GOP senator
calls colleagues ‘arsonists’, accuses Trump of bilking supporters
By Mary
Clare Jalonickand Lisa MascaroAssociated Press
WASHINGTON
— Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska issued a scathing rebuke Thursday of
GOP attempts to object Jan. 6 to the Electoral College tally of the
presidential election, warning colleagues against a “dangerous ploy” that could
damage the nation’s civic traditions.
Sasse, a
potential 2024 presidential contender, posted a lengthy explanation of his
views on social media, including a paragraph by paragraph dismantling of
allegations of voter fraud in key states won by President-elect Joe Biden.
Sasse said he felt compelled to speak “truth” as constituents and those
supporting President Donald Trump wanted to know where he stands on the issue.
“I will
not be participating in a project to overturn the election,” Sasse wrote. He
said he wanted to explain “why I have been urging my colleagues also to reject
this dangerous ploy.”
Trump,
the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed
his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite nonpartisan election officials
saying there wasn’t any. He has pushed Republican senators to pursue his
unfounded charges even though the Electoral College this month cemented Biden’s
306-232 victory and multiple legal efforts to challenge the results have
failed.
Sasse
said the members of Congress who will object to the Electoral College vote are
“institutional arsonists.”
“Let’s be
clear what is happening here: We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who
think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without
doing any real, long-term damage,” Sasse wrote. “But they’re wrong – and this
issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions. Adults don’t point a loaded
gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.”
Hawley
became the first GOP senator this week to announce he will raise objections when
Congress meets to affirm Biden’s victory in the election, forcing House and
Senate votes that are likely to delay — but in no way alter — the final
certification of Biden’s win.
Other
Republican senators are expected to join Hawley, wary of ceding the spotlight
to him as they, too, try to emerge as leaders in a post-Trump era.
Some
Republicans in the Democratic-majority House have already said they will object
on Trump’s behalf during the Jan. 6 count of electoral votes, and they had
needed just a single senator to go along with them to force votes in both
chambers.
Sasse
took aim at the “swampy” nature of Trump’s fundraising off the election
challenge as he outlined his reasons for believing Biden’s electoral win is
valid.
“Since
Election Day, the president and his allied organizations 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 defense,” Sasse wrote. “But in
reality, they’re mostly just giving the president and his allies a blank check
that can go to their super-PACs, their next plane trip, their next campaign or
project. That’s not serious governing. It’s swampy politics.”
He put
the election challenges being waged by Trump’s legal team in Nebraska terms.
Sasse
wrote that he couldn’t “simply allege that the College Football Playoff
Selection Committee is ‘on the take’ because they didn’t send the Cornhuskers
to the Rose Bowl, and then – after I fail to show evidence that anyone on the
Selection Committee is corrupt – argue that we need to investigate because of
these pervasive ‘allegations’ of corruption.”
With 160
million votes nationwide, there will be some instances of fraud, he said, but
nothing of the magnitude to overturn the election.
“We have
good reason to think this year’s election was fair, secure, and law-abiding,”
Sasse wrote. “That’s not to say it was flawless. But there is no evidentiary
basis for distrusting our elections altogether, or for concluding that the
results do not reflect the ballots that our fellow citizens actually cast.”
Without
giving specifics or evidence, Hawley said Wednesday that he would object
because “some states, including notably Pennsylvania,” did not follow their own
election laws. Some states made changes to their election procedures, such as
expanding absentee voting, to accommodate voters during the coronavirus
pandemic, the worst U.S. public health emergency in a century. Lawsuits
challenging Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania have been unsuccessful.
“At the
very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt
measures to secure the integrity of our elections,” Hawley said in a statement.
He also criticized the way Facebook and Twitter handled content related to the
election, characterizing it as an effort to help Biden.
Jen
Psaki, a spokesperson for the Biden transition team, dismissed Hawley’s move as
“antics” that will have no bearing on Biden being sworn in on Jan. 20.
“The
American people spoke resoundingly in this election and 81 million people have
voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Psaki said in a call with reporters.
When
Congress convenes to certify the Electoral College results, any lawmaker can
object to a state’s votes on any grounds. But the objection is not taken up
unless it is in writing and signed by both a member of the House and a member
of the Senate.
When
there is such a request, then the joint session suspends and the House and
Senate go into separate sessions to consider it. For the objection to be
sustained, both chambers must agree to it by a simple majority vote. If they
disagree, the original electoral votes are counted.
As
president of the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence will preside over the Jan. 6
session and declare the winner.
A range
of nonpartisan election officials and Republicans has confirmed there was no
fraud in the November contest that would change the results of the election.
That includes former Attorney General William Barr, who said he saw no reason
to appoint a special counsel to look into the president’s claims about the 2020
election. He resigned from his post last week.
Trump and
his allies have filed roughly 50 lawsuits challenging election results, and
nearly all has been dismissed or dropped. He’s also lost twice at the U.S.
Supreme Court.
The group
of House Republicans has said it plans to challenge the election results from
Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada. All are states that
Biden carried.