US Senate in 2020. The now expanded legislative proposal seeks financial compensation – reparations – for downwinders, a category that also extends to Nevadans afflicted from later nuclear testing, victims of uranium pollution in Utah and Missouri, and workers from several other states exposed to radiation from the nuclear testing infrastructure, long cloaked in secrecy.View image in fullscreenFernández is quick to invoke a surreal scene from First We Bombed New Mexico to discuss the legislation: “Little girls dancing around in the ash, tasting it on their tongues, thinking it was summer snow” – in the early aftermath of the bomb testing.But it’s now more than just the film that is catalyzing support for providing downwinders with long-due compensation after losing so many loved ones to nuclear fallout disease patterns.The compensation bill championed by Lujan in the Senate and Fernández in the House has earned backing across the political aisle from Missouri’s far-right US senator Josh Hawley.Hawley joined Lujan and Fernández’s ranks last summer after an investigation by the Missouri Independent, MuckRock and the Associated Press uncovered rare cancers as well as autoimmune disorders among St Louis workers who processed uranium used in early stages of the Manhattan Project at the heart of Oppenheimer. There was radioactive waste found in lakes and creeks and groundwater pollution at sites in St Louis county yet to be cleaned.The bill co-sponsored by Hawley – who gave a clenched fist salute to supporters of former president Donald Trump before they staged the January 6 Capitol attack – is likely one of the few political issues on which the Missouri Republican is likely to agree with the Joe Biden White House.View image in fullscreenBiden, too, endorsed the compensation bill which on Thursday passed the Senate 69-31 with a broad bipartisan vote. The measure now goes to the House.Fernández stressed the coalition is “not questioning the US’s decision to pursue the bomb and nuclear power as part of national security” to end the second world war. But, she said: “We need for victims of that national priority to receive compensation for what they and their families suffered.”A sequence in First We Bombed New Mexico poignantly conveys that point.The former US senator Tom Udall tells Tina Cordova’s group how moved he was to have heard their stories. The film cuts to grainy footage of Tom’s father, Steward Udall, as the US’s secretary of the interior in the 1960s. With a catch in the throat, the elder Udall shows outrage about disease-stricken uranium miners in Utah – then says cynically: “No matter how much they have lied or what harm they may have done, you cannot sue the government.“As one Atomic Energy Commission official I knew in the [early 1960s] said, ‘Well, if we admit now that we have not told them the truth, they won’t believe anything we said.’”First We Bombed New Mexico has a private screening for members of Congress. It will be shown at 7pm on 26 March at the Environmental film festival on the American University’s campus in Washington, with Cordova and Lipman taking questions. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Instagram and Facebook Subscriptions Are a New Focus of Child Safety Suit

      by

      New Mexico’s attorney general has accused Meta of not protecting children from sexual predators on its platforms. He now wants to know how it polices subscribers to accounts featuring children.The New Mexico attorney general, who last year sued Meta alleging that it did not protect children from sexual predators and had made false claims about its platforms’ safety, announced Monday that his office would examine how the company’s paid-subscription services attract predators.Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he had formally requested documentation from the social media company about subscriptions on Facebook and Instagram, which are frequently available on children’s accounts run by parents.Instagram does not allow users under 13, but accounts that focus entirely on children are permitted as long as they are managed by an adult. The New York Times published an investigation on Thursday into girl influencers on the platform, reporting that the so-called mom-run accounts charge followers up to $19.99 a month for additional photos as well as chat sessions and other extras.The Times found that adult men subscribe to the accounts, including some who actively participate in forums where people discuss the girls in sexual terms.“This deeply disturbing pattern of conduct puts children at risk — and persists despite a wave of lawsuits and congressional investigations,” Mr. Torrez said in a statement.Mr. Torrez filed a complaint in December that accused Meta of enabling harmful activity between adults and minors on Facebook and Instagram and failing to detect and remove such activity when it was reported. The allegations were based, in part, on findings from accounts Mr. Torrez’s office created, including one for a fictitious 14-year-old girl that received an offer of $180,000 to appear in a pornographic video.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      New Mexico man pleads guilty to drive-bys targeting Democrats’ homes

      by

      A New Mexico man has said he was hired by a failed Republican candidate for political office to carry out drive-by shootings targeting the homes of Democrats who would not abide by false election-rigging claims.Demetrio Trujillo, 42, indicated in federal court documents filed Friday that he had been hired for the spate of attacks by Solomon Peña, whose run for a seat in the New Mexico state legislature in November 2022 ended in defeat. Trujillo pleaded guilty to charges of election interference, criminal conspiracy and firearms-related offenses, and he could face several years in prison as he awaits a sentencing hearing that wasn’t immediately scheduled, the US attorney’s office in Albuquerque said in a statement.The case followed warnings of escalating political violence in the US, especially after Donald Trump and his supporters widely spread lies that the former president had lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud. Peña, 40, stands charged with lying about how the race he lost had been fraudulently stolen from him, which then fueled a plot to shoot up the houses of New Mexico Democrats, among them the state’s House speaker.He has pleaded not guilty and awaits a trial set for June 2024.Peña approached members of the commission that certifies election results, told them the race he had lost by nearly 50 percentage points had been rigged against him, and asked them to reject its results.The drive-by shootings unfolded in December 2022 and January 2023 shortly after officials certified Peña’s electoral loss. No one was wounded in any of the shootings, though authorities have noted that – in one instance – bullets cut through the bedroom of a state senator’s 10-year-old daughter.Trujillo later told investigators that he knew Peña through acquaintances. Peña hired him to fire bullets at three officials’ homes to intimidate them, Trujillo reported. Investigators charged Peña with carrying out the spree’s fourth drive-by shooting by himself.Ultimately, smartphone communications from Peña, including texts, tied him to the attacks, according to prosecutors. The communications not only pinpointed the targeted officials’ homes. They also purportedly spelled out allegations of election-rigging, and plans to “press the attack” and rage over how voters overwhelmingly rejected him for a seat in New Mexico’s statehouse.“We have to act. … The enemy will eventually break,” Peña is charged with saying in a text to a fellow Republican hours before the series of shooting began. He sent a separate message reading: “It is our duty … to stop the oligarchs from taking over our country.”Federal prosecutors in Albuquerque in June obtained an indictment charging Peña, Trujillo and Trujillo’s son in connection with the drive-by shootings.Jose Louise Trujillo, 22, pleaded guilty on 8 January to charges of illegally using a firearm as well as possessing fentanyl with the intent to distribute it. His sentencing is tentatively set for 8 April.Prosecutors’ statements about the Trujillos’ guilty pleas don’t comment on the case beyond its facts. But, at the time the Trujillos and Peña were indicted, Albuquerque’s US attorney, Alexander Uballez, said the prosecution aimed to demonstrate that “in America, voters pick their leaders, and would-be leaders don’t get to pick which voters they heed, which rules apply to them or which laws to follow”.Since the drive-by shootings attributed to Peña and the Trujillos, New Mexico lawmakers passed legislation that makes it a state felony to intimidate election officials. The legislation also allows some elected officials and political candidates to withhold their home addresses from public, government websites. More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Alec Baldwin Pleads Not Guilty to Involuntary Manslaughter

      by

      Mr. Baldwin was indicted by a grand jury months after the dismissal of an earlier criminal charge against him in the death of a cinematographer on the set of “Rust.”Alec Baldwin pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter on Wednesday, following a grand jury indictment that revived the criminal case against him for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film “Rust” in 2021.From the beginning, Mr. Baldwin has denied responsibility for the death of the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, saying that he had no reason to believe there were live rounds on set that day, and that there were crew members responsible for ensuring the gun was safe.The prosecution of the actor, 65, has seen some dramatic twists over the past year: The original criminal case, brought by the local district attorney’s office, fell apart. After the initial charge was dismissed last year by a new team of special prosecutors, Kari T. Morrissey and Jason J. Lewis, they decided to bring the case to a grand jury in New Mexico.Mr. Baldwin’s lawyers have called the prosecution “misguided” and, in a court filing, pushed for urgency in the court proceedings to “minimize public vilification and suspicion” against Mr. Baldwin and “avoid the hazards of proving his innocence that often arise after lengthy delays in prosecution.”Mr. Baldwin entered the not guilty plea in a court filing in which he also waived a virtual court appearance that had been scheduled for Thursday. Mr. Baldwin’s conditions of release included typical constraints including restrictions on possessing weapons and avoiding contact with anyone who might testify in the case, but some were more novel: The actor can have contact with potential witnesses only if they are discussing their involvement in the “Rust” movie, which the production finished filming last year.After Mr. Baldwin was charged for the first time one year ago, SAG-AFTRA, the union representing film, television and radio workers, came to his defense, rebutting the original prosecution team’s contention that as an actor he was responsible for ensuring that the gun he was using on the set was safe to handle.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump fake elector scheme: where do seven states’ investigations stand?

      by

      As Donald Trump faces criminal charges in multiple cases across the country, several states are still investigating a scheme created by Trump allies and boosted by Trump himself to cast fake electoral votes for the Republican candidate for the 2020 election.As part of the US electoral college system, states cast a set number of votes for the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state, the winner of which then takes the presidency. Seven states that the former president lost saw slates of fake GOP electors falsely claim Trump had won their electoral votes. These fake electors included high-profile Republicans, such as sitting officeholders and state party leaders.Two prosecutors, in Michigan and Georgia, have already filed charges against fake electors. Others have confirmed investigations but provided few details. One state prosecutor said local laws did not address this kind of crime, which is unprecedented.Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump campaign legal adviser and the supposed mastermind of the fake electors scheme, pleaded guilty in Georgia over his role in subverting the election. Chesebro allegedly created the plan in a secret memo based on Wisconsin’s electoral vote.At the federal level, the special counsel Jack Smith and his team brought charges against Trump and his allies over their attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, which include the fake elector scheme. Several states have confirmed they are cooperating with Smith’s investigation, and news reports have indicated Smith offered limited immunity to some fake electors for their testimony.Since the scheme had no precedent, some states and experts have struggled to figure out which laws may have been broken, and whether the charges should be state or federal. In some states, the fake electors also face civil lawsuits. Here’s where they stand.ArizonaThe former Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich, a Republican, never publicly confirmed any investigation into the state’s fake electors, which included high-profile far-right figures such as the state senator Jake Hoffman and the former Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward. The state actually saw two separate sets of fake electors.His successor, the Democrat Kris Mayes, told the Guardian earlier this year that her office is investigating the fake electors, but has not provided any details of the investigation so far. On a recent Arizona Republic podcast episode, Mayes said she could not say much about the contours of the investigation, but that her office was taking it “very seriously” and that it was a “very important investigation”.While the cases in Michigan and Georgia are much further along, she noted that their prosecutors have been in place much longer than she has. Mayes took office in January 2023.GeorgiaThree fake electors in Georgia were charged as part of a broader case against Trump and his allies over election subversion attempts.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, brought charges against the former Georgia Republican party chairman David Shafer, the state senator Shawn Still and the activist Cathy Latham, three of the 16 fake electors from that state. They face various charges, including forgery, impersonating a public officer and attempting to file false documents.Several of the others who signed on as false electors for Trump struck immunity deals or plea agreements with prosecutors.The three fake electors charged have pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys argued in September that they were not fake electors, but instead “contingent” electors who could be used should the courts overturn Biden’s win, the Associated Press reported. The three are trying to get their case moved from state court in Georgia to a federal court, arguing they were acting as federal officers who were keeping an avenue open for Trump depending on what happened in the courts.Sidney Powell, who was charged in the broader case, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the prosecution. The unexpected move netted Powell six years of probation and some fines and marks a major shift in the Georgia case for Trump and his allies. Chesebro, on the day jury selection for his trial was set to begin, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents and probably will serve five years’ probation.MichiganThe Democratic attorney general Dana Nessel charged 16 Michiganders who participated as fake electors with eight felonies each, including multiple forgery charges, for their roles in the scheme. Those charged include party activists, candidates for office and state and local party officials.Attempts by two defendants to get the charges dismissed because of Nessel’s comments about how the electors were “brainwashed” were unsuccessful. The 16 people charged pleaded not guilty, and probable cause hearings are set for this month.This week, one of Michigan’s fake electors saw his charges dropped as part of a deal with the state’s attorney general. James Renner, a Republican who falsely signed that Trump had won, agreed to “full cooperation, truthful testimony and production of any and all relevant documents” in exchange for the dropped charges, filings from the attorney general’s office, obtained by NBC News, show. This includes information about how he was asked to become part of the fake slate and the circumstances of meetings among those involved in the scheme.NevadaNevada’s top prosecutor has said his office would not bring charges against the six people who signed on as fake electors there in 2020. The state’s Democratic attorney general, Aaron Ford, said current state laws did not address this kind of situation, “to the dismay of some, and I’m sure, to the delight of others”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Democratic state senator Skip Daly attempted to solve that problem, and the state legislature passed a bill that would have made it a felony for people to serve as false electors, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Ford had endorsed the bill.But the Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, vetoed the bill, saying the penalties were too harsh, though he said he believed those who undermine elections should face “strict punishments”.New MexicoThe former New Mexico attorney general Hector Balderas started an investigation into the five Republicans who signed as false electors there, then referred the matter to federal prosecutors, according to Source New Mexico.The office of the current attorney general, Raúl Torrez, confirmed there was an active state investigation into the fake electors to see if they violated state law, but details about the case have been scant. Torrez’s office said it would work with Jack Smith to get any evidence related to a state inquiry, according to KOAT Action News.Like Pennsylvania, the fake electors in New Mexico included a caveat in their documents that could help them, should charges be filed. They wrote that they signed the documents “on the understanding that it might be later determined that we are the duly elected and qualified electors”.PennsylvaniaThe 20 fake electors in Pennsylvania are unlikely to face any criminal charges because of how they worded the documents they signed. The documents say the false electoral votes would only be considered valid if the courts deemed the slate to be the “duly elected and qualified electors” for Pennsylvania.Governor Josh Shapiro, then the state’s Democratic attorney general, said the hedged language would spare the false electors from a criminal investigation by his office. His successor as attorney general, Michelle Henry, told Votebeat that the office’s position remained that charges were not warranted.“Though their rhetoric and policy were intentionally misleading and purposefully damaging to our democracy, based on our initial review, our office does not believe this meets the legal standards for forgery,” Shapiro said in 2022.WisconsinThe Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, has not said whether his office is investigating the state’s 10 fake electors for potential state law violations, though a civil lawsuit against the alternate slate is moving forward. Kaul has said he supports the federal investigation and that he expects to see “further developments” in that case.Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, said in August he wanted to see the Wisconsin fake electors “held accountable” via prosecution.“What those ten fake electors did was wrong,” Evers wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “People have to be held accountable for that, and I hope to hell somebody does.”Federal prosecutors, in the Trump indictment, said the fake electors scheme started in Wisconsin with the attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who suggested electors meet there to sign on to a slate in case Trump’s team won in the courts. More