Despite a decisive defeat before the U.S. supreme court last week, president Donald Trump vowed his campaign is not over and that its election fraud cases would “continue to go forward” on the eve of a pivotal vote in the Electoral College.
In an interview that aired Sunday morning on Fox News, a defiant Trump asserted that he won a trio of swing states that have been declared for presumed president-elect Joe Biden – who is expected to claim 306 electoral votes (and the American presidency) when presidential electors cast their ballots on Monday.
“No, it’s not over,” Trump said. “We keep going and we’re going to continue to go forward. We have numerous local cases.”
Trump’s statements came after the U.S. supreme court refused to hear a case filed by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The case alleged that these battleground states “exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws.” It also accused them of enacting “last-minute changes, thus skewing the results of the 2020 general election.”
“This wasn’t like a close election,” Trump told Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends. “We won Georgia big. We won Pennsylvania big. We won Wisconsin big.”
Nonetheless, official results have Biden winning Georgia’s sixteen electoral votes by 0.2 percent (11,779 votes), Pennsylvania’s twenty electoral votes by 1.2 percent (81,660 votes) and Wisconsin’s ten electoral votes by 0.7 percent (20,682 votes). Meanwhile, Arizona’s eleven electoral votes have been awarded to Biden after an apparent victory margin of only 0.3 percent (10,457 votes).
(Click to view)
(Via: Joe Biden/ Facebook)
In other words, Trump appears to have come up just 42,921 votes shy of forcing an electoral college tie (had he won Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin) – and 124,582 votes shy of winning a second term outright (had he won Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin).
That’s a minuscule 0.027 percent of all 158.2 million votes case for the tie and 0.078 percent of all votes cast for the win …
Arizona was not cited in the Texas lawsuit, however.
In Michigan (which was cited in the Texas suit), official results have Biden capturing the state’s sixteen electoral votes by 2.8 percent (154,188 votes).
As of this writing, Trump’s attorneys and allies have yet to present an evidence-based narrative showing how specific fraudulent acts provided Biden with his winning margin in these battleground states.
Make no mistake: There is plenty of smoke, but as we have noted on several prior occasions “the burden of proof lies with Trump and his attorneys to show us the fire.”
“Barring clear and compelling evidence to the contrary, we presume the current electoral returns are valid,” we noted recently. “However, this presumption of validity must be accompanied by a rigorous inspection of all ballots in these battleground states – along with a thorough investigation of all credible allegations of tampering, box-stuffing, ‘glitches’ and other voting irregularities.”
From the very beginning of this process our position has been clear: Every legitimate vote must be counted, every fraudulent vote must be thrown out.
And frankly, at this point it is abundantly clear to us that the American electoral system is in desperate need of a top-to-bottom overhaul – as faith in the integrity of the ballot is at an all-time low (and rightfully so).
Honestly, we accept the fundamental premise of the Texas lawsuit – namely that Covid-19 enabled these states to “flood their people with unlawful ballot applications and ballots while ignoring statutory requirements as to how (these ballots) were received, evaluated and counted.”
That clearly happened, in our estimation … although it remains to be seen if it happened in sufficient, verifiable volumes so as to change the outcome of the election.
Either way, it was disappointing to see that our advice/ warning regarding the security and integrity of the mail-in ballot was not heeded leading up to the November 3, 2020 election …
Should the issues raised in the Texas case be heard? Yes …
But as expected, the supreme court declined to hear this particular challenge – citing Paxton’s “lack of standing” on behalf of the Lone Star State.
“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections,” the court correctly (and constitutionally) noted in declining to hear the case. “All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.”
All three of Trump’s appointees to the high court – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – voted against hearing the case.
Which, again, was consistent with our reading of the U.S. Constitution.
“And that . . . is all they wrote,” Jim Geraghty wrote for National Review. “The legal challenges to the vote counts and selection of electors to the Electoral College appear to be exhausted. The 2020 presidential election is over. Joe Biden won 306 electoral votes, and the Electoral College meets Monday. Biden will be sworn in as president on January 20, 2021.”
Trump blasted the court, claiming its justices had “ZERO interest” in hearing evidence of election fraud.
“All they were interested in is ‘standing,’ which makes it very difficult for the president to present a case on the merits,” Trump tweeted.
“The supreme court, all they did is say we don’t have standing,” Trump elaborated in his Fox and Friends interview. “So they’re saying essentially the president of the United States and Texas and these other states, great states, they don’t have standing.”
Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani argued that the standing issue could be addressed by having voters in these swing states bring independent actions alleging the same abuses – although it is not clear when such actions might be filed.
Meanwhile, Trump admitted his campaign is facing a time crunch in light of the looming electoral college vote.
“We’re going to speed it up as much as we can, but you can only go so fast,” Trump told Kilmeade. “They give us very little time. But we caught them, as you know, as fraudulent, dropping ballots, doing so many things, nobody can even believe it.”
As for whether he plans to attend the January 20, 2021 inauguration of Biden – which is looking more and more like a certainty – Trump said “I don’t want to talk about that.”
Again, as we previously reported, he may have other plans on that date …
-FITSNews
***
WANNA SOUND OFF?
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to proactively address? We have an open microphone policy here at FITSNews! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
