‘Chemtrails’ Kelli Ward And Rep. Mark Finchem Among Six New Subpoenas Issued By January 6 Committee

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CNN reports, House January 6 committee digs into fake elector plot, issuing subpoenas to 6 more people:

The House January 6 committee issued another round of subpoenas Tuesday as congressional investigators dig more deeply into illegitimate electors from key swing states that former President Donald Trump lost, who were put forward to try to justify delaying the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

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The committee issued subpoenas to six individuals, including two members of the Trump campaign and four prominent GOP officials from battleground states, as part of its investigation into the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021.

“The Select Committee is seeking information about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election. We’re seeking records and testimony from former campaign officials and other individuals in various states who we believe have relevant information about the planning and implementation of those plans,” the panel’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said in a statement.

The Trump campaign officials subpoenaed by the committee are Michael Roman, who was in charge of Election Day operations in 2020, and his deputy, Gary Michael Brown. Both “reportedly participated in efforts to promote allegations of fraud in the November 2020 election and encourage state legislators to appoint false ‘alternate’ slates of electors,” according to the committee.

The subpoena list also includes Republican state lawmakers from Pennsylvania and Arizona — Douglas Mastriano and Mark Finchem, respectively — as well as Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, and Laura Cox, former chairwoman of the Michigan GOP.

Last month the committee issued subpoenas for 14 Republicans from seven states who served on bogus slates of Trump electors in 2020 as part of the Trump campaign’s scheme to subvert the Electoral College.

RawStory adds, Jan. 6 Committee subpoenas six new witnesses — including Giuliani ally and Arizona fake audit architect:

Among those called by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol were Trump allies Lara Cox, Douglas Mastriano, Michael Roman and Gary Michael Brown.

Cox was a witness of note because, as the committee explained, she engaged with Rudy Giuliani in the Michigan efforts to recruit phony “alternate” electors.

Others called are Arizona Republican Rep. Mark W. Finchem and former Arizona Republican Sen. Kelli Ward, both of whom were part of the partisan “fraudit” of the Arizona vote, which ultimately found that Joe Biden won the presidency by even more votes than the official tally.

“In the days after the Associated Press and Fox News declared that now-President Biden had won the presidential election in Arizona, you reportedly sent text messages to an Arizona election official in which you said, ‘We need you to stop the counting,’ asked the official to contact a lawyer representing the Trump campaign, and said, ‘I know you don’t want to be remembered as the guy who led the charge to certify a fraudulent election,'” the document says.

January 6 Committee letter to “Chemtrails” Kelli Ward.

UPDATE: MSNBC legal analyst Neal Katyal joins Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss how the Jan. 6 Committee’s investigation into Trump’s fake electors scheme could potentially reveal a “criminal conspiracy going all the way up into the White House.” “It looks like finally Republicans found some voting fraud.”  “I think there’s something more … it’s more than criminal, it’s a threat to the Republic. What these subpoenas outline is basically a soft coup, not with arms, but with a kind of trappings of legalisms, and In some ways this ‘velvet coup’ is even worse because it’s not overt in the same way.”





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1 thought on “‘Chemtrails’ Kelli Ward And Rep. Mark Finchem Among Six New Subpoenas Issued By January 6 Committee”

  1. Politico reports, “Jan. 6 panel targets key players in false Trump elector strategy”, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/15/jan-6-panel-targets-key-players-in-false-trump-elector-strategy-00009222

    Jan. 6 investigators are targeting two state lawmakers who were instrumental in pushing Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, as they dive deeper on Republican efforts to send false presidential electors to Washington.

    The select committee subpoenaed Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who is running for governor; and Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem, a Trump-endorsed candidate for secretary of state. Both played key roles and earned Trump’s praise for pressing their colleagues to ratify alternate slates of electors in 2020 — which would have thrown out millions of votes in their states.

    [T]he committee is also deepening its investigation of Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward. She and her husband are already fighting a committee subpoena for their phone records, which was issued to Verizon.

    The panel subpoenaed two other officials — Michael Roman and Gary Michael Brown — the director and deputy director, respectively, of Election Day Operations for Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. The panel said it had obtained communications indicating their involvement in a “coordinated strategy” to pressure Republican state legislators in states Trump lost into sending alternate slates of pro-Trump electors to Congress. Investigators also said they had evidence of Roman and Brown potentially directing Trump campaign staffers in the effort.

    Evidence of coordination by the Trump campaign could have significant implications. As Trump’s options for reversing his defeat dwindled, he increasingly focused his efforts on creating a conflict on Jan. 6, when Congress was required to meet to finalize Joe Biden’s election. In the final frantic weeks of his presidency, Trump pushed a plan to have his vice president, Mike Pence — who presided over the Jan. 6 session — reject Biden’s electors in key states. The plan relied on having competing slates of illegitimate pro-Trump electors that Pence could seize on to declare the election results were in dispute.

    It’s unclear if the Trump electors were aware of the campaign’s broader effort to create a Jan. 6-related dispute.

    [The letter from Arizona state Rep. Jake Hoffman, a fake GQP elector from Arizona, to VP Mike Pence demostreates that they were aware.]

    POLITICO reported last month that Michigan and Arizona had turned over copies of alternate certificates of ascertainment — which falsely said Trump won those states in the 2020 election — to the panel along with correspondence between the National Archives and state officials about the documents. The correspondence included emails from a National Archives inspector official that said the office was pursuing a case of potential fraud against a second slate of would-be Trump electors in Arizona who identified themselves as “sovereign citizens.” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco indicated in a CNN interview federal prosecutors were also scrutinizing the issue.

    The committee has asked the witnesses to provide documents by March 1 and appear for a deposition by the second week of March.

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