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election 2020
'One of the Most Pathetic Things I've Ever Seen': Watch Vance Refuse to Say Whether Trump Lost in 2020
A New York Times interview carried echoes of Vance's "damning non-answer" in the vice presidential debate.
Oct 11, 2024
Characterizing questions about whether Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump lied about his 2020 election loss as an "obsession" of the media, vice presidential contender JD Vance on Friday refused five consecutive opportunities to acknowledge the election results.
In an interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, host of The New York Times podcast "The Interview," Vance repeatedly attempted to suggest that questions about whether Trump refused to accept the results of a democratic election were unimportant, saying he was "focused on the future."
"Do you think he lost the 2020 election?" asked Garcia-Navarro, point-blank.
"I think that Donald Trump and I have both raised a number of issues with the 2020 election," Vance replied. "I think there's an obsession here with focusing on 2020. I'm much more worried about what happened after 2020, which is a wide-open border, groceries that are unaffordable."
When Garcia-Navarro asked him the straightforward question a second and third time, he claimed tech companies' censorship of a New York Post story about the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop "cost Donald Trump millions of votes," still refusing to answer whether President Joe Biden was, in fact, the election winner in November 2020.
"I've asked this question repeatedly, it is something that is very important for the American people to know," said Garcia-Navarro. "There is no proof, legal or otherwise, the Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election."
Vance later said he would not have certified the 2020 election if he had been in Congress at the time, citing his claim that "industrial scale censorship" cost Trump millions of votes.
"Vance definitively stated that he would have voided the votes of millions of Americans, and paved the way for installing Trump, after Trump lost the 2020 election," said lawyer and writer David Lurie.
Independent journalist Aaron Rupar called Vance's refusal to answer the question "one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen."
The interview came days after Vance faced Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz in a debate. Vance responded to a direct question about whether Trump lost in 2020 with his favored refrain and more claims of censorship.
"Tim, I'm focused on the future," Vance said at the debate. "Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation?"
Walz condemned Vance's "damning non-answer."
Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, responded to Friday's interview by calling Vance "the Project 2025 enabler of Trump's dreams."
"Donald Trump chose JD Vance to be his running mate for one reason and one reason only: He will do what Mike Pence wouldn't and put Donald Trump over our Constitution," said Chitika. "His refusal to acknowledge the simple fact that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election is proof that if Trump wins, there will be no one left to check his worst instincts and stop him from gaining unprecedented, unchecked power to do whatever he wants and put our country at risk."
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New Motion Presents Most Detailed Case Yet Against Trump for Insurrection Crimes
"The desperate plan that Trump embarked on to try and overturn the results of a legitimate election was reprehensible, irresponsible, and—the document shows—criminal," said one consumer advocate.
Oct 02, 2024
Jack Smith, the special counsel probing former U.S. President Donald Trump's attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential contest, on Wednesday presented a massive trove of fresh evidence supporting his election interference case against the 2024 Republican nominee.
Smith's sprawling and highly anticipated 165-page motion—which was partly unsealed Wednesday by presiding U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan—states that Trump "asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct. Not so."
Trump—who in August 2023 was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights—contends that his actions were taken in his official capacity as president and not as a private individual.
In July, the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing justices—including three Trump appointees—ruled that the ex-president is entitled to "absolute immunity" for "official acts" taken while he was in office, raising questions about the future of this case. According to Smith's motion:
Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one. Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted—a function in which the defendant, as president, had no official role.
In Trump v. United States... the Supreme Court held that presidents are immune from prosecution for certain official conduct—including the defendant's use of the Justice Department in furtherance of his scheme, as was alleged in the original indictment—and remanded to this court to determine whether the remaining allegations against the defendant are immunized.
The answer to that question is no. This motion provides a comprehensive account of the defendant's private criminal conduct; sets forth the legal framework created by Trump for resolving immunity claims; applies that framework to establish that none of the defendant's charged conduct is immunized because it either was unofficial or any presumptive immunity is rebutted; and requests the relief the government seeks, which is, at bottom, this: that the court determine that the defendant must stand trial for his private crimes as would any other citizen.
Smith's filing details what Trump told various people in his inner circle, including then-Vice President Mike Pence, his now-disgraced and twice-disbarred lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and leading White House and Republican Party figures—some of whose names remain undisclosed.
The motion also highlights Trump's actions on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory. Trump is still pushing his "Big Lie" that Democrats stole the 2020 election; his running mate, U.S. Sen. J D Vance (R-Ohio), on Tuesday
refused to acknowledge that Trump lost to Biden when he was asked about the election during a vice presidential debate against Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
"Upon receiving a phone call alerting him that Pence had been taken to a secure location, [PERSON 15] rushed to the dining room to inform [Trump] in hopes that the defendant would take action to ensure Pence's safety," the filing states. "Instead, after [P15] delivered the news, the defendant looked at him and said only, 'So what?'"
Smith argued that deceit was central to Trump's efforts, specifically, "the defendant's and co-conspirators' knowingly false claims of election fraud," which they used to purvey the Big Lie.
The motion states:
When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (the "targeted states"). His efforts included lying to state officials in order to induce them to ignore true vote counts; manufacturing fraudulent electoral votes in the targeted states; attempting to enlist Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, to obstruct Congress' certification of the election by using the defendant's fraudulent electoral votes; and when all else had failed, on January 6, 2021, directing an angry crowd of supporters to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification.
For a historic second time, Trump was
impeached by the House of Representatives following his effort to subvert the election, although he was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung
blasted Smith's motion as "unconstitutional" and "falsehood-ridden."
"Deranged Jack Smith and Washington D.C. Radical Democrats are hell-bent on weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power," Cheung said in a statement aping Trump's habit of overcapitalizing words. "President Trump is dominating, and the Radical Democrats throughout the Deep State are freaking out. This entire case is a partisan, Unconstitutional Witch Hunt that should be dismissed entirely, together with ALL of the remaining Democrat hoaxes."
Democracy defenders, however, welcomed Smith's ruling.
"Jack Smith has shown us yet again the merits of his case against former President Trump," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and co-chair of the Not Above the Law Coalition.
"In his filing, Smith clarifies that the alleged criminal actions occurred while Trump was acting as a private citizen," Gilbert added. "The desperate plan that Trump embarked on to try and overturn the results of a legitimate election was reprehensible, irresponsible, and—the document shows—criminal. Accountability to the American people and our democracy is our only path forward."
Judge Chutkan unsealed the motion five weeks before Trump will face off against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in a tight presidential election. If he wins, Trump will have the power to order the Department of Justice to drop the criminal charges against him.
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US Lawmakers Must Pledge to Honor 2024 Election Results, Say Groups
"Ensuring the peaceful certification of the next presidential election is a critical responsibility," wrote the groups. "A failure to do so would not only be a dangerous dereliction of your oath of office but a stain on our democracy."
Sep 30, 2024
With Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies attempting to sow doubt over the 2024 election results if he loses, more than four dozen watchdogs and advocacy groups on Monday wrote to every member of Congress, demanding lawmakers' commitment to ensuring the peaceful transfer of power in January 2025.
Organized by the group Courage for America, which advocates against "an extremist agenda that puts money and power over the freedoms of our families and communities," the letter notes that there are less than 100 days until January 6, 2025, the day Congress is scheduled to certify the 2024 election results.
That date will also mark the fourth anniversary of the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol, with supporters of Trump descending on the building with the aim of stopping lawmakers from certifying the 2020 election results after the then-president told them to "take back our country" and demand that Congress "only count the electors" who he viewed as "lawfully slated."
On January 6, 2025, said the groups on Monday, "if Congress disregards its patriotic and constitutional duties to the American people, our most fundamental rights and freedoms will be jeopardized once again."
The signatories, including Public Citizen, People's Action, and Friends of the Earth, urged lawmakers to "denounce any attempt to intimidate, harass, threaten, or incite political violence; reject attempts to spread misinformation about the integrity of the United States' elections; and agree to accept the ultimate outcome of the election, promptly certify the result, and support the peaceful transfer of power."
The letter was sent days after U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters that he would support certifying the election results—"if we have a free, fair, and safe election."
Johnson's implied suggestion that the election won't be fair, four years after the top Republican promoted Trump's meritless claims that the 2020 election had been rigged, was called "disturbing" by journalist Chris Geidner.
Johnson has also led the charge against noncitizen voting, which he has admitted is already against federal law but has nevertheless introduced a bill to prevent.
U.S. Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the top-ranking Democrat on the House Committee on House Administration, which oversees issues related to elections, responded to Johnson's remarks and proposed legislation in an op-ed at MSNBC, noting that his committee "has held numerous hearings that demonstrate state and local election officials are prepared for November's elections and protections against potential fraud and election tampering remain strong and highly effective."
"The lies being spread by Trump, Speaker Johnson, House Republicans and extreme right-wing conspiracy theorists about noncitizen voting have been repeatedly debunked. Yet they have persisted in a clear attempt to generate anxiety in the minds of voters, and to serve, come November, as the foundation for false claims of election fraud," wrote Morelle. "Congress' duty to uphold the will of the people is embedded in the Constitution and federal law... Congress must, in no uncertain terms, ensure January 6, 2025, will not be a repeat of January 6, 2021, as we certify the results of the Electoral College."
Trump has also suggested without evidence that fraudulent voting—instances of which were found just 31 times out of more than 1 billion votes cast between 2000-14 in one comprehensive study—will be rampant in the election, saying in one social media post recently, "If you vote illegally you're going to jail."
The last time members of Congress joined a Trump-led effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power, reads the letter sent Monday, "lives were lost and a violent mob took over the United States Capitol in an attempt to subvert the will of the American people."
"That must never happen again," the groups wrote. "Ensuring the peaceful certification of the next presidential election is a critical responsibility. You have the responsibility to uplift our democratic institutions in the face of rising political violence and threats. A failure to do so would not only be a dangerous dereliction of your oath of office but a stain on our democracy."
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