According to a new report from The Detroit News, the House committee investigating the Capitol riot has been investigating “Michigan Republicans’ push to surge supporters after the 2020 election to the former TCF Center, where Detroit’s absentee ballots were counted.” As Republicans advocated for their supporters to show up as observers for the absentee ballot-counting process, the subsequent “rush of people led to clashes over GOP observers’ access and an unsuccessful lawsuit by Trump’s campaign to temporarily halt the tallying of votes in the state’s largest city,” The Detroit News adds. The situation deteriorated to the point that officials ended up placing cardboard on windows around the ballot-counting as conservatives banged on windows and attempted to video-tape what was going on.
NBC News confirms: Republican Jim Jordan spoke with Trump for 10 minutes by phone on the morning of Jan. 6, according to documents turned over to the Jan. 6 Committee by the National Archives. @NBCNews
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 5, 2022
The office of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) has apparently provided materials related to the TCF Center chaos to the riot investigation committee. One item confirmed by The Detroit News to have been provided to federal investigators is a post-election email from the North Oakland Republican Club, which told its supporters not to “let criminals steal our country.” Michael Brady, Benson’s chief legal director, characterized the Oakland GOP group’s email to committee lawyer Daniel George as among the “topics discussed and items you had asked for” during a November meeting with the panel. Examining the TCF Center situation could allow House investigators to show a broader portrait of what led to the Capitol attack, which was directly inspired by the months-long campaign led by Trump and others to undermine faith in the election.
New via Washington Post: When the Jan. 6 committee asked for certain docs related to Trump’s efforts to pressure Pence, for example, some of them no longer existed because they had already been shredded.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) February 5, 2022
Notably, individuals who were involved in other Michigan-based election subversion efforts for Trump had a hand in the TCF Center melee. Meshawn Maddock, who is currently a co-chair of the Michigan state GOP, was one of the individuals who signed onto a false declaration that Trump had won the state of Michigan’s electoral votes — and she has also served as part of the leadership of an organization called the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which participated in the push to call up Republicans to what was then known as the TCF Center. The group shared a video from the premises with the (obviously false) caption: “Democrats stealing the Michigan election!!”
This should go without saying, but the events of the past few weeks show that we really need to be saying it: if you are an elected official who’s refusing to condemn Trump or hold him accountable, you’re complicit in his coup attempt.
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) February 6, 2022
The North Oakland Republican Club-associated email was from its president, Matt Marko — who claimed that he wasn’t even the original author of the message. He suggested that it could’ve been Oakland County GOP chair Rocky Raczkowski who was the original source for the message — but Raczkowski denied this, although the local party also participated in the effort to get Republicans to show up at the TCF Center. The whole thing goes even further up the conservative food chain, because “Raczkowski said he believed he received word from someone with the Michigan Republican Party that more observers were needed at TCF Center,” as The Detroit News summarizes — so does anyone really know who was the original source for the push? The riot panel is investigating — and potentially exposing yet another election-related conspiracy in the process of its probe.
I will never understand why 10 more GOP Senators didn’t join with the 7 brave ones to convict Trump in Impeachment 2.0 to prevent him from holding office again (and a campaign account). It would have taken some time but it would have eventually neutered his power over the party.
— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) February 6, 2022
