Cleveland Sports Forum

Ivanka Trump’s Personal Assistant Tested Positive for COVID-19

TROUBLING

Blake Montgomery / Published May. 08, 2020 11:28PM ET

Ivanka Trump’s personal assistant has tested positive for COVID-19, one of several prominent White House staffers who have contracted the new coronavirus, CNN reports. The assistant has reportedly worked from home for nearly two months now, reducing the risk that the president’s daughter has come in contact with the virus. Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary and the Secret Service member who serves Trump his meals have also tested positive. The news delayed a trip to Iowa on Pence’s schedule, and nearly a dozen members of the Secret Service are now infected. As the president encourages states to reopen their economies and resume business as usual, the presence of the virus in the White House has raised questions of whether American leaders have themselves been exposed. “It's a little bit strange, but it's one of those things,” the president said of the diagnosis of his aide.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ivanka-tr ... r-covid-19

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Document reveals Secret Service has 11 current virus cases, as concerns about Trump’s staff grow

Jana Winter and Hunter Walker,Yahoo News • May 8, 2020

WASHINGTON — Multiple members of the U.S. Secret Service have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to Department of Homeland Security documents reviewed by Yahoo News.

In March, the Secret Service, which is responsible for the protection of President Trump and other leaders, acknowledged that a single employee tested positive in March. However the problem is currently far more widespread, with 11 active cases at the agency as of Thursday evening, according to a daily report compiled by the DHS.

This report comes as a pair of cases among White House staffers close to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have put the West Wing’s coronavirus security procedures in the spotlight.

According to the DHS document, along with the 11 active cases there are 23 members of the Secret Service who have recovered from COVID-19 and an additional 60 employees who are self-quarantining. No details have been provided about which members of the Secret Service are infected or if any have recently been on detail with the president or vice president.

The DHS, which oversees the agency, referred all requests for comment to the Secret Service, which in turn declined to comment on the number of coronavirus cases among its employees.

“To protect the privacy of our employee’s health information and for operational security, the Secret Service is not releasing how many of its employees have tested positive for COVID-19, nor how many of its employees were, or currently are, quarantined,” Justine Whelan, a Secret Service spokesperson, said.
While the Secret Service is best known for providing security to the president and vice president, it also protects other leaders, including presidential candidates, former presidents, and visiting dignitaries. The Secret Service also conducts investigations, including most recently, scams involving the coronavirus.

Whelan said the Secret Service is following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control, but she declined to comment on how many of the Secret Service employees who have tested positive for the coronavirus worked at the White House complex.

“Since the beginning of this pandemic, the Secret Service has been working with all of our public safety partners and the White House Medical Unit to ensure the safety and security of both our protected persons and our employees,” Whelan said. “The Secret Service continues to follow guidance issued by the CDC to ensure the health and welfare of our employees and those they come in contact with.”
However, the coronavirus measures at the White House complex, which includes both Trump and Pence’s offices, have not necessarily followed the guidelines from the CDC or the president’s own coronavirus task force. Those guidelines include staying 6 feet away from other people, avoiding large gatherings and wearing masks or other face coverings.

On Monday, Yahoo News reported that there are regularly held large events with unmasked attendees in close quarters at the White House — including inside the Oval Office, which is the president’s inner sanctum. Many Secret Service employees on the White House grounds are among those who are not wearing masks. The agency did not respond to questions about why its employees are not wearing masks or whether personal protective equipment is being provided to members of the Secret Service who request it. Pence and Trump have also regularly opted not to wear masks.

White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere responded to questions about coronavirus protocols in the West Wing last week by saying, “Those in close proximity to the president and vice president are being tested for COVID-19.”

“Temperature checks are occurring for all those entering the complex as well as an additional temperature check for those in close proximity to the president and vice president,” Deere said.

While temperature checks were being administered to everyone entering the White House complex, not everyone who entered the Oval Office with the president was given a test. On multiple occasions last week, reporters were brought into the Oval Office without being given tests or being required to wear masks.

Dr. Kavita Patel, a primary care physician who worked in the Obama administration as director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, said she believes the partial testing for those in the White House complex is not sufficient.

“Having worked in the White House, there’s a ton of people that come in and out of there, and they touch things,” said Patel, a Yahoo News health contributor. “So, unless you are literally testing every individual and then following up … even with wiping down those surfaces every night, it’s not foolproof.”

In the days since that report, multiple COVID-19 cases have been confirmed within Trump’s inner circle. On Thursday, news broke that one of Trump’s military valets tested positive. According to CNBC, the valet “had very close contact with the president, including serving meals and helping him with his clothes and other personal needs.”

After the news emerged about his valet, Trump told reporters that the White House had only been testing on a weekly basis and would increase the number of tests given to key staffers.

“So we test once a week. Now we’re going to go testing once a day, but even when you test once a day, somebody could — something happens where they catch something,” Trump said.

On Friday, another top staffer tested positive for the coronavirus. Speaking at a meeting with Republican lawmakers in the White House State Dining Room, Trump indicated the staffer was Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller.

“She’s a wonderful young woman, Katie,” Trump said. “She tested very good for a long period of time and, all of a sudden today, she tested positive. She hasn’t come into contact with me.”

Miller is the wife of Stephen Miller, who is one of the president’s closest advisers. The Millers did not respond to requests for comment.
The White House declined to comment on whether Stephen Miller had tested negative or was being quarantined. Deere, the deputy press secretary, provided a new statement saying, “The President’s physician and White House Operations continue to work closely to ensure every precaution is taken to keep the President, First Family and the entire White House Complex safe and healthy at all times.”

“In addition to social distancing, daily temperature checks and symptom histories, hand sanitizer, and regular deep cleaning of all work spaces, every staff member in close proximity to the president and vice president is being tested daily for COVID-19 as well as any guests,” Deere said.

Yet even after the pair of coronavirus cases among the Trump administration staff, not everyone who gets in a room with the president is being tested. The press that covered the event where Trump discussed Miller’s diagnosis was brought into the State Dining Room without being given tests. One of the untested reporters asked Trump for a reaction to the fact the virus is apparently spreading inside the White House, which is ostensibly one of the safest places in the country.

“It could happen anywhere,” Trump said. “You see where it happens.”

https://news.yahoo.com/secret-service-c ... 44492.html

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Cracks me up hearing all these liberals in New York and California complain about oppressive liberal policies, then talk about moving to Florida or Texas for more freedom.

Hey dummies. Quit voting for socialists that want to control your lives and you can have the same freedoms where you are now!

And if you ever wondered why true coservatives such as myself are disgusted by republicans like McCain, Romney, Graham, Burr, etc. It is because of garbage like this ...

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Rich Higgins @RichHiggins_DC
I am old enough to remember when Senator Burr told reporters at an off the record dinner in DC that his goal was “to financially bleed .@GenFlynn
dry.”

What goes around comes around.

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KT McFarland @realKTMcFarland
WOW - that is significant bcz @SenatorBurr's Intel Cmte staff came after me & others to get same info they already had - knowing they were costing us tens of thousands in legal fees

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Did He Really Say That?

‘When you test, you have a case. When you test you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases.’

— President Donald Trump

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If there has been any consistencies, it's been Trump's ability to lie about the numbers. That's what he does. It's all about the numbers. Trump is trying his best to down grade the number of caronavirus cases and deaths. Meanwhile, the task force is going into the opposite direction claiming more carona virus cases and deaths that's been reported. That's what happens without adequate testing.

The government still doesn't know how many nursing homes have coronavirus outbreaks. For that matter, the same goes for the VA hospitals.

Iowa was withholding names and cases of nursing homes with COVID-19 cases.

Texas is refusing to release the names of long-term care facilities where residents have died from COVID-19, even as those case numbers soar.

Official tallies are unavailable from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Nebraska also does not make public the names of facilities with infections.

Nursing facilities have had to report such information to state and local public health authorities, but those reports have not generally been made public and have not been shared with federal health officials.

Most of these states are lead by Republican governors.

It's all about testing!

Trump is constantly comparing the US with South Korea when it comes to testing. The truth is South Korea successfully battled COVID-19 while the U.S. Didn’t. Seven weeks ago, South Korea and the U.S. had the same number of virus deaths. Today, South Korea has fewer than 300, and the U.S. has more than 70,000 and is on the rise with no end in sight.

South Korea has done remarkably well in controlling the disease and flattening the curve through a combination of masks, widespread testing, aggressive contact tracing, travel restrictions, quarantine and social distancing measures.



Lee Nak-yon (front row second from left), a former prime minister and a candidate of the ruling Democratic Party, watches TVs broadcasting the results of exit polls for the parliamentary election at the National Assembly amid the coronavirus outbreak on April 15 in Seoul. That week, the country successfully held a national parliamentary election with the highest turnout in three decades, without triggering another wave. (Chung Sung-Jun / Getty)


Today, South Korea’s covid-19 response strategy sits atop three pillars:

fast and free testing, expansive tracing technology, and mandatory isolation of the most severe cases.

Each pillar was shaped by the epidemics that preceded the 2019 novel coronavirus.

One of the key lessons of MERS was that bending the curve required an accelerated plan for designing, manufacturing, and distributing accurate tests. In the coronavirus pandemic, no large democracy has been better on these counts than South Korea.

No testing, no treatment, no herd immunity, no easy way out

In late January, just one week after the country’s first case was diagnosed, government officials urged medical companies to develop coronavirus test kits and told manufacturers to prepare for mass production. By mid-February—while the U.K. was talking about “herd immunity” and President Donald Trump was predicting that the virus would “miraculously” disappear in weeks—South Korea was churning out thousands of test kits every day. By March 5, South Korea had tested 145,000 people—more than the U.S., the U.K., France, Italy, and Japan combined.

To spare hospitals from being overrun with patients, as they were in 2015, Korean officials opened 600 testing centers and pioneered the use of drive-through testing stations to reduce face-to-face contact indoors. Inspired by drive-through counters at fast-food restaurants, these pop-up centers offered patients 10-minute tests without forcing them to leave their cars.

Excellent Article by the Atlantic on how the President and Administration missed the boat

How South Korea got it right

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... et/611215/

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https://twitter.com/thecjpearson/status ... 7345603586

The left thinks it’s perfectly fine to break immigration laws. If this had happened to a Hispanic lady crossing the border by our border patrol agents it would be all over the main stream news. But since it is a woman with a small child breaking an edict by a democrat mayor it is perfectly fine.

This has the look and feel of police state. And people wonder why citizens show up to state houses with guns.

CORONAVIRUS

‘Hard stop’: States could lose National Guard virus workers

The Trump administration’s order ends deployments on June 24

just one day before thousands would qualify for education and retirement benefits.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN

05/19/2020 04:30 AM EDT

More than 40,000 National Guard members currently helping states test residents for the coronavirus and trace the spread of infections will face a “hard stop” on their deployments on June 24 — just one day shy of many members becoming eligible for key federal benefits, according to a senior FEMA official.

The official outlined the Trump administration’s plans on an inter agency call on May 12, an audio version of which was obtained by POLITICO. The official also acknowledged during the call that the June 24 deadline means that thousands of members who first deployed in late March will find themselves with only 89 days of duty credit, one short of the 90-day threshold for qualifying for early retirement and education benefits under the Post-9/11 GI bill.

[ THE PRESIDENT AND HIS ADMINISTRATION HARD AT WORK TRYING TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! GREAT JOB GUYS! ]

The looming loss of crucial front line workers, along with questions about whether the administration is shortchanging first responders, would require a delicate messaging strategy, the official — representing FEMA’s New England region — told dozens of colleagues on the interagency call.

“We would greatly benefit from unified messaging regarding the conclusion of their services prior to hitting the 90-day mark and the retirement benefit implications associated with it,” the official said.

Top National Guard and other federal officials on the call did not dispute the June 24 cutoff or raise the possibility of an extension. In a statement, FEMA acknowledged that President Donald Trump’s current order for the federal government to fund the troops expires on June 24. But a National Guard spokesperson said a decision to extend the deployments could still be made in the coming weeks.

“We’re not there yet on the determination,” the spokesperson, Wayne Hall, said. “Nobody can say where we’ll need to be more than a month down the road.”

Governors and lawmakers in both parties have been pleading with the White House to extend the federal order for several more months or until the end of the year, warning in a letter to Trump that terminating federal deployments early in the summer just as states are reopening “could contribute to a possible second wave of infection.”

More than 40,000 Guard members are currently serving under federal orders known as Title 32, which grants them federal pay and benefits but puts them under local command, in 44 states, three territories and the District of Columbia — the largest domestic deployment since Hurricane Katrina.

Tens of thousands of them have been working full-time since early March on a wide range of sensitive and dangerous tasks, such as decontaminating nursing homes and setting up field hospitals, along with performing tests for the virus. They’ve provided a crucial backup for understaffed and underfunded state public health agencies trying to contain the pandemic.

The cost of the deployment is as much as $9 million per month for every 1,000 troops, according to the National Council of State Legislatures — an expense that states would have to shoulder should Title 32 expire. In addition, state deployments do not count toward federal education and retirement benefits.


The 45,000-member National Guard Association and some state officials told POLITICO that they suspect the Trump administration timed its orders to limit the deployment to 89 days — one short of the number that would qualify the earliest participants for certain education and retirement benefits.

Guard members must serve for 20 years to qualify for a pension at age 60. But for every 90 days serving during a federal emergency, Guard members can move up that retirement by three months. Ninety days of service also qualifies members for 40 percent off the tuition at a public college or university.

Because the National Guard members have to self-quarantine for two weeks before returning to civilian life to ensure they don’t spread the virus after serving on the front lines, states could lose their services in early June.

Trump’s original order calling up Guard members to help with the coronavirus crisis had been scheduled to expire on May 31. With the deadline approaching, Colorado’s entire congressional delegation — Republicans and Democrats alike — wrote to the president asking for an extension until the end of the year. Senators from New Hampshire, Connecticut, West Virginia and Illinois sought an extension through the fall. And several officials, including Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, have written letters asking for an extension until at least June 30.

Instead, the White House issued an unusual 24-day extension that terminates the deployment mid-week.

“It seemed kind of weird to me,” said retired Brig. Gen. J. Roy Robinson, president of the National Guard Association, the advocacy group for Guard members. “It’s a Wednesday. And it also coincides with 89 days of deployment for any soldiers who went on federal status at the beginning. I was getting all kind of calls about it and I said, ‘It’s probably just a coincidence.’ But in the back of my mind, I know better. They’re screwing the National Guard members out of the status they should have.”

The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The National Guard’s Hall countered that the 90-day threshold is cumulative, meaning members could qualify for both early retirement and GI Bill education benefits on their next federal deployment.

“If someone’s new in the Guard, they won’t be able to make that 90 days in one shot,” Hall acknowledged. “But if two months from now they’re called up for a hurricane or flood, they can make it then. The goal here is not to hurt Guardsmen.”

Nonetheless, federal deployments are relatively rare, and the practical impact of a June 24 cutoff would be to prevent many Guard members from claiming potentially valuable benefits, the National Guard Association said.

Meanwhile, as the national death count climbs toward 100,000, many states are depending on Guard members to help enact testing programs, deep-clean public facilities and perform the kind of contact tracing of people exposed to the virus that’s necessary to help states reopen — and say those needs will not go away anytime soon.

In Washington state, for example, Guard members comprise about a third of the state’s contact-tracing force, working to identify coronavirus outbreaks and locate people who have been exposed. More than 500 Guard members are currently performing such duties. According to the governor’s office, hundreds more are running community operations that have tested more than 1,600 people, assembled more than 28,000 testing kits and delivered nearly 14 million pounds of food to food banks and struggling families.

“All of the missions are going to continue for months to come,” he said. “The need for testing, the need for meals, the need for contact tracing don’t disappear on June 25. So if the administration allows [Trump’s order] to expire, that will mean fewer personnel to assist Washington in each of these critical missions.”

In North Dakota, a state with one of the highest per capita testing rates and the lowest rate of fatalities, more than 100 National Guard members have been running mobile testing sites since April, testing between 350 and 750 residents each day in places like the Fargodome parking lot, Grand Forks’ Alerus Center and Standing Rock High School.

“Local public health is somewhat understaffed, so we bring the bodies,” Major Waylon Tomac explained in a recent promotional video for the National Guard.

Another 30 or so members have been deep-cleaning long-term care facilities that have recently seen outbreaks — spraying disinfectant and wiping down every surface. Still more have been working the night shift at the state’s labs, assembling coronavirus test kits.

Col. Tad Schauer, the director of military response for the North Dakota National Guard, told POLITICO that while his team is currently planning to wrap up its operations by June 24, it stands ready to keep working if the Trump administration extends the deployment or Gov. Doug Burgum asks it to transition to “State Active Duty.”

“The people of North Dakota have been exceptional in fighting Covid-19 and we’re here to support the state and its citizens regardless of our federal or state status,” he said.

The May 12 conference call was one of a series of interagency meetings the Trump administration has convened daily during the pandemic. On those video conference calls, senior officials from HHS, FEMA and other government agencies update participants on the progress made on various fronts — including ongoing efforts to ramp up testing, acquire and distribute protective equipment and monitor hot spots around the country.

During that meeting, the official who raised the June 24 deadline was identified as “Russ” from FEMA’s Region 1, which includes Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Captain Russell “Russ” Webster, the regional administrator whom the White House also tapped in March to be New England's coordinating officer for federal recovery operations, did not confirm or deny that he was the one speaking on the call when contacted by POLITICO.

While some Guard members could continue the same work under State Active Duty after the June deadline, the National Guard Association has warned that without federal orders and funding, most states won’t be able to “support significant Guard deployments.”

In addition to being unable to accrue time toward federal retirement and tuition benefits, Guard members under State Active Duty are ineligible for the military’s health insurance for active duty members — an issue Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) are seeking to address in a new bill.

The health coverage question is especially pressing during a pandemic. The National Guard confirmed to POLITICO that as of Monday, 1,158 members have been diagnosed with Covid-19, including 617 active cases.

The National Guard notes that members whose federal active status expires can enroll in a different health insurance program, TRICARE Reserve Select. But that program charges members and their families significant premiums, deductibles and co-pays that regular TRICARE does not, and it doesn’t cover any dental care or pharmaceuticals.

Robinson, while pushing for the passage of the Ernst-Manchin bill, said he’s disappointed in the Trump administration’s treatment of Guard members risking their health during a pandemic.

“They’re working side-by-side with doctors, nurses and first responders,” he said. “And we’re going to cut them off and send them home with no health care coverage while they transition back to their civilian life. Not to mention, some of their jobs may have evaporated since they were deployed.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/1 ... rus-267514

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This has the look and feel of police state. And people wonder why citizens show up to state houses with guns.

Looks like the feel of a police state? We have a police state!

Trump and his gang of criminals have defied Congress, defied the rule of law, defiled the constitution, and have eroded the state department and DOJ.

It's becoming quite apparent that Trump could actually commit mass murder in the middle of Broadway and actually get away with it. Who's going to stop him? The Senate? The DOJ? The State Department? Trump owns them.

If anyone attempts to investigate him, what happens? They get fired! I thought Trump had to give Congress 30 days and just cause for the firings. He's rejected both and the Senate lets him get away with it.

Seems strange that Barr removed Burr from the Central Intelligence committee on Russian Election Interference. Gotta be more to it than the investigation for stock trades he made ahead of the market downturn sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

So! What Pompeo wants, Pompeo gets. See where Pompeo asked Trump to fire Linick, the government watchdog that had been investigating him for sidestepping Congress to approve arms sales to the Gulf and using staffers for personal errands. Trump declared his intention to fire the state department inspector general, Steve Linick, in a letter sent to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, late on Friday night. The White House said the decision was taken at Pompeo’s advice. What's that all about?

In yet another assault on checks and balances, Trump fired another watchdog Friday. The IG was overseeing the investigation of Chao’s favoritism benefiting McConnell’s political prospects, The firing calls into question the future of the Chao-McConnell investigation. The watchdog was dismissed for unearthing damaging information. What's that all about?

Trump's response to the pandemic is bordering upon criminal. He's made us the laughing stock of the world with his crazy ass briefings. He calls himself a "war time president". Well. This war time president should be under investigation for war time crimes. I've well defined my case in past postings. His out of control ego is killing us...literally.

Why is Cohen still in prison even though there is a pandemic while Flynn and Manafort are resting at home? What's up with that?

wonder why citizens show up to state houses with guns.

Maybe these folks should refocus their attentions elsewhere.

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Professor Pamela Karlan during the House Judiciary Committee about impeachment proceedings against President Trump at the US Capitol on December 4, 2019. Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images

How Trump’s impeachment trial foreshadowed his handling of the coronavirus crisis

Professor Pamela Karlan tried to warn us.

By Aaron Rupar@atrupar Apr 2, 2020, 3:30pm EDT

President Donald Trump’s frustration with Democratic governors who have the temerity to criticize his administration’s flailing response to the coronavirus isn’t just leading him to post sour tweets about them. It’s also reflected in disparities surrounding which states are receiving the medical resources they need to keep patients alive and health care workers healthy.

It’s a situation at least one woman, Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, saw coming, and warned about during Trump’s impeachment trial. In hindsight, her comments look remarkably prescient.

That trial, you might recall, was all about Trump’s abuses of power as it pertained to his efforts to leverage foreign aid to Ukraine into investigations of his domestic political foes. While the details underpinning that scandal may have seemed obscure to many Americans, [ Karlan in December ] sounded an alarm about what Trump’s behavior could entail in the event of a domestic crisis like the one the country now faces.

Referring to Trump’s effort to use congressionally appropriated foreign aid as a quid pro quo for political favors, Karlan asked members of Congress to think about what it would look like if Trump subjected governors to similar treatment.

“Imagine living in a part of Louisiana or Texas that’s prone to devastating hurricanes and flooding,” Karlan said. “What would you think if you lived there, and your governor asked for a meeting with the president to discuss getting disaster aid that Congress has provided for. What would you think if that president said, ‘I would like you to do us a favor. I’ll meet with you, and I’ll send the disaster relief, once you brand my opponent a criminal.’ Wouldn’t you know in your gut that such a president had abused his office?”

The professor’s point was that while Trump using his public office to try and force the Ukrainian government may not seem like an obvious abuse of power to some Americans, it clearly would in a hypothetical situation where he dealt with their elected officials in the same manner.

Pamela Karlan: “What would you think if, when your governor asked the federal government for the disaster assistance that Congress has provided, the President responded, ‘I would like you to do us a favor.’ I’ll... send the disaster relief once you brand my opponent a criminal.”...

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/2/21204228/t ... an-warning


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Trump threatens to stop funding for Michigan if absentee ballot forms sent to voters

Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press

Published 9:37 a.m. ET May 20, 2020 | Updated 6:11 p.m. ET May 20, 2020

[ Wouldn't You Think That Trump Learned A Lesson From His Impeachment ?? ]

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened funding for Michigan amid a global health pandemic if state officials move ahead with plans to send absentee ballot applications to every state voter.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on Tuesday morning said, in a story first reported in the Free Press, she and local clerks will send absentee ballot applications to all of the state's 7.7 million voters so they can, if they choose to do so, take part in the Aug. 4 and Nov. 3 elections without going to polling places.

Doing so, she said, would allow voters to avoid the potential threat posed by the spread of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus.

But Trump, who has railed against widespread voting by mail, posted on Twitter about 7:50 a.m. a suggestion that if she did so, he would move to block funding for Michigan.

In his first post, it was unclear the president understood what he was talking about, as he suggested Michigan was in the process of sending absentee ballots themselves — not the applications for people to ask for absentee ballots if they wish — to voters.

He wrote it's illegal for anyone to send unsolicited absentee ballots to voters and said if it occurs, he will "ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!"

Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020

He also referred to Benson as a "rogue Secretary of State," without mentioning her by name.

Trump made a similar threat on Twitter on Wednesday morning about efforts in Nevada to ensure voters get absentee ballots.

Hours later, on Wednesday afternoon, Trump edited and reposted the comment, adding the phrase "absentee ballot applications." Calling that illegal, however, is on far shakier ground than sending out absentee ballots themselves.

While it is illegal in Michigan to send absentee ballots to voters who do not formally request them, it is far from clear that there are the same legal hurdles to sending applications for the absentee ballots to registered voters, though it could be challenged in court. Benson and some local clerks sent out applications to voters before the May 5 local elections in response to the pandemic.

Michigan holds primaries for offices other than president in August and the national general election is on the first Tuesday of November. The state authorized no-reason absentee voting in a referendum in 2018.

Riffing off earlier criticism of Trump when he referred to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as "the woman from Michigan," Benson responded on Twitter to Trump's early morning post, saying,

"Hi! I also have a name, it’s Jocelyn Benson. And we sent applications, not ballots. Just like my GOP colleagues in Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska and West Virginia."

Jake Rollow, Benson's spokesman, also put out a statement saying Trump had the legal argument wrong.

"Applications are mailed nearly every election cycle by both major parties and countless advocacy and nonpartisan organizations. Just like them, we have full authority to mail applications to ensure voters know they have the right to vote safely by mail," he said.

Trump unclear what funding he's talking about

Trump wasn't clear about what funding he was referring to, but Michigan is expected to receive billions in coronavirus aid from the federal government under legislation previously approved by Congress, including a portion of $400 million set aside to the states to prepare for this year's elections under the threat of the pandemic.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday afternoon the president's tweets were "meant to alert (Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought) about his concerns" with trillions in funding headed out to the states.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other governors also have been clamoring for Trump and congressional Republicans to support more direct aid for states now seeing sharp revenue declines from the coronavirus shutdowns and layoffs. Last week, the state projected its revenues will take a staggering $3.2 billion hit from the pandemic in the current fiscal year.

Benson's office has said it will cost about $4.5 million to send out absentee ballot applications to every voter, with some funding expected to come from that earlier legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the president — so it is possible that was the funding to which Trump referred.

Trump himself later Wednesday declined to specify what funding he might withhold.

"You'll be finding out ... very soon if it's necessary" to withhold funding, he said after a meeting with Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, according to a White House pool report. "I don't think it's going to be necessary."

"Mail-in ballots are a very dangerous thing. They're, they're subject of massive fraud," Trump said.

Little evidence of rampant corruption in absentee voting

While there have been concerns raised nationally, especially among Republicans, about the potential for corruption and missing ballots, there has been little evidence of widespread fraud caused by an increase in the use of absentee ballots.

Trump has complained of corruption, but he has voted by mail himself in New York when he lived there and, this year, in Florida, which he has officially made his state of residence.

Democrats say generally that Republican opposition to voting by mail is intended to hold down turnout, especially among supporters of Democratic candidates. Trump won Michigan by less than two-tenths of 1% of the vote in Michigan four years ago.

On Wednesday, McEnany said there is "a lot of fraud potentially at play when you have mass absentee balloting" and that the president only supports absentee balloting for a reason. As to why he hasn't criticized some other states — including those led by Republican governors — for encouraging more absentee voting, she referred the question to the Trump campaign.

Asked specifically what laws Trump believed Benson was violating, McEnany refused to answer saying it was a campaign matter, though Trump's threat was clearly made as president — not as a candidate.

McEnany also quoted criticism of widespread absentee voting included in a 2005 report by the Commission on Federal Election Reform, led by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican. That report, in one section, said absentee ballots "remain the largest source of potential voter fraud."

But the report also made clear that admonition was about ballots — not applications — and that states could overcome those criticisms by passing restrictions on who has access to ballots and taking campaign workers out of the process. It noted Oregon had "avoided significant fraud" by putting in place safeguards, including signature verification, similar to that required in Michigan.

By receiving absentee ballot applications at home, as proposed by Benson, voters could fill them out and mail or drop them off at local clerks' offices or take a photo of them and email them to clerks, saving them an in-person visit. Clerks would then compare the person's signature with that on file in their offices and mail them an absentee ballot, which then could be mailed back or dropped off.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politi ... 227024002/

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Donald Trump's blatant hypocrisy on voting by mail

(CNN)During his daily coronavirus briefing on Tuesday, President Donald Trump made very clear that voting by mail -- an alternative many are suggesting to deal with the ongoing stay-at-home directives -- is a very bad thing. And more than that, he suggested, it's deeply corrupt.

"No, mail ballots, they cheat," said Trump. "OK, people cheat. Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country because they are cheaters."



Does vote-by-mail lead to voter fraud? Washington's 2018 election data says no! President Donald Trump has cried "Vote Fraud!" in vote-by-mail elections, but Washington's Republican Secretary of State released figures Monday on the 2018 election. Just 142 cases of improper voting out of 3.1 million ballots were referred to county sheriffs and prosecutors for legal action. That's 0.004% of what was an energized electorate.

Trump voted by mail in Florida's March 3 primary, but has decried letting other voters do likewise.

https://www.seattlepi.com/local/politic ... 245906.php



Moments later, a reporter noted that Trump himself had voted absentee -- by mail! -- in the Florida primary last month. (Trump also voted absentee in New York in the 2018 election.) Here's the exchange that followed:

TRUMP: Well sure, I could vote by mail for the...

REPORTER: But how do you reconcile that?

TRUMP: Because I'm allowed to. Well that's called out of state -- you know why I voted? Because I happened to be in the White House and I won't be able to go to Florida and vote. ( Just Golf & Visit Mara Lago )

REPORTER: Uh huh.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/politics ... index.html

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Senate Confirms Trump Loyalist Ratcliffe as Intelligence Chief

Chris Strohm May 21 2020, 10:08 PM May 22 2020, 1:50 AM

(Bloomberg) -- The Senate confirmed Representative John Ratcliffe as the nation’s spy chief on Thursday, overcoming criticism that he’s too much a loyalist to President Donald Trump and has too little experience in intelligence issues.

Ratcliffe, who was confirmed on a 49-44 vote, takes over as director of national intelligence at a pivotal time, as Trump seeks to pin blame on China for the global coronavirus outbreak while Russia and other nations conduct foreign influence operations to interfere in the current presidential campaign.

Ratcliffe also will be under pressure by Trump to bolster the president’s claims of an “Obamagate” conspiracy, allegations without evidence that White House, law enforcement and intelligence officials under President Barack Obama sought to prevent Trump’s election and then undermine his presidency.

Ratcliffe pledged at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee “to deliver timely, accurate and objective intelligence, and to speak truth to power, be that with this Congress or within the administration.”

But Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a member of the Intelligence panel, said on the Senate floor Thursday that Ratcliffe demonstrated in the confirmation process “that he is so eager to serve power that he will twist the truth” and will “misrepresent and politicize intelligence without a moment’s hesitation.”

Ratcliffe’s predecessor, acting director Ric Grenell, laid the groundwork for U.S. intelligence to advance the Obamagate conspiracy theory by declassifying selective information including requests by Obama administration officials to identify people around Trump whose names were redacted from intelligence reports. Republican lawmakers indicated they will push for more intelligence documents to be declassified and made public by Ratcliffe.

Qualifications Questioned

Ratcliffe, who served as a Republican congressman from Texas since 2015, withdrew from consideration for the intelligence director’s position last year amid tepid Republican support and accusations that he’d exaggerated his qualifications.

But Trump re-nominated him, and he won support from Republicans who cited the need for the intelligence community to have a confirmed leader nine months after the departure of Dan Coats as director of national intelligence. Still, no Republican senators came to the Senate floor on Thursday to praise Ratcliffe’s qualifications for the post.

The head of U.S. intelligence oversees 17 agencies carrying out operations including collecting and analyzing the electronic communications of adversaries and supporting military deployments and clandestine human spy work.

A former mayor of Heath, Texas, Ratcliffe became a Trump favorite after he stood out in 2018 -- along with current White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and other conservative lawmakers -- on a House task force pursuing the theory that anti-Trump bias and support for Democrat Hillary Clinton tainted the early stages of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether anyone close to Trump conspired in the meddling.

After Robert Mueller took over the probe as special counsel, Ratcliffe remained a vocal critic. Trump announced his initial plan to nominate Ratcliffe days after he drew praise from conservatives by aggressively questioning Mueller during his congressional testimony.

Asked at the confirmation hearing on May 5 about the Senate Intelligence panel’s bipartisan conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in an effort to help Trump win, Ratcliffe sidestepped the question.

“I have no reason to dispute the committee’s findings,” he said while also citing the House Intelligence panel’s contrary finding that there was no tilt toward Trump.

Ratcliffe promised that, if confirmed, “the intelligence community will be laser-focused on getting all of the answers that we can” on how and why the coronavirus outbreak began and spread. Trump and his allies have ramped up their attacks against China over the virus, which has killed more than 93,000 Americans and ravaged the U.S. economy.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics ... ence-chief

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Senators Question Fitness of Trump’s Nominee for Intelligence Chief

Ratcliffe gets grilled over his role in misrepresenting the facts during the U.S. president’s impeachment.

BY ROBBIE GRAMER, AMY MACKINNON, JACK DETSCH | MAY 5, 2020, 5:28 PM

Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Trump loyalist without intelligence experience nominated by the U.S. president to become the nation’s top intelligence chief, faced a deeply divided panel of U.S. senators on Tuesday. Over the course of his Senate confirmation hearing, Democratic lawmakers questioned his fitness for the post in the wake of his fiery support for President Donald Trump during the impeachment trial and the president’s own chronic misrepresentation of facts that has put him at odds with the U.S. intelligence community in the past.

Ratcliffe, a Republican from Texas who at one point was considered unqualified for the job by some fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, sought to portray himself as a director of national intelligence who would leave politics at the door to deliver “unvarnished” truth to the president.

But some critics, wary of his lack of experience in the intelligence community, are worried that he’ll put political loyalty ahead of his responsibilities to deliver intelligence assessments to the president. Ratcliffe withdrew himself from consideration for the post in August 2019, after facing criticism that he lacked the right qualifications and embellished his resume. Trump resubmitted his nomination in February.


“I think he is the most unqualified person ever formally nominated to this position,” said Larry Pfeiffer, who spent 32 years in the U.S. intelligence community and served as chief of staff to CIA Director Michael Hayden.


Ratcliffe, if confirmed, would take the helm of the U.S. intelligence community as it faces unprecedented levels of political pressure from the president and his allies. His rocky path to the nomination came in the wake of a hyperpartisan impeachment investigation started by a whistleblower complaint from a U.S. intelligence official, as well as years of simmering discord between Trump and other senior officials inside the intelligence community. Those tensions led to the firing or forced resignation of key senior intelligence officials in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), leaving the office without a single Senate-confirmed official.

Ratcliffe became one of Trump’s fiercest defenders during the impeachment inquiry, accusing Democrats of helping write the whistleblower complaint when there was no evidence they had done so and misrepresenting other facts and statements from witnesses throughout the Democratic-led investigation in the House.

Veteran intelligence officials have voiced concerns over the health of the ODNI under Richard Grenell, Trump’s acting intelligence chief. Grenell, a political loyalist with no prior experience in intelligence, has overseen a hiring freeze and reorganization of the office and engaged in high-profile Twitter spats with political rivals that former intelligence officials view as unbecoming of the office.

“I think it’s best if the DNI has actually served in an intelligence position, preferably as an Agency director, as a minimum,” said James Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence for nearly seven years.

Ratcliffe sought to allay concerns about his nomination during the hearing, held in a sparse hearing room on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to adhere to social distancing measures during the coronavirus pandemic. (Senators rotated in and out of the room to question Ratcliffe to minimize the number of people in the room at a time.)

“If confirmed as DNI, my top priority will be to present the president, senior policymakers in this committee with objective and timely intelligence to better inform decisions about the future and safety of our great nation,” he said. “As the president’s principal intelligence advisor I would ensure that all intelligence is collected, analyzed, and reported without bias, prejudice, or political influence.”

[ DNI - GOOD LUCK WITH THAT - TRUMP DOESN'T READ HIS INTELLIGENCE REPORTS - TOO BORING - HE LIKES PICTURES ]

A lawyer by trade, Ratcliffe is a member of the House intelligence, judiciary, and ethics committees. He formerly served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas from 2007 to 2008 and mayor of Heath, Texas from 2004 to 2012.

Republican senators—including those who reacted coolly to his initial nomination—have since expressed support for him, in part because they feel ODNI simply needs a Senate-confirmed leader as soon as possible to restore the office’s clout . “I know he’s ready to get to work leading the intelligence community, which has continued to do its vital work under increasingly difficult conditions,” said Republican Sen. Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee.

“We need to be able to count on a leader to operate free of personal or political motivation, serving only with the security and safety of the American people in mind, and I believe John Ratcliffe is the person to do that job,” said Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who introduced Ratcliffe at the hearing.

If the senators fail to give their seal of approval to Ratcliffe, a law on government vacancies stipulates that the acting director of national intelligence can remain in the position for another seven months, effectively forcing lawmakers to choose between Ratcliffe and Grenell, who also has no previous intelligence experience.

Senators in the hearing also grilled Ratcliffe on his record during the impeachment investigation, intelligence on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, foreign interference in the 2020 elections, and how he would protect the intelligence community and whistleblowers from political pressures.

Under questioning from Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Ratcliffe pledged to protect whistleblowers if confirmed as director of national intelligence. “Every whistleblower, past, present, and future, will enjoy every protection under the law. I don’t want to relitigate old issues of what happened during the impeachment inquiry,” he said.

“Whistleblowers are so important, a whistleblower doctor in China is one of the reasons we got an earlier warning,” he added, referring to the initial coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan

WHAT A BUNCH OF BULL! TRUMP FIRED HER SEVERAL MONTHS BEFORE THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC BEGAN .

Accountability advocates have long been skeptical about Ratcliffe’s commitment to whistleblowers. “I’m mostly concerned with his potential effect on whistleblowing,” said Irvin McCullough, a national security analyst with the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit whistleblower protection organization.

Intelligence community employees have more restricted opportunities to blow the whistle on perceived wrongdoing due to the sensitivity of their work, leaving considerable power in the hands of the director of national intelligence to accept or reject complaints brought forward. “There’s certainly a chilling effect for intelligence community employees that would watch him become DNI,” McCullough said.

When Trump first tapped Ratcliffe for the job in July 2019, he said he did so to “rein in” the U.S. intelligence community. “We need somebody like that there,” the president said. “We need somebody strong that can really rein it in, because, as I think you’ve all learned, the intelligence agencies have run amok. They’ve run amok.”

“I don’t think that the men and women of the intelligence community are running amok,” Ratcliffe said Tuesday when pressed on the comments.

The intelligence committee was thrust into the spotlight during the impeachment investigation into Trump. Ratcliffe emerged as one of the president’s most vocal defenders, downplaying evidence of a quid pro quo over military aid to Ukraine and castigating the whistleblower whose complaint kickstarted the investigation. As the House Judiciary Committee weighed articles of impeachment in December, Ratcliffe responded to a question about whether it was ever appropriate to a president to solicit foreign interference in an election, Ratcliffe said, “The answer is yes. It better be, we do it all the time.”

During the hearing, Ratcliffe also made clear his top priority as director of national intelligence would be China, with a focus of confirming how the pandemic spread in the first place. “If confirmed, the intelligence community will be laser-focused on getting all of the answers that we can regarding how this happened, when this happened, and I commit to providing [you] with as much transparency to you as the law will allow,” he told lawmakers.

Trump has claimed he has intelligence indicating the new coronavirus emerged in a Chinese laboratory. But intelligence circulated among the United States and its closest allies reportedly suggests this is “highly unlikely,” and the more likely scenario is that the virus spread naturally from animals to humans—the latest example of the president disputing or contradicting U.S. intelligence assessments.

Some former intelligence officials say Ratcliffe’s record during the impeachment trial should prevent him from getting the job. “He is patently and aggressively a partisan extremist, he has difficulty with the truth and consorts with fringe, extremist, and conspiracy theorists,” said John Sipher, a former member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service.

Ratcliffe also said he believes President Donald Trump has accurately conveyed the severity of the virus, in response to a line of questioning from Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also raised concerns over the current state of the ODNI, which was initially established in 2004 to coordinate work across the various agencies in the intelligence community. In the past year, senior ODNI officials were either sacked or forced to step down from their posts in the wake of the impeachment saga or for providing intelligence assessments that undercut the president’s own claims. Among those removed from their posts were Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon, acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, acting Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Russ Travers, and Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Michael Atkinson.

“What we’ve seen over the last year has been especially dangerous: the systematic firing of anyone at the ODNI who has had the temerity to speak truth to power,” Warner told Ratcliffe during the hearing. “Some have suggested that your main qualification for confirmation to this post is that you are not Ambassador Grenell,” he added. “But frankly, that’s not enough.”

WOW !

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/05/tr ... tness-dni/

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Twitter claims 'no evidence' of mail-in voter fraud despite numerous convictions since 2016

Around three dozen criminal convictions for absentee ballot fraud over past four years tallied in Heritage Foundation database.

Twitter this week slapped a warning label on some of Donald Trump's tweets for the first time, cautioning users that the president's "series of claims about potential voter fraud" were "unsubstantiated," citing "CNN, Washington Post and others" for authority. "Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud," Twitter declared.

In an accompanying "What you need to know" list, the social media giant added that "fact checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud."

In fact, there have been numerous cases of mail-in voter fraud scattered widely across the country over the past four years, evidence that the absentee ballot system is open to at least some voter manipulation, even as many experts and pundits continue to insist otherwise.

According to data compiled by the Heritage Foundation, there have been around three dozen criminal convictions for absentee ballot fraud over the past four years, and those cases are but a small subset of over 200 convictions for various types of voter fraud the conservative organization says have occurred since 2016.

In one case from 2016, Indiana police officer Lowell Colen was convicted of absentee ballot fraud in an attempt to help his father win a city council election. Colen eventually pled guilty to four felony counts of voter fraud, with prosecutors claiming he filled out false registrations and forged numerous signatures.

In 2018, authorities arrested Florida man Bret Warren after they determined he had stolen five absentee ballots and fraudulently voted with them. Warren eventually pled no contest to two charges of false swearing in connection with voting.

Last year, former Gordon, Alabama mayor Elbert Melton was convicted of absentee ballot fraud in a mayoral race he won by just 16 votes.

In 2018, New Mexico authorities indicted Laura Seeds on 13 counts of voter fraud related to her husband's 2016 mayoral race. Seeds was eventually convicted in part for illegally possessing two absentee voter ballots; her husband Robert won the race by two votes.

Thousands of deceased registrants, double registrations

Absentee ballot fraud is just one method of exploiting flaws in the system to perpetrate voting fraud. In some cases, for instance, dead voters have been found to have cast votes in numerous elections, as a local CBS report found in Colorado several years ago. The same phenomenon was discovered in Chicago as well.

The potential for posthumous voter fraud may be more acute in some states than others. The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a voting watchdog group, sent a notification letter to New Jersey's Division of Elections this week informing the state that it had found a total of nearly 12,000 "deceased individuals with an active registration in the State of New Jersey." Roughly half of those, the foundation said, had died eight or more years ago.

Media reports have revealed that numerous deceased residents of New Jersey have in the past received vote-by-mail notices.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation also told New Jersey it found "830 potentially duplicated registrations across state lines with apparent voting credits assigned by election officials in each state for the 2018 General Election." The foundation recently sent similar letters to Virginia and New Mexico.

Cash-for-ballot fraud, 'joke' tampering

Recently, some voter fraud cases have made headlines. Last week, a Democratic party official in Philadelphia pled guilty to a voter-fraud-for-cash scheme there.

Domenick DeMuro, a Democratic ward chairman in that city, admitted that he had "fraudulently stuffed the ballot box by literally standing in a voting booth and voting over and over, as fast as he could, while he thought the coast was clear," the Philadelphia U.S. Attorney's Office said.

DeMuro allegedly had a network of clients who paid him significant sums of money to rig elections.

A mail carrier in Pendleton County, West Virginia, meanwhile, recently admitted to investigators that he altered mail-in voting ballot documents. The U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of West Virginia said in a press release yesterday that it was charging Thomas Cooper, a worker with the U.S. Postal Service, with "attempted election fraud."

An affidavit supplied by that office to Just the News states that last month the Pendleton County Clerk received several absentee mail-in ballot requests "in which the voter’s party-ballot request appeared to have been altered by use of a black-ink pen." On five of the requests, "it appeared that the voters ballot choice was changed from Democrat to Republican

West Virginia Attorney General Investigator Bennie Cogar was assigned to investigate the case, he said in the affidavit, leading both Cogar and U.S. Postal Inspector Todd Phillips to Tommy Cooper, a mail carrier for Pendleton County. "During the interview, Cooper said that 'yes,' he changed the requests that had been placed in the mail," the affidavit states.

When asked by Phillips if he was "just being silly" in altering the ballots, Cooper responded: "“Yeah ... as a joke ... don't even know them."

"Had Cooper's conduct not been detected, it would have caused the Clerk to give Republican ballots to 5 Democrat voters — skewing the primary election by 5 votes and thereby defrauding all West Virginian’s [sic] of a fair election," the affidavit states.

Former Eatonville mayor found guilty of voting fraud, election violations

By Ryan Gillespie Orlando Sentinel | May 19, 2017



A jury on Friday night convicted former Eatonville Mayor Anthony Grant of a felony voting-fraud charge, as well as a felony election violation and misdemeanor absentee-voting violation.

After the verdict was read, Grant spoke quietly with his brother and other family members gathered in the courtroom. A few minutes later, he was placed in handcuffs and taken to the Orange County Jail.

Grant was found not guilty of two other charges in the trial involving him and two former campaign aides, Mia Nowells and James Randolph.

Jurors determined Nowells was guilty of coercing a voter to select Grant, but not guilty of the other three charges she faced. Randolph was found not guilty as well.

Leaving the courthouse late Friday, Grant's family said the conviction surprised them because they said prosecutors didn't have evidence.

"We're still hopeful," said a woman who described herself as Grant's niece. "We were very surprised because they had no evidence. …It was a witch hunt."

Another niece chimed in: "It ain't over until God says it's over."

The attorneys for Grant and Nowells declined to speak with reporters.

"We are pleased with the jury's verdict. These cases are important to maintaining the community's trust in our voting process," said Eryka Washington, a spokeswoman for the State Attorney's Office.

Grant has been a major part of Eatonville politics for about two decades, serving as mayor of the small town from 1994 to 2009.

He ran for the seat again in 2015 against Bruce Mount, and that's when trouble arose, prosecutors say. Grant won the election despite receiving 15 fewer votes at the polls because he trounced Mount in absentee votes, receiving 196 to Mount's 69.

Jurors began deliberations about 1 p.m. Friday, and the verdict was read a few minutes before 9 p.m.

They concluded the longtime elected official should have known that Mildred McKnight wasn't an Eatonville resident when he showed up at her Rosemont apartment to bring a form to request an absentee ballot.

McKnight testified this week that "Rosemont is my home," and prosecutor Richard Wallsh stressed that comment to jurors. Wallsh showed jurors a lease she signed for the apartment in 2011, but the defense claimed she had voted in four elections in Eatonville since then.

Grant took the stand Thursday and said he never asked McKnight where she lived. Prosecutors alleged it was because he didn't want to know the answer.

"Mr. Grant ran this election to win. … He wanted everyone's votes," Wallsh said in his closing statement. "I can't think of a more clear example of willful blindness."

Jurors also convicted Grant of coercing Danielle Jones into voting for him.

Jones testified this week that she intended to "Christmas tree" her ballot. She said she wanted to vote for Grant but didn't want to vote for the entire team he campaigned with.

The former mayor was also found guilty of accepting a pecuniary benefit for possessing more than two absentee ballots. The benefit, prosecutors said, was becoming mayor.

The charge Nowells was convicted of was for influencing Latoya Jackson to vote for Grant.

After the election, Grant's opponent Mount was concerned about the number of absentee votes and filed a lawsuit seeking a new election. It was tossed out on a technicality.

However, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement launched an investigation of its own into Grant's victory.

Grant was arrested on the charges last year and was suspended from his post by the governor the next day.

A grand jury formally charged Grant, Nowells and Randolph with various elections and absentee-ballot violations last year, according to a 25-count indictment.

The offenses were pared down this week, with prosecutors declining to pursue several and Orange-Osceola Circuit Judge Keith Carsten tossing out several more Thursday.

It's not clear how much jail time Grant could face. He will likely remain in custody until his sentencing, and a date for that hasn't been set.

10 Oregon voters plead guilty to voter fraud in 2016 presidential election

Updated Apr 29, 2019

SALEM – Ten people in Oregon have been convicted so far in voter fraud cases stemming from the 2016 election.

The convictions represent a tiny fraction of the 2,051,448 votes cast in the election, in which Oregon voters elected Democratic Gov. Kate Brown and chose Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump for president.

The Oregon Department of Justice started pursuing the cases after the Oregon Secretary of State’s office forwarded 56 cases of possible voter fraud in September 2017.

The 10 convictions represent a broad spectrum of age, party affiliation and geography. Those convicted include four Democrats, one Republican, one Libertarian and four people not affiliated with a political party.

Most of the convictions involved people who cast a ballot in two different states. Many of the cases initially involved felony charges, but all were eventually reduced to a violation.

None resulted in jail time. The maximum penalty was $1,000 and 10 hours of community service for 45-year-old Michael Cruz of Portland.

On the low end, a judge waived a proposed $440 fine on 40-year-old Jeremy Robbins, also of Portland. Prosecutors said Robbins cast a ballot in both Oregon and Washington.

“At the time of the election, (Robbins) was suffering from kidney infections which impacted his cognition,” said Oregon Department of Justice spokeswoman Kristina Edmunson. “He does not remember voting two ballots, but acknowledges that he did and is extremely remorseful.”

The most recent conviction was of Betty Clark of Haines, Oregon. Clark was 76 at the time of the election.

Her attorney, Martin Leuenberger of Baker City, said Clark had been temporarily living in Vancouver, Washington in order to care for her elderly father. While there, she received a ballot in the mail for the upcoming election, filled it out, and returned it.

Around that time, her father passed away. Clark and her husband moved back to their rural Baker County home, where there was an Oregon ballot awaiting her. “She forgot about the other one,” said Leuenberger. “It was an innocent mistake. There was no criminal intent whatsoever.”

Originally, Clark was charged with voting in two states, which is a felony. In an agreement with prosecutors, that charge was dropped and Clark pleaded guilty in late March to a lesser charge of “voting when not entitled.” It was treated as a violation on par with a speeding ticket, and Clark was ordered to pay $440. She did not appear in court.

Leuenberger said the reduced charge shows the lack of malicious motives on the part of his client. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “What she did was wrong, but it was a mistake. She’s very embarrassed.”

“She was under a lot of stress at the time because of the move and the loss of her father,” said Leuenberger, who said he’s known the family for years.

Edmunson said that sort of reduced charge is not unusual. “Generally, as long as the voter has no criminal history and has not voted from two states during the same election before, we offer a violation and fine,” she said.

Elections chief: More than 50 may have voted illegally in Oregon

Clark was one of four retirement-age Oregonians among the 10 convicted.

The youngest was Katie Meyer of Medford. Edmunson said Meyer was an 18-year-old college student attending school in Colorado at the time of the 2016 election.

“There was a big push on campus to register to vote, which she did,” said Edmunson. “Her parents also mailed her the Oregon General Election ballot, and she received a Colorado ballot. She does not remember filling out both ballots, but acknowledges she must have.”

Edmunson said Meyer has since canceled her Colorado voter registration. She was fined $225.

Not all of the cases involved voting in two different states. Prosecutors said Marjory Gale of Hood River cast her own ballot and that of her daughter, who was away at college.

“There was no other history of multiple voting,” said Edmunson. “Based on the circumstances, we determined that a violation was appropriate.” Gale was fined $750.

Aside from the 10 convictions, the Department of Justice said 14 additional cases have not been resolved. The remainder were referred back to the Oregon Secretary of State’s office for possible civil violations. A spokeswoman for Secretary of State Bev Clarno said the office has not pursued violations for those cases.

Homeless man with lengthy criminal history accused of voter fraud in Fort Worth

By Deanna Boyd and Anna M. Tinsley

November 19, 2018

A 50-year-old homeless man with a lengthy criminal history has been accused of voter fraud in Tarrant County.

Charles Nathan Jackson — who was booked into and then released from the Tarrant County Jail this month — was indicted on a charge of providing false information on a voting application.

This is the latest case of voter fraud filed by the Texas Attorney General’s office in Tarrant County.

It comes after an investigation into an alleged “voter fraud ring” in Fort Worth that led to the indictment of four women: Leticia Sanchez, Leticia Sanchez Tepichin, Maria Solis and Laura Parra.

There is no indication that Jackson’s case is related to the women’s case. The Attorney General’s office declined to comment on the cases.

Jackson’s alleged victim resides in southeast Fort Worth, whereas the alleged victims in the women’s case are in north Fort Worth.

Jackson’s indictment came on the same day, but wasn’t previously made public because he had not been arrested.

He is accused of providing false information, specifically the signature of a voter, on an application for an early voting ballot in January 2016, according to the indictment.

Jackson had agreed to a jailhouse interview with the Star-Telegram, but was released from jail before the interview was to occur Monday morning. He did not immediately return a message left for him at the homeless shelter in Fort Worth that he listed as his address on jail documents.

His attorney, Gerard Kardonsky, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

Mardene Hickerson, a 75-year-old Fort Worth woman listed as the victim in the case, said she’s never heard of Jackson and doesn’t know why he may have targeted her.

She said two men came to her house last year and showed her a signature, asking if it was hers.

“I told them no,” said Hickerson, a Democrat who said she’s been battling cancer for the past few years. “It shocked me when they came to the door.

“Why do people want to do this?”
Voter fraud

Last month, the four women — Sanchez, her daughter, Tepichin, and Solis and Parra — were arrested after being indicted on more than two dozen felony counts of voter fraud.

State officials allege that the women were paid to target older voters on Fort Worth’s north side to “harvest those ballots for specific candidates in 2016.” The charges address votes cast in the 2016 Democratic primary but also are tied to the 2015 city council election, officials have said.

Court documents also allege that Sanchez engaged in organized criminal activity in collaboration with her three co-defendants; Stuart Clegg, a former executive director for the Tarrant County Democratic Party; and others.

Attorneys representing one of the women have said they believe these charges, announced shortly before the Nov. 6 midterm election, were politically motivated.

The women “are political footballs being kicked back and forth by people who have a vested interest in suppressing minority vote,” said Greg Westfall, who along with Frank Sellers, is representing Tepichin. “They are mothers and grandmothers. They are active in the community.
Duration 1:09
Attorneys for voter fraud suspect speak out
Attorneys for a woman accused along with her mother of taking part in a voter fraud ring that targeted the elderly in north Fort Worth say the women are "political footballs" being kicked around by those who was to suppress minority votes. By Deanna Boyd | Anna M. Tinsley

“They are being used by people who want to justify voter ID,” he said. “At the end of the day, there’s not going to be any fraud in this deal.”

In Jackson’s case, because he has two previous state-jail felony convictions for possession of a controlled substance (cocaine) and theft, he is also charged with being a repeat offender in the indictment.

The repeat-offender enhancement could raise Jackson’s maximum punishment for providing false information charge to up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Tarrant County court records show Jackson has more than a dozen misdemeanor and felony convictions dating back to 1998, including assault, theft, possession of a controlled substance and criminal trespassing.
Statewide cases

A review of voter fraud cases handled by the Texas Attorney Generals Office shows that there have been 453 counts or offenses prosecuted statewide since 2005.

In many cases, suspects were charged with multiple counts of voter fraud-related crimes.

Only one of those — the case of Rosa Maria Ortega, the mother of four sentenced by a Fort Worth judge to eight years behind bars for illegally voting in 2012 and 2014 — was local, Attorney General records show.

Starr County saw the most election violation cases prosecuted by the state, with 18. Most of those cases were related to the primary or primary runoff elections in 2016.

The next highest number of cases — 10 each — was found in Hidalgo, Dallas/Rockwall and Starr/Brooks counties, Attorney General records show.

Currently, there are 59 cases of election fraud violations being prosecuted by the Attorney General’s office.

Thirty of those charges are tied to five people in Tarrant County, state records show.

The four Fort Worth women — Sanchez, Tepichin, Solis and Parra — were indicted on dozens of felony counts of voter fraud related to actions taken during the 2016 Democratic Primary election.

The other local case involves Jackson, who was charged with making a false statement on an application during the 2016 Democratic Primary.

Other pending cases are in Bexar, Hidalgo, Jefferson, Chambers, Nueces and San Patricio counties, state records show.

West Virginia mail carrier charged with attempted absentee ballot application fraud

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WHSV) — Days after West Virginia's secretary of state announced that his office was investigating an absentee ballot fraud scheme connected to the state's mass effort to send absentee ballot applications to all registered voters, a Pendleton County mail carrier is charged with attempted election fraud.
Baskets of absentee ballots in a county clerk's office about to be sent to West Virginians

The Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that 47-year-old Thomas Cooper, a mail carrier for Pendleton County, has been charged with attempted election fraud.

According to U.S. Attorney Bill Powell, Cooper, from Dry Fork, W.Va., held a U.S. Postal Service contract to deliver mail in Pendleton County.

The criminal complaint against Cooper alleges that the Pendleton County clerk received eight “2020 Primary Election COVID-19 Mail-In Absentee Request" forms to the Pendleton County Courthouse in April that appeared to have had the voters' party-ballot requests altered.

Elise White, Pendleton County Clerk, said they started to become concerned during a necessary process they've been doing for years when receiving absentee requests.

"When we receive an application, we compare it to our voter registration system," White said. "We verify that they are registered to vote and we verify the address."

She said they also verify the voter's party affiliation with what they checked on their request form. White said when the forms did not match with the voter's affiliated party, they set the voter's name aside.

She said they gave each person a call just in case they made a mistake, but that's when she knew something had happened.

"When we called one of the voters, they indicated to us they had not selected the party that was circled," White said. "They had to underline theirs, and then, as we looked closer, we realized they had indeed underlined and it was in different colored ink."

That's when she reported the finding to the West Virginia Secretary of State, which began an investigation.

According to Secretary of State Mac Warner, the altered forms were investigated by the WV Election Fraud Task Force, which is a multi-agency law enforcement effort formed in April as a way to deter potential voter and election fraud with upcoming elections. Investigators responded to the complaint quickly, and Warner said the altered forms were uncovered early and will have no impact on the outcomes of any elections.

“We want everyone to be tuned into the increased opportunities for fraud," said Secretary of State Warner. "Voting absentee makes it easy to vote, but increases opportunities for irregularities and fraud to occur. If you see something, say something.”

As the task force investigated, they confirmed that five ballot requests that had been altered from "Democrat" to Republican."

The complaint against Cooper says he changed an underline that several voters had placed under "Democrat" to a circle around "Republican."

On three other requests, the party was not changed, but the request for an absentee ballot had been altered.

White said they are still looking through all absentee requests to see if any have been altered, but only eight have been found so far.

The Department of Justice says Cooper was responsible for the mail delivery of the three towns from which the tampered requests were mailed: Onego, Riverton, and Franklin, West Virginia.

According to an affidavit, Cooper admitted to altering the requests placed in the mail at the Onega post office.

As for the others, he allegedly told investigators, "I'm not saying no. But if it was on my route, I would take the blame."

"You were just being silly?" the investigator asked.

Cooper allegedly responded, "Yeah... I did it as a joke... I don't even know them."

He's charged with one count of “Attempt to Defraud the Residents of West Virginia of a Fair Election.”

Special Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assisted the WV Election Fraud Task Force in the investigation, as did the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General.

“Manipulating one’s absentee ballot or application is not a laughing matter – it’s a federal offense,” Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said. “We must protect the integrity of the ballot box, and this demonstrates the aggressive action we will take to do so. It is more important now than ever for voters to watch for unexplained or suspicious marks and/or any other irregularity with their ballot. If something looks suspicious, let us know right away.”

West Virginia's effort to send absentee ballot applications to all voters

In the start of April, West Virginia county clerk's offices began an effort to mail absentee ballots to every registered voter in the state ahead of June's primary election for the gubernatorial race.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner announced the plan at the end of March.

Essentially, every voter registered in the state was sent an absentee ballot application to their registered address.

State leaders encouraged all voters to fill out the applications and submit them to their county clerk in order to receive an absentee ballot for the election, and then mark the ballot according to state instructions by election day. And voters responded, with about 18% of West Virginia's registered voters requesting absentee ballots for the June 9 primary election.

In late April, as voters began preparing for the state's elections, Attorney General Morrisey issued an alert to voters to be wary of potential voter fraud schemes, largely connected to the "ability of fraudsters to steal or manipulate absentee ballots now that more people will use a mail-in, absentee ballot due to social distancing measures."

How to report potential election fraud

Warner said an increase in absentee ballots comes with a natural increase in opportunities for fraud.

"Our primary strategy is to deter and prevent election fraud from taking place. I prefer compliance with the law over criminal convictions," Warner said. "But those who try to meddle with our elections will be held accountable. That is certainly the case with the allegations presented today to the U.S. Attorney."

His Investigations Division operates an Election Fraud Tip Line where citizens can call in complaints of possible election fraud and illegal activity 24 hours a day. The anonymous toll-free number is 1-877-FRAUD-WV.

"Even the slightest allegation of fraud can reduce public confidence in the process and the outcome of our election. We won't allow that to happen," said Warner. "Complaints will be investigated and those who commit fraud will be held accountable."

"The Election Fraud Task Force is primed and ready to respond to any allegation of impropriety surrounding the election," Warner said. "If citizens see something that doesn't seem right, please call our tip line at 1-877-FRAUD-WV."

Currently, West Virginians have four ways to vote in the June primaries. This includes being able to vote in person at the polls. County employees say it is still important to vote during the pandemic, no matter what method you choose.

Twitter branded a tweet by the President as false after he claimed absentee voting was ripe for fraud. Citing CNN and the Washington Post as saying there was absolutely no evidence of fraud in vote by mail.

Pretty much all liberal propaganda sources and liberal politicians have been echoing those talking points lately. But it is an absolute lie. I posted the information handed out by the White House a while back citing countless examples. There are just a few more examples in the articles above.

I have absolutely no idea why anybody would listen to the liberal press or politicians at this point. They have been wrong on every major story since Trump hit the scene. And it isn't by accident. They are just flat out lying to the people every single day.