Ominous new details about Trump’s coup attempt require Democrats to act

[homersapien 11,357]

If this doesn't convince you that the electoral college system is inherently undemocratic, I don't know what will.

Ominous new details about Trump’s coup attempt require Democrats to act

Opinion by

Greg Sargent

Columnist

Today at 11:03 a.m. EDT

In case you need more evidence of how much damage keeping the filibuster might end up doing, add this to the list: It could make a future stolen presidential election more likely.

This is thrust upon us by new revelations about the extent of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss — and by an important new paper by a leading legal scholar warning of future election subversion. Both should prompt new urgency among Democrats.

The revelations come from the new book “Peril,” by The Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. The headline: Two GOP senators — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah — took Trump’s lies about election fraud seriously enough to devote real resources to vetting them.

But for our purposes, the more important revelation involves how those lies were supposed to interlock with the broader scheme cooked up by Trump and his co-conspirators.

The key takeaway: Gaping holes in the Electoral Count Act — the 1887 law that governs how Congress counts electoral college votes — were central to the chances that their scheme might succeed.

The book recounts that four days before Jan. 6 — when Congress counts the electoral votes — Lee received a White House memo outlining how Vice President Pence could scuttle the process, according to a new Post piece about the book.

Because Republicans in several swing states had voted to send sham electors for Trump to Congress, it argued, Pence could simply set aside the actual electors from those states for President Biden. Both sets would be invalid, and Pence could count the remaining electors, designating Trump winner of a majority of them.

The memo suggested this as a potential option, and it also suggested Pence could use objections by GOP lawmakers to Biden’s electors to delay the process. The book reports that Pence explored this idea before rejecting it.

Let’s be clear: The fact that these ideas were considered this seriously was made possible in part by the absurd ambiguities in the Electoral Count Act, or ECA.

Dangerous ambiguities

First, because the ECA provides that a state can appoint new electors if the election “failed” — which is defined very vaguely — the idea was to use “election fraud” lies to declare that popular voting “failed” to render a clear outcome. GOP legislatures could then appoint electors for Trump, regardless of their state’s popular votes.

Second, because the ECA makes it easy for Congress to object to electors — only one lawmaker from each chamber can force votes on whether to count them — the idea was to get congressional Republicans to invalidate Biden’s electors in key states. Trump would prevail with a majority of remaining electors.

Third, because the ECA does not clearly define the vice president’s role (as president of the Senate) as purely ceremonial, the idea was to get Pence to somehow rule in favor of the objections to electors, or at least to delay the count.

That would either result in Trump prevailing with a majority of electors, or buy enough time for GOP legislatures to send rogue electors. Remember, getting Pence to rig or delay the count was precisely what Trump incited the Jan. 6 mob to accomplish.

A ‘respectable bloodless coup’

In a great new draft paper, election law scholar Richard L. Hasen warns that we face “serious risk” of “election subversion” or an “actual stolen election.” Hasen discusses reforms that could avert such scenarios, which will also be the topic of a conference on Friday.

In the last election, no GOP legislature appointed rogue electors, a majority of Congress voted to uphold Biden’s electors, and Pence ultimately backed away from the plot. But some GOP legislators did consider this scheme, around 150 congressional Republicans did vote to subvert Biden’s electors, and Pence did explore the outer limits of what he might do for Trump.

And if the GOP controls the House and Senate on Jan. 6, 2025, Congress can simply count rogue electors sent by a given state, or refuse to count the rightful ones. If Republicans control just the House, Congress might deadlock, prompting a contingent election in the House decided by state delegations, and the Republican would win.

Indeed, as Hasen notes, the scheme getting even this far shows we are vulnerable to a future “respectable bloodless coup,” one “dependent upon technical legal arguments overcoming valid election results." This, plus the fact that some Republican candidates are now campaigning on a vow to subvert future losses, requires cutting off these pathways.

So Hasen recommends dramatically raising the threshold for Congress to object to electors; rewriting rules to make “frivolous objections” harder; and defining “failed” elections as only resulting from natural disasters or terrorist attacks, to forestall states sending rogue electors. Hasen also recommends mandating that states follow procedures making it harder to corrupt the appointment of electors.

Other ECA reforms suggested by election experts include clarifying that Congress must count a state’s legitimately determined electors, and that the vice president has zero role in deciding disputes over the electoral count.

Democrats should push for ECA reform, and I expect they will. But nothing will pass as long as the filibuster remains.

“The window is closing,” Hasen told me. “The filibuster is the major impediment to Congress taking steps to avert a potential stolen election in 2024.”

Do Democrats grasp the true urgency of this? It’s not clear that they do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/20/graham-lee-stolen-election-filibuster/

 

[jj3jordan 2,049]

🥱

[wdefromtx 3,159]

Move on, he isn't president anymore. LMAO

[homersapien 11,357]

20 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

Move on, he isn't president anymore. LMAO

Typical Republican -  president attempts a coup?  Doesn't matter, it was our guy. 

Let's just forget it now.

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by homersapien

[jj3jordan 2,049]

9 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Typical Republican -  president attempts a coup?  Doesn't matter, it was our guy. 

Let's just forget it now.

 

Can a sitting president attempt a coup? 

How about the FBI CIA NSA DOJ corrupt house members? Oh yeah they could though. But alas, it is okay, they are YOUR guys.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

4 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Typical Republican -  president attempts a coup?  Doesn't matter, it was our guy. 

Let's just forget it now.

 

Except I didn't vote for him.................

Do you really believe he was that close to pulling it off the way the article makes it out to be? If you believe so, you are just as nuts as the MAGA's that thought he had a legitimate path to do this. 

 

[homersapien 11,357]

Just now, wdefromtx said:

Except I didn't vote for him.................

Do you really believe he was that close to pulling it off the way the article makes it out to be? If you believe so, you are just as nuts as the MAGA's that thought he had a legitimate path to do this. 

 

Well the facts are the facts. I believe that it was a much more serious attempt to reverse the election than most people are willing to admit.

If that makes me "nuts", then I'll plead guilty.

IMO it's crazier to simply let bygones be bygones.

 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

14 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Well the facts are the facts. I believe that it was a much more serious attempt to reverse the election than most people are willing to admit.

If that makes me "nuts", then I'll plead guilty.

IMO it's crazier to simply let bygones be bygones.

 

I am sure he was serious, and I am sure he looked at all these avenues. But in the end there was no way for him to steal it. All these things they state in the article were talked about by legal scholars at the time this was happening and said he can't do it this way. 

I am not worried about it. Our system has worked for us so far........(other than the people we actually elect which isn't the systems fault. LOL)

 

[homersapien 11,357]

5 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

I am sure he was serious, and I am sure he looked at all these avenues. But in the end there was no way for him to steal it. All these things they state in the article were talked about by legal scholars at the time this was happening and said he can't do it this way. 

I am not worried about it. Our system has worked for us so far........(other than the people we actually elect which isn't the systems fault. LOL)

 

Actually, the article pointed out exactly how it could happen, then and in future elections. 

This attempt - whether it was likely to succeed or not - illustrated the need to modify the system to prevent such possibilities.

 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

31 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Actually, the article pointed out exactly how it could happen, then and in future elections. 

This attempt - whether it was likely to succeed or not - illustrated the need to modify the system to prevent such possibilities.

 

If that is the case I suppose part of the equation is to make sure we have the correct voting laws in place to prevent fraud as well.

[homersapien 11,357]

3 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

If that is the case I suppose part of the equation is to make sure we have the correct voting laws in place to prevent fraud as well.

As long as they don't disenfranchise voters, fine. 

But no one has demonstrated this is a real problem, whereas we know the effort by Trump to steal the election was very real.

[Shoney'sPonyBoy 338]

On 9/21/2021 at 11:00 AM, homersapien said:

Typical Republican -  president attempts a coup?  Doesn't matter, it was our guy. 

Let's just forget it now.

 

Let's test how typical that is of Republicans vs Democrats:

For three years the Democrats advanced a narrative that they knew was false, accusing Trump of stealing the 2016 election with the aid of Russia.

Will you condemn that action as rigorously as you condemn Trump's attempt at doing the same?

[I_M4_AU 7,788]

47 minutes ago, Shoney'sPonyBoy said:

Let's test how typical that is of Republicans vs Democrats:

For three years the Democrats advanced a narrative that they knew was false, accusing Trump of stealing the 2016 election with the aid of Russia.

Will you condemn that action as rigorously as you condemn Trump's attempt at doing the same?

LOL only because there is no way this poster will answer that question.

[Shoney'sPonyBoy 338]

5 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

LOL only because there is no way this poster will answer that question.

And that will be answer enough.  😁

[Shoney'sPonyBoy 338]

6 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

LOL only because there is no way this poster will answer that question.

It's different when Democrats do it.  Even when they do it first and set the precedence for it.

[SaltyTiger 7,777]

1 hour ago, Shoney'sPonyBoy said:

For three years the Democrats advanced a narrative that they knew was false, accusing Trump of stealing the 2016 election with the aid of Russia.

It was more than three years and you are directing your question to this boards leading authority on Russian meddling and collusion…..then suddenly poof, like magic no more Russia. 

[homersapien 11,357]

On 9/28/2021 at 9:59 AM, Shoney'sPonyBoy said:

Let's test how typical that is of Republicans vs Democrats:

For three years the Democrats advanced a narrative that they knew was false, accusing Trump of stealing the 2016 election with the aid of Russia.

Will you condemn that action as rigorously as you condemn Trump's attempt at doing the same?

No, Democrats - for the most part - simply said that Trump didn't "steal" the 2016 election with the aid of the Russians (and a minority of the popular vote). 

They have said Trump was aided by the Russians and that was true.

[homersapien 11,357]

On 9/21/2021 at 1:22 PM, wdefromtx said:

If that is the case I suppose part of the equation is to make sure we have the correct voting laws in place to prevent fraud as well.

It's not voting fraud that gives us presidents with a minority of the popular vote.

[homersapien 11,357]

23 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

It was more than three years and you are directing your question to this boards leading authority on Russian meddling and collusion…..then suddenly poof, like magic no more Russia. 

Please don't misscharacterize (lie) to/about me Salty.  I have never said I was an "authority" on this.  Apparently, no one but Trump and his cabal know the facts.

But I most certainly believe Trump had business dealings with members of the Russian oligarchy. He was getting lots of money from somewhere after the banks cut him off, and Jr. himself once alluded it was coming from Russia.

Hopefully - since Trump is an ex-president and still a worthy topic for investigation - the full facts of that will eventually emerge.

You, of course, are free to let bygones be bygones.

 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

39 minutes ago, homersapien said:

It's not voting fraud that gives us presidents with a minority of the popular vote.

I agree, thankfully the electoral college still does what it is supposed to do. 

[SaltyTiger 7,777]

2 hours ago, homersapien said:

But I most certainly believe Trump had business dealings with members of the Russian oligarchy. He was getting lots of money from somewhere after the banks cut him off, and Jr. himself once alluded it was coming from Russia.

Hopefully - since Trump is an ex-president and still a worthy topic for investigation - the full facts of that will eventually emerge.

Well he was a developer. As a lifelong builder two things about developers. If they can find investment money they will build. They will try to get investment money from about anyone who will listen. Personally not very many developers I ever liked or trusted. Very few that we would work for.

According to Trump he had no business dealings with Russia. Take it that you believe he was indebted to the oligarchy.

[Shoney'sPonyBoy 338]

2 hours ago, homersapien said:

No, Democrats - for the most part - simply said that Trump didn't "steal" the 2016 election with the aid of the Russians (and a minority of the popular vote). 

They have said Trump was aided by the Russians and that was true.

 

[Shoney'sPonyBoy 338]

2 hours ago, homersapien said:

No, Democrats - for the most part - simply said that Trump didn't "steal" the 2016 election with the aid of the Russians (and a minority of the popular vote). 

They have said Trump was aided by the Russians and that was true.

 

[Shoney'sPonyBoy 338]

3 hours ago, homersapien said:

No, Democrats - for the most part - simply said that Trump didn't "steal" the 2016 election with the aid of the Russians (and a minority of the popular vote). 

They have said Trump was aided by the Russians and that was true.

Other than the POTUS candidate from 2016 and the DNC, who else would need to be quoted here to refute what you just said above?  Whoever it is, there's probably a youtube video of them saying it.

[homersapien 11,357]

19 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

Well he was a developer. As a lifelong builder two things about developers. If they can find investment money they will build. They will try to get investment money from about anyone who will listen. Personally not very many developers I ever liked or trusted. Very few that we would work for.

According to Trump he had no business dealings with Russia. Take it that you believe he was indebted to the oligarchy.

All his banking sources in the U.S. and Europe dried up (for good reason).  But then you had Russian oligarchs who really needed to launder their corrupt profits......(look up apartment leases, Trump, Russians)

And really, "According to Trump....."      

Trump Jr. said otherwise.

Edited September 29, 2021 by homersapien