Topic category:  Corruption in Government

What do Democrat Congressperson Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, former Obama White House counsel Bob Bauer and Democrat Congressperson Elijah Cummings of Maryland have in common with the Mississippi GOP establishment?

They are have been upset with True the Vote for pursuing election integrity in fact instead of just giving lip service to it.

Promoters of election integrity make themselves targets of unscrupulous, but powerful persons.

True the Vote's stated purpose is "to inspire and equip volunteers for involvement at every stage of America’s electoral process" and to "provide training, technology, and support to fellow citizens so that they can ensure election integrity in their own communities" (http://truethevote.org/aboutus).

True the Vote has done much more than pronounce pious platitudes about election integrity--it monitors elections and files lawsuits, so it's no surprise that it's been targeted by both major political parties.

Good for True the Vote!

In June 2010, Congresperson Jackson Lee wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking a Department of Justice investigation of True the Vote for alleged voter intimidation. She "urge[d] [Holder] to order an immediate investigation" and "call[ed] for the Department of Justice to send poll monitors to Harris County immediately to ensure a safe and neutral voting environment during the November 2 election.”

True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht commented: “We really thought, and still do for that matter, that the congresswoman was going on the offense as a defense. This happened immediately after our group found an unexplainable and unusually high number of voter registration irregularities in her district. None of our experts, none of our socio-economic comparisons and considerations could explain why her district had so many irregularities.”

BEFORE Congressperson Jackson Lee's counterattack call for a Department of Justice investigation of True the Vote, True the Vote has sent a letter and supporting documentation to the Department of Justice with respect to the unusually high number of voter registration irregularities in Congressperson Jackson Lee’s district.

“We felt like the congresswoman was abusing her position to retaliate against us for doing our duty as Americans,” Engelbrecht explained. “Our offices are in her district and we were shocked that congressional leaders didn’t embrace our efforts to ensure election integrity. The message we got was that looking at irregularities in the Rep. Jackson Lee’s district would result in the DOJ investigating us.”

When President Obama ran for reelection in 2012, True the Vote was considered a threat, even though its tax exemption application was being held up in the Internal Revenue Service.

Bob Bauer is a former White House counsel, counsel to Obama Biden and counsel to the Democratic National Committee. He was appointed as President Obama's general counsel on January 3, 2010, stayed until June 30, 2011 and then returned to private practice to again represent President Obama's election team and the Democratic National Committee. President Obama publicly described Bauer as "a critical member of the White House team" who would "continue to be one of [his] close advisers."

In an October 2012 Obama Biden memorandum to Interested Parties available online at http://secure.assets.bostatic.com/pdfs/BauerMemo/BauerMemo.pdf, Bauer charged that there was a "Republican assault on voting rights....with deep roots in the party's history and politics" led by the Republican National Committee "aided by organizations closely associated with the party and its goals, such as True the Vote."

True the Vote was demonized in the six-page, single-spaced memorandum. According to Bauer, it was "assisting the effort [to disrupt] the voter registration process" by purporting to train and deploy to polling places around the country 'poll watchers' on the watch for 'fraud'...." Section IV of the memorandum, devoted to True the Vote, begins, "Since the 2010-midterm elections, Texas-based True the Vote (TTV) has been an outspoken member of the voter fraud community and is the social group focused on ending 'vote fraud.' It is the first group since the Karl Rove inspired American Center for Voting Rights was discovered to be a Republican front in 2007."

Now that True the Vote is litigating in Mississippi to try to make sure that the recent United States Senate Republican primary runoff wasn't stolen, the Mississippi GOP establishment is targeting True the Vote. Mississippi GOP chairman Joe Nosef issued a statement attacking True the Vote for bringing a lawsuit to ensure that only legitimate vote are counted and the recipient of the majority of the legitimate votes is declared the winner.

It was predictable that Nosef would charge that the lawsuit brought by True The Vote against the Mississippi Republican Party and Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann was 'frivolous" and no surprise that he also stated that the Mississippi Republican Party intends to seek sanctions against the various Mississippi voters who joined True the Vote as plaintiffs.

What was astonishing and outrageous was Nosef's comments that his "initial reaction" to the True the Vote lawsuit:was "I thought it was a headline from The Onion” and that he "see[s] how this group has earned their awful reputation.”

That had to please President Obama, Congresspersons Jackson Lee and Cummings and Bauer and others who fear voter photo identification and checking the voter rolls to remove those who died or moved and to make sure each voter is registered in only one voting district.

Engelbrecht responded that “Joe Nosef has now joined the ranks of Obama, HoIder, Lerner, IRS, DOJ, Rep. Ejiah Cummings, and all the rest” and proclaimed that she's "proud to be part of a group of patriots who've come together from all over the country to stand with the voters of Mississippi and tell the truth of our experiences, even when politicos like Mr. Nosef would much prefer if we all just kept quiet. Well, the days of being quiet have come to their end. Citizens are waking up, asking questions, and demanding answers. Mr. Nosef can say what he will - I'll stick with the truth.”

Nosef should have realized that Engelbrecht is not the kind of woman could war against successfully. The DOJ, the IRS, the FBI, the BATF and OSHA didn't intimidate her and neither did Bauer or Congresspersons Jackson Lee and CummingsI. He was doomed to fail.

Ironically, Mississippi GOP spokesperson Nagel's statement put an exclamation point of True the Vote's nonpartisanship while broadening the chasm between the people and the political establishment, both Republican and Democrat.

Nosef declined to comment on the record in response to Engelbrecht’s statement.

That was smart. When you've dug a hole for yourself, at least stop digging.

In connection with True the Vote's application for a restraining order agains the Mississippi GOP, Engelbrecht stated: “If the affidavits we now have regarding the destruction of election documents and other similarly stunning findings are true, then no Mississippian, no American, can trust the results of this election.”

That matters to all who prefer honest elections to stolen ones (and all who want to steal elections).

Fortunately, True the Vote is on the case.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.