Since day one after losing the 2020 Presidential election, Der Führer Former President Trump has claimed without evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Trump has also periodically attacked former Vice President Mike Pence for certifying the Electoral College results on January 6, 2021, after hundreds of Trump supporters violently stormed the United States Capitol in a bid to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president and took over the House Chamber to stop of the process.
On January 29, 2022 “Der Führer” Trump angerly lashed out at a rally in Conroe, Texas against the ongoing criminal investigations in New York, Georgia and Washington. Trump went so far as to call on his supporters to stage mass protests if he is “mistreated” by prosecutors, ostensibly meaning if he is charged or indicted for crimes. Trump said:
“If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington, D.C, in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt.”
Trump also said he would “consider” pardoning defendants charged in connection with the January 6 , 2021 Capitol riot if he returns to the White House and said:
“Another thing we’ll do, and so many people have been asking me about it, if I run and if I win we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. … And if it requires pardons we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.”
DER FÜHRER TRUMP WANTED PENCE TO OVERTURN ELECTION
On January 30, Der Führer Trump issued an explicit public statement that his intent on January 6, 2021 was he wanted then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, making clear Trump’s goal was not to resolve disputes over electoral votes but to have Pence declare Trump the winner. Trump became angry after Republican Main Senator Susan Collins said on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” that “ambiguities” in the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which governs the counting and the certification of the presidential vote, were “exploited” on January 6, 2021. Collins went on to say that lawmakers “need to prevent that from happening again.” Collins is leading a group of 16 senators on the reforms.
Der Führer Trump had this to say in a statement:
“If … Vice President [Mike Pence] had ‘absolutely no right’ to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election? … Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. … Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”
MIKE PENCE REBUKES DER FÜHRER TRUMP
On January 6, 2021, Trump urged Vice President Mike Pence to use his constitutionally mandated position overseeing the counting of the Electoral College votes in the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to stop Joe Biden’s victory from being officially certified. Trump wanted Pence to either reject states’ votes or send them back to be reconsidered. Pence refused, saying he did not believe he had the authority to do so.
The 2020 election certification was stopped when a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a bid to scuttle the certification, including some who were chanting “KILL MIKE PENCE”. Outside the capitol gallows had been erected with Pence’s name on it.
Trump continued attacked Pence during the riot, tweeting:
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”
On February 4, 2022 Former Vice President Mike Pence, while giving a speech at the ultra-conservative Federalist Society event in Florida sharply rebuked Trump for suggesting he had the ability to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Pence called the idea “un-American.” Pence speech was about the need for conservatives to remain true to the Constitution and reject efforts to consolidate power at the federal level.
Pence told the audience:
“I understand the disappointment so many feel about the last election. I was on the ballot. But whatever the future holds, I know we did our duty that day. The truth is, there’s more at stake than our party or our political fortunes. If we lose faith in the Constitution, we won’t just lose elections — we’ll lose our country.
“There are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress, I possessed unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes.
I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. Frankly, there is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.
Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”
CHENEY AND KINZINGER CENSURED BY DER FÜHRER TRUMP REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
On February 4, 2022 the Republican National Committee (RNC) party, meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, enacted a resolution formally censuring US Republican Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. The resolution claims that the two lawmakers were “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” from their membership on the House select committee.
The Republican National Committee Resolution formally censures Cheney and Kinzinger and states in part that the Republican Party:
“shall immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party. … [Their behavior] has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic, and is inconsistent with the position of the Conference.”
The resolution claimed Cheney and Kinzinger, the only Republicans on the nine-member select committee investigating the Capitol riot. The resolution states:
“[Cheney and Kinzinger] are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes.”
Ahead of the censure vote, Cheney fired off a strong statement slamming Republican leaders. Cheney had this to say:
“[Republican leaders] … have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to overturn a presidential election. … “I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump. … History will be their judge.”
Kinzinger for his part accused his colleagues of allowing “conspiracies and toxic tribalism [to] hinder their ability to see clear-eyed.”
The inclusion of the language “legitimate political discourse” in the resolution drew immediate condemnation from Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney and she said in a tweet:
“This was January 6th … This is not ‘legitimate political discourse.'”
Cheney also tweeted a video depicting violent confrontations showing rioters violently clashing with police at the Capitol, spraying officers with chemical irritants, and attacking them with flagpoles and, in at least one instance, a hockey stick.
Cheney said the punitive measure marked “a sad day for the party of Lincoln.”
The House Select Committee has conducted interviews with close to 400 individuals. Those interviewed have included members of Trump’s inner circle to organizers who helped plan the “Stop the Steal” rally on the morning of January 6.
Cheney and Kinzinger have played significant roles in the House select committee’s probe of Trump’s activities before and during the riot at the Capitol last January. They are the only two Republicans on the committee resulting in condemnation of fellow Republican lawmakers and party officials who alleged they are enabling an unfair investigation led by congressional Democrats.
The move to censure Cheney and Kinzinger is the first time the Republican National party has censured an incumbent congressional Republican with a formal resolution backed by its members. When the resolution was introduced Friday to all 168 RNC members, it was described as a motion “to no longer support [Cheney and Kinzinger] as members of the Republican Party.”
Several Republicans, including Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the 2012 presidential nominee, have criticized the motion to censure Cheney and Kinzinger. Both were among 10 House GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump last year for his role in inciting the Capitol riot. Romney had this to say:
“Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol. Honor attaches to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for seeking truth even when doing so comes at great personal cost.”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/04/politics/liz-cheney-adam-kinzinger-censure-rnc/index.html
CHRIS CHRISTIE BREAKS WITH TRUMP
On February 6, Republican former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaking on ABC’s This Week broke sharply with Donald Trump and refuted Trump’s repeated assertion that Mike Pence had the authority as vice president to refuse the certification of Electoral College ballots from states where the Trump has made baseless claims of wide-scale election fraud. Christie sided with Mike Pence when he said:
“The actions the vice president took on January 6 spoke loudly, and I’m glad that he’s finally put words to it. I don’t know why it took him so long, but I’m glad that he did. … Let’s call this what it is. January 6 was a riot that was incited by Donald Trump in an effort to intimidate Mike Pence and the Congress into doing exactly what he said in his own words last week—overturn the election. “
With respect to the resolution that censured Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Christy had this to say:
“This is just a majority of 168 people. And the RNC, most of those folks, were put into place over the course of the four years by Donald Trump. And so, it’s certainly Ronna Romney McDaniel is carrying water for Donald Trump in this regard. And so, let’s not make it bigger than it is.”
https://www.newsweek.com/chris-christie-rips-trumps-response-pences-jan-6-remarks-immature-1676604
MITCH McCONNEL AND OTHERS
On February 9, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized the Republican National Committee (RNC) for censuring Republican Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. He also took sharp issue with the RNC suggesting that the January 6 Capitol riot was “legitimate political discourse.”
McConnell told reporters:
“It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next. … That’s what it was.”
McConnell also said:
“Traditionally, the view of the national party committees is that we support all members of our party, regardless of their positions on some issues. … The issue is whether or not the R.N.C. should be sort of singling out members of our party who may have different views of the majority. That’s not the job of the R.N.C.”
Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas put it this way:
“I don’t think you can kick out of the party everybody you disagree with, or it’s going to be a minority party.”
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the House Republican Conference chairwoman, had this to say:
“Republicans have been very clear, we condemn the violence on January 6. We also condemn the violence in 2020 as violent criminals attacked federal buildings including parts of Washington, D.C.”
Many Republican lawmakers have said that the censure needlessly divided the party ahead of a challenging set of elections shadowed on the Republican side by former President Donald Trump and his continued insistence on false claims about the 2020 election.
Links to quoted news sources are here
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/us/politics/republicans-censure-mcconnell.html
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
The fact that it took Mike Pence well over a year to take issue with Der Führer Trump is truly pathetic given that the rioters could very have easily killed him, not to mention other Senators and Congress people. Pence appears to have grown some degree of a backbone perhaps because he wants to be President himself. The enactment to the censure resolution establishes without question that Trump still has a strangle hold on the Republican Party.
On November 3, 2020, President Joe Biden was elected the 46 President of the United States. Biden won the popular vote securing 51.1% of the popular vote (79,693,395 votes) to President Donald Trump’s 47.2% of the popular vote (73,708,217). President Elect Biden also won the electoral college, securing 306 to 232 electoral votes.
President Biden won the electoral college by the exact same vote Trump won the electoral college over Hillary Clinton. When Trump won the electoral college and not the popular vote, he declared he had won by a “landslide” even though Clinton had won the popular vote by over 3 million votes. Not this time. Trump lost the popular vote by 6 million votes and the electoral college by 74 and by Trump’s own measure he lost in a landslide to Biden.
It is clear that Trump is the first fascist ever elected President of the United States who put himself above the law, his own country and his own party. Trump has no respect for our constitution nor free elections. His view is that the only votes that count are those that are cast form him, a lesson he probably learned from Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s strongest and closest allies and supporters need to come to their senses and the realization that Trump is a traitor to our country, to them, to all of us and to our democracy. Attempting to set aside the vote of the American people was an attempt to undermine our very democracy. It was a coup d’é·tat that failed. He and his supporters belong in jail, yet he continues to do whatever he can to undermine our free elections.
Simply put, “Der Führer Trump” is who he is: a fascist hell bent on destroying our democracy and the Republican party needs to change its name to the “Der Führer Trump” Party.