Is Trump simply a sore loser
throwing a tantrum when he claims that he won by a lot, and that mail-in
ballots are massively fraudulent and so are the vote tabulations? Or are
these strategic moves?
We always tend to under-estimate Trump. We did
it in 2016. We're doing it again.
I’ve spent a couple of days
connecting dots between what GOP-majority state legislators and other state
actors are doing and saying, and what Trump, Giuliani, Graham, and Barr are
doing and saying. It doesn’t appear random or uncoordinated. My best guess is
that the mechanism they are mulling to negate Biden’s apparent win involves:
A) Getting SCOTUS on record
saying that only state legislatures, not state courts, have any say in not only
how elections are run, but that only those legislatures can decide anything
else, election-wise, such as when a completed vote has “failed,” and
B) With that ruling in hand,
persuading (if they need persuading) a handful of GOP-led state legislatures to
claim that the election for president in their states has "failed"
and they must therefore select a new slate of electors.
The reason that this gambit seems
at all plausible comes down to two pieces of law:
1) Article II, Section 1 of
the Constitution:
“Each state shall appoint, in
such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of
electors..."
2) A federal law, 3 U.S. Code
§ 2. Failure to make choice on prescribed day:
"Whenever any State has held
an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a
choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a
subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such State may
direct."
The above might look like
conspiracy theory. But it's all happening now in plain sight.
AG Barr has told his prosecutors
to seek out fraud, nationwide, even though there’s no evidence it’s happened. Trump
has fired Defense Secretary Esper, who balked when Trump wanted to invoke the
Insurrection Act to call in the military against demonstrators earlier in the
year (more about that later).
One case that looks trivial, even
moot, ties everything together: several GOP states’ AGs, including those from Texas,
Louisiana, and Ohio, have asked SCOTUS to immediately rule on
whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overstepped its authority when it extended
the deadline for acceptance of Pennsylvanians’ mailed ballots that are postmarked
by election day. Those AGs want SCOTUS to rule that only legislatures can make
that call.
It seems trivial because the handful of votes
would not change the outcome in Pennsylvania. But this isn’t about whether
those votes are counted. It’s about Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, and 3 U.S. Code § 2, noted above.
Let’s say that SCOTUS agrees that
the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overstepped, because only the state’s
legislature has any business deciding the terms of the election. Let’s further
assume that SCOTUS decides that nobody but the state’s legislature in any state
can judge any other aspect of the election (a real stretch, but that seems to
be what Giuliani, Barr, and the rest of the players are hoping).
In that event, if not just Pennsylvania’s
GOP-majority legislature, but any GOP-majority state legislature, determines
that its state’s vote has “failed” due to the massive vote and voting tabulation
that Trump’s people are claiming, it gets to choose a new slate of electors, as if the vote had never been held.
Those electors, hand-picked by
the majority-GOP legislators, then decide for whom they should cast their
states’ electoral votes. (Hint: it won’t be Joe Biden).
The above relies on so many
if/then scenarios, it will probably fail before it gets very far. Trump still
isn’t going to want to give up power.
So, back to the curious case of
firing Secretary of Defense Esper,
rather than any of the others he’s threatened to fire. Esper proved squeamish
about invoking The Insurrection Act and calling in the military when Trump
wanted to do so against demonstrators in the DC streets. Esper isn’t the kind of
guy Trump will want around on January 20, 2021, if he’s contemplated the need
for a loyalist to defend against an “illegitimate” claim by someone he sees as
a usurper, like Biden. He’ll want a loyalist who recognizes an insurrection
when he sees one (even if it looks to the rest of the world like an inauguration),
and is willing to do what it takes.
Anyone who has watched Trump for
the past 4 years should recognize that while the above would sound hilariously implausible
if we were considering any other president in living memory, we’re not talking
about anyone else.
This is Trump.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
Sources:
“The Election That Could Break America”
Barton Gellman
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
SNIPPET:
>>In Pennsylvania, three Republican leaders told me they had
already discussed the direct appointment of electors among themselves, and one
said he had discussed it with Trump’s national campaign.
“I’ve mentioned it to them, and I hope they’re thinking about it too,”
Lawrence Tabas, the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s chairman, told me. “I just
don’t think this is the right time for me to be discussing those strategies and
approaches, but [direct appointment of electors] is one of the options. It is
one of the available legal options set forth in the Constitution.” He added that
everyone’s preference is to get a swift and accurate count. “If the process,
though, is flawed, and has significant flaws, our public may lose faith and
confidence” in the election’s integrity.
Jake Corman, the state’s Senate majority leader, preferred to change the
subject, emphasizing that he hoped a clean vote count would produce a final
tally on Election Night. “The longer it goes on, the more opinions and the more
theories and the more conspiracies [are] created,” he told me. If controversy
persists as the safe-harbor date nears, he allowed, the legislature will have
no choice but to appoint electors. “We don’t want to go down that road, but we
understand where the law takes us, and we’ll follow the law.”<<
“Barr tells
DOJ to probe election fraud claims if they exist”
By MICHAEL BALSAMO
https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-elections-voting-fraud-and-irregularities-4eeb9e0c97301a23ae8d05b54c3144fd
SNIPPET:
>>Attorney General William Barr has authorized federal prosecutors
across the U.S. to pursue “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities,
if they exist, before the 2020 presidential election is certified, despite no
evidence of widespread fraud.
Barr’s action comes days after Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald
Trump and raises the prospect that Trump will use the Justice Department to try
to challenge the outcome. It gives prosecutors the ability to go around
longstanding Justice Department policy that normally would prohibit such overt
actions before the election is certified.<<
“Ohio Attorney General
Dave Yost asks U.S. Supreme Court to overturn ruling that extended deadline for
absentee ballots in Pennsylvania”
SNIPPET: >>In a Monday “friend of the court”
filing, state attorneys said U.S. Supreme Court justices should overturn the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision, arguing “state legislatures, not state
courts, set the rules for picking presidential electors.”<<
“Lawsuits pile up as
Trump campaign alleges voter fraud in at least 5 states”
https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/lawsuits-pile-up-as-trump-campaign-alleges-voter-fraud-in-at-least-5-states
SNIPPET:
>>Despite a lack of evidence, President Donald Trump and members
of his legal team have made serious accusations of irregularities so sweeping
that they could overturn the projections of Vice President Joe Biden as the
winner. These claims come after months of the president telling his supporters
that the only way he would lose "is massive fraud."
"The Biden selection by the Crooked Media is based on unlawful votes in
PA, Mich, GA, Wisc, Nevada et al.," Trump attorney and former New York
City Mayor Rudy Giuliani wrote in a tweet that was flagged by Twitter. "We
will prove it all." <<
“Trump 'Terminates'
Secretary Of Defense Mark Esper”
SNIPPET: >>Trump had planned to fire Esper four months ago —
after Esper opposed the president's move to send active duty troops to
Washington, D.C.
Protesters were massing across from the White House, decrying the death of
George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Pentagon officials and others
said police and National Guard troops could deal with any situation.
But Trump wanted to send a stronger message. So he ordered the deployment of
active troops from bases in North Carolina and New York. Pentagon leaders made
sure they stayed outside the city.<<
