Bongino Fight tech tyranny. Join Dan on Parler @dbongino.
The Detroit Free Press reported that the Michigan state legislature held a joint hearing of the House and Senate Oversight committees on Saturday. State lawmakers “issued a subpoena to state election officials…requesting documents related to Michigan’s election process.” They will be investigating “possible election irregularities.”
The article indicated that it is rare for the legislature to call a hearing on a Saturday and equally rare for a legislative committee to issue a subpoena.
Although the Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is a Democrat, both the state House and the state Senate are controlled by Republicans, a point the author emphasizes several times.
Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R-Levering) issued a statement after the hearing had been announced on Friday. It read:
Every single legal vote needs to be counted, regardless of who cast it or who they voted for. And then the candidate who wins the most of those votes will win Michigan’s electoral votes, just like it always has been. Nothing about that process will change in 2020.
America’s democracy is sacred, and safe and secure elections are how we protect it. That is why the House and Senate oversight committees will begin hearings soon looking into the voting and counting process in our state to give everyone confidence in the results and to make sure the next election runs much more smoothly. The people of Michigan deserve peace of mind, and we are going to provide it.
State Rep. Matt Hall, (R-Marshall), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told the Free Press these steps are necessary “to provide needed clarity to concerned residents.” Hall said, “I have gotten hundreds of calls and emails from people in Calhoun and Kalamazoo counties who say they have no faith in our election system based on what they have seen since Tuesday.”
He explained that “People have seen news reports of challengers being denied access to polling locations. They see windows being covered up to prevent people from watching ballots be examined and tabulated. Software errors have mistakenly awarded votes to a candidate. These instances and images have led to controversy, confusion and frustration — and it certainly is not a model of transparency.”
Hall believes the subpoena “demonstrates a commitment to getting our election procedures right in the future.”
It will come as no surprise to hear that Hall’s colleague from across the aisle, House Minority Leader Christine Greig, (D-Farmington Hills), claims the hearing was a “partisan spectacle,” and “a desperate attempt by Republican legislators to cast a shadow of doubt over the legitimacy of our election.” She believes it’s a “political stunt designed to undermine confidence in our electoral process and disenfranchise voters who legally cast their ballots in record numbers.”
The politically charged atmosphere in Lansing is obvious from the author’s tone throughout the article. He claims “there has been no evidence to support allegations that would significantly affect any election outcomes, isolated unofficial count issues in Antrim County and Oakland County have been explained and corrected by local officials, and a Michigan judge has rejected claims related to challengers.”
Except there was that little software glitch that caused 6,000 votes for Trump in Antrim County to wind up in the Biden column. Michigan’s Secretary of State said this had not been caused by a computer glitch, but by human error.
In a different world, people may have taken Benson’s word for it. But considering what’s at stake, it’s really better to check – especially when we’ve heard reports this same software is being used by 47 counties throughout Michigan.
President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared on Maria Bartiromo’s program “Sunday Morning Futures” on Sunday. Trump’s legal team will be filing four or five lawsuits this week. The first and the biggest will address irregularities in Pennsylvania. Giuliani said they are completing affidavits now for more than 60 witnesses. He told Bartiromo he believes they have more than enough evidence to overturn the election in Pennsylvania.
“The second [lawsuit] will either be Michigan or Georgia,” Giuliani said. “We have big numbers in Michigan – not quite the numbers that we had in Pennsylvania – but enough to overturn the result there.”
We will certainly be watching.
