A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
‘You’re As Defiant A Defendant As This Court Has Ever Seen’
Nearly four years later, the slow grind of accountability for the embrace and perpetuation of the Big Lie in the 2020 election continues — even as Donald Trump himself is poised to potentially win back the presidency next month.
In a contentious sentencing hearing Thursday in Mesa County, Colorado, former county clerk Tina Peters was still trying to convince the judge that the 2020 election was stolen. State Judge Matthew Barrett was having none of it.
“You are no hero,” Barrett told Peters. “You’re a charlatan who used, and is still using, your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”
Election denier Tina Peters laughed during her sentencing, argued with the judge, and then was led away in handcuffs to serve a 9-year sentence. @MarcSallinger reports for @nexton9news. #copolitics pic.twitter.com/ruiGoUAco5
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) October 4, 2024
Peters was convicted in August on multiple counts related to tampering with the voting machines she oversaw as an election official, all part of her half-baked pursuit of proof of her baseless contention that the election was rigged. A man with connections to My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell was given access months after the election to one of the county’s Dominion Voting machines, and the fruits of that fishing expedition ended up being shown at a Big Lie event hosted by Lindell.
“Peters was found guilty of three felony counts of attempting to influence a public servant and one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation. She was also convicted of first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty, and failure to comply with an order from the Secretary of State, all misdemeanors,” Colorado Public Radio reported. She was found not guilty on three other counts.
Peters was tearful at times during her sentencing but remained unapologetic, which further irritated the sentencing judge. “You cannot help but lie as easy as you breathe,” he told her.
In handing down Peters’ sentence, the judge said he considered her convictions serious and noted that prison is for “people who are a danger to all of us.”
“I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could,” the judge scolded Peters. “You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen.”
Liz Cheney Stumps For Kamala Harris
It was an extraordinary tableau in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party.
Liz Cheney, the scion of the Cheney family whose father’s notorious vice presidency was a horror to progressives in the aughts, was greeted with cheers of “Thank you, Liz” at a campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Appearing alongside and endorsing Harris, Cheney gave an eloquent speech on the historic dangers posed by Donald Trump to the Constitution and the rule of law.
Having ended a career in Republican politics by taking on Trump, including serving as co-chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, the former representative, who was once the third-ranking member in the House GOP leadership, reiterated anti-Trump themes she has struck for a long time. But never in a setting like this (the first 50 seconds is when the crowd is chanting her name):
Jan. 6 Developments
- TPM’s Josh Kovensky: The Striking Details That Jack Smith Used To Tighten His January 6 Case Against Trump
- Lisa Needham: Jack Smith’s bombshell immunity brief: In a sane world it would be Watergate-level news.
- WaPo: Who’s who in Jack Smith’s massive Trump election interference filing
- U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan granted Trump an extension from Oct. 17 to Nov. 7 to file his response to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s mammoth brief on presidential immunity. That was less additional time than Trump had requested.
2024 Ephemera
- Former President Barack Obama launches a four-week campaign blitz for Harris.
- Elon Musk will attend Trump’s Saturday rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the July assassination attempt that wounded Trump and killed a supporter.
- NYT: Photos from when he was a college student in 2006 show Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in blackface as Michael Jackson.
Docks Reopen
After reaching a tentative agreement on higher wages, the longshoremen’s union suspended its strike and resumed work at ports on the East and Gulf coasts.
Always Be Grifting
When CNN requested an interview with Melania Trump about her new memoir, her book publisher asked for $250,000 in exchange — before later calling it an “internal miscommunication.”
Trump Didn’t Want Disaster Aid For Blue California
With the death toll from Hurricane Helene rising to 213, 72 of those in and around Buncombe County (Asheville), E&E News interviewed two former Trump White House officials who said that Trump was going to withhold disaster aid for the 2018 California wildfires because it’s a blue state — until they “pulled voting results to show him that heavily damaged Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa.”
‘The Rain It Chased Me Down’
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I’m going to be busy most of the day folks. Going to bake a cake big enough to smuggle a mattress inside. God, I hope Princess Tina will be happy with twin size…
Nine years is a stiff sentence; she won’t age well.
This is a shot across the bow of anyone else with ideas about fucking with elections.
I’m pretty sure that’s a giant hippo sculpture I saw in a catalog, but it is kind of an animal that looks a little bit like a cat
At least the Qanon Shaman only complained about the food.