Spirits rise, facts fade as Rudy Giuliani claims Michigan votes ‘bogus job’



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LANSING – President Donald Trump’s personal attorney on Wednesday alleged a global conspiracy to swing Democrat Joe Biden’s election and urged Michigan’s Republican-led legislature to try to overturn the nationwide results ‘State.

In a 4.5-hour hearing that ended around 10:30 p.m. and was often tense and theatrical, Rudy Giuliani pleaded with Michigan House members “to have the courage to say that the certification that was made by your state is a complete forgery ”.

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Giuliani occasionally requisitioned the meeting, presenting his own witnesses, then questioning them about what he claimed, with little evidence, to be “massive cheating” and “swindle” at the mail-counting office in Detroit.

Committee Chairman Matt Hall, R-Marshall, allowed lawmakers to ask each witness a single question, without follow-up. He hammered and muted the microphones of Democratic lawmakers who challenged the rule, and repeatedly urged the pro-Trump crowd not to shout or applaud during testimony.

Here are some highlights:

Electoral coup

State law specifies that Michigan’s 16 presidential voters go to the winner of the popular vote, and House Speaker Lee Chatfield and Senate Majority Mike Shirkey have made it clear that will not change this year.

But Giuliani and Trump’s campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis have urged GOP lawmakers to reconsider, arguing they have a constitutional “obligation” to choose voters for themselves if they don’t trust the results of the election. the election that the president and his allies sought to undermine.

“This is your plenary, which is absolute power,” Ellis said.

Giuliani criticized the National Council of Solicitors for certifying statewide election results last week, apparently unaware that Aaron Van Langevelde, who cast the deciding vote, is a well-respected staff member of House Republicans.

“The people who certified your election, what are they worth? The piece of paper is a lie, ”Giuliani said.

No oath

Hall, the committee chair, refused Democratic demands to swear witnesses – and Giuliani – to testify under oath, sparking protests from lawmakers.

“You allow people to come here and lie, and I know they’re lying,” said Rep. Cynthia Johnson, D-Detroit.

But many witnesses for Giuliani noted that they had previously filed affidavits, under penalty of perjury, in various Michigan election lawsuits.

None of these trials have been successful. Republican-appointed Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kennedy last month dismissed claims by several of Giuliani’s witnesses as “incorrect and not credible.”

Among them was Mellissa Carone, who worked at the TCF Center in Detroit as a temporary contractor for Dominion Voting Systems. She said Wednesday that she had seen up to 30,000 ballots fed by voting machines and counted several times.

Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Wayland, noted that counting so many ballots multiple times would have led to huge deviations from the ballot records that total the number of voters, which election experts said would have surely been noticed and corrected.

Carone attacked the GOP lawmaker in response, “I know what I saw. And I signed something saying if I’m wrong I can go to jail. Do you have? “

Carone claimed Democrats ruined her life for exposing election fraud and having had to delete her social media accounts. An hour later, she changed her Facebook profile picture to a portrait of her and Guiliani.

No recount

Several lawmakers have asked Giuliani why the Trump campaign did not call for a manual recount of paper ballots in Michigan, given the president’s unsubstantiated claims that the voting machines changed the counts for Biden.

“You have 48 hours after certification of the vote to request the recount,” said Johnson, the Republican lawmaker. “We never had that. So instead, we hear a lot of talk, a lot of thoughts, a lot of allegations.

Giuliani offered conflicting explanations.

“There would be no reason to ask for a recount because you are just telling the same fraudulent ballots,” he said, suggesting without evidence a Democratic plot to “steal” the election by mail .

Giuliani later appeared confused as to what a Michigan count – a review of paper ballots – would actually involve, suggesting that “doing a machine recount will give us nothing but the same false results.”

A Dominion plot

Phil Waldron, who did not list any professional degrees beyond military experience, but was introduced by Giuliani as an expert data analyst, alleged a global anti-Trump conspiracy involving Dominion Voting Systems machines used in some parts of Michigan and dozens of other states.

He and Giuliani both repeated The denied allegations regarding County Antrim, where the GOP clerk admitted human error – not voting material – was responsible for an initial reporting error that attributed Trump’s votes to Biden.

Waldron raised red flags over what he called voting “spikes” in Kent, Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties the morning after the election, which is not unusual or evidence of wrongdoing because local communities report results in full or in batches, not immediately when each ballot is counted.

He told lawmakers his analysis was based on Dominion data from those four counties, but neither Oakland nor Macomb counties use Dominion equipment.

Irregularities absent

Detroit election worker Jesse Jacobs testified for over an hour, going through a litany of complaints about the city’s election administration while suggesting she was treated “like a criminal” when she expressed his concerns.

Jacobs claimed supervisors told him to ‘reassemble’ the ballots at the TCF Center, according to a directive from city officials this was a routine step to correcting administrative errors at the offices of the satellite clerks.

She also appeared confused on some points, saying she was alarmed that voters were not required to complete affidavits to void previously issued postal ballots and obtain new ones in the run-up to elections. which is not really necessary.

Giuliani asked if this led to “totally illegal ballots,” but Jacobs said she marked those initial ballots as spoiled in the state’s qualified voters register, which means those voters could not have voted twice.

“I really don’t know what happened, if they shredded those ballots or destroyed it,” Jacobs told Giuliani. “I don’t know, but it was not referred to the satellite sites.”

Denigrating strait

Several speakers said they noticed irregularities at the TCF Center, and lawmakers expressed concern over some accusations, including disputed claims that GOP challengers have been denied meaningful access and are forced to adhere to a distance rule. of a meter that the courts had rejected.

But Giuliani said there should be no mistakes.

“Don’t scratch your head over what’s going on in Detroit. They are stealing elections in Detroit, ”he said, adding that it was one of the“ most corrupt ”cities in the country.

“Democrats were smart enough to pick 10 cities they could get away with [fraud] and find a hacking judge who will let them get away with whatever they want, ”he added, referring to Democrat-run cities in other states Trump lost like Pennsylvania , Georgia and Wisconsin.

This was too much for Johnson, the Democrat from Detroit, who noted “there is no one in this room to represent the Detroiters.”

She has been ruled out of order multiple times by Hall, including once for asking Guiliani if ​​he and Trump were being honest, even though other lawmakers were allowed to make brief statements.

Guiliani also had an argument with Representative Darrin Camilleri, Township of D-Brownstown, who questioned the attorney over reports that he was asking for a preventive pardon from Trump before stepping down.

“I’m going to ask that he be sanctioned for this,” Guiliani told Hall, the committee chairman. “First of all, what he said is wrong. Second, it is a defamation of my professional character. Are you allowing that to happen in your legislature? “

Camilleri was not disciplined.



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