In an editorial called “Trump’s Silence on Jan 6 Is Damning,” the New York Post wrote: “His only focus was to find any means — damn the consequences — to block the peaceful transfer of power. There is no other explanation for his refusal to stop violence, as well as no defense. It’s up to the Justice Department to decide if this is a crime. But as a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again.”
I disagree.
Ex-President Donald Trump felt robbed, and it is understandable why. NPR’s Domenico Montanaro said, “Just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College.”
Let’s look at just three states.
The Michigan secretary used COVID-19 to send a mail in ballot application to every voter regardless of whether they requested one. Trump lost the lawsuit against Michigan after the Michigan Supreme Court refused the case. The Michigan Court of Appeals ruling was in effect. But in that 2-1 ruling on procedural grounds, Judge Patrick Meter dissented, arguing that the “issues are not moot because state electors have not yet been seated, the Electoral College has not yet been assembled, and Congress has not yet convened.”
Numerous rules and regulations were not respected in Pennsylvania. This included allowing election officials to accept certain ballots that were received after Election Day.
Two prominent liberal professors, Harvard emeritus Alan Dershowitz and George Washington University’s Jonathan Turley, suggested that Trump’s lawsuit against the state had merit.
About Pennsylvania’s acceptance of ballots after election day, Dershowitz said, “The Constitution doesn’t permit anybody in the state but the legislature to make decisions about elections.” Turley wrote: “Pennsylvania remains a rich environment for challenges. There have been fierce objections to the state law-enforcement changes that were made by the judiciary. … The issues in Pennsylvania may involve mailed ballots without postmarks and the rejection of those with signature mismatches. There are lawsuits over officials ‘curing’ defective ballots and letting ineligible voters fill out ballots, actions that could knock out small pockets which could change the results.”
Trump was also dismissed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court for procedural reasons. The chief justice of that court, however, argued that drop boxes were a violation of the law.
Chief Justice Patience Roggensack wrote, “The WEC (Wisconsin Election Commission) ignores that the legislature provided only one act an election official may take in regard to a defective witness address: mail the defective ballot back to the elector to correct the error.”
In fact, in July 2022, Wisconsin Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision disallowed drop boxes except for those placed at election offices where actual voters could drop off their ballots.
As to fomenting an “insurrection,” Kash Patel, chief of staff for the acting Secretary of Defense said that on Jan. 4, “Mr. Trump unambiguously authorized up to 20,000 National Guardsmen to be used should the second section of the law, the request come in. But those requests never did.” Patel says he testified under oath to the Jan. 6 committee that he was in the room when Trump made this authorization.
What part of “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” — as Trump said in his Jan. 6 speech — do the Jan. 6 committee members not understand? Yes, the speech ended with, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” But politicians have long used rhetoric like “We’re going to fight,” or “We’re going to take back America,” or “This is war.”
Trump unsuccessfully argued against the certification, as did congressional Democrats after the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. But when they did so, the media did not characterize them as “undermining our democracy.”
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