American Oversight Profile picture
Feb 16, 2022 13 tweets 6 min read Read on X
A failed legal challenge led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton attempted to overturn the 2020 election results by invalidating results from four battleground states won by President Biden. Here’s what we’ve uncovered so far about Paxton’s lawsuit.
Paxton’s suit was thrown out by the Supreme Court within days, but not before it drew support from at least 125 Republican members of the House of Representatives, Trump himself, and the attorneys general of 17 other states.
axios.com/house-republic…
We filed open records requests in Texas and several other states that joined the suit to uncover more information about this authoritarian effort to thwart democracy.
americanoversight.org/investigation/…
Lawyers in the Florida Attorney General’s office called the lawsuit “bats--t insane” and “weird," records we obtained show.

On Dec. 8, Senior Deputy SG Christopher Baum wrote, “Bats–t insane, which is why Kyle [Texas’ solicitor general] is not on it.”
americanoversight.org/lawyers-in-flo…
Deputy AG James Percival asked, “What’s the theory for how one state has standing to allege Bush v. Gore violations against another state[?]”

“Because,” Baum replied.
Documents we previously obtained, reported on by @TPM, show South Carolina’s attorney general strategized with conservative lawyers on Paxton’s lawsuit.
talkingpointsmemo.com/news/sc-ag-str…
The records indicate South Carolina AG Alan Wilson was in touch with Mark Martin, a former North Carolina chief justice and informal adviser to Donald Trump. Martin was reportedly part of the team that planned the lawsuit to overturn the election.
nytimes.com/2021/01/31/us/…
The documents also include communications between Wilson and Don Brown, an author and attorney who claimed to be working with pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell and Martin.
americanoversight.org/document/south…
On Dec. 3, Wilson told an attorney that he was having “constant conversions” with other attorney general offices and said he had received an “updated brief.” This is likely a reference to the Texas lawsuit. SC was one of 17 states to sign on to an amicus brief in support.
Other records we previously uncovered, also reported on by @TPM, show a draft of the lawsuit was circulated to the Louisiana AG’s office before it was filed.
talkingpointsmemo.com/news/louisiana…
The version sent to the Louisiana AG’s office is very similar to the one filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on December 8, 2020.

But this version was intended to be filed by Louisiana and would sue over the results in 6 states instead of 4.
americanoversight.org/document/louis…
We also obtained communications between the attorney general’s office and lawyers who were connected to former President Donald Trump, including Kris Kobach.

In the emails, Kobach pressured Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry’s office about the potential lawsuit.
This lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election was part of the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen through widespread voter fraud. It wasn’t — and we’re investigating those pushing this conspiracy theory. Learn more here:
americanoversight.org/investigation/…

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More from @weareoversight

Sep 9
Records we obtained from Missouri show how state Sen. Mike Moon — a staunchly anti-abortion rights legislator — has sought to subvert the state’s measure related to abortion rights by trying to amend the ballot initiative process.
americanoversight.org/document/recor…
Earlier this year, 380,000 Missourians signed a petition to put an abortion rights constitutional amendment on the ballot. In response, conservatives in the state pushed a bill that would have made it much harder to pass any constitutional amendment via a ballot initiative.
The documents show that Moon’s policy director directly tied Moon’s support for adding a concurrent majority measure to initiative petitions to his desire to defeat the measure. His chief of staff suggested collaborating with an anti-abortion rights group to defeat the amendment.
Read 4 tweets
Sep 5
Floridians will vote in November on a ballot measure that would overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban.

Conservative lawmakers and interest groups have been working to make it harder for the measure and citizen initiatives like it to pass.
americanoversight.org/investigation/…
Republican officials drafted a financial statement to accompany the measure. The statement argues that the measure’s passage would lead to fewer births, which would hurt the state’s growth and revenue over time.
nbcmiami.com/news/local/fin…
The financial statement speculates that the measure’s passage would result in expensive litigation.

Abortion rights groups have filed lawsuits to prevent this language from appearing on the ballot.
Read 5 tweets
Aug 29
LITIGATION UPDATE: We reached a settlement in our lawsuit against Ohio Sec. of State Frank LaRose for records related to the 2023 decision to withdraw Ohio from the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonpartisan voter-roll maintenance tool.
americanoversight.org/american-overs…
ERIC was a non-controversial nonprofit that quietly helped states clean up their voter rolls by securely comparing voter data. A cascade of misinformation coordinated by anti-democratic activists, eventually led several states to withdraw.
Our investigation and the documents obtained as part of it show how election officials defended ERIC behind the scenes while publicly caving to a pressure campaign led by some of the same people who sought to keep former President Trump in power in 2020.
americanoversight.org/the-campaign-t…
Read 5 tweets
Jul 30
NEW: Today, the Georgia State Election Board withdrew rules it approved in a recent illegal meeting, which was held without proper notice of a quorum. We’d sued the Board for violating the state’s Open Meetings Act.
americanoversight.org/georgia-electi…
We’re pleased that our lawsuit, along with pressure from partner organizations on the ground in Georgia, has prompted the Board to withdraw the illegally approved rules from its sham July 12 meeting.
The board also announced plans to reconsider the rules at its Aug. 6 meeting. We remain deeply concerned by the Board’s decision to promptly revisit these problematic measures that serve to intimidate election workers and grant partisan advantage to preferred candidates.
Read 5 tweets
Jul 19
NEW: We sued the Georgia State Election Board for violating the state’s Open Meetings Act after it held a meeting on July 12 — in which it pushed forward controversial new election rules — without legally required public notice or a quorum.
americanoversight.org/american-overs…
Georgia’s Open Meetings Act and others like it are vital to a functioning democracy by helping ensure official actions are conducted in full view of the public. Attempts to maneuver around it to advance changes to Georgia’s election rules are a clear violation of this law.
Any proposals voted upon during this meeting are null and void, and we ask the court to prevent them from moving ahead with the proposed rules and to declare their actions at last week’s meeting invalid.
Read 5 tweets
Apr 25
We obtained emails between top Trump administration DHS officials and Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of the Supreme Court justice.

The emails show Thomas sharing election conspiracies in the days before the 2020 election.
americanoversight.org/document/dhs-c…
Screenshot of an email sent by Ginni Thomas. In part, the email reads: "[Redacted] asked me for links we have all been sharing about the coming insurrection, chaos, and violence. It is not random. It appears very organized if you have the eyes to see and read and hear."
On Oct. 28, 2020 — less than a week before the election — Ginni Thomas sent more than a dozen links to a Google Group called “20024.” “[Redacted] asked me for links we have all been sharing about the coming insurrection, chaos, and violence,” she wrote. Screenshot of an email sent by Ginni Thomas.
“It is not random. It appears very organized if you have the eyes to see and read and hear,” she continued. Thomas asked recipients to add more links and to organize the articles.

An individual (name redacted) created a Google document that organized the various links. Screenshot of an email.
Read 5 tweets

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