Trump’s secret election fraud working group
Trump backers met secretly last year to lay the groundwork for a major push to combat election fraud — but they feel they’re being stymied by people in the president’s orbit.
“Seen, Heard & Whispered” is told that the group, which met off-hours and away from government buildings, included Ed Martin, who serves as President Trump’s pardon attorney; Kurt Olsen, one of Mr. Trump’s former election attorneys who now works in the White House; and former West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner, who is serving at the Justice Department and was described as the effort’s coordinator.
They were working to uncover how election fraud occurs.
Things went south after a December meeting. A day later, Mr. Martin was booted from his post as head of the Justice Department’s task force looking into lawfare against Mr. Trump, and Mr. Warner was demoted from his post, according to a source familiar with the meetings.
“DJT has no idea how badly he is being undermined from within,” the source said. “He needs Warner to be the election czar, but I’m not sure if he even knows him. Almost no one else in the Trump [administration] cares about elections; they are self-serving frauds.”
Mr. Trump’s focus on election fraud has been clear from the days after the 2016 election, when he suggested his popular election loss to Hillary Clinton was due to widespread voting by noncitizens.
That message ramped up after his 2020 loss, when he blamed fraudulent votes and pandemic-induced voting procedures for costing him the election. His evidence has been widely challenged by independent arbiters, from federal courts to state officials to academic studies.
Undeterred, Mr. Trump repeated his claims about fraud during his State of the Union address this week.
“The cheating is rampant in our elections,” he said.
Trump’s next judges
The White House has struck a deal on a new federal district judge in Tennessee and also appears to have a leading candidate for the new vacancy on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Samuel D. Adkisson, who serves in the White House counsel’s office, will be the nominee to replace U.S. District Judge Thomas Varlan in the Eastern District of Tennessee, according to the “Seen, Heard & Whispered” source.
White House counsel Dave Warrington announced the move to colleagues, saying Tennessee’s two GOP senators, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, are on board.
The leading candidate for the 6th Circuit vacancy, meanwhile, is T. Elliot Gaiser, currently the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. That’s the office that serves as the federal government’s internal lawyer, offering opinions on legal moves by the executive branch.
Mr. Gaiser was confirmed to the OLC post last July on a 53-45 vote in the Senate.
The chief question is whether Mr. Gaiser wants the judgeship.
“Elliot has been circumspect about it, but there is no reason for him not to pursue it,” the “Seen, Heard & Whispered” source said.
Mr. Elliot clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and two high-profile circuit judges, plus was solicitor general of Ohio before winning the OLC job.
Mr. Adkisson clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
He would replace Judge Varlan, a George W. Bush appointee who said last year he will semiretire in October.
Mr. Gaiser would replace Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, another Bush appointee who is also slated to take senior status in October.
The 6th Circuit covers Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee.
Sotomayor in Spanish
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic member of the Supreme Court, had some words of encouragement for fellow Puerto Ricans this month during an appearance at a university on the island.
A clip of her remarks in Spanish was sent to “Seen, Heard & Whispered.”
In it, she urges them to resist efforts to downplay the U.S. territory and its status, which makes its residents citizens, though without a vote in Congress or the Electoral College.
“At the time that the United States started, many of us were born here, before the United States started, OK?” Justice Sotomayor said, according to a translation of her remarks. “And to say that we aren’t part of [America] is their problem, not ours.
“What we feel, not what they want, but a pride that touches inside of us. And don’t let them treat you in that form,” she said to clapping from the audience at the University of Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico has been debating its status in the U.S for decades, with some supporting a quest for full statehood, some seeking independence and others comfortable with the current status.
Nonbinding votes in recent years have shown most Puerto Ricans back statehood.
Polling has shown that many Americans don’t realize those on the island are citizens by birth.
Justice Sotomayor’s parents were born in Puerto Rico. She was born in New York City and maintains family ties to the territory.
