The Daily Beast reports, New Video Shows Trump’s Pick to Run AZ Elections Accusing Pence of ‘Coup’:
Mark Finchem, the Republican nominee for secretary of state in Arizona, has enthusiastically championed a number of conspiracy theories—none more so than the conspiracy of a stolen 2020 election, which is the animating force behind his campaign to run Arizona’s elections.
But in a recent campaign speech, Finchem pushed the envelope, even by his own standards.
Just days before he won the August primary, Finchem was caught on tape blaming former Vice President Mike Pence for everything from orchestrating a “coup” to unseat Donald Trump after Jan. 6, to allegedly spying on the Trump campaign in 2016, to scheming to “steal” the presidency in 2024.
Finchem delivered the incendiary remarks on July 27 during a meeting of the far-right group United Patriots in Mesa. Video showing a portion of Finchem’s speech was quietly posted on YouTube on Monday and had racked up just 16 views as of Wednesday morning.
Wearing a cowboy hat and a red shirt that said “#ProveIt”—a reference to his demand that Maricopa County “prove” that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen—Finchem unspooled to a friendly crowd his unfounded allegations of a grand conspiracy involving the former vice president and a number of other supposedly nefarious actors.
First came the theory that Pence “seized power over an existing president”—Trump—following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Finchem claimed he had usurped the authority to give orders to the Department of Defense and Department of Justice.
“How long has he been ordering those folks around?” Finchem said. “Apparently from January 6 to January 20. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a coup.”
No, you traitorous MAGA/QAnon insurrectionist, THIS is a coup d’état.
Then, Finchem claimed “it is now believed” that Pence was responsible for any federal law enforcement surveillance of Trump’s campaign in 2016, amid concerns about his team’s contact with Russian officials.
Trump’s own VP nominee was spying on him? Not Hillary Clinton and the Democrats?
Although he did not elaborate on who believes this or why, Finchem linked the spying allegation to former Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and former Speaker Paul Ryan, who he said “foisted Pence into the VP position to represent the interests of the establishment.”
Finally, Finchem accused Pence of a conspiracy to steal the 2024 nomination for president, and the presidency, by endorsing supporters of his for governors’ offices in key states. This year, Pence endorsed Gov. Brian Kemp, who refused Trump’s calls to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, as well as Karin Taylor Robson, who ran for governor in Arizona against Kari Lake, a staunch election denier herself.
Rattling off the number of electoral votes in each state where Pence endorsed a governor candidate, Finchem charged that Pence had “his people placed to steal 2024,” even though governors—famously—have no legal power to change the election results or the party nominating process.
Finchem returned to Ryan, noting he was on the board of Fox News—which Finchem pronounced first as “Faux News,” a reflection of the MAGA base’s increasing distaste and distrust of the right-wing media giant.
Bizarrely, Finchem noted the planned site of the 2024 GOP convention—in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin—to somehow drive home the nefarious extent of the former Speaker’s plot to install Pence as president.
“Could it be that this is the coverup of the coup that happened in the first place?” Finchem said. “Especially since the RNC committee is going to be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin? Ladies and gentlemen, this is an indictment against the individuals who betrayed a president at the very moment they should have stood beside him.”
The Finchem campaign did not respond to a request for comment and to supply more information backing up his claims. A spokesperson for Pence did not respond to a request for comment.
While Pence has teased potential plans to run for president in 2024, public polls routinely show he has dramatically less GOP support than his former boss, Trump, or MAGA figures like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. And of the Pence-endorsed candidates Finchem warned about, only Kemp ended up winning their primary.
Still, conspiracies about an all-powerful Pence have seized the right-wing fever swamps ever since the former veep became MAGA persona non grata, thanks to his refusal to illegally derail the process of certifying the 2020 election results.
Increasingly, these kinds of outlandish theories are being propagated not just by rank-and-file Trump supporters but by aspirants for powerful offices in key states, like Finchem.
A state legislator who is a member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, Finchem has made his campaign for Arizona secretary of state a vehicle to relitigate debunked claims of election fraud.
In August, Finchem comfortably won a crowded primary. He is now competing against Democrat Adrian Fontes for the chance to oversee elections—including the 2024 presidential contest—in Arizona, which has become one of the nation’s premier battleground states.
If he loses in November, Finchem has already promised not to concede.
Will he call on his Oath Keepers domestic terrrorist friends to intimidate the Maricopa County Elections Department, or just his MAGA/QAnon thugs as he did in 2020? Pro-Donald Trump crowd gathers outside Arizona county recorders office where votes are being counted. Will he encourage a coup d’état, as he did on January 6, 2021?
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Bob Brigham reports, “‘DOJ, if you’re listening’: MAGA conspiracy to commit election fraud laid out on MSNBC”, https://www.rawstory.com/gop-secretary-state-deniers/
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace hoped officials at the Department of Justice were watching her Wednesday edition of “Deadline: White House” as a NBC News reporter explained a conspiracy among election denying GOP candidates for secretary of state.
Wallace, who was a top White House official in the George W. Bush administration before her journalism career, reported on MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell claiming the FBI seized his phone at a Hardee’s drive-thru and asked him about GOP Colorado elections clerk Tina Peters, who pleaded not guilty to seven felony charges stemming from her acting election conspiracies.
Wallace interviewed NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard about his reporting on election-denying GOP hopefuls.
“These folks are in contact with one another,” Hillyard reported.
“Mike Lindell, Tina Peters, Mark Finchem, who is the secretary of state candidate in Arizona, Jim Marchant, the secretary of state candidate in Nevada, these folks are all in touch,” he reported.
“I talked with Jim Marchant, that candidate, election denier in Nevada and he told me they feel like it’s important to work in conjunction with one another — along with Kristina Karamo in Michigan — to be on the same page about what their next steps are, because they intend to all be in office,” he reported. “There’s a very decent chance that these folks could be there.”
So while tina peters may be on the line of facing DOJ prosecution, we don’t know what happens to Mike Lindell next and we’re two months away from some of these individuals, who are facing the DOJ investigation, potentially being in office at the same time.
“DOJ if you’re listening, Vaughn just laid out a criminal conspiracy to commit election fraud,” Wallace said.