Tag: Trump and GOP trying to steal the election

GOP Rep. Gohmert Openly Calls For Violence In The Streets After Losing In Court

At this point, Republicans might as well just open fire on Fort Sumter and be done with it. That’s the only way they could show more evidence of their “patriotism” and love for the Constitution. The only question is: Who’s going to be first? The whole right-of-center portion of the American political spectrum has fallen into a system where the selective pressure is all about being the most outrageous, the most extreme, the most willing to trample all the meaning of the American system into the mud while waving the symbols of that system overhead. It’s not a race to the bottom, because there is no bottom. But there is a point of no return, and Republicans have gone way, way past that point.

On Saturday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz set out to prove just that when he arranged a whole legion of Republican senators who intend to “reject the electors” from certain states. “Certain,” in this case, means those states that didn’t vote for Donald Trump. But Cruz’s play to regain some of that sweet Traitor Energy that’s been going to Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley isn’t even the slimiest play of the day.

Because after losing in court, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert is flat out calling for people to commit violence to overthrow democracy. Continue reading.

Pence seeks rejection of lawsuit that aimed to expand his power to overturn the election

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Vice President Pence asked a judge late Thursday to reject a lawsuit that aims to expand his power to use a congressional ceremony to overturn the presidential election, arguing that he is not the right person to sue over the issue.

The filing will come as a disappointment to supporters of President Trump, who hoped that Pence would attempt to reject some of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college votes and recognize votes for Trump instead when Congress meets next week to certify the November election.

The filing came in response to a lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) and a number of Republicans in Arizona, who argued that an 1887 law that governs how Congress certifies presidential elections is unconstitutional. The suit argues that the Constitution gives the vice president, in his role as president of the Senate, sole discretion to determine whether electors put forward by the states are valid. Continue reading.

House Republicans meet with Trump to discuss overturning election results

Trump loyalists are planning a last stand Jan. 6.

President Donald Trump huddled with a group of congressional Republicans at the White House on Monday, where they strategized over a last-ditch effort to overturn the election results next month, according to several members who attended the meeting.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) — who is spearheading the long-shot push to overturn the election results in Congress — organized the trio of White House meetings, which lasted over three hours and included roughly a dozen lawmakers. The group also met with Vice President Mike Pence, who will be presiding over the joint session of Congress when lawmakers officially certify the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, as well as members of Trump’s legal team.

“It was a back-and-forth concerning the planning and strategy for January the 6th,” Brooks said in a phone interview. Continue reading.

There is no middle ground between fact and fiction on the election results

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AS PRESIDENT Trump continues to lie about last month’s election, national Republican leaders are trying to stake out what they imagine as a middle ground: While Joe Biden is the president-elect, the 2020 election was marred by substantial fraud and election irregularities. In fact, this is also a lie, and their dishonesty damages U.S. democracy.

At a Wednesday Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) declared that it is “not sustainable” for a large proportion of Americans to believe the election results are illegitimate. He then set about encouraging this false belief by dignifying debunked attacks on the vote’s integrity. Mr. Johnson insisted that pro-Trump forces have raised “legitimate concerns” about “violations of election laws,” “fraudulent votes and ballot stuffing,” and “corruption of voting machines and software that might be programmed to add or switch votes.”

Former Trump election security chief Christopher Krebs told the panel that the election was highly secure and that attacks on local voting officials were deeply unfair. Yet Mr. Johnson trotted out Trump lawyers who alleged massive numbers of illegal votes and blamed losses in court on negligent judges refusing to look at their so-called evidence. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) declared that “the fraud happened.” Other GOP senators emphasized that their constituents thought the vote was rigged. The overall message, about perhaps the cleanest presidential election ever run in the United States: We cannot prove that fraud changed the outcome, but we cannot rule it out, and Americans should be angry regardless. Continue reading.

More than 100 House Republicans sign brief backing Texas lawsuit challenging election results

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More than 100 House Republicans on Thursday signed an amicus brief in support of the Texas lawsuit aimed at overturning the election results in four swing states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that handed Democrat Joe Biden the White House.

“This brief presents [our] concern as Members of Congress, shared by untold millions of their constituents, that the unconstitutional irregularities involved in the 2020 presidential election cast doubt upon its outcome and the integrity of the American system of elections,” states the brief signed by 106 GOP lawmakers.

Outgoing Republican Study Committee Chairman Mike Johnson (La.) — one of President Trump’s closest allies in the House, having served on his impeachment defense team — helped lead the effort to garner support from his GOP colleagues for the brief. Johnson is joining the GOP leadership team in the new Congress. Continue reading.

Calls for armed guards, ‘Army for Trump’ volunteers vex Minnesota election officials

New reports of private security job listings are being closely monitored. 

Calls for armed military veterans combined with a volunteer “Army for Trump” to descend on Minnesota polling places have created fresh anxieties for state law enforcement and elections officials already preparing for a major election in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cybersecurity and the corona­virus pandemic dominated preparations for the vote this year, but state and federal officials are now closely monitoring new reports of private security contractors advertising jobs that would — illegally — dispatch armed guards at Minnesota polling places or otherwise provide security for private companies in the event of post-election rioting.

Adding to those concerns, the Trump campaign has vowed to raise a 50,000-plus army of volunteer observers across an array of battleground states to monitor the voting. Raising fears of elections he says will be rigged, President Donald Trump, trailing in polls in Minnesota and other key battleground states, has called on his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen.” Continue reading.