Transcription
This is Democracy Watch. Mark, we know that there was a search warrant executed in Georgia to seize the ballots from 2020. This is actually a much, much bigger story than I think, uh, most of the media is letting on. So, can you explain why this is particularly chilling as far as you're concerned, what we're seeing in Georgia?
>> Yeah, look, Brian, this may be the most important video you and I have ever done and the most important story going on in the country right now. And that's saying a lot because I know how much is going on in the country. So, I'm just going to say at the outset, we're going to cover a lot of stuff and I need you to watch to the end and then I need you to share this video with other people in your, in your, uh, social media feeds because people need to understand that what we are seeing in Fulton County is not just about Fulton County. It's not even just about the 2020 election. It is about Donald Trump trying to figure out how he can seize ballots. And why does he want to know how he can seize ballots? Because in front of us, only 10 months from now, are the 2026 midterm elections. And he has actually been telling us in various interviews and various statements he's made that he wished he had seized the ballots in 2020, that he doesn't even think there should be elections in 2026. Well, he can't cancel the elections. But what he can do is he can learn from this experience of seizing ballots from a past election to then work with Pam Bondi and the FBI and others. We're going to get into all of this. So again, I need you to pay attention to this one. He can work with them to then figure out, okay, what did we learn from seizing these ballots in Fulton County? What did we learn about what people will do to object? What did we learn about what the courts may do? What did we learn about how we then have to count the ballots, right? Because seizing them is part of it, but then creating a false result is another part that may be a false result on counting them wrong, maybe a false result in making up results. It may be a false result that, Brian, you and I talked about in a prior video in which Tulsi Gabbard and the intelligence community and Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth and all of them come forward and say, actually, the entire election was fraudulent because there is this, there's this international conspiracy against us. So this is very, very serious stuff and Brian and I are going to cover a lot. So, like I said, pay attention, subscribe to this channel, make sure you hit the bell because in the next 10 months, we're going to be posting a lot more content on these kinds of subjects, and I need you to stay informed and to share what you learn with others.
>> Mark, the first question I have here is, we're obviously going to see, uh, the administration try to use anything as kind of legal justification now so that this creates some type of precedent that they can lean on in the future and they can say, "Oh, look, we've already taken these ballots. Now we know how to do it." This is not dissimilar to what we saw by deploying the troops to Los Angeles and Portland and Chicago. And by doing it now, the administration will then have the legal justification, the legal rationale to be able to say, "Okay, look, we can do it now. Clearly, we can do it in November of 2026 or November of 2028." And that was swatted down at the Supreme Court. So, we, we were lucky to see that that development. But would a lawsuit right now against what we're seeing in Fulton County eliminate the precedent that they're that they're trying to establish that would give them carte blanche to be able to seize ballots from different jurisdictions?
>> Right. So I want to actually use the analogy you used because I think it's instructive. Donald Trump first went into Los Angeles, a very big city, and he actually went into a relatively small part of it and he used the National Guard. And from that experience, he learned a couple of things. Number one, he lost. He wound up losing in court later, uh, in a case that said he couldn't use the National Guard. So by the time we get to Minneapolis, he's not using the National Guard. He's using ICE and Border Patrol. The second is, by relative standards, the level of brutality and the level of terror in the community between Los Angeles and now has gotten much worse. Right. So, so he has both found a better legal footing and he has found a more effective way of terrorizing communities and and causing and sudden chaos.
>> And so my point is, he started here by seizing old ballots, right? These are ballots from 2020. And look, do I think this ought to have led the news on all the legacy news outlets? Yes. Do I think this ought to have been a banner headline breaking on all of the, the major newspapers? Yes. But it wasn't. And it wasn't because it is the old ballots. But here's the thing. The same way that Donald Trump learned from Los Angeles to Chicago, Chicago to Portland, and then Minneapolis, and by the way, he will have learned from Minneapolis to whatever comes next, right? This is going to just escalate. He is learning from this Georgia Fulton County situation how to more effectively and efficiently engage in election denialism, voter suppression, and and election subversion. And so that's why, like I said, we are doing this video. It's the reason why Democracy Watch has been covering this. It's the reason why I've told you you need to subscribe to this channel because we're going to see that same progression, right? Like consider this the Los Angeles deployment. Yeah. But we're going to get to the Minneapolis and beyond in the same way that we saw it there.
>> I would highly recommend to that exact point, there is no better news outlet to cover any of this stuff than Democracy Docket, which is the news outlet Mark founded to focus on everything voting and elections. That is the number one source that I use, especially, especially on issues related to voting and elections and what we're seeing in Georgia right now. If you're not yet signed up, as we head toward the election, if you care about this issue at all, which is foundational, you need to sign up for Democracy Docket. So, I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Um, Democracy Docket is covering what every other legacy media outlet refuses to do. So, you need to make sure to sign up as we head toward this next election. Mark, can you talk a little bit about what the culmination of his efforts might be? Like, we, we know as it relates to these troop deployments that, okay, if he can find an effective enough way to incite enough violence that would actually justify some troop deployments, that's his goal. That's as it relates to the troop deployments. He wants these boots on the ground to be able to, you know, go in and seize voting machines or block off, uh, block off streets to minority majority precinct polling places, whatever it may be. As it relates to the election, uh, the, the ballots specifically, what could he do? You know, what's the culmination of his efforts? What could he do if he has access to these ballots? What does it look like if Trump, you know, is able to, um, hone his skills a little bit, learn from, learn from previous mistakes and, you know, come November of 2026, having spent the last 10 months, uh, getting better at this, what does that look like?
>> Yeah. So, I think of a few things. Number one, he wants to desensitize the public. Like, he's done actually a pretty good job. Like, there's not the kind of outrage and protests over these or these ballots in, in, um, uh, in Georgia, uh, that there should be. So he wants to make it normal that the federal government seizes his ballots when, in fact, it is completely unprecedented for the federal government to seize ballots. That's number one. Number two, like, he will have set up a prosecutorial Department of Justice infrastructure around executing search warrants, around obtaining search warrants. Like, what did we have to tell the judge in order to get a magistrate to get the search warrant approved? Like, I don't know if it went through on the first try or not the first try, but like, but like they have, they have built that muscle memory that they can use and also the actual seizure of the ballots, like what to expect, how many boxes of ballots there are, like, like where do you find them, what are the right, all of that. Now, that doesn't fully solve his problem and I don't want people to think that this is now a foregone conclusion because there are other obstacles that would be in his way where there was actually an election going on or where the election had just taken place. But he is starting to put together a team of people. I mean, one of the stories that again has not been widely reported is this search warrant was executed by a US attorney in Missouri. In Missouri. Now, there's a reason why he picked the US attorney in Missouri. In the same way, Brian, that remember that first he called it the National Guard from states, then there was like moving people from other states into states. Like he has figured out, not, not, uh, not surprisingly, that it's harder to get the US attorney's lawyers in Georgia to seize the Georgia ballots than to get the US attorney's office apparently in Missouri to seize the ballots. Right. So, like again, that's a learning he has had, uh, and, and he has, and again, it's been not been widely reported by legacy media, but, uh, we now know that that US attorney in Missouri has been given nationwide jurisdiction over all claims of election fraud. So now he has built this and will grow this team in Missouri, not a battleground state, not a state that will be central to control of Congress probably. And they will have this expertise and manpower to, as they move this forward. Now, again, I don't want people to give up hope. We never give up hope. We fight them in court. We fight them in the court of public opinion. We educate ourselves and we, we, we make sure that they are not able to subvert free and fair elections. And we've been successful at doing that in the 2020 election cycle. I represented President Biden and the Democrats and we prevented that, that from happening then. In 2022, didn't get as much coverage, but there was effort by Republicans to refuse to certify accurate election results in 2022. We went to court and we won. Right now, my team and I, we are in, you know, as Brian said, all of these courts around the country in, uh, and in a lot of them to try to prevent the Trump administration from getting the sensitive voter data. Now, why is that? They're trying to get the voter data because that is again another foundational principle, another foundational tool that they could use to subvert the election results. So, we're in court. We've already had some early wins, no losses yet. Knock on wood. We'll see how it goes from here. But, if we're able to thwart that, that will be a big roadblock. But, it's going to be a lot of back and forth because he hasn't picked the lock yet, but he's working on it. And that's why he told the New York Times he wished he had seized the ballots in 2020. It's why he told Reuters that he, that he doesn't think there should be midterm elections. And it's why he told Davos that, you know, there are going to be prosecutions of, of, of his political enemies, which we've already seen. Like, we'd already seen political, uh, prosecutions of his enemies, but there are going to be more. So, we all need to steel our spine. We need to stay informed. We need to be proactive in spreading good, accurate information. I hope you subscribe to Democracy Docket. I hope you subscribe to this channel because there's going to be a lot of fights in front of us.
>> Mark, can you talk a little bit about what the Trump administration is able to do, uh, or, or is permissible to do with, with regard to ballots from a past election versus what he's able to do with an ongoing election? Because, you know, the, the 2020 election, it's already been adjudicated. And so, I, I don't think that it's as closely guarded, especially in the judicial system, as it would be if we are, you know, on election day or in the lead-up to election day when ballots are already being cast. And so, can you talk a little bit about that?
>> Right. So, that, look, that's a tool and a safeguard that we have, right? Which is that I think courts are going to be a lot more skeptical. I think state election officials will be a lot more protective of ballots in a current election rather than a past election. That's not to suggest Fulton County was not protective, but I'm just saying, like, I think there would be a lot more outrage, a lot more public outcry. Even the legacy media would have to contend with it and the courts would be a lot more skeptical. But again, I come back to this question. What did they tell the magistrate judge in Georgia that got a federal magistrate judge to issue this warrant? Right? This had to be approved by a federal magistrate. And what did they tell them? Because on the one hand, you're exactly right. Like these are old ballots. They're not, you know, affecting an ongoing election. On the other hand, Brian, the statute of limitations for any of these crimes, if there were any crimes, and there weren't, but the statute of limitations for the crimes that they alleged to justify this warrant is five years. So, what is it that the, that the magistrate saw? What did the FBI agents tell them? What's in the affidavit supporting this that led a federal magistrate to say, "You know what? I'm going to sign off on this."
>> Will we ever get access to that information or is that completely under seal?
>> So, I, so it's under seal now, but I think that is the first legal battle that has to be fought, right? There are ways that those affidavits can be unsealed, that these materials can be made public. We need that. We need demands for that. We need people to go to court who have standing to go to court for it. We need congressional oversight for it. We need public pressure, just like there was around the Epstein files, because that will be the thing that unlocks what was told. And look, I don't know what's in that affidavit. Obviously, it was under seal, but we've seen lots of instances of false affidavits being filed and false statements being made to federal judges. And, you know, we need to see what's in it. But we also need the federal judges to, like, I mean, how many videos have you and I done where we talk about the presumption of good faith?
>> Literally, is my next question is why, I mean, I, again, I don't know what happened with, whatever affidavit was presented to this magistrate judge, but why is the Trump administration, after all of this, still benefiting from the presumption of regularity, as if there's some, as if they're a DOJ that's acting in good faith when they've proven time and time again that they're perfectly content to lie and obfuscate and delay and do whatever they have to do, uh, to manipulate the court system.
>> Right. So, what people out there need to know is that in order to get a search warrant, right, to get a subpoena, it's just a grand jury subpoena. I mean, it's not just, but, but it's relatively easy for a prosecutor to do that. To get a search warrant, though, they need to go to a, a judicial officer, either a, a judge or a magistrate who works for a judge. Okay? And so, they need to establish probable cause before a judge. Okay? Uh, and that should be not too high a barrier, but it should, but, you know, the person looking at the paperwork there knows what they're doing. The problem is, and this is not unique to this case, the problem is, you know, federal magistrates, and I'm going to stick up for this magistrate for a second, like federal magistrates, they get a ton of requests for arrest warrants, for, for, uh, for search warrants, right? And like they are in the business of reviewing the paperwork, assuming that the FBI coming to them is like operating in good faith, right? Like, like there's a, like there's a volume to this stuff that they just assume that the agents coming to them are coming to them on the up and up and when they tell them that, you know, there's a drug house where there are, you know, the following evidence of drug paraphernalia, that that's true. And the problem is, we cannot be giving that benefit of the doubt to this administration in cases that involve, for example, ballots, right? Or frankly, in Minnesota around immigration cases. And you saw a federal magistrate in, in Minnesota refuse to issue an arrest warrant against Don, uh, Don Lemon. Yeah. Uh, because the magistrate judge is like, "Wait a second." Like, I, this, this, you know, they looked more skeptically. And that made a lot of news because that is rare that that happens, that a magistrate judge says no, I'm not going to issue an arrest warrant. Well, we need more magistrate judges in election cases where it comes to things like this to, like, put on their hat of skepticism, not put on their hat of normalcy and not give the benefit of the doubt. But, but I can't promise you, Brian, that every magistrate judge is going to do that. But one of the ways we're going to, we need to get us there is we need there to be more publicity about these things, more outcry, and for people to understand what the stakes are. That's why I founded Democracy Docket in 2020. It's why I write about these things today. It's why Brian and I do these videos. It's why I implored you to subscribe to this channel. It's why I've implored you to watch the end of this video and share it with a friend. Because like I said, this may wind up being the most important issue in the 2026 election. And this video may wind up being the most important video we do because it's foundational to what we may see coming down the road.
>> And I want to ask one last question here, and this kind of combines everything that we've spoken about over the last several months here, and that is this idea of, of Trump getting all of the pieces in place that he needs for 2026. We've spoken about the troops being deployed across the country and him trying to figure out some legal justification, um, uh, to, to justify these deployments, and also now him trying to find some legal rationale to gain access to, uh, voting equipment, to ballots. We know, >> voter roles. We know that Donald Trump wanted to take the voting machines, seize the voting machines back in 2020. He had neither the legal justification to do it, a compliant DOJ. Bill Barr said his whole scheme was, and he had no troops, no, no boots on the ground. Now he has all of them. I mean, he's got, you know, troops deployed all across the country and is engaged in these legal battles to determine whether he's able to keep doing it. But right now, he, he has troops, uh, all across the country, specifically in Minnesota and, uh, and, and Maine at the moment. He now has a compliant DOJ with Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Todd Blanche, all of, you know, Tulsi Gabbard, this whole cast of characters, perfectly willing to, to listen and do whatever he wants. And now we have him engaging in this process where he was obviously successful on step one in convincing a magistrate to, to grant him access to this information. And so, can you talk a little bit about what we may be looking at 10 months from now as we head toward, uh, the 2026 election if he's able to get all of these pieces in place where he would have boots on the ground to effectuate these plans, legal rationale to be able to do it, and a DOJ that's perfectly content to back him up.
>> Yeah. Look, there's only three stumbling blocks in his way, and let's just lay them out. The first is the people themselves, right? Like, like fundamentally, you can suppress the vote by intimidating people or inconveniencing them. And the people of Minnesota have shown that they're willing to be inconvenienced and they won't be intimidated. And it may be that in this election, you're going to need a lot more, you're going to need voters to be a lot braver and willing to brave, you know, uh, checkpoints and not convenient parking and and other and other things. So, like number one, it's on us as voters to make sure that we are registered and that we know our rights as voters and that we exercise our right to vote and we are not deterred or dissuaded or intimidated. So, like that's, that's number one, probably most important, is the people. Number two are the states, right? Like, we need the states to stand up against this administration. We need states to understand their rights under the Constitution to set the time, place, and manner of elections and to count votes and to not allow the federal government to bully them. And that's going to be a bit of a mixed bag because, you know, we keep focusing on the Democratic states, but, but, you know, there are House seats up in, in Texas, you know, there are House seats up in Florida, you know, right? So, this is going to be a little bit more of a mixed bag, but we, but we need states to do everything they can to stand tall against, uh, against this administration. Then, finally, we're going to need the lawyers. We're going to need lawyers who are willing to do the hard work of going to court. You know, I always talk about the fact that I was involved in the 2020 elections and how proud I am of that work. There were a lot of lawyers and a lot of big law firms were standing by my side in those cases and, and, you know, I'd ask myself, where, I ask you now, where are those law firms now? You know, if you remember this, one of the storylines of 2020 was Donald Trump couldn't get any of the big law firms to work for him. He couldn't get even small law firms to work for him. And that was part of the reason why they wound up with these crackpots. Well, I ask yourself, going into 2026, how many big law firms are going to stand by my side? How many big law firms are going to stand by the counties and the states' side in these fights? I can tell you in the 24 cases that where Donald Trump is trying to get the voter files, my law firm of 60 lawyers is in every one of them. And not a single large law firm is with us. Not a single large law firm is in any of those cases. And so the question is, will the, will the courts hold, but will the lawyers be there to bring these cases, or are they going to be afraid? Are they just going to be like, you know what, we're not getting in between Donald Trump and election annihilation? Like, we may be willing to disagree with the administration on some things, but on their core issue, we're not going to, we're not going to be there. And so, look, I'll do everything I can. I mean, I hope everyone out there knows that. I'll fight to the bitter end. He can call me names. He can, he can threaten me. He, hell, he sued me for racketeering in, in Florida and lost. I didn't settle. I fought that case. We won, right? Like he can do whatever he wants towards me and my law firm. But, but like I said, we're 60 lawyers. We're going to do the best we can. We need a lot more lawyers and a lot more law firms willing to take on these fights. And that is the other thing that I'll be, that, you know, you and I will be covering in the months ahead and we'll be talking about candidly and honestly. Uh, and, uh, we'll see where we are.
>> Well, look, I, I think that this is the perfect example of why we need to elevate your voice, if for nothing else than to give, uh, to give a kick in the ass to any other lawyers out there to know that what you're doing is the virtuous position, is the righteous position. So, a small step that we can all do, all take right now to elevate Mark's voice, um, is to subscribe to Democracy Docket. I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Again, this is the kind of work that we need to elevate right now. This is the kind of work that we need to support, especially, especially as we head toward this midterm election. So again, that link is right here on the screen and also in the post description. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen.
>> I'm Mark Elias.
>> This is Democracy Watch.