Tag: sore loser Trump

Here’s what happened when a Georgia lawmaker scrutinized the Trump campaign’s list of allegedly illegal votes

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When Georgia state Rep. Bee Nguyen (D) reviewed a list of voters who President Trump’s campaign claimed cast illegal ballots in the state, three names caught her eye: two friends and a constituent.

For days, Nguyen pored over public records, spoke with voters by phone and even knocked on doors in person to vet the Trump list. She found that it included dozens of voters who were eligible to vote in Georgia — along with their full names and home addresses.

On Thursday, when a data analyst who compiled the list told a panel of state lawmakers that it proved thousands of voters cast ballots in Georgia who should not have, Nguyen was ready. 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.

Living people fire back at Republican fraud claims in error-ridden list of ‘dead voters’

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Conservative advocate Meshawn Maddock found herself at the center of controversy after highlighting a bogus voter fraud claim alleging that deceased voters had cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election. Like an overwhelming number of other Trump supporters, instead of verifying the validity of her claims, she aired her grievances on social media and left the public to do their own research. 

According to the local news outlet Bridge Michigan, Maddock released a list of more than 150 names of voters. It also publicized the addresses of the voters Maddock claimed were dead. According to Maddock, her list derived from a larger file that contained more than 2,000 names of people she claimed “voted in Wayne County by absentee ballot that are CONFIRMED deceased,”

It did not take long for social media users to fire back at Maddock. The outcome is no different than the frivolous post-election lawsuits being filed in courts across the country. Social media users quickly realized the problem with the list of names she released: many of the voters were, in fact, alive. Viewers also noted that some of the residential locations Maddock claimed were in Wayne County were actually in Oakland County. 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.

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.

Even in Defeat, Trump Tightens Grip on State G.O.P. Lawmakers

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In Pennsylvania, the president’s false claims of a rigged vote may inflame the party base for years to come. One lawmaker said that refusing to back up his assertions would “get my house bombed.”

Last week, allies of President Trump accused Republican leaders in Pennsylvania of being “cowards” and “liars” and of letting America down.

Mr. Trump himself called top Republicans in the General Assembly in his crusade to twist the arms of officials in several states and reverse an election he lost. The Pennsylvania lawmakers told the president they had no power to convene a special session to address his grievances.

But they also rewarded his efforts: On Friday, the State House speaker and majority leader joined hard-right colleagues — whom they had earlier resisted — and called on Congress to reject Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 81,000-vote victory in Pennsylvania. Continue reading.

Trump thought courts were key to winning. Judges disagreed.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his allies say their lawsuits aimed at subverting the 2020 election and reversing his loss to Joe Biden would be substantiated, if only judges were allowed to hear the cases.

There is a central flaw in the argument. Judges have heard the cases and have been among the harshest critics of the legal arguments put forth by Trump’s legal team, often dismissing them with scathing language of repudiation.

This has been true whether the judge has been appointed by a Democrat or a Republican, including those named by Trump himself. Continue reading.

Federal judge rejects Michigan Republicans’ effort to decertify election results

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A federal judge on Monday rejected Michigan Republicans’ effort to have their state’s election results decertified.

Judge Linda Parker denied a request for an injunction submitted by a group of President Trump‘s electors against state officials, finding that their lawsuit is “far from likely to succeed in this matter.”

“In fact, this lawsuit seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek—as much of that relief is beyond the power of this Court—and more about the impact of their allegations on People’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government,” Parker wrote in her 36-page decision. “Plaintiffs ask this Court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established to challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters.  This, the Court cannot, and will not, do.”  Continue reading.

‘Part of the election coup’: Fox News viewers blow up at Chris Wallace for calling Biden ‘president-elect’

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Fox News viewers expressed outrage at Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace on Sunday after he repeatedly insisted that Joe Biden is the rightful president-elect.

Wallace made the remarks during an interview with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who referred to Biden as a former vice president.

“He’s president-elect,” Wallace told Azar multiple times.

On Twitter, some Fox News viewers said that Wallace was part of an “election coup.” Others falsely argued that Wallace was wrong because there has not yet been meeting of the Electoral College, where electors will cast their votes for president. Continue reading.

Trump touts misleading video as ‘proof’ of Georgia voter fraud

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“I don’t run to see if people are walking in with suitcases and putting them under a table with a black robe around it. I don’t do that. That’s up to your government here.”

— President Trump, during a campaign rally in Valdosta, Ga., Dec. 5, 2020

President Trump continued to make baseless accusations of voter fraud on Saturday night, many of which we have already fact-checked. During a campaign rally for GOP senators facing runoff elections in January, he pushed a video he called “proof” of Georgia poll workers illegally stuffing and counting ballots at the State Farm Arena on Election Day. That’s where absentee and military ballots were counted in the state.

The minute-long clip he references — which was uploaded to Trump’s personal YouTube account from an OAN broadcast — is part of longer testimony presented by Trump’s legal team at a hearing Thursday in Georgia.

The footage, which was referenced directly at the rally in support of incumbent Sens. David Purdue (R-Ga.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), was part of a litany of falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims surrounding Trump’s election loss. Continue reading.