Tag: 2020 election

The first big test of Trump’s attempt to steal the electoral college was a failure

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Local Republicans dipped their toe into it and, amid widespread backlash, pulled back

His legal challenges to overturn election results have gone nowhere, so President Trump has floated another way to get around his loss: persuade Republican legislatures in swing states to change state law on how to appoint electors and give them to him rather than President-elect Joe Biden.

It’s a legally dubious long shot. Pulling it off would depend on a chain reaction of events that start with local election officials all raising the specter of election chaos, which is exactly what happened in Detroit on Tuesday night before it fizzled

Two Republican election officials in Detroit initially refused to certify the largely Black county’s election results. After blowback, they reversed themselves. Continue reading.

Duluth airport refused to host Pence event after Trump rally flouted safety rules

After Trump event flouted safety rules, vice president had to move to Hibbing. 

DULUTH – Local airport officials told Vice President Mike Pence he could not host a campaign event on their premises in late October after President Donald Trump flouted state health guidelines while holding a rally there weeks earlier.

In an Oct. 22 e-mail to the Duluth Airport Authority’s (DAA’s) seven-person board of directors, the airport’s executive director said he’d learned that Pence planned to host a rally in Duluth on Oct. 26.

“The Trump Campaign is in breach of their previous agreement with the DAA on a couple of significant items,” Tom Werner wrote. “Therefore, I will not allow the event to take place at our airports.” Continue reading.

Georgia secretary of state: Witnesses heard Lindsey Graham urge me to ‘throw out’ absentee ballots

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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a conservative, has been coming under fire from fellow Republicans who are furious that President-elect Joe Biden won Georgia in the 2020 presidential election. One of those Republicans is Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. And according to Raffensperger, Graham demanded to know why he isn’t doing more to get absentee ballots thrown out. Graham has claimed that Raffensperger mischaracterized their conversation, but the Georgia secretary of state says that two members of his staff can back him up.

Raffensperger told CBS News, “Sen. Graham implied for us to audit the envelopes and then throw out the ballots for counties who had the highest frequency error of signatures.” Graham, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, denies telling Raffensperger that. But at a press conference this week, Raffensperger told reporters, “That’s just ridiculous. If he feels threatened by that conversation, he’s got a problem. I actually thought it was a good conversation.”

Raffensperger told the Wall Street Journal that two staff members who heard his phone conversation with Graham can back up his account of the senator’s statements. Continue reading.

Trump allies fear Giuliani may be conning the president into a doomed legal fight: report

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No attorney has done more to fight the results of the 2020 presidential election than former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has been claiming that President Donald Trump — not President-elect Joe Biden — is the real winner. He says Trump was deprived of a victory by rampant voter fraud, which Giuliani has offered no credible proof of. The fees that Giuliani charges as Trump’s personal attorney are not cheap, and according to New York Times reporters Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman, Giuliani recently asked for $20,000 per day.

Schmidt and Haberman report, “The request stirred opposition from some of Mr. Trump’s aides and advisers, who appear to have ruled out paying that much…. A $20,000-a-day rate would have made Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who has been Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer for several years, among the most highly compensated attorneys anywhere.”

Giuliani, however, flatly denies asking for that amount. The Trump attorney told the Times, “I never asked for $20,000. The arrangement is, we’ll work it out at the end.” And Giuliani insists that anyone who told the Times that he wanted $20,000 per day “is a liar, a complete liar.” Continue reading.

Democratic anger rises over Trump obstacles to Biden transition

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Democrats and public health officials are furious at President Trump for obstructing President-elect Joe Biden’s transition to the White House, warning that the Trump administration is endangering lives and threatening national security by refusing to cooperate with the incoming administration. 

The president-elect has warned that “more people may die” because he’s been blocked from coordinating the coronavirus vaccine rollout and other public health measures with Trump’s team, which is moving ahead on its own.

Biden aides routinely point to the 9/11 Commission report to warn that national security is at risk as the president-elect continues to be shut out of government intelligence briefings. The 9/11 report determined that the drawn out legal battle between former President George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election left a temporary power vacuum that al Qaeda was able to exploit in planning its terror attack against the U.S. Continue reading.

Vegas may be betting on a post-presidential divorce, but Melania Trump seems all in for her husband.

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Bookies started taking bets on Election Day as gamblers considered a question on many people’s minds: Will Melania Trump dump her husband when he is no longer president?

Soon after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election, Jimmy Kimmel even made a spoof of “The Bachelorette.” In it, a woman steps out of a limo to meet a roomful of nervous suitors. The camera pans from her stiletto heel, up her sparkly gown, to her familiar face — it’s Melania Trump! (Her head superimposed on the body of the actual Bachelorette.)

Is Melania Trump really looking forward to being rid of President Trump as much as tens of millions of Americans are? Or is it just another fantasy that Trump critics are projecting on a first lady who has succeeded in shrouding her true self in mystery? Continue reading.

Republicans start turning the page on Trump era

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Top Republicans are starting to acknowledge publicly that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States, turning the page on the Trump era.

Congressional Republicans and even a high-ranking White House official have, in recent days, referred to the upcoming change in administration.

National security adviser Robert O’Brien promised a “professional transition” of power, saying it looks like Biden has won the election. Continue reading.

The longer Republicans cower to Trump, the more damage they do to democracy

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IN AN ordinary time, none of these comments from Republican officials would be noteworthy. “I expect Joe Biden to be the next president of the United States,” Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Sunday. President Trump has every right to challenge the results in court, said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, but “Joe Biden is the president-elect.” In Michigan, state Sen. Ruth Johnson said that “I don’t believe that enough votes are in question in Michigan to change the outcome, so I think we need to move forward.” In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said, “People are just going to have to accept the results. . . . I’m a Republican. I believe in fair and secure elections.”

Unfortunately, the Republican Party’s national leadership now stands squarely against fair and secure elections — or accepting results, for that matter. Both Georgia GOP senators competing in runoff elections Jan. 5 called for Mr. Raffensperger’s resignation, while offering absolutely no evidence of misconduct. Mr. Trump called him a “RINO” (Republican in Name Only) — because he competently oversaw an election that Mr. Trump lost. Mr. Trump also threatened Mr. DeWine on Monday, suggesting he would stymie the governor’s 2022 reelection.

Republican so-called leaders in Congress continue to quail before this bullying, indulging Mr. Trump’s toxic lies about a stolen election. Privately they speak of the president as though he were a petulant toddler who can’t face the hard truth all at once; or they argue that so many voters are suspicious of the results that Mr. Trump should have time to challenge them, unsuccessfully, in court. But why are so many people suspicious in the first place? Because Mr. Trump has been sowing doubt about the nation’s democratic institutions since before the election, and his enablers excuse and amplify his lies. As Mr. Trump has lost case after case in court since Election Day, his claims that the vote was rigged have only gotten more brazen. Continue reading.

Ga. secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude ballots

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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), who he said questioned the validity of legally cast absentee ballots, in an effort to reverse President Trump’s narrow loss in the state.

In a wide-ranging interview about the election, Raffensperger expressed exasperation over a string of baseless allegations coming from Trump and his allies about the integrity of the Georgia results, including claims that Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based manufacturer of Georgia’s voting machines, is a “leftist” company with ties to Venezuela that engineered thousands of Trump votes to be left out of the count.

The atmosphere has grown so contentious, Raffensperger said, that he and his wife, Tricia, have received death threats in recent days, including a text to him that read: “You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it.” Continue reading.

Giuliani’s fantasy parade of false voter-fraud claims

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In interviews with sympathetic Fox News hosts, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani has made several wild claims alleging that election fraud and malfeasance was responsible for Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. His claims have been echoed in weekend tweets by President Trump, accusing a software company of somehow manipulating the vote in favor of Biden. These presidential tweets have been flagged by Twitter as misleading.

Moreover, this nonsense has already been debunked by Trump’s own government. In a statement issued Nov. 12, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, and partners such as the National Association of Secretaries of State declared: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

That sentence was posted in boldface, just to make it clear. The statement added: “While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too. When you have questions, turn to elections officials as trusted voices as they administer elections.” Continue reading.