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WASHINGTON: The extraordinary Republican effort to overturn the presidential election was condemned on Sunday (Jan. 3) by a flood of current and former Republican officials who warned that the effort to cast doubt on Joe Biden’s victory and keep President Donald Trump in the position is undermining the faith of Americans. in democracy.
Trump has enlisted the support of a dozen Republican senators and up to 100 House Republicans to challenge the Electoral College vote when Congress meets in joint session to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 victory.
With the inauguration of Biden on January 20, Trump is intensifying efforts to avoid the traditional transfer of power, which tears the party apart.
Despite Trump’s claims of voter fraud, state officials have insisted that the election went smoothly and that there was no evidence of fraud or other issues that would change the outcome.
The states have certified their results as fair and valid. Of the more than 50 lawsuits that the president and his allies have filed against the election results, almost all have been dismissed or withdrawn. He also lost twice in the United States Supreme Court.
In a call released Sunday, Trump can be heard pressuring Georgia officials to “find” more votes.
READ: In Recorded Call, Trump Pressures Georgia Official To Change Election Results – Reports
“The 2020 election is over,” said a statement Sunday from a bipartisan group of 10 senators, including Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mitt Romney of Utah.
The senators wrote that further attempts to question the election are “contrary to the clearly expressed will of the American people and only serve to undermine the confidence of Americans in the election results already determined.”
Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said, “The plan by members of Congress to reject the certification of the presidential election is a mockery of our system and of who we are as Americans.”
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, said in a statement that “Biden’s victory is totally legitimate” and that efforts to cast doubt on the election “hit the foundations of our republic.”
READ: United States Congress meets at the start of high-stakes political week
Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third Republican in the House of Representatives, warned in a memo to her colleagues that objections to the Electoral College results “set an exceptionally dangerous precedent.”
Other prominent former officials also criticized the ongoing attack on the election results. In a short op-ed in the Washington Post, the 10 living former defense secretaries, half of them having served Republican presidents, asked Pentagon officials to transition to the new administration “fully, cooperative and transparent ”.
They also claimed that efforts to involve the US military in the resolution of electoral disputes “would lead us into dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional territory.”
President-elect Joe Biden speaks at The Queen Theater, December 29, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo: AP / Andrew Harnik)
Citing election results, legal challenges, state certifications, and the Electoral College vote, the former Defense Secretaries said that “the time to question the results has passed; The time has come for the formal scrutiny of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and the statute.
The unusual challenge to the presidential election, on a scale never seen before since the aftermath of the Civil War, marred the opening of the new Congress and is ready to consume its first days. The House and Senate will meet Wednesday in a joint session to accept the Electoral College vote, a typically routine process now expected to be a protracted struggle.
Trump refuses to budge and increases pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to guarantee victory as he presides in what is usually a ceremonial role in the session of Congress. Trump is cheering crowds for a rally in Washington.
The president tweeted Sunday against the poll counts, and Republicans are not on his side.
Biden’s transitional spokesman, Mike Gwin, dismissed the senators’ effort as a “stunt” that will not change the fact that Biden will be sworn in on January 20.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to her colleagues that while “there is no question” of Biden’s victory, her job now “is to convince more American citizens to trust our democratic system.” .
READ: Pelosi was narrowly re-elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives
The effort in the Senate was being led by Republican Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. Hawley defended his actions in a lengthy email to his colleagues, explaining that his Missouri constituents have been “loud and clear” in their belief that Biden’s defeat to Trump was unfair.
“It is my responsibility as a senator to raise your concerns,” Hawley wrote Saturday night.
Hawley plans to oppose the Pennsylvania state recount. But that state’s Republican Senator, Pat Toomey, criticized the attack on Pennsylvania’s electoral system, saying the results that named Biden the winner are valid.
Senator Ted Cruz greets a crowd before speaking at a campaign rally on January 2, 2021 in Cumming, Georgia. (Photo: AP / Brynn Anderson)
Cruz’s coalition of 11 Republican senators vows to reject the Electoral College accounts unless Congress launches a commission to immediately conduct an audit of the election results.
They are targeting states where Trump has raised unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud. Congress is unlikely to agree to his demand.
The group formed with Cruz, which presented no new evidence of electoral problems, includes Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mike Braun of Indiana.
The new senators in the group are Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming, Roger Marshall from Kansas, Bill Hagerty from Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville from Alabama.
The convening of the joint session to count Electoral College votes has previously faced objections. In 2017, several House Democrats challenged Trump’s victory, but Biden, who was presiding at the time as vice president, quickly fired them to affirm Trump’s victory. Rarely have protests approached this level of intensity.
The timing is decisive for the Republican Party in the post-Trump era. Both Hawley and Cruz are potential presidential contenders in 2024, cementing their alignment with Trump’s supporter base. Others are trying to forge a different path for the Republican Party.
Pence will be watched carefully as he presides over what is expected to be a protracted showdown, depending on how many challenges are mounted.
The vice president “appreciates the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections,” Pence Chief of Staff Marc Short said in a statement Saturday.
Vice President Mike Pence salutes as he steps off stage after speaking at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, December 22, 2020, in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo: AP / Lynne Sladky)
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Republicans of such challenges but said little when asked about it on Capitol Hill when the Senate opened Sunday.
“We will take care of all of that on Wednesday,” he said.
But Republicans simply said they don’t plan to join the effort that will fail.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said Sunday that his colleagues will have the opportunity to present their case, but that they must present evidence and facts. “They have a high bar to overcome,” he said.
Congress has been reluctant to interfere with state electoral systems, a long-standing protocol. States elect their own election officials and write their election laws.
During the coronavirus pandemic, many states adapted by allowing voting by mail to alleviate the health risks of voting in person. Those changes and others are now being challenged by Trump and his allies.
Trump, the first president to lose a re-election bid in nearly 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread electoral fraud, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials and even Trump’s attorney general that there was none.
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected the latest challenge from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Arizona voters, who filed a lawsuit to try to force Pence out of the mere ceremony and shape the result of the vote. The appeals court sided with the federal judge, appointed by Trump, who dismissed the lawsuit.
