Msg ID:
2694252 |
You libz Are Justifying Your Aberrant Radical… +2/-3
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Author:obumazombie
6/26/2021 8:39:14 PM
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Strategy with the ends justify the means rationalization.
Even if what you claim about being patriots, and eliminating evil was true, which it isn't, you are lost hopelessly if you think the way to achieve your aims is by subterfuge, dishonesty, cheating lying and stealing.
I haven't heard from CroWalt left yet on the matter. If he has the least bit of conservatism in him he will confirm what I am saying.
As far as I can tell from Mod Scientist BS Youtube Pollster, he supports Jett with his so happy Trump is gone, gone, gone routine.
You libz think that your win is worthy and just, and irreversible.
It's not. The truth can still defeat you, but even if it doesn't, better liars can come along and steal what you have stolen.
As usual you libz are dancing in the moonlight, but you will never be able to say no one tried to set you straight and tell you not only is what you're doing is wrong, but how much more terrible of a human being you will become...
The rot you libz publish as news. There have been a minimum of 152 times you libz have published fake news series about Trump, that were totally bogus from the jump...
Sharyl Attkisson
156. June 9, 2021
The Inspector General found that, contrary to false media reports by NPR and others, and implications by NBC and others, the Secret Service did not clear Lafayette Park in May of 2020 for the purposes of allowing Trump to have a photo op posing with a Bible. The crowd was cleared for a contractor to install a fence and because protesters were breaking the law.
155. June 2, 2021
The Washington Post joins a cacophony of other media in finally correcting their reporting that falsely claimed, early and often, that the Covid-19 "lab theory" was a "debunked" "conspiracy theory."
154. April 27, 2021
A New York Times report one year ago this week was wildly incorrect in projecting the first Covid-19 vaccine would not be ready until November of 2033. They were only off a little bit: instead of taking more than 13 years, it took about seven months. The Times also said if a SARS vaccine were able to be "repurposed" that could be ready as early as "late 2021."
Also, nearly every expert quoted in the Times article was also far off the mark, including vaccine industry propagandist Peter Hotez, who discussed a fast-tracked 18-month time frame.
The original post and list follow. Additional items will now be added at the top of this post.
We the media have "fact-checked" President Trump like we have fact-checked no other human being on the planet, and he's certainly given us plenty to write about. That's probably why it's so easy to find lists enumerating and examining his mistakes, missteps and " lies." But as self-appointed arbiters of truth, we've largely excused our own unprecedented string of fact-challenged reporting.
The truth is, formerly well-respected, top news organizations are making repeat, unforced errors in numbers that were unheard of just a couple of years ago. Our repeat mistakes involve declaring that Trump's claims are "lies" when they are matters of opinion, or when the truth between conflicting sources is unknowable; taking Trump's statements and events out of context;
reporting secondhand accounts against Trump without attribution as if they're established fact;
relying on untruthful, conflicted sources;
and presenting reporter opinions in news stories,without labeling them as opinions.
What's worse, we defend ourselves by trying to convince the public that our mistakes are actually a virtue because we (sometimes) correct them. Or we blame Trump for why we're getting so much wrong. Is a little bit like a police officer taking someone to jail for DUI, then driving home drunk himself: he may be correct to arrest the suspect, but he should certainly know better than to commit the same violation.
So since nobody else has compiled an updated, extensive list of this kind, here are:
Notable Mistakes and Missteps in Major Media Reporting on Donald Trump
1. Aug. 2016-Nov. 2016:
The New York Post published modeling photos of Trump's wife Melania and reported they were taken in 1995. Various news outlets relied on that date to imply that Melania, an immigrant, had violated her visa status. But the media got the date wrong. Politico was among the news agencies that later issued a photo date correction.
2. Oct. 1, 2016:
The New York Times and other media widely suggested or implied that Trump had not paid income taxes for 18 years. Later, tax return pages leaked to MSNBC ultimately showed that Trump actually paid a higher rate than Democrats Bernie Sanders and President Obama.
3. Oct. 18, 2016:
In a Washington Post piece not labelled opinion or analysis, Stuart Rothenberg reported that Trump's path to an electoral college victory was " nonexistent."
4. Nov. 4, 2016:
USA Today misstated Melania Trump's "arrival date from Slovenia" amid a flurry of reporting that questioned her immigration status from the mid-1990s.
5. Nov. 9, 2016:
Early on election night, the Detroit Free Press called the state of Michigan for Hillary Clinton. Trump actually won Michigan.
6. Jan. 20, 2017:
CNN claimed Nancy Sinatra was "not happy" at her father's song being used at Trump's inauguration. Sinatra responded, "That's not true. I never said that. Why do you lie, CNN? Actually I'm wishing him the best."
7. Jan. 20, 2017:
Zeke Miller of TIME reported that President Trump had removed the bust statue of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. The news went viral. It was false.
8. Jan. 26, 2017:
Josh Rogin of the Washington Post reported that the State Department's "entire senior administrative team" had resigned in protest of Trump. A number of media outlets ranging from politically left to right, including liberal-leaning Vox, stated that claim was misleading or wrong.
9. Jan. 28, 2017
CNBC's John Harwood reported the Justice Department "had no input" on Trump's immigration executive order. After a colleague contradicted Harwood's report, he amended it to reflect that Justice Department lawyers reportedly had reviewed Trump's order.
10. Jan. 31, 2017:A
CNN's Jeff Zeleny reported the White House set up Twitter accounts for two judges to try to keep Trump's selection for Supreme Court secret. Zeleny later corrected his report to state that the Twitter accounts had not been set up by the White House.
11. Feb. 2, 2017:
TMZ reported Trump changed the name of "Black History Month" to "African American History Month," implying the change was untoward or racist. In fact, Presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had all previously called Black History Month "African American History" month.
12. Feb. 2, 2017:
AP reported that Trump had threatened the president of Mexico with invasion to get rid of "bad hombres." Numerous publications followed suit. The White House said it wasn't true and the Washington Post removed the AP info that 'could not be independently confirmed."
13. Feb. 4, 2017:
Josh Rogin of the Washington Post reported on "Inside the White House-Cabinet Battle Over Trump's Immigration Order," only to have the article updated repeatedly to note that one of the reported meetings had not actually occurred, that a conference call had not happened as described, and that actions attributed to Trump were actually taken by his chief of staff.
14. Feb. 14, 2017:
The New York Times' Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo reported about supposed contacts between Trump campaign staff and "senior Russian intelligence officials.: Comey later testified "In the main, [the article] was not true."
15. Feb. 22, 2017:
ProPublica's Raymond Bonner reported CIA official Gina Haspel, Trump's later pick for CIA Director, was in charge of a secret CIA prison where Islamic extremist terrorist Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one month, and that she mocked the prisoner's suffering. More than a year later, ProPublica retracted the claim, stating that " Neither of these assertions is correct "Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended."
16. April 5, 2017:
An article bylined by the New York Times' graphic editors Karen Yourish and Troy Griggs referred to Trump's daughter, Ivanka, as Trump's wife.
17. May 10, 2017:
Multiple outlets including Politico, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, AP, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported the same leaked information: that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey shortly after Comey requested additional resources to investigate Russian interference in the election.
The Washington Post's Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Sari Horwitz and Robert Costa wrote news articles in the style of opinion pieces and from an omniscient viewpoint as if they were somehow in the mind of Trump. For example, they reported, "Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid:
Russia." (Other reporters, Reuters, Dustin Volz and Susan Cornwell, did properly attribute the claim.)
The Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said the media reports were untrue and McCabe added that the FBI's Russia investigation was "adequately resourced."
18. May 27, 2017:
The BBC's James Landale, The Guardian and others reported that Trump wasn't bothering to listen to the translation during a speech in Italian by Italy's Prime Minister. They drew that conclusion without asking the White House and based on a video that showed other political leaders wearing large headphones. The Guardian even claimed Trump was fake listening (smiling and nodding). After the reports circulated, the White House stated that, as always, Trump was indeed wearing an earpiece in his right ear.
19. June 4, 2017:
NBC News reported in a Tweet that Russian President Vladimir Putin told TV host Megyn Kelly that he had compromising information about Trump. Actually, Putin said the opposite: that he did not have compromising information on Trump.
20. June 6, 2017:
CNN's Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus; and ABC's Justin Fishel and Jonathan Karl reported that Comey was going to refute Donald Trump's claim that Comey told Trump three times he was not under investigation. Instead, Comey did the opposite and confirmed Trump's claim.
21. June 7, 2017:
In a fact-check story, AP reported erroneously that Trump misread the potential cost to a family with insurance under the Affordable Care Act who wanted care from their existing doctor.
22. June 8, 2017:
The New York Times' Jonathan Weisman reported that Comey testified Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Comey not to call the Russia probe "an investigation" but "a matter." Weisman was mistaken about the attorney general and the probe. Actually, it was Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch (not Sessions) who told Comey to refer to the Hillary Clinton classified email probe (not the Russia probe) as "a matter" instead of "an investigation."
23. June 22, 2017:
CNN's Thomas Frank reported that Congress was investigating a
"Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials." The report was later retracted. Frank and two other CNN employees resigned in the fallout.
24. December 2, 2017:
ABC News' Brian Ross reported that former Trump official Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was going to testify that candidate Trump had directed him to contact "the Russians." Even though such contact would not be in of itself a violation of law, the news was treated as an explosive indictment of Trump in the Russia collusion narrative, and the stock market fell on the news. ABC later correctedthe report to reflect that Trump had already been elected when he reportedly asked Flynn to contact the Russians about working together to fight ISIS and other issues. Ross was suspended.
25. July 6, 2017:
Newsweek's Chris Riotta and others reported that Poland's First Lady had refused to shake Trump's hand. Newsweek's later " update" reflected that the First Lady had shaken Trump's hand after all, as clearly seen on the full video.
26. July 6, 2017:
The New York Times' Maggie Haberman, CNN and numerous outlets had long reported, as if fact, the Hillary Clinton claim that a total of 17 American intelligence agencies concluded that Russia orchestrated election year attacks to help get Trump elected. Only three or four agencies, not 17, had officially done so.
27. Aug. 31, 2017:
NBC News' Ken Dilanian and Carol Lee reported that a Trump official's notes about a meeting with a Russian lawyer included the word "donation," as if there were discussions about suspicious campaign contributions. NBC later corrected the report to reflect that the word "donation" didn't appear, but still claimed the word "donor" did. Later, Politico reported that the word "donor" wasn't in the notes, either.
28. Sept. 5, 2017:
CNN's Chris Cillizza and other news outlets declared Trump " lied" when he stated that Trump Tower had been wiretapped, although there's no way any reporter independently knew the truth of the matter, only that what intel officials claimed. It later turned out there were numerous wiretaps involving Trump Tower, including a meeting of Trump officials with a foreign dignitary. At least two Trump associates who had offices in or frequented Trump Tower were also reportedly wiretapped.
29. Sept. 7, 2017:
The New York Times' Maggie Haberman reported Democrat leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi called President Trump about an immigration issue. Trumpactually made the call to Pelosi.
30. Nov. 6, 2017:
CNN's Daniel Shane edited excerpts from a Trump event to make it seem as though Trump didn't realize Japan builds cars in the U.S. However, Trump's entire statement made clear that he does.
31. Nov. 6, 2017:
CNN edited a video that made it appear as though Trump impatiently dumped a box of fish food into the water while feeding fish at Japan's palace. The New York Daily News, the Guardian and others wrote stories implying Trump was gauche and impetuous. The full video showed that Trump had simply followed the lead of Japan's Prime Minister.
32. Nov. 29, 2017:
Newsweek's Chris Riotta claimed Ivanka Trump " plagiarized" one of her own speeches. In fact, plagiarizing one's own work is impossible since plagiarism is when a writer steals someone else's work and passes it off as his own.
33. Dec. 4, 2017:
The New York Times' Michael S. Schmidt and Sharon LaFraniere and other outlets reported that Trump Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland supposedly contradicted herself or lied about another official's contacts with Russians. The story was heavily, repeatedly amended. CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, New York Daily News and Daily Beast picked up the story about McFarland's "lies."
34. Dec. 4, 2017:
ABC News' Trish Turner and Jack Date reported that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had recently worked with a Russia intelligence-connected "official." But the Russian wasn't an "official."
35. Dec. 5, 2017:
Bloomberg's Steven Arons and the Wall Street Journal's Jenny Strasburg reported the blockbuster that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had subpoenaed Trump's bank records. It wasn't true.
36. Dec. 8, 2017:
CNN's Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb reported that Donald Trump Jr. conspired with WikiLeaks in advance of the publication of damaging Democrat party and Clinton campaign emails. Many other publications followed suit. They had the date wrong: WikiLeaks and Trump Junior were in contact after the emails were published.
37. Jan. 3, 2018:
Talking Point Memo's Sam Thielman reported that a Russian social media company provided documents to the Senate about communications with a Trump official. The story was later corrected to say the reporter actually had no idea how the Senate received the documents and had no evidence to suggest the Russian company was cooperating with the probe.
38. Jan. 12, 2018:
Mediaite's Lawrence Bonk, CNN's Sophie Tatum, the Guardian, BBC, US News and World Report, Reuters and Buzzfeed's Adolfo Flores reported a "bombshell," that President Trump had backed down from his famous demand for a wall along the entire Southern border. However, Trump said the very same thing in February 2016 on MSNBC, on Dec. 2, 2015, in the National Journal, in October 2015 during the CNBC Republican Primary debate, and on Aug. 20, 2015, on FOX Business' Mornings with Maria.
39. Jan. 15, 2018:
AP's Laurie Kellman and Jonathan Drew reported that a new report showed trust in the media had fallen during the Trump presidency. But the report that AP cited was actually over a year old and was conducted while Obama was president.
40. Feb. 2, 2018:
AP's Eric Tucker, Mary Clare Jalonick and Chad Day reported that ex-British spy Christopher Steele's opposition research against Trump was initially funded by a conservative publication: the Washington Free Beacon. AP corrected its story because Steele only came on the project after Democrats began funding it.
41. March 8, 2018:
The New York Times' Jan Rosen reported on a hypothetical family whose tax bill would rise nearly $4,000 under Trump's tax plan. It turns out the calculations were off: the couple's taxes would go actually go down $43; not up $4,000.
42. March 13, 2018:
The New York Times' Adam Goldman, NBC's Noreen O'Donnell and AP's Deb Riechmann reported that Trump's pick for CIA Director, Gina Haspel, had waterboarded a particular Islamic extremist terrorist dozens of time at a secret prison; and that she had mocked his suffering. In fact, Haspel wasn't assignedto the prison until after the detainee left. ProPublica originally reported the incorrect details in Feb. 2017.
43. March 15, 2018:
AP's Michael Biesecker, Jake Pearson and Jeff Horwitz reported that a Trump advisory board official had been a Miss America contestant and had killed a black rhino. She actually was a Mrs. America contestant and had shot a nonlethal tranquilizer dart at a white rhino.
44. April 1, 2018:
AP's Nicholas Riccardi reported that the Trump administration had ended a program to admit foreign entrepreneurs. It wasn't true.
45. April 30, 2018:
AP reported that the NRA had banned guns during Trump and Pence speeches at the NRA's annual meeting. AP later corrected the information because the ban had been put in place by Secret Service.
46. May 3, 2018:
NBC's Tom Winter reported that the government had wiretapped Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen. NBC later corrected the story after three senior U.S. officials said there was no wiretap.
47. May 7, 2018:
CNBC's Kevin Breuninger reported that Trump's personal lawyer, Cohen, paid $1 million in fines related to unauthorized cars in his taxi business, had been barred from managing taxi medallions, had transferred $60 million offshore to avoid paying debts, and is awaiting trial on charges of failing to pay millions in taxes. A later correction stated that none of that was true.
48. May 16, 2018:
The New York Times' Julie Hirschfeld Davis, AP, CNN's Oliver Darcy and others excerpted a Trump comment as if he had referred to immigrants or illegal immigrants generally as "animals." Most outlets corrected their reports later to note that Trump had specifically referred to members of the murderous criminal gang MS-13.
49. May 28, 2018
The New York Times' Magazine editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein and CNN's Hadas Gold shared a story with photos of immigrant children in cages as if they were new photos taken under the Trump administration. The article and photos were actually from 2014 under the Obama administration.
50. May 29, 2018
The New York Times' Julie Davis reported the estimated size of a Trump rally to be 1,000 people. There were actually 5,500 people or more in attendance.
51. June 1, 2018
In a story about Trump tariffs, AP reported the dollar value of Virginia's farm and forestry exports to Canada and Mexico was $800. It's $800 million.
52. June 21, 2018
Time magazine and others used a photo of a crying Honduran child to illustrate a supposed Trump administration policy separating illegal immigrant parents and children. The child's father later reported that agents had never separated her from her mother; the mother had taken her to the US without his knowledge and separated herself from her other children, whom she left behind.
53. June 22, 2018
MSNBC personality Joe Scarborough mistakenly stated that Trump had "banned" the Red Cross from visiting children separated from illegal immigrant parents.
54. June 28, 2018
After a newsroom shooting, a newspaper reporter falsely tweeted that the shooter "dropped his [Trump Make America Great Again] hat on newsroom floor before opening fire."
55. July 10, 2018
NBC reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell reported that outgoing Supreme Court Justice Kennedy only retired after months of negotiations with Trump that concluded with Trump agreeing to replace Kennedy with Judge Kavanaugh.
Support Sharyl Attkisson's fight against government overreach in Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI for the government computer intrusions. For more info visit: https://www.gofundme.com/sharyl-attkisson-4th-am-litigation
56. July 16, 2018
Washington Post reporter implied Trump doesn't understand NATO countries. In fact, Trump met with the Finnish President at the NATO summit. Further, Finland is a NATO partner, just not a member.
57. Sept. 14, 2018
The New York Times issues a major correction (below) to an original "unfair" article about U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
58. Tues. Sept. 18, 2018
The New York Times falsely reported that a man, Mark Judge, testified he remembered an incident more than 30 year ago in which Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is accused of assault. Judge actually said the opposite: he does not remember such an incident, and that the allegations are "absolutely nuts." The Times corrected its article in an editors' note.
59. Sept. 23, 2018
Multiple news outlets report that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein has resigned or been fired. Neither turns out to be true. Axios and others eventually "update" and "clarify" their erroneous reports.
60. Oct. 14, 2018
NBC News falsely reports that President Trump praised Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Actually, Trump had praised the Union General Ulysses S. Grant.
61. Nov. 14, 2018
CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports that President Trump has decided to fire a deputy national security adviser upon the First Lady's demand. The Wall Street Journal reports the adviser has been "escorted out" of the White House. Later, it's reported that neither case was true. "This did not happen. She is still here at the WH," a senior official told the press. The adviser was reassigned to another job.
62. Dec. 24, 2018
It's discovered that nearly everything written by a Der Spiegel reporter, who had been honored by CNN, about a supposedly racist Trump stronghold town was fabricated--like much of his other work.
63. Dec. 26, 2018
NBC reports that Trump was the first President since 2002 not to visit the troops at Christmastime. But he (and First Lady Melania) did. NBC added a note to its story but left the false headline in place.
64. Jan. 1, 2019
CBS News claimed, in June of 2018, that Trump spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders would retire by the end of the year. She didn't. As of May 2019, she was still on the job and there had been no correction or editor's note. The same CBS story also quoted sources as saying the departure of White House assistant Raj Shah was also imminent. It wasn't. Shah continued to serve seven more months.
65. Jan. 9, 2019
The New York Times issues a correction to a report that falsely stated former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort asked for campaign polling to be given to a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, who has ties to Russia President Putin. Instead, the Times now claims, Manafort actually asked his associate Rick Gates to give polling data to Ukrainian oligarchs --not Deripaska.
While working at Politico, one of the New York Times reporters, Ken Vogel, got caught sending drafts of stories to democratic officials. Another co-author, Maggie Haberman, was considered a "friendly" by Clinton campaign officials who turned to her when she worked at Politico.
"We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed. We can do the most shaping by going to Maggie," wrote Clinton officials in emails.
66. Jan. 11, 2019
Fox TV affiliate in Seattle, Washington airs fake, doctored video of President Trump that altered his face and made it appear as though he had stuck his tongue in and out while giving an Oval Office address.
67. Jan. 18, 2019
The Buzzfeed exclusive with anonymous sources implicating Trump in potentially criminal behavior (that Democrats and pundits said would be the nail in Trump's impeachment coffin) is refuted in a rare rebuke from Special Counsel Mueller's office. Buzzfeed stands by its reporting.
68. Jan. 22, 2019
The New York Times and Washington Post are among the publications that issue corrections after falsely reporting that an anti-Trump activist had served in the Vietnam War.
Additionally, multiple news employees, including a CNN employee, apologize for mischaracterizing, as the aggressors, Trump-supporting teenagers at a pro-life rally.
69. Jan. 26, 2019
The UK Telegraph apologizes for all the facts it got wrong in a Jan. 19 article criticizing the First Lady.
70. Feb. 18, 2019
While some media outlets responsibly reported and properly attributedallegations in the racist attack alleged by actor Jussie Smollett, others did not. Some unskeptically furthered the narrative that Smollett, who is black, was attacked by Trump-supporting racists who put a noose around Smollett's neck, shouted racial slurs, told him it's "MAGA" (Make America Great Again) country, and poured bleach on him. While details are still emerging as of this date, Chicago police have stated that Smollett is no longer considered a victim of the crimes he alleged. The New York Times receives special mention here for adding a biased non sequitur in its early reporting that treated skepticism of Smollett's story as if it were unfounded, and fit in a dig at President Trump's son.
But the lack of progress in the investigation has fueled speculation about whether the report was exaggerated. The president?s son Donald Trump Jr., who is known to disseminate conspiracy theories on his Twitter feed, retweeted an article this week about Smollett declining to turn over his cellphone to the police.
Sopan Deb, New York Times
71. Various dates: Other faked attacks reported by the news as if confirmed
- A week before Trump was elected, Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Mississippi was torched and the words "Vote Trump" found painted on the outside. The mayor condemned the incident as a hate crime and stated it was "an attack on the black church and the black community." However, police later arrested a black church member for the arson. They say the man staged the fire to look like an attack by Trump supporters. Even today, some of the corrected news reports retain headlines seeming to blame Trump.
- The day after Trump was elected, an incident at Elon University in North Carolina made national news. Hispanic students found a "hateful note" written on a classroom whiteboard reading, "Bye Bye Latinos." After the story made news, it was learned that the message was written by "a Latino student who was upset about the results of the election."
- Also the day after Trump was elected, a gay man, reportedly a filmmaker ? claimed that homophobic Trump supporters smashed his face with a bottle outside a bar in Santa Monica, Calif. A bloody photo was posted on Twitter, and he was said to have been treated at a local hospital. Police investigated the media reports. They said no complaint was ever filed, there was no evidence of a crime, and a check of local hospitals showed no victim in such an incident.
- The week after Trump's election, a Muslim student at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, claimed Trump supporters pulled off her head covering, and assaulted and robbed her. She later admitted fabricatingthe story.
- A month after Trump?s election, a Muslim-American woman claimed Trump supporters tried to steal her headwear and harassed her on the New York City subway. She ultimately was arrested after confessing she made up the whole story.
72. Feb. 26, 2019
It's as good a day as any to point out that The Washington Post and others reported last November that Trump was imminently about to fire DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The Post confirmed this with five anonymous sources. The firing was said to be likely to happen the following week. Nielsen remained on the job for five more months before resigning.
Part 1 of an exhausting...
Good job Goodlibs!
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Msg ID:
2694295 |
You libz Are Justifying Your Aberrant Radical… +2/-3
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Author:obumazombie
6/27/2021 12:40:54 AM
Reply to: 2694252
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When the media, and the libz lie, democracy dies.
The libz don't care, when the libz say they want democracy, they want autocracy, and tyranny with libz in charge...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hNF9NKAyMQ
Good job Goodlibs! |
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Msg ID:
2694301 |
Do you think anyone from the left watched this? +1/-1
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Author:Old Guy
6/27/2021 9:19:52 AM
Reply to: 2694295
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NO I don't!
Do you think anyone of them noticed that this was news from Australia.
NO I don't!
They still think the rest of the world respects Biden and the Hoe. No! they think he is a joke!
useful idiots |
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Msg ID:
2694346 |
This is what the Justice Department had to say... +2/-1
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Author:Jett
6/27/2021 2:24:57 PM
Reply to: 2694301
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Former Attorney General Bill Barr says the Justice Department always knew Trump's claims of election fraud were 'bulls**t,' according to new book
- Former Attorney General Bill Barr said that he knew from the start that Donald Trump's election fraud claims were 'bulls**t' despite opening a DOJ probe
- 'My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,' Barr told Axios' Jonathan Karl. 'If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it'
- Added: 'But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bulls**t'
By KATELYN CARALLE, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 11:54 EDT, 27 June 2021 | UPDATED: 12:21 EDT, 27 June 2021
Bill Barr said that even while the Justice Department investigated Donald Trump's voter fraud claims, he always knew it was 'all bulls**t', according to an upcoming book.
Trump's former attorney general told Axios' Jonathan Karl in interviews published in The Atlantic Sunday, that he concluded early on when declaring the investigation that it was highly unlikely that any evidence existed that would change that outcome of the 2020 election.
'My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,' Barr told Karl. 'If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it.'
Karl revealed this excerpt and others from multiple interviews with Barr conducted as part of his upcoming book.
Barr said he opened an investigation because he knew former Trump was going to confront him about his claims of fraud and a 'rigged' election, and he wanted to be able to say he looked into it and found nothing.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr said that he knew from the start that Donald Trump's election fraud claims were 'bulls**t' despite opening a Justice Department investigation into it
Trump is still pushing his claims that he is the legitimate winner of the 2020 election. He told a crowd at his first post-election rally in Ohio on Saturday: 'This was the scam of the century and this was the crime of the history.' He also said Democrats 'used COVID in order to cheat'
Following Joe Biden's declared win in November 2020, Trump immediately launched claimed of widespread voter fraud by Democrats and began a series of lawsuits and probes into the election – especially involving the mass amount of mail in ballots in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
The former president is still spewing these claims, including at his first post-presidency rally in Ohio on Saturday night where he said that he is the legitimate election winner.
'This was the scam of the century and this was the crime of the history,' he said to a massive crowd gathered in Wellington, Ohio.
Last December, Barr told the Associated Press: 'To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.'
Karl said Barr told him about a conversation he had with Trump after the report went out.
'Did you say that?' Trump had asked Barr, according to the former attorney general.
'Yes,' Barr responded.
'How the f**k could you do this to me? Why did you say it?' he shot back
'Because it's true,' Barr said he told the then-outgoing president.
'You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump,' he responded, referring to himself in the third person.
Barr was Trump's attorney general from February 2019 until December 2020, when he prematurely left the administration following Trump's announcement of resignation just a month before the end of his term
Trump insisted to supporters at his Ohio rally Saturday that in some states there were 'more votes than voters', that there was 'North Korean-style turnout' and that 'ballots were wheeled in backdoors.'
'There's just mountains of evidence,' Trump claimed, adding that Democrats 'used COVID in order to cheat.'
He said the Trump campaign lost dozens of court cases because 'many of our judges were gutless.'
'And I am ashamed of our Supreme Court,' the ex-president said.
The court, which skews 6-3 conservative thanks to three Trump nominees making it through in his four years, refused to take up the election fraud cases.
'Where's Mike, the pillow man?' Trump asked the crowd as he referred to Lindell as a 'patriot.'
He also raged at the government's treatment of the 'greatest mayor in the history of New York' Rudy Giuliani, who lost his law license Thursday over the election fraud farce. He also had his home raided by the FBI earlier this year and 18 electronic devices were seized.
'I'm not the one trying to undermine American democracy, I'm the one trying to save American democracy,' Trump went on.
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Msg ID:
2694348 |
SO WHAT, the justice dept. never investigated any fraud claims (NT) +0/-2
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Author:Old Guy
6/27/2021 2:45:18 PM
Reply to: 2694346
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Msg ID:
2694350 |
SO WHAT, the justice dept. never investigated any fraud claims +0/-2
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Author:obumazombie
6/27/2021 3:00:32 PM
Reply to: 2694348
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Old Guy,
Don't get too upset with Jett.
Odd are he's lying.
You can't trust anything he says, because he says 4 years of lying by the libz was justified to get Trump out of office.
If the libz can justify that, they can justify anything.
What libz don't realize though, is, turnabout is fair play.
And one thing that libz hate more than fair play is having to swallow their own bitter medicine when it it shoved back down their lib throats.
The libz love their own bitter medicine, about as much as they love a...
Good job Goodlibs! |
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Msg ID:
2694355 |
Not upset, I know it was an lie +1/-2
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Author:Old Guy
6/27/2021 3:49:20 PM
Reply to: 2694350
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And I pointed out why. The left makes a clam, blows it way out of proportion And acts like it is completely true.
Barr did say he considered no election fraud, a statement that means zero. The justice never investigated any fraud clams. The only thing they investigated was some ballot boxes in Michigan. Barr's statement does not mean anything to people that use common sense and reason, not like Jett, who uses emotions.
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Msg ID:
2694357 |
It means a lot Old Dude, Billy was a Strong Donnie Supporter... +2/-1
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Author:Jett
6/27/2021 4:07:32 PM
Reply to: 2694355
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It's not like he was a lefty who was against Donnie.
Who is Billy Barr?
Republican
Conservative
Former United States Attorney General, appointed by Donnie Trump
Reputation of being very loyal to Donnie
So you are wrong Old Dude, the left didn't make these "Clams", Billy Barr did...
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Msg ID:
2694356 |
Jett didn't say anything, it was Billy Barr doing the talking... +2/-1
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Author:Jett
6/27/2021 3:51:03 PM
Reply to: 2694350
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I didn't lie about anything, I simply passed along a piece from a conservative news website.
But we all know what the "Big Lie" actually is... |
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Msg ID:
2694385 |
Says The Guy Who Claims That Lying Is … +1/-3
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Author:obumazombie
6/27/2021 10:14:38 PM
Reply to: 2694356
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Justified.
Because the ends justify the means, according to libz, among many other lib rationalizations.
John Galt might say the same thing, right before he says...
Good job Goodlibs! |
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Msg ID:
2694440 |
Inside William Barr’s Breakup With Trump +2/-1
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Author:TheCrow
6/28/2021 3:02:54 PM
Reply to: 2694356
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In the final months of the administration, the doggedly loyal attorney general finally had enough.
Matt McClain-Pool / Getty
Donald trump is a man consumed with grievance against people he believes have betrayed him, but few betrayals have enraged him more than what his attorney general did to him. To Trump, the unkindest cut of all was when William Barr stepped forward and declared that there had been no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, just as the president was trying to overturn Joe Biden’s victory by claiming that the election had been stolen.
In a series of interviews with me this spring, Barr spoke, for the first time, about the events surrounding his break with Trump. I have also spoken with other senior officials in the Trump White House and Justice Department, who provided additional details about Barr’s actions and the former president’s explosive response. Barr and those close to him have a reason to tell his version of this story. He has been widely seen as a Trump lackey who politicized the Justice Department. But when the big moment came after the election, he defied the president who expected him to do his bidding.
Barr’s betrayal came on December 1, over lunch in the attorney general’s private dining room with Michael Balsamo, a Justice Department beat reporter at the Associated Press. Also in attendance were the DOJ chief of staff, Will Levi, and spokesperson Kerri Kupec. Balsamo was not told the reason for the invitation. When Barr dropped his bombshell between bites of salad, he mumbled, and Balsamo wasn’t sure that he had caught what the attorney general had said.
“Just to be crystal clear,” Balsamo asked, “are you saying—”
“Sir, I think you better repeat what you just said,” Kupec interjected.
“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Barr repeated. This time Balsamo heard him.
David A. Graham: Trump’s coup attempt didn’t start on January 6
Balsamo’s story appeared on the AP newswire shortly after lunch ended: “Disputing Donald Trump’s persistent baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.”
The story blew a hole in the president’s claims. Nobody seriously questioned Barr’s conservative credentials or whether he had been among Trump’s most loyal cabinet secretaries. His conclusion sent a definitive message that the effort to overturn the election was without merit.
Barr told me that Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell had been urging him to speak out since mid-November. Publicly, McConnell had said nothing to criticize Trump’s allegations, but he told Barr that Trump’s claims were damaging to the country and to the Republican Party. Trump’s refusal to concede was complicating McConnell’s efforts to ensure that the GOP won the two runoff elections in Georgia scheduled for January 5.
To McConnell, the road to maintaining control of the Senate was simple: Republicans needed to make the argument that with Biden soon to be in the White House, it was crucial that they have a majority in the Senate to check his power. But McConnell also believed that if he openly declared Biden the winner, Trump would be enraged and likely act to sabotage the Republican Senate campaigns in Georgia. Barr related his conversations with McConnell to me. McConnell confirms the account.
“Look, we need the president in Georgia,” McConnell told Barr, “and so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.”
“I understand that,” Barr said. “And I’m going to do it at the appropriate time.”
On another call, McConnell again pleaded with Barr to come out and shoot down the talk of widespread fraud.
“Bill, I look around, and you are the only person who can do it,” McConnell told him.
Levi, the Justice Department chief of staff, had also been urging Barr to contradict Trump’s assertions. But Barr had said nothing publicly to indicate that he disagreed with the president about the election. In fact, the week after the election, he gave prosecutors the green light to investigate “substantial allegations” of vote irregularities that “could potentially impact the outcome” of the election. The move overturned long-standing policy that the Justice Department does not investigate voter fraud until after an election is certified. The theory behind the policy is that the department’s responsibility is to prosecute crimes, not to get involved in election disputes. Barr’s reversal of the policy was interpreted by some as a sign that he might use the department to help Trump overturn the election.
Donald Ayer: Bill Barr’s unconstitutional campaign to reelect the president
But Barr told me he had already concluded that it was highly unlikely that evidence existed that would tip the scales in the election. He had expected Trump to lose and therefore was not surprised by the outcome. He also knew that at some point, Trump was going to confront him about the allegations, and he wanted to be able to say that he had looked into them and that they were unfounded. So, in addition to giving prosecutors approval to open investigations into clear and credible allegations of substantial fraud, Barr began his own, unofficial inquiry into the major claims that the president and his allies were making.
“My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,” Barr told me. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit.”
The Department of Justice ended up conducting no formal investigations of voter fraud, but as part of Barr’s informal review, he asked the U.S. Attorney in Michigan about Trump’s claim that mysterious “ballot dumps” in Detroit had secured Biden’s victory in the state.
As proof of fraud, Trump’s allies had pointed to videos showing boxes filled with ballots arriving at the TCF Center, in Detroit, to be counted after the 8 p.m. deadline for votes to be cast. But Barr quickly found that there was a logical explanation. It had to do with how the 662 precincts in Wayne County, home to Detroit, tabulate their votes. “In every other county, they count the ballots at the precinct, but in Wayne County, they bring them into one central counting place. So the boxes are coming in all night. The fact that boxes are coming in—well, that’s what they do.”
Furthermore, Trump performed better against Biden in Detroit than he had against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden received 1,000 fewer votes in Detroit than Clinton had, and Trump received 5,000 more votes than he had four years earlier. Trump didn’t lose Michigan because of “illegal” ballots cast in Detroit. He lost Michigan because Biden beat him badly in the suburbs.
Barr also looked into allegations that voting machines across the country were rigged to switch Trump votes to Biden votes. He received two briefings from cybersecurity experts at the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. “We realized from the beginning it was just bullshit,” Barr told me, noting that even if the machines somehow changed the count, it would show up when they were recounted by hand. “It’s a counting machine, and they save everything that was counted. So you just reconcile the two. There had been no discrepancy reported anywhere, and I’m still not aware of any discrepancy.”
After the lunch with Balsamo, Barr and Levi went to the White House for a previously scheduled meeting with Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. After talking briefly with Meadows, they went upstairs to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s office. As they were conferring, one of the counsel’s aides knocked on the door and told Cipollone that the president wanted to see him and then, pointing to Barr, the aide said, “And he is looking for you.”
Barr, Levi, and Cipollone walked to the president’s personal dining room near the Oval Office. Trump was sitting at the table. Meadows was sitting next to him with his arms crossed; the White House adviser Eric Herschmann stood off to the side. The details of this meeting were described to me by several people present. One told me that Trump had “the eyes and mannerism of a madman.”
He went off on Barr.
“I think you’ve noticed I haven’t been talking to you much,” Trump said to him. “I’ve been leaving you alone.”
Barr later told others that the comment was reminiscent of a line in the movie Dr. Strangelove, in which the main character, Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, says, “I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence.” Trump, Barr thought, was saying that he had been denying him his essence.
Trump brought up Barr’s AP interview.
“Did you say that?”
“Yes,” Barr responded.
“How the fuck could you do this to me? Why did you say it?”
“Because it’s true.”
The president, livid, responded by referring to himself in the third person: “You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.”
Read: How Trump could attempt a coup
Barr thought that the president was trying to control himself, but he seemed angrier than he had ever seen him. His face was red. Barr’s AP interview was dominating every cable news channel except the one Trump was watching. The television in the room was tuned to the right-wing, pro-Trump network One America News, which was broadcasting a committee hearing of the Michigan legislature. The hearing featured disproven allegations of massive election fraud, including the testimony of a woman named Melissa Carone, who had worked at the counting location in Detroit and told the committee, “Everything that happened at the TCF Center was fraud. Every single thing.” The next day, Carone would testify again, next to Rudy Giuliani, during which time she slurred her words and appeared to be drunk. (Carone later denied that she had been drunk.)
“They saw the boxes going in!” Trump yelled, referring to the stories about boxes of illegal ballots being counted.
“You know, Mr. President, there are 662 precincts in Wayne County,” Barr said. Trump seemed taken aback that he knew the exact number. “It’s the only county with all the boxes going to a central place, and you actually did better there this time around than you did last time. You keep on saying that the Department of Justice is not looking at this stuff, and we are looking at it in a responsible way. But your people keep on shoveling this shit out.”
As Trump ranted about other examples of fraud, Meadows continued to sit silently with his arms crossed, his posture suggesting that he, too, was upset by what Barr had done.
“You know, you only have five weeks, Mr. President, after an election to make legal challenges,” Barr said. “This would have taken a crackerjack team with a really coherent and disciplined strategy. Instead, you have a clown show. No self-respecting lawyer is going anywhere near it. It’s just a joke. That’s why you are where you are.”
Interestingly, Trump didn’t argue when Barr told him that his “clown show” legal team had wasted time. In fact, he said, “You may be right about that.”
After going through his litany of claims—stolen ballots, fake ballots, dead people voting, rigged voting machines—Trump switched to other grievances, shouting at Barr for failing to prosecute Biden’s son Hunter. “If that had been one of my kids, they would have been all over him!” he said. By the end of the meeting, Trump was doing almost all of the talking. Why hadn’t Barr released John Durham’s report on the origins of the Russia investigation before the election? Why hadn’t he prosecuted former FBI Director James Comey? Trump was banging on the table. He said that Barr had been worthless.
As Barr left, he was unsure whether he still had a job. Had Trump just fired him? And if not, shouldn’t he quit? Why remain attorney general after what the president had just said to him? His status had been left up in the air.
The next morning, Barr received a call from Meadows. “I think there’s a way through this,” Meadows told him. He could prevent Trump from firing him, but he wanted an assurance from Barr that he wouldn’t resign. “Are you willing to stay?” Meadows asked.
“I’m not going to sandbag you,” Barr said. “I will give you a warning if I’m going to leave, and No. 2, I’ll stay as long as I’m needed.”
Barr almost immediately began to regret his decision to stay. His statement on election fraud did nothing to deter Trump, who was now listening, almost exclusively, to Giuliani and others outside his administration. They were telling him that he was still going to win the election.
Two weeks later, Barr went down to the White House to tell the president that he planned to resign before the end of the year. It was their first meeting since their confrontation. To defuse the tension, Barr had written an effusive resignation letter, which he handed to the president when he got to the Oval Office. The letter praised Trump’s record and played directly into his complaints about how he had been treated by Democrats, saying his efforts “had been met by a partisan onslaught against you in which no tactic, no matter how abusive and deceitful, was out of bounds.”
Trump read the letter while Barr was sitting across from him. “This is pretty good,” he said.
Jonathan D. Karl is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News. His book on the last days of the Trump administration, Betrayal, will be published by Dutton on November 16, 2021.
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Msg ID:
2694441 |
'It's just a joke': Former AG William Barr derided Trump's false election c +2/-1
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Author:TheCrow
6/28/2021 3:04:39 PM
Reply to: 2694356
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- In interviews with ABC News' Jonathan Karl, William Barr described Trump's final weeks.
- Barr revealed that Republican leadership was worried about Trump's false conspiracy theories.
- Trump ripped into Barr after the then-attorney general told AP there was no fraud in the election.
WASHINGTON — Former Attorney General William Barr candidly denounced former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a report in The Atlantic detailing how the man who was once one of Trump's most loyal lieutenants split with the former president.
In a series of interviews with ABC News' Jonathan Karl, detailed in a forthcoming book on the last days of the Trump administration, Barr described the final weeks of the Trump administration and Trump's frenzied attempts to retain power.
“My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,” Barr said. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there."
The expletive-laden conversations between Trump and Barr describe a president furious at his election loss and genuinely in disbelief that his most loyal subordinates would not support him in attempting spread false conspiracy theories and subvert the election.
After the 2020 election, the Justice Department launched investigations into widespread voter fraud across the country in key battleground states.
The latest revelations show that Barr was skeptical of Trump's claims even as he greenlit the operations. Barr also told Karl that he'd expected Trump to lose the 2020 election and that he was not surprised by the outcome. In the aftermath, he launched his own informal inquiries into the most popular claims made by Trump's close allies, alongside the DOJ's official investigations.
McConnell was concerned about Georgia
The latest revelations also highlight the concerns among GOP leaders that Trump's false conspiracy theories would hurt the party electorally in the Georgia runoffs to be held on Jan. 5.
“Look, we need the president in Georgia,” then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Barr during a phone call, according to Karl.
McConnell stressed that Republicans “cannot be frontally attacking" Trump after the election, as he was still highly popular with the party's base. "But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it," McConnell told the then-attorney general, The Atlantic story reports.
“I understand that,” Barr said. “And I’m going to do it at the appropriate time."
Barr's betrayal on election fraud claims
On Dec. 1, during a lunch interview with an Associated Press reporter, Barr confirmed: “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” according to Karl's interview.
During one December meeting, a furious Trump unloaded on Barr over the AP's story with Barr's comments actively contradicting Trump's narrative around election fraud.
Asked by Trump why he would tell the AP that there was no fraud in the election, Barr replied "because it’s true.” The conversation continued with Trump referring to himself in the third person, telling Barr: “You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.”
Barr pushed back on the characterization, instead criticizing Trump's competence and close aides' efforts at executing his operation to challenge the election, The Atlantic article explains.
“You know, you only have five weeks, Mr. President, after an election to make legal challenges,” Barr told Trump. “This would have taken a crackerjack team with a really coherent and disciplined strategy. Instead, you have a clown show. No self-respecting lawyer is going anywhere near it. It’s just a joke. That’s why you are where you are.”
According to aides present and Barr, Trump agreed with the jab, saying "you may be right about that."
Follow Matthew Brown online @mrbrownsir.
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Msg ID:
2694443 |
BARR: TRUMP’S ELECTION LIES WERE “ALL BULLS--T” (BUT I ADVANCED THEM ANYWAY +2/-1
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Author:TheCrow
6/28/2021 3:08:22 PM
Reply to: 2694356
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Former US President Donald Trump speaks to his supporters during a 'Save America' Rally at the Lorain County Fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio, on Saturday, June 26, 2021. BY MATTHEW HATCHER/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday returned to the rally stage for the first time since he encouraged his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6. His campaign-style event at Ohio’s Lorain County Fairgrounds showed that the defeated Republican is still preoccupied with his 2020 election lies and willing to reward whoever is eager to help spread them. Trump’s sustained refusal to accept reality comes as his ex-officials are taking steps to publicly distance themselves from the undemocratic attacks. Among them is former Attorney General William Barr, who, though he did little to shoot down Trump's election falsehoods at the time, said in an interview that appeared in the Atlantic on Sunday that he suspected “it was all bullshit” from the start.
Barr resigned from his position in December of last year, shortly after he told the Associated Press that the Justice Department had tried and failed to find election-altering evidence in the 2020 presidential race. In a series of interviews with ABC’s Jon Karl, Barr is now speaking out about the lead-up to his explosive break with Trump in the final stretch of the administration. At the time, Barr wanted to be able to tell Trump, who would inevitably confront him about his decision, that he had done his due diligence, he told Karl. “My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time. If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it,” Barr said. “But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there.”
When Barr didn’t substantiate Trump’s false election claims, he told Karl that Trump responded to the perceived betrayal in the third person, saying: “You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.”
Barr may be taking a stand against Trump’s Big Lie now, but in the immediate aftermath of the election, the then-AG was widely criticized for giving prosecutors the ability to look into “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities that “could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State"—a move that overturned an established Justice Department policy and was seen as bolstering Trump’s arguments. As the Atlantic’s David Frum points out, Barr’s informal inquiry helped advance the evidence-free allegations of voter fraud that inspired the pro-Trump mob to wreak deadly havoc on the Capitol.
To Karl, Barr recalled how then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had, since mid-November, urged Barr “to inject some reality into this situation” for the purpose of maintaining control of the Senate. McConnell, like Barr, did not publicly voice his concerns in the immediate aftermath of the election, silence that helped Trump's allegations take hold among Republican lawmakers and MAGA supporters alike. Today, the Big Lie is still alive and well inside the GOP, from the local level—where officials in multiple states reportedly face demands to review the 2020 results—to the office of the top House Republican.
But Trump’s rally on Saturday showed how fringe his shrinking support has become. The group included Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia’s QAnon-promoting congresswoman who reportedly warmed up the Ohio crowd with calls for Dr. Anthony Fauci’s removal and questions of “who is president?”—prompting chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” MyPillow CEO and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, against whom an election technology company has filed a defamation lawsuit over stolen-election claims, was also embraced by the crowd before Trump’s arrival. The pre-show involved a Cincinnati-based math teacher giving “a PowerPoint presentation with charts and numbers” in an attempt to substantiate evidence-free election fraud allegations. “The crowd sat quietly as he clicked through his slide show,” according to Politico.
Trump was in Ohio to support former aide and 16th district candidate Max Miller, whose primary challenger, Ohio Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, is among the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol attack. Trump has vowed to exact revenge on defectors by backing their opponents. But other than blasting Gonzalez as a “sell out and fake Republican” and briefly praising Miller, forward-looking comments were few and far between in Trump’s address. He instead focused on rewriting the past, airing old grievances, and further undermining the integrity of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden. "They used Covid to steal the election,” Trump told the thousands of supporters gathered in the fairgrounds, according to Politico.
Diverting further attention from Miller’s bid was the potential of Trump’s own. Attendees interviewed by Politico were hopeful that Trump would announce a third run for the White House. As supporters made their way to the fairgrounds, vendors selling “Trump 2024” merchandise set up shop, according to the Associated Press. Trump on Saturday didn’t say whether he’s planning to mount a comeback, but his slew of upcoming public appearances—including a July 4 rally in Florida where he is “unattached to a midterm candidate,” the AP noted—signal his interest in returning to the spotlight.
“The endorsement rallies are vehicles for [Trump] to get attention when he’s been kicked off Twitter and Facebook, and has gone from having the most attention he ever had to having the least in decades,” the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman tweeted Saturday.
Trump’s return to the rally stage and upcoming string of public appearances also come as the wide-ranging investigation into his business dealings is ratcheting up. The Trump Organization could reportedly face criminal charges as soon as next week, a potential indictment over benefits the company provided to employees emerging from the Manhattan district attorney's probe. Trump has decried it as a “witch hunt.”
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Msg ID:
2694445 |
Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud +2/-1
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Author:TheCrow
6/28/2021 3:16:42 PM
Reply to: 2694356
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All 50 states and DC have certified the 2020 election results.
By MICHAEL BALSAMODecember 1, 2020
of 3
FILE - This 2018 portrait released by the U.S. Department of Justice shows Connecticut's U.S. Attorney John Durham. Attorney General William Barr has given extra protection to the prosecutor he appointed to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation, giving him the authority of a special counsel to allow him to complete his work without being easily fired. Barr told The Associated Press on Dec. 1, 2020, that he appointed Durham as a special counsel in October under the same federal statute that governed special counsel Robert Mueller’s in the Russia probe. (U.S. Department of Justice via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Disputing President Donald Trump’s persistent, baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.
Barr’s comments, in an interview with the The Associated Press, contradict the concerted effort by Trump, his boss, to subvert the results of last month’s voting and block President-elect Joe Biden from taking his place in the White House.
Barr told the AP that U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
The comments, which drew immediate criticism from Trump attorneys, were especially notable coming from Barr, who has been one of the president’s most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voting could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls and instead chose to vote by mail.
More to Trump’s liking, Barr revealed in the AP interview that in October he had appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham as a special counsel, giving the prosecutor the authority to continue to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe after Biden takes over and making it difficult to fire him. Biden hasn’t said what he might do with the investigation, and his transition team didn’t comment Tuesday.
Trump has long railed against the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign was coordinating with Russia, but he and Republican allies had hoped the results would be delivered before the 2020 election and would help sway voters. So far, there has been only one criminal case, a guilty plea from a former FBI lawyer to a single false statement charge.
Under federal regulations, a special counsel can be fired only by the attorney general and for specific reasons such as misconduct, dereliction of duty or conflict of interest. An attorney general must document such reasons in writing.
Barr went to the White House Tuesday for a previously scheduled meeting that lasted about three hours.
Trump didn’t directly comment on the attorney general’s remarks on the election. But his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and his political campaign issued a scathing statement claiming that, “with all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn’t been any semblance” of an investigation into the president’s complaints.
Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. (Dec. 1)
Other administration officials who have come out forcefully against Trump’s allegations of voter-fraud evidence have been fired. But it’s not clear whether Barr might suffer the same fate. He maintains a lofty position with Trump, and despite their differences the two see eye-to-eye on quite a lot.
Still, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer quipped: “I guess he’s the next one to be fired.”
Last month, Barr issued a directive to U.S. attorneys across the country allowing them to pursue any “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities before the 2020 presidential election was certified, despite no evidence at that time of widespread fraud.
That memorandum gave prosecutors the ability to go around longstanding Justice Department policy that normally would prohibit such overt actions before the election was certified. Soon after it was issued, the department’s top elections crime official announced he would step aside from that position because of the memo.
The Trump campaign team led by Giuliani has been alleging a widespread conspiracy by Democrats to dump millions of illegal votes into the system with no evidence. They have filed multiple lawsuits in battleground states alleging that partisan poll watchers didn’t have a clear enough view at polling sites in some locations and therefore something illegal must have happened. The claims have been repeatedly dismissed including by Republican judges who have ruled the suits lacked evidence.
But local Republicans in some battleground states have followed Trump in making unsupported claims, prompting grave concerns over potential damage to American democracy.
Trump himself continues to rail against the election in tweets and in interviews though his own administration has said the 2020 election was the most secure ever. He recently allowed his administration to begin the transition over to Biden, but he still refuses to admit he lost.
The issues they’ve have pointed to are typical in every election: Problems with signatures, secrecy envelopes and postal marks on mail-in ballots, as well as the potential for a small number of ballots miscast or lost.
But they’ve gone further. Attorney Sidney Powell has spun fictional tales of election systems flipping votes, German servers storing U.S. voting information and election software created in Venezuela “at the direction of Hugo Chavez,” – the late Venezuelan president who died in 2013. Powell has since been removed from the legal team after an interview she gave where she threatened to “blow up” Georgia with a “biblical” court filing.
Barr didn’t name Powell specifically but said: “There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that.”
In the campaign statement, Giuliani claimed there was “ample evidence of illegal voting in at least six states, which they have not examined.”
Full Coverage: Election 2020
“We have many witnesses swearing under oath they saw crimes being committed in connection with voter fraud. As far as we know, not a single one has been interviewed by the DOJ. The Justice Department also hasn’t audited any voting machines or used their subpoena powers to determine the truth,” he said.
However, Barr said earlier that people were confusing the use of the federal criminal justice system with allegations that should be made in civil lawsuits. He said a remedy for many complaints would be a top-down audit by state or local officials, not the U.S. Justice Department.
“There’s a growing tendency to use the criminal justice system as sort of a default fix-all,” he said, but first there must be a basis to believe there is a crime to investigate.
“Most claims of fraud are very particularized to a particular set of circumstances or actors or conduct. ... And those have been run down; they are being run down,” Barr said. “Some have been broad and potentially cover a few thousand votes. They have been followed up on.”
___
Associated Press Writers Lisa Mascaro and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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Msg ID:
2694446 |
It’s Official: The Election Was Secure +2/-1
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Author:TheCrow
6/28/2021 3:20:01 PM
Reply to: 2694445
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Trump, who has no responsibility for the election, with no posibility of overturning the results, is stirring up his base, creating the usual Trumpian chaos. You elected a disruptor, you gor one, he can destroy but he can not build.
Election officials and election security experts have long been clear: voter fraud is extraordinarily rare and our system has strong checks in place to protect the integrity of our voting process. These are the facts. But the facts have not stopped bad actors from trotting out baseless claims of “systemic voter fraud” to suppress votes and undermine trust in our democracy for political gain.
By all measures, the 2020 general election was one of the most secure elections in our history. Voters turned out in record numbers to cast their ballots by mail and in person, and the votes were counted in a timely manner. This success, however, did not dissuade President Trump and his enablers from loudly claiming fraud when the race did not go his way. In a brazen attempt to overturn the results, he unleashed an onslaught of outlandish claims about widespread fraud in the election, shamelessly targeting the votes of Black and Latino citizens in several cities. The severity of the allegations by the president and his allies, however false, has elicited a resounding rebuke of the myth of widespread voter fraud from officials at every level of government. And today, the Supreme Court all but ended the legal fight to overturn the election when it rejected Texas’s lawsuit to throw out the presidential election results in four battleground states that President Trump lost.
Democratic officials and civil rights leaders have been outspoken about the strength of our election systems and their trust in our election officials. And despite the alarming number of Republicans enabling Trump’s attempts to subvert democracy, there is a growing bipartisan coalition of leaders united behind the facts. What follows is a collection of definitive statements rejecting the myth of widespread voter fraud from federal agencies; the courts, including Trump-appointed judges; and Republican election officials and elected officials.
Federal Agencies
The nation’s top intelligence and law enforcement agencies have confirmed that there is no evidence of significant voter fraud in American elections and that the 2020 election was secure.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
- “We have not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise.” – Christopher Wray, FBI Director, September 24, 2020, hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. (Director Wray was appointed by President Trump in 2017.)
Department of Homeland Security – Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
- “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history . . . . There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised . . . While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections . . . we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too.” – Joint Statement by CISA, the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC), and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council (SCC), November 12, 2020.
- “[Election] Day was quiet. There was no indication or evidence that there was any evidence of hacking or compromise of election systems on, before, or after November 3 . . . . We did a good job. I would do it one thousand times over.” – Chris Krebs, Former Director of CISA, November 29, 2020.
Shortly after releasing the joint statement, Chris Krebs was fired from his position as director of CISA. His firing was directly linked to the joint statement in a tweet by President Trump. In a 60 Minutes interview, Krebs reflected on his agency’s work and described the Trump team’s claims of fraud as attempts to “undermine confidence in the election, to confuse people, to scare people . . . ”
Department of Justice (DOJ)
- “To date, [DOJ investigators] have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” – Attorney General William Barr, December 1, 2020, announcement.
This conclusion was especially notable in light of Attorney General Barr’s extraordinary efforts to support President Trump’s ludicrous fraud allegations. In a break from long-standing DOJ policy, Barr announced in a November 9 memorandum that federal prosecutors were authorized to investigate some election fraud cases before the results of the election were certified, and noted that there may be irregularities that “could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.” The directive was roundly criticized by many former DOJ officials and elections experts.
Richard Pilger, head of the DOJ’s Election Crimes branch, responded to the move by stepping down from his position. Twenty-three Democratic attorneys general signed a letter expressing confidence that “any such investigations will not succeed in overturning the election’s outcome,” but criticizing the move for exacting “the terrible cost of undermining trust in the democratic institutions on which this country depends.” In another critical letter, 16 U.S. attorneys who track election malfeasance noted that the “policy change was not based in fact” and confirmed that in their jurisdictions there was no evidence of substantial election irregularities.
U.S. Election Assistance Commission
- “Time and time again, when the rubber hits the road, there's no evidence — whether that's in court cases, whether that's in the presidential commission that was created in 2017 to find the alleged non-citizens fraud after the 2016 election that cost, in his mind, the president the popular vote, but found nothing and disbanded in embarrassment, or academic studies. We never see evidence of widespread voter fraud. And there's no indicators that 2020 will be different in that regard.” – Benjamin Hovland, Commissioner of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Business Insider, November 12, 2020
The Courts
The courts have emphatically rejected claims of widespread election fraud and irregularities from President Trump and his allies. Despite bringing roughly 50 postelection lawsuits at the time of this writing, Trump and his allies have failed to discount a significant number of votes, block the certification of results, or overturn the results of any race.
In a number of these cases, courts have forcefully rebuked the lawyers for their outlandish claims of voter fraud, egregious lack of evidence, and attempted misuse of the judiciary.
United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
- “This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together . . . . This Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.” – Judge Matthew Brann, rejecting an attempt by Trump campaign to throw out all the votes in Pennsylvania based in part on unsubstantiated insinuations of voter fraud, in Donald J. Trump for President v. Boockvar, November 21, 2020
Third Judicial Circuit Court of Michigan
- “‘Plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible.” – Chief Justice Timothy Kenny, rejecting attempt by Trump allies to block the certification of the vote in Wayne County, in Costantino v. City of Detroit, November 13, 2020
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.” – Trump-appointed Judge Stephanos Bibas, rejecting motion to block certification of election results in Pennsylvania in an unanimous opinion, in Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, November 27, 2020
Wisconsin Supreme Court
- “At stake, in some measure, is faith in our system of free and fair elections, a feature central to the enduring strength of our constitutional republic. It can be easy to blithely move on to the next case with a petition so obviously lacking, but this is sobering. The relief being sought by the petitioners is the most dramatic invocation of judicial power I have ever seen. Judicial acquiescence to such entreaties built on so flimsy a foundation would do indelible damage to every future election.” – Judge Brian Hagedorn (concurring), rejecting request to nullify Wisconsin’s presidential results, allow the state legislature to appoint its own slate of electors, and compel the governor to approve said electors, in Wisconsin Voters Alliance v. Wisconsin Election Commission, December 4, 2020
Election Officials and Experts
New York Times Survey of Election Officials
- “Election officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race . . . ” – New York Times, November 10, 2020
The Times contacted the offices of the top election officials in every state. Notably, all 29 Republican secretaries of state were surveyed, most responding directly to the Times. None reported any major voting issues, refusing to back up Trump’s portrait of a fraudulent election.
59 Election Security Experts and Computer Scientists
- “Anyone asserting that a U.S. election was ‘rigged’ is making an extraordinary claim, one that must be supported by persuasive and verifiable evidence . . .” In the absence of such evidence, they added, it is “simply speculation.” – Letter from 59 of the country’s top election security experts and computer scientists, November 16, 2020
- “We are aware of alarming assertions being made that the 2020 election was ‘rigged’ by exploiting technical vulnerabilities. However, in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.” Letter from 59 of the country’s top election security experts and computer scientists, November 16, 2020
Gabriel Sterling (R), Georgia’s Voting Systems Implementation Manager
- [Claims of voter fraud] are “hoaxes and nonsense. Don’t buy into these things. Find trusted sources.” – Los Angeles Times, November 9, 2020
- “It has to stop,” Sterling said, reacting to Trump’s sustained assaults on Georgia’s election process and resulting violent threats to local election officials. – New York Times, December 1, 2020
Scott Schwab (R), Kansas Secretary of State
- “Kansas did not experience any widespread, systematic issues with voter fraud, intimidation, irregularities or voting problems . . . . We are very pleased with how the election has gone up to this point.” – Spokeswoman for Secretary Schwab, New York Times, November 10, 2020
Kim Wyman (R), Washington Secretary of State
- Of attempts by Republican candidates to raise accusations of fraud, Wyman said “it’s just throwing grass at the fence at this point . . . see what sticks.” – New York Times, November 10, 2020
Lisa Posthumus Lyons (R), Kent County Clerk
- “We’ve just got a lot of checks and balances and transparency here in Michigan, and in Kent County we take that very seriously. I am 100% confident in the results in Kent County, and I’m confident that our canvass, once it’s all concluded, will validate that.” – USA Today, November 14, 2020
Elected Officials and Political Operatives
While the courts, federal agencies, and election officials have roundly rejected claims of widespread voter fraud, perhaps the sharpest — albeit surprising — rebukes have come from key elected officials and political operatives within the Republican party.
Ben Ginsberg, Veteran Republican Party Election Lawyer
- “The truth is that after decades of looking for illegal voting, there’s no proof of widespread fraud. At most, there are isolated incidents — by both Democrats and Republicans. Elections are not rigged.” – Washington Post, September 8, 2020
- “Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican Party. People have spent a lot of time looking for it, but it doesn’t exist.” – Washington Post, November 1, 2020
- “As he confronts losing, Trump has devoted his campaign and the Republican Party to this myth of voter fraud . . . . Perhaps this was the plan all along . . . disenfranchising enough voters has become key to his reelection strategy.” – Washington Post, November 1, 2020 (Ginsberg has practiced election law for 38 years.)
Karl Rove, Former Senior Adviser and Deputy Chief of Staff to George W. Bush
- “The president’s efforts are unlikely to move a single state from Mr. Biden’s column, and certainly they’re not enough to change the final outcome.” – Wall Street Journal, November 11, 2020
- “Mr. Trump must prove systemic fraud, with illegal votes in the tens of thousands. There is no evidence of that so far.” – Wall Street Journal, November 11, 2020
Letter from 31 Former Republican Members of Congress
- “As former Republican Members of Congress who swore an oath to the Constitution, we believe the statements by President Trump alleging fraud in the election are efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the election and are unacceptable.” – The Hill, November 9, 2020
Will Hurd (R), Representative of Texas’s 23rd District
- “A sitting president undermining our political process & questioning the legality of the voices of countless Americans without evidence is not only dangerous & wrong, it undermines the very foundation this nation was built upon. Every American should have his or her vote counted." – The Hill, November 5, 2020
Adam Kinzinger (R), Republican Representative of Illinois’s 16th District
- “STOP spreading debunked misinformation…This is getting insane” – Twitter, November 5, 2020
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R)
- “There is no defense for the president’s comments undermining our Democratic process . . . . No election or person is more important than our Democracy.” – Twitter, November 5, 2020
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst (R)
- “We believe in honesty. We believe in the integrity of our election system, which is why I do believe that if there is fraud out there, it should be brought to the court's attention and the proof should be brought forward. I think all of us agree on that. But to insinuate that Republican and Democratic candidates paid to throw off this election I think is absolutely outrageous . . . to have that accusation just offhandedly thrown out there just to confuse our voters across the United States, I think that is absolutely wrong.” – Fox News Radio, November 19, 2020
Utah Senator Mitt Romney (R)
- “[The president] is wrong to say that the election was rigged, corrupt or stolen — doing so damages the cause of freedom here and around the world, weakens the institutions that lie at the foundation of the Republic, and recklessly inflames destruction and dangerous passions.” – Twitter, November 6, 2020
- “Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the President has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election. It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.” – Twitter, November 19, 2020
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy (R)
- “President Trump’s legal team has not presented evidence of the massive fraud which would have had to be present to overturn the election. I voted for President Trump but Joe Biden won.” – Twitter, November 23, 2020
Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey (R)
- After it emerged that Trump called Pennsylvania's Republican state House speaker seeking help to reverse his loss in the state, Sen. Toomey told the Philadelphia Inquirer: “It’s completely unacceptable and it’s not going to work and the president should give up trying to get legislatures to overturn the results of the elections in their respective states.”
- Trump’s frustration with Democrats “doesn’t change the obligation of the president’s campaign to acknowledge that they have not been able to demonstrate that there’s been fraud, not on any significant scale.” – Philadelphia Inquirer, December 8, 2020
- “That has been determined by election officials, that has been determined by federal judges, that’s been determined by appellate court judges. That’s the opinion of the attorney general, who is a Donald Trump appointee. So in my view the outcome of the election is clear and that is that Joe Biden won the election.” – Philadelphia Inquirer, December 8, 2020
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