Tag: Trump trying to cheat his way to a second term

Trump and his GOP enablers are slandering American democracy

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UNDETERRED BY one defeat in court after another, President Trump is ratcheting up his effort to overturn last month’s election results. He is promoting a ludicrous lawsuit filed by Republican state attorneys general. He and his allies are pressing members of Congress to reject electoral votes from swing states he lost, using a rare parliamentary maneuver that should be reserved for serious allegations of electoral malfeasance. These efforts will fail as his lawsuits have failed, but not before further entrenching Mr. Trump’s election lies and doing more damage to Americans’ faith in their democracy.

Mr. Trump’s legal crusade was never credible, raising the question of whether he really thought he could win or whether he was challenging the results simply to delegitimize President-elect Joe Biden and keep his grip on Republicans. Latching on to Texas v. Pennsylvania, the last-ditch lawsuit from Republican state attorneys general, the Trump team admitted that it cannot show fraud but argued that the Supreme Court should block the electoral college from finalizing its votes anyway. Judges will reject this wild argument, too.

But instead of deescalating, as many of his enablers in Congress predicted he would have by now, Mr. Trump is abusing yet another legitimate channel to achieve the illegitimate goal of upending the election. The president cannot halt the formal casting of electoral college votes on Dec. 14. So, The Post reportedThursday, he and his allies are increasingly focused on persuading Republicans to object to the results when Congress meets to count the electoral college votes on Jan. 6. Continue reading.

In Blistering Retort, 4 Battleground States Tell Texas to Butt Out of Election

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The attorneys general of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia asked the Supreme Court to reject a lawsuit from Texas seeking to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victories.

WASHINGTON — In blistering language denouncing Republican efforts to subvert the election, the attorneys general for Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to reject a lawsuit that seeks to overturn the victories in those states by President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., calling the audacious effort an affront to democracy and the rule of law.

The lawsuit, filed by the Republican attorney general of Texas and backed by his G.O.P. colleagues in 17 other states and 106 Republican members of Congress, represents the most coordinated, politicized attempt to overturn the will of the voters in recent American history. President Trump has asked to intervene in the lawsuit as well in hopes that the Supreme Court will hand him a second term he decisively lost.

The suit is the latest in a spectacularly unsuccessful legal effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results, with cases so lacking in evidence that judges at all levels have mocked or condemned them as without merit. Legal experts have derided this latest suit as well, which makes the audacious claim, at odds with ordinary principles of federalism, that the Supreme Court should investigate and override the election systems of four states at the behest of a fifth. Continue reading.

With Texas AG facing federal probe, lawsuit to help Trump comes amid whispers of pardons

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is reportedly the subject of an FBI probe.

The Texas politician who filed the Supreme Court election challenge that President Donald Trump touted as “the big one” may have good reason to curry favor with the White House at this moment.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took the lead in the long-shot legal bidto overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat just two weeks after reports surfaced that he is the subject of an FBI investigation into allegations he abused his office to benefit a wealthy donor — a thorny problem Trump could eliminate with a presidential pardon.

Paxton and a group of Republican state attorneys general met with the president at the White House on Thursday, days after filing the case that now shoulders Trump’s hopes of holding onto his job for another term. Paxton’s attorney, Philip H. Hilder, declined to comment on the nature of Paxton’s discussions with the president. 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.

Pennsylvania AG blasts Texas election suit as ‘seditious abuse’ of judicial process

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Pennsylvania’s attorney general on Thursday called Texas’s bid to invalidate the election results of Pennsylvania and three other battleground states a “seditious abuse of the judicial process.” 

The fiery Supreme Court brief from state Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D), which urged the justices to “send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated,” came as battle lines hardened in the unprecedented and long-shot legal dispute.

Texas on Monday filed a petition to the Supreme Court seeking to stop presidential electors in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin from finalizing President-elect Joe Biden‘s victory. Continue reading.

Federal judge reminds Sydney Powell how US elections work in yet another blow to ‘kraken’ conspiracy suits

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Things are not going well for President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Sydney Powell after a federal judge on Wednesday reminded her of how elections work in the United States.

In a 45-page ruling on Powell’s lawsuit in Wisconsin, U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper reminded Powell that federal judges do not appoint the President of the United States, according to Law & Crime.

“Federal judges do not appoint the president in this country,” Pepper wrote. “One wonders why the plaintiffs came to federal court and asked a federal judge to do so. After a week of sometimes odd and often harried litigation, the court is no closer to answering the ‘why.’ But this federal court has no authority or jurisdiction to grant the relief the remaining plaintiff seeks.” Continue reading.

Trump pressures congressional Republicans to help in his fight to overturn the election

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President Trump is shifting his focus to Congress after the courts roundly rejected his bid to overturn the results of the election, pressuring congressional Republicans into taking a final stand to keep him in power.

Trump’s push is part of a multipronged approach as he also seeks to lobby state lawmakers and officials to give him cover for his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, as well as rally support for a last-gasp legal challenge in the Supreme Court that election law experts almost universally dismiss.

The president has been calling Republicans, imploring them to keep fighting and more loudly proclaim the election was stolen while pressing them on what they plan to do. He spoke to Arizona GOP Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, on Wednesday, and is meeting Thursday at the White House with several state attorneys general. Meanwhile, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer and point man in the legal fight, has been making similar calls from the hospital, where he is being treated for covid-19. Continue reading.

Here’s how Trump undermined Texas’ Hail Mary election lawsuit with a single tweet: law professor

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton this week sued four key battleground states lost by President Donald Trump in the hopes of overturning the 2020 presidential election.

Legal experts have picked apart the lawsuit and have said it stands little chance of even being heard by the United States Supreme Court, let alone succeeding.

And according to University of Texas School of Law professor Stephen Vladeck, Trump may have further undermined an already-shaky case with a tweet that he posted on Wednesday morning. Continue reading.

Harvard Law Professor Hits Donald Trump With The Cold Truth: ‘You Are A Loser’

“You’ve got to move on,” Laurence Tribe told the president.

Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe on Tuesday condemned President Donald Trump’s futile bid to overturn the 2020 election result.

“Mr. Trump, you have lost,” Tribe said on CNN’s “Outfront” after the Supreme Court dismissed a Republican attempt to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s win in the state.

“You’ve got to move on,” the commentator continued, noting that the United States needs to focus on things like the coronavirus pandemic and national security, not litigating the election. Continue reading.

Stop The Steal’ Protests Are Getting Smaller — And More Violent

Right-wing demonstrations protesting the November election results on Donald Trump’s behalf began winding down in numbers this weekend—but decidedly picked up intensity in the violence and threatening rhetoric that have accompanied them all this month, thanks mainly to the presence of armed paramilitary groups such as the Proud Boys and various militia groups.

The pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” protests seemed to lose some momentum this week, with just over a dozen such rallies recorded. However, what they lacked in numbers they made up for in ugliness: A demonstration in Olympia, Washington, on Saturday turned into a running series of brawls, culminating in gunfire, though no one was seriously injured. And in Michigan, a couple dozen armed protesters showed up at the home of the secretary of state during the evening as she was finishing up Christmas decorations and shouted threats at her and her family.

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED), the total number of demonstrations, including those against COVID-19 pandemic health measures, declined this week. The majority of protests were Stop the Steal events, though both the numbers of the rallies and the numbers of participants declined sharply. Continue reading.