206: Shenanigans
Update: 2024-10-19
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Jill Wine-Banks hosts #SistersInLaw to discuss Trump’s attempt to delay the release of evidence in his election interference case with discovery requests. Then, the #Sisters break down recent developments in the Republicans making last-minute changes about election and counting procedures. They also explain and reject circulating election disinformation claiming that undocumented migrants are voting and questioning the legitimacy of mail-in ballot procedures.
Check out Jill’s New Politicon YouTube Show: Just The Facts
Check out Kim’s New Politicon Podcast: Justice By Design
Get your #SistersInLaw MERCH at politicon.com/merch
WEBSITE & TRANSCRIPT
Email: SISTERSINLAW@POLITICON.COM or Thread to @sistersInLaw.podcast
Mentioned By The #Sisters:
Joyce’s Substack, Civil Discourse, Judge Chutkan Moves Fast
Joyce’s Substack, Civil Discourse, Good News Tonight From Georgia & Alabama
Neal Katyal on what you need to know in case of an election crisis
Get text updates from #SistersInLaw and Politicon.
Please Support This Week’s Sponsors:
HexClad:
Get 10% off HexClad’s revolutionary cookware when you go to hexclad.com/sisters
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Protect yourself and your loved ones online with a 14-day Aura trial plus a free check of your data to see if your personal information has been leaked when you go to aura.com/sisters
Helix:
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Blueland:
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Get Barb’s New Book:
Attack From Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America
Barb’s Book Tour
Get More From #SistersInLaw
Joyce Vance: Twitter | University of Alabama Law | MSNBC | Civil Discourse Substack
Jill Wine-Banks: Twitter | Facebook | Website | Author of The Watergate Girl: My Fight For Truth & Justice Against A Criminal President | Just The Facts YouTube
Kimberly Atkins Stohr: Twitter | Boston Globe | WBUR | Unbound Newsletter | Justice By Design Podcast
Barb McQuade: Twitter | University of Michigan Law | Just Security | MSNBC
Check out Jill’s New Politicon YouTube Show: Just The Facts
Check out Kim’s New Politicon Podcast: Justice By Design
Get your #SistersInLaw MERCH at politicon.com/merch
WEBSITE & TRANSCRIPT
Email: SISTERSINLAW@POLITICON.COM or Thread to @sistersInLaw.podcast
Mentioned By The #Sisters:
Joyce’s Substack, Civil Discourse, Judge Chutkan Moves Fast
Joyce’s Substack, Civil Discourse, Good News Tonight From Georgia & Alabama
Neal Katyal on what you need to know in case of an election crisis
Get text updates from #SistersInLaw and Politicon.
Please Support This Week’s Sponsors:
HexClad:
Get 10% off HexClad’s revolutionary cookware when you go to hexclad.com/sisters
Aura:
Protect yourself and your loved ones online with a 14-day Aura trial plus a free check of your data to see if your personal information has been leaked when you go to aura.com/sisters
Helix:
Get up to 20% off all mattress orders for our listeners! Go to helixsleep.com/sisters
Blueland:
For 15% off your order of green cleaning products, go to blueland.com/sisters
Get Barb’s New Book:
Attack From Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America
Barb’s Book Tour
Get More From #SistersInLaw
Joyce Vance: Twitter | University of Alabama Law | MSNBC | Civil Discourse Substack
Jill Wine-Banks: Twitter | Facebook | Website | Author of The Watergate Girl: My Fight For Truth & Justice Against A Criminal President | Just The Facts YouTube
Kimberly Atkins Stohr: Twitter | Boston Globe | WBUR | Unbound Newsletter | Justice By Design Podcast
Barb McQuade: Twitter | University of Michigan Law | Just Security | MSNBC
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00:00:00
I'm excited to announce a new show, Just the Facts, with me, The Watergate Girl, Jill Wine Banks.
00:00:09
It's an interview show with some exciting guests so far I've had Sue Craig, Dean Obadella and Michelle Goodwin, talking about some very interesting issues.
00:00:20
Please watch on Politicons YouTube channel every week.
00:00:24
Welcome back to #SistersInLaw with Kimberly Atkins' Store,
00:00:44
Joyce Fans and me, Jill Wine Banks.
00:00:47
Barb will be back next week and of course we missed her this week.
00:00:51
Don't forget to check out the new t-shirt at our merch store.
00:00:55
It's the perfect vibe for any season and we love seeing you wear them out and about just go to politicons.com/merch.
00:01:04
Now we're going to have a really exciting show.
00:01:07
We're going to be talking about new developments in Trump world and Georgia on my mind, maybe Kimmel Singh for us, and election disinformation.
00:01:18
Before we get to those great subjects, I want to ask what each of you would use.
00:01:24
If you had 39 minutes, just to sort of stand and sway to the music like someone else did instead of answering questions.
00:01:36
So Kim, what would be on your playlist?
00:01:38
Yeah, well, I've just started by saying I would never do it when it was my job as a candidate to answer questions from voters, even in a room full of it seemed like friendly voters.
00:01:52
It looked like that room was packed a little bit, meaning, you know, it was stacked a little bit, I should say.
00:01:59
I wouldn't do it then because then I would look like I was unwell, but if I was at home after a long day, you know what's never missed for me is Shade.
00:02:08
Shade is the goat when it comes to calming and relaxing music.
00:02:13
And Joyce, what would you have at the top of your list?
00:02:16
You know, I love listening to music.
00:02:17
I have it on all the time when I'm working and I sort of got caught this morning.
00:02:22
I was doing for my other podcast.
00:02:24
I was interviewing Mark Elias, the voting rights lawyer, and I had been sort of jazzed getting ready to do it, listening to my Taylor Swift playlist, which I forgot to turn off when I logged in to do the podcast.
00:02:38
So everybody, our whole team and Mark, sort of, just, they started laughing, laughing because I had some sort of, some of the more bubble gummy Taylor Swift on my playlist, but you know it's going to hate Joyce.
00:02:50
It makes me happy.
00:02:51
It makes me happy.
00:02:52
You're right, Kim.
00:02:53
The haters are always going to hate.
00:02:56
I'm a swifty, loud and proud.
00:03:00
So I might play either Hallelujah or Freedom right now, but actually the thing I would really,
00:03:10
really play, and I hate to say it because Donald played it is YMCA, and that's because when I worked in Japan where it's really popular to do karaoke,
00:03:22
the only song that I could ever do was YMCA, because if you just stand there and make the moves, you don't have to really have a voice.
00:03:32
Everyone will sing with you.
00:03:33
So it avoided the embarrassment of my voice, so that would have to be the top of my list.
00:03:38
Did we know you worked in Japan?
00:03:40
Sure you did.
00:03:41
Well, maybe not.
00:03:43
When I was, yeah, I don't know.
00:03:46
Sorry, that just slipped out.
00:03:49
What can I say?
00:03:50
Yeah, there's no job that you know what makes that somehow.
00:03:55
Singapore too is big on karaoke, but really my voice is so awful that I am embarrassed to sing, but you don't have to, you just lead them with the YMCA.
00:04:05
And if you noticed, even Kristie Nome tried to get Donald to do the moves, and he just stood there looking blank,
00:04:16
it was really embarrassing.
00:04:22
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00:08:56
Aside from Trump's 39 minutes dancing and his time off from 60 minutes and CNBC, it's been a busy week for him, at least in terms of the DC federal election interference case pending before Judge Chukkin.
00:09:10
He issued two orders, one on October 16th in connection with his request for more discovery and from a broader group of government agencies, and one the next day denying Trump's requested delay of releasing evidence filed by Smith to satisfy his burden to overcome Scotus' immunity decision.
00:09:30
In addition, Judge Chukkin got a response from Smith to Trump's supplemental to his dismissal motion.
00:09:38
Let's talk about these in terms of what they mean for the case between now and the election.
00:09:43
Joyce, what did Trump want in terms of discovery and what did he get and what didn't he get and why?
00:09:50
Yeah, you know, Trump wanted more discovery than he had been given by federal prosecutors, and he also wanted to expand the number of federal agencies and offices that were included in the ambit of the prosecution team.
00:10:04
In other words, the number of places the government had to search.
00:10:08
But it was largely just a big fishing expedition, not focused on the allegations in the case.
00:10:15
Trump like all defendants is entitled to rule 16 discovery.
00:10:19
That's the federal rules of criminal procedure, and they set out fairly extensive requirements for the government to turn over evidence it will use in its case in chief, including expert testimony in any statements it has from the defendant,
00:10:32
and beyond that, the government is required by case law that's developed over the years to turn over evidence a defendant could use to make out a defense or evidence that suggests that they aren't guilty,
00:10:44
derogatory information about witnesses, and also prior to trial, not quite this early, but in advance of trial, prior statements that were made by any witnesses, including their grand jury.
00:10:56
So there's this huge universe of evidence that the government turns over to criminal defendants routinely in every case.
00:11:03
But of course, Trump being Trump, he wanted to go on some grand fishing expedition for information that just wasn't relevant.
00:11:11
And Kim, do you think that this discovery will be crucial in the short term that is by for the election, or in an eventual trial assuming Trump does not become 47?
00:11:24
I don't know really for either.
00:11:27
I mean, I think that was the hope that Donald Trump could get this and get it as quickly as possible so he could flood the zone in terms of to use one of his groney's terms and just sort of casting doubt and disparaging this entire investigation,
00:11:45
and certainly he'd want to try to do that if he thought in any way that it would help him stay out of jail if he is not elected.
00:11:54
But I'm not sure that it really would.
00:11:57
We've been talking in the past about how strong the case is, how careful Jack Smith has been.
00:12:03
And I feel like this was just what Joyce said.
00:12:06
It was a Hail Mary that had no catcher on the other side.
00:12:11
Like it was just an effort to delay and/or distort and it failed.
00:12:17
Yeah, I can't actually see any possibility that his request would have ever helped because they seemed so likely to be denied.
00:12:27
They were so far out of the norm.
00:12:29
And I think Judge Chutkin did a very careful analysis of the materiality of the request to discovery and of the likelihood that it would help Trump's defense.
00:12:39
She also had to decide who Smith had to get documents from.
00:12:43
And that was sort of an interesting analysis because it has to be something under the control of the prosecution.
00:12:50
So Joyce, can you talk about the ones that she said he was going to have to, that he Smith was going to have to search for documents from and why he would have to do that?
00:13:01
Yeah, so Trump actually asked the judge to require the prosecution to search nine additional government offices that hadn't previously been considered a part of the prosecution team.
00:13:12
And he wanted them to search for 14 new categories of information.
00:13:17
Judge Chutkin said no to the fishing expedition as we've noted, so she ordered them to search these additional areas.
00:13:24
They of course only have to turn the information over if they find something they may or may not.
00:13:30
But first up was materials that the director of national intelligence reviewed before an interview with the special counsel's team.
00:13:37
Then there are records concerning information about security measures that was discussed with Trump in a meeting he had with acting defense secretary Chris Miller and joint chiefs of staff chairman general Mark Milley days before the January 6,
00:13:51
2021 attack on the Capitol.
00:13:54
I think those are areas where Trump is looking to make an argument that there were valid national security concerns raised by the military and the intelligence community and his actions were a response to briefings.
00:14:05
He got on those issues.
00:14:06
You know, that's not going to fly.
00:14:08
Let him try to do whatever he wants to do there.
00:14:11
And then the third category was evidence related to the unauthorized retention of classified documents by vice president Mike Pence.
00:14:19
And I would assume he's just looking for information that they might be able to use to try to impeach Mike Pence if he's a witness at trial.
00:14:28
So Jill, as you referenced, the judge also expanded the search zone just slightly most explicitly requiring the government to search in the files of former employees or people who used to work on the case or the investigation,
00:14:41
but aren't doing that any longer.
00:14:43
But you know, frankly, it's not at all clear that the government hasn't turned over most if not all of this information.
00:14:50
Previously, special counsels office lawyers had represented to the court that they had searched extensively.
00:14:55
What Judge Chutkin is doing here, I think, is very smart.
00:14:58
She's creating a clear record so Trump can't complain on appeal if there's a conviction because she's requiring the special counsel to file a signed certification that they've complied with her order completely by next Thursday.
00:15:12
Kim, let's move to the motion to delay the Trump filed.
00:15:16
What did he want and what did he get?
00:15:19
Well, Trump tried to delay the release of the documents filed by special counsel Jack Smith in the election interference case.
00:15:29
It's more than 1800 pages of documents, which surprise, surprise, they were released.
00:15:35
They were released just before we were set to record.
00:15:41
So we've gone through them, I'm sure Joyce has read every word of all 1800 pages.
00:15:46
No.
00:15:49
Come back next week for our analysis of the new information.
00:15:56
But that's what he got.
00:15:57
He got a slap down by Judge Chutkin is what he got.
00:16:00
Actually, that's exactly right.
00:16:03
So just sort of speculating because obviously we have not been able to look at this since we are recording when it was released.
00:16:12
But is there anything that you expect will be in there that will be really exciting and interesting or do you think it'll actually get delayed by his immediate appeal to the court of appeals?
00:16:23
Well, I mean, the whole thing was a delay tactic, right?
00:16:26
That's all it was.
00:16:27
It was him trying to push off the release that his attorneys asked that it would be released no earlier than November 14th,
00:16:39
I believe, I wonder why I wonder what's happening between now and November 14th.
00:16:44
But and then tried to say, oh, well, if she releases it, Judge Chutkin releases it, then that means she's quote evil, called her evil, and the interference is what he said.
00:16:56
Yeah.
00:16:57
Well, yes.
00:16:58
But I was getting to that.
00:16:59
I had to go with evil per first.
00:17:00
And then to say that she was actually interfering with the election by releasing it before the election.
00:17:06
And Judge Chutkin was basically like, was saying, kill that noise, I don't, I am running my courtroom.
00:17:12
Yes, it is a, it is a principle that you don't do things purposely to with the, an election in mind.
00:17:21
But if an election is incidentally going on while I'm running my courtroom, that has nothing to do with me.
00:17:26
I'm paraphrasing.
00:17:27
But that was a fact.
00:17:28
I would say that the opposite would be true, that if she granted him a delay that she would not grant to anyone else, just because he said it would have an election interference issue,
00:17:41
that would be election interference.
00:17:44
And he may not like that the courts are running on court time, but that's how they should be.
00:17:52
You know, that's exactly what she said to him, right?
00:17:53
She wrote in her opinion, she was talking about this presumption in criminal cases that everything should be made public.
00:18:00
That's the ruling criminal cases.
00:18:02
That's the first amendment interest.
00:18:03
And so she wrote, it is in fact, defendants requested relief that risks undermining that public interest.
00:18:09
If the court withheld information that the public otherwise had a right to access solely because of the potential political consequences of releasing it, that withholding could itself constitute or appear to be election interference.
00:18:22
So she said, I'm not going to consider any of that.
00:18:25
I'm just going to handle this like any other case, your election arguments are not relevant here, Mr.
00:18:30
Trump.
00:18:31
I thought it was well done.
00:18:33
And exactly the right thing to do.
00:18:35
Thank you, Judge Shotkin.
00:18:46
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00:21:32
Well, it was a good week for voting rights in Georgia, a key election swing state.
00:21:45
First, Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney, who listeners know well because he also made some key rulings in from state election interference case, as well as a recent ruling,
00:21:56
which briefly, anyway, halted the state's abortion ban.
00:22:00
He slapped down an attempt by state election officials to be able to delay certifying election results if there are any claims of fraud or other shenanigans.
00:22:11
McBurney also halted a rule by the state selection board requiring three separate poll workers to count the number of election day ballots by hand to make sure that they matched the electronic tallies on the scanner.
00:22:25
Then after that, Fulton Superior Judge Thomas Cox Jr.
00:22:29
made both of McBurney's temporary rulings a bit more permanent, striking them both down as unconstitutional and ordered the election board to immediately notify state and local election officials that none of these shenanigans is going to be no hand counting,
00:22:45
there's going to be no delaying of certification, there will be no nonsense.
00:22:50
So, Joe, what do you make of these legal developments down in Georgia?
00:22:54
Well, it gives me hope that the courts will continue to push back against election suppression and election interference.
00:23:03
And that's what this rules were.
00:23:07
First of all, they were adopted within a period that made it impossible to implement them.
00:23:15
As Judge McBurney noted, you would need 1200 more people to handle this, to make the count.
00:23:25
And this would be adding a burden on to people who already have been working since five in the morning at the end of voting to do this.
00:23:32
And there would be no rules set up about where people would stand, who would do the counting, how they would do it, there was just no time to implement this in a fair and sane way.
00:23:44
And so, I feel good that this decision happened, I worry what will happen if it gets appealed higher up.
00:23:51
I mean, voting has already started and they're trying to put new rules in place, that's absurd.
00:23:59
And Joyce, what do you think about these rulings and can they be appealed as we speak?
00:24:04
There's less than two weeks until the election or just over two weeks until the election.
00:24:08
So look, I think that these are good rulings.
00:24:10
For one thing, it's too close to election day to make changes.
00:24:14
For instance, for the hand count rule adopted by the State Board of Elections, there wasn't going to be any training or provision of security, although that rule would have required every precinct to let observers from the public come in and watch them count the ballots.
00:24:28
No security.
00:24:29
I mean, there could have been a smash and grab and ballots disappearing, right?
00:24:33
It would have been nuts to let that go forward.
00:24:35
And it's good to see a ruling confirming that certification is a ministerial duty.
00:24:40
In other words, it is something that election superintendents shall do.
00:24:45
They don't have any discretion.
00:24:47
Look, of course, there are going to be appeals and Georgia's appellate courts are full of Republicans, but these are basic issues of good election hygiene.
00:24:56
And the organization of Georgia election officials opposed adopting these rules.
00:25:02
I'm optimistic that the appellate courts will go ahead and do the right thing.
00:25:07
So, Jill, I'm going to play devil's advocate here.
00:25:09
Don't we want to know that the results of the ballots are right, and sometimes machines make mistakes?
00:25:18
And what are election officials supposed to do if there is a claim of fraud?
00:25:23
Is there any validity in the arguments that the election board made in implementing these rules?
00:25:30
No, there isn't.
00:25:32
First of all, we already know there are multiple checks on how many ballots are cast.
00:25:39
When you sign into vote, there's a number.
00:25:44
When you enter the machine, it counts a number.
00:25:48
When you print out the paper ballot and have it scanned, there's a number.
00:25:53
So we already know this.
00:25:56
There is no need for a hand count, which is far more likely to be an error than the machine.
00:26:02
This is like I always count my money when I go to the ATM machine.
00:26:08
In all the years I've used an ATM, there has never ever been a mistake, but I can't break the habit of counting to make sure that it doled out the right number of $20 bills to me.
00:26:21
It's a real crisp and you know, that's again, oh my god, they missed one and you're like, oh, wait, no, they didn't.
00:26:27
Have they ever?
00:26:28
No, they have never missed one, never, ever.
00:26:30
And these machines are not going to make a mistake.
00:26:32
It's so much more likely that after working for more than 12 hours, people will make a mistake.
00:26:40
We know the number.
00:26:42
If there is, by the way, the other major thing is there are alternative ways to do this.
00:26:49
Joyce mentioned, the law says, shall, and that means must.
00:26:54
It doesn't mean may, it means must, and so there's no choice for them to do it.
00:27:01
And then it can be appealed or challenged before it's certified by the state.
00:27:06
These are just the local election boards that are doing this.
00:27:10
And so there's plenty of ways to challenge it in court, not to give election poll watchers some authority to take on action.
00:27:22
It is not up to any of the people who are handling the election day ballots to investigate this.
00:27:29
There are all these other ways in the courts to challenge this.
00:27:34
Report it to local law enforcement that would be appropriate to investigate.
00:27:40
Don't do it yourself.
00:27:41
There's no reason for it.
00:27:43
So Joyce, yeah, I mean, can I just weigh on that too, Kim, because something I want to remind our listeners of is that if you have any concerns on the day of the election,
00:27:54
you will see 1-800 numbers used by the civil rights groups.
00:27:59
And you can always call ACLU Legal Defense Fund Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.
00:28:04
They'll all work together to make sure that any complaints were investigated.
00:28:09
Your local U.S.
00:28:10
Attorney's Office will have a day of election officer.
00:28:13
If you're concerned about something, if, for instance, there were going to be armed men outside of your polling place, you could call that office and they would make sure that you were able to vote.
00:28:23
I mean, these are really important sorts of concerns to get into the hands of the right people.
00:28:29
But I am very worried about this proliferation of stories about how unsafe the election is going to be or the fact that your ballot won't get counted.
00:28:38
I think that's part of a deliberate narrative.
00:28:41
Republicans are using an effort to suppress the vote.
00:28:44
We'll talk about that a little bit more.
00:28:45
I just want to put that marker down here so that people don't get worried and it doesn't keep them from voting.
00:28:51
But for purposes of Georgia, you need to understand what this hand count that the State Board of Elections ordered was.
00:28:59
It was not about retelling the individual votes, right?
00:29:02
They weren't going through and counting up who people voted for.
00:29:05
It was literally a hand count of how many ballots there were in precincts.
00:29:10
They were ordered to do them in stacks of 50.
00:29:13
And that gets done as Jill says at multiple other points during the day.
00:29:18
So you know, play devil's advocate all you want.
00:29:21
This rule was never going to prevent any fraud.
00:29:24
It was duplicative.
00:29:26
It wasn't doing anything that wasn't already done.
00:29:29
And as for certification, the law is clear that for these, these county election officials, it's actually a county board of elections officers, but they're called superintendents.
00:29:40
The law is very clear that they don't have any discretionary role in determining whether the vote counts are legitimate.
00:29:46
Their job is to certify what's handed to them.
00:29:49
Because that's already gone through a process where representatives from both parties are sitting there while everything is reviewed and looked over to make sure that it's all correct.
00:30:00
Where later points in the process were attended, for instance, as entitled to challenge votes under certain circumstances.
00:30:08
I mean, there are plenty of protections on these elections.
00:30:12
This change was about was letting purely political actors, election deniers from the 2020 election step in and prevent the vote from being counted in counties where Kamala Harris won.
00:30:26
That's all that was going on here.
00:30:27
Yes.
00:30:28
And they're trying to get around what protections were put in place.
00:30:30
By the electoral count reform act and do some other stuff and I'm really glad these courts shut them down.
00:30:38
A couple quick points to close us out one, if you were wondering what that phone number is.
00:30:43
If you have any trouble, if you are denied your right to vote, call 1, 866, our vote.
00:30:51
And you can also say 1, 888, they vote on that spaniel.
00:30:58
Those are the numbers to call if you see anything or if anybody is trying to intimidate you or keep you away from the polls.
00:31:05
And also just one positive note, since early voting began in Georgia, more than a million votes have already been cast in that state as of the recording of this podcast.
00:31:16
It's just a reminder of just what's at stake here.
00:31:28
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00:33:53
Well with all of the different concerns about the election, the biggest threat may well be all of the disinformation that's in circulation.
00:34:01
The challenge for voters is figuring out where and how to get quality information, how to find the accurate stuff.
00:34:08
And for as long as I've been doing election-related legal work, which is coming up on three decades, both inside and outside of the Justice Department, there's been this fundamental tension,
00:34:19
historically Republicans use false claims of voter fraud to justify suppressing people's rights to vote.
00:34:27
Of course, Donald Trump put that on steroids and now it can sometimes be hard to know what to believe when you hear stories about election fraud and issues with the election.
00:34:38
Jill, many people, including me, I've written about this belief that Trump's new big lie could be his claims about what he calls illegal aliens voting.
00:34:48
I think ends up being a new version of his older complaints about caravans of aliens creeping up on the border, criminals taking over, and it's consistent with his general hatred of immigrants.
00:35:01
DOJ has stepped in, and this is very unusual this late in the election season, but they've filed cases in Alabama and Virginia, objecting to those states removing voters from the rules.
00:35:13
Large numbers of those people have already been determined to be legitimate voters and it's too close to the election to be removing people from the rules.
00:35:21
Are Trump's claims about non-citizens voting, are they going to affect the outcome of the election?
00:35:26
Is that actually true that non-citizens will cast votes?
00:35:30
No, it's not true, but yes, it might have an impact.
00:35:35
And here's the reason, it's not true because it's already illegal for a non-citizen to vote, and because we know from all the research that very few even legal aliens try to vote.
00:35:52
They just don't, it's not worth it to them, it's a crime, and it could jeopardize their standing in America and their chances of being admitted fully into America.
00:36:05
So if you look at the numbers, there were in the 2016 election, the Brennan Center found that of the 23.5 million votes cast,
00:36:18
there were only about 30 cases of non-citizens voting.
00:36:23
I'm not let it math.
00:36:25
I'm let it investigate it.
00:36:27
But even let's say they all are, what percentage, I'm going to tell me what 30 out of 23 million.
00:36:35
I don't know how many years it's like there's, it's nonexistent.
00:36:39
It's just not, it's just not right.
00:36:41
There are more Republicans voting from homes that they don't own than there are non-citizens voting in here.
00:36:45
There are more of them in Congress than live there.
00:36:49
Okay, yes, that is also true.
00:36:51
But you know, it's also true even in Georgia, which was a close state.
00:36:55
There were Secretary Raphsonberger audited and found that in a period of 26 years, not one year,
00:37:06
there were 1,634 ineligible non-citizens who tried to register, and 100% of them were stopped.
00:37:15
None of them got to register.
00:37:17
So this is not a problem.
00:37:20
It is Donald Trump trying to find a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
00:37:26
And the fear I have though is that it is going to influence people and also because they're getting purged, which is the other side of this, they're not going to get back on.
00:37:37
And so people are not going to vote because they're afraid or because they got purged and they didn't get back on in time.
00:37:43
So it could influence in an election that comes down to a handful of states and only a few votes per precinct.
00:37:52
It can make a difference and that is terrifying to me.
00:37:57
Well, that sounds like a good reason for everybody to go out and vote and make the extra effort to me.
00:38:02
And you know, in Alabama, a federal judge yesterday ordered the Secretary of State to return the voters that he had removed to the rules.
00:38:10
I suspect we'll see something like that in Virginia.
00:38:13
There's a private case, not one that DOJ is involved in in Arizona.
00:38:16
And they're taking non-citizens off the ballot has also been prohibited.
00:38:22
So I bet you we can expect to hear Donald Trump talk about this if he loses to say, well, this is why I lost.
00:38:28
But now you know the truth.
00:38:30
And I hope you guys will all push back with that.
00:38:33
But it's not just aliens voting.
00:38:34
Kim, there's a Mississippi case now before the fifth circuit where the Republican National Committee is trying to stop counting of mail-in ballots, even if they're postmarked by election day,
00:38:46
but not received until up till after five days from the election.
00:38:50
That's what Mississippi allows.
00:38:52
If you cast your ballot on election day, put it in the mail, get it postmarked.
00:38:56
And as long as it's received by your county within five days after the election, it gets counted.
00:39:04
Why is the RNC upset about this?
00:39:06
I mean, this is the law.
00:39:07
They're actually suing other Republicans in Mississippi over this.
00:39:11
It looks like just another effort to get Americans to abandon confidence in the election.
00:39:16
What do you make of it?
00:39:17
I think that's absolutely right.
00:39:19
And it's also trying to ensure that as few people vote by mail when people who vote by mail tend to vote democratic as few of their votes are counted.
00:39:31
I mean, think about this.
00:39:33
I just recently mailed something to a governmental agency that I had to mail it.
00:39:40
And I got a notice that it was received a month later.
00:39:45
Like the U.S.
00:39:46
mail is a mess sometimes.
00:39:47
If you mail your ballots, I think five days is a more than reasonable amount of time to let the mail do what it does and to deal with any delays that can just come up from weather,
00:39:59
from whatever, but this is a transparent effort.
00:40:02
But it's a dangerous one because this challenge to this Mississippi law means that other laws in 20 other states that are similar to this could also be in jeopardy because it is a federal appellate court that is taking up this challenge.
00:40:20
And some of these are pivotal battleground states like Nevada and Virginia and Ohio.
00:40:27
It could be really a big problem.
00:40:29
And so arguments were already held on this case and the panel at the Fifth Circuit that is hearing this are all Trump appointees.
00:40:39
So I am worried about this.
00:40:41
This could be just a big problem.
00:40:43
I mean, the argument the GOP is making, the lawyer for the GOP said on Tuesday that the consummation date, I hate that term, but the consummation date for ballot receipt should not be up for subjective interpretation.
00:41:00
Whereas the Republicans in the state are trying to defend this law said they're not the challenges aren't pointing to any actual law, any precedent, anything.
00:41:10
They're just sort of, you know, reaching for straws here, but that doesn't mean that the Fifth Circuit won't go along with it.
00:41:17
And can I add that this is not a new law?
00:41:20
And for them to be challenging, it's so late in the day, is really unacceptable and inexplicable.
00:41:30
And there is just no reason for this.
00:41:33
And there's a long precedent of accepting ballots that are mailed by election day, but received within a set number of days afterwards.
00:41:41
Even when you mail your taxes, as long as it's postmarked by the day, it doesn't matter if it gets there four years later, it's still altered on maybe four years as a lot, but it doesn't matter if it gets there later.
00:41:53
It could be five days later.
00:41:55
They still got to go by the postmark.
00:41:57
I would say just one more thing in this litigation is Don Verily is arguing on behalf of the DNC as an intervener.
00:42:04
He's a former Solicitor General whip smart, really, really good lawyer.
00:42:08
And so that gives me a little bit of hope that it might be a little harder for this court to, you know, rule with your boy.
00:42:17
You know, I used to work with Don and I agree with your assessment.
00:42:20
He is whip smart and one of the arguments that gets made, I think, is the ender on this one.
00:42:27
These mail-in ballots already went out to Mississippi voters with instructions telling them that as long as they mailed it by election day and it arrived within five days,
00:42:37
it would count.
00:42:38
I don't know how you walk that back after they already have those ballots.
00:42:42
And you know who some of those mail-in voters are.
00:42:44
They are members of the military and their families who are stationed abroad protecting all of us, keeping us safe.
00:42:52
And you're telling me that this circuit court of appeals is going to take away their right to vote.
00:42:58
You know, I tend to think not.
00:43:00
So Kim Nealcat, y'all wrote a piece for The New York Times earlier this week explaining his view that this election could result in a constitutional crisis.
00:43:10
There's also a narrative out there that says your vote won't count unless you live in a swing state.
00:43:15
Do you worry about these sorts of arguments even when they're well-intentioned having the effect of keeping people from voting because they've come to believe their vote won't count and it's not worth the effort of getting out to vote?
00:43:26
I absolutely worry about this.
00:43:28
I hear voters saying that they feel like their vote doesn't count for any number of reasons and all of them are bad for democracy.
00:43:36
Whether they think the politicians are all the same or they think that nothing is going to get done, but certainly when it comes to them believing, well, my vote isn't actually going to be counted if I cast it.
00:43:46
You know, and that makes them lose faith that they have a voice in our democracy.
00:43:52
And that's a fundamental principle of it.
00:43:55
You can't get the representation you want if you don't have a say.
00:44:00
And so I do want to encourage people to vote.
00:44:03
Like we do, we do.
00:44:04
We, in this podcast, we tell people the vote, I think almost every episode.
00:44:08
You have to vote.
00:44:09
If you don't vote, you don't have a vote.
00:44:10
You don't have a, you don't have a, you're guaranteed to deny yourself a voice.
00:44:15
I am someone who has always voted.
00:44:17
I know a long time ago.
00:44:18
I don't think it really exists anymore much, but there was this idea that journalist shouldn't vote because we're covering this stuff and that makes us personally invested.
00:44:27
I have always thought it took not one, but to constitutional amendments to ensure my right to vote.
00:44:34
It is still, there are still people who don't believe that efforts to suppress my voter underway.
00:44:40
And I know that they are.
00:44:42
And I will be darned if I let that right go unused.
00:44:46
So I vote.
00:44:47
I want y'all to vote.
00:44:49
We can't get any change if we don't do that.
00:44:51
I mean, they're at least, can I just add to that?
00:44:53
I just want to add, Joyce, that even if you think it doesn't matter at the presidential level because you're not in a swing state and you know that the popular vote is going to go to the candidate of your choice in the state you live in.
00:45:07
It matters to all the downvaled races.
00:45:11
And the Senate, the House, your local legislature, your governor, your mayor, those are all critical to your life and to how the president will be able to make decisions and get legislation passed.
00:45:29
But that's another reason why you must vote whether you're in a swing state or not.
00:45:35
So what do y'all do?
00:45:37
I mean, how do you sort through fact and fiction and opinion and put together, you know, what you believe is to be an accurate picture of going on so that you can understand the elections in context and sort of toss out these loose narratives that are being used to suppress voting?
00:45:54
Kim, where do you go for good information?
00:45:56
How do you do it?
00:45:57
Well, I subscribe and read civil discourse regularly because there's good stuff in there.
00:46:05
I mean it.
00:46:06
I listen to what Mark Elias says.
00:46:11
I listen to the smart people in the room.
00:46:13
Jill, what do you do?
00:46:16
Well, I do exactly the same as Kim.
00:46:19
I would add to my list.
00:46:21
I also read a Robert Hubble and Heather Cox Richardson every day.
00:46:26
But I also read multiple newspapers and I read them online.
00:46:30
I do get physical papers at my house because my husband likes to read a physical paper.
00:46:37
But I click on the links in stories so that it's not just, I mean, you just, we were talking about the Neil Katiel piece and he has links in it and you can look up whether what he's saying is backed up by the links that he has.
00:46:54
And so it's really worth spending the time.
00:46:58
If I read something and go, wow, that's great.
00:47:00
I really agree with that.
00:47:02
I look to see, does the Wall Street Journal?
00:47:05
Does some other paper with a different viewpoint than the ones that I would normally rely on for opinions and information?
00:47:13
Do they say the same thing?
00:47:15
Or is this only in one place?
00:47:17
If it's only in one place, it's probably not correct.
00:47:20
And so I then keep looking.
00:47:22
And there are websites that will check for fake news.
00:47:26
And I can sometimes go to those if it's something really questionable.
00:47:31
But it is really a question of using your common sense, but looking at multiple sources.
00:47:38
Yeah, I think those are all great ideas.
00:47:41
In addition, I'm a big fan of reading local newspapers.
00:47:44
I subscribe to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
00:47:48
I look there for my Georgia news.
00:47:50
I subscribe to and read the Texas Tribune, which is a not-for-profit new shop in Texas and read their really excellent reporting.
00:47:59
And I try to do that across the country when I'm interested in a story.
00:48:03
It's one of the few places where I'm maybe a little bit more spendy than my husband would prefer when he sees my credit card bills and asks why I'm subscribing to like 15 different local newspapers and places that we don't live.
00:48:16
But I always view that as money that's really well spent.
00:48:19
And also good journalism.
00:48:21
I have a Boston Globe subscription too.
00:48:26
Good journalism costs money.
00:48:28
Pay for it people.
00:48:29
Don't expect it to be free.
00:48:31
This is true.
00:48:32
And you know, in addition, when it comes to elections, I read and some of this is very readable.
00:48:38
It's not technical stuff at all.
00:48:40
But I pay attention to some of the leading experts on election law.
00:48:44
There are law professors, both conservatives and liberals, Mark Elias, who we've talked about.
00:48:51
Some has democracy docket, which has some of the best information out there.
00:48:56
Just security.
00:48:57
Another online website that's related to NYU Law School has got a litigation tracker with the most important election litigation cases on it.
00:49:07
There is a lot of great information out there.
00:49:10
You don't have to be duped by political narratives.
00:49:13
I know our listeners are smart people.
00:49:16
You guys can really look through some of the smoke screens out there and recognize the truth.
00:49:22
I love Blue Land just because it does a good job of cleaning whether it's my hands or my sinks or my toilets.
00:49:38
But did you know your dishwasher detergent pods are almost always wrapped in plastic?
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00:49:44
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00:49:51
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00:49:56
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00:50:01
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00:50:07
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00:50:11
This is apparently the episode of the podcast where I talk about my oldest kids move, which I'm really excited about.
00:50:17
In fact, the first thing I got for him when he closed on his place was a full set of Blue Land cleaning supplies.
00:50:23
Like us, he is very conscientious about being environmentally friendly and he had heard, in case you haven't, that Blue Land is on a mission to eliminate single-use plastic by reinventing cleaning essentials to be better for you and the planet with the same powerful clean you're used to.
00:50:40
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And I love how Blue Land uses no single-use plastic in any component, including their bottles, tablets, wrappers, and shipping.
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00:50:58
Okay, I get to get in on this too because my step-daughter, whenever she comes over, the last time she was here, she was like, "Do you guys have any Blue Land?
00:51:06
You can give me like, I really..."
00:51:09
The kids know, right?
00:51:10
The kids know about it.
00:51:11
And my goddaughter is so environmentally conscious and I'm going to go stay with her when I do the exhibition of my pins in Milwaukee.
00:51:20
I hope she's not listening.
00:51:22
Oh darn.
00:51:22
If she is, close your ears, Jen, because I got her some Blue Land and lots of different fragrances for the hand soap.
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So I can't wait to give that to her because I know she'll really appreciate something that is so environmentally friendly.
00:51:37
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00:51:49
And the fragrance-free tablets have become a real favorite because it doesn't affect how your food tastes or smells.
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It just keeps your plates in dishes clean.
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I speak for the sisters when I say, "I am not going back to you."
00:52:04
Expenses did there.
00:52:06
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00:52:51
It's time for our favorite part of the show.
00:53:02
Listener questions.
00:53:04
We really love it because you're smart listeners and you send us really challenging thought-provoking questions.
00:53:10
And if you have a question for us, please email us at sistersinlaw@politicon.com or tag us on social media using #sistersinlaw.
00:53:22
If we don't get to your question during the show, keep an eye on our feeds throughout the week where we'll answer many more of the questions than we get to on this show.
00:53:32
And we have some great questions this week, as always.
00:53:36
And the first one is from Laura in Rhode Island.
00:53:40
For Kim, does the DOJ policy of not inditing a sitting president account for the clock running out on the statute of limitations while the president is in office?
00:53:51
Well, Laura, no, it does not.
00:53:54
Because of the a doctrine called "tolling."
00:53:59
While a defendant is unavailable, as it is he or she would be if in office, the statute of limitation is told until they are available again.
00:54:11
So no, that's not a way to run out account.
00:54:14
Now, the only thing about this is that that is the rule for federal criminal charges.
00:54:19
States may have different rules, but for federal criminal charges, the statute of limitation is told while the person is in office and unavailable to be charged.
00:54:28
And here's another great question for you, Joyce, from Nancy.
00:54:32
If the 11th Circuit, where you are very familiar with them, if the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reverses Judge Cannon's decision on the classified documents case,
00:54:44
can the appellate court use the fact that she is now handling the criminal case concerning the assassination plot at Trump's golf course as a reason not to send the classified documents case back to her?
00:54:56
Yeah, so Nancy, I think this is a really interesting question, sort of getting at what sort of conflict of interest disqualifies a judge from handling a case.
00:55:07
I think the example that you pause at this fact that she's handling the assassination attempt case would not be a conflict of interest.
00:55:15
Judges can routinely handle different cases involving the same parties.
00:55:20
And there's no real conflict of interest there, because for conflict of interest, we're trying to get it biased on the part of the judge.
00:55:29
You know, where I think Judge Cannon would run into trouble under 11th Circuit Law and Jack Smith has not raised this.
00:55:36
This is a court that has raised it on their own in the past.
00:55:39
And they could choose to do that here.
00:55:42
Sometimes they'll say, you know, if a judge has just struggled with a case and been reversed a couple of times, made multiple bad decisions, we will out of just an abundance of concern for public perception of fairness,
00:55:56
ask the chief judge in that court to reassign it to a new judge on remand.
00:56:00
Nobody's being critical of anybody.
00:56:02
No one's saying that there's a conflict of interest that wasn't disclosed.
00:56:06
We're just saying that so the public can have confidence in the outcome.
00:56:10
There should be a new judge.
00:56:11
That's what I think many people are hoping the 11th Circuit will do here.
00:56:16
There are a number of amicus briefs from outside parties who have asked the court to do that, even though Jack Smith didn't formally make that motion when he filed his appeal.
00:56:25
And our last question comes from Philip.
00:56:28
He asks, what are the differences between Trump's agenda 47 and Project 2025?
00:56:36
Are they the same?
00:56:38
Well, Philip, I would say that even though Trump says he has nothing to do with Project 25, that he isn't involved in it at all,
00:56:50
that it is exactly what his agenda would be.
00:56:54
Remember, this is a party that doesn't always have a platform even.
00:56:58
So it's very tricky when you see something that is labeled as the agenda for the next conservative president, written by the people who served in the last Trump administration,
00:57:13
the people who will be back in his administration.
00:57:16
So I think that whatever differences he claims are not believable and that you can rely on all of the terrible things that Project 2025 promises as being how a second Trump administration would be run.
00:57:33
Thank you for listening to Hashtag Sisters-in-Law with Kimberly Atkins' Store, Joyce Vance, and me, Joe Weinbanks.
00:57:41
You can follow Hashtag Sisters-in-Law on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen.
00:57:47
And please give us a five-star review.
00:57:49
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00:57:52
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00:57:55
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00:57:59
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00:58:00
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00:58:03
See you next week with another episode, Hashtag Sisters-in-Law.
00:58:08
Well, y'all, I always get a little bit sad before the election because in Alabama, you only get one day to vote.
00:58:15
It's tough to vote absentee.
00:58:17
You have to certify under oath that you won't be in your home county on that day or you're too sick to vote.
00:58:23
So I will be in line with many of my neighbors because my polling place has been consolidated with another polling place.
00:58:32
Go figure two of the blueest boxes in Birmingham.
00:58:36
And so we will all be out there.
00:58:38
How do you guys vote?
00:58:39
I always vote early.
00:58:42
And in Illinois, we have a couple of weeks of early voting.
00:58:47
And I like doing it in person because I like talking to the poll workers and I like meeting other people who are voting.
00:58:56
And I like getting my I voted sticker from them.
00:59:00
My husband voted by mail.
00:59:01
And I am just a little nervous about mail ballads.
00:59:06
Although in Illinois, you do get confirmation that your ballad was received.
00:59:12
So that makes me feel a little bit better because if you don't get that, you can then I think go and vote in person.
00:59:18
I'm not sure on that.
00:59:20
You can.
00:59:20
You can go and vote a provisional ballot situation.
00:59:24
Yeah.
00:59:24
Yeah.
00:59:24
You sure can.
00:59:25
And Kim, what do you do?
00:59:27
Yeah.
00:59:27
I like the electricity of election day.
00:59:29
So I always vote in person on the day.
00:59:31
I like to see what's going on.
00:59:34
What, you know, how long the line is, which is bad.
00:59:38
We long lines on voting is not a sign of enthusiasm.
00:59:43
It's a sign of voter suppression.
00:59:44
Keep that in mind.
00:59:45
People should be able to vote easily and quickly.
00:59:47
But, you know, just see just, I don't know, I like the energy of election day.
00:59:51
And I'm usually working late that day because, you know, when the return start rolling in, but I like going in the morning, early and just seeing how it all shakes out even though I live in a place where I get taxation without representation.
01:00:06
But I can still vote for president.
01:00:07
I got no representatives.
01:00:10
But I carry that.
01:00:11
In any event, I hope everyone who's listening has a plan to vote.
01:00:16
- Yes, that's really important.
01:00:18
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01:00:28
