(Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tears up the president’s State of the Union Speech on live TV, February 5, 2020)
If 2020 has made one thing abundantly clear to the American public, it is the level of contempt that America’s political ruling class currently have for the American people. In 2020, we watched in awe as they bankrupted the credibility of institution after institution. Never, in the history of this country, has the trust of the American people been worth so little to those running it.
Last week, the New York Times confronted Dr. Anthony Fauci for lying to the American people about the Coronvirus vaccine. He responded, not by apologizing, but by blaming the American public for not being ready for the truth at the time of each of his previous contradictory statements. And since these revelations only came to light at the moment he was confronted, we might conclude that he still doesn’t believe the public is ready for the truth, and that further fabricated data will therefore continue to be justified.
Let’s review what Americans were told to believe in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.
When it became known to some that a foreign government was in possession of 30,000 of Hillary Clinton’s unsecured, “deleted” emails, we were told that Trump was in cahoots with Russia to attack Hillary.
When it became clear that Ukrainian scandals involving the Bidens were going to be exposed, we were told that Trump was extorting Ukraine to attack the Biden family, and needed to be impeached for it.
When further salacious details involving the corruption of the Biden family came to light, we were told repeatedly that it was a disinformation campaign orchestrated by, you guessed it—the Russian government.
When facts are uncovered that threaten the prevailing narrative, or the candidacy of a presidential candidate endorsed by Big Tech, tweets are disabled from being shared, social media accounts of government officials are turned off, candidates are locked out of their campaign accounts on the eve of elections, and even major media organizations are thrown off of social media platforms, sometimes for weeks at a time. Then, as often as not, comes the apology: Nothing to see here. It was just a “glitch”.
According to congressional testimony, Big Tech had the resources and ability to shift as many as 15 million votes to the Joseph Biden presidential campaign. The American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology estimated prior to the election that a minimum of six million votes were shifted to Biden in this way. It is not that Big Tech might have illegally provided support to a presidential candidate. It’s that they did, and these are just the ways we know that they did.
With this as a backdrop, it’s easy to see why even non-Republicans like Robert Epstein believed that Trump was playing against a stacked deck even as far back as February of last year. Even before a single fraudulent ballot was introduced, the deck was already stacked against the president and his supporters.
A Mountain of Crumbs
Elena Gorohova offered the world a snapshot of life in the Soviet Union when she published her memoir “A Mountain of Crumbs“:
“The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”
Some lies aren’t meant to be believed. They are simply meant to be received.
It is political truth that Jeffrey Epstein, regarded by many as the most high-profile witness then in federal custody, killed himself in a prison cell while his cellmate was being transferred, his two prison guards slept while on duty, and the two cameras recording the activities in his cell went offline.
As a political truth, it is not necessary that you actually believe this happened. It is sufficient that you accept it. As Gorohova would say, the rule is simply that we “pretend to believe it.”
Political truth is not to be examined. In fact, those who examine it will almost certainly be held in contempt for doing so.
It is Political Truth that Trump Lost
On Wednesday, the Georgia Senate Subcommittee on Elections held a hearing on violations of Georgia Election Law taking place during the 2020 Presidential Election. Senator William Ligon chaired the hearing, which included both Republican and Democrat members of the committee. The committee heard more than five hours of testimony from witnesses.
I listened to all five hours of testimony.
What first struck me was the contempt. Not from members of the committee—by all accounts the members of the committee were gracious to every witness who came before them—but from those whose duty it was to oversee the election.
Over the course of those five hours, an open-and-shut case was proved that various election officials in Georgia regard the Trump loss as a political truth. As a political truth, those who questioned any part of it, even fellow election workers, were either ignored, or treated with open contempt by authorities. Police were instructed not to respond to 911 calls of election crimes then in progress. In several cases, those who came forward and provided testimony were fired for doing so.
In the America of my birth, we begin with the bedrock foundation that “All political power is inherent in the people. All government originates with the people, is founded upon their will only…” It follows then that elections belong to the American public, and that it is the right of any member of the public to ask questions, and the responsibility of public officials to make reasonable efforts to provide transparency in the election process, which belongs to the people.
That is not what took place in Georgia.
In this country, we have a term for what takes place when reasonable questions go unanswered, and whistleblowers are fired. We call that a cover-up.
Those who came before the committee demonstrated an iron-clad case that a cover-up took place. In short, they demonstrated that what took place in Georgia was not American.
Based on such testimony, it is easy to see why members of the committee present voted unanimously to conduct an independent audit of the ballots used in the election.
Some notable portions of the hearing are the testimony that occurs at 12:39pm, 1:27pm, and 1:44pm.
Over the course of the hearing, witnesses testified to violations of election law both great and small, and shared video that appears to show election workers scanning and rescanning the same stacks of ballots multiple times after observers had been sent home.
Other videos have now surfaced which document some of the same behaviors taking place even before the observers were shown to the door.
If there is a reasonable, non-criminal explanation for what is shown in these recordings, I am not aware of it. And that is notable, considering that an election is currently taking place in Georgia today, and the failure to respond directly to these allegations, now several days (if not weeks) old, will surely impact whether some Georgia voters choose to participate in that election.
If such explanations are not forthcoming, it is entirely reasonable for the public to conclude, as some have, that “it is easy to steal an election, but impossible to hide the theft.”
The Role of Congress
Tomorrow, Congress is scheduled to count the votes and certify the winner of the presidential election. They should not do so.
The election process that has been observed thus far by the American people has been abused to such a degree that, in my view, it can no longer be called an election. To call what the American people have observed “an election”, under the United States Constitution, would be fundamentally dishonest.
While it leaves much to the discretion of the states, our Constitution is not silent on the form of government that is to prevail in each of the several states. It is not ambiguous on whether the executive or the legislative authority is to predominate in a state: “In Republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.” (Federal 51). Nor is it silent on the role of state legislatures in a presidential election conducted under the authority of the United States Constitution.
Seven members of Congress, a number of whom I greatly respect, wrote a letter earlier this week explaining why they will not be objecting on January 6th to the counting of votes from states in which both Biden and Trump have each claimed victory. They seek to honor the form of a process which claims to have followed state law in each of those states without evaluating, as members of Congress, the substance of whether it has in fact done so.
On the principle matter of whether Congress should declare Trump the winner of those states, absent communication from those states declaring Trump to have won, they are absolutely correct. When it comes to who should be president, Congress is not empowered to replace the will of any state with its own will, even on matters in which members of Congress happen to be in 100% agreement.
However, Congress as a whole, and each individual member, are empowered to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”, and the Constitution itself requires that they be bound by oath to do so.
In their letter earlier this week, these members of Congress invite state legislatures in contested states to send a different slate of electors if they believe the slate sent by the executive branch of their state is in error. While this is one potential remedy, it is not a practical one at the present time. More importantly, while defending one part of the Constitution, it fails, in my view, to defend another part.
Central to the question of which presidential candidate prevailed in these states is the role played by the legislature in directing that state’s election and certifying its outcome. As of this date, not even one legislature in any of the contested states has certified the election. These members of Congress have interpreted this silence as affirmation by these state legislatures of the actions taken by the executive branch. But this begs the central question.
The question in several states is whether or not a combination of executive and judicial branch authority in those states have usurped the authority of the legislative branch, which is guaranteed to “predominate” (prevail) under the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, the failure of a legislature to take action in certifying an election, instead of proving affirmation of the action taken by the other two branches, may instead be additional evidence that the will of the legislature has not prevailed in directing the state’s election and certifying its outcome.
If the elections in each of these states has been conducted in a constitutional manner, an invitation from seven members of Congress to challenge that election is entirely unnecessary. On the other hand, if the elections in each of these states have been conducted in an unconstitutional manner, an invitation from only seven members of Congress, out of 535 members, to cure that defect, is likely to be insufficient.
The question is, “has the will of the legislative branch of government prevailed in these states, as it pertains to the presidential election?”
Members of Congress who vote tomorrow to ratify the slates of Biden electors in contested states assume that it has, even though there is evidence to the contrary in several of these states. In certifying the outcome of the presidential election, members of Congress cannot avoid making a judgment on this question. As public officials, oath-bound to defend the Constitution, they may determine that the process laid out in the Constitution, and which the Constitution requires them to guarantee, has been followed in each of the states, but they cannot simply assume it.
As a state legislator of a non-contested state, I witnessed encroachments of legislative authority by both the executive and judicial branches of government in my state that directly impacted the manner in which the election of president was conducted in my state. I know this to be the same in other states as well, to varying degrees.
A Remedy
In those states where both Biden and Trump have claimed victory, and where competing slates of presidential electors exist, it is incumbent on state legislatures to certify the candidate who in fact won that state’s election. Congress can play a critical role in bringing this about.
State legislators have been bombarded relentlessly by competing messages concerning their authority under the Constitution. The letter from Rep. Ken Buck and others is but one of those messages. As of this moment, Congress itself has done nothing to clarify the role of state legislatures under the Constitution. This silence has contributed to the Constitutional crisis that has now been visited upon the American people.
Congress would do well at this moment to acknowledge the crisis and invite the legislatures in each of the contested states to immediately certify the winner of their state, or the fact that they are unable to do so, and communicate the same to Congress, at which time the votes of all fifty states and the District of Columbia may lawfully be counted. In the intervening time, it would be beneficial for Congress to conduct hearings of its own on the recent election. The public deserves answers, as do each of us as elected officials who are seeking to honor our duty to the United States Constitution.
This remedy preserves the constitutional role of states in the election process, while also recognizing the duty of each member of Congress to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
For every allegation of widespread voting fraud that may be disproven there are two dozen cases of state election laws that were obviously broken, safeguards that were ignored, and examples of voters who were denied the ability to verify that their vote, and the votes of their neighbors, were properly counted. These violations have led us to the point of crisis as many Americans are now losing confidence in the ability of this nation to ensure that its elections are free from abuse. The time to act to restore that trust is now.
Contact Rep. Don Young here.
Contact Sen. Lisa Murkowski here.
Contact Sen. Dan Sullivan here.
