Lede: The audit of the 2020 election results in Arizona's Maricopa County has been called everything from a "sham" to a "fundraising ploy" for Republicans to raise money. And election-security experts are requesting that the Department of Justice monitor it.
But there's serious risk that would come both with the Justice Department jumping in — and with it not doing so.
Perhaps most urgent is the threat of violence akin to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, perpetrated by supporters of President Donald Trump who believed the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
Some officials said this threat alone necessitated DOJ involvement, particularly since Trump continues to tell lies & push conspiracy theories re. 2020. NYT recently reported Trump had told associates he expected the audits would lead to him being reinstated as president by Aug.
While that's a constitutional impossibility, don't tell that to Trump's most ardent supporters.
"Could there be another riot or interaction like they had on January 6? You bet," said Steve Gallardo, the only Democratic official on the board of supervisors in Maricopa County.
"These are the unintended consequences to them continuing to push the big lie. They continue to undermine our democracy, and they continue to discredit the election system in the state of Arizona,” Gallardo added.
Gallardo said that the Justice Department "needs to stand up and come to Arizona, and intervene and put an end to this," saying: "If our top law-enforcement officers are not willing to do it, then I believe the Department of Justice needs to do it."
The state's Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, has become the linchpin for President Joe Biden's agenda, and the administration is wooing the 67-year old lawmaker whose opinions matter now more than ever given the current power dynamics on Capitol Hill.
Favorable appointments, grants, & attention are going his state's way, even as progressives fume over Manchin's rejection of an admin-backed voting rights plan & his long-stated opposition to removing the Senate filibuster that forces 60 votes to get most stuff done in DC.
The headaches have come from recent developments in long-running court fights, the wave of prosecutions stemming from the January 6th riot at the US Capitol, and a steady trickle of new revelations about the Trump era.
"What's happening to them is they keep bumping into this tension between all these really questionable decisions made in the Trump administration & the institutional prerogative of protecting the Justice Department going forward." - Neil Eggleston, ex-Obama White House counsel.
NEW: President Biden regularly convenes his crew of senior advisors in huddles for "small strategy group" discussions. It's an exclusive White House invite reserved for the president's inner circle. By @ngaudiano & @rbravender@thisisinsider ($) businessinsider.com/joe-biden-top-…
The roster includes mostly longtime Biden consiglieres, but also a few relative newcomers to BidenWorld who have gained clout with the president.
They represent a tiny fraction of the more than 300 staffers who work for the Executive Office of the President.
It's a crew that's tight-knit but also tight-lipped about relationships inside BidenWorld. It's a stark contrast to TrumpWorld, where reports of staff's internal bickering and power struggles regularly spilled into public view.
NEW: Donald Trump's hot vax summer is officially lit.
Since decamping to New Jersey from his Mar-a-Lago resort, the former president is filling his days with endless rounds of golf & emailed tirades against enemies. ($) @thisisinsider by @tomlobianco
Trump is likewise in entertaining mode, hosting a fundraiser for his super PAC last weekend at his Bedminster club. He also may be plotting a '24 comeback: issuing candidate endorsements, making quick NYC side trips, & planning campaign-style rallies over the coming month.
Nothing, it seems, will prevent Trump from doing Trump during his COVID-carefree summer: not even the massive legal storm clouds gathering on the horizon of Trump's gilded Garden State stomping grounds, nor the prosecutorial heat emanating from New York.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson is unsealing and releasing documents from the Paul Manafort case this AM. Here's one doc she just released with fewer black boxes than when it first came out back in December 2018.
Here's a side-by-side of the two versions and what was previously redacted re. Manafort's lies about his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik:
New version on left released today; old version on right released back in Dec 2018:
Among the many exclusive nuggets in this story is a 7+ minute video of @mtgreenee speaking to her constituents at the 14th District Republican Convention in Dalton on May 15. She recounts her run-in a few days earlier with @aoc - who she dubs "Alexandria Ocrazyo-Cortez."
Greene on the AOC incident: "She stopped, turned, & threw her hands in the air, & then she kept going. Well the press that was present said that I was screaming at her & that I had behavior that's not becoming of a member of Congress."