[ Fulton County DA Fani Willis threw some light on Pennsylvania -
along with several other political swing states - in her 98-page
indictment of former President Donald J. Trump over his efforts to
void the 2020 presidential election and cling to power]
[[link removed]]
HERE’S WHY PA. AND SOME OF ITS TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE NAMED IN THE
GEORGIA INDICTMENT
[[link removed]]
Charles Thompson
August 15, 2023
PennLive
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]
_ Fulton County DA Fani Willis threw some light on Pennsylvania -
along with several other political swing states - in her 98-page
indictment of former President Donald J. Trump over his efforts to
void the 2020 presidential election and cling to power _
Current Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin County,
in May 2023. (He organized buses for the Jan. 06 Capitol Coup in
Washington, DC) , Photo: Dan Gleiter / PennLive
That was done, legal experts say, in the interest of helping build a
racketeering, or corrupt organization, charge against Trump and 18
co-conspirators by showing that their efforts in Georgia, where she
has prosecutorial authority, were part of a larger criminal effort.
“It shows a pattern, a practice, a scheme, that if you read the
indictment. ... starts immediately after the election,” said
Dickinson College President John Jones, a former federal judge for in
the Middle District of Pennsylvania. “It’s the story of a criminal
enterprise.”
One Pennsylvania native, Republican political strategist Mike Roman,
is among those indicted in the Georgia case.
Several others, former Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman and
then-Speaker of the Pennsylvania House Bryan Cutler, are noted for
their resistance to persistent entreaties from Trump attorneys Rudy
Giuliani and Jenna Ellis - and at one point even Trump himself - to
call a special session of the Pennsylvania Legislature for the purpose
of naming a Trump slate of electors despite Democratic candidate Joe
Biden’s clear win in the state’s popular vote.
But Trump’s two biggest cheerleaders in the orbit of Pennsylvania
elected officials - U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-York County, and state
Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin County - are barely named in the
latest indictment.
Here’s a closer look at Pennsylvania’s mentions in the Fulton
County indictment, which now will proceed alongside a separate
federal election subversion case against Trump.
[[link removed]]
Mike Roman
Roman is charged in the Fulton County indictment as being a central
figure in the multi-state “fake electors” plot that became so
central to Trump’s 11th-hour pressure campaign on former
Vice-President Mike Pence to block the certification of Biden’s
electoral college majority in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
After carving out a career in Republican politics, Roman, a
Philadelphia native
[[link removed]],
served as director of Election Day operations for Trump’s 2020
reelection campaign. He now faces several conspiracy charges related
to the fake elector scheme.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June that in the aftermath of
the November election Giuliani tapped Roman as “the lead” for
organizing the slates of fake Trump electors from key battleground
states.
That included coordinating with Trump lawyers and aides to Trump to
identify potential substitute electors and organizing signing
ceremonies designed to mimic the actual convening of the Electoral
College among legitimate electors for Biden.
Roman had been in talks with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office and
agreed to sit for an interview with his federal investigators, the New
York Times and CNN reported
[[link removed]] last
month. It’s not clear what the outcome of those overtures will be.
In at least one other state, Michigan, Trump electors and those
associated with the fake electors plot are facing state-level
prosecution.
Former Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore, who’s represented Mastriano
in both Smith’s federal investigation and the U.S. House Select
Committee on Jan. 6th’s probe, said Tuesday that the Pennsylvanians
have dodged that bullet because of language in their documents making
clear they were an alternate slate, to be considered only if and when
state court’s had validated a Trump win.
U.S. Rep. Scott Perry
The indictment lists then-Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark
Meadows texting Perry on Nov. 21 for points-of-contact for key
Pennsylvania legislative leaders. That would be an act in furtherance
of the conspiracy, Willis is arguing, in that the indictment seeks to
show that Trump’s efforts were active in several states in
furtherance of the goal of stealing the election.
The indictment then goes on to cite seven different telephone calls
from Giuliani and Ellis, Giuliani and Trump himself to Cutler and
Corman, in which the defendants ask the leaders to unlawfully appoint
a pro-Trump slate of presidential electors from Pennsylvania.
Cutler and Corman never agreed to do that.
U.S. Rep. Scott Perry speaks at a rally of Trump supporters outside
the Pennsylvania state Capitol on November 5, 2020. (Dan Gleiter |
[email protected], file)
It’s the only overt mention of Perry in this report, though other
investigations of the alleged election subversion efforts have cast a
bright light on his seemingly enthusiastic support for Trump’s
efforts through that fall and winter.
The New York Times reported in early 2021, for example, that Perry
introduced Jeffrey Clark
[[link removed]]to
Trump shortly before Christmas in 2020. Clark, the acting head of
DOJ’s civil division in the waning weeks of the Trump
Administration, had become known for having a more charitable view of
Trump’s election claims than most of the top brass at Justice.
It was a significant introduction because, as detailed in the report,
Clark quickly captured Trump’s fancy as a potential Attorney General
appointee willing to try Hail Mary plans such as sending letters
asking legislatures in six states — including Pennsylvania -—to
call special sessions to review election fraud allegations and
consider direct appointment of alternate Electoral College slates that
would award votes to Trump instead of Biden, as the popular votes
dictated.
The proposed letters would have been sent in contradiction to other
Justice findings that there had been no widespread fraud in the
national election.
[[link removed]]
Instead, in the hours before the president was set to replace Acting
Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Clark, Trump backed off in the
face of warnings that such an action would result in mass resignations
throughout DOJ and even within his White House staff.
So, Perry’s biggest contribution to the effort ultimately fizzled.
Clark, however, was charged for his role in the Fulton County
indictment, and he is believed to be one of the unindicted
co-conspirators cited in Special Counsel Smith’s federal case
against Trump.
The investigations are still incomplete. But based on the record as it
stands now, Jones said Tuesday, it’s likely prosecutors are not
viewing Perry’s actions in lobbying for Clark’s appointment - an
appointment he didn’t control - as a criminal act.
“You got to line draw someplace as a prosecutor, and I think it may
be that Congressman Perry flew closer to the sun than he should
have,” Jones said. “But in the end, he didn’t get his wings
burned off.”
PennLive reached out to Perry and his attorneys for comment Tuesday,
but received no response as of the publication of this story.
Sen. Doug Mastriano
Mastriano, who would go on to become Pennsylvania’s Republican
nominee for governor in 2022, hosted a state Senate committee meeting
in Gettysburg on Nov. 25, 2020 that gave Giuliani a forum to make
several claims about voter fraud in the Pennsylvania vote.
Some were incorrect on their face; none were ever substantiated to the
point where there was ever any legitimate question about Biden’s
81,000-vote victory in Pennsylvania; a key trove of 20 electoral
college votes.
The Gettysburg and Washington meetings were both cited in the grand
jury report as a part of Trump’s corrupt activities; Mastriano is
not mentioned by name.
Mastriano continued to beat the bully pulpit for Trump from
Harrisburg, and was in routine communication with Trump through
December.
In the Pennsylvania Legislature, he urged his colleagues to throw out
the certified election results and name their own winner - likely an
unconstitutional plan, given that Pennsylvania (and every other state)
awards its electoral votes based on the winner of the popular vote,
not on who legislatures want to be president.
He even organized bus trips for Pennsylvania supporters to attend the
Jan. 6, 2021 “Stop the Steal” events that preceeded the
now-infamous attacks on the U.S. Capitol.
But Mastriano was not present for any of the other White House
meetings cited in the Georgia grand jury’s report, Parlatore said.
And ultimately, while Trump lauded his efforts, he appeared to
conclude that the Franklin County state senator didn’t have the
juice to move the needle in Pennsylvania.
Parlatore told PennLive Tuesday he’s convinced the Fulton County
case “has nothing to do with him (Mastriano),” and that - as he
has maintained all along - Mastriano has no criminal exposure for his
actions on behalf of Trump.
Mastriano went on run and win in the Republican gubernatorial primary
in 2022, but lost to Gov. Josh Shapiro in a landslide last fall.
[[link removed]] He
continues to serve in the state Senate.
A Dec. 27, 2020 call to then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen
puts Perry and Mastriano’s work for Trump into a larger context.
On the call, Rosen told Congressional investigators later, Trump
hailed the work of individual lawmakers like Perry and Mastriano on
his behalf, but argued that they had limited power to address election
fraud claims, and indicated that in his view, the Justice Department
wasn’t doing enough.
Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue both
recalled telling Trump, according to the U.S. Senate Judiciary
Committee’s majority report, that DOJ was doing its job, with Rosen
at one point noting that the department “can’t and won’t just
flip a switch and change the election.”
* Trump Indictment
[[link removed]]
* Georgia indictments
[[link removed]]
* Pennsylvania
[[link removed]]
* criminal conspiracy
[[link removed]]
* RICO
[[link removed]]
* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
* overthrow elections
[[link removed]]
* orderly transfer of power
[[link removed]]
* voting rights
[[link removed]]
* voter suppression
[[link removed]]
* GOP Voter restrictions
[[link removed]]
* Fani Willis
[[link removed]]
* 2020 elections
[[link removed]]
* election fraud
[[link removed]]
* Doug Mastriano
[[link removed]]
* Mike Roman
[[link removed]]
* Rep. Scott Perry
[[link removed]]
* Rudy Giuliani
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]
INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT
Submit via web
[[link removed]]
Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]
Twitter [[link removed]]
Facebook [[link removed]]
[link removed]
To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]