Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons, a novel and a memoir. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.
Pandering to conspiracy theorists who have falsely claimed that widespread voter fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election, far-right Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed an Office of Election Crimes and Security that would cost $6 million and be part of the state government. Conservative Never Trump attorney George Conway discussed DeSantis’ proposal during a Wednesday, January 19 appearance on CNN’s New Day, slamming it as “pathetic” and stressing that the 2020 election was, in fact, incredibly secure.
Conway told New Day host John Berman and Kasie Hunt — who was filling in for Berman’s colleague Brianna Keilar — “It is all just play-acting. It's performance art…. It is designed for DeSantis to protect himself (with) the Republican base so that nobody can accuse him of being soft on the great election fraud, the fraudulent fake election fraud of 2020. And it's just pathetic…. It’s just performance art, and it’s so corrosive of our democracy.”
Conway went on to tell Berman and Hunt that not only was the 2020 election not stolen from former President Donald Trump, but also, it was a major achievement for the United States. Hunt, before joining CNN in 2021, hosted the morning show Way Too Early on MSNBC.
“This election was actually just a remarkable feat of democracy,” stressed Conway — a blistering Trump critic who, ironically, is married to former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. “It should have been celebrated. We were in the middle of a global pandemic, and yet, we had the greatest turnout we’ve had in, I don’t know, decades, of people coming out to vote.”
Reprinted with permission from Alternet
George Conway, the well-known legal expert who successfully argued and won a unanimous verdict at the Supreme Court, is tossing cold water on Sean Hannity‘s attorney’s claim that the January 6 Committee requesting his voluntary cooperation “would raise serious constitutional issues, including First Amendment concerns regarding freedom of the press."
Sean Hannity is the Fox News host who at times has claimed he is a journalist while often saying he is not. Fox News itself has refused to call him a journalist when pressed.
On Tuesday the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack made public a letter it sent him, detailing his stunning texts to then-Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The committee wrote: “At this time, we are specifically focused on a series of your communications with President Trump, White House staff and President Trump’s legal team between December 31, 2020, and January 20, 2021.”
Hannity has no right to complain about his First Amendment freedoms being violated.
“Hannity has no First Amendment or shield law privilege here,” writes Conway.
“Hannity’s not a journalist. And he certainly wasn’t acting as a journalist when he engaged in these communications” with the White House, Conway adds.
Conway also points to New York State law that makes clear any shield law protections can only be invoked “in the course of gathering or obtaining news for publication … or for public dissemination.”
He concludes: “Hannity wasn’t reporting. He was giving political advice. He has no journalistic First Amendment or similar privilege to invoke.”
Article reprinted with permission from Alternet
Reprinted with permission from Alternet
Legal experts are weighing in on the bombshell news that federal agents on Wednesday raided former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani's home and office in New York City. The New York Times, which broke the news, says the execution of the search warrants is linked to the investigation into the former New York City mayor's activities in Ukraine.
George Conway, noted attorney and spouse to former Counselor to President Trump Kellyanne Conway, says the bar for a search warrant for Giuliani had to be extremely high:
This is such an important point. The predicate for this search of the premises of a lawyer who represented a presi… https://t.co/dIb1TT7AUB— George Conway (@George Conway) 1619629004
Conway was responding to remarks from Richard Signorelli, a former Asst. U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York (SDNY), who also said:
As Chuck Rosenberg is making clear right now on @mitchellreports, the staleness doctrine requires the feds to have… https://t.co/Kjy1fB1NC0— Richard Signorelli (@Richard Signorelli) 1619628888
Los Angeles Times legal affairs columnist and former US Attorney Harry Litman says Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco had to have signed off on the search warrant applications:
Yes. Monaco too https://t.co/Y4Io1b5zWg— Harry Litman (@Harry Litman) 1619629900
Former Dept. of Justice Inspector General:
I doubt this has ever happened before — a former US Attorney having his residence searched in an investigation cond… https://t.co/gQHmeGmnky— Michael R. Bromwich (@Michael R. Bromwich) 1619629756
Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti says the fact that the DOJ raided Giuliani's home "indicates that the criminal investigation of Giuliani is very far along."
He notes that, based on the Times' reporting, "senior political appointees in the Trump Justice Department sought to block these warrants."
And more:
10/ So one interesting aspect of this investigation is that it is related to the first impeachment inquiry. The Tr… https://t.co/QNSGTIJkKq— Renato Mariotti (@Renato Mariotti) 1619629138
NBC News and MSNBC Legal Contributor:
Conway also, with his typical sense of humor, "responded" to an old Giuliani tweet:
are in deep, deep s**t https://t.co/O9VwaNLLtn— George Conway (@George Conway) 1619628046
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