Turning his back on the Constitution

On the very day that former Attorney General Bill Barr left office in late December, Donald Trump and top White House aides began relentlessly harassing interim Justice Department leaders, including acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to a new report released today by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The report builds on the findings of a House committee, which disclosed emails and other communications in July detailing similar efforts to co-opt DOJ officials.

• — Pressure campaign. Among the committee's findings are the efforts by then-acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, who repeatedly sought to "induce Rosen into helping Trump's election subversion scheme." The report confirms that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also pressured Rosen on "multiple occasions" to launch election fraud investigations, "violating longstanding restrictions on White House intervention in DOJ law enforcement matters."
•  
• — Nine times. The hero of our story appears to be Rosen. The committee found that the White House effort included nine calls and meetings with him and acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue and "near-daily outreach" to the department. The White House push continued right up to the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of Trump supporters violently sought to block Congress' certification of President Biden's election. Rosen did not yield.
•  
• — A close call. "Today's report shows the American people just how close we came to a constitutional crisis," Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin said. "Thanks to a number of upstanding Americans in the Department of Justice, Donald Trump was unable to bend the Department to his will. But it was not due to a lack of effort. Donald Trump would have shredded the Constitution to stay in power." —USA Today

A no-show on Capitol Hill

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform is holding a hearing today about Arizona's partisan election "audit," but a key figure is conspicuously absent. Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the lead contractor hired by State Senate Republicans for the review of Maricopa County's 2020 election, declined an invitation to appear. "Unfortunately, less than 36 hours before the hearing, Mr. Logan informed the committee that he is refusing to appear," said Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney. "Clearly, Mr. Logan doesn't want to answer tough questions under oath about the highly questionable, partisan audit that his company led." Among the witnesses who did show up were two Republican members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors who opposed the State Senate's review, Chair Jack Sellers and Vice Chair Bill Gates. —KTAR News

MORE: Why Democrats see three governor's races as a sea wall for fair elections —The New York Times

Klaas: What we can learn from other democracies

"[M]ost other democracies aren't facing the same existential risks to their systems that we are, so we can learn from them. In most functioning democracies, politicians don't draw their own district maps. Their campaigns aren't driven by effectively unlimited cash flowing in from special interests. Prominent media outlets aren't headlined by conspiracy theorists or white nationalists. Citizens get a voice proportionate to population size. The judiciary isn't politicized, and senior judges don't serve for life. Elections are managed by non-partisan technical experts, not elected partisans." —Brian Klaas in The Washington Post

Brian Klaas is an assistant professor of global politics at University College London, and the co-author of "How to Rig an Election."

MORE: Senate Judiciary squares off over John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act —The Hill

'Our hope is to get this done as soon as today'

It's about time. Congressional leaders have edged back from a perilous standoff, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer accepting an offer from Republicans to extend the government's borrowing authority into December. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made the offer late yesterday, shortly before Republicans were prepared to block longer-term legislation to suspend the debt limit. President Biden, Treasury officials, and business leaders had warned all week that an unprecedented federal default would disrupt government payments to millions of people and throw the nation into recession. Once a routine matter, raising the debt limit has become a politically charged issue, most often used by Republicans to rail against government spending and the rising debt load. —Associated Press

MORE: The Dallas Morning News Ed. Board: Will Congress' hubris make us a deadbeat nation? —The Dallas Morning News

Gilbert & Aftergut: Signaling our commitment to democracy

"On Dec. 9-10, President Biden will host an international 'Democracy Summit' in Washington. The president's signature on the Freedom to Vote Act and support for the Protecting our Democracy Act at that event would provide historic pathways toward creating a more perfect union, again showing the world that the United States is a leader in protecting and advancing core electoral freedoms." —Lisa Gilbert & Dennis Aftergut in New York Daily News

Lisa Gilbert is the vice president of Public Citizen. Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel at the Renne Public Law Group in San Francisco.

MORE: Eliot A. Cohen: The last best hope —The Atlantic

Focus on the pandemic

Good news in the fight against COVID-19. Pfizer and BioNTech announced today that they are seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization for their COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. If authorized, this would be the first such vaccine for younger children. In anticipation of the request, the FDA last week scheduled a meeting of its advisory committee to discuss the vaccine in children on Oct. 26. If the FDA approves it, a panel of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisers will meet to consider whether to recommend its use. Following that, it's in the hands of parents, a substantial percentage of which may decline it. —CNN

• — "It will be horrific." There's a growing and vocal grassroots movement of people who believe that vaccine mandates—not only for COVID-19, but for all diseases—are an affront to their personal freedom. That represents a marked shift from pre-pandemic times, when vaccine opponents were largely comprised of a few religious sects and a small number of left-leaning activists seeking explanations for rising rates of autism. As the anti-vaxx movement gains political traction, particularly on the right, medical experts fear it could lead to a surge in long-conquered diseases, from mumps to whooping cough to smallpox. —Newsweek
•  
• — Well this takes some gall. Count Idaho's Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin among the anti-vaxxers. While Gov. Brad Little temporarily left the state on Tuesday on government business, McGeachin immediately began issuing executive orders, including a ban on coronavirus vaccine mandates. "I am in Texas performing my duties as the duly elected governor of Idaho, and I have not authorized the lieutenant governor to act on my behalf," Little said. "I will be rescinding and reversing any actions taken by the lieutenant governor when I return." —The Guardian

1. — No vaccine, no organs. Lt. Gov. McGeachin really won't like what's happening in Colorado. The UCHealth system says it is denying organ transplants to patients not vaccinated against the coronavirus in "almost all situations," citing studies that show these patients are much more likely to die if they get COVID-19. Colorado State Rep. Tim Geitner shared a letter that a Colorado Springs woman received informing her that she would be inactivated on a kidney transplant waiting list if she didn't get vaccinated within 30 days. Geitner called the decision "disgusting" and discriminatory. —The Washington Post

Von Drehle: Have courage

"Like all virtues, courage is an individual choice—though tremendous damage can be done by leaders who operate on fear rather than courage. Those with open eyes can see such leaders everywhere they look: leaders in government and industry stoking fear of enemies, fear of conspiracies, fear of calamities, fear of the future. The moral weakness of these fearmongers demands courage from the rest of us. We must recognize appeals to fear and reject them—even if the fear being invoked feels real and true and justified to us. Indeed, seductive fears are the ones we are especially called to rise above." —David Von Drehle in The Washington Post

David Von Drehle is a Washington Post columnist focusing on national affairs and politics.

MORE: A guide to fighting misinformation and disinformation online —Miami Herald

I apologize for this being long, but I hope the message is worth it, and maybe even changes a mind or two.

Last week I witnessed (as did many others) a hit-and-run accident involving several cars. As the driver/car sped past me at probably twice the posted speed limit, and I saw the red light ahead, I thought for sure the driver was not going to stop. Sure enough, a multi-car crash ensued. After several seconds, the driver then backed up, weaved around the vehicles and somehow sped off. After doing what you should do as a witness (and others did as well), I went home and thought about what had just happened. Fortunately, witnesses had provided the license plate number of the car to the police.

It may not be a perfect analogy, and some will argue, but it made me think of what we face with Covid, and many other things for that matter, i.e., people who will not obey any rules, laws, etc., because of "their freedom and their rights." Sticking with Covid as an example, people who won't wear masks, who won't get vaccinated, who will threaten and even assault others for doing such things, and so on. People who "have the right," they claim, to shop or eat in a business that requires masks—without a mask. And there are customers who wear masks in a place that does not want masks worn (as recently reported in a restaurant setting). Frankly, I support the decisions of the owners in either case; customers can go elsewhere and "vote" with their wallet. The whining, threats, etc., are pure BS, imho.

Reflecting on the accident later, I can imagine how that driver was "exhibiting" their freedom when speeding and weaving in out of traffic. And their freedom to run a red light. And how it was the fault of the other drivers who did not get out of the way of the red-light runner/speeder. And how it was their right and freedom to just drive away after injuring people and damaging the lives and property of others. To heck with the lives of others who were injured, whose property was destroyed, etc., they may say, because of "their freedom" to do as they please. That driver had "their rights and freedoms" to throw in the face of all others in society, others' rights and freedoms be damned. Rules and laws are for others, not for the "freedom folks."

That driver made "freedom" choices that directly impacted the lives of others with little to no regard for anyone else. That driver, in many ways, gave the "finger" to others and to society as a whole. We see this behavior in many ways every day. So when people complain about masks, vaccines, mandates, getting fired from jobs for not adhering to the rules the business puts forth, maybe, just maybe, they should consider the red-light runner. Maybe, just maybe, by doing so they envision a loved one in one of those other vehicles, as they run the light exhibiting "their freedom." And then also envision a loved one who gets Covid and, in the worst case, dies due to the actions and "freedoms" of others, or even themselves. —Bill T., Arizona

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.