Trump’s 2020 Fake Electors Are Even More Powerful This Time Around

The fake electors that tried to help Donald Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election are back in position to help in next month’s election.

NOTUS reports that out of 82 slated electors in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, and Nevada in this coming election, 14 took part in Trump’s fake elector scheme in 2020.

Of Nevada’s six fake electors in 2020, two are back for 2024, including Michael McDonald, the state’s Republican Party chair who is now also a Trump campaign senior adviser. Michigan has six fake electors who are returning for next month’s election.

New Mexico has one fake elector from 2020 returning for this election, while Pennsylvania is bringing back five of its fake electors, out of a total of 19, for the 2024 contest. But Arizona and Wisconsin are taking precautions to ensure that fake electors can’t come back.

In the Grand Canyon State, Arizona’s attorney general indicted 18 individuals who took part in the state’s fake elector scheme in 2020, and the 11 fake electors from back then, who include a Turning Point USA executive, two state representatives, and the executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, are not on the list of Arizona electors for 2024.

Wisconsin’s 10 fake electors were sued by a progressive law firm working with the Georgetown University Law Center, with the case reaching a settlement where they all agreed to publicly state that President Biden won the 2020 election and to never again serve as electors for Trump.

But even as many of the 2020 fake electors won’t be attempting to repeat their efforts in this election, some will be in more powerful positions in states including Wisconsin. One fake elector, Robert F. Spindell Jr., is on the Wisconsin Elections Commission until 2026 and says he’ll be “insuring that voters have confidence in the outcome of our elections.”

One fake elector in Michigan, Stanley T. Grot, refuses to resign as the clerk of Shelby Township, a Detroit suburb, even though he was indicted last year along with the state’s other fake electors. Worryingly, his job entails maintaining local voter registration files and administering November’s elections in the township.

In Georgia, one fake elector, Burt Jones, even became the state’s lieutenant governor, receiving support from Trump, who said Jones was a “conservative warrior” who would “get to the bottom of the Nov. 3 presidential election scam.”

President Biden signed Electoral College reform into law in 2022 to ensure that the chaos caused by Trump in 2020 couldn’t happen again. But as NOTUS’s report shows, the same pro-Trump conservatives are still in positions of power to cause chaos again in multiple scenarios.

Amid his already staggering legal tab and the financial strain of running a campaign in a competitive election, Donald Trump has yet more bills to worry about.

According to NBC News, several cities are seeking more than $750,000 in unpaid fees from the Trump campaign for rallies held over the past several years. Four cities and a county say the former president owes them reimbursements for the costs of local law enforcement and first responder support at his campaign events.

The city of El Paso, Texas, makes up the bulk of that amount. The city is billing Trump for $569,200 in expenses from a 2019 event, according to an invoice provided to NBC News. The amount owed is so egregious that its City Council lawyered up to “advocate in the City’s interest in the collection of the outstanding invoices.” Yet the Trump campaign still hasn’t paid.

In classic MAGA fashion, Trump’s team has decided to blame someone else for the bill.

When NBC News reached out, a Trump campaign official said via text message that “questions related to local law enforcement and first responder costs should be directed to secret service.”

Though the Secret Service said through a spokesperson that it is true that the agency is typically the one that requests local safety reinforcements for campaigns, the agency “lacks a mechanism to reimburse local governments for their support during protective events.”

While some officials have acknowledged that Trump may not be legally responsible for the costs, they still believe that the Republican candidate should pay up due to the burden his rallies place. “We believe the Trump 2020 campaign should reimburse our City for those taxpayer dollars, and we have invoiced the campaign accordingly,” said a spokesperson for the city of Mesa, Arizona, which has billed the Trump campaign around $65,000 to cover additional law enforcement costs.

Trump could easily do the right thing and pay back these cities, even with the money he has earned from selling NFT trading cards—but with outstanding legal fees in the hundreds of millions, perhaps he isn’t looking to be charitable anytime soon.

Donald Trump appears convinced that his lead over Vice President Kamala Harris is so impressive, even his old archnemesis will vote for him.

In a Truth Social post Friday, the Republican presidential nominee suggested that former President Barack Obama was in his camp.

“Obama admits a total lack of enthusiasm for Kamala, especially with Black Men,” Trump wrote. “I think Obama will be voting for me because he doesn’t like the fact that Kamala is an extremely Low IQ Person!”

That is despite the fact that Trump has attacked Obama for the better part of the last two decades, spending his time launching personal barbs at the former president and dogging the legitimacy of Obamacare.

In 2010, Trump stoked the flames of a right-wing rumor that Obama wasn’t born in the United States, participating in calls for the former president to publish his birth certificate (which, once distributed by the White House, revealed that Obama was born in Hawaii). Obama did not respond to Trump by name in the document’s announcement but alluded to the real estate developer’s request as one of “sideshows and carnival barkers.”

Days after unveiling his birth certificate, Obama addressed Trump directly at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner over the political stunt, mocking him for supercharging the conspiracy while the former reality TV star sat unamused in the crowd.

“I know that he’s taken some flak lately,” Obama said at the time. “But no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate issue to rest, and that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”

During his first bid for the Oval Office, Trump repeatedly derided his predecessor, decrying Obama as “the worst president maybe in the history of our country.” At a campaign rally during that election season, Trump flagrantly described the former president as a “founder of ISIS.”

Obama has since consistently endorsed Trump’s opponents. In 2016, Obama endorsed and campaigned for Hillary Clinton in her race for president. In 2020, he heralded Joe Biden, and this year, he has made several appearances since the Democratic National Convention in campaign ads and interviews rooting for Harris.

Right-wing figures are latching on to an outlandish claim that Kamala Harris used a teleprompter to answer audience questions during a Univision town hall Thursday.

Fox News’s Sean Hannity, pro-Israel violence-funding billionaire Bill Ackman, and allegedly unwitting Russian propagandist Benny Johnson are among several MAGA pundits and influencers who have begun to claim that Harris must have been using a teleprompter to respond to audience questions, because one was visible on the set of her town hall.

Both Hannity and Ackman have since deleted their posts criticizing Harris—probably because a little digging quickly revealed the claim to be an obvious lie.

Enrique Acevedo, the town hall’s moderator, offered a helpful fact-check of the right-wing claims, given that he was the one actually using the teleprompter.

“The prompter displayed my introduction (in Spanish) and then it switched to a timer,” Acevedo wrote late Thursday on X. “Any claim to the contrary is simply untrue.”

Daniel Coronell, the president of Univision News, was also quick to shut down the right-wing chatter Thursday evening, resharing one of the conspiratorial posts on X with some crucial context.

“That’s not true. The teleprompter that displays a text written in Spanish was a support element for the town hall moderator. I can tell you this with first-hand knowledge because I was in charge of the television program,” Coronell wrote.

It makes sense that MAGAites are a little touchy about the whole teleprompter situation. Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that he doesn’t use one—even when one is sitting right in front of him. In reality, Trump regularly uses a teleprompter, before veering wildly off-script into incoherent rambling he calls “the weave.”

Israel has released American journalist Jeremy Loffredo four days after arresting and detaining him for reporting on Iranian missile strikes in the country.

Still, the judge who ordered Loffredo’s release said that the journalist must remain in the country until October 20 to give investigators more time to bring forth additional charges or for further interrogation, his attorney Lea Tsemel told The Intercept. An Israeli news outlet also reported that police took Loffredo’s phone, jailbroke the device, and are searching it for more evidence.

Loffredo, an independent journalist working for The Grayzone, reported on where Iran’s missiles landed in Israel, including the Israel Defense Force’s Nevatim Air Base as well as an intelligence base, according to Israeli news site Ynetnews.

Loffredo’s charges included aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy. He reported that Israel’s attacks on Gaza were launched from the Nevatim base and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private jet was located there.

Much of the information Loffredo reported on was similar to reports from Israeli media, as well as footage of where a missile landed feet away from Mossad headquarters. The arrest drew the attention of the U.S. government, and representatives from the U.S. Embassy in Israel attended a hearing at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court where police requested to extend his detention.

According to Tsemel, the charges against Loffredo carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment or death. Israeli authorities argue that Loffredo’s reporting aids Iran in studying future targets. The IDF censor barred Israeli media from publishing the exact locations where Iran’s missiles landed.

“He published the information openly and fully, without attempting to hide anything. If this information constitutes aiding the enemy, many other journalists in Israel, including Israeli reporters, should also be arrested,” said Tsemel. “A spy would not have acted so publicly and transparently.”

Police in Israel argued for Loffredo to be detained for seven days, only to be overruled by a judge who ordered a one-day detention. On Thursday, a different judge ordered Loffredo’s release, and an Israeli journalist testified that Loffredo’s reporting did not violate the government censor, saying that Israel’s outlets had produced similar work. However, police filed a last-minute appeal late Thursday to keep Loffredo in custody.

On Friday morning, a district court judge finally ordered Loffredo’s release, citing a lack of evidence and stating that he doesn’t pose a threat, Tsemel said.

Israel’s year-long war in Gaza has killed at least 128 journalists and media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Israel has refused to allow international journalists into the territory to report on the war. It seems the country might be afraid of what independent journalists might discover.