Just what does home insurance cost in Florida? Estimates vary widely, and new state data might surprise you
Ron Hurtibise – July 30, 2023
Just what does the average Florida homeowner pay for property insurance? Good luck figuring that out based on wildly varying estimates quoted across the media.
About the only thing everyone agrees on is that the state’s insurance rates have been rising sharply. Insurers say they need higher premiums to offset mounting losses from hurricane claims, severe weather events, high rates of litigation, and resulting increases in the cost of reinsurance — insurance that insurers must buy to make sure they can pay all claims after a disaster.
Reforms enacted in 2022 to curtail costs from litigation are expected to eventually stabilize premium costs, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Meanwhile, online insurance aggregators publish estimates that are all over the map.
Policygenius says average Florida homeowners pay $2,442 for home insurance.
Bankrate says $1,981 — but that’s just to insure the dwelling and doesn’t include other vital elements like liability coverage, loss of use, or personal property.
Insurify crunched numbers from 10 Florida ZIP codes and estimated average homeowners are paying a whopping $7,788 this year.
For a report comparing insurance costs across the nation, USA Today estimated that Floridians pay an average of $2,389.
And Insurance Information Institute, an industry-funded nonprofit organization, estimated Florida’s average home insurance premium was $4,321 last October and $6,000 currently.
Which number is closest to what Florida homeowners are actually paying? It’s impossible to say because the estimates are calculated based on “proprietary methods,” said Mark Friedlander, corporate communications director for the Insurance Information Institute.
Insurance agents in South Florida say their clients are paying on the high side of the estimated range of average premiums.
Yet, recently released data by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation include figures that some might find surprisingly low in comparison to the higher estimates.
The state’s most recent data comes from insurers themselves — sent to OIR each quarter under a law enacted in May 2022.
The data sent by insurers was used to create county-by-county estimates of premiums paid to insure single-family homes, Those estimates were included in the office’s twice-yearly Property Insurance Stability Report released in early July.
State data shows average rates are lower
The report found that on March 31:
Homeowners in 48 of Florida’s 67 counties paid estimated average premiums between $2,000 and $2,999. Averages were below $2,000 in four counties — Sumter, Marion, Baker and Hernando.
Average premiums were in the $3,000s in seven counties: Lee, Okeechobee, Escambia, Okaloosa, Gulf, Pinellas, and Indian River.
Residents of three counties — Walton, Franklin, and Collier — paid average premiums in the $4,000s.
And homeowners in the five southernmost counties — Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe — paid average premiums of more than $5,000.
In fact, average premiums in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade exceeded $5,500 while homeowners in Monroe, which includes the Florida Keys, paid an average $7,584.
Premium amounts calculated by the Office of Insurance Regulation preceded rate hikes tied to higher reinsurance rates that insurers secured as hurricane season began on June 1. Renewal prices charged after companies secured their reinsurance rates will reflect the higher costs. That means the next six-month report will likely reflect significant rate increases.
Missing from the twice-yearly report is a statewide average premium.
The Sun Sentinel tallied data in a separate release by the office of company-level data that includes numbers of policyholders per coverage category and corresponding direct written premium totals. Direct written premiums are the total dollar amount of all premiums paid to the company by its policyholders. Dividing the number of policyholders into the direct written premium data reveals the average premium charged by the company.
Dividing the total number of policyholders into the total direct written premium total for all Florida-regulated insurance companies reveals Florida’s average homeowner insurance premium on March 31 was $3,134.
How many homeowners in Florida’s five southernmost counties would like to be paying that right now?
Probably all clients of Fort Lauderdale-based insurance agent Phil Portnoy, who works at Donna Carrara Insurance Agency.
“The average I’ve seen from private insurers is anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 for, say, $350,000 in coverage,” Portnoy said last week. “I’ve seen renewals down in Pinecrest for as much as $17,000 for a million in coverage and as much as $27,000 for a Palm Beach County intracoastal renewal of $1 million in coverage.”
Al Mendez, partner in Mendez & Associates Insurance in Pembroke Pines, says his average policies range from $4,200 to $6,000 to insure homes in the tri-county region with replacement costs of $300,000 to $500,000.
Mendez calls the current state of the insurance market — with rate increases of 25% to 70% over each of the past three years — “the worst I’ve experienced” in 30 years in the industry.
Some of his clients have seen increases of 100% to 200%, he said. “Florida is now the most expensive state to live in,” he said.
South Florida insurance costs are higher
Mark Friedlander of the Insurance Information Institute said he stands by his organization’s estimates that statewide average premiums increased from $4,231 last fall to $6,000 this year as “verified as accurate by numerous third parties, including insurers and insurance agents.”
As Friedlander is a popular source of insurance information, the $6,000-a-year estimate has shown up in stories by numerous national publications about Florida’s insurance crisis.
Two weeks ago, Friedlander said, “a Barron’s reporter verified our premium data with numerous industry analysts and confirmed its accuracy.”
Insurify, Policygenius and USA Today each used insurance data from a single source — Quadrant Information Services — to produce different estimates.
Chase Gardner of Insurify, which calculated an average estimate of $7,788 for Florida, said the company developed its estimates by using average costs in 10 zip codes “representative of each state’s population distribution.” Zip codes with larger populations were weighted more heavily in calculating the average, he said, which may explain why his company’s estimates were so much higher that Insurify’s and Bankrate’s numbers.
“Even though we both collected Florida data from Quadrant Information Services, prices vary a lot depending on where you live in the state,” Gardner said. “For example, we found that average prices were closer to $2,000 to $3,000 per year or less in northern, inland parts of the state, whereas prices could skyrocket to more than $10,000 per year in southern coastal cities like Miami.”
Friedlander said that the Insurance Information Institute’s estimates looked only at private sector policies and excluded policies sold by the insurer of last resort, state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
Citizens insured 719,347 single-family homes for an average premium of $3,254 in the first quarter of 2023, the state data shows.
That’s high from a statewide perspective but low for South Florida.
In March 2022, Citizens produced a chart that showed its average premium in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, where 52% of its policyholders are located, was $4,196 — 28% less than the $5,856 combined average of 13 competitors selected for the comparison.
Ultimately, the only home insurance cost estimates that matter are the ones offered to you to cover your home for the upcoming year. And at least for the near future, they’re continuing to increase, agents say.
Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Doctor: What I didn’t know until I got skin cancer
Opinion by Susannah Hills – July 29, 2023
Editor’s Note: Susannah Hills is a pediatric airway surgeon and assistant professor and vice chair of the Department of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at the Columbia University Medical Center. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion at CNN.
As a practicing physician, my life revolves around caring for my patients, helping them stay healthy, educating them about diseases and picking up on the signs of health concerns that need to be addressed. A few weeks ago, however, it became painfully obvious that I had missed the signs of my own major health issue.
Dr. Susannah Hills – John Abbott
To my surprise, I was diagnosed with skin cancer on my scalp. The diagnosis of basal cell cancer, and the fact that I ignored it for so long, have really made me pause to reflect on my own health habits and some common misconceptions about skin cancer.
For over a year, I thought I had an irregular patch of skin behind my left ear. It was covered by my hair, so it was easy to ignore. I watched this skin peel and scab. I thought it was eczema, which I have had for many years, put hydrocortisone didn’t help. I finally went to the dermatologist, much later than I should have considering my medical background, and I had a biopsy. Basal cell cancer. Another was found on my neck right after that.
I was bewildered. I thought I had been protecting myself from sun exposure so carefully. I spend most of my waking hours indoors at the hospital and still I wear sunscreen every day. I hardly have time for sunbathing and on those rare occasions when I’m in the sun for an extended time, I try to cover up.
As it turns out, my skin cancer has probably been brewing for decades, the result of genetics and basking in the sun many years ago. Damage from the sun’s UV rays is cumulative, increasing the risk of cancer over time. Just five blistering sunburns among 15- to 20-year-olds can increase the risk of melanoma by 80% and two other skin cancers, squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma, by 68%, according to research published in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention. So, I’m probably seeing effects of my early years at the beach now.
My mother also had multiple skin cancers, so my risk of getting one myself was significantly higher. When there is a family history of skin cancer, the risk of early-onset basal cell cancer is more than doubled, per the journal Cancer Epidemiology, the risk of squamous cell cancer is increased four-fold, according to the journal Dermatologic Surgery, and the risk of melanoma is increased by 74%, as reported in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Still, it seemed so strange to me that my skin cancer showed up on my scalp, underneath a covering of hair. Wouldn’t sun-exposed areas like my nose, forehead, or chin be more susceptible?
With a little research, I discovered that 13% of skin cancers involve the scalp, according to an article in the Journal of the German Society of Dermatology. Skin cancer can show up in all kinds of unusual spots — the eyelids, palms of the hands and soles of the feet. And with the popularity of gel manicures, which use direct UV light to the hands and nails, there is increasing risk of skin cancers in the cuticles and beneath the nails.
Skin cancers can also happen in all types of skin. Malignancies are far more common in light complexions, but cancer of skin with darker pigmentation is often caught later, with higher mortality rates. Everyone is at risk.
Now more than ever, developing good sun protection habits is so important because the risk of developing skin cancer is escalating at an alarming rate. It is estimated by the American Academy of Dermatology that one in five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime, and rates of nonmelanoma skin cancer have increased 33% across the globe since 2007, according to JCO Global Oncology. Many experts attribute this trend to factors such as climate change, global warming and increased exposure to harmful UV rays. Despite this mounting risk, our efforts in skin cancer prevention and early detection are woefully inadequate, with too many people failing to get regular skin exams.
It is up to each of us to develop good sun protection habits early and to learn when to seek medical care for unusual skin changes. Irregularities like changes in color, irregular borders of moles and freckles, skin wounds that don’t seem to heal and areas of chronic peeling or scabbing should never be ignored. An exam should be done every year to monitor unusual skin changes, or if you are at higher risk for developing skin cancer.
This summer, protect yourself. Slather on that sunscreen, wear a hat and seek shade whenever possible. And that peculiar patch of skin you’ve been ignoring? Don’t put off getting it checked out any longer. I learned the hard way that anyone can get skin cancer and it can show up where you least expect. The earlier you catch it, the better your odds, so go see your doctor. I’m glad I did.
US intelligence report says China likely supplying tech for Russian military
Kanishka Singh and Michael Martina – July 27,2023
The flags of the United States and China fly in Boston
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China is helping Russia evade Western sanctions and likely providing Moscow with military and dual-use technology for use in Ukraine, according to an unclassified U.S. intelligence report released on Thursday.
The assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was published by the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
China has repeatedly denied sending military equipment to Russia since Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“The PRC is providing some dual-use technology that Moscow’s military uses to continue the war in Ukraine, despite an international cordon of sanctions and export controls,” the ODNI report said.
“The customs records show PRC state-owned defense companies shipping navigation equipment, jamming technology, and fighter jet parts to sanctioned Russian Government-owned defense companies,” the report said.
It also said China has become “an even more critical partner” of Russia after Moscow invaded Ukraine last year.
ODNI said China and Russia had increased the share of bilateral trade settled in China’s yuan currency, and both countries’ financial institutions are expanding their use of domestic payment systems.
China has increased it importation of Russia energy exports, including oil and gas rerouted from Europe, the report said.
ODNI cited much of the information to media reports. It added: “The Intelligence Community lacks sufficient reporting to assess whether Beijing is deliberately inhibiting United States Government export control end-use checks, including interviews and investigations, in the PRC.”
Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron’s top diplomatic adviser Emmanuel Bonne said China was delivering items that could be used as military equipment to Russia, although not on a massive scale.
U.S. officials have previously raised concern about transfers of “dual-use equipment” from China to Russia. However, they have repeatedly said they have yet to see evidence of the transfer of lethal assistance for Russia’s use on the battlefield.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Michael Martina in Washington; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Daniel Wallis)
China defends trade with Russia after the US says equipment used in Ukraine might have been exported
July 28, 2023
FILE – Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning gestures during a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, on July 26, 2023. The Chinese government defended its dealings with Russia as “normal economic and trade cooperation” Friday, July 28, after a United States intelligence report said Beijing possibly provided equipment used in Ukraine that might have military applications. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)More
BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese government defended its dealings with Russia as “normal economic and trade cooperation” Friday after a United States intelligence report said Beijing possibly provided equipment used in Ukraine that might have military applications.
The Biden administration has warned Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government of unspecified consequences if it supports the Kremlin’s war effort. The latest report cited Russian customs data that showed Chinese state-owned military contractors supplied navigation equipment, fighter jet parts, drones and other goods, but didn’t say whether that might trigger U.S. retaliation.
“China has been carrying out normal economic and trade cooperation with countries around the world, including Russia,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. She said Chinese-Russian cooperation “neither targets a third party nor is it subject to interference and coercion by a third party.”
Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared before the February 2022 invasion that their governments had a “no-limits” friendship. Beijing says it is neutral in the war, but it has blocked efforts to censure Moscow in the United Nations and has repeated Russian justifications for the attack.
China is an “increasingly important buttress” for Russia, “probably supplying Moscow with key technology and dual-use equipment used in Ukraine,” said the report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, referring to equipment that can have both civilian and military applications.
China has stepped up purchases of Russian oil and gas, which helps Putin’s government offset lost sales after the United States, Europe and Japan cut off most purchases of Russian energy. Beijing can do that without triggering Western sanctions on its own companies, but Washington and its allies are frustrated that it undercuts economic pressure on Moscow.
China rejects Western trade and financial sanctions on Russia because they weren’t authorized by the U.N. Security Council, where Beijing and Moscow have veto power. However, China has appeared to avoid directly defying those sanctions.
“We have also consistently opposed unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that have no basis in international law and have not been authorized by the Security Council,” said Mao.
Coronavirus is back, but how worried should you be?
Parts of the country are seeing an uptick, and hospitalizations are rising nationwide.
Alexander Nazaryan, Senior W. H. Correspondent – July 28, 2023
People at a COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Los Angeles on Aug. 5, 2022. (Xinhua via Getty Images)
Dr. Bob Wachter was an expert who diligently practiced what he preached. For three years, the prominent University of California at San Francisco physician advocated masking and vaccination for those who, like him, wanted to avoid the coronavirus, as well as the mysterious, long-lasting symptoms known as long COVID.
When Wachter’s wife contracted the coronavirus last year when they were on a trip to Palm Springs, Calif., together, he still managed not to get sick — even after they sat next to each other in the car on the nine-hour trip back home.
But Wachter’s luck ran out earlier this month, when he finally contracted the coronavirus. To make matters worse, he fell in the bathroom while battling flulike symptoms and was hospitalized for stitches.
Wachter wrote on Twitter that he wanted his experience to serve as a “teachable moment,” a reminder that “Covid’s still around [and] it can still be pretty nasty.”
Not only is the coronavirus still around, but it appears to be returning in parts of the United States.
Weary holiday travelers wait for air traffic to resume at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., on June 30. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
Washington was not especially rattled by the infections, but the cases are a reminder that the virus lingers. Students competing in the Solar Car Challenge in Orange County, Calif., for instance, saw the race disrupted this month after about two dozen competitors tested positive for COVID-19.
When the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, visited the White House earlier this month, several members of his delegation tested positive for COVID-19. In North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper also caught the coronavirus this month. These do not appear to be isolated incidents.
“There’s no doubt compared to our nadirs, or the stability that we’ve enjoyed, that there’s a slight increase in test positivity,” California’s health secretary, Dr. Mark Ghaly, told the Los Angeles Times this week.
While most people aren’t locking down or sending kids home from summer camp, the virus appears to be causing a vibe shift. “The U.S. has experienced increases in COVID-19 during the past three summers, so it’s not surprising to see an uptick,” CDC spokeswoman Kathleen Conley told Yahoo News.
In previous coronavirus waves, colder weather drove people indoors and allowed the pathogen to spread. Extremely hot weather could have the same effect. “We are in a very warm year, and people are spending a lot of time indoors,” infectious disease expert Dr. Luis Ostrosky told the Wall Street Journal. “People are congregating in air-conditioned settings, and that is providing an opportunity for transmission.”
Most institutions that had reported coronavirus cases with online trackers are no longer producing daily updates, making both local and national trends difficult to spot. For its part, the CDC drastically scaled back its own tracking in May.
A COVID-19 testing site on a sidewalk in Manhattan in December 2022. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
According to the Centers for Disease Control, COVID-19 hospitalizations rose by 10% in the week of July 15, as compared to the previous week, from 6,444 hospitalizations to 7,109.
“Risk of getting infected is still fairly low, but clearly rising now,” Dr. Tatiana Prowell, a Johns Hopkins oncologist, wrote on Twitter. “Be aware.”
Masking continues to be an easy means of protection, especially when traveling or gathering in crowded settings like concert venues or sports arenas. And many people have neglected to update their vaccines, meaning that they lack some protection from the ever-evolving disease. The latest spike could be driven, in part, by an Omicron subvariant known as Arcturus.
“At this time, CDC’s genomic surveillance indicates that the increase in infections is caused by strains closely related to the Omicron strains that have been circulating since early 2022,” CDC’s Conley told Yahoo News.
Those are the very strains the bivalent booster was created to target. The Food and Drug Administration is also preparing an updated booster shot that should be available in September.
Today’s figures are much smaller by comparison. And as of the week of July 22, there had been 166 deaths from COVID-19 across the United States — a far cry from the 26,000 weekly deaths recorded in the U.S. in the first week of 2021.
Those at high risk for severe outcomes should make sure they’re up to date on boosters and know where to access treatment if they contract the virus, Dr. Leana Wen, a professor at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, told Yahoo News.
Between vaccination and multiple infections, the overwhelming majority of Americans have some immunity. Many have thus simply accepted the coronavirus as a part of life.
“The pandemic, for all intents and purposes, now is gone,” Donald Yealy, chief medical officer of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, told the Washington Post several weeks ago.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito gives a middle finger to Congress: ‘No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.’
Madison Hall and Azmi Haroun – July 28, 2023
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel AlitoChip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito spoke to The Wall Street Journal about congressional oversight.
“No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court,” he said.
The statement comes after months of news reports of ethical impropriety by members of the high court.
After months of news reports documenting instances of Supreme Court justices breaking judicial ethical standards and Democratic lawmakers pushing for a code of conduct to be implemented, conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito revealed in an interview that he doesn’t believe that Congress has any authority to tell the court what to do.
“Congress did not create the Supreme Court,” Alito said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
He added that while he can’t speak for the other justices, he thinks it’s “something we have all thought about.”
The comments perturbed at least two Democratic members of Congress.
Following the article’s publication, Rep. Ted Lieu took to Twitter to remind Alito that Congress does have some oversight of the Supreme Court.
“Dear Justice Alito: You’re on the Supreme Court in part because Congress expanded the Court to 9 Justices,” Lieu tweeted. “Congress can impeach Justices and can in many cases strip the Court of jurisdiction. Congress has always regulated you and will continue to do so. You are not above the law.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse also noted on Twitter that he believes that Alito is part of what he called a “captured court.”
One of the authors of the article who interviewed Alito, David B. Rivkin, is litigating a tax case, Moore v. US, in front of SCOTUS during the court’s next term.
SCOTUS did not immediately return Insider’s request for comment.
In April, GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow and SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas first faced scrutiny related to the 20 years worth of undisclosed trips Crow is accused of gifting to Thomas, per ProPublica. The outlet later reported that Crow purchased Thomas’ mother’s house and allowed her to live there without paying rent.
Crow claimed to the Dallas Morning News that the revelations about his relationship with Thomas were a “political hit job.”
In June, ProPublica unearthed that Alito had taken a luxury fishing trip with GOP billionaire Paul Singer, who later had cases before the court. Alito claimed that they never discussed cases on the trip, on which he boarded Singer’s private plane.
Congress has probed Crow’s and Thomas’s relationship, as well as Alito’s dealings, asking for a detailed disclosure of the gifts bestowed to Supreme Court justices.
Chicago Suntimes – Opinion, Joe Biden is too old to run again
STEINBERG: Nobody wants to leave the party. But is that a smart governmental strategy? The Mitch McConnell episode on Wednesday is a reminder that anything can happen at any time.
By Neil Steinberg – July 27, 2023
Joe Biden arrives at Helsinki Airport in Finland on July 12. The nation’s oldest elected president was attending the US–Nordic Leaders’ Summit.
The median age for Americans is almost 39, according to the U.S. census.
Which might be surprising — we feel like a much older nation, and for good reason. Look at our leaders. President Joe Biden is 80. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is 72, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is 81. The oldest senator, Dianne Feinstein, is 90.
But things happen. Feinstein has struggled to do her job. McConnell froze in the middle of a news conference Wednesday, standing silent and stricken until he was led away. He returned later and declared himself fine. Maybe he is fine. But the writing is on the wall. As I like to say, you can ignore facts but that doesn’t mean facts ignore you. As Francis Hopkinson Smith once said, the claw of the sea-puss gets us all in the end. Sooner or later, the strong riptide drags us out to that cold, dark ocean from whence none returns.
No wonder we cling to the dry shore. Nobody wants to leave the party. But is that a smart governmental strategy? The McConnell episode is a reminder that anything can happen at any time. It can come for you in the middle of a news conference. And the older you are, the closer you are to whatever is going to eventually come and get you.
That’s why those handicapping the 2024 election are deluding themselves. The life expectancy of an 80-year-old man is seven years, meaning that should Biden be reelected, the oldest president ever, he’d be pushing his luck to reach the end of his term.
Right now, Biden gives very few news conferences and hasn’t sat down at all with a reporter from a major newspaper. He walks stiffly, speaks awkwardly, was at a loss to say how many grandchildren he has or what his favorite movie is.
Sixty-seven percent of Americans — including half of Democrats — think Biden is too old to run. I am among them.
It isn’t that he hasn’t been an effective president, from marshaling European support for Ukraine to his infrastructure bill. The question is: Will he remain so until he’s 86? Are we willing to bet our country on it?
This is where his probable opponent comes in.
Donald Trump is no spring chicken either at 77 and has more health concerns — he weighs 250 pounds and was seen having trouble lifting a glass of water to his lips.
Ego is a curse at any age or party. Our leaders aren’t doing what’s best for the country, but what’s best for them. No one wants to surrender their prerogatives. If it’s a struggle to get Dad to give up the car keys, imagine how hard it would be to pry him off Air Force One.
All things being equal, I believe in perseverance. “I will be conquered,” the great Samuel Johnson said. “I will not capitulate.”
But does that mean we all must keep doing what we do, forever? An esteemed colleague, a few years older than myself, just walked away. Went on a safari. No announcement. No curtain clutching. That struck me as the path of the hero. Because if I’ve learned one thing about life, it’s this: It isn’t about me. Or you. We are all replaceable. And we’re all going to be replaced.
There’s a beautiful, brief poem by Jennifer Michael Hecht with the cumbersome title, “On the Strength of All Conviction and the Stamina of Love.”
It begins:
Sometimes I think
we could have gone on.
All of us. Trying. Forever.
We could; but we don’t:
But they didn’t fill
the deserts with pyramids.
They just built some. Some.
Then they stopped.
They’re not still out there,
building them now. Everyone,
everywhere, gets up, and goes home.
Or drops dead. Eventually. I’m sorry that Joe Biden can’t see his way to tap out in favor of, oh, Gavin Newsom. He has a choice. We don’t.
Ex-Labor Secretary Robert Reich Exposes The Republican Art Of Distraction
Lee MoranUpdated – July 26, 2023
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich in his latest video takes Republicans to task over five “totally made-up crises” he says they are using to distract Americans.
They are the conservative war on “woke,” attacks on the transgender community, freak-outs over critical race theory, slurring of welfare recipients and claims of out-of-control government spending.
All five “disguise what’s really going on,” Reich warned.
A big lie, an attack on the Capitol — and soon, another indictment
Kyle Cheney – July 26, 2023
Julio Cortez/AP Photo
In a more than two-month blitz that ended in violence, Donald Trump lied, cajoled, inveighed and inspired his supporters to challenge the results of an election he lost. Now, special counsel Jack Smith appears on the verge of indicting Trump for those efforts.
Two and a half years have passed since the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. Yet investigators are still piecing together the breadth of Trump’s attempt to derail the transfer of power. It wasn’t a singular plan but in fact was many disparate schemes, led by distinct groups of advisers who embraced increasingly fringe strategies and were not always working in harmony.
Each arm of the effort was held together by one core lie with Trump at the center: that the election was stolen. And each tentacle has faced withering scrutiny from Smith’s investigators, who may ask a federal grand jury any day now to approve criminal charges tied to Trump’s election subversion, mere weeks after Smith charged Trump in a separate case for hoarding classified documents.
But if and when Smith brings charges related to Trump’s wide-ranging bid to cling to power, it will fall to the courts and a jury to determine whether Trump’s conduct — no matter the broad powers and immunities of the presidency — crossed the line into criminality.
The exact charges that Smith will seek are unclear, but here’s a look at the extraordinary range of conduct that will figure into them.
The disinformation campaign
Key figures: Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell
Even before votes were cast, Trump began conditioning his supporters to distrust the outcome of the 2020 election, insisting that mail-in voting — which states embraced to contend with Covid-era dangers — would be exploited by Democrats, foreign adversaries and bad actors to steal the election.
Trump rejected advice from his own allies, like campaign manager Bill Stepien and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, to embrace mail-in voting as a way to drive turnout among his supporters. Instead, he set up mail ballots to be a scapegoat for his possible defeat.
In tandem with this effort was Trump’s plan, which he telegraphed to advisers, that he would declare victory on election night — when interim results were likely to be tilted in his favor due to delays in counting mail-in ballots — even though large shifts toward Joe Biden were anticipated as all votes were tallied in the days following the election.
Trump did just that. In the wee hours of the morning on Nov. 4, 2020, at the urging of Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and against the advice of virtually everyone else in his inner circle, Trump declared victory and warned his supporters that Democrats would try to steal the election.
Trump followed his early claim of victory with a weekslong campaign alleging — without evidence — widespread fraud in a handful of states Biden won: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona. He and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits aimed at overturning the results or throwing out millions of votes in areas that favored Biden. Most were summarily dismissed for lacking substance or being filed in untimely ways.
A last-ditch bid to challenge the results, filed by Texas but supported by Trump in a separate legal brief, was turned aside by the Supreme Court.
Despite being rebuffed in the courts, wild conspiracies proliferated in pro-Trump circles. Figures like Sidney Powell, an attorney who represented Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn in criminal matters, promoted the false notion that election machines made by Dominion Voting Systems had been manipulated by foreign governments to tip the election toward Biden.
In the meantime, Trump barraged the airwaves and his supporters’ inboxes with fundraising appeals and ads accusing Democrats of cheating, stuffing his campaign’s coffers even as many of his own advisers privately indicated that he had, in fact, lost the race.
Smith may be eyeing Trump’s fundraising and messaging tactics for potential crimes related to defrauding donors or the public at large.
The Electoral College, Part I: The states
Key figures: Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Brad Raffensperger, John Eastman
As Trump’s efforts flailed in the courts, his allies began eyeing a second target: state legislatures. Although by late November election officials and governors had certified Biden’s victory, Giuliani began promoting the notion that state legislatures could simply override those decisions by citing fraud or “irregularities” that justified a different outcome.
To support this notion, Giuliani and Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis traveled to the states Trump was contesting and convened public hearings with sympathetic GOP legislators to highlight allegations of fraud. They pushed GOP-controlled legislatures to attempt to designate pro-Trump slates of presidential electors to replace or compete with Democratic electors that had been certified by election officials and governors.
Most notably, Trump leaned on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to simply “find” the votes that would put Trump ahead of Biden in the state. A recorded Jan. 2, 2021, phone call captured the lengthy exchange and has become fodder for Smith as well as investigators in Georgia.
Raffensperger balked. So did other state leaders, refusing to appoint their own slates of electors despite Trump’s increasing pressure.
This stage of Trump’s strategy is where John Eastman — a conservative attorney with fringe theories about the Electoral College — began gaining prominence in Trump’s orbit. He participated in Trump’s efforts to lean on state legislatures to act, appearing at public hearings convened by Republican legislators. Ultimately, Eastman would become the driving force behind Trump’s final, desperate bid to stay in power, a plan focused squarely on Jan. 6.
The Electoral College, Part II: The fake electors
Key figures: John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani
When the Electoral College met on Dec. 14, 2020, in 50 state capitals and Washington, D.C., no contested states had designated pro-Trump electors to compete with Biden’s electors. Nevertheless, in seven of those states, dozens of pro-Trump activists convened in state capitals, at the same time as Democratic electors, and cast ballots that they claimed made them legitimate presidential electors.
These “alternative” or “contingent” electors signed certificates claiming to be the states’ duly qualified electors and delivered them to the National Archives and Congress, following a process set out in federal law for actual presidential electors.
Enter Eastman. Emails released by the House select committee on Jan. 6 show that after the Electoral College ballots had been cast, he shifted his focus to legitimizing the uncertified electors.
The conservative attorney, who advised Republican legislators during the contested Bush v. Gore election of 2000, had been advising Trump and his allies since before the 2020 election, joining a working group assembled by attorney Cleta Mitchell to develop a post-election litigation strategy.
Within days of the Nov. 3 election, Mitchell asked Eastman to draw up a plan for state legislatures to appoint pro-Trump electors to supplant those certified by governors. Eastman obliged, and his plan, by late November, had made its way to the Oval Office.
Eastman, who would also author Trump’s Supreme Court brief in the Texas case, spent much of December leaning on state legislators to declare their elections invalid, citing fraud and irregularities, and use that as a pretense to appoint alternate electors. Eastman told allies at the time that without the imprimatur of a state legislature, these “contingent” electors wouldn’t have any legal force.
Mulling the seizure of voting machines
Key figures: Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn
After the Supreme Court refused to consider the Texas election challenge Dec. 11, 2020, Trump saw his options dwindle to an increasingly desperate few.
He had begun mobilizing members of Congress to formally challenge the election results Jan. 6, when the House and Senate were required to meet and count electoral votes. And he still hoped state legislatures would swoop in and send their own electors to Washington. But he also began eyeing a more extreme option.
Powell, Flynn and their allies had been in Trump’s ear about the prospect of invoking presidential authority to seize voting machines in the states he was contesting, using a combination of national security directives to justify the move. Various drafts of an executive order supporting such a move circulated in the White House (some of which were turned over to the Jan. 6 select committee).
The conversation culminated in a Dec. 18 Oval Office meeting with Trump, Flynn, Powell, Giuliani and others. At the meeting, Trump flirted with naming Powell a roving “special counsel” to pursue election-related matters, and Flynn advocated for taking the machines. But White House aides and Giuliani pushed back, and Trump ultimately opted against the move.
Hours later, in the middle of the night, Trump issued his first call to supporters to descend on Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021. “Be there,” he tweeted. “Will be wild.”
Deploying the Justice Department
Key figures: Jeff Rosen, Rich Donoghue, Jeff Clark, Pat Cipollone, Scott Perry
Trump was publicly frustrated that his own Justice Department had openly rejected his claims of widespread election fraud, and when Attorney General Bill Barr resigned in December 2020 — amid open conflict with the president — Trump eyed another mechanism to bolster his bid to remain in power.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA.), who espoused some fringe theories about election fraud, had begun connecting Trump with Jeff Clark, a Justice Department official who was sympathetic to his efforts. Several documented meetings or calls with Trump in late December 2020 and early January 2021 showed Clark had Trump’s ear during this crucial period.
Internally, Clark had been pressing Justice Department leaders to issue a letter to the states Trump was challenging, describing “irregularities” and recommending that their legislatures reconvene to consider whether Trump, rather than Biden, should be declared the winner.
Clark faced sharp pushback from Barr’s successor, acting attorney general Jeff Rosen, and his deputy, Rich Donoghue. But Trump briefly considered outflanking them by naming Clark acting attorney general and giving him the perch to implement the effort. But Trump backed down after a mass resignation threat by Trump Justice Department officials and top White House lawyers, including White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
Records revealed by the Jan. 6 select committee indicate that Trump may have briefly effectuated Clark’s appointment as acting attorney general before rescinding it.
The Electoral College, Part III: Pressuring Pence
Key figures: Mike Pence, John Eastman, Greg Jacob, Ken Chesebro
When all else failed, Trump turned firmly to Jan. 6, 2021, seen by his increasingly fringe group of allies as the ultimate deadline to stop the transfer of power to Biden. Though no states had endorsed alternative slates of electors, Congress was still in receipt of the unofficial slates sent in by pro-Trump activists.
The Jan. 6 session, required by the Constitution as well as an 1887 law known as the Electoral Count Act, has long been a formality, a ceremonial gathering to affirm the certified results of the states. Only a handful of times in American history have challenges been brought — and no challenge to a state’s electoral votes had ever been sustained.
But in Trump’s view, the Jan. 6 session was a last stand of sorts. And he had one final cudgel to attempt to stave off a Biden presidency: his vice president, Mike Pence.
The Constitution requires that the vice president — who doubles as the president of the Senate — preside over the counting of Electoral College ballots. So Trump spent the final weeks of his presidency pressing Pence to assert the power to simply refuse to count Biden’s electoral votes. Pence, Trump argued, could cite the competing slates of electors and declare the results to be in doubt, postponing the count and sending the matter back to the states for consideration.
His contention was backed by a coterie of fringe attorneys who had spent a frantic few weeks fleshing out what they dubbed “The president of the Senate strategy.” Emails obtained by the Jan. 6 select committee show Eastman communicating with lawyers like Giuliani and Ken Chesebro, who attempted to muscle through what they acknowledged was a constitutionally dubious plan.
But Pence resisted. He recognized that taking such steps would require violating provisions of the Electoral Count Act and would be an unprecedented assertion of single-handed authority to determine the outcome of the election.
Trump publicly and privately browbeat Pence to change course, but Pence repeatedly refused. On the morning of Jan. 6, Trump called Pence for one final, angry phone call in which he derided Pence for refusing to bend to his will. It was the last time they would speak that day.
As violence unfolded at the Capitol that afternoon, Eastman and Giuliani continued to press Trump’s allies to stop the election process. Giuliani called Republican members of Congress and asked them to mount continued challenges to the results that might buy more time, and Eastman corresponded with a Pence aide, counsel Greg Jacob, in a final effort to get Pence to delay the electoral vote count.
Jacob pushed back on Eastman, even as he fled from the first wave of rioters. He has since become a key witness in California bar discipline authorities’ bid to strip Eastman of his law license over his Jan. 6-related actions.
The rally
Key figures: Ali Alexander, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon
After Trump told his supporters to “be there” for a “wild” protest in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, a large pro-Trump faction responded. The tweet invigorated groups like Ali Alexander’s “Stop the Steal” organization, which made plans for a rally on Capitol grounds Jan. 6. Women for America First organized a rally near the White House that became Trump’s primary event that day.
The rally was the primary reason tens of thousands of Trump supporters descended on Washington. And Trump’s tweet imploring them to “be there” has figured into dozens of prosecutions stemming from the riot that followed the rally. It was the moment, prosecutors have argued, that extremists like Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes began mobilizing large contingents to descend on Washington. Both have since been convicted of seditious conspiracy.
The far-right conspiracy theorist and broadcaster Alex Jones, who attended the rally, helped lead hundreds of people from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Nearby, at the Willard Hotel, a pro-Trump “war room” was working to manage the ongoing efforts to overturn the election, featuring participation from Steve Bannon, Giuliani and other Trump allies.
Trump used the rally crowd as a means to pressure Congress, telling them that if they didn’t “fight” to stop Biden’s victory they wouldn’t “have a country anymore.” He then pointed them to the Capitol, where he urged them to march “peacefully and patriotically” to reject the election results.
But Trump’s rhetoric was overwhelmingly packed with apocalyptic imagery, which has led at least one federal judge to say he might plausibly be accused of inciting the violence that followed.
The riot
Key figures: Mark Meadows, Mike Pence, Pat Cipollone
After Trump’s rally speech, he retreated to the White House — furious that his Secret Service detail had resisted his desire to go to the Capitol, where violence had begun to break out.
Instead, he withdrew to the Oval Office dining room, where he watched the chaos at the Capitol unfold on TV. While watching, he resisted desperate pleas from allies like McCarthy and other Republicans in Congress, aides, advisers and family members to explicitly tell his supporters to go home. For hours, Trump ignored those appeals while outnumbered police officers were battered and members of Congress — and Pence — evacuated to safety.
While Pence fled, Trump tweeted an attack on his vice president, saying he lacked the courage to stop Biden’s election. That tweet appeared to inflame the crowd; the Jan. 6 committee has shown how the mob intensified in the ensuing moments and many on hand at the Capitol shared it with those around them.
Throughout the day, Trump held court with a long list of advisers, like chief of staff Mark Meadows and Cipollone. Both have become key witnesses in Smith’s probe. Pence has also testified to the special counsel.
When Trump finally did tell supporters to go home, 187 minutes after the first police line was breached, many in the crowd seemed to respond. Videos from the riot show supporters sharing the tweet with one another and heeding his call.
The damage, however, was done. Five people died during or shortly after the attack; hundreds more were injured. In the 30 months since, more than 1,000 rioters have been criminally charged for what they did Jan. 6. Now, Smith’s next moves — and the secret vote of a grand jury that has undoubtedly heard all of the evidence above — will determine whether Trump, and members of his inner circle, will stand trial, too.
11 Republicans affirmed Donald Trump won in Arizona. What to know about the fake electors
Robert Anglen, Arizona Republic – July 26, 2023
They convened at the Arizona Republican Party headquarters two weeks before Christmas in 2020 and put their names to a lie.
Eleven top party officials, lawmakers and candidates avowed they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified electors” and cast their votes for then-President Donald Trump.
Electors in Arizona are required by law to follow the will of the people. In 2020, legitimate electors designated by the Democratic Party cast their votes for Joe Biden, who had won Arizona by a 10,457-vote margin.
The 11 Republicans weren’t qualified electors for the 2020 election, Trump didn’t win Arizona, and their votes were not official. They celebrated anyway, immortalizing the moment in a Twitter video.
In all, 84 people — including elected officials, candidates, former officeholders and Republican party leaders — from groups in seven swing states falsely claimed to be alternate electors in a coordinated plot to keep Trump in office.
And the 11 Arizonans who applauded eagerly at the time are unwilling to talk about their decisions, declining interview requests, hanging up on calls and retreating from questions.
Here is what you need to know about the GOP’s slate of fake electors.
Tyler Bowyer
Bowyer, 37, is the chief operating officer at Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that advocates for conservative politics on high school, college and university campuses.
Bowyer’s biography on Turning Point’s website touts his “strong desire to combat Marxist-Leninist philosophy from entering the American political mainstream.” He describes himself as a seventh-generation Arizonan.
Republican Gov. Jan Brewer appointed Bowyer as a student regent on the Arizona Board of Regents in 2011. He has worked for the Republican National Committee and served as chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Party from 2015-2017.
In July 2015, Bowyer helped to convene a rally at the Phoenix Convention Center that served as an early national sign of the future president’s appeal.
Bowyer has declined recent interview requests about the electors. In 2022, he told The Arizona Republic he didn’t know “all the details and facts” but emphasized his role as an elector.
“I was an elector − I want to make sure we’re clear here − I was an elector for the Republican Party.”
Tyler Bowyer, COO of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Arizona GOP biennial statutory meeting at Dream City Church on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023, in Phoenix.
Nancy Cottle
Nancy Cottle, 71, of Mesa, chaired the Arizona Trump electors.
Cottle was subpoenaed by House Select Committee investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol for her “role and participation in the purported slate of electors casting votes for Donald Trump and, to the extent relevant, your role in the events of January 6, 2021.”
She describes herself on Twitter as a “political junkie” and an “ultra MAGA.” Her LinkedIn page lists her as a “strong consulting professional” with a background in business planning. Cottle is the owner of The Branded Image.
She has a master’s degree in operational management from the University of Phoenix and a bachelor’s in health, physical education and speech from Kent State University, according to her bio.
Cottle has not responded to multiple interview requests.
State Sen. Jake Hoffman
State Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, chairs the Legislature’s conservative Freedom Caucus.
On Jan. 5, 2021, Hoffman sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence asking him not to accept the state’s official electoral votes. Although Hoffman had not yet taken office, the letter was sent on official state letterhead and had a return address of the state Capitol.
Hoffman has proposed and supported so-called election integrity bills, including one that would trigger an automatic redo of an election in which voters had to wait in line more than 90 minutes and another to break up Maricopa County into four counties. Both of those failed.
Hoffman, 38, is the married father of five, according to online biographies. He previously served on the Higley School Board and the Queen Creek Town Council. He was a communications director with Turning Point USA and runs several conservative digital marketing companies.
In 2020, a company he operated called Rally Forge was accused of operating a troll farm for a Turning Point affiliate and was banned from Facebook and suspended from Twitter. The company paid teens to set up bogus accounts and flood social media with posts sowing distrust in mail-in ballots and downplaying COVID-19.
Another of Hoffman’s companies, 1Ten, received $2.1 million from a political action committee that used spoof donors to boost the campaign of failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. The owners of California businesses who were listed as the source of funds said they had never heard of the PAC − or Lake.
Hoffman has avoided questions about the fake electors. In a brief interview outside the Capitol in 2022, he told The Arizona Republic electors wanted to provide Congress and Pence with “dueling opinions” before walking away.
Rep. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, speaks as the House votes on bills related to the budget at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix on June 24, 2021.
State Sen. Anthony Kern
State Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale, is an ardent Trump supporter who spoke at “Stop the Steal” rallies and was at the U.S. Capitol when it was sacked by rioters. He has given conflicting accounts about where he was that day, but photos and videos show him on the Capitol steps.
Kern, 61, predicted in speeches he gave before the riot that Jan. 6 would be a “big day,” frothing up crowds by asking if this was “a revolution.” He told The Republic in 2022 what happened at the Capitol was a partisan hoax.
Kern in 2005 was hired as a civilian code enforcement officer for The El Mirage Police Department. He was fired in 2014 for lying to a supervisor after a string of disciplinary problems. The department also put Kern on the Brady list, a database of officers accused of dishonesty.
Kern was elected to Arizona’s House of Representatives in 2015. He falsely claimed on financial disclosure forms that he was a certified law enforcement officer. In 2019, he tried to pass a law to overhaul the Brady List without acknowledging he would directly benefit by getting his name removed. He lost his seat in the 2020 election.
Only people who have done something wrong or had something to hide would need to hire a lawyer, he said.
Republican state Sen. Anthony Kern leads a protest across the street from the Washington Elementary School District office on March 9, 2023, in Glendale.
Jim Lamon
Jim Lamon ran for U.S. Senate in 2022 and lost in the Republican primary.
Lamon, 67, of Paradise Valley, is married with two children. He grew up on a farm in Alabama before joining the U.S. Army. He was stationed in Germany in the Cold War and served as an airborne officer.
Lamon earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Alabama in 1979.
He describes himself on LinkedIn as a Fortune 500 executive. Lamon is the founder of Scottsdale-based Depcom Power, a solar engineering and construction company that employed 1,600 across the nation when he sold it.
Before entering politics, Lamon was known as a reliable donor to Republican causes and candidates, including Trump. He was a behind-the-scenes player in the Arizona Senate’s “audit” and helped bankroll security.
Lamon made immigration and border security a cornerstone of his platform and sought to restore Trump-era policies that returned asylum seekers to Mexico while awaiting court hearings. He was also critical of the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 relief package.
Despite pouring millions of his own money into his campaign, Lamon lost to Republican challenger Blake Masters, who was defeated by Democrat Mark Kelly.
Lamon has not responded to interview requests about the electors. In 2022, while he was running for Senate, he appeared on KTVK-TV’s “Politics Unplugged” and claimed the electors were part of a backup plan in case Trump succeeded in his election fraud challenges.
“The Republican electors put forth a valid document that said, in the event that the election certification was overturned, there would be no excuse not to recognize those electors,” Lamon said.
The signed document, however, had no such proviso.
Jim Lamon speaks to a crowd of Republican voters at the party’s primary debate for the U.S Senate in Phoenix on June 23, 2022.
Montgomery, 72, of Hereford, pushed for hand counts of votes as committee chair and before the 2022 election told Cochise County Supervisors they should ignore warnings about it from then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
He told the supervisors to throw Hobbs’ letter “in the bucket somewhere” and argued a full hand-count would be “easy to do,” according to a report by Votebeat.
Montgomery said former State Rep. Mark Finchem − an election denier and conspiracy theorist − would support hand counts if he won his bid for secretary of state. Finchem lost in a landslide to his Democratic challenger.
The Cochise County Board of Supervisors in September appointed Montgomery to the Palominas Fire District board. The decision came despite protests from some Sierra Vista residents who said Montgomery’s role as a fake elector should disqualify him. They complained Montgomery should not be rewarded for trying to overturn the election.
He is also on the county’s planning and zoning commission.
Montgomery has repeatedly declined to discuss his role as a fake elector. He did not respond to messages left at his home or at the fire district in July.
He was serving as the second vice chair of the Gila County Republican Party when he signed as a Trump elector.
According to online biographies, Moorhead, 78, of Globe, is married and has four children and five grandchildren. He was born in Pennsylvania and served as a Navy corpsman for 14 years, doing multiple tours in Vietnam.
Moorhead has a bachelor’s degree in education from Edinboro State University in Pennsylvania and earned a master’s degree in special education and teaching from New Mexico State University in 1999. He is listed as a consultant on his LinkedIn page.
He taught at schools in New Mexico and Arizona. Moorhead also was a commercial driver for Werner Enterprises until his retirement in 2007.
Moorhead has not responded to calls and messages about his role as a Trump elector.
Lorraine Pellegrino
Loraine Pellegrino, 65, of Phoenix, was secretary for the Arizona Trump electors.
Pellegrino is one of four electors subpoenaed by House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
She has an extensive background in Arizona Republican politics. Pellegrino is past president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women and is a founding member of the Ahwatukee Republican Women’s Club.
Her online biography highlights her election as a delegate to Republican National Committee conventions in 2012, 2016 and 2020. She has served three terms on the Arizona GOP Executive Committee. She lists the recruitment of Republican women to run for office as one of her personal achievements.
Pellegrino has lived in Arizona for 25 years. She was born and raised in Connecticut and has a bachelor’s degree in media studies from Sacred Heart University. She is married and has one son.
Pellegrino in a January 2022 interview said the electors met as a contingency “in case there was a change in the decision here in the state.” She couldn’t say how the plan came together but bristled at the characterization of the group as “alternate” electors.
“We were electors for Trump and we were hoping things would change,” she said. “Just in case, we signed our paperwork to be ready in the event that something was overturned.”
Pellegrino hung up when contacted in July about the attorney general’s investigation.
Greg Safsten
Greg Safsten was executive director of the Arizona Republican Party when he signed as a Trump elector.
Safsten, 35, of Gilbert, was hired as a campaign consultant in 2022 by U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters, who was defeated in the general election. He had previously worked as an adviser and director for Rep. Andy Biggs and Rep. Matt Salmon.
According to his Legistorm biography, Safsten got his start in 2012 as a field director for Salmon’s campaign and was later hired as his legislative assistant. In 2016, he went to work for the Biggs campaign and ultimately rose to the position of deputy chief of staff.
Police and court records show in 2022 he was arrested and pleaded guilty to extreme DUI.
According to a March 2022, search warrant affidavit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, a Gilbert police officer saw Safsten speed away from a Taco Bell restaurant “losing control of his vehicle as it fishtailed” and nearly collided with another vehicle.
The officer said Safsten kept going when he initially tried to pull him over, driving at a high rate of speed and weaving between lanes until finally pulling over about a half-mile later. He failed a field sobriety test, records show.
Safsten was fined and sentenced in January to 60 months’ probation, records show.
Safsten’s LinkedIn page has no employment information after August 2022. He bills himself as a “seasoned public relations, communications, public policy & political executive.”
“I work to be the leader and teammate I’d want on my own team,” he writes on his page. “Having formed and led teams in various conditions for over a dozen years, I know what it takes to win.”
Safsten was born and raised in Mesa. He attended Mountain View High School and obtained a bachelor’s degree in international studies from Arizona State University in 2007. He also studied clinical laboratory science at Weber State University in Utah.
Safsten did not respond to an interview request.
Kelli Ward
Kelli Ward is the past chair of the Arizona GOP. She helped to organize the signing of the fake electors, sat at the head of the table during the “signing” video and boasted about the moment on Twitter.
“Oh, yes we did!” Ward wrote in a Dec. 14, 2020 post. “We are the electors who represent the legal voters of Arizona! #Trump2020#MAGA.”
Ward, 54, of Lake Havasu City, was among those subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee and the Department of Justice over the slate of fake electors. Her attorney said in 2022 Ward was engaging in First Amendment-protected activity.
Ward is an osteopathic physician turned politician. She was elected to the Arizona Senate in 2013. She resigned to go after John McCain’s U.S. Senate seat in 2016, losing in the Republican primary, 39% to McCain’s 51%. She tried again for U.S. Senate in 2018 and lost in the Republican primary to Martha McSally.
Ward became party chair in 2019 and after the 2020 election became one of Trump’s most ardent supporters, launching several unsuccessful lawsuits to overturn Arizona’s election.
Ward promoted various voter fraud conspiracies and championed the Arizona Senate’s “audit,” delivering frequent YouTube updates as the ballot count unfolded, which turned into a fundraising bonanza for the party’s candidates and causes.
Ward is married and has three children. She was born in West Virginia. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Duke University and a doctorate from West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine. She has a master’s degree in public health from A.T. Still University, according to her legislative biography.
She practiced emergency medicine in Lake Havasu City and Kingman.
Ward was replaced as party chair in 2023. She and her husband announced on YouTube they bought a 44-foot catamaran and were starting a charter business called Sail American Honey.
Ward has not responded to interview requests about the electors.
Kelli Ward speaks during the Arizona GOP biennial statutory meeting at Dream City Church on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023, in Phoenix.
Michael Ward
Michael Ward is Kelli Ward’s husband and a GOP activist. He, too, has been subpoenaed by the Department of Justice for his role as a Trump elector.
Ward, 58, of Lake Havasu City, is an emergency physician and is the state air surgeon in the Arizona Air National Guard, according to his LinkedIn page. He formerly worked at Havasu Regional Medical Center.
Ward first enlisted in the US Air Force in 1983 and began his military medical career. He joined the reserves and was commissioned to active duty in 1992, according to a listing on America’s Mighty Warriors, a veteran’s support group.
Ward earned a doctorate in osteopathic medicine in 1995 from A.T. Still University, where he met Kelli,according to her biography. They were married in 1995. Ward served as his wife’s campaign manager from 2011-2015.
He was accused in 2019 of spitting in the eye of one of his wife’s former volunteers. Police records indicate the alleged incident happened at the Arizona Republican Party’s general election night gala in Paradise Valley.
The former volunteer said Michael Ward was angry because the volunteer was supporting Kelli Ward’s political opponent, Martha McSally, according to police reports. Michael Ward emailed the Paradise Valley police and denied the allegations. He told police his accuser was an attention seeker and known storyteller.
Michael Ward also had a reputation for confronting people on his wife’s behalf. He was accused of bullying a staffer of Sen. John McCain at a Tea Party event in 2016. The moment was captured on video.
Michael Ward did not respond to an interview request about the attorney general’s investigation into the Trump electors.
Kelli Ward gets a kiss from her husband, Dr. Michael Ward, before greeting supporters at a primary election night party at Embassy Suites Scottsdale on Aug. 28, 2018.
Arizona’s second slate of fake electors
Arizona spawned a second group of fake electors in 2020 who certified that it, too, had cast the state’s votes for Trump.
The lesser-known Trump loyalists called themselves “The Sovereign Citizens of the Great State of Arizona” and sent the National Archives in Washington, D.C., notarized documents that carried the state seal on their letterhead. The signers were:
