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IVAN RAIKLIN: Let me give you a little context. So back in so that you understand how deep I was in this. And the radical left media is going to hear this for the first time. On November 5, I happened to go up to Philadelphia to kind of observe what the campaign was doing in terms of their legal strategy. And theres a video out there where I bumped into one of the poll observers that were on the inside that was kicked out, one of the Trump campaign poll observers. And he said that there were a lot of people coming in with backpacks, youve probably seen that video, it went kind of viral a few weeks ago. Im the guy taking the video and theyre listening to this guy kind of testify. So I went up there, observed whats going on legally. Thats where I met Dan Cox, he was working it. Hes now the candidate for governor in Maryland, America First guy. And a couple of other people. You know, Corey Lewandowski was up there, Pam Bondi was up there, [Rudy] Giuliani was up there.

So I came in kind of, I think the next day or so, to try to assess whats going on. And I noticed that there wasnt the campaign nor the presidency was really putting out the message of how an election occurs. We all know now, but there wasnt this counter-narrative to, Oh, this elections over. Instead, it was just no one was putting it out. So thats when I took to Twitter and started really doing a deep dive on how we can still remedy this going into January 6. I get the retweet by general, the president, etc. Thankfully, I get a bigger voice.

So now Im putting out these paths to be able to fix it. And I dont know how much I think, Zak, you said you saw, like, some of that strategy?

ZAK PAINE (HOST): I did, yes.

RAIKLIN: What needs to be done in the Congress, at the executive branch, etc., etc. One of the components, one of the biggest components in everything we do in this ecosystem, is the court of public opinion. When the court of public opinion, via the mainstream media, says that an election is over, most of your staff in the White House, most of your campaign staff, believe it, and now they give up. And we saw that. And so you had outside people like me, you guys, everybody basically saying, This aint over. The election ends on January 6, if its done, you know, legitimately, theres other remedies afterwards. So, I was going day by day, giving all the different components. I was on X22 [Report] and I kind of laid all of that stuff out.

And then as we approach January 6, the last lawful way to apply pressure on the Congress at that point was to convince them that they are now under a duty to object. And the way that I was doing it is that memo clearly articulated it not only to the president or Vice President Pence in December. When he failed to do that, in my opinion, he now is complicit in the constitutional violations, along with those at the precinct, county, and secretary of state level for certifying those illegal elections. And now it rests on the courts are not supposed to be involved in this entire process. This is not a legal construct. Its a legislative state process and a congressional process. So by the time it got to the Congress, I was contacting everybody I knew in Congress. Hey, Congressman So-And-So. You want me to name names?

PAINE: Sure. Feel free.

RAIKLIN: Hey, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, incoming. Hey, Congressman Mo Brooks. Hey, Congressman Ben Cline. Hey, Congressman Mike Waltz. Hey, Congressman Jim Jordan. And so on and so on. I told them, You dont have to you dont have to know anything about fraud, illegal machines, the networks, the Chinese, this and that. All you have to convince yourself of is that the states conducted their election not according to their election law. Hey, Congressman whats his name? From North Carolina. In the wheelchair.

PAINE: Im drawing a blank. Yeah. The young guy who they kicked out. Madison Cawthorn.

RAIKLIN: Madison Cawthorn. Good, I got it first.

So were getting this out. The left realizes it, that we now have the momentum. And so what do they do? They start to block, cancel, tackle. LinkedIn blocks my analysis of the Electoral Count Act in the Constitution. I get blocked. I get blocked on Instagram. I get blocked on Twitter, right? Because they used to say they say that, Oh no, the elections over. Those are thats false information. And then I say, No, thats not false. I'm actually just citing the Electoral Count Act.

Anyhow, we move forward into January 6. On January 5, we had like 100-and-almost-50 Congress members that were going to object, 12 senators. And so were in this predicament on January 6 at 1:02 p.m. Pence puts out a tweet saying that, Oh, I cant unilaterally do anything. Well, no one argued you could do it unilaterally. At least, I mean, I didnt. No one in my circles. And he went ahead and what did he do instead? He unilaterally denied 90% of Congress from participating in the objections.

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Election denial activist behind Pence Card theory tells QAnon show he contacted multiple members of Congress to push plan - Media Matters for America

John Eastman, the University of Colorado Boulders visiting scholar of conservative thought and policy, speaks about his plans to sue the university at a news conference outside of CU Boulder on Thursday, April 29, 2021.

Andy Cross | Denver Post | Getty Images

A lawyer who had pushed to overturn the 2020 election loss of then-President Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions during an appearance Wednesday before a grand jury in Georgia, his attorneys said.

John Eastman also invoked protections under attorney-client privilege in refusing to answer at least some questions he was asked before the grand jury, which was convened as part of a criminal probe into the possibility of illegal interference in Georgia's presidential election contest, his attorneys said.

Eastman is one of a group of Trump allies who were subpoenaed by that panel, which is hearing testimony in Atlanta. A second ally, Trump's former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has been named a target in that investigation and recently testified before the same grand jury.

Eastman wrote a series of memos after the 2020 election calling on then-Vice President Mike Pence to effectively undo President Joe Biden's win by refusing to certify the Electoral College results.

"In his appearance before the Fulton County Special Grand Jury, we advised our client John Eastman to assert attorney-client privilege and the constitutional right to remain silent where appropriate," Eastman's lawyers, Charles Burnham and Harvey Silverglate, said in a statement.

"Out of respect for grand jury secrecy we will not disclose the substance of the questions or testimony. We wish to thank the grand jurors for their service," the attorneys said.

The statement also blasted Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for the probe itself.

"By all indications, the District Attorney's Office has set itself on an unprecedented path of criminalizing controversial or disfavored legal theories, possibly in hopes that the federal government will follow its lead," the lawyers said.

Read more of CNBC's politics coverage:

"Criminalization of unpopular legal theories is against every American tradition and would have ended the careers of John Adams, Ruth Ginsburg, Thurgood Marshall and many other now-celebrated American lawyers," the statement said. Adams was the second president of the United States, while Ginsburg and Marshall were Supreme Court justices who helped establish new legal precedents with their work during the civil rights movement.

"We ask all interested observers of any political persuasion to join us in decrying this troubling development," Burnham and Silverglate wrote.

Eastman last month revealed that his cellphone was seized by federal agents who stopped him in New Mexico and forced him to unlock it.

That seizure was done as part of an investigation by the Justice Department's internal watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General.

The IG's office is probing the role of the Justice Department and its components in "preparing for and responding to" the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, according to the office's website. That riot occurred as a joint session of Congress was convened to certify Biden's victory, with Pence presiding over the proceedings.

A former Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, had electronics seized from his Virginia home on the same day that Eastman's phone was seized.

Clark also backed Trump's effort to overturn the election.

Trump considered installing Clark as attorney general in the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, but dropped the idea after a group of top Justice officials said they would resign in protest if that happened.

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Trump lawyer John Eastman takes Fifth before Georgia grand jury in election-interference probe - CNBC

Donald Trump demonstrated exceptional political clout in the Republican primaries, with scores of candidates succeeding because they had the endorsement of the former president.

The general election will indicate whether that clout extends beyond the hard core. Ive picked a dozen races thatll test that.

The commonalities these dirty dozen share: They are in competitive contests in a year that should tilt Republican, were chosen over the preferences of establishment officials, are all election deniers (reiterating the Big Lie that the 2020 election where Joe Biden won by 7 million votes was fraudulent) and are embracing what were once considered fringe views.

J.D. Vance, author of the best-selling memoir, Hillybilly Elegy, leapt to the top of the Ohio GOP primary after Trumps endorsement. Once a harsh Trump critic, Vance has done a full 180. He charges the Biden administrations support for Ukraine grows out of its opposition to Vladimir Putin, who doesnt believe in transgender rights.

Herschel Walker, a former football star, had a professional sports relationship with Trump. Walker hadnt lived in Georgia in decades, but cleared the field when Trump embraced him. Not conversant with issues, Walker explained the fallacy of the Democrats climate change initiatives, saying Our good air decided to float over to Chinas bad air. So when China gets our good air their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the TV doctor who peddled dubious medicinal cures, won the Pennsylvania Senate nomination over hedge funds executive David McCormick with Trumps surprise endorsement. A New Jersey resident who moved to Pennsylvania earlier this year, Oz, in a social media video, said he was shopping at Wegners. There is no such store in Pennsylvania; he explained that sometimes he gets his childrens names wrong.

A fourth first-time candidate backed by Trump is Blake Masters, a protege of venture capitalist Peter Thiel running for John McCains old Senate seat in Arizona. He disassociates from the late GOP icon, declaring, Its not his Republican Party in Arizona anymore. Masters has called for privatizing Social Security and a total abortion ban with no exceptions; for the general election, he slightly modified his stances.

Ted Budd was an obscure North Carolina congressman until Trumps endorsement; then, he blew past former Gov. Pat McCrory. A gun store owner, Budd voted against the modest gun control bill that was supported by the states two GOP Senators. Budd has said the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol really was nothing. It was just patriots standing up.

In Maryland, Trumpite Dan Cox trounced the candidate supported by the states popular outgoing GOP Gov. Larry Hogan. Cox attended the Jan. 6 Capitol rally; when Vice President Mike Pence refused to alter the electoral college count, Cox tweeted, Mike Pence is a traitor.

Kari Lake, a longtime Phoenix TV anchor and once an Obama voter, went full MAGA and beat the establishment candidate supported by the governor and Mike Pence. She is a favorite of the radical right, appearing with people linked to the Q-Anon conspiracy and thanking a Nazi sympathizer for support.

Tim Michels, with Trumps backing, defeated the once-favored former Wisconsin lieutenant governor, even though he has only lived in the state part-time. Michels, a businessman, said he might decertify the states 2020 election results Biden won Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes even though thats constitutionally impermissible.

Doug Mastriano, to the shock of Pennsylvanias GOP establishment, easily won the nomination. The former Army officer attended the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, but didnt enter the building apparently. He campaigns as a Christian nationalist and espouses right-wing conspiracy theories.

Donald Trumps obsession to drive out of office the ten Republicans who voted to impeach him at best only two will return boosted decorated veteran Joe Kent, who defeated Jaime Herrera Beutler in Washington State. Although Nathan Gonzaless Inside Politics rates this a solidly Republican seat, Kents hard right views and associations with white nationalists and the Proud Boys, a violence-prone hate group, could put it in play.

In Michigan, John Gibbs with Trumps backing defeated another Republican who voted for impeachment. Gibbs has promoted crazy fringe conspiracies, like claiming that Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign engaged in satanic rituals.

Bo Hines, a former college football player fueled by Trumps backing, scored an upset in a primary for an open North Carolina seat.The 27-year-old newcomer has called for defunding the FBI and for a federal ban on abortion with no exceptions.

Whatever happens to the runner-up in the last presidential election, Trumpism will remain the dominant force in the Republican party. If at least nine or ten of these candidates win in November, it will only tighten his hold.

If, however, most of the dirty dozen lose in what is supposed to be good GOP year, it will cause consternation and maybe even some rethinking in the party ranks.

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hostsPolitics War Roomwith James Carville. Follow him on Twitter@AlHuntDC.

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Trumps Dirty Dozen 12 Republican candidates to keep an eye on - The Hill

Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel during the Trump administration, appeared at federal court on Friday to testify before a grand jury probing events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Cipollone and his attorney Michael Purpura were greeted in the hallway by Thomas Windom, the lead prosecutor investigating a failed bid by former President Donald Trump's allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election by submitting alternative slates of fake electors to the U.S. National Archives. They proceeded to the third floor, where the grand jury meets, according to a Reuters witness.

Former White House Deputy Counsel Pat Philbin also was expected at the federal courthouse in Washington later on Friday. He and Cipollone were subpoenaed earlier this year to appear as witnesses. The two men are the two most high-profile witnesses to date to appear before the grand jury. Others who have appeared to testify include former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, and Greg Jacob, who was Pence's top counsel.

The grand jury, which convenes each Friday in the federal courthouse in Washington, is known to be specifically probing the fake electors plot. Electors are people chosen to formally cast a state's electoral votes in the U.S. Electoral College system used in presidential elections.

The fake elector plot has featured prominently in multiple hearings of the Democratic-led House of Representatives committee probing the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Rusty Bowers, the Arizona state House Republican speaker, told the panel that Trump and his close aides, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and adviser John Eastman, urged him to reject the election results. Bowers refused their request.

The Justice Department has since seized Eastman's phone and searched its contents, as part of the ongoing probe. It has also seized the phones of Republican congressman Scott Perry, a Trump ally, and Jeffrey Clark, a former top Justice Department lawyer who also tried to promote a plan which entailed urging Georgia state lawmakers to convene a new session and submit alternate slates of electors on the false premise of voter fraud.

In recent months, the Justice Department has delivered grand jury subpoenas to numerous individuals who may have knowledge about the bid to submit the phony slates, as well as some of the individuals who signed the bogus certificates themselves. The subpoenas ask for copies of documents related to "any effort, plan or attempt to serve as an elector in favor of Donald J. Trump and/or Mike R. Pence."

They are also seeking copies of communications between would-be electors and any federal government employees or any employees or agents of Trump, as well as communications with a long list of people including Giuliani, who promoted Trump's bogus claims of election fraud, and Eastman.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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Former Trump White House counsel appears before grand jury probing Jan. 6 - Devdiscourse

The following is the transcript of an interview with Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland that aired Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022, on "Face the Nation."

MAJOR GARRETT: We're joined now by Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of the January 6, select committee. Congressman, good to see you. Good morning.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Thanks so much for having me Major.

MAJOR GARRETT: So, former President Trump says that MAGA Republicans are trying to save democracy, they want to be taken seriously on this issue. So let's review what the former president said this week earlier. He said the 2020 election should be rerun, or he should be reinstated in office, and that if reelected in 2024, he would provide apologies and full pardons to those charged and or convicted for storming the Capitol on January 6, evaluate that.

REP. RASKIN: Well, first, if he's saying that the election should be rerun, which is something he's been asserting from the beginning, that's totally outside of the Constitution. There is no procedure for the military just to seize the election machinery and run a new election, which is one of the things that his disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was pushing and we know was part of the January 6 plot. And look, more than 60 courts rejected every claim of electoral fraud and corruption which Donald Trump advanced. He's had the benefit of more than 60 courts, including eight courts, where he appointed the judges to office, look at all those claims and they were all rejected. It was rejected in the states and he lost the election. Two of the hallmarks of a fascist political party are one, they don't accept the results of elections that don't go their way and two, they embrace political violence. And I think that's why President Biden was right to sound the alarm this week about these continuing attacks on our constitutional order from the outside by Donald Trump and his movement.

MAJOR GARRETT: Let's talk about the January 6 committee. There is conversation about having Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House come in. He has described this committee as a "Stalinist show trial'' earlier this year, he said under a Republican led Congress, members of this committee might be arrested. How do you respond to that remark- those remarks? And what would be the value of him coming in talking to the committee?

REP. RASKIN: Well, we're inviting in only people who have relevant evidence and testimony

MAJOR GARRETT: What's his relevant evidence and testimony?

REP. RASKIN: Well, he- he has appeared at numerous times in- throughout the investigation about the attempt to propound "the big lie", and to keep things going long after the election had been settled. But it's interesting that he invoked Stalinism, when all of the Stalinists are on Donald Trump's side, like Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB who said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, or the dictator of North Korea who Donald Trump writes love letters to. The Stalinist are on their side, and they should keep them on that side of the aisle because our side is fighting for democracy in America.

MAJOR GARRETT: Does the committee still have interest in obtaining testimony from Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas?

REP. RASKIN: Look, what we're interested in getting testimony from anyone who has relevant evidence about the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. Let's not lose sight of what we're talking about here

MAJOR GARRETT: There were disclosures this week that she was in email conversation with people in Wisconsin about that topic.

REP. RASKIN: I, speaking as one member and only as one member, I would say she has a relevant testimony to render, and she should come forward and give it. I don't want to overstate her role. We've talked to more than 1000 people. But we'd like to hear from Gingrich and we'd like to hear from her too.

MAJOR GARRETT: What is the probability former Vice President Pence testifies?

REP. RASKIN: Well, look, Vice President Pence was the target of Donald Trump's wrath and fury and effort to overthrow the election on January 6, the whole idea was to get Pence to step outside his constitutional role, and then to declare unilateral lawless powers to reject Electoral College votes from the states. So I think he has a lot of relevant evidence, and I would hope he would come forward and testify about what happened

MAJOR GARRETT: Voluntarily or view- via subpoena?

REP. RASKIN:

Well, we're trying to get everybody to come forward voluntarily

MAJOR GARRETT: But the subpoena's not out of question?

REP RASKIN: In no one's case is a subpoena out of question, but I would assume he's going to come forward and testify voluntarily, the way the vast majority of people have.

MAJOR GARRETT: One of the mandates of this committee is to create legislation. 10 Republicans on the Senate side have signed on to an Electoral Count Act revision. Is there a bill on the House side? Will there be and do you expect this to be updated and resolved legislatively, either before the midterms or in the lame duck session?

REP. RASKIN: Well, we want to take a much broader view, I think. I mean, the narrowest thing you could say is, well, the vice president doesn't have the power to unilaterally rebuff Electoral College votes from the state

MAJOR GARRETT: Clarify that.

REP. RASKIN: But yeah, but if that's all we do, in a certain sense, it's validating Donald Trump's argument that there was any ambiguity about it in the first place, which there was not. No vice president had ever tried to reject Electoral College votes and Mike Pence and his team ultimately said it was ridiculous. So I think we need to take a much broader view about Donald Trump's attack on the entire electoral college process and the entire Democratic process from the counties and the towns and the cities through the states all the way up to the federal government. So I think we got to defend the right to vote in democracy itself.

MAJOR GARRETT: Does that mean the Senate bill would be unacceptable in the house?

REP. RASKIN: No, I think it's a- it's a good first start. It's a good first offer. But I think we need to look far more systematically at what Donald Trump was trying to do. And we've seen, for example, when he called Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and said, just find me 11,781 votes, when they tried to intimidate election officers. This was a far more sweeping plot than just what happened in the last couple of hours there.

MAJOR GARRETT: We have less than a minute, one of your colleagues on the committee, Adam Kinzinger, said the next step for the committee is to look into the money behind and the money being made off of the big lie. True?

REP. RASKIN: That was an important degree, an important dimension of everything that was happening. This was a Donald Trump operation. So it was always an effort to

MAJOR GARRETT: But, will that be brought in the public presentation of that committee coming forward.

REP. RASKIN: It will undoubtedly be part of our report and whether, you know, it comes up again in the hearings. I can't say yet because we're still working all of that out.

MAJOR GARRETT: There is much anticipation in the nation's capital, possibly across the country in the report propounded by the committee. When can the country expect to see that?

REP. RASKIN: Well, certainly by the end of the year, because, you know, we're like Cinderella, at midnight, our license runs out at the end of the year. But under House Resolution 503, that's a significant part of our responsibility to report to the American people about how to prevent coups, insurrections, political violence and attacks on our democratic process going forward.

MAJOR GARRETT: Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, thanks so much.

REP. RASKIN: Thanks for having me Major.

MAJOR GARRETT: Face The Nation will be back in just one moment. Please stay with us.

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Transcript: Rep. Jamie Raskin on "Face the Nation," Sept. 4, 2022 - CBS News