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[link removed] [[link removed]] John,

As we wrap up August, we’re taking a look back at the many ways that CREW has fought to defend our democracy from the many threats made against it.

We exposed Project 2025’s harmful agenda for our democracy, called out the corruption risk of Truth Social and how Trump could be primed to violate the emoluments clause again, brought to light Georgia election officials who are trying to make it easier to stop the certification of elections and so much more.

We’re going to highlight a few more pieces of CREW’s work that you may have missed below. If August is any clear sign, it’s going to be a busy few months ahead, and one thing is for certain: we can’t do it without your support. So if you can, please make a donation to CREW today and help us continue our work to defend our democracy → [[link removed]]

Donate → [[link removed]]

Donate Monthly → [[link removed]]

Here are a few things you may have missed, from just the last week alone!

We released a report showing that the defense industry is the biggest supporter of the Sedition Caucus.

We’ve done the digging and we’ve crunched the numbers: While corporations and industry groups have given more than $100 million to support the Sedition Caucus since January 6th, one sector is particularly generous with anti-democratic lawmakers – the defense industry.

Of the top 40 companies that have given the most to the Sedition Caucus — the 147 members of Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election, along with Donald Trump, as well as those who have since been elected to Congress while promoting the Big Lie — ten belong to the defense industry. Collectively, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Honeywell, RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon), Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technologies, BAE Systems, General Atomics and Leidos have given more than $6 million to seditionist lawmakers since January 6th.

You can read more about the defense industry’s support of the Sedition Caucus in our new report. [[link removed]]

Donald Sherman, Executive Director at CREW, joined NPR’s 1A to discuss Georgia’s new election rules that put election certification at risk.

One rule change made on August 19th allowed Georgia’s board members to ask for a hand recount of ballots before certification and investigate any possible discrepancies.

Another rule change made on August 6th gives local election boards the opportunity to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into election results. However, it did not define what a “reasonable inquiry” was.

Donald explained how these rules changes could be used by board members to vote to not certify election results:

“So one of the things that we've been seeing across the country in the last four years is that election officials are essentially inventing reasons to not certify elections contrary to state law … And these Georgia rules, they don't provide any sort of litmus test or any standard by which a county superintendent could launch a free roaming reasonable inquiry. And there's no litmus test or standard or threshold for the second rule, which would allow an individual county election board member to request documents. So essentially what we have here is in 2020 we saw President Trump – former president Trump leaning on the Georgia secretary of state saying, ‘I need you to find me 11,700 votes.’ Now what these rules do is they basically lengthen that call sheet. They empower a candidate to then call election officials at the county level and say, "Well, I've got some questions here. I need you to find me 300 votes."

To learn more about Georgia’s rule changes and how they could impact the certification of the 2024 election, click here to listen to the 1A podcast with Donald. [[link removed]]

Virginia Canter, CREW’s Chief Ethics Counsel, published an op-ed in Just Security discussing sanctions on Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler.



The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Israeli businessman Dan Gertler and more than 30 of his businesses in December 2017 and June 2018, accusing him of engaging in “extensive public corruption” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In the final days of the Trump administration, those sanctions were lifted. But when President Biden took office, he named fighting corruption as a core U.S. national security interest, and quickly imposed the sanctions once again.

Now, it appears the Biden administration may soon lift the sanctions against the mining tycoon.

Virginia breaks down this issue and why it’s important to hold Gertler accountable in her new op-ed. [[link removed]]

Laura Iheanachor, senior counsel at CREW, and Diamond Brown, policy counsel at CREW, published an op-ed in The Hill about the Federal Prison Oversight Act.

This month, President Biden signed the Federal Prison Oversight Act into law, providing much-needed transparency and accountability over federal detention facilities and their private contractors.

Police departments across the country have repeatedly failed to hold themselves accountable and there are systemic failures within police forces.

Laura and Diamond explain how the Special Inspector General for Law Enforcement Act and the Ending Qualified Immunity Act could help bring accountability and transparency to police forces nationwide. Click here to read the op-ed. [[link removed]]

John, as you can see, we’ve been up to a lot here at CREW!

Our team never stops fighting for transparency and accountability – from holding the defense industry accountable for funding the Sedition Caucus to working for transparency in the police force.Continuing this work is only possible with support from grassroots donors like you. So we’re asking today if you can make a generous contribution to CREW to help us continue working for transparency and accountability in our government → [[link removed]]

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Thanks,

CREW HQ
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