1. The Devil's Advocate

Time Stamp: 6:59

New Year's Resolutions Can Be Satanic Check-Ins

On their face, New Year's resolutions are sad excuses for lazy individuals to pretend like they're going to get off their asses.

They use new year's resolutions to temporarily put their lives in focus and make hollow attempts to improve oneself.

Satanists are actively doing this year round, so we don’t require a hollow gesture like this. However we can use it as a self check in.

Take the opportunity to reflect on the goals you set out for yourself the previous year, and examine the progress you have made toward them. 

Take the opportunity to celebrate your successes.

Reevaluate the choices you made toward the goals, and if need be, readjust your direction, focus, or change the goals entirely to fit the pragmatic actions in your life.

Let's be honest, we change as individuals and a goal one year may not even be on our radar the next. Or alternatively, it may no longer be relevant.

There is nothing wrong with the setting of a goal, then abandoning it for other pursuits. Stubbornly forecasting on something that no longer interests you simply because you made it a goal in the past is counter productive at best.

Welcome your evolution in thinking. Debate the pros and cons with yourself over your life choices, it’s the only way you can be as focused as possible in your actions.

2. Infernal Informant

Time Stamp: 21:54

Execution of only woman on US federal death row can go ahead, court rules

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/02/execution-of-only-woman-on-us-federal-death-row-can-go-ahead-court-rules

A US appeals court has cleared the way for the only woman on federal death row to be executed before president-elect Joe Biden takes office.

The ruling, handed down on Friday by a three-judge panel on the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, concluded that a lower court judge erred when he vacated Lisa Montgomery’s execution date in an order last week.

US district court judge Randolph Moss had ruled the justice department unlawfully rescheduled Montgomery’s execution and he vacated an order from the director of the bureau of prisons scheduling her death for 12 January.

Montgomery had been scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at the federal correctional complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, in December, but Moss delayed the execution after her attorneys contracted coronavirus visiting their client and asked him to extend the time to file a clemency petition.

Moss concluded that under his order the bureau of prisons could not even reschedule Montgomery’s execution until at least 1 January. But the appeals panel disagreed.

Meaghan VerGow, an attorney for Montgomery, said her legal team would ask for the full appeals court to review the case and said Montgomery should not be executed on 12 January.

Montgomery was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the north-west Missouri town of Skidmore in December 2004.

She used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and then cut the baby girl from the womb with a kitchen knife, authorities said. Montgomery took the child with her and attempted to pass the girl off as her own, prosecutors said.

Montgomery’s legal team have argued that she has serious mental illnesses. One of her lawyers, Sandra Babcock, said in an earlier statement: “Given the severity of Mrs Montgomery’s mental illness, the sexual and physical torture she endured throughout her life, and the connection between her trauma and the facts of her crime, we appeal to President Trump to grant her mercy and commute her sentence to life imprisonment.”

Biden opposes the death penalty and his spokesman, TJ Ducklo, has said he would work to end its use. But Biden has not said whether he will halt federal executions after he takes office 20 January.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/raelynns-fuberal

Speak of the Devil presents The Year the Music Dies Official Release Party! Darren Deicide's Digital 7-Inch will be publicly available on New Year’s Eve 2020. Due to the pandemic, an in person release party is out of the question, so we are premiering an exclusive, advanced listening of both tracks from the digital 7-inch, “The Year the Music Dies” and “Outsider Blues” in this official release party!

Reverend Campbell and Reverend Darren Deicide will be chewing the fat & imbibing the devil's water while exploring his discography, taking live calls, and even giving away prizes! (Call in details will be announced live on air.)

Official Release Party Playlist:

21:03 ‘Devil Woman Blues’, Back from the Dead: The Harsimus Sessions, 2015

42:00 ‘Outsider Blues’, The Year the Music Dies Digital 7-Inch, 2020

1:00:20 ‘The Cocaine Song’, The Jersey Devil Is Here, 2008

1:21:46 ‘The Year the Music Dies’, The Year the Music Dies Digital 7-Inch, 2020

You can learn more about the Digital 7-Inch release here: https://reverendcampbell.com/the-year-the-music-dies/

https://youtu.be/Q8nbMo33yc0

1. The Devil's Advocate

Time Stamp: 21:30

Balance in Satanism

Stop comparing yourself to others

Living within your means financially

Debate the true cost of making money

Time spent making it vs. time spent enjoying it

Learn how to be true to yourself

You must first know yourself

Own your faults and strengths

Acknowledge The Balance Factor in and out of the ritual chamber

You don’t have to step on other’s necks in order to rise professionally or socially

2. Infernal Informant

Time Stamp: 41:31

A Stinging Setback in California Is a Warning for Democrats in 2022

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o2aFOz6J6kXJVRX840ywmwiVbmNPy9h4MMpqr58QIU0/edit#heading=h.1e5qeyx5p3ju

Two years ago, Democrats celebrated a sweep of seven Republican-held congressional seats in California as evidence of the party’s growing ability to compete in swing districts here and across the nation.

But this year, Republicans snatched back four of those seats even as Joseph R. Biden Jr. swamped President Trump in California. The losses stunned Democrats and contributed to the razor-thin margin the party will hold in the House of Representatives this January.

The turnaround is testimony to how competitive the seats are, particularly in Orange County, once a bastion of conservative Republicanism that has been moving steadily Democratic over the past 20 years.

But by any measure, the results were a setback for Democrats in this state and nationally, signaling the steep obstacles they will face in 2022 competing in the predominantly suburban swing districts that fueled their takeover of the House in 2018.

The Democrats’ losses came for a number of reasons, including forces particular to California and the complications of campaigning during a pandemic. But as much as anything, they reflected the potency of Republican attacks, some false or exaggerated, that Democrats were the party of socialism, defunding the police and abolishing private health insurance.

The attacks — led in no small part by Mr. Trump as a central part of his re-election strategy — came at a time when parts of California were swept by street protests against police abuses, some of which turned into glass-shattering bouts of looting and confrontations with law enforcement that were heavily covered on local television.

“Republicans hung around Democrats’ necks that we are all socialist or communist and we all wanted to defund the police,” said Harley Rouda, a Democrat from Orange County who was defeated by Michelle Steel, a Republican member of the Orange County board of supervisors. “In my opinion, we as a party did a less than adequate job in refuting that narrative. We won in 2018 and took the House back because of people like me — moderates — flipping radical Republican seats.”

Republicans said that attempts by Democrats to portray themselves as moderates were undercut by a shift of the party to the left and by the demonstrations.

“It was incredibly easy for us to draw contrasts,” said Jessica Millan Patterson, the leader of the California Republican Party. She said the protests “were happening all over. It looked like a war zone.”

For all that, election outcomes are the result of many factors — and that was particularly the case in a campaign that played out against a deadly pandemic and with such a polarizing figure as Mr. Trump dominating the political debate.

Democrats said they were also hurt by a national policy, set by the party, to avoid door-to-door canvassing during the pandemic. Presumably, that will not be a factor in 2022.

“The No. 1 issue in our campaign is we didn’t canvass,” said Representative T.J. Cox, a Democrat who represents the San Joaquin Valley and lost to David Valadao, the Republican he unseated in 2018. “We didn’t do the door-to-door.” He said it was like playing for a football team that had been told “they can’t pass.”

California’s often lurching effort to combat Covid-19 ...

1. The Devil's Advocate

Time Stamp: 8:43

Is Meritocracy and Might is Right a Satanic Pipe Dream?

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Definition: a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit

We live in a quid Pro Quo society. My time in the Military showed me that it was more important who you know than what you can do, and the corporate sector is no different.

Our president put his family in positions of authority, not because of their merit, but because of their relations. 

If you suck up to your managers or leaders, you are more likely to be promoted. 

Promotions do not always go to the most qualified, but rather the most noticed or connected

What happens if merit is granted to those we directly oppose? Islamic-Juedeo-Christians. Is that the form of meritocracy we claim to champion?

If not, then meritocracy is only based on the Satanic Good and Evil dichotomy. Meritocracy is only good if it works in my favor, regardless if I actually deserve it.

Where does lesser magic come into it? If you ‘game the system’ through Lesser Magic, do you truly merit the promotion or praise?

We traditionally speak of terms like meritocracy and might is right in a favorable light, until it’s the ‘other’ in a position of exercising that authority or privilege. (e.g. millennials, the far left, the far right, etc.)

Is might simply mass influence and/or cunning rather than physical dominance?

Does it all depend on the modern accepted norms in a society? If so, does it have any actual relevance if it’s so malleable?

2. Infernal Informant

Time Stamp: 27:34

He may have found the key to the origins of life. So why have so few heard of him?

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/12/he-may-have-found-the-key-to-origins-of-life-tibor-ganti-chemoton/

WHEN BIOLOGIST TIBOR Gánti died on April 15, 2009, at the age of 75, he was far from a household name. Much of his career had been spent behind the Iron Curtain that divided Europe for decades, hindering an exchange of ideas.

But if Gánti’s theories had been more widely known during the communist era, he might now be acclaimed as one of the most innovative biologists of the 20th century. That’s because he devised a model of the simplest possible living organism, which he called the chemoton, that points to an exciting explanation for how life on Earth began.

The origin of life is one of science’s most perplexing mysteries, partly because it is several mysteries in one. What was Earth like when it formed? What gases made up the air? Of the thousands of chemicals that living cells now use, which ones are essential—and when did those must-have substances arise?

Perhaps the hardest question is the simplest: What was the first organism?

For scientists attempting to re-create the spark of life, the chemoton offers an attractive target for experiments. If non-living chemicals can be made to self-assemble into a chemoton, that reveals a pathway by which life could have formed from scratch. Even now, some research groups are edging startlingly close to this model.

And for astrobiologists interested in life beyond our planet, the chemoton offers a universal definition of life, one not tied to specific chemicals like DNA, but instead to an overall organizational model.

“I think Gánti has thought deeper about the fundamentals of life than anybody else I know,” says biologist Eörs Szathmáry of the Centre for Ecological Research in Tihany, Hungary.

There is no agreed scientific definition of life, though not for want of trying: A 2012 paper identified 123 published definitions. It’s challenging to write one that encompasses all life but that excludes everything non-living with life-like attributes, such as fire and cars. Many definitions say that living things can reproduce. But a rabbit, or a human,

1. The Devil's Advocate

Time Stamp: 5:52

Letters from the Devil Cover

Incantations -Letters From The Devil; March 29, 1970

https://amzn.to/2WcNl0k

Incantations are the witches way of calling out to the elements to bestow their blessings upon her.

Incantation is a series of words strung together soa s to form a rhythmic pattern

The most effective incantations - those that insure success - are the ones composed either by the witch or warlock themself, to be used by the person it was written for.

Must be written as specifically as possible toward the desire

Emotion and sincerity count more than the specific words

Most famous is from Shakespeare's Macbeth: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.Cool it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good.

Vivid mental and/or pictorial imagery is important as well

Others dont need to understand it and it may help if they don't, adding to the exoticism of the incantation, like a latin catholic ritual

2. Infernal Informant

Time Stamp: 18:58

Mayhem in Washington, DC, as Trump supporters, opponents clash; at least 4 stabbed, 23 arrested

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-supporters-rally-dc-after-supreme-court-delivers-defeat-president

Chaos erupted in Washington, D.C., on Saturday night, hours after two pro-Trump rallies ended. Groups of Proud Boys and Antifa activists clashed under cover of darkness, with police repeatedly forcing them apart amid reports of brawls and stabbings.

At least four stabbings occurred near a bar that served as a gathering spot for the Proud Boys, according to the Washington Post. The victims were hospitalized, possibly with life-threatening injuries, a D.C. Fire Department spokesman told the newspaper.

It wasn't immediately clear which groups the attackers and victims were affiliated with, the report said.

As of 9 p.m. ET, 23 people had been arrested, including 10 charged with misdemeanor assault, six with assaulting a police officer and four will rioting, FOX 5 of Washington reported. One suspect was carrying an illegal stun gun.

At least two D.C. police officers were hospitalized with moderate injuries, the report added.

Images and videos on social media showed demonstrators exchanging barrages of fireworks, and police intervening on several downtown streets.

Several unverified videos on Twitter posted during the protests from the area appeared to show people bleeding being treated by police. 

An online post by Washington's WJLA-TV included video of one police officer being helped away by colleagues after being injured. 

Police separated the groups, shut down traffic in parts of downtown D.C. and sealed off Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House.

At one point, a group of Proud Boys allegedly ducked through an alleyway to sidestep police and confront Antifa, according to the Post Millennial's Matthew Miller.

Subsequent videos captured, the sounds of stun guns going off, fireworks and demonstrators coughing after reportedly inhaling pepper spray. Despite aggressive and graphic language between both groups of protesters and counterprotesters, police appeared to quickly intervene and keep them apart in numerous videos.

Earlier Saturday, President Trump's backers descended on Washington to support the president, who has come up short in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

Wiith Trump flags and hats, and a few face masks, they gathered at Freedom Plaza near the White House chanting "Four More Years" and "Stop the Steal."

Around midday, Trump flew over the crowd as Marine One carried him from the White House for his trip to the Army-Navy football game at West Point, N.Y., according to The Associated Press.

"Wow!" the president tweeted before leaving the White House. "Thousands of people forming in Washington (D.C.) for Stop the Steal. Didn't know about this, but I'll be seeing them! #MAGA.

Speak of the Devil presents Never Have I Ever: Satanist Edition - Episode 001. This inaugural episode will feature Panelists Reverend Campbell, Witch Cimminnee Holt, Witch Doctor Troj, and 3 live chat Audience Assistants.

'Never Have I Ever' is the latest game show brought to life in the vein of 'Beelzebubblegum', 'Pseudo-Satanic Bingo', and 'The Tonight Show's True Confessions'. There will be audience participation and prizes to be won, so make sure you're live in chat for your chance to play!

You can learn more here: https://reverendcampbell.com/never-have-i-ever/

https://youtu.be/NaCRzOhpojQ

1. The Devil's Advocate

Time Stamp: 5:58

Are Satanists Evil?

Meriam-Webster's Definitions:

morally reprehensible : SINFUL, WICKED

arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct

causing discomfort or repulsion : OFFENSIVE

DISAGREEABLE

causing harm : PERNICIOUS

marked by misfortune : UNLUCKY

The Concept of Evilhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concept-evil/

there are at least two concepts of evil: a broad concept and a narrow concept

The broad concept picks out any bad state of affairs, wrongful action, or character flaw.divided into two categories: natural evil and moral evil.

Natural evils are bad states of affairs which do not result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents.

moral evils do result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents.

the narrow concept of evil picks out only the most morally despicable sorts of actions, characters, events, etc.

Since the narrow concept of evil involves moral condemnation, it is appropriately ascribed only to moral agents and their actions.

Evil in this narrower sense is more often meant when the term ‘evil’ is used in contemporary moral, political, and legal contexts.

Nietzsche argues that the concept of evil arose from the negative emotions of envy, hatred, and resentment. He contends that the powerless and weak created the concept of evil to take revenge against their oppressors.

The concepts of good and evil contribute to an unhealthy view of life which judges relief from suffering as more valuable than creative self-expression and accomplishment.

For this reason Nietzsche believes that we should seek to move beyond judgements of good and evil

Satanic Definition:

“...anything resulting in physical or mental gratification was defined as ‘evil’—thus assuring a lifetime of unwarranted guilt for everyone! So, if ‘evil’ they have named us, evil we are—and so what! The Satanic Age is upon us! Why not take advantage of it and LIVE!*” *(evil reversed)‒Hell, The Devil, And How To Sell Your Soul; The Satanic Bible p.55; Anton Szandor LaVey 

What is the nature of evil?

Perspective: good is what you like, bad is what you don’t like

Because we argue you can’t change the definition of satanism as codified by Anton Szandor LaVey, can we redefine evil?

What does it mean to be evil?

To act in your own self interest. Sometimes others can benefit, sometimes they don’t.

Is evil a bad thing?

It is necessary for survival. Therefore, how can it be a bad thing?

It is a reaction others have to your actions, not the result or motivations of your actions.

2. Infernal Informant

Time Stamp: 39:21

Leaked Photo Surfaces of Purported Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

https://www.thedebrief.org/leaked-photo-surfaces-of-purported-unidentified-aerial-phenomena/

The Debrief has learned of the leak of an unclassified photo, said to have been widely distributed in the Intelligence Community, which purportedly shows what the DoD has characterized as “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.”

On Wednesday, The Debrief reported on two classified intelligence reports issued by The Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF).

The Debrief learned of the existence of the photograph from a defense official who has been verified as being in a position to have access to the UAPTF intelligence reports. Additionally, the same two officials with the DoD, and one from the U.S. Intelligence community with whom we previously spoke, confirmed that the leaked image is the same photo provided in a 2018 intelligence position report issued by the UAPTF.

The photo itself is said to be considered “Unclassified and For Official Use Only,” however, because the image and accompanying report were shared on a secure Intelligence Community network, the officials we spoke with would only acknowledge it under strict conditions of anonymity. Prior to any agreement,

1. The Devil's Advocate

Time Stamp: 5:37

Satanism and Environmentalism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalism

is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the impact of changes to the environment on humans, animals, plants and non-living matter.

Divorce yourself from environmental philosophy in this discussion

For those who do engage politically, that's fine, this is a personal conversation though

We will only refer to environmentalism in the context of the individuals impact, as a Satanist

I have long been a proponent that the exertion of the Satanists will does not have to end at one's interpersonal relationships or home

Herr Doktor’s Pentagonal Revisionism: A Five-Point Programhttps://www.churchofsatan.com/pentagonal-revisionism/

Stratification - ...no more myth of “equality” for all...No one should be protected from the effects of his own stupidity.

anyone to live within a total environment of his or her choice - Privately owned, operated and controlled environments

This speaks to the Satanists need to reach beyond themselves in order to make these changes a reality, it will not happen on its own, and environmentalism is the key to make these things happen

The downside is that as we can divorce the socio-political SJW style messaging, not many others can. So optics will be an issue with anyone who supports environmentalism

It includes but is not limited to concepts such as a land ethic, environmental ethics, biodiversity, ecology, and the biophilia hypothesis figure predominantly.

I would argue that all of these concepts support Satanic drives for our future.

Having sustainable access to water globally reduces military conflict and migration. If you think of the environment and our engagement with it in the terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, physiological needs are the foundation. Food, water, etc. That is the essential result of environmentalism

We cannot have impacts over our own lives until we can sustain our lives

The fundamental core of the individual Satanists understanding is that we are carnal animals, like other animals on this planet. 

Self care is an indirect relation to environmental care

It’s not about sacrificing yourself for the planet, it's about finding a way for you to thrive in the environment

The world will be here even if we aren't, but if we want to exist, we have to behave in ways that allow us to continue existing

In general terms, environmentalists advocate the sustainable management of resources, and the protection (and restoration, when necessary) of the natural environment through changes in public policy and individual behavior.

2. Infernal Informant

Time Stamp: 25:29

Iran newspaper: Strike Haifa if Israel killed scientist

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/29/iran-strike-haifa-israel-killed-scientist-440975

An opinion piece published by a hard-line Iranian newspaper on Sunday suggested Iran should attack the Israeli port city of Haifa if Israel carried out the killing of the scientist who founded the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program in the early 2000s.

Though the hard-line Kayhan newspaper has long argued for aggressive retaliation for operations targeting Iran, Sunday’s opinion piece went further, suggesting any assault be carried out in a way that destroys facilities and “also causes heavy human casualties.”

Israel, suspected of killing Iranian nuclear scientists over the past decade, has not commented on the brazen slaying of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. A military-style ambush Friday on the outskirts of Tehran reportedly saw a truck bomb explode and gunmen open fire on the scientist, killing him and a bodyguard.

U.S. intelligence agencies and U.N. nuclear inspectors have said the organized military nuclear...

I am very excited to share an announcement from my friend Darren Deicide, a fantastic touring musician and Reverend in the Church of Satan.

Don't forget to check out the Official Release Party here:

https://youtu.be/-lTt0X-MrYs

The Year the Music Dies Digital 7-Inch by Darren Deicide

Coming out on New Year's Eve of 2020, Darren Deicide will be releasing The Year the Music Dies digital 7-inch. 2 new original songs will be released to all major digital platforms - “The Year the Music Dies” and “Outsider Blues”. 

Musician and promoter Darren Deicide is a Church of Satan Reverend and one half of gothic-americana duo The Wedding Funeral. His outsider roots music acknowledges tradition while treading its own path through the contemporary world. “The Year the Music Dies” and “Outsider Blues” continue in this style while addressing recent events. To mark the end of “the year the music dies”, The Year the Music Dies digital 7-inch will premiere on New Year's Eve of 2020 and will be available on all major digital outlets, including Spotify, Apple iTunes, YouTube, and TikTok.  

About Darren Deicide 

"If any proof is needed that the power of blues is easier to find than ever, look no further than Darren Deicide," says The Aquarian Weekly. Musician and promoter, Church of Satan Reverend, and one half of The Wedding Funeral, Darren Deicide is the exponent of an eclectic blues-based sonic hybrid that, as described in one review, “brings more danger to rock n' roll with a single blues lick and a few moments of your time than most contemporary bands do over the course of a tour." 

Darren Deicide's internationally touring calendar has included notable artists that have spanned from The Members and Dead Prez to Danny and the Juniors. He has played on Fox 5's "Good Day New York" as a featured artist on the "Make Music New York Festival". In addition he has been featured at New York City’s Webster Hall, Bowling Green's "Black Swamp Arts Festival", Louisville’s "Good Folk Fest", Washington's "Festival in the Borough", and Hartford's "Hope Out Loud Festival". He has worked with award-winning director Gabriel Haze and reborn doll artist/model Marilyn Mansfield on his premiere music video "The Cocaine Song". In 2010, Darren Deicide was integral to the revival and salvation of the Historic Jersey City's Harsimus Cemetery when, in conjunction with its board of trustees, he organized its first music show since abandonment. Since then, he has released a joint project with them entitled Back from the Dead: The Harsimus Sessions, a set of live video sessions that takes place in the cemetery. Darren Deicide has also represented the Church of Satan in international, national, and independent press. In 2016, he debuted The Wedding Funeral, his new gothic-americana duo with Ethel Lynn Oxide. On New Year’s Eve 2020, he will be debuting his first digital 7-inch including 2 new songs, “The Year the Music Dies” and “Outsider Blues”.  

Homepage: http://darrendeicide.com Email: [email protected]

1. The Devil's Advocate

Time Stamp: 5:37

9sense Letters: ‘Anton was just an atheist.’

I would like to know how I should respond to anyone who says Anton was just an atheist playing dress up. Go along with it and patronize them or defend it?

Satanism is an atheistic religion

Herr Doktor was a magician

Reframe atheist to itheist

There is no God, hence no Devil

2. Infernal Informant

Time Stamp: 25:10

Michigan House speaker floats possibility of 'constitutional crisis'

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/22/michigan-house-speaker-floats-possibility-constitutional-crisis/6381960002/

The Board of State Canvassers meets Monday to consider certifying Michigan's statewide election results, including President-elect Joe Biden's 154,000-vote victory. But top Republican Party leaders have asked the board to delay certification in a bid to investigate "anomalies and irregularities" they claim occurred in the election.

The board features two Republicans and two Democrats. Many legal experts believe the panel has a duty, under Michigan law, to certify the results.

"If there were to be a 2-2 split on the State Board of Canvassers, it would then go to the Michigan Supreme Court to determine what their response would be, what their order would be," Chatfield, R-Levering said on "Fox & Friends" Sunday. "If they didn't have an order that it be certified, well now we have a constitutional crisis in the state of Michigan. It's never occurred before."

"The Board of State Canvassers participates in a very straightforward and perfunctory process," John Pirich, a longtime elections attorney in Michigan, said in the groups' press release. "Auditing the election is not within its scope of duties; the board is only responsible for reviewing the vote calculations and signing them.

"This process has nothing to do with discretion or the board members' political leanings."

If the board certifies the results, under state law, Michigan's 16 electoral votes will go Biden, who won the state by 14 times the margin Trump won by four years ago. The Electoral College meets on Dec. 14.

Many legal experts believe if the board doesn't certify the results, the courts will order the results be certified.

On Saturday, Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel asked the state to conduct a "full, transparent audit" before certification, noting other states like Georgia "have taken discretionary steps" in determining their results.

But Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Michigan's top elections official, has said an audit cannot be completed prior to the certification of results because "election officials do not have legal access to the documents needed to complete audits until the certification."

Still, Cox and McDaniel have argued it's possible to investigate some claims made in the affidavits and unbalanced poll books in Wayne County while still complying with the Dec. 8 deadline for certification. The states are required to certify by the "safe harbor" date or invite court or congressional intervention.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, tweeted Sunday that the election process "MUST be free of intimidation and threats."

"Whether the Board of Canvassers certifies our results tomorrow or decides to take the full time allowed by law to perform their duties, it's inappropriate for anyone to exert pressure on them," Shirkey said.

Chatfield, Shirkey and five other Michigan lawmakers traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with Trump on Friday. Chatfield and Shirkey said they used their time with the nation's leader to push for additional federal relief to help the state cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Sunday, the House speaker said Trump didn't ask lawmakers to interfere in the election certification process.

Chatfield said Republicans want to look into "irregularities" and these "report...