Sidney Powell Implicates Barbara Ledeen in Her Effort to Undermine Democracy
Yesterday, GA’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger used various means to push back on the Republicans who were trying to cheat to win. In addition to a genuinely useful thread from Erick Erickson debunking one after another conspiracy theory about GA’s vote, he gave an interview to the WaPo detailing how his Republican colleagues have been pressuring him.
He called Doug Collins (who, remember, campaigned with all the Trump felons) a liar.
The normally mild-mannered Raffensperger saved his harshest language for Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.), who is leading the president’s efforts in Georgia and whom Raffensperger called a “liar” and a “charlatan.”
Collins has questioned Raffensperger’s handling of the vote and accused him of capitulating to Democrats by not backing allegations of voter fraud more strongly.
[snip]
“I’m an engineer. We look at numbers. We look at hard data,” Raffensperger said. “I can’t help it that a failed candidate like Collins is running around lying to everyone. He’s a liar.”
More alarmingly, Raffensperger described Lindsey Graham suggesting he should throw out entire counties of legally cast votes.
Raffensperger also said he spoke on Friday to Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has echoed Trump’s unfounded claims about voting irregularities.
In their conversation, Graham questioned Raffensperger about the state’s signature-matching law and whether political bias could have prompted poll workers to accept ballots with nonmatching signatures, according to Raffensperger. Graham also asked whether Raffensperger had the power to toss all mail ballots in counties found to have higher rates of nonmatching signatures, Raffensperger said.
Raffensperger said he was stunned that Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to toss legally cast ballots. Absent court intervention, Raffensperger doesn’t have the power to do what Graham suggested because counties administer elections in Georgia.
“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” Raffensperger said.
As a number of people have pointed out, it’s a crime under GA law to solicit election fraud.
Meanwhile, Sidney Powell continues her effort to drum up support for undermining democracy. In a tweet this morning, she included Lindsey Graham staffer Barbara Ledeen among her co-conspirators.
In addition to working with Mike Flynn to try to reach out to hostile foreign governments in hopes they had hacked Hillary’s emails, Ledeen’s spouse, Michael, was the first person Flynn called when he was trying to figure out how to undermine sanctions on Russia.
Ledeen is, in spite of those glaring conflicts, the key staffer behind Lindsey’s efforts to undermine the Russian investigation. That suggests she’s also a key staffer behind Lindsey’s decision to ignore how DOJ has altered documents in Bill Barr’s effort to undermine the prosecution of Powell’s staffer.
I honestly believe that Lindsey does all this because his mind has rotted and people like Ledeen have told him so many lies he believes it. But now he’s entering a potentially criminal racket.
TYPO
it’s a crime under GA lie to solicit election fraud.
law
While Graham apparently is suggesting something rotten, his actual language reads like a question as to whether the GA AG the legal authority to do this. I’m not a lawyer but I believe it nothing will come of this.
What a load of crap. While nothing “may” come of it, that does not mean it should not.
Not so sure nothing will come of this, because apparently Raffensperger had witnesses. However it will not include expulsion from the Senate since that takes 2/3 and the GOP protects their own. However, I can’t see how the Ds do not make hay of Graham’s admission for GOTV purposes. And, Biden’s DOJ needs to investigate in spite of the howls of politics to come from GOP hypocrites.
Let’s also remember the smokescreen rule, because DJT is trying to put someone who is a gold standard libertarian with Ds in power and a loose money lady when Rs are in power. It’s what the GOP does, not what they say that is important.
The Ledeens will become more collateral damage due to the campaign to prop DJT up in power. Let’s see how long it takes for them to reach “coffee boy” status.
I’d prefer to wait until we get more reporting to form an opinion (now that Graham is saying he also contacted other states, shoes are still dropping), but would federal law play in here?
Assuming he didn’t get on an airplane to ask a question, there are still state lines between wherever he is and Georgia …
Pray federal law doesn’t come into it because Biden will just cover it up in the name of looking forward. If it stays at the state level maybe some things happens.
This is bullshit. It may, or may not, be so; but you have no idea.
I wonder if throwing out all the votes of black voters in SC is how Graham continues to return to Washington.
GA only gets Biden back to 290 electoral votes, so it seems that Lindsey’s gambit doesn’t have a real purpose unless those tossed ballots get Perdue back into the Senate without a runoff. Control of the Senate is the real GOP goal now as a firewall.
I’m hoping more than a few SC voters realize how their bigotry was repaid here, but I doubt they care.
Hello? Of course they care: they like it. You’re talking about the Birthplace of the Confederacy.
The Senate…and more RWNJ on the COURTS.
… and something that Charles Koch is really interested in:
https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1327334704564097028
Biden is at 306, and that isn’t going to change.
Agree and I hope no legislature votes to give Trump more than 232. Lots of media on how that is difficult to succeed. Anderson at lawfareblog says they have until Dec 8th. It’s not 2000 where they just needed a legislature to stop the recount. The PA GOP senate leaders just formed a 3 person committee on the election. Watch what they do, not what they said.
https://twitter.com/PASenateGOP/status/1326894407476535296
Lindsey’s effort, like most of the GOP’s, is not meant to change the outcome of the presidential race so much as to cater to Trump, and through him, his base, which will survive his tenure. But that would include effecting the two Georgia Senate races, which could determine which party runs the Senate.
As I understand it, the only recount is the presidential. Floyd County has found 2000 or so uncounted ballots that will now be counted. I’m surprised there aren’t more. I’ve been cautious on this Republicans eat their own narrative concerning Purdue Loeffler Colins Graham et al who are going after their Secretary of State Raffensperger. It’s one of those things where it all sounds too good to be true. The recount will be done by COB Wednesday, I will be extremely interested in seeing that the Biden lead holds up. Also agree with Joel below, all you have to do is look at the primary to see where the problems were.
Just to be clear, Brad Raffensperger is scum. But there is some enjoyable irony here: he did every voter suppression thing right wing nuts wanted—picture IDs, phony investigations, purges, etc.—and they still turned on him. It’s small of me, but I’m enjoying this.
The crazier thing still is they’re turning on Kemp, too.
Which is truly bonkers.
It’s one thing to be a malignant narcissist and another thing to also be suffering from progressive dementia. The Republicans might want to rethink letting Donald remain in the White House–he could very well take the party down with him.
A long ago (IMO) it ceased to matter for Republicans who is under attack – just that there is a designated bad person to attack. It doesn’t need to make the vaguest sense – you’re applying a criteria that Republicans have been taught for generations to disparage. Truth and reality are for cucks that can’t lie well enough to win.
If you’re a member it works well until everything gets too transactional – Brad was useful to them to do what they wanted to rig the election, and now he’s useful as a distraction so their incompetence in failing to take advantage of that sufficiently well isn’t discovered.
Doug Collins spent a lot of time campaigning in uniform, conduct explicitly prohibited by the UCMJ. As a sitting congresscritter, that’s something Collins would know by heart, which means he’s more than happy to violate the law if he thinks he will get an advantage from it.
BTW, still waiting for the Air Force to pursue that knowing serial violation. But it was pretty lackadaisical about enforcement of that provision during Bush II, when it was violated by fundamentalist and hard right senior officers.
Don’t look to the Air Force brass to do anything, let’s take a look at what the Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has found. USAF Evangelicals of the frothy kind have been proselytizing on Government time for a long time and the MRFF busts them for it continually. IIRC, one of the worst areas is the USAFA in Colorado Springs, where fundamentalist chaplains are overwhelmingly present (IIRC something like 11 out of 15) and not a bit shy about pushing their limits. The other branches have their issues as well, but the Air Force is the worst.
So, this means that Collins is “one of them” and the Air Force will have to be cornered into doing the right thing.
When I first read about Graham’s gambit, my first thought was: what in hell is a senator from South Carolina even doing talking to the Secretary of State of Georgia about their election?
Is that not the same Lindsey Graham who whined about “outsiders” interfering in “his” election in South Carolina? I am pretty sure that those outsiders did not try to prevent votes from being counted. Now, echoing Trump yet again, he is shocked that Raffensberger felt pressure. He thought it was a “good call.” It is not the lack of ethics that surprises me, but the brazen disrespect for democracy that scares me.
At least Lindsay didn’t call it a “perfect” call. He must have been pretty flustered to have missed that opportunity.
“…Lindsey does all this because his mind is rotted….”
Please expand.
No. What part of this do you not understand?
Thank you for declining to respond to a request not directed to you. Perfectly appropriate.
That you find this simple ask for clarification somehow confounding is unfortunate, but on reflection I don’t see a way to be clearer about my lack of clear understanding. What is meant by “…mind is rotted…”? No hidden agenda, just curious about – to my eye – an odd turn of phrase.
I do not give a damn whether you directed it at me or not. Nobody here owes you squat.
There are none so blind as those who yadayadayada.
At least one news agency is reporting that there were other witnesses on the call and that they can corroborate what the GA Secretary of State asserts. The plot thickens.
It could be ‘the stuff of legends’, GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigations) finds a judge high up enough in the food chain to issue an arrest warrant, which South Carolina declines to extradite Senator Graham, while Washington D.C. indicates it is willing to honor the request. So various bounty hunters descend on the state and the district, trying to snatch him out of his private security’s grasp. The warrant is forwarded to Interpol, just because. The upshot is that since the Senate does not allow remote voting, there is one less Republican vote in Congress. Of course all of this plays out on some back cable channel reality tv show.
Hmm, nah probably not.
I really like that plot though…and ready for the good guys to start prevailing.
According to the WSJ, there were TWO CALLS and WITNESSES on the second.
https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1328735419756929026
11:23 AM · Nov 17, 2020
Via Laura Rozen:
https://twitter.com/KellieMeyerNews/status/1328742382666457098
11:50 AM · Nov 17, 2020
By the pricking of his thumbs … Senator Graham may have sealed his own cause for investigation of SC ballot tabulations.
Crackers have their place: Raffensberger is definitely a rye krisp ~ high in healthful fiber; while Lindsey, like his compatriot Jeff Sessions, is solid oyster cracker ~ pure gluten.
Sidney Powell is placed in the Dominion, Scytl, Frankfurt raid, deep state, Haspel, China, Venezuela, Soros, Pelosi, FBI, CIA, Vulcan, ‘kraken,’ voter fraud circus unfolding on the frothy far right, right now.
Ha! As the researchers here already know!
I think you should use this information to squeeze a cool million from that Lt. Governor of Texas who offered that sum for evidence of voter fraud.
Michael Leeden. The guy who resigned from the NSA back in the Reagan admin, to avoid prosecution for giving classified info to Israelis?
Does it contravene emptywheel code of conduct to call Sidney Powell a dozy twat? Asking for a friend.
Not particularly keen on epithets which are misogynist since Powell’s offensiveness has nothing to do with her gender identity. But your point is taken.
I wish that these sorts of standard-free sort of activists had been working for the Democrats in 2000, when the Republicans stole that election. Why is it that Will Rogers statement about the Democrats never goes out of fashion?