HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — AP is reporting… Pennsylvania’s attorney general sued Thursday to block a Republican-approved subpoena to state election officials in what Republicans call a “forensic investigation” of last year’s presidential election, spurred on by former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that he was cheated out of victory. The lawsuit from state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, is the second thus far targeting a subpoena approved last week by the Republican-controlled Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee.
Both were filed in the state’s Commonwealth Court. Shapiro’s office broadly asked the court to block the subpoena because, it said, it serves no legitimate legislative purpose and stems from Trump’s efforts to undermine trust in the results of the 2020 presidential election. At points, the 76-page lawsuit targets certain information requests in the subpoena as illegal or unconstitutional, and unenforceable.
For instance, granting the subpoena’s request for voter information — including names, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers — would violate a person’s constitutional privacy protections, particularly because the subpoena isn’t based on proof of wrongdoing. It also would expose voters to the risk of publicly disclosing their personal information, thus violating the constitutional right to vote, it said.
At another point, the lawsuit seeks to block the Republicans’ request for copies of reports from audits and reviews of the state’s voter registration system going back to 2018. That information is deemed to be “critical infrastructure information” submitted to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is barred from public disclosure by federal law, Shapiro’s office wrote. Republicans did not immediately comment on the lawsuit.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — An elected county prosecutor in Pennsylvania was charged Wednesday with violently raping a woman he knew through work, leaving her home only after she told him she would not call police, authorities said. Somerset County District Attorney Jeffrey Lynn Thomas, 36, was accused of attacking the woman in her Windber home Saturday. He was charged with rape, indecent and simple assault, strangulation and criminal trespassing.
The Republican’s lawyer, Ryan Tutera, said that he was not guilty and that Thomas’ wife was working to get him bailed out of the Cambria County jail. The criminal complaint’s police affidavit said the woman told investigators that Thomas had repeatedly contacted her for several years to seek a sexual relationship and would “routinely” drive around her house. At about 11 p.m. Saturday, he sent her an Snapchat message saying he would be at her home in minutes, to which she responded he was not welcome and to stay away. Shortly afterward, he walked uninvited into her home with several beer cans and handed her one, police said.
