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Jeannette Lee| The Fulcrum(TNS)

If you want to know how to save American democracy, look no further than the cases of Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The primary elections systems in their states dictated two divergent political fates.

Both Cheney and Murkowski are established Republican incumbents from sparsely populated red states; each serves in a seat held by her father. Both face retribution from their party and conservative media for choosing the Constitution above loyalty to former President Donald Trump. Cheney voted to impeach Trump and Murkowski to convict him for his part in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

On Tuesday, Alaska and Wyoming held primary elections. Cheney lost by 37 points, while Murkowski advanced with three other candidates to the general election. To be sure, Wyomings electorate is redder and more pro-Trump than Alaskas, and Cheney, as co-chair of the Jan. 6 committee, is Trumps most visible and vocal critic within the party. But their contrasting fates came down to the rules of the primaries themselves.

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Cheney went up against Trump-endorsed candidate Harriet Hageman in a closed party primary where she needed to win a plurality from a mostly Republican electorate. With just one winner advancing from each partys primary, the scales couldnt be tipped even by a sizable number of Democrats likely switching registration to vote for Cheney in the GOP primary. Murkowski, meanwhile, ran in Alaskas new primary where all candidates appear on a single ballot. Murkowski easily secured her spot on the November ballot. (She was in first place as of Wednesday, with 80 percent of precincts reporting.) The key differences? Murkowskis primary was open to all Alaska voters and the four top vote-getters move to the general election.

In an open primary, Cheney would have advanced to the general election with no problem, whether or not Wyoming Democrats opted to vote for her.

Great divide: Closed party primaries are force multipliers for the polarization that afflicts the United States. They feed the trend of congressional Republicans lurching to the right and, to a lesser degree, of congressional Democrats moving left.

In 2010, the Tea Party vociferously opposed Republicans who had voted for the recession relief bill. In some districts that were safe for the Republican Party, a Tea Party challenger beat the more mainstream Republican in the primary, becoming the sole choice for Republican voters and quite safe in the general election.

Fear among moderate, measured or mainstream candidates of being primaried moved them away from bipartisan cooperation and edged their politics further to the extremes. Murkowski learned this the hard way. In 2010, Tea Party candidate Joe Miller won Alaskas closed Republican primary, appearing to eliminate Murkowski from the race. But she ran a historic write-in campaign and won an uphill fight in the general election by appealing to a broad cross-section of voters.

Open, pick-one primaries that send the top four or five vote-getters to the general, on the other hand, prevent popular mainstream incumbents from being primaried by partisan extremists in low-turnout summer races. Indeed, open, top-four primaries incentivize candidates to pander to the center that is, not to the hyper-partisan minority but to the more centrist majority, something the United States could use a lot more of.

These two sets of primary rules are so divergent in outcomes that if Alaska and Wyoming swapped election methods, Cheney would almost certainly survive her primary and Murkowski would have been knocked out of hers. Alaska pollster Ivan Moore told The Associated Press that in a closed primary Murkowski would have had a zero percent I mean zero percent chance of winning.

Its that simple.

Another late-breaking and lower-profile illustration comes from Washington state, where primaries are open, not closed, but where only two candidates go on to the general election. Jaime Herrera-Beutler is the six-term incumbent Republican representing the 3rd district in the states southwest corner. It is home to both urban and suburban areas in and around Vancouver, Washington (just north of Portland, Oregon), as well as vast rural stretches extending through the south-central region of the state.

Herrera-Beutler voted to impeach Trump, who attacked her over the course of the campaign while endorsing a far-right GOP challenger. In late vote counts last week, that challenger overtook her by a smidge, pushing her from second place to third. Herrera-Beutler conceded the race.

If Washington used Alaskas top-four system, Herrera-Beutler would have gone on to the general election, where a vastly larger, less ideological electorate might well have sent her back to Congress.

Independent voice: Every GOP member of Congress who voted to impeach or convict Trump and who is running for reelection in a closed primary has now lost that race: Tom Rice in South Carolina, Peter Meijer in Michigan and Liz Cheney in Wyoming. They all lost to Trump-endorsed right-wing candidates. Of the four GOP members who voted to impeach or convict Trump and ran for reelection in an open primary, only one has lost: Herrera-Beutler. Three have survived: Murkowski, Dan Newhouse in Washington and David Valadao in California.

To be clear, all open primaries are good but not equally good. Open primaries that send the top four vote-getters to the general rather than just the top two are superior. They minimize the chances that the general election ballot will only offer extremists or candidates from one party. They give a real voice to the independent, unaffiliated and third-party voters who together represent about 40 percent of the U.S. electorate and about 58 percent of Alaskas.

Alaska pairs the open primary with a ranked-choice general election, where candidates will again have the chance to appeal to a wide swath of voters.

The way Alaska, Washington, Wyoming or any state runs its primaries will not solely determine who runs in the general election. But changing the rules to give more voters more voice earlier in the election process is one way to unrig our election process and give candidates with broad appeal a chance to compete at all.

Jeannette Lee is a senior researcher and Alaska lead for Sightline Institute.

The Fulcrum covers what's making democracy dysfunctional and efforts to fix our governing systems. Sign up for our newsletter atthefulcrum.us. The Fulcrum is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news platform covering efforts to fix our governing systems. It is a project of, but editorially independent from, Issue One.

Excerpt from:
Cheney's and Murkowski's fates tied to their states' primary systems - York Dispatch

If your movie preferences lean toward the likes ofTop Gun: Maverick, or if your politics fall anywhere to the left of Liz Cheney, you might have missed the theatrical release of a documentary titled2000 Mules. But if you tuned in to the January 6 hearings, you might have caught a reference to the film by former attorney general William Barr, who, doubling as a movie critic,dismissedit as singularly unimpressive and indefensible.

Directed by right-wing provocateur Dinesh DSouza,2000 Mulespurports to prove that Democrats engaged in widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election and stole the presidency from Donald Trumpwho, coincidentally or not,pardonedDSouza in 2018 after his felony conviction for making illegal campaign contributions. Trump, whohosteda screening of2000 Mulesat Mar-a-Lago, called it the greatest and most impactful documentary of our time.

As with so many things hyped by the former president, the film became a viral sensation, complete with its own eponymous hashtag. It isamongthe highest-grossing documentaries of the year so far, havingearnednearly $1.5 million at the box office since its May release. (Documentaries dont tend to attract Marvel franchisesize audiences.) Streaming revenuesDSouzas website sells the film for $19.99 a poptotaled $10 million in just the first two weeks of release, according to Salem Media Group, the conservative Christian company that financed the film.

Whatever haul its actually made,2000 Mulesand its claims have clearly achieved a broad reach. ARasmussenpoll of 1,000 likely U.S. voters conducted in the first week in June found that 41 percent had heard of the film and 15 percent had seen it. (Of the 146 likely voters who had watched the film, 77 percent said it strengthened their conviction that there was systematic and widespread election fraud in the 2020 election.) One of the movies admiring viewers was Texas Secretary of State John Scott, a Greg Abbott appointee who brieflyrepresentedTrump in a challenge to Pennsylvanias 2000 election tally. Its really amazing, the state election chieftoldan audience of Jewish conservatives in Dallas in mid-July. You get an enormous amount of information.

This success has come despite the movies claims being repeatedly debunked. TheAssociated Press,NPR, theNew York Times,PolitiFact, and the Washington Post, among others, have pointed out that the films central assertionthat cellphone tracking data reveals multiple trips by Democrat-funded flunkies (a.k.a. mules) to stuff drop boxes with phony ballots in battleground statesis just so much hooey. The film contains video footage of people putting multiple ballots into drop boxes (which is not, as the film would have it, illegal). But as NPRnotes, the videos never show the same individuals taking votes to multiple drop boxes, or returning to the same boxes to stuff them with additional ballots.

Some of the alleged ballot-harvesters get tagged as though theyve been spied on by undercover copsincluding dog guy, who was filmed with his pup. Another fellow is deemed suspicious for taking a picture of his bike propped against a drop box after voting. If youre just casting your own ballot, one of the films talking heads asks darkly, what reason in the world would you have to come back and take a picture of the box? Millions of Instagram users could provide the answer.

The absurdities dont stop there. A map that purports to depict cellphone usage in Atlantaone of the main alleged centers of mulish activityactuallyshowsa slice of Moscow, according to theWashington Post. The film boasts that the geolocation technology not only backs up Trumps assertions of systematic election theft but had such pinpoint accuracy that it also helpedsolve the murderof an eight-year-old girl in Georgia.Law enforcement officials told NPR that there was no truth to the story; the murder had been solved two months before the brains behind2000 Mulessaid they turned over their evidence to authorities.

You might think such disproven claims would discredit the filmmakers. But for many conspiracy theorists, the depictions of shadowy, hoodie-wearing figures approaching ballot drop boxes, interspersed with images of dark rooms lit by computer screens displaying incomprehensible maps and diagrams, is proof aplenty.

The star of the show, along with DSouza and the hoodied mules, is Gregg Phillips, a Republican who has served as a state official in Mississippi and Texas. He is credited with developing the technology used to prove the mules nefarious deeds. According to the film, Phillips has a deep background in election intelligence; hes worked projects over the world; he has a massive thirty years experience. His costar is Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of the Houston-based nonprofit True the Vote, whose stated mission isto restore Americas confidence in our electoral process.

Phillips has served as a board member and a highly paid researcher for True the Vote. He and Engelbrecht are listed as executive producers of2000 Mules. And both have shown, time and again, how a lot of money can be made by purporting to showdespiteoverwhelming evidenceto the contrarythat voter fraud is an organized threat to our democracy. As Texas-based reporter Cassandra Jaramillowritesin a recent expos for the investigative website Reveal, True the Vote highlights how exploiting the Big Lie has become a lucrative enterprise.

Engelbrecht and Phillips make a cinematic pair. She is blond, always impeccably made up, and earnest in the way of a former Texas beauty queen turned marketing executive. The tall, pale-eyed Phillips, who began his political career, and his hunt for voter fraud, in Alabama in the eighties, is as steady and sincere as an undertaker, with the kind of elaborate, well-tended facial hair that evokes a Civil War general. You could think of them as the Barbie and Ken of voter fraud, or maybe the Bonnie and Clyde.

Engelbrecht, a former small-business owner and Parent Teacher Organization board member in southeast Texas, began chasing alleged voter fraud in 2009 after finding herself sickened by the election of President Barack Obama. Shes been a leading advocate for restrictive voter ID laws and purges of voter rolls, and has organized controversial poll-watching efforts focused on Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Houston.

Elected officials including the lateCongressman Elijah Cummingsof Maryland and CongresswomanSheila Jackson Leeof Texas have raised questions about the tactics of Engelbrechts organizations. King Street Patriots, the anti-voter-fraud group that Engelbrecht founded prior to True the Vote, in 2009, was registered as a charitable 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Democratic officials and voting rights groups such as Fair Fight, founded by Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic legislator and current candidate for governor of Georgia, havechargedthat True the Vote uses suppressive tactics and supports only Republican candidates, in violation of nonprofit rules. Journalists for theWashington Post and the Center for Investigative Reporting have documented questionable financial dealingsincluding the transfer of large sums of money going to Engelbrechts and Phillipss for-profit businesses. In every case, the two have denied wrongdoing.

(Texas Monthlymade multiple requests to interview Engelbrecht and Phillips, then sent a detailed list of questions to them and James Bopp, a lawyer who has represented True the Vote. Brian Glicklich, True the Votes communications consultant, said Engelbrecht and Phillips would not respond to questions or meet with a reporter.)

Phillips became nationally notorious immediately after the 2016 election, when hetweetedon November 11soon after Trump had defeated Hillary Clintonthat he had Completed analysis of database of 180 million voter registrations. Number of non-citizen votes exceeds 3 million. At the time, Phillips was marketing an app hed created, calledVoteStand, which allowed users to send photos or videos of suspected improper voting or electioneering to a central database.

Not surprisingly, President-elect Trump jumped on Phillipss claim,tweeting: Look forward to seeing final results of VoteStand. Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. (Coincidentally or not, that is approximately the margin by which Clintonwonthe popular vote.) Despite promises to produce evidence of his claims, Phillips never did so. Reputable election officials from both parties, in states across the country, said no such fraud took place. But Phillipss finding became the basis for Trump to repeatedly assert what hestartedsaying in November of that year: I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.

The Associated Press, among others, started poking into Phillipss history in the wake of his splashy claim. In 2017, AP reported that the self-proclaimed foe of voter fraud wasregistered in 2016 to vote in three states: Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. Queried on that subject, Phillipss response was, Why would I know or care? Doesnt that just demonstrate how broken the system is?

Across the country, judges appointed by presidents of both parties have heard claims of widespread voter fraud, with not one finding any compelling evidence to support them.Yet Phillips and Engelbrecht, along with Trump, have brought to mind Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels observation that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. When the lie is amplified by partisan outlets such as Fox News and by influencers on social media, that makes it easier for the conspiracy mongers to advance their political goalsand for some to make money along the way.

Christian Menefee, a Democrat who serves as county attorney for Harris County, where Houston is located, told me that the lies and exaggerations about voter fraud . . . are used by conspiracy theorists to file meritless lawsuits, and by elected officials to push partisan audits that end up finding nothing. It leads legislators to pass restrictive voting laws, causes people to question election processes that have been safely used for decades, and makes election workers fear theyll find themselves in court if they make a minor mistake. These are real impacts, changing how our elections are run and making it harder for eligible voters to cast ballots.

Andrew Wheat, the research director of the corruption-exposing nonprofit group Texans for Public Justice, put it a little differently. Sometimes you get the feeling that we as a human race have lost the ability to do a simple Google search, because these hustlers keep doing the same things over and over.

When Gregg Phillips entered political life in his home state of Alabama, he was a clean-shaven, baby-faced fund-raiser for the states Republican party. As he latertoldthe Atlantic, Our first voter project I did when I worked for the GOP in Alabama back in the 1980s. Ive been involved off and on since then, and Ive always said we need to ensure integrity in our systems.

At a legislative hearing in Arizona in late May, Phillipsrecountedan experience back home that he said turned him into a crusader against voter fraud. In 1994, a race for chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama between the Democratic incumbent, Ernest Sonny Hornsby, and a Republican challenger, Perry O. Hooper Sr., came down to fewer than 300 votes out of 1.1 million cast. Hooper, whose campaign was runby GOP campaign guru Karl Rove, won after a recount. But while the outcome was in question, Hoopers campaignmade vociferous charges of voter fraud, which were never proved. Phillips said he advised the campaign in its investigation. I worked in Alabama since I was a kid and you know, 15,000 votes showing up in Selma, Alabamaa city that is overwhelmingly Blackwas not a super big surprise to anyone, Phillipstoldhis Arizona audience.

In 1991, Phillips moved on to work in Mississippi as a fund-raiser for Kirk Fordice, who became the first Republican to be elected governor of the state since Reconstruction. Fordice, in turn, tapped Phillips to head the Mississippi Department of Human Services in 1993. But when the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (or PEER), made up of legislators appointed by the lieutenant governor and house Speaker, conducted abackground checkon Phillips, itfound discrepancies in his rsum. Phillips, who was then 33, claimed hed majored in finance at the University of Alabama, but the committees records search showed he had majored in transportation. And though Phillips said he was a registered voter in Mississippi at the time, the committee found that his name did not appear on the rolls. Phillips alsofailedto file a required financial report to the state ethics commission. And he was, according toreportsciting his former wifes new husband, a deadbeat dad whod failed to pay child support. (Phillips denied that accusation.)

Nevertheless, the state Senate approved his nomination. Within two years, Phillips left for more lucrative work with a contractor who had benefited from an $878,000 deal with his department. Phillipss new salary:$84,000 a year. (In todays dollars, thats around $164,000.) A subsequent investigation by the same PEER committeeconcludedthat Mr. Phillips actions create the appearance of impropriety, facilitating an erosion of the public trust. The committee also asserted that Phillipss moves relative to the contractual arrangement create the appearance of impropriety and could constitute a violation of state ethics laws. Phillips denied any wrongdoing.

Phillipss next public position was as the executive director of the Mississippi GOP, whichwas hellbent on combatting alleged voter fraud in Black communities (in a state that is 38 percent Black). A lawsuit from Black leaders in one such area resulted in a restraining order against the state GOPs voter-intimidation tactics, and representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice stationed themselves at polling locations during Mississippis 1995 elections to make sure voters of color were not turned away. The state GOP provided no evidence of the fraud that it had alleged.

Phillips hadnt yet become a national figure, but his pattern was set: a life of toggling between ever-more-lucrative public and private-sector jobs. Phillips has mostly shown impeccable timing in his entrances and exits, experiencing only one glitch: he was up for a job as head of human resources for the state of Alabama in 1995, but a negative editorial in theBirmingham Newsdashedhis chances, citing Phillipss shaky qualifications and a suspect track record.

For some Texas Republicans, though, Phillipss track record seemed to inspire little more than a shoulder shrug. In 2003, Phillips was hired as executive deputy commissioner of the state Health and Human Services Commission under Governor Rick Perry. (When aHouston Chroniclereporter laterlooked intohow Phillips had come to be hired, no officials could recall. There were no letters of recommendation in his file.)

Another reported conflict of interest followed. When Phillips oversaw a billion-dollar plan to streamline and privatize Health and Human Services, two clients of a company called Enterject, a management consulting services firm that Phillips had founded, won $167 million in state contracts. Phillips claimed to have severed all ties with Enterject while serving in state government, but his then-wife was the companys chief financial officer. In addition, theChroniclereported, a company called GHT Development Inc. owned the Internet registration for the Enterject Web site. GHT listed Gregg Phillips as its chief executive.

When Phillips resigned from the Texas HHSC, hesaidit was because of a lingering health issue and that he wanted to spend more time with his family. But as it had in Mississippi, controversy followed him. According to a subsequentDallas Morning Newsinvestigation, the company Phillips hired to replace state workersto the tune of $899 million for five yearsproduced chaos, including jammed call centers and clients who were separated wrongfully from their benefits. Most infamously, the News reported, applicants for a time were given a wrong fax number for sending pay stubs and other private documents. It belonged to a Seattle warehouse that had no part of the deal.

Five years later, in 2010, the state hired an Austin-based company called AutoGov to help fix the continuing problems in Health and Human Services, at a cost to taxpayers of $207,500. State officials thought the companys software expertise might simplify some of the confusion Phillips had left behind. Phillips, it turned out, hadfoundedAutoGov and served as its chairman and CEO. TheNewsreported that there was nothing illegal about bringing Phillips back into the fold given the years he had been away from state government, but noted that critics of the deal say its troubling that a former employee is getting paid to try to fix problems spawned by an idea he helped hatch.

Engelbrecht and Phillips have shown, time and again, how a lot of money can be made by purporting to show that voter fraud is an organized threat to our democracy.

Nobody can deny that Phillips is relentlessly entrepreneurial. In 2012, he garnered attention nationally with his VoteStand app. People will have somewhere to turn if they see voter fraud or something that is not quite right in their eyes, Phillipsexplained to Politico. We think this will help us leave a positive legacy this election cycle, rather than just putting up a bunch of ads. The app, available for iPhone through Apples app store, purportedly sent all reports to a team of experts that are interested in and investigating this issue, Phillips said, though he declined to offer more specifics about how the app worked and who had paid for its development. (He also declined to answerTexas Monthlys question about who the experts were.)

It turned out that funding for VoteStandcame froma super PAC, Winning Our Future, for which Phillips served as managing director. The PAC, which received $15 million from right-wing billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, backed former Republican U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrichs unsuccessful presidential run in 2012.

Phillips appears to have connected with Catherine Engelbrecht around 2014, when she was continuing to gain national notoriety for fighting imaginary voter fraud. Phillips had his mysterious technology, and Engelbrecht had a platform to market their investigations nationwide. That year, Phillips followed up on VoteStand with a nonprofit he founded called the Voters Trust, whichoffereda $1 million bounty to anyone who could prove that IRS leaders or members of the Obama administration were targeting right-wing or tea party groups. (Its unclear who collected the cash, if anyone did.)

Even before that time, Englebrechts efforts, like Phillipss, had begun to attract scrutiny. In 2011, theTexas Observer reportedon multiple controversies emanating from her King Street Patriots, including one that involved a video featuring a doctored image of a Black woman holding a sign declaring, I only got to vote once! In a harbinger of things to come, Engelbrechts group had taken evidence of invalid voter applications to Harris Countys Republican voter registrar, Leo Vasquez, who subsequentlyclaimedin August 2010 to have found more than five thousand such invalid applications.

The questionable research from King Street Patriots waschallengedby Houston Votes, a progressive group that was registering voters. Englebrecht had publicly claimed that Houston Votes was being controlled by the New Black Panthers, a radical, racist, criminal hate group. The groups leader filed a defamation suit, but the damage had been done: before the allegations were made, Houston Votes had beenregisteringone thousand minority voters a day; afterward, its daily tally dropped to two hundred. That November, at the request of Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, federal monitors from the Department of Justice came to Houston to protect voters against intimidation by King Street poll watchers on Election Day.

More trouble followed. The Texas Democratic Party filed a lawsuitallegingthat King Street Patriots made unlawful expenditures in coordination with the Republican Party and/or one or more of its candidates. The suit further alleged that King Streetwasa sham domestic nonprofit corporation that instead acts as an unregistered and illegal political committee. Though King Street denied the allegations, a state court judge ruled in favor of the Democrats. Appeals dragged on for several years, however, by which time King Street had morphed into a different group, True the Vote. The case was ultimately dismissed by agreement of both parties, and, according to Chad Dunn, the attorney who represented the Democrats, It looks like Catherine went into the vote-suppression business full-time.

None of the controversies stopped Engelbrecht from becoming a tea party star,hosting events where she charmed Republican county clerks, state legislators, and members of Congress in Texas and beyond. Despite the clear partisan flavor of these events, Engelbrecht continued to claim that True the Vote was nonpartisan. Engelbrecht was becoming a Fox News darling, and True the Vote said it was organizing poll-watching volunteers in 35 states, whilepushing for voter roll purgesanddrawingaccusations of voter intimidation.

Its easy to see why Engelbrecht and Phillips joined forces. They had a lot in common, including a loathing for President Obama, a love of the spotlight, and a penchant for turning a personal profit from their crusades against alleged voter fraud. Their companies havesharedamailing address, and in 2016 Engelbrecht was named the chief financial officer of one of Phillipss companies. Engelbrecht and Phillips have been coy about a reported romantic link, though both listed the same address in the small Central Texas town of Cat Spring, about sixty miles west of Houston, for several years. You know, Gregg and I have actually talked about this and how we would answer this question, Engelbrechttold theNew York Timesin May, and the best answer that I think either of us are going to give is, it is totally unrelated and unimportant.

Regardless, theyve made quite a team. By 2016, True the Votes national influence was growing, with a substantial network of volunteers, event co-sponsorships with the Koch brothers tea party advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, and data collected by Phillips, who by then wastoutinga proprietary algorithm for his research. (That includes the research that he claimedwithout ever showing any evidenceproved that more than three million noncitizens voted in 2016.) In the two years prior to 2016, one of Phillipss companies waspaid $30,000 by True the Vote, while he was a board member of the organization.

Allegations of widespread voter fraud were repeated by Donald Trump and right-wing media so often that they became gospel, first on the far right and eventually amonga majority of Republicans. Phillips was always eager to congratulate himself for his work. Ive torn down govt in two states, eliminated 20K jobs and saved $5 billion, heboastedin a 2016tweet. Requires enormous stones.

When legitimate media outlets came calling, Phillips was more circumspect about his never-proved claim of more than three million illegal votes. Im not gonna be goaded into going faster than I want to,hetoldthe Atlanticin January 2017, when pressed about releasing his data. Im not a government official. Besides, he said, Our interest is not in uncovering anything that might somehow change any past election, because once those votes are certified, theyre certified and thats over. The work that were doing could create a foundation for looking at elections moving forward. The same month,The Guardian reportedthat the man who had built a career excising government waste owed about $100,000 in back taxes. Phillips said he owed less than $50,000, and that he was in a disagreement with the IRS.

A lesser man might have retreated with his spoils to, say, a villa in the Caymans. Not Phillips. Joe Bidens victory in 2020along with Trumps incessant claim that the election had been stoleninspired a deeply conservative North Carolina donor by the name of Fred Eshelman towire$2 million shortly after Election Day to True the Vote, whose leaders were saying they needed to raise $7.3 million to stop the certification of the election and get to the bottom of the grand conspiracy that robbed Trump of his presidency. A former pharmaceutical executive and financier whogave$100 million to the University of North Carolina, Eshelmancouldafford to make thebiggest donation True the Vote had ever received.

On November 9, not long after Eshelmans payment arrived, Phillipss latest venture, OPSEC, billed True the Vote $350,000. The following day, True the Vote gave a $500,000 retainer to Bopp, a right-wing lawyer best known for winning theCitizens Unitedcase, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down limits on corporate campaign contributions. While True the Vote had promised that OPSEC would aggregate and analyze data to identify patterns of election subversion, Bopps role was to try to persuade judges to give the organization access to voter rolls in closely contested states so it could show proof of fraud. Eshelman was told that Bopp would file lawsuits in seven states. He filed four, and then voluntarily withdrew each of them within a week.

Eschelmanpitched inanother $500,000 after a consultant told him True the Vote needed additional short-term money for Bopp. But Bopp, Engelbrecht, and Phillips had promised much and delivered little. We were just not getting any data or proof, a lobbyist for Eshelman latertoldthe Washington Post.We were looking at this and saying to ourselves, This just is not adding up.

Disgusted, Eshelman filed suit, demanding a refund. The lawsuit, first filed in federal court, was withdrawn and then refiled in Texas, where a judge threw out the case, ruling that Eshelman did not have standing to sue in the state. The proper authority to investigate the case, the judge said, was the Texas attorney generals office. Republican attorney general Ken Paxtonwhosbeen a gueston Engelbrechts podcast, has taken no action.

Meanwhile, according to Reveals reporting, court records showed that Phillipss voter analysis company, OPSEC Group LLC, continued to bill True the Vote after Eschelman broke ties, receiving another $400,000 for a project called Eyes on Georgia.

True the Votes tax returns, linked to in the Reveal expos, have been riddled with inconsistenciesand have regularly been amended, Jaramillo wrote. Her extensive investigation found that along with the handsome sums paid to Phillipss various companies for their data analysis, True the Vote has made questionable loans to Engelbrecht, who received $113,396 in 2019 alone.

Phillips is currently CEO and Engelbrecht is chief experience officerof a company called CoverMe Services Inc.formerly known as AutoGovwhich says it uses software to bridge the financial and social service gaps faced by both hospitals and their patients. CoverMe claims that in the span of a five-minute interview, hospitals can provide patients with real-time eligibility and enrollment support, creating better outcomes for both the patient and provider. The State of Mississippihas paidthe company close to $1.7 million for its services.

But that doesnt mean Phillips has given up on voter fraud investigationsespecially after the attention garnered by2000 Mules. The film has the ultimate power-endorser in Trump, who brought up Phillipssclaimsagain in atwelve-page missiverefuting the claims of the January 6 committee. The data is astonishing! Trump said in his publicly released statement. Rather than 2000 mules, the number jumps to 54,000 mules.

Both Engelbrecht and Phillips are now certified stars on the conspiracy circuitwith their credibility boosted by state and federal lawmakers eager to use their findings to make the case for overturning elections. In Wisconsin, the duoaddressedthe Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections in March. In Michigan, seventeen Republican House membersaskedthe states attorney general to investigate the claims made in2000 Mules. Representative Andy Biggs, a Republican from Arizona,has calledfor congressional hearings about the films allegations. On July 27, in a sign of how much weight Phillipss name now carries in far-right circles, Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Laketweetedprior to her primary victory, I am honored to have the endorsement of True the Votes Gregg Phillips!

Engelbrecht and Phillips have still failed to present any credible evidence to prove the claims they made in the movie. In the Arizona legislative hearing, Phillips said criticism of their methods came from journalistic terrorists. (The Republican Party of Arizona picked up on his phrase, twicetweetingout: The mainstream media is domestic terrorists.) Asked to describe his process in greater detail, Phillips refused,callingthe methods proprietary.

Phillips says criticism of True the Votes methods comes from journalistic terrorists.

On a right-wing podcast in late spring, heclaimedthat an even bigger finding would soon be revealed. At the hearing in Arizona, he doubled down: We do indeed have a matter brewing that is ten times bigger thanMules, he said, inspiring excited whispers in the audience. Itll be about six weeks before we can clear our way through it, but I assure you it is the most explosive issue that you have ever come in contact with related to elections in the United States.

Twelve weeks later, as this story was being published, the explosive revelation had still not been delivered. But Phillips was still dropping hints to titillate the conspiracy-minded. On a podcast in late July, he claimed that what would be revealed stems from an op involving the United States government, which we worked for, until we were betrayed by the United States government. This month, True the Vote held a symposium in Arizona called The Pit, where Phillipspromisedto roll outdevastating findings, including the part that was left out of the movie. The proceedings were livestreamed on the Right Side Broadcasting Network. But in lieu of a big reveal, Engelbrecht and Phillipsannouncedthey were putting up a new website that would include surveillance video taken at drop boxes and documents from various election lawsuitsbut not the geolocation data that was the basis for the films allegations. And that, they said, would be a wrap on2000 Mules. The end ofMules! Engelbrecht exclaimed. End scene. Were done.

The pair had already been moving on to their next project. In late July, Phillipsappearedwith Engelbrecht on a stage in Las Vegas at a gathering of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, an organization of local police officials who claim that federal and state authorities are subordinate to local sheriffs. They were joined by sheriffs who have signed on to True the Votes Protect America Now initiative, designed to encourage them to investigate electionsor, as the True the Vote websiteputsit, to equip local sheriffs with the tools that they need to fight potential fraud, such as enhanced video surveillance. A national hotline, according to True the Vote, will be set up to connect American citizens with their local sheriffs in case they see anything awry at the polls this fall. Five Texas sheriffs (and one former sheriff) from small, rural countieshave signed up.

And so it goes, despite the many investigations of Phillips and Engelbrecht, and despite True the Votes continued inability to prove that voter fraud exists. True the Vote and groups like it are well-documented voter intimidation scams, said Chris Hollins, a Democrat running for mayor of Houston who, as county clerk for Harris, was on the front lines in the 2020 election. Theyre created to amplify conspiracy theories, funded by wealthy right-wing activists, to tie the hands of election administrators and embolden partisan poll watchers.

They are also created, as Engelbrecht and Phillips have long demonstrated, with an eye toward making money. To support their efforts to equip sheriffs for Novembers elections, True the Voteaims to raisea cool $1 million.

Update 8/22/2022:An earlier version of this article reported Miriam and Sheldon Adelson had given $15 billion to the super PAC Winning Our Future. They gave $15 million.

More here:
How True the Vote Fabricates Claims of Election Fraud, for Fun and Profit - Texas Monthly

Warning, They are coming here. They are coming after us, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis wants the Legislature to take steps next year to offset new hiring at the Internal Revenue Service under a law signed this week by President Joe Biden.

Patronis, who is running for re-election, rolled out Four Pillars of IRS Protection that he wants state lawmakers to consider as a hedge against the new federal law, which includes funding to hire 87,000 IRS employees --- not just agents --- over the next 10 years.

There is documented evidence that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups in 2013, and no doubt the IRS under the Biden administration would do the same to many businesses and organizations in Florida who have professed a love of freedom, Patronis wrote. Florida must force IRS bureaucrats to think twice before once again targeting conservatives.

Patronis wants the Legislature to require state-chartered banks to generate regular reports on IRS engagement to help identify any potential patterns of discrimination and highlight how the new auditors are targeting the middle class and small businesses; set up a civil-liability trust fund to provide some legal assistance for small businesses in tax cases; require new IRS agents to register with the state to access account information; and set criminal penalties for enforcement of any law that was based on a viewpoint or political discrimination.

Former state Rep. Adam Hattersley, a Riverview Democrat who is running against Patronis in November, called the CFOs proposal an ill-timed attempt to change the conversation. Floridians arent fooled.

Trying to rally supporters ahead of the elections, Republicans have locked onto the 87,000 hiring figure, which includes all aspects of the IRS, from agents to customer service. The hiring is included in the law known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, while campaigning Sunday in Phoenix for Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters and Arizona gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake, said IRS agents will be used to go after people the government doesnt like.

They are going to be sicced on working people; contractors, restaurant owners, people that drive Ubers. They're not going after the billionaires, DeSantis said.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, the former Florida governor who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, warned potential IRS job applicants Tuesday that their potential employment might be short-term if the GOP takes control of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate in November. He said in an open letter that we will immediately do everything in our power to defund this insane and unwarranted expansion of government.

Democrats contend most of the additional auditing will focus on more-affluent people.

Contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote Aug. 11 to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.

Go here to read the rest:
'They are coming after us': Florida's CFO has his eyes on the IRS - WLRN

Its basically from political gadfly within the Republican caucus to potentially the number two person in the state of Arizona, says Arizona Republican Sen. T.J. Shope. Its a meteoric rise.

Never in a million years would Paul Boyer, a fellow GOP state legislator, have imagined that Finchem would crush a field of qualified candidates and win a nomination to statewide office.

Mark is known as the guy thats probably the dumbest well, theres a long list, but one of the dumbest legislators in the state House, he says. (Finchems retort: Boyer is an utter disgrace.)

But Finchems rise makes sense in light of the broader shift within the Arizona Republican Party. Trumps slate of political insurgents swept the GOP nomination for every state office in which he offered his blessing, from the U.S. Senate down to state Senate races.

After decades of civil war, the Arizona primaries mark a decisive swing in the state GOPs balance of power. The center-right, pro-business wing of the party led by the late Sen. John McCain and Gov. Doug Ducey has been defeated, at least for now. Finchem and other far-right outsiders the original tea party activists and the new Trumpist hard-liners have taken over.

We drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine, Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake bragged, while making a stabbing motion, at a CPAC event following the primary. We threw together a rag-tag team of nonpolitical people to run the most exciting campaign in the country. And we won.

Lake, a former TV news anchor, fended off more than $20 million in spending against her to narrowly capture the nomination, despite her opponents backing from Ducey, former GOP Gov. Jan Brewer and former Vice President Mike Pence.

We drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine, Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake bragged at a recent CPAC event.|LM Otero/AP Photo

Blake Masters, a 36-year-old acolyte of billionaire tech entrepreneur and Trump donor Peter Thiel, surged from behind in the U.S. Senate primary after earning Trumps nod. Abraham Hamadeh, a 31-year-old lawyer who has spent fewer days in a courtroom than many petty criminals, was rocketed out of obscurity to win the primary for state attorney general after snagging Trumps endorsement.

None have any political experience. But they have the main qualification that matters to the former president: They repeat the lie that the Arizona election was rigged against him. Every winning Republican candidate said they wouldnt have certified the 2020 election. That means that as Trump gears up for a possible third run for the presidency, Arizona is facing the prospect of a slate of statewide officials who could steal the election for him. (Indeed, another victim of a Trump-backed primary was Rusty Bowers, the soft-spoken leader of the Arizona House who rebuffed Trumps pressure campaign to overturn the states 2020 election results and testified to the January 6 committee.)

For his part, Finchem defeated three other candidates for the secretary of state nomination: Beau Lane, an advertising executive who had backing from the business community and Duceys full-throated endorsement; state Rep. Shawnna Bolick who had sponsored legislation to let lawmakers toss out the results of presidential elections they dont like and had tried to capture the Trump vote; and state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who has been the architect of every major election integrity bill that has been signed into law for the past decade, but who refused to regurgitate the lie that Arizonas election was stolen from Trump. Finchem beat them all by wide margins.

Its not an overstatement to say Finchem remains a bit of a joke to his soon-to-be old colleagues.

Boyer, who served eight years in the Arizona Legislature alongside Finchem, cackled while recalling Finchems doomed 2020 run for speaker against Bowers. Finchem wrote a seven-page memo outlining his vision for the job, including his top priority: using viral content to take the messaging power back from the media. And he did prove that he knew how to go viral.

The use of mimes [SIC] is an emerging means of harnessing rhetoric and sarcasm with a purpose, Finchem declared with a repeated typo of the word meme, which became a local meme itself. The regular use of mimes to build brand identity and establish solid differentiation will serve us well.

Less than a third of the Republican caucus ultimately backed Finchem to become the speaker, but it cemented his status as the leader of the far right at the state Capitol.

Finchem has always been something of an underdog and outcast at the state Capitol. In his eight years as a lawmaker, he has only once been granted a committee chairmanship; typically, even junior Republican lawmakers get prime posts. He had just one bill signed into law this year fewer than many Democrats who sit in the minority and he hasnt fared much better in past years.

How can he go from that, to the Republican nominee for secretary of state? I mean, its simple. He won the Arizona Apprentice for secretary of state, Boyer says. Abe Hamadeh for AG? Kari Lake for governor? Its very simple. If you can fog up a mirror and win the Arizona Apprentice, youre good.

Abe Hamadeh for AG? Kari Lake for governor? Its very simple. If you can fog up a mirror and win the Arizona Apprentice, youre good.

Paul Boyer, Arizona state legislator

Boyer, meanwhile, chose not to run for reelection after receiving death threats for refusing to go along with his partys election lies. So just two years after his failed run for leadership, Finchem is on top. And those who laughed at his vision have been purged from Arizonas political landscape.

In many ways, Finchem is a man made for the times. Hes a longtime leader of the legislatures far-right Liberty Caucus, and is revered in conservative grassroots circles as one of the few good lawmakers.

He refused to do a phone interview for this article, but he did send a few text messages, saying if hes having a moment in the sun, its because like him, the people are no longer afraid to be bullied by the establishment.

I am but a humble servant who took the time to listen to his constituents and has been vilified for it, he wrote. Perhaps thats why they view me as their champion.

Originally from the Detroit area, Finchem moved to Arizona in 1999 and began a career as a realtor. (He had previously been a cop in Kalamazoo, Mich., where his final evaluation reads poor rating, would not rehire.) He later became vice president of business development for Clean Power Technologies LLC, an Idaho-based company that claimed on its now-defunct website that it can generate and deliver clean energy without wires, anywhere around the world.

Finchem was an early adopter of fringe politics in Arizona. He was touting state sovereignty issues long before phrases like plenary powers and the independent state legislature doctrine entered the mainstream political lexicon. Armed not with a law degree, but a masters in legal studies from the University of Arizonas freedom school, Finchem became the thought leader of the movement to decertify the 2020 election in Arizona.

After losing his head-to-head contest with Bowers for the speakership in late 2020, Finchem held an unauthorized, unofficial hearing with Rudy Giuliani and other members of Trumps legal team to air falsehoods about how the election was rigged. That hearing cemented his status as one of the key ringleaders of Arizonas Stop the Steal movement and helped earn him the Trump endorsement that rocketed him to national stardom on the right.

Just a few weeks later, Finchem was outside the U.S. Capitol at the Jan. 6 riot. Though he maintains he never entered the building, video footage shows he was much closer than he originally claimed. Ali Alexander, the organizer of the rally that helped fuel the deadly mayhem, declared there wouldnt have been a Stop the Steal movement in Arizona without Finchem.

CNN reported this week that Finchem previously shared posts on social media about stockpiling ammunition and touted his membership in the Oath Keepers anti-government extremist group, which is under scrutiny for its role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Finchem is still pushing baseless theories about how the election was rigged, texting a link to a conservative activist project that he claims shows the Chinese Communist Party now has operational control over many elections across the United States because they control the servers where all of the electronic data sits.

What boggles my mind is reporters and journalists are sitting on the story of the century but nobody has the balls to write about it, he wrote in a text.

The 2022 primaries underscored just how tight Trumps grip is over Arizona Republicans, and that his 2020 loss is still fresh on these voters minds as he considers another run for the presidency.

How could it not be? In Arizona, it feels like the 2020 election is still ongoing.

Republicans in this state, perhaps more than any other, have followed Trumps election conspiracies down the rabbit hole.

First there was the Cyber Ninjas audit authorized by the state Senate, which ultimately confirmed through a hand count of ballots that President Joe Biden won, but which offered up a host of other debunkable conspiracies about how maybe he didnt win. Then theres the still-ongoing investigation by the Arizona attorney general about alleged improprieties in the election, which uncovered a handful of record-keeping issues, but no proof of any widespread fraud, including from dead people voting.

Meanwhile, Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward not only continues to spout Trumps fantasies about the election; she broke with the chairs long-standing tradition of neutrality to throw her full weight behind the MAGA candidates in the primary, calling the Trump-opposed candidates RINOs and worse. The sycophantic pro-Trump student group Turning Point USA also is based in Arizona and deeply intertwined with the party infrastructure.

Trump himself has seen Arizona as key to keeping his political future alive. Hes traveled to the state twice since losing the 2020 election. In January of this year, he came to promote his candidates and spin election yarns. And during the first weeks of early voting, he returned with pillow salesman and conspiracy-slinger Mike Lindell, who warmed up the crowd by claiming, once again, that the election was rigged and that the state is poised to do away with defective vote tabulating machines.

But just as important, Arizonas mainstream conservatives have cowered to the lie that the election was stolen from Trump. While some, including Ducey, have attempted to tamp down on the rhetoric, none have forcefully confronted Trumps disinformation.

On the same day as Trumps latest rally for his candidates, Pence and Ducey stumped for their pick in the gubernatorial primary: Karrin Taylor Robson. Robson criticized Lake for saying the primary election was rigged against her before votes had even been cast, but Robson refused to say that the 2020 election was free and fair, saying she wasnt sure if she would have certified Arizonas 2020 election if she were governor.

We have the wrong guy in the White House, she said, while repeatedly refusing to clarify whether Biden was wrongfully elected or simply the wrong guy for the job.

Lane, Finchems business-backed opponent, would say the election wasnt stolen when asked. But he never made it a central point of his campaign in an overt way. Instead, he took to the airwaves with criticism of Finchem for having supported a National Popular Vote bill, saying if Finchem had his way, Hillary Clinton would have been president.

In a state where even the mainstream conservative candidate for the top election official doesnt forcefully articulate a message that the 2020 election was safe, secure and legitimate, it shouldnt be a shock that Republican voters backed a slate of candidates thats likely to be willing to throw out the results of the 2024 election.

Whether Finchem and his fellow Trumpists will find success in November is less clear.

In Arizonas purple political landscape, Democrats and even many Republicans here say GOP primary voters went too far that theyve undermined the partys chances of holding the states top offices in an otherwise great year for Republicans. Perhaps that could break the fever, as Barack Obama once predicted, before the party went even further to the right under Trump.

It may take a drubbing at the polls this year to get Republican voters off the Trump train, says Arizona Republican consultant Barrett Marson. Or maybe theyll just double down.

See the article here:
'Never in a Million Years': Arizona Republicans Grapple with the Rising Fringe - POLITICO

Three days after the FBI descended on former President Trumps Mar-a-Lago home, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave a press conference lasting less than four minutes about the raid. As he was speaking, he excoriated anyone who questions the motives and integrity of the FBI. His intent was clear: You are not allowed to criticize the FBI and its obvious double standards. Any criticism of the institution will be viewed as a threat to democracy. In true Orwellian fashion, the corporate media began parroting the same talking points.

The ruling elite is blinded by their groupthink mentality. The raid on a former president was the culmination of two decades of corruption within the big government apparatus where abuses of power have become increasingly brazen. The loss of trust in the agencies is not the result of conspiracy theories, social media, or millions of Americans simply becoming anti-government. It is a direct consequence of their actions.

The American people believed our institutions were operating in good faith and they took a laissez-faire approach for far too long, even as the evidence of an abusive bureaucracy was mounting. Consider the following:

In 2007, programs that were developed to target terrorists quickly morphed into domestic spying programs. The NSA began capturing and monitoring Americans electronic communications and metadata through the PRISM program. Both John Brennan and James Clapper denied the government was monitoring American citizens and openly lied to Congress. They were never charged with perjury, and not a single person who authorized this program was ever held accountable for this direct assault on the Fourth Amendment.

Journalists have also been routinely monitored by federal agencies making a mockery of the First Amendment. Ironically, many within the media now carry water for the institutions and serve as their private PR firms.

In 2012, then-Attorney General Eric Holder refused to provide information to Congress on the governments ill-thought-out Fast and Furious program. He was held in contempt of Congress, and there are indications that he may have committed perjury when he denied knowing about the program. Lucky for him, he never received the Steve Bannon treatment.

In 2013, the IRS admitted to targeting conservative groups. Lois Lerner deemed that these conservative and Tea Party groups were guilty of having the wrong political opinion. For her actions, Lois Lerner refused to answer questions, pleading the fifth, and was found in contempt of Congress by the House of Representatives, but the Justice Department declined to prosecute her on contempt charges. Instead, she was allowed to retire, collect her pension, and never be held accountable.

In 2014, it was revealed that John Brennans CIA was monitoring sitting members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. Neither Brennan nor anyone else involved in the program was ever held accountable.

In 2015, Hillary Clinton was subpoenaed to preserve her home-brewed email server. Following the subpoena, her email management company Platte River Network wiped the server clean, and employees sent an email with the subject line stating, Hillary cover-up operation work ticket archive cleanup.

In 2016, as the FBI was investigating the server, multiple people in the Hillary Clinton orbit were granted immunity. Cheryl Mills, who was a witness in the investigation, was allowed to claim attorney-client privilege. Compare that to the FBI raids on Trumps lawyers where long-standing norms of attorney-client privilege were thrown out the window.

Hillary Clintons top aide told the FBI that she wasnt aware of the private server, yet she had her own email account on it. We also know that then-FBI Director James Comey already had a draft letter prepared to exonerate Clinton even before she was interviewed. Then, shortly before the 2016 election, it was revealed that Clintons emails were found on a laptop shared by Abedin and her husband, disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner. Not a single person was ever held accountable for the lies, the deceit, and the illegal server.

As if spying on U.S. senators and turning a blind eye to Clintons malfeasance wasnt bad enough, in 2016, the FBI began its infamous Crossfire Hurricane operation where FBI agents would use a dossier paid for by Hillary Clintons campaign to investigate and surveil the Trump campaign, and later, the Trump presidency. They knew the dossier had little basis in fact but presented it to the FISA court anyway. FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith doctored another piece of evidence and presented it to the FISA court. Throughout the investigation, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page would routinely send each other text messages expressing their disdain for Trump and his supporters.

The investigation didnt end when President Trump won the election. In 2017, FBI Director James Comey leaked sensitive information to the press in order to force then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special counsel. Over the next few years, the country would be torn apart, and in the end, the special counsel never found any evidence of Russian collusion.

What about the U.S. Postal Services iCOP program, where postal inspectors were monitoring peoples social media accounts and forwarding posts to the Department of Homeland Security? Again, no accountability.

Federal courts have also admonished the FBI on several occasions for illegally accessing the NSAs repository for information on Americans.

Multiple intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies continue to monitor and collect the data of American citizens, including the FBI, the CIA, and ICE. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has amassed millions of records on legal firearm owners even though a gun database is strictly prohibited by Congress.

What about how the Secret Service reportedly tried to cover up Hunter Bidens firearm incident or how the FBI was used to track down Ashley Bidens alleged diary? What about all the former senior-level intelligence heads stating that Hunters laptop was Russian disinformation in order to manipulate an election? Why havent we heard of any investigations into the current president given that he is directly implicated in the Biden family pay-to-play scheme?

Then you have the Department of Education, the National School Boards Association, and the Department of Justice colluding to target parents and label them as domestic terrorists.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, we witnessed repeated lies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health institutions, ranging in topic from vaccines to masking to lockdowns. Even worse, Dr. Anthony Faucis emails show his ruthless efforts to target any scientists or medical professionals who disagreed with him in an attempt to destroy their credibility.

The evidence of rampant abuse within the bureaucracy is widespread and illustrates that we should not blindly and obediently trust these institutions. Many of our officials act as if we exist to serve them as opposed to them serving us. They justify their abuses with a sense of righteousness as long as they qualify their wrongdoing with the sentiment of preserving democracy. In their delusional minds, they believe they are guardians of democracy.

Thomas Jefferson once warned, The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us.

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Not Just FBI: How Institutions Across The Board Forfeited Our Trust - The Federalist