Author Archives: Denise Simon

Is Anyone Taking a Long Look at Gab Sterling, Voting Implementation Mgr for Georgia?

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His job was/is to supervise Georgia’s (new) voting system.

Gabriel Sterling in Georgia gives Trump a Joe McCarthy moment - Los Angeles Times

So, here are some tips (facts) to consider.

Remember that consent decree where signatures and voter registrations were not to be verified? It is said that this agreement was between Stacey Abrams and Brad Raffensperger. Actually, those two are the conspirators but on the decree itself, neither of them signed the agreement. In fact, the agreement has the inferred signatures of Bruce V. Spiva of Perkins Coie (the law firm that Hillary Clinton and the DNC hired that later hired Fusion GPS) and Vincent R. Russo of Robbins Ross Alloy Belinfante Littlefield, LLC (Office of the Georgia Attorney General, /Counsel for State Defendants).

Vincent Russo:

Vincent has been appointed as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Georgia and regularly represents Georgia officials in voting rights and election litigation. He has also been tapped to represent the Governor and the Secretary of State of Georgia in matters before the Committee on Oversight and Reform in the U.S. House of Representatives, including inquiries by the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Prior to joining the Firm, Vincent was the General Counsel for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, where he served as the chief legal counsel in the administrations of Brian Kemp and Karen Handel.

Vincent’s practice regularly involves issues at the intersection of law, politics, and public policy. He also has significant experience advising federal and state campaign committees, PACs, and other political organizations, including representing clients in investigations by the Federal Election Commission and the Georgia Government Transparency & Campaign Finance Commission. Vincent served as legal counsel to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s campaign committee in 2018. He is the General Counsel for the Georgia Republican Party and has represented the National Republican Congressional Committee in recent election cycles.

Josh Belinfante:

Outside of litigation, Josh has significant experience in in campaign finance and election law matters. He represents entities governed by federal and state campaign finance laws, including campaigns and political action committees.  He also has specific experience drafting laws governing Certificate of Need, gaming, the Georgia Lottery, restrictive covenants and non-compete agreements, and eminent domain.

Seems to have the hallmarks of a good ol boy network.

During Sterling’s time on the City Council, the city came under investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office for possible violations in the way it ran an election. In 2016, the council approved the city running its own special election — rather than hiring the county to do it as usual — to fill a council vacancy. The election for the District 3 seat was held the same day as a county primary election, but at a separate polling place that was not within the district.

That confusing situation led to the state investigation about a possible polling place notice violation. But more than four years later, the case remains unheard by the State Election Board for unexplained reasons, a situation a local legislator once called “insane.” The case has dragged on so long that since it began, Sterling has left office, made the Fulton commission run, and joined the office that began the investigation.

Well not actually All good ol boys, as we have Jordan Fuchs, Deputy Secretary of State.

Fuchs was quoted in a Politico story in 2019 that reported a variety of groups were concerned that “Raffensperger and his staff are pushing ahead with a $150 million plan to switch the state to new voting machines (Dominion Voting Systems) that an array of experts warn would be susceptible to hacking.” That story says that Fuchs “scolded the tea party-aligned group FreedomWorks, which also opposes the machines,” by telling them, among other things, that they did not “fully comprehend the climate of our state, the demands of our communities, or the objectives of this office.”

Another press release reported that Raffensperger had appointed Fuchs to “serve on the Board of Directors for the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). Fuchs will serve as Georgia’s national representative within the organization’s governing body,” the release said.

“Our office has led the charge to reform Georgia’s elections with common-sense solutions that prioritize efficiency and promote integrity – and our immediate action to join ERIC was a major victory for all of Georgia’s voters,” said Fuchs. “I am honored to represent our state at the national level as we continue to aggressively pursue solutions that ensure a better experience at the polls for our voters and election officials alike.”

What is ERIC? “ERIC is a multistate partnership that uses a sophisticated and secure data-matching tool to improve the accuracy and efficiency of state voter registration systems. Through ERIC, states share voter registration information to improve the integrity of voter lists,” the release says. “The national non-profit uses cross-state data matches to flag voters who may have registered in multiple states, moved out of state, or passed away – alerting election officials so that they can update voter rolls accordingly, consistent with federal and state law.”

ERIC is a multistate partnership that uses a sophisticated and secure data-matching tool to improve the accuracy and efficiency of state voter registration systems. Through ERIC, states share voter registration information to improve the integrity of voter lists. The national non-profit uses cross-state data matches to flag voters who may have registered in multiple states, moved out of state, or passed away – alerting election officials so that they can update voter rolls accordingly, consistent with federal and state law. Exactly, how is that working out?)

“I have no doubt that Deputy Secretary Fuchs will continue to advance the best interest of our state and work with national stakeholders and industry leaders to make elections more secure, accurate, and accessible for every Georgia voter,” said Secretary Raffensperger.

Fuchs has been appointed as an ERIC board member for the 2019-2020 term and will continue to carry out her regular duties as Georgia’s Deputy Secretary of State for the duration.

A 2019 article by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that “the Georgia secretary of state’s office acknowledged…that a vendor had improperly redacted a purchasing document detailing security features of the state’s new $107 million voting system.” Fuchs is quoted in that article as saying, “Our new voting system, including new Poll Pads, are our most secure system to date.” The article notes that “the iPads will be provided by a company called KnowInk, which is working with Dominion Voting Systems to install the new voting technology statewide.” More here.

The consent decree is here. 

Now here is where it gets more interesting. The man who oversees Georgia’s voting system, Gabriel Sterling, negotiated a $200,000 per year contract for himself last year, quit his state government job and has worked as an independent contractor ever since.Under the arrangement, Sterling’s pay increased from his $114,000 government salary since November 2019, when he took on the role of project manager for the purchase and rollout of the state’s new voting equipment. State election officials say as a contractor, the government didn’t have to pay benefits, such as health insurance.

Sterling, a lifelong Republican, even drew praise from Democrats for his comments, and he received flowers and handwritten notes from voters across the country.

But his independent status prompted questions from state legislators and critics who have asked why oversight of the state’s voting machines is being managed outside Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s payroll.

Just a month before the November general election, there was a panel discussion, hosted by Gab Sterling on Georgia voting rights and elections. Really? Yes and imagine the panel roster…..Vasu Abhiraman, an ACLU of Georgia policy counsel; Josh Belinfante, an attorney specializing in election law at the Robbins Law Firm; and Gabriel Sterling, the voting system implementation manager for Georgia Secretary of State and a former member of the Sandy Springs City Council. The discussion, called “Fair Voting: Make It Count,” as part of its “Live Learn Lead” series.

Oh, did you know that Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger formed an election task force? Yup, the task force met weekly until the end of the year to “further the discussion on the election this Fall and to address the challenges in election administration.” Called, the Safe, Secure and Accessible Elections task force had bipartisanship and included figures such as Amb. Andrew Young, Georgia state NAACP President Rev. James Wooddall, and Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander. And, other members of the task force included Republican former U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, ACLU of Georgia counsel Vasu Abhiraman, Georgia Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Chris Clark, Georgia Tech professor Angelos Keromytis, MIT professor Charles Stewart, Center for Election and Innovation Research Founder and Executive Director David Becker, Jake Evans, the chairman of the Georgia chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association, Bartow County Elections Supervisor Joseph Kirk, DeKalb County Director of Voter Registration and Elections Erica Hamilton, Cobb County Director of Elections and Registration Janine Eveler, Fulton County Elections Director Rick Barron, Monica Childers of VotingWorks, as well as Sec. Raffensperger and Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs.

“Our teams are keeping Georgia voters the focal point of all of our elections,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “I am grateful that these leaders, from various professional and ideological backgrounds, are coming together to help meet that goal; not just for this election, or the next, but for elections in years to come. Improving the integrity of our elections and increasing voter confidence in their outcomes is vital.”

Thoughts?

 

Where are the FBI Reports for the 2020 Election Monitoring?

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As a collection of Republican members of the House and the Senate are formally challenging the electors from the 2020 results, investigations continue by a wide and deep group of legal professionals for many states. The challenges are not just about the presidential results but certainly deal with all down ballot candidates and measures.
Some audits are complete while others are underway.
Consider all the varieties of voter, ballot and reporting fraud. In fact, while the State of Georgia is the most contested so far, should there even be a run-off senate race in the first place?
Meanwhile, no one is challenging the FBI on their assignments and work during the 2020 election cycle. Question is…where are those reports?
***

Election Crimes

Election crimes threaten the legitimacy of elections and undermine public confidence in our democracy. Election crimes fall into four broad categories:

  • Ballot fraud
  • Campaign finance violations
  • Patronage offenses
  • Civil rights violations, such as voter suppression or voter intimidation

While individual states and localities have the constitutional authority and responsibility to manage elections and have their own election laws, an election crime becomes a federal crime when one or more of the following occurs:

  • A ballot includes one or more federal candidates
  • Election or polling place officials abuse their office
  • The conduct involves false voter registration
  • The crime is motivated by hostility toward minority protected classes
  • The activity violates federal campaign finance law

Examples of federal election crimes include, but are not limited to:

  • Giving false information when registering to vote
  • Voting more than once
  • Changing ballot markings or otherwise tampering with ballots
  • Compensating voters
  • Threatening voters with physical or financial harm
  • Intentionally lying about the time, manner, or place of an election to prevent qualified voters from voting
  • Political fundraising by federal employees
  • Campaign contributions above legal limits
  • Conduit contributions
  • Contributions from foreign or other prohibited sources
  • Use of campaign funds for personal or unauthorized purposes

Distinguishing between legal and criminal conduct is critical for ensuring the integrity of U.S. elections. The following activities are not federalelection crimes; however, states have their own election laws. If you are concerned about a possible violation of a state or local election law, contact your local law enforcement.

  • Giving voters rides to the polls or time off to vote
  • Offering voters a stamp to mail a ballot
  • Making false claims about oneself or another candidate
  • Forging or faking nominating petitions
  • Campaigning too close to polling places

The FBI plays an important role in preventing violations of your constitutional rights, including your right to vote. Report any instances of potential election crimes to your local FBI field office as soon as possible.

According to the FBI website:

Election Crimes and Security

Fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, and the FBI is committed to protecting the rights of all Americans to vote.

The U.S. government only works when legal votes are counted and when campaigns follow the law. When the legitimacy of elections is corrupted, our democracy is threatened.

While individual states run elections, the FBI plays an important role in protecting federal interests and preventing violations of your constitutional rights.

An election crime is generally a federal crime if:

  • The ballot includes one or more federal candidates
  • An election or polling place official abuses their office
  • The conduct involves false voter registration
  • The crime intentionally targets minority protected classes
  • The activity violates federal campaign finance law

    Protect Your Vote

    • Know when, where, and how you will vote.
    • Seek out election information from trustworthy sources, verify who produced the content, and consider their intent.
    • Report potential election crimes—such as disinformation about the manner, time, or place of voting—to the FBI.
    • If appropriate, make use of in-platform tools offered by social media companies for reporting suspicious posts that appear to be spreading false or inconsistent information about voting and elections.
    • Research individuals and entities to whom you are making political donations.

    Voter Suppression

    Intentionally deceiving qualified voters to prevent them from voting is voter suppression—and it is a federal crime.

    There are many reputable places you can find your polling location and registration information, including eac.gov and usa.gov/how-to-vote. However, not all publicly available voting information is accurate, and some is deliberately designed to deceive you to keep you from voting.

    Bad actors use various methods to spread disinformation about voting, such as social media platforms, texting, or peer-to-peer messaging applications on smartphones. They may provide misleading information about the time, manner, or place of voting. This can include inaccurate election dates or false claims about voting qualifications or methods, such as false information suggesting that one may vote by text, which is not allowed in any jurisdiction.

    • For general elections, Election Day is always the first Tuesday after November 1.
    • While there are some exceptions for military overseas using absentee ballots by email or fax, you cannot vote online or by text on Election Day.

    Always consider the source of voting information. Ask yourself, “Can I trust this information?” Look for official notices from election offices and verify the information you found is accurate.

    Help defend the right to vote by reporting any suspected instances of voter suppression—especially those received through a private communication channel like texting—to your local FBI field office or at tips.fbi.gov.

    Stock image depicting a person placing a ballot into a ballot box with an American flag background

    Report Election Crime

    If you suspect a federal election offense, contact the election crimes coordinator at your local FBI office, or submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov.

     

 

VP Biden Briefed on Burisma and Zlochevsky in 2015

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JTN: Vice President Joe Biden’s office was warned in 2015 that the Obama State Department believed the Ukrainian gas oligarch whose firm hired Hunter Biden was corrupt and that some of the evidence supporting that conclusion had been gathered by the U.S. Justice Department, newly released diplomatic memos show.

Then-U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in Kiev alerted Biden’s top advisers to the concerns about Burisma Holdings founder Mykola Zlochevsky shortly before the vice president visited with Ukrainian officials in December 2015.

“I assume all have the DoJ background on Zlochevsky,” Pyatt wrote in an email to top Biden advisers in the White House. “The short unclas version (in non lawyer language) is that US and UK were cooperating on a case to seize his corrupt assets overseas (which had passed through the US).”

Pyatt added that the asset forfeiture case “fell apart” when individuals in the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office “acted to thwart the UK case.”

The memos were released last week by Senate committees investigating Hunter Biden’s global business dealings.

By the time Pyatt had written the email, one of his deputies in the Kiev embassy, George Kent, had already alerted the FBI that State officials believed Ukrainian prosecutors had been paid a $7 million bribe to thwart the asset forfeiture case. Kent recounted his efforts in an email to a fellow ambassador a year later.

A year later, Pyatt’s successor as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, wrote her superiors in Washington that the American embassy believed Burisma had paid another bribe in the form of cheap gas to get Ukrainian prosecutors to drop remaining cases against the gas firm.

***Zlochevski photo.jpg

In 2014, Britain’s Prime Minister and the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder know more than they are telling with regard to Ukraine, Biden and Burisma.

.Theresa May and US attorney general Eric Holder (left) at the Ukraine Forum on Asset Recovery in 2014. Theresa May and US attorney general Eric Holder (left) at the Ukraine Forum on Asset Recovery in 2014. Photograph: Getty Images

Per the Congressional Record:

On April 16, 2014, Vice President Biden met with his son's business 
partner, Devon Archer, at the White House. That is kind of a big deal--
anybody meeting with the Vice President at the White House. Hunter 
Biden's business partner got to do that.
  Five days later, Vice President Biden visited Ukraine. The media 
described him as the public face of the administration's handling of 
Ukraine. The next day, April 22, Archer joined the board of Burisma.
  Again, Burisma is this company that is owned by what George Kent from 
the State Department called an ``odious oligarch,'' Mykola Zlochevsky. 
It is hard to say Ukrainian names
Six days later, after Archer joined the board, British officials 
seized $23 million from the London bank accounts of Burisma's owner, 
Mykola Zlochevsky. Fifteen days later, on May 13, Hunter Biden joined 
the board of Burisma. And over the course of the next, approximately, 4 
to 5 years, Hunter and his firms were paid more than $3 million for his 
and Archer's board participation.
  Again, Ukraine had just gone through a revolution. Their leadership 
was desperate for U.S. support. We all have to believe that Mr. 
Zlochevsky, an odious oligarch, would have made those Ukrainian 
officials well aware of the fact that the son of the Vice President of 
the United States, the public face of the administration's handling of 
Ukraine, was sitting on his board.
  So what kind of signal did that send to Ukrainians who were trying to 
stand up and were being pressured by U.S. officials to rid their 
country of corruption? It basically said: If you want U.S. support, 
don't touch Burisma
  The fact is, when all was said and done, Burisma and Mykola 
Zlochevsky were never held to account. The investigation, the 
prosecution of him was ceased. It never occurred.
  In terms of Russian disinformation, these false charges, these wild 
claims against me and Senator Grassley--I was way ahead of the curve 
when it came to Russian disinformation. Back in 2015, as chairman of 
the European Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I 
held three hearings focusing on what Russia does to destabilize the 
politics in countries--an attempted coup in Montenegro and other places 
in Eastern Europe. So I am well aware of what Russia is doing--well 
aware. I don't condone it. I condemn it. I am not having any part of 
pushing it
“Hi Andrii! I’m doing ok. Yes, definitely got some rest over the weekend. How about you?” Zentos wrote April 4, 2016 to Telizhenko from her official White House email account. “Survive the visit ok? Also, should we still plan for coffee this week? Maybe Wednesday or Friday? Hope all is well! Liz.” A month earlier, a planned beer outing with Zentos got changed. “Would you be up for doing coffee instead of beer though? I’m realizing that if I drink beer at 3 p.m., I will probably fall asleep while attempting to work afterward,” Zentos wrote. Zentos and Telizhenko also discussed the sensitive case of Burisma and its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, in a July 2016 email exchange with the subject line “Re: Z,” the shorthand Telizhenko used to refer to the Burisma founder. Their email exchange did not mention Hunter Biden’s role in the company but showed the Obama White House had interest in the business dealings of Hunter Biden’s boss. “Hi Liz, Yes, It would be great to meet, tomorrow whatever works best for you 12:30pm or 6pm–I am ready,” Telizhenko wrote the NSC staffer, adding a smiley face. Zentos eventually replied when he suggested a restaurant: “Ooh, that would be wonderful–thanks so much!” Attached to Telizhenko’s email was an org chart showing the structure of some foreign companies that had been connected at one point to Zlochevsky‘s business empire. The memos show Zentos first befriended Telizhenko when she worked at the U.S. embassy as far back as 2014. The memos show that officials at the Obama Justice Department, the NSC, and the State Department enlisted Telizhenko for similarly sensitive diplomatic matters dating to 2013 including: Arranging for senior members of the Ukraine Prosecutor General’s Office to travel to Washington in January 2016 to meet with NSC, State, DOJ and FBI officials to discuss ongoing corruption cases. At the time, the Ukraine prosecutors had an escalating corruption probe of Burisma, where Hunter Biden served on the board. Within weeks of the Washington meeting, Vice President Joe Biden had pressured Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko to fire the lead prosecutor, Viktor Shakin. Securing a meeting in February 2015 at the U.S. embassy in Kiev with a deputy Ukrainian prosecutor whom U.S. officials wanted to confront about a bribe allegedly paid by Burisma. Facilitating a draft statement in November 2013 from members of the Ukrainian parliament to President Obama denouncing then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, whom the Obama administration would help oust from power a few weeks later. “We, people of Ukraine, appeal to you with request to support Ukrainian people in their standing for freedom, justice and democracy,” the November 2013 draft statement from Telizhenko to the U.S. embassy in Kiev read. “The President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych proved that he is not the guarantor of constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens, freedom of choice and right for free expression.” The draft statement was fielded by a military attache at the U.S. embassy who urged Telizhenko to get it to the embassy’s political section for consideration. “The ambassador has not shared with me what the position of the US government would be on such a statement, other than his message yesterday morning,” the attache wrote. “. . . I’m sure once you pass this statement to Ambassador Pyatt’s political section, they will render a timely response.” Photos taken by U.S. and Ukrainian government photographers show Telizhenko facilitated meetings between 2014 and 2016 with key lawmakers in Washington, including Democrat Reps. Engel and Marcy Kaptur and then-GOP Sen. Bob Corker, as well as other U.S. agencies. And the emails show U.S. embassy officials in Kiev routinely sought advice and insights from Telizhenko about happenings inside the Ukrainian government. “Andriy, we have heard that there may be a briefing today. Do you know the specifics?” embassy political officer Stephen Page asked in a January 2014 email.

***
This reads like a Hollywood spy script, but for context and a time-line go here.

Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys Suing Their Boss, DA Gascón

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Primer – Officers of the Court: any person who has an obligation to promote justice and effective operation of the judicial system, including judges, the attorneys who appear in court, bailiffs, clerks, and other personnel. As officers of the court lawyers have an absolute ethical duty to tell judges the truth, including avoiding dishonesty or evasion about reasons the attorney or his/her client is not appearing, the location of documents and other matters related to conduct of the courts.

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón Resigns | KQED

DA George Gascon is and was supported by BLM along with more than $19 million has been pumped into the contentious Los Angeles County district attorney race, with donors lining up on opposing sides of a stark ideological divide between incumbent Jackie Lacey and challenger George Gascón.

Spending in the race intensified a few weeks before Election Day, when New York billionaire George Soros and Bay Area philanthropist Patty Quillin combined to put millions of dollars behind Gascón. Quillin’s husband, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, has also helped Gascón maintain a commanding fundraising lead over Lacey, who has support from law enforcement unions up and down the state.

In the weeks before the general election, donations from Gascón’s supporters – including $3.4 million from the criminal justice reform group Color Of Change – helped the challenger take a large fundraising lead.

LATimes:The union representing Los Angeles County deputy district attorneys on Wednesday sued Dist. Atty. George Gascón, alleging that the dramatic changes he has brought to the nation’s largest prosecutorial office have defied state law and forced rank-and-file prosecutors to violate their oaths of office.

The lawsuit is the most public expression yet of the pushback Gascón has fielded from within his own office since being sworn in Dec. 7. It focuses on his so-called special directives that ordered his deputies to forgo sentencing enhancements.

The union, which represents about 800 prosecutors, is seeking a court order that would compel Gascón to rescind the directives and declare them “invalid and illegal,” as well as a temporary restraining order that would bar Gascón and his administration from enforcing the directives.

Gascón’s policies have “placed line prosecutors in an ethical dilemma — follow the law, their oath, and their ethical obligations, or follow their superior’s orders,” wrote the union’s lawyer, Eric M. George.A spokesman for Gascón had no immediate comment on the lawsuit.

On his first day in office, Gascón announced his deputies would no longer seek enhancements that — if proved — lengthen defendants’ prison sentences under certain circumstances, such as if they committed a crime to a gang’s benefit or if they had a criminal history.

Initially, the prohibition extended to enhancements for hate crimes, sex trafficking, financial crimes and elder and child abuse, but Gascón has since modified his directives to allow such enhancements. His deputies are still barred from seeking enhancements for prior strikes, committing a crime that benefits a gang, using a firearm and any special circumstance allegation that would send a defendant to prison for life without parole.

The union argues that prosecutors should pursue or forgo sentencing enhancements using “case-by-case discretion,” basing their decisions on the circumstances of a crime and a defendant, not “rubber stamp blanket prosecutorial policies barring the wholesale enforcement of criminal laws.”

The union asserts that Gascón’s prohibition on enhancements for prior strikes violates the state’s three strikes law, which, in the union’s view, requires prosecutors to seek longer sentences for defendants with previous convictions. Gascón “enjoys wide — but not limitless — discretion,” George wrote; he may believe such enhancements do not protect public safety, but he has no authority to circumvent lawmakers and legislate “by fiat,” the lawsuit says.

Gascón has said he was elected with a mandate to overhaul an outdated, heavy-handed approach to law and order that hasn’t proved effective in protecting the public. He promised during the campaign to no longer charge gang enhancements, which have come under scrutiny after several Los Angeles Police Department officers were charged over the summer with falsifying records that misrepresented people they had stopped as gang members and associates.

In a statement released by Stanford’s Three Strikes Project, the program’s director, Michael Romano, and two other law professors said the California Supreme Court has held that district attorneys have “complete authority” to enforce state laws within their jurisdiction.

Romano, Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of UC Berkeley Law School, and David Mills, a professor at Stanford Law School, said in the statement that Gascón’s policies will make Los Angeles safer and reduce “epidemic” levels of incarceration. The union’s lawsuit, they added, “is more reflective of their longstanding opposition to reform and the will of millions of Angelenos than it is the legality of DA Gascón’s directives.”

The union also contends that Gascón, a local executive branch official, is encroaching on the authority of the courts in ordering his deputies to move to withdraw enhancement allegations. If a judge refuses those motions — as several have in recent weeks — line prosecutors have been instructed to file new charging documents without the enhancements. In doing so, the union argues, the district attorney’s office is making an end-run around the courts’ authority.

This scenario played out in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Monday. A deputy district attorney, reading from a script, said he was seeking to dismiss enhancement allegations in a murder case against a defendant for belonging to a gang and using a firearm. When the judge denied the motion, the prosecutor said he would file new charges without the enhancements.

“I’m not going to accept an amended information,” Judge Mark S. Arnold said. “Legally, there’s no justification. There’s no defect.”

Have You Met the Freedom Force?

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Several newly-elected Republican House members, including New York’s Nicole Malliotakis, have banned together to create a group they’ve dubbed the “Freedom Force” — to oppose “The Squad” of progressive Democratic congresswomen.“This group will give a contrast to the hard left,” Utah Rep.-elect and former NFL player Burgess Owens. Owens pledged that the new GOP band, made up of women and people of color, will work to protect small business-owners.At least eight incoming Republican lawmakers are in the group, including Reps.-elect Malliotakis; Michelle Steel of California; Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma; Victoria Spartz of Indiana; and Carlos Gimenez, Maria Elvira Salazar and Byron Donalds of Florida.

New 'Freedom Force' Aims To Bring Back Conservative Values Into Congress, Face-Off Against 'Squad' : US : Christianity Daily  Burgess Owens

“We have different cultures, backgrounds, colors. But what we have in common is that we have a love for our country… and we’re going to make sure we stay free,” Owens said of the coalition.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, Malliotakis mentioned “a natural alliance” was occurring between members of the freshman class.

“I think what you’re going to see is a group of individuals who are going to serve as a counterbalance to the values of the socialist squad,” Malliotakis said.

“We don’t believe we should be dismantling the economy. We don’t believe we should be destroying free market principles. We don’t believe in Green New Deal. We don’t believe in packing the courts.” More here.

***GOP 'Freedom Force' Vows to Fight Socialism, Counter 'The Squad' in House

In part from WSJ: A quarter-century apart in age, Nicole Malliotakis and Michelle Steel are classmates. They’re both freshmen, Republicans who’ve won election to the House of Representatives for the first time. Each ousted an incumbent Democrat in a resolutely blue state—New York and California, respectively—where Joe Biden romped home in November. And each woman has a scathing view of the politics of the other’s state as well as of her own. They’re ready to scorn Govs. Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom. As for Mayor Bill de Blasio, Ms. Malliotakis, a state assemblywoman from New York City, practically combusts at the mention of his name.

“I think our leaderships are competing with each other to be the most radical. They keep getting bad ideas from each other,” says Ms. Malliotakis, 40, who will represent New York’s 11th Congressional District, comprised of the borough of Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn.

“The leadership is trying to make these states into Third World countries,” Ms. Steel, 65, responds. She is a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, a local legislative body, and representative-elect from California’s 48th District, a beachy slice of the county. In Washington for a freshman orientation, including a lottery for office space, the two talk to me by Zoom from their hotel rooms near the Capitol.

Both are robust proponents of low taxes and limited government. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Ms. Malliotakis says: “The government should provide an environment for that—and then get out of the way.” Ms. Steel—who was born in South Korea and came to the U.S. at 19—confesses to drawing her earliest political beliefs from her mother’s experience as a clothing-store owner in Los Angeles. “I saw that my mom was harassed—really harassed—by a tax agency, the State Board of Equalization,” she says. “And you know what? I decided that the Republican Party’s ideology is much better for small-business owners. They need less regulation and smaller taxes.” Her first foray into elective politics was a successful run for the Board of Equalization in 2007.

Both say the Democratic Party made a special effort to hobble Republican candidates who were women or minorities. “Speaking with some of the other new members of the House,” Ms. Malliotakis says, “I think Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats really, really went after us. They didn’t want the Republicans to have representation.” They wanted, she says, “to monopolize women and minorities.” Ms. Steel recounts that her opponent insinuated—“because I have an accent”—that she was “a communist agent related to China.” Suppressing a giggle, she notes that her parents fled communist North Korea to the south during the Korean War. “I don’t even speak Chinese,” she adds. “I speak Japanese and Korean.”

Ms. Malliotakis’s mother also fled communism—Cuba in 1959, when she was 16. After a brief spell in Spain, she came to the U.S., where she met and married a man who ran a Greek restaurant in Manhattan. This imprint of her mother’s flight is part of the reason she is a “passionate opponent” of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow outer-borough New Yorker and self-described socialist. In opposition to “the Squad”—the nom de guerre of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s far-left cohort—Ms. Malliotakis started her own small group of congressional freshmen, the “Freedom Force.”

‘There’s four of us,” she says, “who on the first day bonded very quickly because we shared very similar circumstances.” She names the others: Carlos Gimenez, Cuban-born, and Maria Salazar, the daughter of Cuban-refugee parents, both from Florida; and Victoria Spartz from Indiana, born in Ukraine, who came to the U.S. at 22. “I guess you could say,” Ms. Malliotakis says, “that we’re the founding members.” But she’s certain that “others within the freshman class who are supportive of freedoms and liberties” will join them.

Ms. Steel adds promptly that she’s “going to work with them.” The Squad, Ms. Steel says, “including AOC, are totally out of line. I want to conserve what we have in this country for future generations. I have a grandson who is 15 months old.”

Ms. Malliotakis concurs. “For me, socialism is personal. We’re going to fight back vehemently when we see policies being proposed that will fundamentally change our nation.” She adds that Mrs. Pelosi faces a choice: “Is she going to work with us in a bipartisan way, to accomplish things? Or will she empower the socialist Squad and kowtow to them?”