This thing that’s happening? No one knows what to call it. Despotism? A soft coup? A temper tantrum? Part of the problem is that it is — in the words of former Trumper Chris Christie — “an absurdity.”
I can be of some use here. Words are my stock and trade.
This is a betrayal of our nation. That’s what we should call it. Continue reading.
An effort by President Trump and his allies in Congress to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election is tearing apart the Republican Party in a messy fight a few days before two critical special elections in Georgia that will determine the Senate majority in 2021.
Adding to the spectacle, The Washington Post on Sunday published a recording of an extraordinary hour-long conversation between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, in which the president pressured the state official to “find 11,780 votes” in order to make him the winner of Georgia’s electoral votes instead of Biden.
The published details of the recorded conversation heightened the sense of alarm among some Republican senators that Trump and his allies are trampling on the nation’s tradition of orderly post-election transitions of power. Continue reading.
President Trump’s extraordinary phone call with fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, in which he urged Georgia‘s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to overturn Trump‘s defeat, is not the first time Trump has tied an unfavorable election outcome to false claims of fraud.
Trump‘s latest efforts are part of a years-long pattern. But Trump’s baseless claims have been rebuked by many people, including Republicans and the judges he appointed to the bench.
Here are groups and individuals who have found no merit in Trump’s attacks on the election system: Continue reading.
UPDATED January 7, 2021, to show who actually voted to overthrow the 2020 election.
Here’s a list of individuals elected to Congress, who swore an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, who are now throwing their word aside to swear fealty to Donald Trump.
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.
Senate Republicans are sending a clear message to President Trump: The election is over and Joe Biden won.
While Trump is digging in and showing little sign of ending his public campaign despite a long losing streak in the courts, GOP senators — from leadership on down — are signaling they view the election result as settled and want to move on without a messy weeks-long fight.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) publicly congratulated Biden during a Senate floor speech, in his first public acknowledgement of the former vice president’s victory. Continue reading.
Krebs is likely to receive a warm welcome from Senate Democrats and possibly even some Republicans who thought his firing was a mistake.
Former CISA Director Christopher Krebs will testify before a Senate panel on Wednesday, his first return to Capitol Hill since being fired last month by President Donald Trump.
Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, announced that Krebs, who was axed for refuting the president’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, would appear at a potentially controversial hearing where committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) plans to probe the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
Witnesses called by Johnson, one of the president’s biggest congressional supporters, include former independent counsel Ken Starr and attorneys in key battleground states. Continue reading.
The Wisconsin Republican is holding a hearing on alleged election “irregularities” even after Biden secured an Electoral College victory.
Ron Johnson is embracing President Donald Trump as tightly as possible as he decides whether to run for reelection to a must-win Senate seat for Republicans.
Johnson, a steadfast Trump ally who has endeared himself to the president with his various investigative pursuits, is defending his approach, even as he faces a possible reelection campaign in a state that President-elect Joe Biden won in November. And Democrats are taking notice.
The Wisconsin Republican, who says he has not yet decided whether to seek a third term in 2022, has used his perch as the chairman of the Senate’s chief oversight body to investigate Trump’s political foes — from Hunter Biden to Hillary Clinton and the slew of Obama administration officials who launched the Russia probe — and is set to hold a hearing Wednesday on alleged “irregularities” in the election even as he recognizes Biden as the president-elect. Continue reading.
Republicans are planning one final showdown. They are almost certain to fail, but not before Vice President Mike Pence is thrust into having to declare President Trump the loser.
The Electoral College’s certification on Monday of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory left just one final venue for President Trump and his supporters to challenge the results of the 2020 election: a joint session of Congress in January.
Every four years, the House and Senate come together to formally tabulate the electoral votes and raise any final concerns about the results. Normally, it is a perfunctory confirmation of the Electoral College vote. But this year, some of the president’s most strident supporters are threatening to transform it into a messy last stand by objecting to the results.
They are all but certain to fail, but not before a potentially divisive spectacle on the floor of the House that could thrust Vice President Mike Pence into the politically perilous position of confirming that Mr. Trump lost. Here’s how the process works. Continue reading.
The campaign’s latest legal failures come as the Electoral College votes to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s win on Monday.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump had another brutal weekend in court, with the US Supreme Court and other judges across the country rejecting his latest efforts to overturn his loss to President-elect Joe Biden.
Trump and his allies have lost 59 times in court since Nov. 3, according to a running tally on Twitterfrom Marc Elias, the lawyer leading Democrats’ fight against the GOP’s post-election challenges. The Supreme Court’s one-paragraph rejection of Trump and Texas’ bid to invalidate more than 20 million votes on Friday night was just one of a string of fresh losses that the president has faced over the past 72 hours alone.
The odds that the justices would step in on the eve of Monday’s Electoral College vote to throw the presidential race into turmoil were slim to none. The justices stopped Texas’s unprecedented attempt to sue Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan — all states that Biden won — at the door. But judges ruled over the weekend in other, narrower legal fights that the president filed in recent weeks, and rejected those, too. Continue reading.
