Elections, Conspiracies, and Coverups, Oh My!
Alex Jones speaks at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 2018.
Between Tuesday night's primaries, deleted texts, and the usual antics from MAGA, it's been a hectic week in the right-wing world of misinformation, conspiracies, and election denial. So let's get right to the news.
8 Stories to Follow:
1) What is going on in Michigan? The Republican Accountability Project released a report in the runup to Tuesday night's primary showing that at least 151 Republican candidates have "sowed distrust or lied about the 2020 election." These are candidates for Michigan's State Senate and State House. These candidates fall into one or more of the following categories: 1) Making public statements casting doubt on the 2020 election, 2) Attending a Stop the Steal rally, 3) Signing onto an official letter or lawsuit that sowed distrust about the 2020 election, or 4) Attending Trump's rally on Jan 6 or participating in the storming of the Capitol.
2) The Guardian's Luke Harding reports that Twitter accounts known for peddling anti-vax and QAnon misinformation are diversifying. These accounts are now adding food crisis misinformation to their portfolios, claiming the slowdown in grain exports is not due to Russia's war in Ukraine. "According to NCRI, the accounts frequently link rising food insecurity to a ‘cabal of shadowy, and often Jewish elites, for bringing about the 'New World Order,’’ rather than to Russia's invasion of Ukraine."
3) Devin Nunes and Kash Patel are finding ways to stay relevant in Trump world. Nunes, Truth Social CEO, and Patel, who sits on the Truth Social board, have admitted that they see QAnon as a vital part of their strategy to gain users at Truth Social. The men have even gone so far as to create an account, @Q on Truth Social, for Q. The account has taken off on Trump's fledgling social media even though Truth's admins have made it clear the account was created by Truth Social and is not affiliated with the real Q.
4) MSNBC's opinion columnist Zeeshan Aleem has a new story about how right-wing sheriffs are organizing against our nation's election system. The two main sheriff groups, Protect America Now and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, are working to question the legitimacy of elections and advocating for more police and sheriff presence and oversight at polling locations. Aleem notes that while this news only ranks as troubling, it is not hard to see how it could become a real problem. "The potential for danger is clear. Some police forces could be less willing to intervene to stop right-wing vigilante violence in response to another election contested by Republicans."
5) Heidi Przybyla, writing for Politico, covers how the GOP is teaming up with Stop the Steal election deniers to help train poll workers. Publicly, the GOP says they simply want enough trained poll workers to protect the integrity of elections across the country. However, Josh Findlay, RNC National Election Integrity Director, appears to be relying on Cleta Mitchell, a central figure in former President Donald Trump's legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election, to head up this push for election integrity. Mitchell has been recorded "speaking openly about the need to challenge efforts by nonprofit groups aligned with Democrats to create a ‘new American majority’ of young voters, people of color and unmarried women." Having Mitchell at the helm makes it hard to promote the RNC's efforts as anything other than what it is: a partisan effort to ensure Republicans win.
6) CNN reports that the "Defense Department wiped the phones of top departing DOD and Army officials at the end of the Trump administration, deleting any texts from key witnesses to events surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol." So we can now add the Department of Defense to the list of government agencies, including DHS and the Secret Service, that wiped phone data in the wake of the January 6th insurrection. And while we are not calling this a cover-up, that is precisely the language used by Rep.’s Carolyn Maloney, Chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, and Bennie Thompson, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, in a letter sent to Inspector General of DHS Joseph Cuffari.
7) Tuesday night was a good night for election deniers backed by Trump in several primaries, according to Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post. While this is undoubtedly a disturbing development, the most troublesome race comes from Michigan, where Peter Meijer, one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump after the events of Jan 6, lost to John Gibbs and the DNC. Knowles reports that Democrats spent nearly half a million dollars helping Gibbs' campaign because the DNC believes they stand a better chance against Gibbs than Meijer. It's a shameless power grab that could endanger the country if the Democrat's gambit does not pay off.
8) Right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones was confronted by parents of Sandy Hook shooting victims in his defamation trial. They described the “living hell” of harassments and death threats that Jones put them through after telling his audience that the shooting was a hoax. "My son existed,” one mom told Jones. “I am not deep state ... I know you know that ... And yet you’re going to leave this courthouse and say it again on your show.”