News

Judge’s Special Master Decision Is Dead Wrong; Raises Serious Concerns About Future Role Of Trump-Appointed Judges

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | September 8, 2022 In 2018, Chief Justice John Roberts said, “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” This proved to be true following the 2020 presidential election, when judges appointed by Democratic and Republican Presidents, including Trump appointees, acted at a historic moment to […]

Eisen/Wertheimer Op-Ed: Judge Cannon’s Flawed Special Master Ruling And The “Weighty Decision” Facing DOJ Regarding An Appeal

Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon granted former President Donald Trump’s request for a special master to review the documents seized at the court-approved search of Mar-a-Lago last month.  This, Amb. Norman Eisen (ret.) and Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer write today in Slate, “was in some ways not a surprise. … though, we […]

Trump’s Request For A Special Master In Mar-a-Lago Case Is “Unprecedented” And “Manifestly Frivolous”, Former Republican Officials, Including Federal Prosecutors And DOJ Officials, Write In Amicus Brief Filed In Florida Case

Regardless of one’s political views, it is clear that there is no legal support for former President Donald Trump’s request for a special master to oversee a review of the evidence seized by the Justice Department in its court-appointed search of Mar-a-Lago on August 8, according to an amicus brief filed on Tuesday in the U.S. […]

The Billionaires’ And Millionaires’ Democracy

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | August 25, 2022 Our nation’s capital today floats on an ocean of influence money provided to elect favored candidates and/or to seek results in Washington. Case in point: Peter Thiel is a multibillionaire venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal and was Facebook’s first outside investor. Peter Thiel symbolizes today’s campaign finance […]

The Anatomy Of A Bald-Faced Liar

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | August 18, 2022 Truth is an alien concept to former President Donald Trump. As the old saying goes, “He lies when the truth will serve.” During Trump’s presidency, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims – a stunning average of 21 per day – according to The Washington Post. Trump is a bald-faced […]

Trump’s “Big Lie” Continues To Damage Our Democracy

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | August 11, 2022 We don’t know if former President Donald Trump ever studied Joseph Goebbels, but he certainly does practice Goebbels’ methods. Goebbels was Germany’s Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. The concept of “The Big Lie” has been attributed to him as has this definition of it: […]

The Need To Repair The Electoral Count Act To Protect Future Presidential Elections

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | August 4, 2022 In the fall of 2020, Walter Dellinger, the late and widely admired former acting U.S. Solicitor General, was focused on defending Joe Biden against any moves that then-President Donald Trump might make to overturn the 2020 presidential election if Trump lost. Dellinger had joined with two other […]

D21 Urges Senate To Make Important Changes To Electoral Count Reform Act To Ensure It Can Effectively Prevent Future Efforts To Steal The Presidency

“Given how close former President Trump came to overturning the 2020 election, there is no room for error in the reform legislation.” – D21 President Fred Wertheimer The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 (ECRA), which would reform two antiquated 19th-century laws that govern the presidential election process, “is important and necessary reform,” but there […]

D21 Testimony On Reforming the Electoral Count Act

  View Democracy 21’s testimony in a PDF   Testimony of Fred Wertheimer, President, Democracy 21   On Reforming the Electoral Count Act  Submitted to Senate Rules Committee Hearing On “The Electoral Count Act: The Need For Reform”   August 3, 2022   Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Member Blunt, and members of the Senate Rules Committee, Democracy 21 […]

Collins-Manchin Bill Repairs Flawed 19th-Century Presidential Election Laws, But Important Changes In Bill Are Needed

“This is the beginning of the legislative process, not the end.”  Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | July 28, 2022 Last week, a bipartisan group of Senators, led by Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), proposed legislation to repair two antiquated 19th-century laws that govern how presidential elections work. Both laws are seriously flawed […]