Pro-Trump 2020 “Stop the Count” Activist Lands Top Job at the Interior Department

The day after Poll Day in a large group of President Donald Trump s supporters descended on Detroit s Huntington Place convention center at the time known as the TCF Center They were trying to stop poll workers inside from counting ballots Police ultimately blocked multiple of the Trump supporters from entering the room where the poll workers were fulfilling their duties but the crowd gathered outside the room banging on its windows Stop the count they chanted Stop the count The protests that day were encouraged by operatives from the Trump campaign which sought to prevent the president s imminent polling loss in Michigan by claiming that the vote count was fraudulent According to court filings from special counsel Jack Smith s review into Trump s polling interference efforts in a campaign operative whose name was redacted tried to sow confusion when the ongoing vote count at the TCF Center in Detroit Michigan looked unfavorable to Trump s chances When the unnamed campaign operative in the court filing later identified by the Washington Post as Mike Roman learned that there might be unrest at the TCF Center he stated a colleague present at the convention center Make them riot Five years later Gustafson s loyalty to Trump paid off The TCF protest was part of a broader effort by the Trump campaign to create chaos rather than seek clarity at polling places where states were continuing to tabulate votes according to Smith s filing Among the pro-Trump protesters at the TCF Center that day was a man named Daniel Gustafson according to NBC News Five years later Gustafson s loyalty to Trump paid off He served as a population liaison on Trump s inauguration committee according to his LinkedIn profile and in January landed a top job at the Interior Department Gustafson is among a cohort of Michigan Republican activists who have received plum positions at Interior a huge federal agency that manages hundreds of millions of acres of society land across the country controls vast oil and gas support administers the National Park Operation and enforces the Endangered Species Act Gustafson did not respond to multiple requests for comment The Interior Department did not provide a comment by press time According to his LinkedIn profile Gustafson is currently serving as the Interior Department s deputy director of the office of intergovernmental and external affairs which acts as a liaison between the Interior secretary s office and state and local governments His rapid ascent to a powerful cabinet post aligns closely with the vision GOP operatives laid out in Project the sweeping approach blueprint meant to guide a second Trump term Among other things Project called on a future Republican administration to dismantle the administrative state Trump allies spent months ahead of his inauguration compiling and vetting a list of Trump loyalists to install in governing body positions A review of Gustafson s LinkedIn profile shows that he has little if any experience in land wildlife or reserve management What he does have is years of experience working as a Republican operative Stop the Count Unrest At the time of the Michigan unrest the afternoon following Electoral contest Day Gustafson was working for the Michigan Republican Party in the key swing state According to his LinkedIn profile he served as Regional Field Director Trump Supremacy an apparent reference to the behemoth fundraising operation that involved the Trump campaign the Republican National Committee and numerous state-level Republican parties during the voting process Like thousands of other Republicans around the country Gustafson sprang into action as Trump s chances of mastery dwindled On the morning of November Trump tweeted that he was leading often solidly in a multitude of key states run by Democrats Then one by one they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted he wrote At the TCF Center Gustafson can be seen in videos banging on a window and recording on his cellphone What followed were protests and disruptions at vote counting sites including in Philadelphia and in Detroit According to Smith the special counsel who investigated interference in the race but shut down his work in December after the electoral process Trump sometimes used these confrontations to falsely claim that his vote observers were being denied proper access thus serving as a predicate to Trump s claim that fraud must have occurred in the observers absence At the TCF Center Gustafson can be seen in videos banging on a window recording on his cellphone and wearing a baseball hat emblazoned with an American flag in the shape of the state of Michigan The same hat is visible in several photos on Gustafson s personal Facebook page Also present at the protest was Meshawn Maddock the former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party and one of the fake electors in the state charged with multiple felonies for their parts in trying to overturn poll results Gustafson hasn t been accused of involvement in the fake elector scheme the episode is winding its way through court Gustafson s role in the Trump campaign s effort to cast doubt on the will of Michigan voters appears to have gone well beyond totally protesting at the convention center in Detroit A Daniel Gustafson was one of several poll challengers in Michigan who signed a sworn affidavit alleging Electoral contest Day misconduct or interference Large quantities of ballots were delivered to the TCF Center in what appeared to be mail bins with open tops Gustafson s affidavit read These ballot bins and containers did not have lids were not sealed and did not have the capability of having a metal seal The ballot bins were not marked or identified in any way to indicate their source of origin His affidavit was among several that the right-wing Michigan legal group Great Lakes Justice Center submitted as part of its failed voter fraud lawsuit against the city of Detroit and surrounding Wayne County Rudy Giuliani who at the time was Trump s personal lawyer cited those affidavits to advance his false claim that the poll was rigged against Trump One affair filing notes that Gustafson has taught numerous Poll Challenger training classes A Facebook post from Michigan Republicans dated October lists Gustafson as the contact for anyone interested in attending a training for poll watchers and challengers In a November ruling Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny rejected the lawsuit brought by the Great Lakes Justice Center and threw cold water on asserts that Gustafson and other poll challengers made in their affidavits Mr Gustafson s affidavit is another example of generalized speculation fueled by the belief that there was a Michigan legal requirement that all ballots had to be delivered in a sealed box Kenny wrote Plaintiffs have not supplied any statutory requirement supporting Mr Gustafson s speculative suspicion of fraud The post Pro-Trump Stop the Count Activist Lands Top Job at the Interior Department appeared first on The Intercept