Tag: Trump fake voter fraud crisis

Right-Wing Media Figures Still Refuse To Admit Biden Won

The new era of competition between Fox News and its would-be rivals, Newsmax and One America News Network, appears to be fueling an unwillingness by commentators at all three networks to accurately describe Joe Biden as the president-elect, even after the Electoral College met this week.

Since losing the election, President Donald Trump has increasingly trained his criticism on Fox News. He has ranted that his personal propaganda outlet has proven insufficiently supportive of his illegitimate effort to overturn the results based on phony voter fraud claims, urging his supporters to instead watch Newsmax or OAN. Fox has aggressively course-corrected in hopes of maintaining its audience, while the smaller networks have lashed out at the dominant player in hopes of ripping away more of its viewers.

Overnight, for instance, OAN’s Pearson Sharp highlighted that his network “will officially not be calling Joe Biden the president-elect.” He went on to say that OAN is “the only broadcast news network out there with the integrity to report that this election isn’t over,” criticizing Fox, Breitbart.com, and Newsmax for having “caved.” Continue reading.

Legislative survey shows deep GOP divide on election

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Republican state legislators are torn between moving past an election that President Trump lost and fighting tooth and nail to get him a second term, even if that means calling for Congress to overturn the certified results of an election.

The Hill asked every Republican legislator in the country for their thoughts on the election, including whether they recognized President-elect Joe Bidenas the winner.

About half of the 200 or so Republican legislators who responded to The Hill acknowledged Biden as the winner, while about a quarter said they did not believe Trump had lost his election, or that Biden’s win was legitimate. Continue reading.

Top Republicans offer conflicting messages about Trump’s loss while campaigning in Georgia

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COLUMBUS, Ga. — When Vice President Pence took the stage here Thursday for a lunchtime rally with Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, he said that President Trump was still fighting to win reelection, even though the electoral college formalized Joe Biden’s victory Monday.

But in television ads airing across the state, allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are making a different argument: that Trump has lost the election, and Democrats could control Washington if they win these two seats on Jan. 5.

These very different messages highlight the conflict within the Republican Party about the best way to win an election that will determine control of the Senate. While Trump and his supporters continue to push baseless claims of voter fraud, McConnell’s allies have warned that Democrats would run rampant if they gain control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. Continue reading.

‘The ultimate flashpoint’: Former officials address fears Trump will refuse to leave the White House

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The presidential election is over and the Electoral College has affirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s win. However, President Donald Trump still refuses to acknowledge the results of the election and, to make matters worse, the latest reports suggest that he is even considering refusing to leave the White House on Inauguration Day. So how might the Biden administration proceed if this happens? 

According to Business Insider, it is a gray area that former Secret Service agents have been discussing. Since no United States president has ever had to be escorted out of the White House, there are many questions about how this might be done if the situation presents itself. According to a former DHS official who served under the Obama administration, this particular discussion has been a hot topic among former officials for the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security. Continue reading.

While Biden’s transition team has made it clear that trespassers would be removed, how does that work when the former president of the United States is the trespasser? The seemingly bizarre encounter would, no doubt, place many agents in a very awkward position. Continue reading.

Dominion Voting Systems fires back with legal action against Sidney Powell

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Dominion Voting Systems is now taking steps toward legal action against Sidney Powell.

Dominion and its voting machines have been at the center of several conspiracy theories and falsehoods surrounding the 2020 presidential election. Although President Donald Trump initially spread misinformation about mail-in voting, he and his allies began circulating falsehoods targeting Dominion voting machines as election results proved favorable for Biden.

Since then, Dominion Voting Systems claims it has been subjected to a “‘relentless and reckless disinformation’ campaign, led by Powell, Rudy Giuliani, other allies of President Donald Trump, and Trump himself,” according to Law & Crime. Continue reading.

Rep. Tom Emmer will attend Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration — but still won’t call him president-elect

Emmer, Klobuchar sparred over election outcome on Thursday. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer refused again Thursday to refer to Joe Biden as president-elect, days after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory and a week after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a GOP bid backed by Emmer to overturn it.

Making his first public comments since both developments, Emmer acknowledged the Electoral College’s recognition of Biden as the winner and said President Donald Trump’s options for challenging that outcome were “diminishing.”

But in a panel discussion with Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Emmer rebuffed attempts by moderator and CBS correspondent Major Garrett to refer to Biden as president-elect. Emmer instead said that Jan. 6, the date Congress will officially count the Electoral College’s votes, marks the end of the line. Continue reading.

How Geraldo Rivera, the sensationalist showman of ’80s TV, became the voice of election reason on Fox News

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The investigative reporter-turned-freeform celebrity is now a seasoned pundit delivering a firm message to Trump fans about the 2020 race: “It’s over.”

Geraldo Rivera thought he “would never work again” after hosting one of the highest-watched busts of all time in 1986, when he cracked open a vault belonging to gangster Al Capone on live television and it turned out to be empty.

The famously mustachioed Rivera has had several other acts since then. He hosted a tabloid talk show in the late 1980s and 1990s, where he got decked in the face by a chair during a scuffle involving white supremacists. He attempted to resurrect his once-serious journalism career by joining Fox News in 2001 as a war correspondent but was essentially booted out of Iraq in 2003 for divulging troop positions. He bravely tried the cha-cha on ABC’s “Dancing With The Stars” in 2016 — and was the first to be eliminated.

But now in 2020, at 77, Rivera might be playing the most important — and unexpected — role of his life, as a contrarian truth teller who has been pleading with President Trump, whom he considers a friend, and the president’s most passionate supporters to accept that their side lost the election. Continue reading.

Texas Outfit Linked To Assault Over ‘Voter Fraud’ Promotes Conspiracies And Violence

A former police captain was arrested and charged with assaulting an air conditioner repairman whom he falsely suspected of carrying 750,000 fraudulent ballots in his truck. The organization allegedly paying the former cop to prove supposed election fraud is led by a QAnon conspiracy theorist, and its Facebook page is filled with conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office stated on December 15 that it had arrested and charged former Houston Police Capt. Mark Anthony Aguirre “with Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.” The office stated:

According to Aguirre, he had been conducting surveillance on the victim for four days under a theory the victim was the mastermind of a giant fraud, and there were 750,000 fraudulent ballots in a truck he was driving. Instead, the victim turned out to be an innocent and ordinary air conditioner repairman.
Aguirre ran his SUV into the back of the truck to get the technician to stop and get out, according to the document. When the technician got out of the truck, Aguirre, pointed a handgun at the technician, forced him to the ground and put his knee on the man’s back – an image captured on the body-worn camera of a police officer.
Aguirre directed police to a parking lot nearby where another suspect, who has not been identified, took the truck. There were no ballots in the truck. It was filled with air conditioning parts and tools.

According to the district attorney’s office, Aguirre was working for the Liberty Center for God and Country and “never told police that he had been paid a total of $266,400 … with $211,400 of that amount being deposited into his account the day after the incident.” Continue reading.

‘These are not crazy people’: GOP defends its voter-fraud push, ignoring obvious perils

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The electoral college this week officially voted to make Joe Biden the next president of the United States. Multiple GOP senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, made statements recognizing Biden’s status as such. But on Wednesday, a GOP-led Senate committee pressed forward with a hearing on supposed irregularities in the election that multiple Republicans and witnesses attached to actual fraud.

And the message, repeatedly, was: Why not?

“This hearing is not dangerous,” Senate Homeland Security Committee and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in defending the proceedings. Johnson added: “I said its goal was to, quote, ‘resolve suspicions with full transparency and public awareness.’ What’s wrong with that?” Continue reading.

Senate GOP has accepted Biden’s win but continues to push Trump’s baseless fraud claims

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Senate Republicans may be acknowledging President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over President Trump, but the politically charged fight over Trump’s fallacious claims about voter fraud rages on — and threatens to overshadow legitimate efforts to safeguard future elections.

A Wednesday hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee became a forum for Republicans, led by its departing chairman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), to re-air Trump’s baseless case against the election results in swing states as the president cheered them on from a distance. Complaining that courts threw out Trump’s election lawsuits on mere “technicalities,” GOP senators and aligned witnesses warned that until their concerns were addressed, public trust in the security of the election process would not be restored.

There is no evidence of significant or widespread voter fraud, as the president and his allies continue to insist. Trump’s own attorney general has made that clear while the courts overwhelmingly have dismissed his campaign’s unprecedented effort to overturn Biden’s victory. Across more than 50 cases, at least 88 judges — including 39 appointed or nominated by Republicans — have turned down Trump’s legal challenges in procedural rulings or decisions on their merits. Continue reading.