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Newly released surveillance video from a Denver theater appears to show Lauren Boebert vaping, singing, filming and disturbing other patrons during a Beetlejuice musical play. The US congresswoman has issued an apology after being kicked out of the performance in Denver for inappropriate behavior, an experience she has called ‘difficult and humbling’ More
Lauren Boebert, the US congresswoman, has issued an apology after being kicked out of a performance of the musical Beetlejuice in Denver for inappropriate behavior, an experience she has called “difficult and humbling”.Boebert, a Republican representative for Colorado, and a male guest accompanying her were ejected from the musical on 10 September for vaping, recording video and disturbing other patrons during the Sunday performance. Video also showed them eagerly groping each other while in their seats.Boebert and her campaign manager initially denied that she was vaping and said she was removed for being too loud. But surveillance video obtained by the Denver television station 9News shows the congresswoman openly vaping during the performance.Two sources also confirmed to 9News that Boebert was vaping, a prohibited action that ushers attempted to address with her several times.A pregnant woman reportedly confronted Boebert and asked the congresswoman to stop vaping, the New York Post reported. But Boebert refused.“These people in front of us were outrageous,” the unnamed woman said to the Post. “I’ve never seen anyone act like that before.”The CCTV video also shows Boebert’s guest fondling her breasts after they had taken their seats. Boebert is also seen petting her guest’s crotch in the venue.Boebert and her date were later removed by security in the second act of the musical as their disruptive behavior continued.The CCTV footage shows a blurred-out gesture that Boebert flashed at theater security as she was escorted out. Business Insider reported that the gesture appeared to be a middle finger.According to a report of the confrontation from theater security, Boebert and her guest became argumentative with officials. “Do you know who I am?” the congresswoman allegedly asked, according to the theater security report.Boebert apologized for her behavior in a Friday evening statement.“The past few days have been difficult and humbling, and I’m truly sorry for the unwanted attention my Sunday evening in Denver has brought to the community,” Boebert, as reported by the Colorado Sun.Boebert added that her “public and difficult divorce” has created a “challenging personal time for me and my entire family”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I’ve tried to handle it with strength and grace as best I can, but I simply fell short of my values on Sunday,” Boebert said.Boebert filed for divorce from her husband, Jayson, in May. The couple had been married for nearly 20 years.Boebert’s disturbance at the musical was first confirmed on Tuesday, though the congresswoman initially attempted to suggest she had been removed from the theater for enjoying the performance too much.On X, formerly known as Twitter, Boebert wrote that she “[pleaded] guilty to laughing and singing too loud!”The Colorado congresswoman is in her second term after narrowly being re-elected in 2022.She is one of the most far-right representatives in Congress, widely known for bigoted statements she has made against LGBTQ+ people, Muslims and other marginalized communities.A report from the Advocate, the LGBTQ+ news outlet, noted that the man who accompanied her to Beetlejuice was a Democrat named Quinn Gallagher who is the proprietor of a bar that has hosted LGBTQ+ events and drag performances, which have often been targets of the political right. More
Jenna Ellis – the Donald Trump lawyer who like the former president faces criminal charges regarding attempted election subversion in his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 – says she will not vote for him in the future because he is a “malignant narcissist” who cannot admit mistakes.“I simply can’t support him for elected office again,” Ellis said. “Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.”Ellis, 38, was speaking on her show on American Family Radio, a rightwing evangelical network run by the American Family Association, a non-profit that by its own description has been “on the frontlines of America’s culture war” since 1977.Ellis was one of 18 Trump associates charged with him in Georgia over attempts to overturn Biden’s victory there. Charged with violating state anti-racketeering laws and solicitation of violation of an oath by a public officer, she was granted $100,000 bail and pleaded not guilty.Trump pleaded not guilty to 13 racketeering and conspiracy charges.Denying all wrongdoing and claiming political persecution, he also faces four federal counts related to election subversion; 40 federal counts related to retention of classified information; 34 state counts in New York over hush-money payments; and civil cases including a $250m lawsuit lodged by the New York attorney general over his business affairs and a defamation claim arising from a rape allegation a judge said was “substantially true”.Nonetheless, Trump leads polling regarding the 2024 Republican presidential primary by vast margins, in national and key state surveys.Ellis is a former counsel for the Thomas More Society, a conservative Catholic group, whose claims to be a constitutional lawyer have been widely doubted.Described by the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman as “a lawyer whom Trump sought out after seeing her television commentary”, in 2020 Ellis rose from relative obscurity to become part of what she called an “elite strike force team” working to overturn Trump’s defeat by Biden.That effort failed. American Family Radio signed up Ellis in December last year. On her show on Thursday, she spoke to Steve Deace, another rightwing host.Deace said: “Before that man [Trump] needs to be president again … [to] escape the quote-unquote, ‘witch-hunts’, that man needs Jesus again because … his ambitions would be fueled by showing some self-awareness. And he won’t do it because he can’t admit, ‘I’m not God.’”Ellis said Deace had “perfectly articulated exactly how I as a voter feel”. She knew Trump well “as a friend, as a former boss”, she said, adding: “I have great love and respect for him personally.“But everything that you just said resonates with me as exactly why I simply can’t support him for elected office again. Why I have chosen to distance is because of that, frankly, malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.“And the total idolatry that I’m seeing from some of the supporters that are unwilling to put the constitution and the country and the conservative principles above their love for a star is really troubling.“And I think that we do need to, as Americans and as conservatives and particularly as Christians, take this very seriously and understand where are we putting our vote.” More
From 4h agoFederal prosecutors secretly argued that informing Donald Trump about their efforts to access his Twitter account could “precipitate violence”, according to newly unsealed court filings.Prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith worried that Trump would publicly announce the search warrant or his Twitter feed, as he did on his Truth Social platform when his Mar-a-Lago estate was searched by the FBI last year.Informing Trump about the Twitter search warrant “could precipitate violence as occurred following the public disclosure of the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago,” the prosecutors warned. The news was first reported by Politico.Prosecutors argued for keeping Trump in the dark about the Twitter search warrant was necessary because they said the former president presents a “significant risk of tampering with evidence, seeking to influence or intimidate potential witnesses, and ‘otherwise seriously jeopardizing’ the Government’s ongoing investigations.”“These are not hypothetical considerations in this case,” the prosecutors wrote.
Following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, the former President propagated false claims of fraud (including swearing to false allegations in a federal court filing), pressured state and federal officials to violate their legal duties, and retaliated against those who did not comply with his demands, culminating in violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
In response, Twitter said the prospect of violence was “facially implausible” and argued that Trump already knew many details about Smith’s investigation. US district court judge Beryl Howell ultimately rejected the social media company’s arguments.The new filings also show Twitter turned over at least 32 direct messages from Trump’s account, @realDonaldTrump, to prosecutors. Prosecutors also obtained data that could show his location at the time certain tweets were sent, or if anyone else was accessing his account.It’s 4pm eastern time. That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the US politics live blog today.Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
Americans do not trust the government’s economic news – or the media’s reporting of it – according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian that presents the White House with a major hurdle as it pushes Joe Biden’s economic record ahead of next year’s election.
Prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith urged the judge overseeing his federal 2020 election interference criminal case to deny a request by Donald Trump to recuse herself from the case. There is “no valid basis” for US district judge Tanya Chutkan to remove herself from the case, Smith wrote.
Twitter gave the special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump for alleged election subversion access to at least 32 of the former president’s private messages. The company, now known as X, turned over the messages after receiving a search warrant, citing newly unsealed filings to the US circuit court of appeals.
Federal prosecutors secretly argued that informing Donald Trump about their efforts to access his Twitter account could “precipitate violence”, according to the newly unsealed court filings. Prosecutors worried that Trump would publicly announce the search warrant or his Twitter feed, as he did on his Truth Social platform when his Mar-a-Lago estate was searched by the FBI last year.
Joe Biden spoke out in support of auto workers as they launched a historic series of strikes after their union failed to reach an agreement with the US’s three largest vehicle manufacturers. “No one wants a strike, but I respect workers’ rights to use their options under the collective bargaining system, and [I] understand their frustrations,” the US president said in a brief, unscheduled appearance at the White House.
Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Maine as Hurricane Lee rapidly approaches the north-easternmost US state amid the likelihood of a landfall there or more likely in Canada over the weekend.
Donald Trump’s October trial in a civil case brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, could be delayed because the former US president has quietly sued the judge Arthur F Engoron.
Donald Trump said he would testify under oath denying he asked a staffer to delete surveillance footage at the center of an investigation into whether he mishandled classified documents. In an NBC interview, the former president said it is “very unlikely” he would pardon himself if he is re-elected in 2024.
The House oversight committee announced it will be launching a Republican-led investigation into the Biden administration’s response to the deadly wildfires in Hawaii, which killed at least 115 people last month.
The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said he would drop out of the Republican presidential primary if he does not show well in New Hampshire.
A lawyer for Hunter Biden, who was indicted on Thursday over illegally possessing a firearm, said he expected the case “will be dismissed before trial”. The president’s son was indicted by special counsel David Weiss on three felony gun charges after a plea agreement he struck with prosecutors imploded in recent months.
Three men were acquitted in the final trial connected to a scheme to kidnap the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, a pandemic-era plot steeped in extremist politics and domestic terrorism that saw others imprisoned for lengthy terms.
About half of Americans are interested in getting an updated Covid-19 vaccine, according to a new poll, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a series of Covid-19 booster vaccines amid rising coronavirus cases around the country.
The House oversight committee announced it will be launching a Republican-led investigation into the Biden administration’s response to the deadly wildfires in Hawaii.A joint statement by James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, and Pete Sessions, the subcommittee chair, reads:
The deadly wildfire in Maui shocked the nation and left many, especially those directly impacted by the tragedy, with serious questions that remain unanswered today. President Biden built his entire reputation on empathy and compassion but failed to deliver an appropriate response when it mattered most.
At least 115 people were killed in last month’s wildfires on the island of Maui. The fire nearly destroyed the town of Lahaina, and caused more than $5.5bn in damage, according to estimates by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.The House oversight committee’s investigation into the fires is separate from a hearing by the energy and commerce committee, which will feature testimony from Hawaii utility and energy officials.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has subpoenaed former justice department official Jody Hunt for an upcoming hearing to transfer Jeff Clark’s case to federal court.From my colleague Hugo Lowell:About half of Americans are interested in getting an updated Covid-19 vaccine, according to a new poll, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a series of Covid-19 booster vaccines amid rising coronavirus cases around the country.The Reuters/Ipsos nationwide poll found that almost 30% of respondents were “very interested” in getting the vaccine and another 24% were “somewhat interested”.On Monday, the FDA approved Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines that target a recently circulating Omicron subvariant of the coronavirus.The results of the poll suggest that more Americans are willing to get a booster shot than a year ago. According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in six Americans opted for an updated shot.About 14% of those who said they were not interested in getting the booster said it was because they had Covid-19 already, while another 14% said they believed their previous vaccinations provided sufficient protection.The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said he would drop out of the Republican presidential primary if he does not show well in New Hampshire.“I can’t see myself leaving the race under any circumstances before New Hampshire,” he told the New York Times. “If I don’t do well in New Hampshire, then I’ll leave.”As the Times pointed out, Christie is following the playbook he used in 2016, when his run for the Republican nomination focused on New Hampshire … and ended after it, after he finished sixth in the primary.Christie then became the first major figure to endorse Donald Trump in his insurgent run to the White House.Christie planned the transition at Trump Tower, only to be brutally (if of course metaphorically) defenestrated by Jared Kushner, whose father Christie put in jail back when he was a prosecutor in New Jersey. That didn’t stop Christie supporting Trump, and nor did Trump’s part in Christie ending up in the ICU with Covid. It took January 6 to finally propel Christie away from Trump, whose unfitness to govern the former governor is now dedicated to exposing.As the Times reported, Christie is portraying the Republican primary as an existential matter for the country:
‘The future of this country is going to be determined here,’ Mr Christie told a crowd this week at a local brewery, clutching an IPA. ‘If Donald Trump wins here, he will be our nominee. Everything that happens after that is going to be on our party and on our country. It’s up to you.’”
The Times also noted the current state of play in primary polling:
Though Mr Christie has improved in recent polls, he still trails Mr Trump in New Hampshire by double digits, and by much more in national polls and surveys of Iowa, the first nominating state.
Christie told the Times he wanted to emulate John McCain, the Arizona senator who “broke late” in New Hampshire in 2000, ending up winning the state.McCain, of course, did not win the Republican nomination in 2000. George W Bush did. McCain did win it in his second attempt, eight years after his first. He was then heavily beaten in the general election, by Barack Obama.An exhaustive manifesto for the next conservative US president produced by Project 2025, an initiative led by the hard-right Heritage Foundation, uses “dehumanising language” about LGBTQ+ Americans too extreme even for candidates currently seeking the Republican presidential nomination, a leading advocate said.“The dehumanising language is consistent with the way the right talks about LGBTQ+ people overall,” said Sasha Buchert, director of the Non-Binary and Transgender Rights Project for Lambda Legal.“They’re never talking about transgender people or gay and lesbian people, it’s always referring to them as an ideology of some kind, or an ‘ism’. There’s no humanity involved … Not even the presidential candidates in the Republican debates are embracing this kind of rhetoric.”Donald Trump is the clear leader of that Republican race, despite facing 91 criminal indictments and multiple civil suits. Primary candidates have eagerly embraced anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, particularly over state anti-trans laws and the place of LGBTQ+ issues in public education. This summer, however, Trump’s closest polling rival, Ron DeSantis, was forced on to the defensive over an online video that used harsh imagery and language to accuse Trump of being too soft on LGBTQ+ issues.By its own description, Project 2025 is the work of “a broad coalition of over 70 conservative organisations”, aiming to shape the presidential transition should a rightwing candidate beat Joe Biden next year.In the words of Paul Dans, its director, Project 2025 is “systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponised conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state”.Such language may echo conspiracy-tinged rants by Trump and his supporters, but that “army” has produced something solid: Mandate for Leadership: the Conservative Promise, a 920-page document that sets out policy wishes across the breadth of the federal government.Read on…As the old saying goes, “where there’s smoke there’s fire”: the Colorado Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert’s claim not to have been vaping during a theatrical performance in Denver from which she and a male companion were ejected has been proven false.In an episode that generated widespread headlines, the far-right controversialist was escorted out of a performance of the Beetlejuice musical at the Buell Theatre last weekend.Speaking on condition of anonymity, a woman who sat behind the congresswoman told the Denver Post: “These people in front of us were outrageous. I’ve never seen anyone act like that before.”The woman, who is pregnant, said she asked Boebert to stop vaping.Boebert said simply: “No.”Boebert and her companion were eventually escorted from the theatre. Boebert’s office confirmed the incident but denied the congresswoman had been vaping, even though such behaviour was detailed in a widely cited incident report.Surveillance footage obtained by 9News, an NBC affiliate, disproved Boebert’s claim.More:Donald Trump has widened his lead in the Republican presidential primary in the three weeks since the first GOP primary debate – in which he did not take part, according to a new poll.The Fox News poll showed 60% of potential Republican primary voters support Trump, up from 53% in a survey taken before the 23 August debate in Milwaukee. The report said:
Some of Trump’s biggest gains come from women (+10), voters under age 45 (+9), White evangelicals (+8), and White men without a college degree (+8).
Trump’s closest rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, has seen his support drop since the debate, the results showed. The survey found 13% of GOP voters back DeSantis in the primary, down three points. Vivek Ramaswamy held his third-place slot at 11%Melania Trump, Donald Trump’s wife, may be back on the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign trail with him “pretty soon”, he said.In an interview with Meet the Press, moderator Kristen Welker asked the former president, “we’ll get her on the trail soon?” Trump replied:
Yes. Soon? Yeah, pretty soon. When it’s appropriate, but pretty soon. She’s a private person, a great person, a very confident person and she loves our country very much.
He added:
Honestly, I like to keep her away from it. It’s so nasty and so mean.
The former first lady was a prominent fixture in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and throughout his presidency, but she has rarely been spotted by her husband’s side since leaving the White House. Most notably, she did not appear at any of his court appearances.Joe Biden appeared to support the auto workers strike in strong comments made during his White House address this afternoon. He said:
No one wants a strike, but I respect workers’ right to use their options under the collective bargaining system.
“I understand the workers’ frustration,” he added.
Record corporate profits … should be shared by record contracts for the UAW.
My colleague Maya Yang is covering the strike on our dedicated UAW strike blog.The team of special counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant in January directing Twitter, now known as X, to produce “data and records” related to Donald Trump’s Twitter account as well as a non-disclosure agreement prohibiting Twitter from disclosing the search warrant.Court filings last month showed Twitter delayed complying with the warrant, leading to a federal judge holding the company in contempt and fining it $350,000.The filing said prosecutors got the search warrant after a court “found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses”.The court found that disclosing the warrant could risk that Trump would “would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation” by giving him “an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior”, according to the filing.Federal prosecutors secretly argued that informing Donald Trump about their efforts to access his Twitter account could “precipitate violence”, according to newly unsealed court filings.Prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith worried that Trump would publicly announce the search warrant or his Twitter feed, as he did on his Truth Social platform when his Mar-a-Lago estate was searched by the FBI last year.Informing Trump about the Twitter search warrant “could precipitate violence as occurred following the public disclosure of the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago,” the prosecutors warned. The news was first reported by Politico.Prosecutors argued for keeping Trump in the dark about the Twitter search warrant was necessary because they said the former president presents a “significant risk of tampering with evidence, seeking to influence or intimidate potential witnesses, and ‘otherwise seriously jeopardizing’ the Government’s ongoing investigations.”“These are not hypothetical considerations in this case,” the prosecutors wrote.
Following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, the former President propagated false claims of fraud (including swearing to false allegations in a federal court filing), pressured state and federal officials to violate their legal duties, and retaliated against those who did not comply with his demands, culminating in violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
In response, Twitter said the prospect of violence was “facially implausible” and argued that Trump already knew many details about Smith’s investigation. US district court judge Beryl Howell ultimately rejected the social media company’s arguments.The new filings also show Twitter turned over at least 32 direct messages from Trump’s account, @realDonaldTrump, to prosecutors. Prosecutors also obtained data that could show his location at the time certain tweets were sent, or if anyone else was accessing his account.Twitter handed over at least 32 direct messages from Donald Trump’s account to special counsel Jack Smith earlier this year in the justice department’s investigation into the 2020 election subversion case, according to newly unsealed court filings.In the new filings, Smith’s team revealed “the materials Twitter produced to the Government included only 32 direct-message items, constituting a minuscule proportion of the total production”.From Politico’s Kyle Cheney:A prominent New York progressive is warning that mayor Eric Adams’s hostile comments about the rising number of migrants in the city are “dangerous” and risk inciting violence against the new arrivals and other immigrants.Tiffany Cabán, aiming for re-election to the city council this November and long endorsed by leading leftwing figures, including US senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, attacked as “irresponsible” the mayor’s remarks last week that the sharp increase in migration to New York would “destroy” the city.Cabán told the Guardian:
The idea that new arrivals would destroy New York City is absurd to me. New arrivals, immigrants, made our city.
“I think there’s a real possibility of his rhetoric fomenting violence, and that’s the last thing we need,” Cabán, a former public defender, added.New York and other Democratic-led cities have received hundreds of thousands of people who crossed the US-Mexico border to request asylum since last year.More than 110,000 migrants have arrived in New York, most making their own way but many also bussed by Texas authorities, without liaison. Officials say they are struggling to provide for nearly 60,000 migrants currently in the city’s care. More
A central Florida city is moving forward with plans to join the popular national Safe Place initiative protecting LGBTQ+ people and others, despite opposition from Republicans who consider it a “deceptive and coercive” political mandate.Councilors in Mount Dora, a historic and eclectic small city famous for its antiques stores, art galleries and festivals, voted last month to affiliate with Safe Place, which seeks to give victims of hate crimes or bias a temporary shelter if they feel threatened.The program began in Seattle in 2015 as a voluntary partnership between the police department and local businesses, which displayed rainbow stickers in the shape of a police badge to denote their participation. The effort has since been adopted in more than 350 cities nationwide, including dozens in Florida.But four Republican state politicians from Lake county, in which Mount Dora sits, took exception to the city’s declaration, accusing the city in a letter last month of “virtue signaling”, and insisting they would explore “all legislative, legal and executive options available” to oppose a move they say contravenes “Biblical principles”.“This local Safe Place program is negligent, irresponsible and divisive at best,” according to the letter signed by the Lake county legislative delegation, state representatives Taylor Yarkosky, Keith Truenow and Stan McClain, and state senator Dennis Baxley.The four claim that the city is picking “winners and losers”, and warn small businesses they risk economic harm by turning off customers, citing recent rightwing boycotts of Target and Bud Lite for affiliating with the LGBTQ+ community.Crissy Stile, the mayor of Mount Dora, told the Guardian the city would not be dissuaded by the politicians, who represent a county she said was “a little bit slower on the equality scale”.“Mount Dora is very advanced, very inclusive, very safe already for all kinds of walks of life and beliefs, and Lake county is a little bit behind us,” she said.“The political pushback doesn’t surprise me, but the actual wording of the letter did. It surprised me that they would take that step to make it so official, and to have all the legislators sign off on it.”Stile said the city was moving ahead with its plan to seek accreditation by Safe Space, which has its headquarters in Seattle, as early as October. She added that she heard little criticism from the public.“We haven’t had a lot of people that were really upset, and the ones that are, really, are just upset that the decal’s depiction of a safe place is a rainbow,” she said.“To me, it doesn’t matter if it’s a rainbow or a happy dog face, it’s just raising awareness for treating people with kindness and respect no matter who they are, what they believe in, what they feel or who they love.”Michael Gibson, Mount Dora’s interim police chief, outlined the next steps for the program at a city council last week, at which members voted down a proposal to halt the process for review.“I think that it’s an important beacon that when I look at it I’m not offended. As a conservative American it doesn’t offend me, not one bit,” Gibson told the council, according to WFTV News.Gibson said his officers would receive training in dealing with victims of hate crimes, and that the design of the decal will be finalized at a later stage.Yarkosky, the author of the letter, and self-declared constitutional conservative, did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian. But he posted to X, formerly Twitter, a follow-up letter explaining why the original was sent.“We simply want to know why the City of Mount Dora is seeking to force Seattle style political mandates on our small businesses,” he wrote. “We should be weary [sic] of deceptive and coercive mandates administered by local government that could have an opposite effect on public safety as well and [sic] put our small businesses at risk.”Notably, the second letter was signed only by Yarkosky, and none of his colleagues. Baxley, when questioned by local journalists, appeared to backtrack a little, saying he wasn’t 100% familiar with the Mount Dora program or the intentions of city leaders.“Our interest is strictly keeping the peace in Lake county,” he said, although, as the Republicans’ original letter to the city concedes, that has not been a problem before. “We had to go back over 12 years to find reports in your area regarding any such bigotry, prejudice or outright hate crimes being reported,” they wrote.Stiles said none of the politicians had spoken to her directly, and she was not worried by threats of economic penalties.“Our city’s not going to shut down if we don’t get our typical appropriation from Tallahassee that we ask for every year,” she said.“We were lucky enough to be awarded half a million dollars for a repaving project in our downtown, and for that we’re thankful. But I don’t think the city falls apart if they do follow through with their threat of economic harm to our city.” More
The Coffee county board of elections in Georgia held its first meeting on Tuesday after being mentioned more than 50 times in Fulton county’s indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others for allegedly participating in a criminal conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 election. Local residents, still frustrated over a lack of accountability for officials who may have known about the conspiracy, pressured the reluctant board for an independent investigation.The small, rural county 200 miles south-east of Atlanta made its way into the indictment – and global headlines – because Trump allegedly sent associates there to copy software and other digital information from the state’s elections system in early 2021. Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, called it “the largest voting systems breach in US history”.The coalition is in the sixth year of a federal lawsuit over vulnerabilities in Georgia’s computerized voting system and is responsible for uncovering much of the information that Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis used in the parts of her indictment concerning the breach.Although Misty Hampton, the former Coffee county elections director, and Cathy Latham, the county’s former GOP chair, were both named in the indictment, local residents said many questions remain unanswered about how Trump’s associates were able to do what they did, and who knew what, when.Their concern is not just what happened in 2021, but that the digital information obtained is now in an unknown number of hands, meaning that future elections could be affected in Georgia and in other states that use Dominion Voting Systems and equipment made by partner companies.County residents wanted to know why board chairman Wendell Stone did not tell the board and the public about the breach when he learned about it from an email in 2022. Stone told the Guardian he was not sure if he ever saw the email.Several dozen members of the public filled a small room in a nondescript, low-slung building near railroad tracks in the county seat of Douglas, a city of about 12,000, seeking answers. What had been until recently a group of mostly Black residents concerned about the breach was nearly split between Black and white – a reflection of the population of Douglas.The brief, business part of the meeting was taken up by new elections director Christy Nipper announcing she would be certified later the same day to manage the state’s computerized elections system, and asking the board’s five members to buy a tape recorder for recording future meetings: “If we’re going to be under a microscope,” she said, “I want to make sure we get it right.”Jim Hudson, an 80-year-old retired attorney, pushed the board to initiate its own investigation into the multiple occasions various Trump associates entered the rural county’s elections office, copying digital information. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) is conducting an investigation, but has not released results.“I’m not a rabble rouser,” said Hudson. “But this deserves your attention. This thing reaches coast to coast – from California all the way to the east coast,” he said, naming some of the many national outlets that have covered the story.Judi Worrell, who said she moved to Coffee county 50 years ago, echoed Hudson, mentioning a nephew in British Columbia who had seen the news and asked her: “What’s going on down there?”“I can’t understand how people thought you could get away with this!” she said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHudson and Marks both noted that Stone likely knew about the breach as early as 2 May 2022, when Washington Post reporter Emma Brown sent him an email asking about it – and did nothing to engage the board or explain to the public what had happened. The email was also discovered through coalition open records requests.“You should have immediately contacted the board,” Hudson said.Asked after the meeting, Stone told the Guardian, “I don’t know if I ever read that email,” referring to Brown’s query, which had the subject, “Washington Post inquiry.”“You know how it is – you may see something, and not realize the significance of it,” he added.Asked about why he doesn’t back Hudson’s proposal for the board to hire independent counsel to investigate the breach, Stone said: “I simply feel it’s not an expense taxpayers should be paying.”Stone also pointed to the GBI’s investigation. “I feel certain that a detailed explanation will come out once [their] investigation has concluded,” he said. “The most important question is what’s being done to ensure that election results are … fair, transparent and correct in this county moving forward.”Sitting in the first row of the meeting was attorney Ben Perkins, who had been hired in recent months to help “properly conduct our meetings in a way that is appropriate and effective”, according to board minutes from a previous meeting. The county has paid Perkins nearly $15,000 in the last two months, according to a records request filed by the Guardian.After the meeting, several dozen members of the public, plus Nipper and board members Ernestine Thomas-Clark and Paula Scott, met at a nearby church, where Marks answered questions on the breach, drawing from the emails, video and other information the coalition has obtained.Thomas-Clark, the only Black board member and the only one to back the proposal for an independent counsel, repeated her support for a locally-run investigation. “I think there’s more to be uncovered,” she said. “Something is not being said.”Local resident Mary White explained that public expressions of concern about the breach to date had mostly involved Black residents, most of whom vote Democrat. “The majority of the people on the board and the county commission vote Republican, which goes with being white,” she said. Coffee county’s population is about 70% white, but slightly more than half of Douglas’ population is Black.At the same time, she said, a small but growing group of white residents was concerned about what happened at the county’s election office. Worrell suggested she would be glad to hold a meeting on the issue at her church, which is mostly attended by white residents of Douglas. “We’re the exception,” said White, about white neighbors of hers willing to get involved in seeking answers. “We all know who we are.”“But it’s not a Black versus white issue,” she added. “It’s a voting rights issue.”This article is part of US Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on 15 September, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org More
Despite an apparent lack of evidence that Joe Biden profited from the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, announced on Tuesday that he was launching a formal impeachment inquiry into the president.
Many suspect he was pushed to make the move to appease some far-right members of the Republican party, who have threatened to tank his deal to avert a government shutdown by the end of the month if he does not meet their list of demands.
So, will Joe Biden be impeached? Is this just an act of political revenge for Donald Trump? Could it end up backfiring on McCarthy? Jonathan Freedland speaks to Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post about what happens next
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Wisconsin’s top elections official suffered another blow on Thursday when the Republican-controlled state senate voted to fire her by a party line vote of 22 to 11. Meagan Wolfe’s status as elections administrator will now likely be determined in court.Legal experts and the Wisconsin attorney general have disputed the move by Republican senators to remove Wolfe, a respected and accomplished non-partisan leader. Her removal would affect the administration of elections in 2024 and illustrates the increasingly wide reach of election deniers and rightwing conspiracy theorists in Wisconsin politics.Before she became a lightning rod for conspiracy theories and criticism surrounding the 2020 election, Wolfe enjoyed wide support from Republicans in the state legislature. Appointed to head the Wisconsin elections commission in 2018, she was confirmed by a unanimous vote in the state senate in 2019.When the Covid-19 virus pummeled Wisconsin, disrupting elections, an attorney representing the Republican assembly speaker, Robin Vos, and the former senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a letter that they “wholeheartedly support” many protocols outlined by the statewide commission.Crucially, Wolfe, who provides expertise and recommendations to the commission, serves at their direction – and not the other way around.One pandemic-era policy that has come under fire by Republicans, creating temporary adjustments to nursing home voting, was issued by a unanimous vote of the three Democratic and three Republican commissioners.“Meagan is being blamed for the decisions of her commission,” said Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of Milwaukee’s election commission. “It’s really unfortunate that she’s being used as the scapegoat when she was not the person responsible for making any decisions that they’re punishing her for.”It was only after the 2020 election, which Donald Trump lost to president Joe Biden by just over 20,000 votes in Wisconsin, that complaints about the nonpartisan administrator began to circulate. Groups and individuals that spread falsehoods about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election have obsessed over Wolfe, publishing missives in Gateway Pundit, a site that peddles misinformation, and earning a warning from state capitol police for allegedly stalking her.State lawmakers, largely focusing their criticisms on pandemic-related policies like the expanded use of ballot drop boxes and the guidance for nursing home voting, joined the chorus calling for Wolfe’s ouster.When Wolfe’s term ended in June, Democrats on the bipartisan commission blocked a vote to send a recommendation for her reappointment to the state senate, anticipating the senate would in turn vote to fire her. The commissioners relied on precedent from a 2022 Wisconsin supreme court ruling that found a Republican member of the state’s natural resources board who declined to put himself forward for reappointment in 2021 could not be removed from office.Still, Republicans moved forward with reappointment proceedings for Wolfe, holding a 29 August hearing where election deniers and conspiracy theorists from around the state gathered to air their grievances about Wisconsin elections. In a letter, the Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, wrote that the state senate had “no current authority to confirm or reject the appointment of a WEC administrator”, an opinion that was echoed by the legislature’s own nonpartisan attorneys.Jeff Smith, a Democratic state senator on the shared revenue, elections and consumer protection committee who abstained from a committee vote on Wolfe’s reappointment, said in a statement that the vote was “not properly before the Senate or its committees”, adding that he has “full confidence in Administrator Wolfe and the work that she has done for the people of Wisconsin”.Devin LeMahieu, the Republican state senate majority leader who voted against Wolfe’s reappointment, previously accused the administrator of “mishandling” the 2020 election. LeMahieu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.During the floor session on Thursday, the Democratic senate minority leader, Melissa Agard, described the move to oust Wolfe as one of many “shameless continued attacks on our elections”.Democrats in the state senate objected to the vote repeatedly. Mark Spreitzer, a Democratic member of the senate’s shared revenue, elections and consumer protection committee, called the nomination “fake” and accused Republicans in the senate of indulging conspiracy theorists.Senators opposing the vote noted the wide-ranging implications of Wolfe’s disputed reappointment process.“Disenfranchisement was real,” said the Democratic state senator Lena Taylor, describing the long lines that plagued polling places in Milwaukee during the spring 2020 election. Taylor argued that the vote – which she described as a “sham process” – would delegitimate sincere elections concerns in favor of falsehoods and conspiracy theories.LeMahieu disputed Democrats’ opposition to the process, instead blaming Democrats on the elections commission for blocking the commission from advancing Wolfe’s nomination to the senate. The Thursday vote, LeMahieu said, “represents the lack of faith” in Wisconsin elections, sidestepping claims that the process would embolden conspiracy theorists.Elections officials in Wisconsin worry the ongoing proceedings will fuel more misinformation about elections and say their work will be negatively impacted if Wolfe leaves her position or is removed from office.“We’re already dealing with extra public records requests that are coming through in regards to elections,” said Kaci Lundgren, a Douglas county clerk. “Laws change all the time in regards to elections, so to have that experience and that knowledge gone, it would be disconcerting, it would be difficult. Frustrating.”Woodall-Vogg agreed, describing the possible vacancy as “a major blow”. The Milwaukee official added that a disruption in leadership would likely impact the staff of the elections commission, who provide technical assistance to clerks across the state. “I think what is most disappointing is that they’re bringing a nonpartisan election official and making her position very political.”Shortly after the vote Thursday, Kaul announced he had filed a lawsuit against Republican leaders, seeking to keep Wolfe in her job.“The story today is not what the senate has purported to do with its vote,” he said in a press release. “It’s that the senate has blatantly disregarded state law in order to put its full stamp of approval on the ongoing baseless attacks on our democracy.”Addressing reporters Thursday afternoon, Wolfe said she would remain in her position until a court said otherwise. She said Republicans sought to oust her because “I will not bend to political pressure”.“The senate’s vote today to remove me is not a referendum on the job I do, but rather a reaction to not achieving the political outcome they desire,” she said. “The political outcome they desired, I believe is to get rid of me. The reason they want to get rid of me for political purposes is because I will not bend to political pressure.”She also expressed some disbelief that many of the claims that her office had repeatedly debunked continued to circulate in front of the legislature and were relied on as a basis for trying to remove her.“It is sometimes hard to wrap my head around how we still are here,” she said.
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