Republicans hatch plot to keep President Donald Trump in power
A plan to disrupt formal certification of Joe Biden’s election win is a bold move to try to keep Donald Trump in the White House.
More than half the Republicans in the US House of Representatives are planning to disrupt the formal certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory in an attempt to keep Donald Trump in the White House.
Although only about a dozen Republicans in the House have declared publicly that they will take part in the manoeuvre, 140 members are planning to join the effort, according to CNN.
House Representatives and Senators meet in a joint session on Wednesday at which the presidential election results from each state will be read out in the chamber. Mike Pence, the Vice-President, who will preside over the ceremony, will call for any objections to each state’s electoral votes, which must be made in writing and endorsed by at least one member of both the House and Senate. Each objection is followed by a debate and then a vote. To be upheld an objection would require a majority in both chambers.
The Democrats hold a majority in the House. In the Senate, where Republicans hold sway, several Republican senators have spoken out against such protest. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is said to have advised his colleagues against making such an objection. So far only one Republican senator, Josh Hawley of Missouri, has said that he plans to object.
Ben Sasse, a Republican senator from Nebraska, called the protest a dangerous ploy, noting that since the Electoral College Act of 1887, establishing the formal certification process, “not a single electoral vote has ever been thrown out by Congress”. In a Facebook post to answer the “many Nebraskans” who had asked him why he opposed the manoeuvre, he noted that President Trump’s lawyers had been unable to present any credible evidence of fraud in court, nor had recounts and audits revealed any irregularities that would alter the result in the key states.
“There is a giant gulf between what President Trump and his allies say in public … and what President Trump’s lawyers actually say in courts of law,” he wrote. “Because there are no penalties for misleading the public but there are serious penalties for misleading a judge.”
He said that claims of electoral fraud were being used as a fundraising strategy. “The President and his allied organisations have raised well over half a billion (billion!) dollars from supporters who have been led to believe that they’re contributing to a ferocious legal defence,” he wrote. “When we talk in private, I haven’t heard a single congressional Republican allege that the election results were fraudulent – not one. Instead, I hear them talk about their worries about how they will ‘look’ to President Trump’s most ardent supporters.”
In a separate effort, the Republican congressman Louie Gohmert, of Texas, and a group of Republicans from Arizona, have sought to bring legal action against Mr Pence, asking a judge to issue an emergency declaration giving the vice-president the power to ignore votes from some states.
The Department of Justice, acting for Mr Pence, and a lawyer for the House of Representatives have asked the court to dismiss the action.
The Times
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