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Email shows fake Trump electors in Georgia told to conduct plan in 'secrecy'

A Trump campaign staffer instructed a group of Republicans in Georgia who were planning to cast Electoral College votes for former President Trump to conduct the plan in “complete secrecy,” according to an email obtained by media outlets.

The Washington Post and CNN reported Monday evening that the email, written by Trump campaign Georgia operations director Robert Sinners, instructed the fake electors to tell security at the state capitol that they had appointments with two state senators.

“I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” Sinners wrote.

“Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion,” Sinners wrote.

The Post reported that the email was sent on Dec. 13, 2020 and instructed the electors not to “mention anything to do with Presidential Electors or speak to the media.”

The Hill has reached out to a representative for Trump and to the former president’s campaign for comment.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in January that the Department of Justice was investigating fake electors that supported Trump.

Fake documents were sent to the National Archives in December alleging electors for the Electoral College supported Trump in seven states President Biden had won.

People from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have since been subpoenaed to appear before the House Jan. 6 committee investigating the Capitol attack for their involvement with the alleged scheme. 

The Jan. 6 committee is likely to highlight the newly uncovered email by a former Trump campaign staffer to fake electors during a primetime hearing on Thursday, the Post noted.

Sinners said in a statement that he was working on behalf of senior campaign officials and senior Republicans in the state where he was “advised by attorneys that this was necessary in order to preserve the pending legal challenge,” according to the Post.

Attorneys for Trump had for months after the 2020 election embarked on an ineffective legal campaign across the country in an attempt to overturn Biden’s victory, which ultimately failed.

Sinners, who now works for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who fended off a Trump-backed primary challenger after Raffensperger refused to take up Trump’s effort to overturn the election in the state, added that his “views on the matter have changed significantly from where they were on December 13th.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Judge blocks Louisiana Congress map with one Black district

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana’s Democratic governor said Monday he will call the Republican-dominated Legislature into special session soon to draw up new congressional district boundaries, now that a federal judge has blocked use of maps that have only one majority-Black district.

Gov. John Bel Edwards announced his plan at a news conference at the Capitol in Baton Rouge. He spoke to reporters minutes after the 2022 regular legislative session ended, and a few hours after U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, also in Baton Rouge, blocked the use of the new maps. Her ruling included an order that the Legislature draw up with a remedial plan by June 20.

Edwards, whose veto of the maps was overridden by lawmakers earlier this year, said there should have been a second majority-Black district among the six districts that were approved, noting that the state’s population is almost one-third Black.

Edwards said redrawing the district lines is required by the court order, the Voting Rights Act and by “basic fairness and basic math.”

But, lawyers for Republican Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, the state’s top elected official, swiftly filed a notice of appeal of Dick’s order.

Dick’s June 20 deadline for drawing new district lines is one month before the signup period for the Nov. 8 congressional election.

“If the Legislature is unable to pass a remedial plan by that date, the Court will issue additional orders to enact a remedial plan compliant with the laws and Constitution of the United States,” the judge wrote.

The district map was drawn up in a special session earlier this year during a legislative special session called to redraw government district lines to account for population shifts show in the 2020 census. Edwards vetoed the maps but his veto was overridden. That led to a lawsuit by voting rights advocates.

Ardoin filed a notice of appeal with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Ultimately, the case could wind up before the Supreme Court, which earlier this year put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections to increase Black voting power.

Ardoin’s office declined comment on the litigation.

In blocking the use of the map pending further elections, Dick said those filing the lawsuit were likely to prevail with their argument that the new districts violate the federal Voting Rights Act. She blocked Ardoin from conducting any elections using the new map.

Source: TEST FEED1

McConaughey meets with lawmakers after op-ed on gun reform

Matthew McConaughey met Monday evening with lawmakers amid their ongoing discussions on gun control in the wake of the recent string of mass shootings in the U.S. 

In a tweet on Monday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) shared that the “Dazed and Confused” actor visited his office to discuss the recent mass shooting in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.

“Had the chance to meet Uvalde native @McConaughey in DC today to discuss the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary as well as the larger problem of gun violence in America,” Durbin wrote in a tweet. “We, like so many others, agree that gun safety reform is needed—I’ll keep working to make that happen.”

McConaughey penned an op-ed for the Austin American-Statesman published earlier on Monday, saying it is time to change the discussion on gun control. 

“I am a father, the son of a kindergarten teacher, and an American. I was also born in Uvalde, Texas. That’s why I’m writing this,” McConaughey wrote. 

“I believe that responsible, law-abiding Americans have a Second Amendment right, enshrined by our founders, to bear arms. I also believe we have a cultural obligation to take steps toward slowing down the senseless killing of our children,” the actor added. 

McConaughey’s op-ed comes nearly two weeks after the massacre at Robb Elementary school, where a gunman entered a fourth-grade classroom and opened fire, killing 19 schoolchildren and two of their teachers. 

A bipartisan group of senators is engaged in ongoing discussions on gun reform legislation in response to the recent violence in Uvalde and elsewhere. 

Last week, President Biden publicly called on Congress to quickly address this issue, asking members to pass laws expanding background checks, implementing a national red flag law system and banning assault rifles.

Source: TEST FEED1

Jack Flaherty rips Tampa Rays players who didn't wear Pride patch: 'Absolute joke'

St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty has publicly called out the Tampa Bay Rays players who have opted out of wearing an LGBTQ Pride month patch during a game. 

“[A]bsolute joke,” Flaherty wrote in a tweet on Sunday, quoting a tweet from TMZ Sports on the matter. 

Flaherty’s response comes as a group of Rays players such as pitchers Jason Adam, Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs, and Ryan Thompson decline to wear an LGBTQ patch on their uniforms during the team’s annual Gay Pride Night celebration, citing it as a “faith-based” decision, according to Sports Illustrated. 

Rays’ pitcher Jason Adam told the Tampa Bay Times the decision was not judgemental.

“It’s not judgmental. It’s not looking down. It’s just what we believe the lifestyle he’s encouraged us to live, for our good, not to withhold. But again, we love these men and women, we care about them, and we want them to feel safe and welcome here,” Adams added. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Thursday vetoed funds for the MLB team’s new practice facility in Pasco County in response to the team publicly supporting gun control legislation in the wake of recent mass shootings in the U.S. 

In a statement, Rays manager Kevin Cash said that players’ opinions on the issue will affect them negatively, adding that the team has had discussions on the matter and emphasized “valuing the different perspectives,” SI.com reported. 

Rays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier, who wore the patch during the game, told the Times that creating an “environment of inclusivity” was important to him. 

“It’s one of those things, my parents taught me to love everyone as they are, go live your life, whatever your preferences are, go be you,” Kiermaier the newspaper. “I can’t speak for everyone who’s in here, obviously, but this is a family-friendly environment here at a big-league ball field … We just want everyone to feel welcomed and included and cheer us on. No matter what your views on anything are.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Carolina Panthers hire NFL's first openly transgender cheerleader

The Carolina Panthers have hired the NFL’s first openly transgender cheerleader. 

Justine Lindsay announced her new gig in a recent Instagram post, saying she has joined the team’s TopCats cheerleading squad.

“Cats Out the Bag you are looking at the newest member of the Carolina Panthers TopCats Cheerleader’s @topcats as the first Transgender female,” Lindsay wrote in her Instagram post. “I would like to thank the beautiful and talented dancers who supported me along the way alumni TopCats family and friends for your love and support. I would not have gotten to this moment in my life if it wasn’t for the support.” 

“This is a moment I will never forget and I cannot wait to show you all what this girl has to bring. Thank you @topcats a dream come true,” Lindsay concluded. 

Chandalae Lanouette, director of the TopCats, emphasized in an interview with BuzzFeed News that Lindsay’s talent landed her the job.

“My goal is to create a team of individuals that are absolute fire on the field but are incredible human beings in the locker room, good friends, good people, and at the end of the day, you have to walk through the door first to get to that spot,” Lanouette said.

The NFL has sought to make progress within the LGBTQ community in recent years.

It’s been nearly a year since former Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib announced that he is gay, becoming the first active player to do so in league history. 

The NFL pushed out a pro-LGBTQ commercial in response to Nassib’s announcement and made a $100,000 donation to The Trevor Project, an organization focused on suicide prevention within the LGBTQ community. 

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, The Trevor Project said that the Panthers’ hiring of Lindsay is “critical,” pointing to an April poll that said fewer than 1 in 3 people know someone who is openly transgender. 

The Hill has reached out to the NFL for further comment.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden to sign declaration addressing migration at Summit of the Americas

President Biden will hold a meeting with regional governments to sign a declaration that aims to address migration at the Summit of the Americans.

The Los Angeles Declaration on Migration “is an unprecedented and ambitious step by the United States and regional partners to work together to address the migration crisis in a comprehensive manner,” a senior administration official said.

The meeting to sign the declaration will be on Friday, which is the last day of the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.

The partnership will focus on five areas, including reinvigorating regional economic institutions and mobilizing investments, updating the social contract between governments and people, creating a resilient supply chain, a focus on decarbonization, biodiversity, and clean energy jobs, and creating sustainable and inclusive trade.

Biden will also announce an over $300 million investment in assistance for the region to address food insecurity.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday confirmed he will not be present at the Summit after he threatened to pull out of the event for weeks, citing refusals by the U.S. to invite the leaders of Cuba and Nicaragua and representatives of the Maduro government in Venezuela.

Officials expressed confidence that Mexico will sign onto the declaration, despite López Obrador’s snub. The Mexican president said Monday that Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard will attend in his place.

“We are very confident that the countries that will sign on to the Declaration on Migration will be committed to its goals and that includes—just to clarify—that includes Mexico,” the official said, adding that the Mexican government has been “a full participant” in the development of the initiative.

“We believe in every way that they are fully committed to it,” the official said. The official also expressed optimism that “significant business” can get done without participation from some heads of governments who are sending other government officials in their place. 

The declaration, according to officials, is closely tied to the economic agenda that Biden will present at the summit in his inaugural ceremony speech on Wednesday.

“The overall objective is to build our economies from the bottom up and the middle out by building on the foundation established by our free trade agreements with the region to better address inequality and lack of economic opportunity and equity,” official said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Justice sends mixed messages on subpoenaing Trump’s inner circle

The Justice Department’s decision not to charge former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows or deputy communications director Dan Scavino with contempt of Congress is sending mixed messages about the extent those in the president’s inner circle can flout lawmaker subpoenas.

The Department of Justice sent a letter to the House saying it would not pursue contempt charges against the two men even as it filed charges Friday against Peter Navarro, a former White House economic adviser, for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

It’s a decision that has left many wishing the DOJ would be more transparent in its rationale for charging some in Trump’s inner circle, but not others.

“I think it’s a disappointing decision by the Justice Department, and without understanding how they reach that decision, it leaves a lot of really troubling questions unanswered,” said David Janovsky, an analyst for The Constitution Project with the Project on Government Oversight.

The announcement from the DOJ ended months of speculation over whether the department would charge the two men, who were among the first subpoenaed by the committee, and leaves no further referrals in its queue.

U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, in a letter to the House counsel, repeatedly notes the DOJ’s need to evaluate the “individualized facts and circumstances” of each case.

“Each referral has been analyzed individually based on the facts and circumstances of the alleged contempt developed through my office’s investigation,” he wrote in a letter first reported by The New York Times.

The Jan. 6 committee called the decision “puzzling” in a late Friday statement noting Meadows’s executive privilege claims are being litigated and asking the DOJ to provide “greater clarity on this matter.”

Meadows and Scavino presented very different cases to DOJ.

Meadows turned over reams of documents to the committee, including some 2,319 text messages. Though he balked before his scheduled deposition and filed a suit against the committee, Meadows’s materials have frequently been the basis for the panel’s subpoenas.

Scavino, in contrast, “has not produced a single document, nor has he appeared for testimony,” the select committee wrote in its report this spring.

Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor, says the outcomes appear to show that the department was willing to credit even “partial cooperation” when deciding whether to bring charges against each of the four men.

“We know Meadows cooperated for a bit until he stopped and we know that Scavino’s lawyers at least went through the motions of negotiating with the committee,” Honig said.

Navarro and the other former White House staffer to be charged, Stephen Bannon, “both just basically defied the committee straight up,” Honig added.

There are also differences in how each contended with their assertion they should be immune from testifying due to executive privilege.

Bannon wasn’t an executive branch employee on Jan. 6, 2021, and Navarro advertised his missives on purported election fraud on his website and has written a book that delves into his role in the planning and coordination of Jan. 6.

While Meadows and Scavino appeared to have stronger claims of executive privilege, Honig said it would be “really problematic for DOJ to be crediting people for pretending to cooperate or halfway cooperating.”

Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, noted that the contempt statute requires proving intent, a high bar.

“That requires not just that you knew what you were doing, but that you knew what you’re doing was illegal. And so willfulness here requires that they knew with certainty that these defenses of executive privilege were bogus and would fail,” she said.

The DOJ is also bound by internal guidance that for decades has argued that the president’s close advisers are absolutely immune from congressional subpoenas.

“You’re supposed to refrain from criminal charges, which are kind of the nuclear option,” said McQuade, noting that the DOJ may wish to see how a civil case between Meadows and the committee resolves itself.

The guidance is designed to protect the institution of the presidency and its advisers so that they may give candid advice.

“It’s quite ironic that these guys would get that protection. They seem so undeserving when their efforts appear to be setting up to destroy the institution of the presidency,” she said.

But McQuade cautioned that the DOJ must also weigh the impact such charges could bring for its broader Jan. 6 investigation. While she doesn’t suspect Meadows or Scavino are currently cooperating with the DOJ, she noted that others like former Trump attorney Michael Cohen have talked tough only to later engage with the department.

“There’s the ‘Can we charge?’ question and then the ‘Should we charge?’ question,” she said.

“What do you really want to get from these people? Do you want their testimony? Or do you want to make an example of them and punish them … in a goal of deterring this kind of behavior in the future?” she asked.

The DOJ may see more value in Meadows and Scavino, who were some of Trump’s closest advisers. Even if the DOJ doesn’t plan to charge them with other crimes, they may have key testimony in other cases it may later wish to bring. Filing contempt charges against the duo would complicate that.

“It just gets really messy. You have to produce discovery. You have to give them every recorded statement you have of that person that might in any way relate to the prosecution. So there’s all kinds of complications that arise once you charge somebody,” McQuade said.

The lack of charges for Meadows and Scavino are likely to be something closely watched by five GOP lawmakers fighting their own subpoenas from the Jan. 6 panel.

“The moment they announced we’re not charging Mark Meadows that can be read as giving the green light to certain inner circle advisers that you can defy the committee without consequence too,” Honig said. “So I think perhaps DOJ wanted to put off sending that message until the last possible moment.”

The DOJ’s guidance on avoiding prosecution of close presidential advisers has long been controversial and yet to be fully resolved by the courts.

While it’s unclear how much of a factor that policy played in the department’s decisionmaking, Janovsky said the varying outcomes from the congressional contempt referrals is in line with how the DOJ has historically responded to legislative oversight.

“Unfortunately, I think it does kind of reinforce this notion that a lot of the time the Department of Justice is going to side with the executive branch over Congress and by extension the interests of the public,” Janovsky said. “And that, you know, DOJ has created a set of rules that protects these people.”

He added that it’s incumbent on federal prosecutors to explain how the law is being applied when it comes to senior White House officials.

“We need DOJ to explain what circumstances it thinks distinguishes these cases,” Janovsky said. “Because guessing from the outside ultimately only gets you so far.”

Source: TEST FEED1

How to get free replacement Jif peanut butter after the recall

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WXIN) — J.M. Smucker Company is working to simplify the process of getting a replacement to customers after recalling select products, including several varieties of its popular Jif peanut butter, due to a salmonella outbreak.

The company recalled the products because of a salmonella outbreak investigation linked to a Lexington, Kentucky plant.

On the Jif website, the company said they are trying to expedite support due to a high volume of calls about the recall. The company made a form where people can provide their contact information and product information for reimbursement.

People should have their product in hand to help them fill out the form, the company said. People can add up to five products per submission of the form.

You’ll need to check if the first seven digits of the product code on your jar or container match the range for the impacted products. The number would be between 1274425 and 2140425.

The recalled products include:

The company says after submitting the recall form, people should dispose of the affected Jif peanut butter product. After reviewing the claim, they will send coupons for replacement products for any items covered by the recall.

Several associated recalls have been initiated as a result of the outbreak investigation. The FDA said the recalls are being conducted by companies that further processed the peanut butter by using it as an ingredient in their products (like a cookie) or by repackaging it.

Jif’s creamy, crunchy, natural and reduced fat peanut butters have been linked to a salmonella outbreak across 12 states that has left 14 ill, with two people being hospitalized. Side effects from salmonella poisoning include fever, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: TEST FEED1

Loaded guns found at Parkland school belong to principal: report

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Two loaded guns belonging to a Florida charter school principal were accidentally brought onto the school’s campus Thursday morning, WPLG reported.

Somerset Parkland Academy school representatives sent a letter to parents saying a closed box containing two firearms was left unattended inside a locked room in the school. The box was found by a school resource officer and turned over to detectives, the report said.

Investigators later determined the weapons belonged to the school’s principal, Geyler Castro.

The letter said someone had unloaded a number of items from the principal’s car and unknowingly took the box containing the firearms into the school.

Broward County Sheriff’s Office deputies investigated the matter and determined there was no threat to students, the letter said, according to WPLG.

“No one intended to bring a weapon into the building. The box was among many items brought into the locked room from the principal’s vehicle,” the letter continued.

Parents told WSVN they were shocked to learn of the news, and it took the school more than 24 hours to notify them of the incident.

“I mean, I didn’t hear anything,” parent Jincy Mathews told the outlet. “What the heck? Oh, my God.”

“It’s scary. What you’re telling me is scary,” Mathews continued. “Telling the kids not to bring those types of things onto campus, so she should be the model.”

In Florida, it’s a felony to have a gun on school property, but “a person may carry a firearm in a vehicle pursuant to s. 790.25(5); except that school districts may adopt written and published policies that waive the exception in this subparagraph for purposes of student and campus parking privileges.”

It’s unclear if Castro will face charges. The principal has not responded to various requests for comment.

Somerset Academy is located in Parkland, less than three miles from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the scene of the deadly 2018 mass shooting.

Source: TEST FEED1