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Stone And Flynn Promoting Sham ‘Voter Integrity’ Project For 2024

Stone And Flynn Promoting Sham ‘Voter Integrity’ Project For 2024

Co-founded by multimillionaire conspiracy theorist Patrick M. Byrne — the former Overstock.com CEO who aggressively promoted the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump — the America Project is a far-right MAGA group that describes its mission as “election integrity.” But critics of Byrne and America Project advisers like Roger Stone and Michael Flynn have been stressing that their real goal is voter suppression and voter intimidation. And Byrne is obviously willing to spent a lot of his money to suppress votes: Byrne, according to The Guardian, says he has donated almost $3 million to the America Project’s Operation Eagles Wings drive.

The Guardian’s Peter Stone reports that the America Project “has begun a self-styled ‘election integrity’ drive to train activists in election canvassing and poll-watching, sparking fears from voting rights watchdogs about voter intimidation.” According to Peter Stone, the American Project’s Operation Eagles Wings drive is focusing on “eight states,” including Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which Trump lost, plus Texas and Florida, which he won.”

Byrne is among the MAGA Republicans who has been the target of a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems. In late 2020, Byrne promoted the false claim and bogus conspiracy theory that Dominion’s voting equipment was used to steal votes from Trump and give them to now-President Joe Biden.


The events that followed the 2020 presidential election were unprecedented in U.S. history. Trump was first U.S. president to lose an election by over 7 million votes, falsely claim that he didn’t, and try to overthrow the democratic election results — and he did all that with the help of Byrne, veteran GOP operative Roger Stone, former National Security Adviser Flynn and others who have promoted the Big Lie. Flynn is so nakedly authoritarian that after Trump lost the election, he urged him to declare martial law in order to stay in the White House.

“Voting rights advocates have voiced sharp criticism of Operation Eagles Wings, calling it a ‘sham,’ given the roles of Stone, Flynn, Byrne and others, and warning that it could lead to voter harassment at the polls and suppress legitimate votes,” Stone reports in a Guardian article published on July 7. “To lead the fledgling operation, the America Project recruited Tim Meisburger, an ex-Trump official in the U.S. Agency for International Development. Meisburger left the agency abruptly under a cloud in mid-January 2021 after a video surfaced of him falsely informing staffers that the Capitol attack was mostly peaceful except for ‘a few violent people’ and that ‘several million’ people were demonstrating peacefully for election reforms.”

The Guardian reporter adds, “Overall, the America Project has boasted that its total funding is greater than $8m, including donations from Byrne, the ex-chief executive of Overstock.”

Sean Morales-Doyle, acting director of the voting rights program at New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice, is vehemently critical of the America Project and its Operation Eagles Wings drive.

Morales-Doyle told The Guardian, “Michael Flynn and Roger Stone have repeatedly proven themselves to be enemies of democracy…. While it is not clear what exactly they will ask their election reform activists to do, their claimed pursuit of ‘election integrity’ is a sham, aimed instead at undermining public faith in our elections and setting the stage for future attempts to subvert the will of the people. The conspiracy theories they espouse would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous.”

Peter Stone also notes that Flynn and Roger Stone “were in the vanguard of Trump loyalists promoting falsehoods about Joe Biden’s 2020 win.”

“In mid-December 2020, for instance, Flynn suggested on the conservative network Newsmax that Trump could use the military to ‘rerun the elections’ in several key states that Trump falsely claimed were rigged — and a few days later, he attended a White House meeting with Trump, Byrne and other allies, where more wild schemes were discussed,” Peter Stone notes. “(Roger) Stone spoke at a pro-Trump rally on 5 January, and the next morning, was at the Willard Hotel, which Trump loyalists had used as a base for plotting ways to overturn the election, accompanied by several Oath Keeper bodyguards — some of whom participated in the Capitol assault and now face criminal charges.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Timeline Traces Coverage Of Trump And Russia Probe

Timeline Traces Coverage Of Trump And Russia Probe

Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters.

 

March 20. CNN: Then-FBI Director James Comey confirms that the agency is investigating ties between Trump campaign and Russia. In a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, then-FBI Director James Comey confirmed that the agency had an open investigation into whether there was coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia’s interference with the U.S. election.

April 11. The Washington Post: FBI monitored communications of Trump’s campaign adviser Carter Page. Law enforcement and other U.S. officials told the Post that the FBI and the Department of Justice requested and received authorization to surveil Page’s communications because “there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia.”

April 27. The Washington Post: The Pentagon opened an investigation to determine whether former national security adviser Michael Flynn broke the law by receiving money from foreign groups without being authorized to. The Post published a letter Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) released showing Flynn had been warned by a Defense Department lawyer about being “forbidden from receiving payments from foreign sources” without government permission. Since he failed to acquire that permission, the Pentagon informed Flynn that he was being investigated.

May 9. The New York Times: Trump fired Comey. The administration said Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had recommended Comey’s firing based on his handling of the investigation into Secretary Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

May 10. The New York Times: Trump received the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and the Russian foreign minister in the Oval Office. The meeting between Trump and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was closed off to the American press corps; only Russian media was allowed.

May 11.The New York Times: Trump asked Comey to pledge loyalty to him. Sources told the Times that Comey shared with some associates that during a dinner in January, Trump demanded Comey pledge his loyalty to him, and Comey refused by saying all he could pledge was honesty. The White House denied it and Trump told NBC that he never asked that of Comey.

May 11. NBC News: Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt he had planned to fire Comey before he received a recommendation to do so. In the televised interview, Trump also referred to Comey as a “showboat” and admitted that he had asked the former FBI director whether he was also under investigation.

May 15. The Washington Post: Trump revealed classified information to the Russians during their Oval Office meeting. “Current and former U.S.officials” told the Post that Trump revealed “highly classified information” to Lavrov and Kislyak that had been given to the U.S. by an ally. The White House denied the report through national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who said that nothing was disclosed that wasn’t “already known publicly.”

May 16. The Washington Post: Trump tweeted an acknowledgement of having shared classified information with Russia. In his tweets the next day, Trump undercut the White House’s narrative that the sharing had not occurred, by writing that he had “the absolute right to do so.” After Trump contradicted McMaster’s version from the day before, the national security adviser briefed the press, saying Trump’s decision to share the information was spur-of-the-moment and that Trump “wasn’t even aware of where this information came from.”

May 16. The New York Times: Israel was the ally who provided the U.S. with the information Trump shared with the Russian officials. Current and former officials told the Times that Israel had provided the information Trump disclosed. According to the Times, the disclosure “could damage the relationship between the two countries.”

May 16. The New York Times: Comey memo indicated Trump asked him to stop Flynn investigation. The Times reported that Comey wrote a memo after meeting Trump in February, in which he documented the president requesting him to shut down the investigation into Flynn’s ties with Russia by asking him to “let this go.” According to the Times, it’s “the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence” federal investigations into his associates and Russia.

May 17. NPR: Former FBI Director Robert Mueller appointed special counsel of Russia investigation. The Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller, who preceded Comey as FBI director, as special counsel to lead the probe into Russia’s intervention into the 2016 elections and potential collusion with the Trump campaign.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn will invoke the Fifth Amendment and not comply with a subpoena from the Senate intelligence committee, a source told AP. Flynn had previously sought immunity from Congress. Campaigning last September, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump made claims about the Fifth Amendment and Hillary Clinton, saying, the Mob takes the Fifth. If youre innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?

May 17. The New York Times: Trump knew Flynn was being investigated when he appointed him. Two sources told the Times that Flynn told Trump’s transition team “weeks before the inauguration” that he was being investigated for “secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey,” but Trump made him national security adviser nevertheless.

May 19. The Washington Post: A current White House official is being investigated as part of the Russia probe. Sources told the Post that a current White House official is “a significant person of interest” in the federal investigation looking into the possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

May 19. The New York Times: During the meeting with Russian officials, Trump said firing Comey eased “great pressure” from the Russia investigation. A document summarizing the May 10 meeting between Trump and Russian officials showed that Trump told Lavrov and Kislyak that firing “nut job” Comey had “taken off” the “great pressure because of Russia.”

May 19. CNN: Russian officials bragged that their Flynn connections would allow them to influence Trump. Sources told CNN that Russian officials had bragged about their connections to Flynn as a strategic advantage that they could use to “influence Donald Trump and his team.”

May 20. CNN: A source close to Comey said the former FBI director believes Trump tried “to influence his judgment about the Russia probe.”

May 22. The Washington Post: Trump asked two intelligence officials to “publicly deny” collusion between his campaign and Russia. Former and current officials told the Post that Trump asked Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and Director of the National Security Agency Michael Rogers to push back against the Russia investigation and deny the “existence of any evidence of collusion.” Both officials refused and deemed the requests inappropriate.

May 23. The New York Times: Former CIA Director Brennan “had unresolved questions” about Trump and Russia ties. During testimony to the House intel committee, Former CIA Director John Brennan said “he was concerned” by, as the Times reported, “suspicious contacts between Russian government officials and Mr. Trump’s associates.” Brennan testified that he “had unresolved questions” about “whether or not the Russians had been successful in getting U.S. persons involved in the campaign or not to work on their behalf.”

May 24. The New York Times: In the summer of 2016 senior Russian officials were intercepted discussing how they would influence Trump. As reported by the New York Times, American intelligence “collected information” last year that showed senior Russian “intelligence and political” officials were focused on using Flynn and Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, “to exert influence over Donald J. Trump.”

May 25. The Washington Post: The FBI is now looking at Jared Kushner in conjunction with its investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. The Post reported May 19 that the FBI’s investigation included a focus on a senior White House official but didn’t name the individual. A week later, the Post reported that, while he is not a central focus, the FBI is looking at meetings between Kushner and Russians given “the extent and nature of his interactions with the Russians.”

Header image by Sarah Wasko / Media Matters