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REVEALED: Trump has spent the last year quietly building a legal juggernaut to challenge election results

on September 28, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

As messy and chaotic as Bush v. Gore was in 2000, the 2020 presidential election is shaping up to be even worse. President Donald Trump has refused to commit to accepting the election results if his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, is victorious on Tuesday, November 3 - and Trump has an army of Republican attorneys ready to fight for him in swing states next month. Journalist Anita Kumar, in an article published in Politico on September 27, stresses that the team of lawyers that Trump's campaign is employing for this election is enormous.

Kumar explains, "Dozens of lawyers from three major law firms have been hired. Thousands of volunteer attorneys and poll watchers across the country have been recruited. Republicans are preparing pre-written legal pleadings that can be hurried to the courthouse the day after the election, as wrangling begins over close results and a crush of mail-in ballots. Attorneys from non-battleground states - including California, New York and Illinois - are being dispatched to more competitive areas and trained on local election laws."

The Trump campaign's legal "strategy," according to Kumar, is "mainly focused on the election process in the 17 key states the Trump campaign is targeting, like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan."

"In total," Kumar observes, "it means the Republican Party will have thousands of people on hand to shape every element of voting - both on Election Day and in the days after. It's a massive undertaking - one the RNC calls its largest election-year legal effort ever. And it's one that could determine the winner of the pandemic-beset 2020 election."

Kumar recalls that in 2000, "the race between George W. Bush and Al Gore didn't end until the Supreme Court weighed in more than a month later." But in 2020, Kumar warns, election officials "expect a more chaotic aftermath." And Democratic attorneys, Kumar emphasizes, are preparing for "battle" as well.

"Democrats have launched their own gargantuan effort, doubling their efforts since 2016," Kumar notes. "They've amassed a team to educate voters, respond to charges of voter suppression and counter foreign interference and misinformation, according to the Biden campaign. The effort is being led by Dana Remus, Biden's general counsel, and Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel during the Obama Administration who joined the campaign full-time this summer."

The Democratic legal team, Kumar adds, also includes "former solicitors general Donald Verrilli and Walter Dellinger, as well as Marc Elias, a nationally recognized Democratic elections lawyer, according to the campaign. Former Attorney General Eric Holder also is involved."

Countless Democrats - liberals and progressives as well as centrists - are warning that Republicans and the Trump campaign will be relentless in their voter suppression efforts, especially when it comes to people of color. And while Bush v. Gore was centered on the election results in Florida, the legal battles in the 2020 election might take place in multiple swing states, ranging from Pennsylvania to Arizona to North Carolina.

Michael Gwin, a spokesman for Biden's campaign, told Politico, "The Biden campaign has assembled the biggest voter protection program in history to ensure the election runs smoothly and to combat any attempt by Donald Trump to create fear and confusion with our voting system, or interfere in the democratic process."

"˜Horrified' Republicans beg Trump to stop bashing mail-in voting as Democrats take "˜astronomical' early lead

Raw Story
9/30/2020

Top Republican officials are "horrified" by the early returns of Democratic mail-in ballots.

Democratic voters are requesting and returning mail-in ballots at a far higher rate than Republican voters so far in key battleground states, which could make it impossible for the GOP to hold on to the White House and their Senate majority, reported the Washington Post.

"It's astronomical," said one Republican strategist who's working on Senate races. "You see these numbers in a state like North Carolina, and how can you not be concerned?"

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has met twice with President Donald Trump to urge him to stop bashing mail-in voting because he's concerned those attacks will discourage Republican voters from participating, and former Republican National Committee chairman and one-time White House chief of staff Reince Priebus has warned that gap could cost the GOP.

"I've seen these appeals to likely Republican voters - "˜Please apply for your absentee ballot,'" said GOP pollster Whit Ayres. "But it's at the same time those voters are hearing from their president that mail voting is ripe with fraud."

More than 9 million voters have requested mail ballots in Florida, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina and Pennsylvania - the five battleground states where that data is available - and 52 percent of those were Democrats, while only 28 percent were Republicans and 20 percent were unaffiliated.

Internal data from both parties showed similar trends in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Trump's Crew of Far-Right Vigilante Poll Watchers Is Coming

"˜CAN'T UNRING THE BELL'

Party officials, activists, and experts were already spooked. Then the president said "stand by" to the Proud Boys.

Kelly Weill
Daily Beast
Published Sep. 30, 2020 6:57PM ET

The truck-revving, banner-waving, loudspeaker-blaring pro-Trump rally took place, conveniently, on Sept. 19, the first Saturday of early voting in the swing state of Virginia, in a parking lot where voters in Democratic-leaning Fairfax County were lined up to cast their ballots. Some Trump supporters drove circles around the voters while others-many without face masks-mingled with the line, chanting and waving flags.

"We had a couple poll observers there that had to actually escort voters in because we saw people that would get to the edge of the parking lot, and see this giant group of Trumpers yelling and screaming," Jack Kiraly, executive director of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, told The Daily Beast, adding that the scene reminded him of the volunteers who escort people past anti-abortion protesters outside women's health clinics.

So during Tuesday night's remarkably unhinged presidential debate, when President Donald Trump urged his supporters to take unsanctioned actions at polling places, Kiraly was reminded of what Fairfax County voters had witnessed earlier this month.

During the debate, Trump appeared to tell the far-right paramilitary group the Proud Boys to "stand by" and urged fans to "go into the polls and watch very carefully" for voter fraud, an exceedingly rare phenomenon Trump has crafted into a cornerstone of his political identity. For close observers of the far right, as well as officials like Kiraly, the remarks amounted to the latest warning that an embattled president might use his supporters to impede fair elections, or to cast the results of those elections in doubt.

If the prospect of election-related violence was already looming over the first presidential contest since Trump effectively welcomed the paramilitary far-right into the Republican Party, the debate made the alarm bells ring even louder.

"The two things that concerned me most were the remarks about the Proud Boys, basically incentivizing these armed militiamen who are loyal to him to show up at polling places," Kiraly said, "and then his comment saying they're going to have observers there. They are related. I think he was incentivizing those Proud Boys to go inside."

The Proud Boys are an explicitly violent right-wing group with extensive ties to white supremacists and disturbing connections to more mainstream Republicans. Trump's comments about the group came when debate moderator Chris Wallace asked him to condemn "white supremacists and right-wing militias." Trump's debate opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, specifically urged Trump to condemn the Proud Boys, who are often visible in Portland, Philadelphia, and New York, where two members were convicted of gang assault and other crimes in 2018.

Trump did not do so. "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," he said. "But I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left."

On Wednesday, Trump attempted to walk back the comments, claiming that he did not know who the Proud Boys are, and that they should stand down. (The current leader of the Proud Boys sat directly behind Trump at a 2019 rally, and was a Florida director of Latinos for Trump as of last year.)

Even if Trump were telling the truth on Wednesday, his words have already energized the far right around elections, according to Kathleen Belew, history professor at the University of Chicago and author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.

"He didn't tell the Proud Boys to stand down. He told them to stand back and stand by," Belew told The Daily Beast.

"That's a call for readiness," she explained. "Of course that leads us to a set of questions about readiness for what. One of the things to understand about this movement is that adherence to "˜stand back and stand by' does not necessarily mean adherence to the person that gave that marching order, or to what might come afterward. I think part of the concern here is that he simply can't unring the bell in this kind of situation."

The Proud Boys capitalized on Trump's comments even before the debate's end, putting his words on memes and t-shirts. But the far-right glee at the prospect of presidential permission for election-related violence wasn"˜t confined to one group.

Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, wrote a post-debate blog post that reiterated Trump's baseless claims that Democrats would attempt election fraud, and claimed that "Trump is ready for a war in the streets." (Anglin cannot personally participate in said war on the streets because he has gone AWOL while avoiding an ongoing lawsuit and tens of millions in civil penalties from previous lawsuits.)

Far-right interference with free elections has a long history, especially when aimed at Black people, Belew noted.

"During Reconstruction, after the Civil War, during the 1920s, during the Civil Rights movement, attempts to keep people from exercising their legal right to vote were as intrinsic to white supremacy and white power groups as a burning cross," she said. "It's one of the textbook, central strategies."

Election trickery also has a history with less-fringe right groups. Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, a social justice non-profit, pointed to the so-called "Brooks Brothers Riot" in late November 2000. While election canvassers in Florida's hotly contested Miami-Dade County gathered to count ballots, a mob of paid operatives pounded on doors and windows, and punched a Democratic official, intentionally interfering with ballot counting.

Burghart noted that the riot was allegedly organized in part by GOP operative Roger Stone, who is now closely affiliated with the Proud Boys. The group has provided security for him, and in turn he has recently endorsed one of them for office in Hawaii and appeared to participate in a Proud Boy initiation stunt.

"Given the Trump orbit's connection to the Proud Boys and given his advisors' connections to previous voting meddling efforts," Burghart said, "there is certainly a concern both for violence on Election Day coming from groups like the Proud Boys and, should there not be a clear victor on November 3, for potential violence and meddling in the electoral process after Election Day."

Contacted via text message about Trump's Proud Boy comments, Stone responded with a paragraph-long rant about anti-fascists, and did not respond to a follow-up question.

The threat isn't just from Proud Boys, Burghart emphasized, but also from the larger network of paramilitary groups that have voiced support for Trump. Some of those groups are not cohesive militias, but recurring pro-Trump rallies, like a series of caravans in Oregon organized by pro-Trump Facebook pages.

Those Oregon events often begin much with truck caravans and Trump flags-much like the event in Fairfax County that saw pro-Trump activists cross through an early voting line.

"It's no longer an election day, it's an election season," Kiraly said. "We need to be vigilant at all times, and we need to call out these instances of voter intimidation, of encouraging voter intimidation that way that the president did last night.

"We need to shame that stuff."

Tuesday's Debate Made Clear the Gravest Threat to the Election: The President Himself

President Trump's unwillingness to say he would abide by the result and his disinformation campaign about election fraud went beyond anything President Vladimir V. Putin could have imagined.

By David E. Sanger
NY Times
10/1/2020

President Trump's angry insistence in the last minutes of Tuesday's debate that there was no way the presidential election could be conducted without fraud amounted to an extraordinary declaration by a sitting American president that he would try to throw any outcome into the courts, Congress or the streets if he was not re-elected.

His comments came after four years of debate about the possibility of foreign interference in the 2020 election and how to counter such disruptions. But they were a stark reminder that the most direct threat to the electoral process now comes from the president of the United States himself.

Mr. Trump's unwillingness to say he would abide by the result, and his disinformation campaign about the integrity of the American electoral system, went beyond anything President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could have imagined. All Mr. Putin has to do now is amplify the president's message, which he has already begun to do.

Everything Mr. Trump said in his face-off with Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee, he had already delivered in recent weeks, in tweets and at rallies with his faithful. But he had never before put it all together in front of such a large audience as he did on Tuesday night.

The president began the debate with a declaration that balloting already underway was "a fraud and a shame" and proof of "a rigged election."

It quickly became apparent that Mr. Trump was doing more than simply trying to discredit the mail-in ballots that are being used to ensure voters are not disenfranchised by a pandemic - the same way of voting that five states have used for years with minimal fraud.

He followed it by encouraging his supporters to "go into the polls" and "watch very carefully," which seemed to be code words for a campaign of voter intimidation, aimed at those who brave the coronavirus risks of voting in person.

And Mr. Trump's declaration that the Supreme Court would have to "look at the ballots" and that "we might not know for months because these ballots are going to be all over" seemed to suggest that he would try to place the election in the hands of a court where he has been rushing to cement a conservative majority with his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

And if he cannot win there, he has already raised the possibility of using the argument of a fraudulent election to throw the decision to the House of Representatives, where he believes he has an edge because every state delegation gets one vote in resolving an election with no clear winner. At least for now, 26 of those delegations have a majority of Republican representatives.

Taken together, his attacks on the integrity of the coming election suggested that a country that has successfully run presidential elections since 1788 (a messy first experiment, which stretched just under a month), through civil wars, world wars and natural disasters now faces the gravest challenge in its history to the way it chooses a leader and peacefully transfers power.

"We have never heard a president deliberately cast doubt on an election's integrity this way a month before it happened," said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian and the author of "Presidents of War." "This is the kind of thing we have preached to other countries that they should not do. It reeks of autocracy, not democracy."

But what worried American intelligence and homeland security officials, who have been assuring the public for months now that an accurate, secure vote could happen, was that Mr. Trump's rant about a fraudulent vote may have been intended for more than just a domestic audience.
ImageVoters preparing to cast early ballots in the presidential election this month in Richmond, Va.

They have been worried for some time that his warnings are a signal to outside powers - chiefly the Russians - for their disinformation campaigns, which have seized on his baseless theme that the mail-in ballots are ridden with fraud. But what concerns them the most is that over the next 34 days, the country may begin to see disruptive cyberoperations, especially ransomware, intended to create just enough chaos to prove the president's point.
Election 2020 "º

Those who studied the 2016 election have seen this coming for a long while and warned about the risk. The Republicans who led Senate Intelligence Committee's final report on that election included a clear warning.

"Sitting officials and candidates should use the absolute greatest amount of restraint and caution if they are considering publicly calling the validity of an upcoming election into question," the report said, noting that doing so would only be "exacerbating the already damaging messaging efforts of foreign intelligence services."

That has happened already. Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a recent interview he had asked the intelligence agencies he oversees to look for examples of the Russians picking up on Mr. Trump's words.

"Sure enough, it wasn't long before the intelligence community started seeing exactly that," Mr. Schiff said. "It was too enticing and predictable an option for the Russians. They have been amplifying Trump's false attacks on absentee voting."

What is striking is how Mr. Trump's fundamental assessment that the election would be fraudulent differed so sharply from that of some of the officials he has appointed. It was only last week that the director of the F.B.I., Christopher A. Wray, said his agency had "not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise."

Mr. Wray was immediately attacked by the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. "With all due respect to Director Wray, he has a hard time finding emails in his own F.B.I."

Mr. Trump himself has provided no evidence to back up his assertions, apart from citing a handful of Pennsylvania ballots discarded in a dumpster - and immediately tracked down, and counted, by election officials.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. have been issuing warnings, as recently as 24 hours before the debate, about the dangers of disinformation in what could be a tumultuous time after the election.

"During the 2020 election season, foreign actors and cybercriminals are spreading false and inconsistent information through various online platforms in an attempt to manipulate public opinion, discredit the electoral process and undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions," the agencies wrote in a joint public service announcement.

It detailed the kind of data that could be leaked - mostly voter registration details - and said the agencies "have no information suggesting any cyberattack on U.S. election infrastructure has prevented an election from occurring, compromised the accuracy of voter registration information, prevented a registered voter from casting a ballot, or compromised the integrity of any ballots cast."

When officials involved in those announcements were asked whether Mr. Trump had different information, which would explain his repeated attacks on the election system, they went silent.

They had little choice. It was apparent to them that the chief disinformation source was their boss. And for that, they had no playbook.

Notorious GOP operatives charged with felonies for trying to trick people out of mail-in voting in Michigan

By Matthew Chapman
Raw Story
10/2/2020

On Thursday, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced a pair of infamous Republican tricksters have been charged with multiple felonies for a series of scam robocalls designed to trick voters out of voting by mail.

Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, who are known for a number of failed schemes including paying off a woman to accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci of sexual assault, are charged with voter intimidation, election conspiracy, and two computer crimes. Their robocall, targeted to Detroit and other Democratic-heavy urban areas, allegedly warned voters - falsely - that a vote by mail would give the voter's personal information to police, debt collectors, and public health officials administering mandatory vaccines.

"The calls were made in late August and went out to nearly 12,000 residents with phone numbers from the 313 area code," said the AG press release. "During its investigation, Nessel's office communicated with attorneys general offices in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, all of which reported similar robocalls being made to residents in their states who live in urban areas with significant minority populations. It's believed around 85,000 calls were made nationally, though an exact breakdown of the numbers of calls to each city or state are not available."

As Democrats gain ground in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott dramatically cuts drop off boxes to one per county

on October 2, 2020
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

Texas is in play and Governor Greg Abbott is doing everything he can to make sure Republicans stay in power.

At least four congressional seats could flip to Democrats, and Joe Biden is tightening Donald Trump's lead. Today Trump is ahead of Biden by just 3.2 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics polling average.

Governor Abbott is taking action - to  make it harder for Texans to vote.

He's just issued a proclamation cutting ballot drop off boxes to just one per county "to maintain the integrity of our elections," Abbott says, calling it his duty.

"The State of Texas has a duty to voters to maintain the integrity of our elections," Gov. Abbott says in his proclamation. "As we work to preserve Texans' ability to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic, we must take extra care to strengthen ballot security protocols throughout the state. These enhanced security protocols will ensure greater transparency and will help stop attempts at illegal voting."

There is no evidence of illegal voting, and no evidence reducing the number of ballot boxes would make a difference. If someone is determined to vote illegally, they'll find the ballot boxes. But a voter overwhelmed by the coronavirus and possibly out of work, finding it hard to put food on the table might not have the time to drive around their county looking for a ballot drop off box.

"The proclamation also requires early voting clerks to allow poll watchers to observe any activity conducted at the early voting clerk's office location related to the in-person delivery of a marked mail ballot," Abbott's press release reads.

Austin American-Statesman veteran reporter Chuck Lindell notes some counties are dropping from 12 ballot boxes to one.

DNC attorney Marc Elias warns Democrats are not taking this sitting down.

   This is an outrageous act of voter suppression by the Republicans who know they are losing at the ballot box.

   We will explore ALL legal options to ensure voting rights for all Texans! https://t.co/TYuhHvh2b1

   - Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) October 1, 2020

************

"˜Has President Trump written all over it': Outrage as Texas Gov slashes ballot drop-off sites to just one per county

on October 2, 2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

In a last-minute move that voting rights groups and Democratic officials decried as a desperate and "blatant voter suppression tactic," the Republican governor of Texas on Thursday issued a proclamation ordering that absentee ballot drop-off locations be limited to one per county in the massive state.

Gov. Greg Abbott's order-which comes just a month before the November election and is likely to face a flood of legal challenges-would have the largest impact on Democratic counties that have established multiple drop-off sites in an effort to make voting as safe and convenient as possible. Recent polling shows President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden are neck-and-neck in the state.

"Harris County, the state's most populous and a major Democratic stronghold, had designated a dozen locations where voters could deliver their own ballots-and already began collecting them this week," The Texas Tribune reported. "The locations are spread out across the county's roughly 1,700 square miles, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island."

"Governor Abbott and Texas Republicans are scared. We are creating a movement that will beat them at the ballot box on November 3, and there's nothing these cheaters can do about it."
-Gilberto Hinojosa, Texas Democratic Party
Gilberto Hinojosa, chair of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement that Abbott is "trying to adjust the rules" to make voting more difficult because "Republicans are on the verge of losing" the state in November.

"Courts all over the country, including the Fifth Circuit yesterday, have held that it is too late to change election rules, but our failed Republican leadership will try anyway," said Hinojosa. "Make no mistake, democracy itself is on the ballot. Every Texan must get out and vote these cowards out!"

"Governor Abbott and Texas Republicans are scared," Hinojosa continued. "We are creating a movement that will beat them at the ballot box on November 3, and there's nothing these cheaters can do about it."

While Abbott portrayed his unilateral move to shutter voting sites as an attempt to "maintain the integrity of our elections" and shield the process from virtually non-existent fraud, rights organizations said the proclamation is an obvious ploy to suppress turnout given the timing of the order and the disproportionate impact it could have on voters of color and people with disabilities.

"It raises a real concern that people are going to have just one more barrier to successfully submitting their ballot," Mimi Marziani, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said in a statement. "And it opens the door to voter intimidation."

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said late Thursday that "this has President Trump written all over it."

"With the governor changing the rules with 33 days until the most important election of our lifetime to make it harder to vote," Jenkins added, "Dallas County will do what we can to protect the right to vote as well as protect the voters and workers involved in that process."

1600 Justice Department alumni warn Bill Barr plans to "˜undermine' free elections

Raw Story
10/2/2020

On Thursday, 1,600 former officials from the Department of Justice signed a scathing open letter warning that Attorney General William Barr poses a threat to democracy.

"We fear that Attorney General Barr intends to use the DOJ's vast law enforcement powers to undermine our most fundamental democratic value: free and fair elections," said the letter. "He has signalled this intention in myriad ways, from making false statements about the security of mail-in voting from foreign hackers to falsely suggesting that mail-in ballots are subject to widespread fraud and coercion. Most recently, the Department made a premature and improper announcement of a mail-in ballot tampering investigation that the White House immediately used as a talking point in its campaign to discredit mail-in voting and to further the claim it will be rigged against President Trump."

In particular, the letter highlights the Durham investigation, which with Barr's blessing is investigating the origins of the Russia probe and has raised suspicion that Barr is attempting to politically undermine the legitimacy of prosecutions of former Trump associates.

"The Inspector General should protect the DOJ's integrity by answering the call of the House of Representatives to open his own investigation into election interference," concluded the letter. "And given Attorney General Barr's demonstrated willingness to use the Department to help President Trump politically, the media and the public should view any election-related activity by the DOJ - including any announcement or findings related to the Durham investigation - with appropriate skepticism."

Read the full letter here: https://medium.com/@dojalumni/doj-alumni-open-letter-on-protecting-free-and-fair-elections-78bea0575e1a

Trump 14 points behind Biden a month before election, new poll shows

Trump's advisers scramble to find a strategy for final weeks, saying "˜it's important that our campaign vigorously proceed'

Richard Luscombe in Miami
Guardian
5 Oct 2020 19.16 BST

Donald Trump's beleaguered campaign team woke up to another setback on Sunday as the president began his second full day in hospital: a new national poll showing their candidate 14 points behind his challenger Joe Biden with less than a month until the election day.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal survey indicating a 53-39% advantage for the Democratic party's nominee injected urgency for Trump's advisers already scrambling to find a strategy for the final weeks of the campaign until 3 November.

It was becoming clear that Vice-President Mike Pence, who has tested negative for coronavirus, and members of Trump's family, once they emerge from quarantine, will assume leading roles at virtual, then in-person rallies until or unless Trump himself recovers in time to resume campaigning.

"It's important that our campaign vigorously proceeds," Trump campaign senior adviser Steve Cortes said on Fox News Sunday.

"The Maga [Make America Great Again) movement is bigger than just President Trump. He's instrumental of course but he is not the only key element. The other people, including of course the vice-president, campaign people, millions of regular Americans need to step up and to some degree fill the void that is left because our champion, our main instrument, is not able at this moment to vigorously campaign."

Pence has public campaign events planned in Arizona, Nevada and Washington DC, and will travel to Salt Lake City for Wednesday's vice-presidential debate with Kamala Harris, Biden's running mate, at which the Trump team is looking for a strong performance.

The NBC poll showing Biden widening his lead over Trump was taken immediately after last Tuesday's tumultuous first presidential debate in Cleveland, at which an argumentative president constantly interrupted both his rival and the moderator Chris Wallace.

Jason Miller, another senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said he had "no concerns" about Pence travelling and campaigning.

"We're in a campaign, we have a month to go, we see Joe Biden and Kamala Harris out there campaigning," he said on NBC's Meet the Press.

"He's going to have a full aggressive schedule, as will the first family, Don, Eric, Ivanka. We have a number of our supporters, our coalition, Black Voices for Trump, Latinos for Trump, the whole operation Maga will be deploying everywhere.

"We can't hide from this virus forever, we have to take it head on [and] as soon as we're able to get back out there in person we'll do so," he added.

Meanwhile, Biden's campaigning since Trump's hospitalisation on Friday night has been low key. On Sunday, pool reporters covering the former vice-president at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, were informed of a "lid" - the formal announcement of the end of any public appearances or statements for the day - at 9.16am.

2:54..Biden: Trump's diagnosis is a 'bracing reminder' of the seriousness of Covid - video: https://youtu.be/d7WBsDHwc4w

The Biden campaign announced on Friday that it was suspending negative messages attacking the president while he was in hospital, although Amy Klobuchar, Democratic senator for Minnesota, said on Sunday that did not mean Trump's handling of the pandemic, or his economic record, were off limits.

"Not discussions about Covid, when you have 7 million people who have had this virus," Klobuchar said on Fox News Sunday when Wallace asked her what subjects Biden would not discuss.

"Biden has said, "˜Look, I want the president to be back,' he wants to debate him more, he wants him to have a speedy recovery. It isn't about politics or partisanship, but certainly the pandemic, the effect it has had on people's lives, how they have miscalculated in this administration, of course that's on the table."

Despite Sunday's early cessation of campaign activity, Biden's team has said it has no plans to scale back events as long as the candidate and those around him continue to test negative for Covid-19.

"Joe Biden will be at that debate," senior campaign adviser Symone Sanders said of the second presidential debate scheduled for 15 October in Miami. "We are hoping that President Trump can participate."

Some political analysts believe Trump's hospital stay will be further damaging on his campaign following the damage wrought by a poor debate performance.

"I've had conversations with Republicans working in swing states around the country and they are alarmed," Steve Hayes, founder and chief executive of the Dispatch, told Fox News Sunday.

"It's not just affecting President Trump. People look at the debate performance negatively but it's also starting to affect Republicans down ballot. If this current trajectory continues through November the third, we're going to be talking about a lot more Republican senators at risk than we're talking about right now."

Trump campaign aggressively pushing local election officials to ignore voting rules: "˜Openly trying to cheat'

on October 5, 2020
Raw Story

President Trump's campaign is waging a behind-the-scenes effort to threaten low-profile county officials into ignoring election rules and sowing doubt in the mail voting process.

Trump's campaign launched an "unusually aggressive" push on the local level, sending 100 county election officials in North Carolina "threatening letters" and "misinformation" to urge them to disregard a new rule that makes it easier for voters to fix mistakes on their mail ballots, according to the Associated Press. The warnings came after the state Board of Elections settled a lawsuit after ballots cast by Black voters in the state were disproportionately rejected.

The campaign also sent letters to more than 1,800 municipal clerks in states like Wisconsin and Georgia that raised questions about the security of mail voting, according to CNN. The campaign also threatened to sue officials in Pennsylvania for blocking "poll watchers" from observing election offices where people register to vote and apply for mail ballots, according to the AP.

Trump's team has repeatedly filed lawsuits in response to states easing access to mail ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic but such litigation has so far been unsuccessful. Trump has suggested that he aims to fight the expansions all the way to the Supreme Court as he hopes to add Amy Coney Barrett, his third conservative justice in four years, to the high court before November. Less visible has been the campaign's quiet efforts to undermine voting rules on the local level, where his team has bombarded officials with letters that have raised alarm among election experts.

"Through threatening letters, lawsuits, viral videos and presidential misinformation, the campaign and its GOP allies are going to new lengths to contest election procedures county-by-county across battleground states," the AP reported, highlighting a "blizzard of voting-related complaints" from the campaign.

In North Carolina, a key swing state that Trump carried by just three points in 2016, Black voters have had their mail ballots rejected at four times the rate of white voters. It's even worse in certain areas. Guilford County, which includes Greensboro, has a rejection rate six times higher than the rest of the state. Officials say ballots there are currently "in limbo" as they await further guidance.

Last week, a judge approved a settlement between the state's Board of Elections and voting rights groups allowing voters to fix missing signatures or addresses on their ballots without filling out a new ballot. The Trump campaign told local officials simply to ignore the new rule.

"The NC Republican Party advises you to not follow the procedures," Trump campaign operative Heather Ford told officials last week in an email obtained by the AP.

"It's clearly based on an overall strategy to disrupt the election as much as possible," attorney Barry Richard, who represented George W. Bush's campaign in the 2000 Florida recount, told the AP. "You're really seeing a broad-based, generalized strategy to suppress the vote by the Republican Party."

S.V. Dáte, HuffPost's White House correspondent, argued that the effort showed the campaign was "openly trying to cheat in the coming election."

Trump's campaign argued that it was simply trying to "ensure a fair election" - apparently by encouraging local officials to ignore a court-approved settlement.

"Since when is fairness a bad thing?" campaign spokesperson Thea McDonald said in a statement to the AP. "County board members need guidance on how to proceed in the wake of these unelected Democrats' attempt to radically rewrite the law 40 days out from Election Day."

But North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, included the campaign's email to officials in court documents to show that the "party was improperly undermining an official state directive," according to the report.

Two Republican members of the Board of Elections have quit in protest against the new rule and the panel's Democratic majority has since told counties to hold off on allowing voters to fix their ballot errors, pending further court battles.

"What we're talking about is an effort to deliberately place these barriers in front of people. And many may be discouraged from trying to cure, or making it impossible for them to cure, a deficiency," Irving Joyner, a law professor at North Carolina Central University, told the AP.

Pennsylvania, another key swing state that Trump narrowly carried in 2016, has also become a focal point in the Republican effort to torpedo new rules making it easier to vote by mail.

The campaign has sued the city of Philadelphia in order to gain access for Republican "poll watchers" to election offices, which are not polling places. The state's Republican leaders are also fighting a state Supreme Court decision that allowed mail ballots to be counted up to three days after the election as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and blocked "poll watchers" from monitoring polling places in areas where they do not reside.

Republicans have long planned to deploy an "army" of some 50,000 poll watchers nationwide for the election, which critics argue would amount to voter intimidation.

Republicans have also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule a lower court ruling that blocked a South Carolina witness signature requirement for mail ballots, due to the risk of COVID infection from person-to-person contact.

These efforts have not been limited to ballot issues. The Wisconsin Republican Party recently warned the city of Madison against holding a "Democracy in the Park" event, arguing that it could be used for the illegal collection of ballots. City officials ignored the cease and desist letter but a day later Republicans warned the city of Milwaukee that it would be illegal for its sports teams to have mascots present while their venues are used as makeshift polling places, arguing that would violate laws against "electioneering" at voting locations.

A recent voter registration event at Miller Park, home stadium of the Milwaukee Brewers, featured the team's famous Racing Sausage mascots, the Trump campaign noted.

"It would be ludicrous to think that that was electioneering," Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the city Election Commission, told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Although most of the Trump campaign's efforts have been petty and ineffective, election experts say they offer an insight into a coordinated behind-the-scenes efforts to "work the refs."

"All of this conduct is so beyond the pale," Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, told the AP. "It's hard to put in context because there's been nothing like it in modern American campaigns."

Democrats are now "˜nearly 2:1 favorites' to win the U.S. Senate in November: elections prognosticator

on October 6, 2020
Raw Story
By Bob Brigham

Democrats have strengthened their position in the battle for control of the United States Senate, according to a new report by 538's Nate Silver.

"While we've all been focusing on the presidency, the Senate has moved out of toss-up range and Democrats are now nearly 2:1 favorites. A long way from a sure thing, but trending poorly for the GOP," Silver explained.

After running 40,000 simulations through his elections forecaster, Silver found Democrats running in 66% of scenarios, with Republicans only holding control in 34% of forecasts.
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The forecast shows Democrats on pace to beat Susan Collins in Maine, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Cory Gardner in Colorado and Martha McSally in Arizona.

    The 80% confidence interval now extends to 55 Democratic seats. While the modal outcome remains a closely divided Senate, tail-risk scenarios are increasing for the GOP. pic.twitter.com/khM1cwYDzI

    - Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 5, 2020

Trump campaign discussing plans to appoint its own state electors - no matter the results: report

on October 6, 2020
By Roger Sollenberger, Salon

Trump campaign officials and legal advisers are reportedly preparing to appoint their own state electors as a way to secure victory in a contested election, a move that would precipitate an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

The country will in all likelihood not know the outcome of the presidential election on Election Day. It is likely, given a raft of threatening public statements from President Trump, that he will reject unfavorable results.

The president is not directly elected by the people - the official votes are cast by electors on behalf of the voters in their states. Though states have historically chosen their electors by popular vote, the Constitution does not mandate that, saying only that a state shall appoint its electors "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct."

Every state has allowed its voters to make the call in every election since the late 1800s. But in 2000, the Supreme Court held in Bush v. Gore that the states "can take back the power to appoint electors."

According to a Sept. 23 article in The Atlantic, campaign advisers to Trump, in conjunction with Republican state leaders, are preparing to test this theory. Sources in the Republican Party, at both state and national levels, say that the campaign is considering a plan to "bypass" the popular vote results and install its own electors in key battleground states where the legislatures are controlled by Republicans.

Republicans control both legislative bodies in the six closest battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Of those six, both Arizona and Florida have Republican governors.

After the national election, the plan goes, the Trump campaign would cry foul about rampant fraud and demand that state legislators ignore the ballot tabulations and choose their electors directly. If the campaign can sustain doubt or confusion about the ballot count, legislators will feel more and more pressure to take up the responsibility before the Dec. 8 deadline when electors' names are sent to Congress for verification.

The Atlantic reported that a Trump campaign legal adviser said this effort would be framed as protecting the will of the people.

"The state legislatures will say, "˜All right, we've been given this constitutional power. We don't think the results of our own state are accurate, so here's our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state,' " the legal adviser told the outlet. The adviser said that by extending long windows for mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day, Democrats have exposed the tabulation process to allegations of inaccuracy and fraud.

"If you have this notion that ballots can come in for I don't know how many days - in some states a week, 10 days - then that onslaught of ballots just gets pushed back and pushed back and pushed back," he said. "So pick your poison. Is it worse to have electors named by legislators or to have votes received by Election Day?"

When The Atlantic asked the Trump campaign about plans to circumvent the vote and appoint loyal electors, and about other strategies discussed in the article, the deputy national press secretary did not directly address the questions. "It's outrageous that President Trump and his team are being villainized for upholding the rule of law and transparently fighting for a free and fair election," Thea McDonald said in an email. "The mainstream media are giving the Democrats a free pass for their attempts to completely uproot the system and throw our election into chaos." Trump is fighting for a trustworthy election, she wrote, "and any argument otherwise is a conspiracy theory intended to muddy the waters."

Three Pennsylvania Republican leaders told The Atlantic that they had already talked about appointing electors directly, and one of them - the chair of the state's Republican Party - said he had discussed the possibility with the Trump campaign.

"I've mentioned it to them, and I hope they're thinking about it too," Lawrence Tabas said. "I just don't think this is the right time for me to be discussing those strategies and approaches, but [direct appointment of electors] is one of the options. It is one of the available legal options set forth in the Constitution." He said that if the voting process "has significant flaws," then people could "lose faith and confidence" in the system.

Jake Corman, the majority leader of the Pennsylvania Senate, said that if the count draws on for too long, the legislature will have to choose electors. "We don't want to go down that road, but we understand where the law takes us, and we'll follow the law," he said.

That road could lead to a scenario where six battleground states have competing sets of electors, each authorized by different branches of the state - one by the Republican legislature, one by the Democratic governor. Even in Arizona and Florida, where Republicans fully control the government, an independent set of Democratic electors could try to certify their own votes for Democratic nominee Joe Biden in an effort to kick the final call up to Congress.

This almost happened during the 2000 Florida recount: Republican Gov. Jeb Bush certified electors for his brother, George W. Bush, before the recount had been settled. The Gore campaign was ready to assemble its own group of Democratic electors to cast rival ballots, but after the Supreme Court ruled against Gore, he conceded - just days before the Electoral College convened.

Given this plan, The Atlantic reports, it's possible that mirror-image state electors could turn in competing sets of votes, submitted "to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate" - who, by the way, is Vice President Mike Pence.

The contest at that point gets very complicated, but plays out in one of three ways: If Democrats take the Senate back and hold onto the House, then Biden wins; if Republicans hold the Senate and flip the House, a less likely scenario, then Trump wins; but if Congress remains divided after the election, the Constitution does not offer a solution.

As Constitutional scholar Norm Ornstein told The Atlantic, "Then we get thrown into a world where anything could happen.

This is the highest turn out since 1908 in America ... at that point in time transiting Uranus was in Taurus, and the transiting Lunar Nodes were Gemini/ Sagittarius just like now ........

"˜Never seen this many people voting so far ahead': Despite GOP suppression ploys, early voting setting records

on October 6, 2020
By Julia Conley, Common Dreams

Upon reviewing data about the use of early voting in the 2020 general election so far, an elections expert at University of Florida said Tuesday that he expects overall turnout to be higher this year than it has been since 1908.

With 28 days to go until voting ends on Nov. 3, more than four million Americans have already cast their ballots by mail or in person at early voting locations, according to Dr. Michael McDonald of the U.S. Elections Project. At this time in 2016, just 75,000 people had already voted in the general election.

   #earlyvote morning update 10/6

   At least 4,094,919 people have voted in the 2020 general election https://t.co/s8K2xFDeSA pic.twitter.com/19W0P3UeqH

   - Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) October 6, 2020

McDonald predicted that at this rate, 150 million Americans can be expected to cast ballots in the contest between President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden-65% of eligible voters, representing a greater turnout than the country has seen in more than a century.

"We've never seen this many people voting so far ahead of an election," McDonald told Reuters. "People cast their ballots when they make up their minds, and we know that many people made up their minds long ago and already have a judgment about Trump."

In Virginia, 17% of the state's total turnout from 2016 have already made up their minds and voted, and 15% of the total number of 2016 voters have cast ballots in Wisconsin. In several states, voters and journalists this week have shared images of long lines at polling places in which many have waited for several hours.

Ohio:

   By my count, we're at 209 in line. Wrapped way around the building. pic.twitter.com/PRqMSrwAIl

   - Marc Kovac (@ohiocapitalblog) October 6, 2020

   Long line already 30 minutes before Early voting starts in Hamilton County pic.twitter.com/MNuyypEGyE

   - Scott Wartman (@ScottWartman) October 6, 2020

South Carolina:

   Early voting lines in South Carolina (this is Columbia) pic.twitter.com/Nl8qFqWRJw

   - Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) October 5, 2020

   Line of cars for early curbside voting in Charleston County SC pic.twitter.com/l4jTmNNMtA

   - Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) October 5, 2020

Indiana:

   Less than 10 mins until doors open for early voting in Marion County.

   Outside, about 200 people are waiting to cast their vote as the sun begins to rise. pic.twitter.com/thjudaGx8y

   - Alexa Green (@AlexaGreenNews) October 6, 2020

Fifty-eight percent of Democratic voters and 40% of Republicans plan to cast their ballots early, according to a Reuters Ipsos poll released last week. Five percent of Democrats reported they had already voted, compared with 2% of Republicans.

Trump, who voted by mail as recently as August, has nevertheless denounced mail-in voting repeatedly in recent months as it became clear that the coronavirus pandemic would force an unprecedented number of Americans to use mail-in ballots or vote early, to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19.

Biden is currently leading in polls in several swing states, but battleground surveys show a much tighter lead than national polling, in which the Democratic candidate is now leading by 16 points, according to CNN. Biden was up by 2.2 points in Florida as of late September, according to The Guardian's poll tracker, and led by 5.6 points in Pennsylvania and 0.4 points in Ohio. The Guardian cautioned that swing state polls "severely undercounted Trump supporters in 2016."

As Trump has repeatedly sought to undermine the integrity of the election process and suggested he would not peacefully transfer power to Biden should he lose, pro-democracy campaigners have said record-high turnout among Democratic voters is the key to removing Trump from office.

   We should not have to choose between our health and our right to vote.

   Stay up to date with vote by mail deadlines in your state and return your ballot today. https://t.co/aCepSUQA6W

   - ACLU (@ACLU) October 5, 2020

Similar to other organizations, the ACLU has created a national "Let People Vote" campaign and online tool-which can be found here-that details for people in every state and territory how to vote by mail or in person as well as the best ways to protect their voting rights.

Elect Joe Biden, America

The former vice president is the leader our nation needs now.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Oct. 7, 2020
NY Times

Joe Biden has vowed to be a president for all Americans, even those who do not support him. In previous elections, such a promise might have sounded trite or treacly. Today, the idea that the president should have the entire nation's interests at heart feels almost revolutionary.

Mr. Biden has also vowed to "restore the soul of America." It is a painful reminder that the country is weaker, angrier, less hopeful and more divided than it was four years ago. With this promise, Mr. Biden is assuring the public that he recognizes the magnitude of what the next president is being called upon to do. Thankfully, he is well suited to the challenge - perhaps particularly so.

In the midst of unrelenting chaos, Mr. Biden is offering an anxious, exhausted nation something beyond policy or ideology. His campaign is rooted in steadiness, experience, compassion and decency.

A President Biden would embrace the rule of law and restore public confidence in democratic institutions. He would return a respect for science and expertise to the government. He would stock his administration with competent, qualified, principled individuals. He would stand with America's allies and against adversaries that seek to undermine our democracy. He would work to address systemic injustices. He would not court foreign autocrats or give comfort to white supremacists. His focus would be on healing divisions and rallying the nation around shared values. He would understand that his first duty, always, is to the American people.

But Mr. Biden is more than simply a steady hand on the wheel. His message of unity and pragmatism resonated with Democratic voters, who turned out in large numbers to elevate him above a sprawling primary field.

His team has put together a bold agenda aimed at tackling some of America's most pressing problems. The former vice president is committed to working toward universal health care through measures such as adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act - which he played a significant role in passing - lowering the age for Medicare eligibility to 60 years old and cutting the cost of prescription drugs. He recognizes the fateful threat of climate change and has put forward an ambitious, $2 trillion plan to slash carbon emissions, invest in a green economy and combat environmental racism.

Mr. Biden will not be morphing into an ideological maximalist any time soon, but he has acknowledged that the current trifecta of crises - a lethal pandemic, an economic meltdown and racial unrest - calls for an expanded governing vision. His campaign has been reaching out to a wide range of thinkers, including former rivals, to help craft more dynamic solutions. In midsummer, he rolled out an economic recovery plan, dubbed "Build Back Better," with proposals to bolster American manufacturing, spur innovation, build a "clean-energy economy," advance racial equity and support caregivers and educators. His plan for fighting the coronavirus includes the creation of a public health jobs corps. Progressives who want even more from him should not be afraid to push. Experience is not the same as stagnation.

Mr. Biden has a long and distinguished record of accomplishment, including, as a senator, sponsoring the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and, as vice president, overseeing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, passed in response to the Great Recession. In a 2012 interview on "Meet the Press," his remarks in support of gay marriage - which blindsided the Obama White House and caused a public kerfuffle - proved a watershed moment for the cause of equality. In 1996, Mr. Biden had voted as a senator in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages, making his evolution on the issue particularly resonant.

He has an unusually rich grasp of and experience in foreign policy, which, as traditionally understood, has not played a central role in the presidential race - though the pandemic, the climate crisis, a more assertive China and disinformation wars against the American public argue strongly that it should. The next president will face the task of repairing the enormous damage inflicted on America's global reputation.

Mr. Biden has the necessary chops, having spent much of his career focused on global concerns. He not only took on thorny diplomatic missions as vice president, he also served more than three decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Aware that an "America First" approach in reality amounts to "America alone," he would work to revive and refurbish damaged alliances. He has the respect and trust of America's allies and would not be played for a fool by its adversaries.

Certainly, not all of Mr. Biden's foreign policy decisions through the decades look sage in hindsight, but he has shown foresight in key moments. He fought a rear-guard action in the Obama White House to limit the futile surge in Afghanistan. He was against the 2011 intervention in Libya and skeptical of committing American troops to Syria. He opposed renewing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2007 and 2008 because it gave the government too much power to spy on Americans. He's supported closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay. Little wonder that he has the backing of a who's who of the foreign policy community and national security officials from both parties.

Mr. Biden is not an ideological purist or a bomb-thrower. Some will see this as a shortcoming or hopelessly naïve. Certainly, it's unlikely that if Republicans retain control of the Senate, their leader, Mitch McConnell, will abandon his policy of fanatical obstructionism of any Democratic president.

That said, as the emissary often dispatched by President Barack Obama to deal with Republican lawmakers during tough legislative fights, Mr. Biden has intimate experience with the partisan gridlock crippling Congress. He knows how the levers of power work on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and he has longstanding relationships with members from both parties. More than any of this cycle's other presidential hopefuls, he offered weary voters a chance to see whether even a modicum of bipartisanship is possible.

He is also offering a glimpse of the Democratic Party's future in his choice of running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California. Ms. Harris would become a number of firsts - a woman, a Black person and an Asian-American - as vice president, adding history-making excitement to the ticket. A former prosecutor, she is tough, smart and can dismantle a faulty argument or political opponent. She is progressive, but not radical. In her own presidential campaign, she presented herself as a unifying leader with center-left policy proposals in a mold similar to Mr. Biden, albeit a generation younger. Mr. Biden is aware that he no longer qualifies as a fresh face and has said that he considers himself a bridge to the party's next generation of leaders. Ms. Harris is a promising step in that direction.

If he wins election, Mr. Biden will need to take his governing agenda to the people - all of the people, not just his party's loudest or most online voices. This will require persuading Americans that he understands their concerns and can translate that understanding into sound policy.

Mr. Biden has a rare gift for forging such connections. In his younger days, he, like so many senators, could be in love with the sound of his own voice. Time and loss have softened his edges. He speaks the language of suffering and compassion with a raw intimacy. People respond to that, across lines of race and class - ever more so in this time of uncertainty. The father of the police-shooting victim Jacob Blake described his phone conversation with Mr. Biden as full of "love, admiration, caring," in one of many recent examples of the former vice president's hard-earned empathy.

Mr. Biden knows that there are no easy answers. He has the experience, temperament and character to guide the nation through this valley into a brighter, more hopeful future. He has our endorsement for the presidency.

When they go to the polls this year, voters aren't just choosing a leader. They're deciding what America will be. They're deciding whether they favor the rule of law, how the government will help them weather the greatest economic calamity in generations, whether they want government to enable everyone to have access to health care, whether they consider global warming a serious threat, whether they believe that racism should be treated as a public policy problem.

Mr. Biden isn't a perfect candidate and he wouldn't be a perfect president. But politics is not about perfection. It is about the art of the possible and about encouraging America to embrace its better angels.

Justice Dept. Eases Election Fraud Inquiry Constraints as Trump Promotes False Narrative

The move comes as President Trump promotes a false narrative of widespread voter fraud ahead of the election.

By Michael S. Schmidt and Katie Benner
NYTimes
Oct. 8, 2020

For decades, federal prosecutors have been told not to mount election fraud investigations in the final months before an election for fear they could depress voter turnout or erode confidence in the results. Now, the Justice Department has lifted that prohibition weeks before the presidential election.

The move comes as President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr have promoted a false narrative that voter fraud is rampant, potentially undermining Americans' faith in the election.

A Justice Department lawyer in Washington said in a memo to prosecutors on Friday that they could investigate suspicions of election fraud before votes are tabulated. That reversed a decades-long policy that largely forbade aggressively conducting such inquiries during campaigns to keep their existence from becoming public and possibly "chilling legitimate voting and campaign activities" or "interjecting the investigation itself as an issue" for voters.

The memo creates "an exception to the general non-interference with elections policy" for suspicions of election fraud, particularly misconduct by federal government workers, including postal workers or military employees; both groups transport mail-in ballots. The exception allows investigators to take overt investigative steps, like questioning witnesses, that were previously off limits in such inquiries until after election results were certified.

The move also allows prosecutors to make more of a spectacle of election fraud in the weeks before the vote on Nov. 3. The U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Craig Carpenito, promoted an arrest on Wednesday of a postal worker suspected of discarding mail, including dozens of ballots, which were found and put back in the mail.

The New York Times reviewed portions of the memo. ProPublica earlier reported details of it on Wednesday. 

A longtime standard at the Justice Department keeps investigators from taking any action related to an election or candidates within a couple of months of Election Day out of the concern that even the perception of law enforcement involvement could erode confidence in the vote. The former F.B.I. director James B. Comey was widely criticized in 2016 for announcing the bureau's decision not to recommend charges in its inquiry into Hillary Clinton's email server and reopening the case 11 days before Mr. Trump's upset win.

The Justice Department said that the new memo was not a political act and that no political appointee directed, prepared or issued it.

"Career prosecutors in the Public Integrity section of the department's Criminal Division routinely send out guidance to the field during election season," said Matt Lloyd, a department spokesman. "This email was simply part of that ongoing process of providing routine guidance regarding election-related matters."

Department officials also said that a career lawyer in the criminal division advised all U.S. attorneys on the issue over the summer as part of a broader briefing on election-related fraud, and that the department has always recognized that exceptions to the policy existed.

The new guidance stoked fears that Mr. Trump's political appointees, led by Mr. Barr, were wielding the power of the Justice Department to help his re-election bid. Democrats, civil rights lawyers and former department officials from Republican and Democratic administrations have been on alert this year for unusual political moves by the department in service of the president's relentless - and false - claims that the United States' election system is being undermined by pervasive fraud.

Specifically, they have been wary of late-breaking cases based on voter fraud accusations that create more headlines than substantive charges. Republicans have sought for years to push the notion that there is a voter fraud problem in the United States, despite little evidence to back up their claims.

During Mr. Trump's presidency and his re-election bid, conservative efforts to find voter fraud have gone into overdrive. Shortly after he defeated Mrs. Clinton in 2016, he claimed that millions of Americans had voted illegally for her and he appointed a loyalist to look into the matter. No evidence was ever found to back up Mr. Trump's contention. But that has not stopped him from continuing to repeat the claims, particularly in recent months as he campaigns.

Democrats and election and legal experts have said Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr are laying the groundwork to claim that the election was rigged if the president loses.

The Justice Department could "build a narrative, despite the absence of any evidence, of fraud in mail-in voting so Trump can challenge the election results if he loses," said Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama under the Obama administration.

"They've told us this is their strategy, and we're watching them implement it," Ms. Vance said.

Wendy R. Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said she did not believe the justification for altering the policy had merit. "If they want to deter misconduct that they're worried about, they can remind people of the law and announce that they're going to prosecute any violators to the fullest extent of the law," she said. "That does not require an exception to this longstanding and sensible policy."

Some election experts said that the new policy on election fraud inquiries was a stark shift after Mr. Comey's effect on the 2016 election.

"Historically, the D.O.J. has tried to avoid taking any actions that could have influence on an election, so, for example, holding indictments or announcing investigations that could have an effect on elections," said Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine.

He predicted that the memo could lead to many more announcements like last month's highly unusual disclosure by a federal prosecutor in Pennsylvania who detailed an open voter fraud investigation into nine discarded ballots. The revelation helped bolster Mr. Trump's false claims that mail-in voting was rife with fraud, even though the state's top election official said later that the episode was "a bad error" and "not intentional fraud."

The announcement was unusual both for revealing an open investigation and for its disclosure that some of the ballots had been cast for Mr. Trump, a fact experts said was immaterial to the investigation and helped feed his baseless attacks on mail-in voting.

The policy shift, Mr. Hasen said, "encourages more of these announcements that could, these small-bore things, be treated as evidence of rigging and then promoted at a higher level."

Mr. Barr has also echoed the president's claims on voter fraud.

In recent weeks, the attorney general has also made accusations unsupported by evidence that voting by mail could lead to fraud and abuse. In an interview last month with CNN, he asserted that the Justice Department had indicted a man in Texas who had collected nearly 2,000 ballots from people who could not vote and illegally cast them for the candidate of his choice.

After The Washington Post questioned the account, a department spokeswoman said that no such indictment existed and that Mr. Barr had relied on a memo with inaccurate information.

He has also said that he had no "empirical evidence" that mail-in ballots would lead to mass voter fraud, pointing instead to "common sense."

"I don't have empirical evidence that on this scale, you know, these problems were materialized," he said during an event last month for Hillsdale College.

In an unusual show of insubordination, federal prosecutors in Massachusetts and Seattle have publicly accused Mr. Barr of essentially working on behalf of the Trump campaign, citing his decision to intervene in cases against the president's allies and to amplify the criticisms that Mr. Trump has lobbed against Black Lives Matter on the campaign trail.

One of them, Michael Dion, wrote in a letter to The Seattle Times that Mr. Barr had turned the Justice Department "into a shield to protect the president and his henchmen."

"Barr does these things because his goal is to protect his master, rather than the American people," Mr. Dion wrote. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the letters.

Top US medical journal breaks 208-year precedent with scathing case to vote out "˜dangerously incompetent' Trump

on October 9, 2020
By Julia Conley, Common Dreams

The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday became the second top academic journal in a month to break its long-held precedent of not weighing in on the U.S. presidential election, with an editorial saying it has become impossible to remain impartial after spending months observing President Donald Trump's "shameful" and "reckless" response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The 208-year old journal was driven to publish a fierce call for the president's electoral defeat, signed by all 34 of its editors, as Trump presided over the deaths of more than 210,000 people-spending the past nine months repeatedly lying about the severity of the coronavirus, claiming the pandemic would go away on its own, undermining the FDA by claiming "the deep state" was keeping the agency from approving treatments and vaccines in order to harm his reelection chances, and openly flouting basic public health guidance that top medical experts agree significantly reduce the transmission of Covid-19.
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Understanding a global pandemic as a test of leadership, the NEJM editors wrote that "our leaders have failed that test."

"Our rules on social distancing have in many places been lackadaisical at best, with loosening of restrictions long before adequate disease control had been achieved. And in much of the country, people simply don't wear masks, largely because our leaders have stated outright that masks are political tools rather than effective infection control measures."
-NEJM
"They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy," they wrote. "The magnitude of this failure is astonishing."

While the U.S. government had every advantage needed to effectively confront the coronavirus, the editors wrote, "when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn't provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public."

"And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing," they added, pointing out that U.S. testing rates are still far behind much less wealthy countries including Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and Kazakhstan.

The editors made reference to experts including Dr. Rick Bright, who resigned from his position at the National Institutes of Health Tuesday in public protest over the administration's failures. Bright noted in his resignation letter that in January he had recommended the government stockpile two of the drugs Trump received at Walter Reed Medical Center last weekend following his Covid-19 diagnosis, which reportedly enabled him to leave the hospital.

"The United States came into this crisis with enormous advantages," the NEJM wrote. "Along with tremendous manufacturing capacity, we have a biomedical research system that is the envy of the world. We have enormous expertise in public health, health policy, and basic biology and have consistently been able to turn that expertise into new therapies and preventive measures. And much of that national expertise resides in government institutions. Yet our leaders have largely chosen to ignore and even denigrate experts."

Titling the editorial, "Dying in a Leadership Vacuum," the NEJM condemned Trump for not leading the country in adopting simple and effective mitigation tools such as social distancing and the wearing of face coverings-instead openly mocking Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for wearing a face mask in public at the first presidential debate, only to be diagnosed with Covid-19 days later, and hosting packed rallies and gatherings where attendees practiced no distancing.

"Most of the interventions that have large effects are not complicated," the editors wrote. "The United States instituted quarantine and isolation measures late and inconsistently, often without any effort to enforce them, after the disease had spread substantially in many communities. Our rules on social distancing have in many places been lackadaisical at best, with loosening of restrictions long before adequate disease control had been achieved. And in much of the country, people simply don't wear masks, largely because our leaders have stated outright that masks are political tools rather than effective infection control measures."

Editor-in-chief Dr. Eric Rubin told the New York Times that after spending months in which "pretty much every week in our editorial meeting there would be some new outrage" over Trump's actions and inaction, the publication was compelled to respond.

"It should be clear that we are not a political organization," Rubin told the Times. "But"¦how can you not speak out at a time like this?"

Those in the medical community noted the significance of the NEJM's decision.

    HELL YEAH! The editors of NEJM (most prestigious medical journal in the world) has effing had it with the Trump WH destroying the CDC and FDA and muzzling the NIH. Basically @NEJM editorial gave the middle finger to Trump today. https://t.co/1RbzSaJg4S pic.twitter.com/kIswZ03Ece

    - Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) October 7, 2020

    BRING IT @NEJM.

    This is why we are "political". Because it is our country's health at stake, and #thisisourlane.

    "Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly? We have failed at almost every step."https://t.co/SDCV8FolR2

    - Megan Ranney MD MPH 🗽 (@meganranney) October 8, 2020

    "The magnitude of this failure is astonishing."

    The editors of The New England Journal of Medicine are not fucking around. https://t.co/KmbYnOjDot

    - David Juurlink (@DavidJuurlink) October 7, 2020

The editorial represents only the fourth time since the NEJM was established in 1812 that all of its editors signed an editorial; the others have been an obituary for a longtime editor and pieces about access to contraception, abortion policy, and informed consent requirements in medical care.

The NEJM editorial comes less than a month after the Scientific American, which had previously never spoken out about electoral politics in its 175-year history, published a full-throated endorsement of Biden, calling the presidential election "a matter of life and death."

The NEJM did not explicitly endorse Biden but made clear its belief that the wellbeing of the nation depends on voters rejecting Trump at the ballot box in November.

"Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment," wrote the editors.

"When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent," they continued. "We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs."