Who do you tip to win the US presidential election

[giblets]

Rudy Giuliani reportedly seeks pardon from Donald Trump

Mr Trump has pardoned his personal friends in the past

Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and the man leading Donald Trump's legal challenge to the 2020 election, is reported to have had discussions with the president about obtaining a pardon.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Mr Giuliani is allegedly seeking a pre-emptive pardon from Mr Trump. The newspaper cites two unnamed people with knowledge of the discussion.

The anonymous sources said it was no clear who broached the topic first, and it was not immediately clear if Mr Trump would follow through on the request.

There were no immediate details regarding the crimes Mr Giuliani allegedly wants pardoned. Federal prosecutors were investigating him last summer for his involvement in Ukraine business dealings that eventually led to Mr Trump's impeachment.

Mr Giuliani's lawyer told the paper in a statement that he's "not concerned about this investigation, because he didn't do anything wrong and that's been our position from Day 1."

A president can grant a pardon for a crime that has not been charged or convicted yet, though it does not happen often.

The most famous example of a broad, pre-charge pardon occurred when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon following the latter's resignation.

George Washington also pardoned the conspirators behind the Whiskey Rebellion to prevent them from being tried for treason.

Mr Trump has not shied away from using his presidential pardoning power to help his friends. He has already pardoned his ally Michael Flynn, and commuted the sentence of his friend Roger Stone, who were both charged with lying to federal investigators conducting the Mueller investigation. Mr Stone was convicted and Mr Flynn's case was in limbo due to the coronavirus.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump-pardon-b1764579.html

[Lancer]

So this option, granted by some 2018 election law approve on a bi-partisan basis, likely answers the question as to why Trump changed the military leaders to supporters.

[giblets]

A witness in Trump ally Sidney Powell's lawsuits says the voting results in 'Edison County' indicate fraud. No such place exists.

A witness in a lawsuit from allies of President Donald Trump trying to overturn democracy in Michigan said the votes in Edison County "are cause for concern and indicate fraud" because President-elect Joe Biden won "more than 100% of the votes."

There's just one problem: There is no Edison County in Michigan, the Detroit Free Press pointed out.

In fact, there is no Edison County in the entire United States of America.

The claim came from Navid Keshavarz-Nia, who describes himself in an affidavit as a cybersecurity expert working at a defense contractor who has received training from several government agencies. The affidavit is included as an exhibit appended to a lawsuit filed last week by people working with Sidney Powell, a former member of the Trump campaign's legal team.

Keshavarz-Nia's nonsensical claim about Edison County drew widespread attention with a tweet from Jonathan Oosting, a reporter at the nonprofit news organization Bridge Michigan.

The typo-peppered lawsuit makes many of the same wildly conspiratorial arguments Powell made at a press conference that led to her ouster from Trump's legal team, including that the now dead Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez used voting machines to manipulate election results in his own country and that the very same machines are now being used to manipulate the 2020 election results. There's no evidence of the claim, and the companies named in Powell's lawsuits have debunked the arguments in them.

The witness says he hasn't actually looked at the voting machines


In the affidavit, Keshavarz-Nia said he had not analyzed any of the voting machines used in the 2020 election but argued that there was "evidence of fraud" based on his analysis of election data.

Much of that data is simply false or based on a misunderstanding of how election data is reported.

It's not clear whether Keshavarz-Nia had another county in mind when referring to a vote count of more than 100% in "Edison County," but some internet sleuths have made claims about more than 100% of a particular county voting by relying on outdated voter-record information or simply using the wrong data sets, USA Today and Reuters reported.

In another part of the affidavit, Keshavarz-Nia said Trump's lead in Pennsylvania dropped at a rate faster than votes can be counted. But the votes were reported by precincts in the time span he indicated, not actually counted at that time.

Even though Keshavarz-Nia said he didn't analyze the machines used in the 2020 election, Powell's lawsuit cites his affidavit to argue that "hundreds of thousands of votes that were cast for President Trump in the 2020 general election were transferred to former Vice-President Biden" — which is not true.

The lawsuit ultimately asks a federal judge to force Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to ignore voters and "transmit certified election results that state that President Donald Trump is the winner of the election."

Michigan has already certified its election results, granting its 16 electoral votes to Biden. The Trump campaign withdrew a federal lawsuit challenging the state's election results, and three other lawsuits filed by Republican-aligned groups failed; the judges overseeing the cases found no evidence of fraud.

Keshavarz-Nia couldn't be reached for comment, and Powell did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

https://www.businessinsider.com/sidney-powell-election-lawsuit-witness-vote-problems-edison-county-2020-12

Seems legit!

[Lancer]

I'm a huge fan of democracy. Its tempting to believe that Trump doing this martial law thing that's being floated is simply to do the election again without fraud. I do believe there was massive fraud and that if Biden becomes pres that's not democracy any more than martial law is. This s u c k s. I'd watch it very carefully. A lot of the Left would go screaming yellow ape ****. War in the cities... Could a free and fair election occur in such circumstances? I highly doubt it. If you believe in democracy, the day this happens, if it happens, would be a dark day indeed.

[Ming]

We already had a free and fair election... And Trump lost.
Deal with it.

[Lancer]

The extremist Left, the communist Left. The cities will burn. There's not a whole lot of conservatives in the cities, so mostly the communist Left would be burning moderate left owned and operated businesses in those cities. This will create a lot of new conservatives and definitely effect the election. Pool gives the figure of 33% of Democrats believe massive voter fraud for Biden. These are the center left, I can see them moving to conservative. So the outrage at martial law itself would effect the outcome to some degree.

[Lancer]

We already had a free and fair election... And Trump lost.
Deal with it.

Meh, I'm peanuts. This has been floated by someone near the top, forget whom Pool mentioned.

[Ming]

Keep living in your fantasy land... The election is over, and Trump lost fair and square.
But please don't forget to contribute to Trumps Election Fraud Fund... He's counting on your support.

[Lancer]

Blah...this may well be moving beyond all that crap.

[Ming]

The extremist Left, the communist Left. The cities will burn. There's not a whole lot of conservatives in the cities, so mostly the communist Left would be burning moderate left owned and operated businesses in those cities. This will create a lot of new conservatives and definitely effect the election. Pool gives the figure of 33% of Democrats believe massive voter fraud for Biden. These are the center left, I can see them moving to conservative. So the outrage at martial law itself would effect the outcome to some degree.

Poll: Most Democrats And Republicans Say Biden Won

An overwhelming majority of Americans from both parties believe President-elect Joe Biden won last week’s election, even though outgoing President Donald Trump and his allies are denying the outcome and attempting to fight back in court, a new poll found.
Some 79% of Americans — including around 60% of Republicans — say Biden was the rightful winner, whereas just 3% said Trump won and 13% said the election remains undecided, according to an Ipsos/Reuters poll released Tuesday.
Trump has shown no inclination to concede and congratulate Biden, but 72% of American adults believe the loser of the race ought to concede.
70% of Americans, including a majority of Democrats and Republicans, trust their local election officials to be honest, roughly matching with a pre-election YouGov poll that found 63% of voters believe state officials will count votes accurately.

[Lancer]

Pool said it, like I said. But who cares? Okay I agree, whatever, moot.

[giblets]

Justice Department investigating potential presidential pardon bribery scheme, court records reveal


The Justice Department is investigating a potential crime related to funneling money to the White House or related political committee in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to court records unsealed Tuesday in federal court.


The case is the latest legal twist in the waning days of President Donald Trump's administration after several of his top advisers have been convicted of federal criminal charges and as the possibility rises of Trump giving pardons to those who've been loyal to him.

The disclosure is in 20 pages of partially redacted documents made public by the DC District Court on Tuesday afternoon. The records show Chief Judge Beryl Howell's review in August of a request from prosecutors to access documents obtained in a search as part of a bribery-for-pardon investigation.


The filings don't reveal a timeline of the alleged scheme, or any names of people potentially involved, except that communications between people including at least one lawyer were seized from an office that was raided sometime before the end of this summer.
No one appears to have been publicly charged with a related crime to date.

The White House declined to comment on the court filing. CNN has previously reported that associates of the President are making appeals to him in the hopes of obtaining pardons before he leaves office. There is no indication that any of those associates are being investigated by DOJ in relation to Tuesday's filing.
A Justice Department official told CNN that "no government official was or is currently a subject or target of the investigation disclosed in this filing."
According to the court records, at the end of this summer, a filter team, used to make sure prosecutors don't receive tainted evidence that should have been kept from them because it was privileged, had more than 50 digital devices including iPhones, iPads, laptops, thumb drives and computer drives after investigators raided the unidentified offices.


Prosecutors told the court they wanted permission to the filter team's holdings. The prosecutors believed the devices revealed emails that showed allegedly criminal activity, including a "secret lobbying scheme" and a bribery conspiracy that offered "a substantial political contribution in exchange for a presidential pardon or reprieve of sentence" for a convicted defendant whose name is redacted, according to the redacted documents.

Communications between attorneys and clients are typically privileged and kept from prosecutors as they build their cases, but in this situation, Howell allowed the prosecutors access. Attorney-client communications are not protected as privileged under the law when there is discussion of a crime, among other exceptions.

"The political strategy to obtain a presidential pardon was 'parallel' to and distinct from [redacted]'s role as an attorney-advocate for [redacted name]," Howell wrote in her court order.

The grand jury investigation also appears to relate to unnamed people acting as unregistered "lobbyists to senior White House officials" as they sought to secure a pardon and use an intermediary to send a bribe, the unsealed court records say.

Prosecutors hadn't provided evidence to the judge, however, of any direct payment, and instead showed evidence that a person was seeking clemency because of past and future political contributions.


The investigators indicated in court that they intended to "confront" three people with the communications and complete their investigation.

Over the last week, the Justice Department told Howell it wanted to keep filings related to the matter confidential in court, because "individuals and conduct" hadn't yet been charged.

Trump has granted 29 pardons and commuted 16 people's sentences during his presidency, according to the US Pardon Attorney's office. Several of those have gone to people close to the President or whose names would make a splash -- including the 19th Century suffragist Susan B. Anthony, the former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Bush-era adviser Scooter Libby and longtime Republican political adviser Roger Stone, who lied to Congress to protect Trump's efforts in 2016.
Just last week, Trump pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI, undisclosed lobbying for Turkey and the waterfront of potential related crimes that Flynn could have faced in the future.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/01/politics/presidential-pardon-justice-department/index.html

[Proteus_MST]

Does this mean it isn't allowed for PotUS Trump to take money for presidential pardons?
Where has american entrepreneurship gone?

Trump should immmediately issue an EO that alloiws takling money in exchange for pardons

[BeBMan]

Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud

WASHINGTON (AP) — Disputing President Donald Trump’s persistent, baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.

Barr’s comments, in an interview with the The Associated Press, contradict the concerted effort by Trump, his boss, to subvert the results of last month’s voting and block President-elect Joe Biden from taking his place in the White House.

Barr told the AP that U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

(snipsnap)

https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-w...1a9061a6c7f49d

edit: ehhh....just seen...posted already by Broken_Erika. But hey, it's still a great pic

[Kidlicious]

We already had a free and fair election... And Trump lost.
Deal with it.

No we didn't. No he didn't. No we won't.

And maybe the Democrats shouldn't execute a soft coup for four years and then steal an election.

[Kidlicious]

Pool said it, like I said. But who cares? Okay I agree, whatever, moot.

I don't believe polls like that anymore.

[Lancer]

Yes, I agree to the reasoning... Not a big fan of where this leads. No matter if Biden gets in or Trump basically declares limited marshal law to run a new, clean election, the democracy is harmed.

[Kidlicious]

Yeah. Democracy was harmed when they weaponized the government.

[Proteus_MST]

I agree, Democracy definitely was harmed when they (= Trump and the GOP) weaponized the government