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This March, former President Donald Trump is scheduled to begin standing trial on three federal conspiracy charges and one federal obstruction charge in connection with efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

The federal indictment alleges that, while carrying out a criminal conspiracy to defraud the U.S., Trump worked to interfere with the federal governments counting of votes; that he obstructed the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of Bidens win; and that he worked to deny voters the right to have their votes counted.

Central to the criminal case, which is being led by special counsel Jack Smith, are firsthand accounts from unlikely sources: A number of Trumps fellow Republicans, who testified in 2022 before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack about their direct experiences with Trump as he attempted to remain in power.

Many of those Republicans speak out further in the new documentary Democracy on Trial, a 2.5-hour FRONTLINE special investigating the roots of the federal criminal case against Trump, his defense including the pursuit of absolute immunity and the implications for democracy.

Watch the Full Documentary: Democracy on Trial

In the above excerpt, Rusty Bowers, a longtime Arizona Republican who supported Trumps 2020 re-election campaign, shares a candid account of being on the receiving end of one prong of Trumps alleged multilayered effort to subvert the 2020 election: a pressure campaign on local officials following his loss.

Bowers, who was then speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, describes a phone call before his states certification of Bidens victory in which Trump and his then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani asked Bowers to swap in electors for Trump, citing cases of voter fraud for which they could provide no evidence.

Well. For them to say to me, Yeah, we just want you to throw out those electors and put in Trumps, Im thinking, Have I gone to another planet? I mean, its like, What? Im not gonna do that! Bowers tells FRONTLINE. I wanted him to win, okay, so what? Im not gonna cheat to win.

I flat-out said, Youre asking me to break my oath. I swore an oath Im not gonna break it, period, not gonna break it, Bowers says.

Read & Watch: FRONTLINEs Extended Interview with Rusty Bowers

As the documentary reports, that call is now part of the criminal conspiracy outlined in the federal indictment.

If you are calling a state official, and youre asking them to nullify lawful votes, and to replace them with unlawful votes, that is squarely within federal statutes regarding election conspiracy, David French, a conservative columnist at The New York Times and a former attorney, tells FRONTLINE.

As the excerpt goes on to recount, soon after the call, Giuliani and his associates arrived in Arizona and met with Bowers in person. When Bowers pressed them to provide proof of their voter fraud claims, Bowers told FRONTLINE Giuliani grew frustrated.

In what Bowers describes as a rockets red glare moment, he recalls Giuliani saying, You know, weve got a lot of theories, we just dont have the evidence.

Bowers was incredulous: Like, wow, you gotta be kidding, he says. This is the clown show theyre out hunting, theyre trying to find something, and theyre wanting us to participate in this, and he says that? Holy moly, we cant do this stuff, you know?

Giuliani refused to answer questions about his conversations with Bowers before the Jan. 6 committee. Trump, who is now the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has claimed that the cases against him are politically motivated, and pleaded not guilty to the four federal criminal charges in the 2020 election case. In their filings, Trumps lawyers have argued that hes absolutely immune from prosecution because he was doing his job as president when he worked to change the election results. An appeals court is now considering the immunity question.

The pressure campaign Bowers described is just one of the actions by Trump that are cited in the federal indictment and explored throughout the documentary. In the big picture, the documentary reports, the federal governments case isnt about the legality or illegality of the individual actions themselves, but what prosecutors allege those actions were done in support of: a conspiracy to defraud the U.S.

Whether or not a particular act that the president is alleged to have engaged in is in and of itself a crime isnt really going to be the question at that trial. Its going to be whether that act was in furtherance of a criminal objective, former senior investigative counsel for the House Jan. 6 Committee Marc Harris tells FRONTLINE in the documentary. All of the things that weve been talking about, they dont have to be illegal in and of themselves the crime is a conspiracy to defraud the United States.

For the full story, watch Democracy on Trial, the newest film from FRONTLINEs award-winning political team, Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Vanessa Fica. The documentary traces the road to this uncharted moment, and examines the implications of the historic criminal case unfolding in the midst of a presidential election year.

It is unavoidably going to be tainted with the appearance of politics at play, says Robert Ray, a former independent counsel who investigated Bill Clinton and helped Trump get acquitted in his first Senate impeachment trial. Obviously, thats the card that Donald Trump will play.

Donald Trump is going to be the defendant and the candidate all wrapped into one, New Yorker journalist Susan Glasser says in the film. Its just unprecedented.

Democracy on Trial is available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline, in the PBS App, on FRONTLINEs YouTube channel and on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. Democracy on Trial is a FRONTLINE production with the Kirk Documentary Group. The director is Michael Kirk. The producers are Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Vanessa Fica. The writers are Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser. The reporters are Vanessa Fica and Brooke Nelson Alexander. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

This story has been updated.

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Rusty Bowers, Witness on a Central Charge of Trump Indictment, Speaks Out - PBS

East Havens celebration for receiving the esteemed Democracy Cup an award given to municipalities with the highest percentage of voter turnout proved short-lived as the town had to forfeit the honor due to inaccuracies in reported voter turnout.

The town reported a 68.71% voter turnout and according to a statement from the East Haven Office of the Registrar of Voters, as part of the celebration, Secretary of the State (SOTS) Stephanie Thomas was set to visit East Haven on Tuesday (Jan. 30) at 9:00 am to present the award.

However, a statement from the SOTS to Yankee Institute revealed a different story.

The SOTS asserts, Due to a human error during East Havens data entry process that follows an election, the mathematical output we used to select the Democracy Cup winner was incorrect. Once East Haven saw our talking points for the award ceremony, they investigated and quickly discovered the error. East Haven is not the winner in the Mid-Sized Town category.

Seeking further clarification, the East Haven registrars office replied to YI that they have since revised the percentage to 36.4% turnout, attributing the discrepancy to an error in the total number of electors.

According to an email response from East Haven Registrar Alberta Vitale, The total number of electors should have been based on the total for each district from all of the voter checklists (two checklists per district; one for streets A-L and another for M-Z; total electors needed to be manually added then input into the election database.) The numbers entered were from only one checklist for each district and therefore represented only about half of the quantity of electors.

Vitale also clarified that, the error does not affect the outcome of the elections in East Haven as votes per candidate is based on tabulator data and is correct.

In response to the unexpected turn of events, East Haven resident and poll volunteer Lorena Venegas shared her perspective on the situation, highlighting concerns about transparency and accountability in capturing and reporting local voter statistics.

Speaking to Yankee Institute, Venegas remarked, This is an example of the lack of transparency and accountability in capturing and reporting local voter statistics. The next step is for the result sheets to be updated at the local and Secretary of the State office.

Having been a poll volunteer in the last three elections, Venegas likes to follow the numbers and knew when [she] read that head moderator sheet, something was wrong.

Reflecting on the incident she stated, It matters to me to have integrity in voting processes.

Venegass insight sheds light on the importance of vigilance in maintaining the accuracy of election data and how a lack of transparency and accuracy disenfranchises voters from participating in the electoral process.

Regarding the announcement of the official winner, theSOTS office responded, stating, We have not formally announced it yet, but we have notified the town. We will be issuing an announcement when we can do a presentation to them with the Secretary.

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East Haven's Democracy Cup Win Reversed Due to Math Error - Yankee Institute

Democracy on Trial by Michael Kirk is a thorough documentary of the systematic and lengthy evolution and execution of the attempt to overthrow the government. It has deep roots in the mindset of the dictator wannabe way before he was elected. The coup attempt on January 6 was the tip of the iceberg.

Anyone who watches this 2 h 23 minute film will see the complete truth of what happened inside the White House and throughout America that lead to what we all saw that historical day. Some of the watchers may become a jurors in the Jack Smith and other trials.

What is very comforting and an inspiration of what should happen this year is how manydid the right thing all along. The film makes me optimistic that the MAGA mob will not succeed because of the courage of many Americans going forward .

It deserves an Oscar for best documentary. (Poll bellow, hopefully many watched it already)

This documentary by PBS will play a role in the political dynamics going forward. Lets do what we can to make it happen.

This 18 minute interview with Michael Kirk, before the release, gives you the why and how of his warning to all about the possible future based on the rationally explained past. It gives a clear picture of the thinking and goals behind the documentary.

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Democracy on Trial is a masterpiece documentary at the perfect time that should go viral. - Daily Kos

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the reelection of former President Trump would be the “end of democracy” in an interview released Saturday by The Guardian.

“It will be the end of democracy, functional democracy,” Sanders said in the interview. 

The Vermont senator also said in the interview that he thinks that another round of Trump as the president will be a lot more extreme than the first.

“He’s made that clear,” Sanders said. “There’s a lot of personal bitterness, he’s a bitter man, having gone through four indictments, humiliated, he’s going to take it out on his enemies. We’ve got to explain to the American people what that means to them — what the collapse of American democracy will mean to all of us.”

Sanders’s words echo those President Biden made in a recent campaign speech during which he said that Trump’s return to the presidency would risk American democracy. The president highlighted the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in an attempt to cement a point about Trump and other Republicans espousing a kind of extremism that was seen by the world on that day.

“Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice democracy to put himself in power,” Biden said in the speech that took place near Valley Forge and on the day before the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack.

Biden also said that Trump’s false claims about “the 2020 election never could stand up in court.”

“The legal path just took Trump back to the truth. That I’d won the election and he was a loser,” Biden said.

“Trump lost 60 court cases — 60. Trump lost the Republican-controlled states, Trump lost before a Trump-appointed judge and then judges. And Trump lost before the United States Supreme Court. All of them. He lost. Trump lost recount after recount after recount and state after state,” he said.

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Sanders says Trump reelection would be the end of democracy - The Hill

I think our democracy is at more grave risk now than ever, Schiff said in an interview. And its clear that that issue is going to be front and center and needs to be front and center on the national stage.

Schiff is not alone in using a policy rollout to amplify his campaign persona. His rival, Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, released a plan earlier this week to shake up the Senate by banning earmarks and prohibiting stock trading by members of Congress and their families long-held positions that are prominently featured in her first major campaign ad. (Schiff also included a ban on congressional stock trades in his proposal.)

Rep. Barbara Lee, the third major Democrat in the race, has touted her support for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war to highlight her progressive, anti-war credentials. Lee and Porter have both trailed Schiff in recent polling; last months POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found the two women locked in a heated battle for second with Republican contender Steve Garvey, a former Los Angeles Dodgers star.

The centerpiece of Schiffs agenda is his Protecting Our Democracy Act, legislation that he first introduced in 2020 to bolster Congress ability to enforce subpoenas, limit presidential pardon power and strengthen whistleblower protections. The bill passed the House in 2021, but stalled in the Senate, although some provisions increasing Congress oversight of the executive branch made it into law. Schiff reintroduced the legislation last year, but it has yet to get a hearing in the GOP-led House.

Schiff said he has since concluded that legislative reforms would not go far enough and that major structural reforms were necessary. Some of his proposals, such as abolishing the Electoral College or overturning the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision on campaign finance, would require constitutional amendments. He also backs changing the Senates rules to abolish the filibuster, which he says is necessary to enshrine voting rights, abortion protections and gun safety measures into law.

If were going to make significant reforms to protect a democracy, were going to have to get rid of the filibuster, Schiff said. And I would trade wild swings in policy because the majority in the Senate can actually get things passed over the democracy-defeating stalemate that we have with the filibuster.

While eliminating the filibuster has gone from fringe to mainstream among most Democrats, the stance is undeniably risky for the party with a 2024 Senate map that is far friendlier to Republicans. GOP priorities such as national abortion restrictions or clampdowns on immigration would be easier to pass under a simple majority.

I recognize that, yes, [Republicans] will have a freer hand, Schiff said. But so will we. And their policies are so unpopular that should they ever get the chance to enact them, theyll be thrown out.

Other elements of Schiffs proposal include:

Eliminating gerrymandered congressional districts

Making voting easier by designating Election Day a federal holiday, expanding automatic voter registration through government agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles and universal vote-by-mail access

Restoring voting rights to felons who have served their time

Reforming the judiciary by instituting term limits for Supreme Court justices, creating an enforceable ethics code and banning stock trading for judges

Such politically charged changes are unlikely to sail through a deadlocked Congress any time soon. And Schiff acknowledged that all the reforms in the world could be for naught if elected officials choose to abuse their oath of office.

If the Congress was populated by George Santoses, nothing will save us, he said. But theres a lot we can do to constrain the worst impulses of human nature and the worst impulses of members of Congress. And these reforms are designed to do both.

POLITICO is co-hosting the first debate for the California Senate race on Monday, Jan. 22. All four major candidates have accepted an invite to appear onstage: Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee and Republican and former Dodgers player Steve Garvey. Sign up for California Playbook to get the latest news on this and other campaigns.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the content of Porters ad. Her proposal to ban earmarks and stop congressional stock trading are prominently featured in the commercial.

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Schiff would abolish filibuster, end the Electoral College in his pro-democracy plan - POLITICO