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#falsely

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Republicans have unleashed a flurry of ➡️ lawsuits challenging voting rules and practices ⬅️ ahead of the November elections,
🔥setting the stage for what could be a far larger and more contentious legal battle over the White House after Election Day.

The onslaught of litigation,
much of it landing in recent weeks,
includes nearly 90 lawsuits filed across the country by Republican groups this year.

The legal push is ⭐️already more than three times the number of lawsuits filed before Election Day in 2020,
according to Democracy Docket, a Democratically aligned group that tracks election cases.

🆘 Voting rights experts say the legal campaign appears to be an ⚠️effort to prepare to #contest #the #results of the presidential election after Election Day should Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, lose and 💥refuse to accept his defeat as he did four years ago.

The lawsuits are concentrated in swing states
— and key counties
— likely to determine the race.

Several embrace #debunked #theories about voter fraud and so-called stolen elections that Mr. Trump has promoted since 2020.

In Montgomery County, Pa., the state’s third-largest county, the party is seeking to ♦️force local officials to count ballots by hand, evoking debunked conspiracy theories about corrupted voting machines. 👀

A case filed by the Republican National Committee in Nevada this month #falsely asserts that nearly 4,000 noncitizens voted in the state in 2020,
a claim that was rejected at the time by the state’s top election official, a Republican.

nytimes.com/2024/09/29/us/poli

The New York Times · Trump Allies Bombard the Courts, Setting Stage for Post-Election FightBy Danny Hakim

Cleanup on Aisle MAGA. -- Trump Bends to Conservative Abortion Critics

In the end, Donald Trump, a master of evasion, could only obfuscate for so long.

After hemming, hawing, avoiding, and rambling, he finally admitted Friday night that ♦️he opposes his home state’s abortion-rights ballot initiative.

Insiders had expected him to end up there.

⭐️But Trump had shown a remarkable ability to just say nothing at all.

For months, he was coy about the Florida initiative, which would overrule the state’s current #six-#week #ban by creating a right to abortion in the state constitution.

He said he’d let his position be known at some point and then offered vague responses that didn’t address the fundamental, binary choice of which way he’d vote.

🔥But pressure and anger mounted from social conservatives after he made muddled remarks to NBC that led to a conservative backlash.

And a day later, Friday, he finally made his position clear in a safe-space interview with Fox News.

He started by saying that while he would prefer to extend Florida’s cutoff so that abortions are permitted beyond six weeks
—“you need more time than six weeks”
—he has ultimately decided to vote against #Amendment4 because it would allow for later-term abortions, all the way through birth:
“The nine months is just a ridiculous situation, where you can do an abortion in the ninth month.”
“I’ll be voting no for that reason,” Trump said.

He then #falsely claimed that in “some of the states, like Minnesota, and other states, have it where you could actually execute the baby after birth.”

It was a major relief for evangelicals.
#Mission #accomplished,” said an evangelical Trump confidant, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

thebulwark.com/p/cleanup-on-ai

The Bulwark · Cleanup on Aisle MAGA: Trump Bends to Conservative Abortion CriticsBy Marc A. Caputo

In #Montana, Trump repeatedly mentioned what he still #falsely says was a “#rigged election” in 2020

and said the Republican National Committee was working at an effort to #repeat those efforts this year.

He made #xenophobic comments about migrants coming to the U.S. illegally,
🌟falsely said Harris was letting some “roam free” to assault, #rape and #murder Americans,
🌟and falsely claimed she would give undocumented immigrants all the benefits Americans enjoy.

“It’s going to be called a #Trump #mass #deportation, because we have no choice. We have no choice. If Harris wins, a never-ending stream of illegal alien #rapists,” Trump said, ironically.

He also made snide comments about Senator #Jon #Tester’s appearance, chided his support for the Inflation Reduction Act,
-- which has brought hundreds of millions of dollars to Montana, and called Tester a “big slob.”😨

Trump brought Rep. #Ronny #Jackson, R-Texas, a former physician to the president, on stage to air his animus for Tester
six years after Tester helped tank Trump’s effort to put Jackson in as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs in 2018 by bringing to light complaints Jackson had #overprescribed certain medications and was #drinking on the job.

“This man tried to destroy me. He tried to destroy my family. I’ve been waiting for six years to get back here for this night, to be with this man right here, to come after (Tester),” Jackson said, calling Tester a “Swamp hippopotamus😂

dailymontanan.com/2024/08/10/t

jontester.com

Daily Montanan · Trump rallies thousands in Bozeman in support of GOP Senate candidate Sheehy • Daily MontananFormer President Donald Trump stumped for both himself and Montana’s Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy for more than an hour and half Friday night, telling a crowd of mostly ardent supporters that if Republicans don’t retake the White House and Tester’s Senate seat there will be “no country left.”
Continued thread

#Smirnov #Smirnov #falsely #Burisma #Hunter #Biden #Republicans

Republicans’ Star Hunter Biden Witness Is an Epic Disaster

Ex-FBI informant Alexander Smirnov confessed that he has ties to Russian intelligence.

Alexander Smirnov, a longtime FBI informant with ties to Ukraine, had claimed to have proof of Biden and his son Hunter accepting bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch.

Republicans repeatedly touted Smirnov’s claims in their quest to impeach the president.

But last week, the Justice Department announced that it was charging Smirnov with making a false statement and creating a false record related to the bribery allegation.

Now, in a detention memo filed Tuesday, the Justice Department revealed that Smirnov confessed that Russian intelligence officers helped him smear Hunter Biden.

Smrinov initially tried to spread the Biden Ukrainian corruption story just before the 2020 election, but Justice Department prosecutors are warning that Smirnov’s “misinformation” goes far beyond that.

“He is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November,” they said in the filing
newrepublic.com/post/179163/re

The New Republic · Republicans’ Star Hunter Biden Witness Is an Epic DisasterAs if it wasn’t bad enough already, a new Justice Department memo says ex-FBI informant Alexander Smirnov confessed that he has ties to Russian intelligence.

An FBI informant charged with lying to investigators about a fictitious bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company has “had contact with foreign intelligence services, including Russian intelligence agencies,” prosecutors alleged  in court documents on Tuesday. 

Alexander #Smirnov's contacts included a figure prosecutors called "Russian Official 1," whom the the informant allegedly described as "the son of a former high-ranking Russian government official, someone who purportedly controls two groups of individuals tasked with carrying out assassination efforts in a third-party country."

#Smirnov was indicted last week on charges he lied to the FBI, #falsely telling them that executives with now-defunct Ukrainian energy company #Burisma had paid #Hunter and Joe #Biden $5 million each in bribes.

The informant's claims have been a pillar of a months-long effort by congressional #Republicans to impeach the president.
usatoday.com/story/news/politi

USA TODAY · Indicted Biden accuser had 'extensive' contacts with Russian intel, prosecutors sayBy Dan Morrison

@lawdork - "Sen. #LindseyGraham #falsely #claimed multiple times on 3/2/23 that all 9 #SCOTUS justices signed on to #ChiefJustice #JohnRoberts’s letter declining #SenateJudiciary Committee Chair #DickDurbin invitation to attend the committee’s #hearing on #SupremeCourt #EthicsReforms. Building on that false premise, Graham later claimed, “I just want people to understand court as a whole has a problem with this, whether they’re right or wrong.” #SCOTUS #republicans #epicenter #corruption #lies