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Posted on 06/14/2022 8:20:51 PM PDT by lightman
Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano took some punches from his GOP rivals in this spring’s primary election campaign, but nothing like this.
In a new political attack ad launched by the never-Trumpers who lead The Lincoln Project, Mastriano is tagged as a traitor for his post-2020 track record as a Donald Trump election defeat denier.
The Lincoln Project is a superPAC organized by Republican political operatives who have grown disaffected with former president Donald J. Trump and his hold on the party, and who now say that they are resolved to fight Trump-like candidates whom they deem to be threats to American democracy.
In an advertisement scheduled to roll out in the Harrisburg / Lancaster / York television market this week, Lincoln Project leaders said they hope to capitalize on news coverage and buzz generated by the House Select Committee’s public hearings on the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, and reminding voters that Mastriano was there, too.
Starting with scenes of Independence Hall and the Gettysburg Battlefield, the ad opens with homages to the role played by Pennsylvania patriots in American history.
Then cutting to clips of the rioting at the Capitol, the ad refers to the more recent attacks from what the writers call the enemy within. As ominous percussion pounds away, the camera freezes on a shot of Mastriano in the crowd marching around the Capitol that day, as the narrator argues “The truth is, Doug Mastriano is the very enemy he once swore an oath to stand against....
“Pennsylvania’s story is the story of American patriots. Doug Mastriano’s is the story of a traitor.”
It may also be a sign of things to come for Mastriano in this post-Trump moment. His Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, has already tested the Jan. 6 argument in a low-budget way, posting this about Mastriano on his Twitter account last week:
“I want to make this clear: He knew what he was doing when he crossed those barricades and ignored law enforcement on January 6th. He took part in an attempted coup and marched to the Capitol. He wants to be our Governor. We will stop him. Doug Mastriano is an insurrectionist.” What we know
Mastriano’s campaign did not respond to PennLive’s requests for comment about the new advertisement Monday. But the public record on the election aftermath is pretty extensive.
Mastriano was an attendee at Trump’s last “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021 - he actually chartered busses to help bring more Pennsylvanians along - and he also participated in the march to the Capitol immediately afterward. In a statement about it that week, he said that he and his wife moved away from the Capitol after they understood that the demonstration was turning violent.
Mastriano also said at the time that he never crossed police lines, and that he would never condone the violence that occurred.
Photos and video pieced together later by internet sleuths show both he and his wife walking past protestor-removed police barricades as they walked along. However, no evidence has surfaced to date to contradict Mastriano’s contentions that he never entered the Capitol that day, and there’s no evidence that he partook in any violence or vandalism.
It is true, as the ad states, that Mastriano was questioned last year by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his activities that day, but he has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
“He cooperated fully and no further action was required, as he clearly was not involved in any criminal activity,” his attorney Timothy Parlatore, told The Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this month.
As for trespassing past police lines, Mastriano has more recently said that those lines were constantly shifting throughout the day, and he never believed he was defying police commands. He has attacked those he termed “digital warriors” as trying to create a false narrative about his actions that day that the fact don’t support. The context
Rick Wilson, a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, defended calling Mastriano a traitor Monday, if only for his pre-Jan. 6 efforts as a state Senator to amplify Trump’s claims that election returns from Pennsylvania were wrong, and that the voice of the people as it translated to an 80,000-plus vote victory for Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr. should not stand.
“We believe that Mastriano represents the kind of person who has stated in advance: ‘I’ll overthrow an election. I’ll do this for Donald Trump.’ Wilson said. “Those folks that are trying to overthrow an election here, trying to invalidate millions and millions of votes, and for the first time in American history prevent the peaceful transfer of political power? I think that stands as treasonous by any standard.”
Mastriano contested the Pennsylvania election results as aggressively as anyone in the state legislature, giving Trump’s legal team a Senate platform to air their unproven claims about game-changing vote fraud.
Shortly thereafter, he was also part of a group of four state senators who introduced a resolution disapproving of the Wolf Administration’s certification of the results, calling for the legislature to take over the appointment the state’s electoral college slate, and urging the Congress not to accept any electoral votes from Pennsylvania until the Legislature had weighed in.
Later, Mastriano launched an audit of the Pennsylvania vote, though he was summarily removed from the legislative post putting him in charge of that effort by Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman last summer. Mastriano and Corman would later vie against each other in the Republican gubernatorial primary.
Mastriano still believes there are major problems with Pennsylvania’s election system and he still believes that most of Trump’s claims about 2020 weren’t properly litigated.
In a recent interview, Mastriano pointed to a case brought by the state of Texas that challenged the results in four different swing states, including Pennsylvania. The court, in a brief unsigned order, said Texas lacked standing to pursue the case because it “has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.”
“So, show me where this was litigated,” Mastriano told conservative commentator Ben Stein in an interview Saturday.
In his race for governor Mastriano has largely turned his attentions to future elections.
He has:
Proposed a bill to make it easier for both parties to staff polling places across the state with campaign-picked poll watchers by eliminating a current requirement limiting people to working in their county of residence. To supporters, this is an important election integrity piece, though critics say it could lead to election intimidation.
Called for ending the use of ballot drop boxes, primarily for mail-in ballots, which do not exist in Pennsylvania’s election code but the state Supreme Court permitted in advance of the 2020 election;
Supported ending the ability of non-government organizations making contributions to help fund county election operations. Mastriano and his political allies argue that turned into an ad hoc get-out-the-vote operation in heavily-Democratic areas of Pennsylvania two years ago.
Mastriano argues that none of this makes him a traitor. And he has also argued, like some other Trump supporters that are on the ballot this year, that the Democrats and their mainstream media partners are using Jan. 6 as a distraction from 40-year highs in inflation, $5-per-gallon gasoline and spiking crime in major cities like Philadelphia.
“What we’re seeing in America now makes McCarthy in the ‘50s look like an amateur,” Mastriano told Stein.
The coming election will hinge in large part on how many Pennsylvanians agree.
And then they'd complain that they didn't bleed out fast enough.
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
“The Lincoln Project is a superPAC organized by Republican political operatives who have grown disaffected with former president Donald J. Trump”
***
lies. It’s a Soros op pretending to be a republican one..
Uniparty’s gonna uniparty.
Lincoln Project pedophiles working for Shapiro.
Joe Biden’s votes violate Benford’s Law
https://gnews.org/post/p534248
Buckley rule-who gets the nomination?
The Lincoln Project is far left. Propaganda headline.
I mean seriously - they attacked Susan Collins as too conservative.
LOL calling Susan Collins a conservative is like calling a toilet, a golden throne..
PA is so corrupt. From what I hear it always was. Damn shame.
Has anyone notices that Republicans can’t play hardball like this? Hell, they don’t even know where the field is.
He is up big in the polls so this buttwipe newspaper does a “smear” piece.
Yep, it’s what they do.
Getting attacked by a bunch of pedophiles can only help him.
The Lincoln Project is a superPAC with never Trumper figureheads and liberal funding.
There. Fixed it.
They collect 15% from the gullible NeverTrumpers who donate.
Leftist Pedophile group opposes Mastriano, film at 11.
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