A former Marine and prosecutor who monitors Trump’s base online has turned over information to the January 6 select committee
Nicole Gaudiano – February 4, 2022
Ron Filipowski, a former marine and ex-Republican dedicates his time to tracking right-wing conspiracy theories.Ron Filipkowski
A criminal-defense attorney began tracking Donald Trump’s base online before the 2020 election.
He has turned over information to a committee investigating the January 6 siege on the US Capitol.
He provided “very obscure interviews and podcasts” from those involved in the attack, he tweeted.
Ron Filipkowski, a criminal-defense attorney in Sarasota, Florida, who has been monitoring right-wing extremists online says he’s now helping the House Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Filipkowski, a former longtime Republican, on Friday tweeted that he and his team have compiled “hundreds of very obscure interviews and podcasts from the planners, leaders and participants” of the siege on the US Capitol, most of which Filipkowski never shared online.
“At their request, today we turned over all of them to the J6 Select Committee, catalogued and organized,” he wrote.
Filipkowski told Insider on Friday that he interviewed with the committee members about three weeks ago and they asked him to try to put together everything his team thought would be of interest. “So we spent the past few weeks just putting it all together for them,” he wrote in a direct message on Twitter. “Some of these podcasts only about 100 people have seen, but they are from very key players in J6.
“It’s funny what people say doing a podcast with a friend when they think nobody is watching,” he added.
The news that Filipkowski is helping the committee comes the same day as the Republican National Committee voted to formally censure Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for their participation as members of the committee and criticism of Trump’s role in the Capitol siege.
Committee staff could not be reached on Friday for comment.
Filipkowski thanked his team of “two patriotic moms,” who he keeps anonymous, on Twitter for their hard work. “We don’t self-promote, ask for money, or sell things,” he wrote. “We volunteer this time just because we want to preserve this Republic for our kids.”
The former Marine and state and federal prosecutor and two researchers monitor live-streamed events, podcasts, radio broadcasts, social media, and dark chat rooms. Every day, Filipkowski watches streamed video of the “War Room” podcast with Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist in the White House, whom Filipkowski described in a December interview with Insider as a “chaos agent.”
He said then that his main concern moving forward was the safety of school board members, who have dealt with rowdy protests at meetings across the country over mask mandates, COVID-19 policies, and race and gender education.
Filipkowski is prolific on Twitter, but he said in December that he shares only some of what he sees. The majority of it can’t be shared because it includes “violence, conspiracies, you know, crazy theories,” things that would get him barred from Twitter, he said.
“For everything I post, I’ve seen 99 things worse,” he said.
Murkowski criticizes RNC calling Jan. 6 attack ‘legitimate political discourse’
February5, 2022
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is seen during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing to examine the the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Tuesday, September 28, 2021.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) criticized the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) apparent characterization of the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as “legitimate political discourse” in a resolution to formally censure Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.).
The RNC on Friday voted to censure both lawmakers, with the resolution saying that they have been engaged in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” by participating in the House select panel investigating the insurrection at the Capitol. The two were also censured for their past criticism of former President Trump.
“What happened on January 6, 2021 was an effort to overturn a lawful election resulting in violence and destruction at the Capitol. We must not legitimize those actions which resulted in loss of life and we must learn from that horrible event so history does not repeat itself,” Murkowski, one of seven senators who voted to convict Trump following the Jan. 6 attack, said on Twitter on Saturday.
“As Americans we must acknowledge those tragic events, and we cannot allow a false narrative to be created. We cannot deny the truth-to suggest it was ‘legitimate political discourse’ is just wrong,” she added.
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel on Friday tweeted a photo of a story by The New York Times regarding the RNC’s censure, the headline of which read “G.O.P. Declares Jan. 6 Attack ‘Legitimate Political Discourse.’ “
A subhead underneath it could be shown reading, “The Republican National Committee voted to censure Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for participating in the inquiry into the deadly riot at the Capitol.”
McDaniel suggested the newspaper’s story was false and called it “baseless political propaganda.”
“Cheney and Kinzinger chose to join Pelosi in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol,” the RNC chair tweeted, doubling down on the committee’s language.
But not all Republicans saw the censure that way, including a handful of moderate Republicans and those previously affiliated with the RNC who either questioned the move or outright criticized it.
“Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol. Honor attaches to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for seeking truth even when doing so comes at great personal cost,” tweeted Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who also voted to convict Trump last year and who is McDaniel’s uncle.
The remarks from Murkowski come as she faces a Senate reelection bid against Trump-backed challenger Kelly Tshibaka, previously Alaska’s commissioner of administration.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chair of the Senate GOP campaign arm, however, said back in November that he would support Murkowski’s reelection efforts despite the challenge from Tshibaka.
Climate change will deplete ocean oxygen, kill fish, studies show
Ben Adler, Senior Climate Editor – February 4, 2022
Climate change is going to wreak havoc on the world’s oceans, according to two new studies, depleting the warming waters of the oxygen that fish and other sea life depend on to survive.
By 2080, around 70 percent of the oceans on the planet will suffer from a lack of oxygen due to warmer temperatures, a study published in November by researchers with the American Geophysical Union’s journal Geophysical Research Letters concluded. The study finds that substantial deoxygenation of the middle ocean depths, where a large percentage of the fish that people eat are found, began occurring in 2021.
Oceano Dunes, south of Pismo State Beach in California. (George Rose/Getty Images)
“This zone is actually very important to us because a lot of commercial fish live in this zone,” Yuntao Zhou, an oceanographer at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The study’s models show deoxygenation will begin affecting all ocean depth zones by 2080, and that deoxygenation may be irreversible. Even if humans stopped emitting greenhouse gases and reversed global warming by sucking carbon dioxide from the air, the question of “whether dissolved oxygen would return to pre-industrial levels remains unknown,” Zhou said. This underscores the importance of halting climate change — and the resulting ocean deoxygenation — as quickly as possible, according to scientists.
The reason for the declining oxygen levels in oceans is that warmer waters hold less dissolved oxygen and ocean temperatures are rising at an alarming rate. According to another new study released this week and published in the scientific journal PLOS Climate, a majority of the world’s ocean surface has consistently exceeded the normal range since 2014.
High water temperatures threaten ecosystems such as coral reefs and kelp forests, which fish feed on. Researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, Calif., mapped 150 years of sea surface temperatures to establish the normal temperature ranges. They found that 2014 was the first year in which a majority of ocean surface areas went above what would normally be considered an extremely hot temperature by historical standards. That benchmark has been surpassed every year since then, making what was once extreme heat the new normal.
Dead and dying coral off the island of Huraa in 2019 near Malé, Maldives. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
“Climate change is not a future event,” Dr. Kyle Van Houtan, who led the research team when he was chief scientist for the aquarium, said in a statement. “The reality is that it’s been affecting us for a while. Our research shows that for the last seven years more than half of the ocean has experienced extreme heat.”
While heat in and of itself threatens marine life, declining oxygen levels add an additional danger, and the middle ocean depths are most vulnerable because they do not have additional sources of oxygen. The ocean surface absorbs oxygen from the atmosphere, and the lowest sea depths gain oxygen from the decomposition of algae. But the ocean’s middle depths, which are from about 600 feet to 3,300 feet below the surface and are called mesopelagic zones, will be the first area to lose large amounts of oxygen because they do not get oxygen from either of those sources. They are also home to many of the world’s commercially fished species, including tuna, swordfish and anchovies.
Losing those fish species to deoxygenation could devastate fishing-based economies and cause shortages of seafood for communities that rely on it. “Deoxygenation affects other marine resources as well, but fisheries [are] maybe most related to our daily life,” Zhou said.
The researchers also found that oceans closer to the poles, where warming is occurring faster, are also losing oxygen more quickly.
The next coup is being attempted, and it’s more sinister than the last | Opinion
Buzz Thomas – February 4, 2022
Coups d’etat come in different flavors. There’s the classic vanilla, where the president is assassinated and the military takes over as we saw recently in Haiti. But there are other ways to slice the pickle.
You cheat. Bend the rules. Bribe the refs. So that even though your side should lose, you win.
Everybody likes to win. And nobody likes to cheat. I should say nobody wants to cheat. We’d all prefer to win without dealing off the bottom of the deck. That way you preserve your money and your dignity, too.
But if you can convince yourself that the ends justify the means — that losing would be catastrophic to the higher good — you just might do it.
Insurrection at the US Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021.
But cheating in a national election is no easy task. Each state or province has its own rules about when and how one can vote, how the votes are counted and who confirms the winner.
We should all know by now that the U.S. is not a true democracy. If it were, the Republican Party would have won only one presidential election since 1988. Instead — thanks to the Electoral College — it has won three. But now, the GOP’s chances of winning, even with the Electoral College, have diminished.
So what should the party do? One would hope what political parties have always done. Change the message. Energize the base. Enlarge the tent.
But what’s happening instead is this: In key battleground states still under GOP control such as Georgia, Texas and Arizona, the party is removing the civil servants who confirm who has won and replacing them with party loyalists. I am not making this up. They are replacing the refs with their own players. That way if the other side wins, they can site some evidence of voter fraud — there’s always some small error in a statewide election — and throw out the results. And because the ultimate power to select delegates to the Electoral College belongs to the state legislatures, they can simply send an alternative slate of delegates who will vote the party line.
A posting on Twitter from the Arizona Republican Party on Dec. 14, 2020, showed the Republican electors meeting to cast their votes for Donald Trump, falsely claiming they were the state’s true electors.
I feel half-crazy even writing these words, but this is exactly what is going on right now. Not in Egypt or El Salvador. In America.
Buzz Thomas
The point of a coup is to overturn the lawful government and replace it with one of the insurrectionists’ choosing. President Donald Trump’s supporters tried this the old-fashioned way on Jan. 6, 2021, and failed. Now they’re doing it a new way. A smarter and more sinister way.
If you’re like me, you may have thought that the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol was carried out by fringe elements and far-right extremists. It wasn’t. We now know from the more than 700 people who have been charged and arrested that the vast majority of insurrectionists were mainstream Republicans. Many college-educated and white-collar workers. Many with their own businesses.
The common denominator was a deeply held belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen (a belief shared by the majority of registered Republicans despite a battalion of GOP judges ruling otherwise) and a willingness to use all means necessary to right that wrong.
If you’re willing to take up arms against your own government, it’s a baby step to cheat in order to win the next election.
That’s the state of our union in 2022 whatever President Joe Biden has to say about it to Congress in his State of the Union Address on March 1. And you can forget counting on good Christians like Gov. Bill Lee or U.S. Sens. Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn to do anything about it. They seem devilishly delighted by the prospects of a game where their side cannot lose.
Buzz Thomas is a retired minister and attorney, and the former interim superintendent of Knox County public schools.
Romney rips GOP censure effort against Cheney, Kinzinger
February 4, 2022
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Friday criticized the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) effort to censure Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), saying he considered the move by their fellow Republicans shameful.
Romney, a leading critic of former President Trump within the Senate GOP conference, signaled his support for Cheney and Kinzinger, also both prominent Trump critics, and said in a tweet that “shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol.”
He praised them for seeking answers despite the professional and personal consequences. Both Cheney and Kinzinger are serving on the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the only two Republicans to do so.
“Honor attaches to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for seeking truth even when doing so comes at great personal cost,” he added.
Romney’s statements stand in stark contrast to those of his niece, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who spoke in favor of the resolution that was passed by the resolutions committee on Thursday. McDaniel has previously condemned her uncle for criticizing Trump.
Trump and the events of Jan. 6 have divided the GOP as the former president continues to exert enormous influence within the party.
Cheney and Kinzinger were among 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump following the attack on the Capitol. Following her vote, Cheney was removed from GOP leadership in the chamber for repeatedly pushing back against Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Romney similarly condemned Trump following the events of Jan. 6, explicitly declaring that the former president had “incited the insurrection” that led to 5 deaths and hundreds of injuries, many of them sustained by Capitol Police officers. The Utah senator was one of seven Republicans in the upper chamber to vote to convict Trump on an impeachment charge after the attack.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who also voted to convict Trump following Jan. 6, questioned the RNC’s move toward censuring Cheney and Kinzinger in a Twitter post on Thursday night.
Romney, who tested positive for COVID-19 last week, is also set to participate in a fundraiser for Cheney in March as the Wyoming incumbent looks to protect her seat against Trump-endorsed Republican primary challenger Harriet Hageman. Kinzinger, meanwhile, announced he is leaving the House at the end of his term.
Conservative Pundit Warns Just How Unhinged A Second Donald Trump Presidency Could Be
Lee Moran – February 3, 2022
Conservative pundit Charlie Sykes suggested people may look back “with a certain sense of nostalgia” at Donald Trump’s first presidency if he wins the White House again in 2024.
“For all their many faults, Pence, Barr, and even Giuliani came from a different era of American politics, with lingering (and rapidly fading) memories of the rule of law and a (more or less) decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” Sykes wrote.
“But in a second Trump term, they won’t be there,” Sykes warned. “It will be all Kayleighs, Bannons, Epshteyns, McEntees, Bonginos, D’Souzas, and Stephen Millers.”
“So consider this: In Trump 2.0, we may look back on Bill Barr, Mike Pence, and — God forgive me — Rudy Giuliani with a certain sense of nostalgia, because where are those lines now?”
Senators close in on ‘mother of all sanctions’ bill against Russia
Trish Turner and Allison Pecorin- February 3, 2022
A bipartisan group of senators is within striking distance of a deal on a bill that would impose crippling sanctions on Russia for its hostilities against Ukraine.
“We are finding the path forward very clearly,” said Sen. Jim Risch, top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, indicating that the White House and other key agencies were involved in the negotiations to agree on a deal ahead of any potential invasion by Russia, which has amassed more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border.
Asked if a deal could be announced as early as Thursday, Risch said, “I’d have to say that’s possible,” though aides to three senators involved said it was unlikely.
Top Biden administration officials briefed members of Congress on Thursday about the escalating tensions in and around the former Soviet Republic. Lawmakers leaving the more than hourlong briefing in the Congressional Visitor Center said the gravity of the message from those top officials, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director Avril Haines, added urgency to their efforts.
“Collectively, what I heard made the case that this is more pressing, more timely, and that time in this regard, if we want to be preventative, is of the essence,” said Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J. Menendez, who is the chief architect of the sanctions bill along with Risch, added that he is “cautiously optimistic that we are going to get there.”
PHOTO: In this Dec. 7, 2021, file photo, Chairman Bob Menendez, left, and Senator Jim Risch, are seated during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to examine US-Russia policy, at the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Alex Brandon, Pool via AFP via Getty Images, FILE)
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who is involved in the bipartisan Senate talks, agreed, saying, “The briefing, I think, will accelerate the bipartisan sanctions package.”
Despite the closeness of a deal, differences remained among negotiators on the appropriate triggers for sanctions and when and how to penalize those developing the controversial, but as-yet-inoperable Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a project that would bypass Ukraine, taking with it crucial revenue.
“I am hopeful in the next coming days we can introduce a sanctions package that imposes sanctions now for the (Russian) provocation with post-invasion sanctions that will destroy the Russian economy as we know it,” said Graham, who like many Republicans after the briefing, said he thought a Russian invasion of Ukraine was now a matter of “when” not “if.”
Some Democrats and the Biden administration want to hold back sanctions, arguing that they are more powerful as a deterrent against Russian aggression.
“Deterrence is the idea that if you do X, we will do Y. If you put penalties in place in advance, at least significant penalties, you obviously take away the stick of deterrence,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
“I think it’s very important that (the) United States put a very strong sanctions package in place,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told CNN, adding that any sanctions need to be announced in advance “to have a deterrent effect.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said sanctions against Russia must be “much more forceful than they have been” but also insisted that any sanctions be imposed after an invasion.
“I think it’s really important for us to use the sanctions if the Russians strike,” Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday. “It is important because it’s where leverage is at maximum. If they do this, then we strike.”
Pelosi said that thinking is also in line with most U.S. allies.
“This is deadly serious,” Pelosi said. “So, they have to feel the pain, and it has to be felt right up to the richest man in the world: Vladimir Putin. Nobody knows what he’s going to do except for him.”
PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with members of the Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia) All-Russian Public Organization at the Kremlin, in Moscow, Feb. 3, 2022. (Aleksey Nikolskyi/Kremlin via Sputnik via Reuters)
Indeed, lawmakers have said the legislation, a bill Menendez said puts in place “the mother of all sanctions,” would contain a strong recommendation that Russia be kicked out of the global financial consortium known as SWIFT, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. Based in Belgium, it connects more than 11,000 financial institutions and is used as a messaging platform for the transfer of funds around the world.
If that recommendation is included in the bill, the Biden administration would still have to take action to have Russia removed, an extreme action lawmakers have said is on the table.
The White House confirmed Thursday that it is in close consultation with senators but stopped short of endorsing any deal.
“We are in very close touch with members of Congress about this legislation, which I don’t think has been formally even proposed yet,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters en route to New York aboard Air Force One. “So we are in close contact and in conversations with them.”
Psaki, however, continued to express the administration’s support for post-invasion sanctions, saying that the “deterrent” approach of “the crippling economic sanctions package” and noting that the impact is already being felt in the Russian financial markets.
Still, a number of Democrats were moving closer to the GOP position that pre-invasion sanctions were a must even if the most serious sanctions are reserved in the event of an invasion.
“I think Putin and Putin’s Russia have already committed sufficient aggression against Ukraine justifying some sanctions,” said top Biden ally Chris Coons, D-Del. “I think we should hold back the most aggressive and most punishing sanctions for now as a deterrent because the whole goal here is to keep open some space for diplomacy and to deter aggression.”
Menendez and Risch have been briefing members of their panel this week. One member — Mitt Romney, R-Utah — told ABC News he met with Risch on Wednesday night and the smaller group negotiating the package is “making good progress.”
The legislation would include a measure authored by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Ben Cardin, D-Md., modeled on the World War II-era “lend-lease” program, which would use existing presidential authorities to allow the administration to provide lethal military equipment to Ukraine to protect the population from a Russian invasion.
Members hope to move any sanctions deal — which, according to two aides involved in the matter, is still in the legislative drafting stage — to the Senate floor quickly, and Sen Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who recently returned from Ukraine and is part of the talks, told ABC News he had spoken earlier in the week with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who committed to bringing any bipartisan deal to the floor for a vote quickly.
And after Thursday’s high-level briefing, it is clear that members are ready to act swiftly.
Coons said he’s “very” concerned about the situation on the ground in and around Ukraine, adding, “It’s really hard to listen to all of that and not conclude that we need to do more.”
ABC News’ Mariam Khan and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally, Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022, in Conroe, Texas.
Donald Trump appeared at a rally in Conroe, Texas on Saturday. Conroe is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is described by Rolling Stone reporter, Steven Monacelli, who attended the rally, as “…one of the reddest counties in one of the reddest states.”
According to Monacelli, Trump announced that rally was the biggest ever, that the fake media wouldn’t show the crowd size and, repeated a false claim he made in Arizona about a 29-mile-long line of cars coming to the rally. Only this time it was 30 miles long.
As reported by The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake, Trump encouraged people to engage in massive demonstrations in jurisdictions pursuing criminal investigations against him over Jan. 6 and tax-related issues. “Minutes later,” Blake reported, Trump said that if he were reelected, he would consider pardoning Jan. 6 Capitol rioters.
And he lashed out at the prosecutors from Georgia, New York and Washington, D.C., each of them African-American, who are independently investigating him. He called the prosecutors, who happen to be African-American, “racists and they’re very sick…, mentally sick.”
Trump told his cheering mob, if any of them “do anything wrong or illegal,” he hopes to see “the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere.” As if one Trump-induced riot on Jan. 6 wasn’t enough.
Unlike the folks in Conroe, and Trump’s political toadies like Texas Gov. Greg Abbot, I think enough is enough. And, like Howard Beale, the fictional news anchor in the 1975 film classic “Network,” who implored his viewers to shout from their windows, I am “as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
Beale prefaced one of the most famous lines in movie history with this: I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’”
Is this a Howard Beale moment? Are you as mad as hell, as I am? If yes, what do we do about it, beyond lamenting, “enough is enough?”
Ron Johnson participated in a Jan. 4, 2021, session at a Trump hotel on the potential delay of the election certification
Bill Glauber – February 3, 2022
Ron Johnson was one of three Republican U.S. senators to attend a Jan. 4, 2021, meeting convened by MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell as loyalists to then-President Donald Trump sought to gather information and rally support to delay certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
The Washington Post reported that Johnson attended the meeting virtually, while Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-North Dakota, and Sen.Cynthia M. Lummis, R-Wyoming, were in a crowded conference room with others at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The Post reported: “What the senators heard from a handful of presenters were some of the most fantastical claims among those alleging that the election had been stolen — including, according to Cramer, that the 2020 vote had been influenced by foreign powers and that proper investigation required gaining access to voting machines around the country.”
The meeting came two days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Congress reconvened and certified the election results. Johnson was among those who voted in favor of certification, after first indicating that he planned to join with 10 other Republican senators in objecting to the certification.
On Dec. 16, 2020, Johnson, then head of the U.S. Senate’s homeland security committee, held a hearing on the election.
“The senator’s hearing was part of what should be ongoing congressional oversight meant to transparently address that problem,” a Johnson spokesperson said. “Following the hearing, he and his staff continued to gather information and consider allegations, that is why he joined the meeting.
In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Lindell said: “I called the meeting, a few people came in and did a presentation on what they had for election fraud. And that was it.”
My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell speaks before President Donald Trump’s campaign appearance Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020, at the La Crosse County Fairgrounds in West Salem.
Lindell, who has pushed false conspiracies about the 2020 election, said he never spoke individually with Johnson but praised him.
“Ron Johnson cares about Wisconsin, cares about the United States and cares about our future,” Lindell said.
Asked whether he considered Johnson to be an ally, Lindell said:
“I believe he is an ally of the American people. Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, he is for the people and wants to have fair elections going forward.”
The Post also reported the existence of a Dec. 18, 2020, memo circulated by Trump allies that advocated using data from the National Security Agency and Defense Department in an effort to show foreign interference in the election.
Johnson’s office was among those to receive the memo, the Post reported.
“Staff received the memo on January 13 and took no further action,” a Johnson spokesperson said. “The request from the Washington Post was the senator’s first knowledge of this memo, he has not seen it.”
Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, a Democratic candidate running for U.S. Senate, issued a renewed call for Johnson to be subpoenaed by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In a statement, Nelson said “reports about using NSA resources provide all the more reason to place him under oath and ask him what he knew and when he knew it.”
Kevin McCarthy says Trump foes Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger will ‘have a hard time ever’ returning to Congress
Brent D. Griffiths – February 4, 2022
Rep. Liz Cheney speaks during a news conference with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on July 21, 2020.Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Kevin McCarthy refused to defend two of his colleagues after the RNC’s formal censure
He suggested that Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger’s congressional careers are over.
“I think those two individuals will have a hard time ever coming back to Congress,” McCarthy said.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Friday that Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger’s congressional careers are effectively over, declining to support them after the Republican National Committee’s censure.
“I think those two individuals will have a hard time ever coming back to Congress,” McCarthy said on Fox News.
McCarthy, who once counted Cheney as one of his top deputies, sounded bemused as he pointed out that Kinzinger is “quitting” and that Cheney “has a very low poll rating in Wyoming.”
The RNC formally censured the two Republicans on Friday, citing their participation in the House January 6 Committee as evidence of their apostasy against the party. The resolution refers to the committee’s “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” After intense criticism, RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel later clarified that the resolution did not intend to refer to the ransacking of the Capitol as “legitimate political discourse.”
Unlike Kinzinger, Cheney is running for reelection in the face of a Trump-backed primary opponent. CNN reported that McCarthy has thus far declined to take a position on whether he would support Cheney. Traditionally, the party supports all incumbents in the event of a contested race.
