Cracks in Republican wall of denial
Some GOP leaders urging Trump to accept reality as Biden’s lead grows and legal claims are tossed out
The most powerful Republicans in Washington stood firmly behind President Donald Trump and his unsupported claims of voter fraud yesterday, but new cracks emerged among GOP leaders elsewhere who believe it’s time to treat Democrat Joe Biden like the president-elect he is.
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who endorsed Trump’s reelection, became the latest Republican official to say what Trump and his allies refuse to accept.
The Republican governor acknowledged that Biden’s lead i s getting “bigger and bigger by the day” and Trump’s legal options are dissipating. “Joe Biden is the president-elect, and I think like most Americans, we suspect he’ll be taking the oath of office in January,” Sununu told reporters, insisting there was no legal fraud in his state, which Biden easily carried.
Separately state and federal officials and election technology companies that run US elections declared yesterday that the November 3 national election was “the most secure in American history”. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency said, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”
In a barely veiled shot at Trump and his supporters, the agency said Americans should have confidence in the results although “we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections”.
That’s a departure from the overwhelming majority of Republican officials who still refuse to publicly accept Biden’s victory. The resistance is complicating Biden’s effort to lead a smooth transition to the January inauguration, keeping him from the funding and agency resources t ypically afforded to an incoming administration. But some Republicans, worried about the national security implications of those hurdles, are beginning to say that Biden should at least have access to intelligence briefings so he has the most complete information about threats facing the country when he takes office.
“I think — especially on classified briefings — the answer is yes,” said the Senate’s most senior Republican, Chuck Grassley of Iowa. That echoed comments by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Oklahoma Senator James Lankford, among other Republican colleagues.
However, Grassley also said he saw no reason for Biden to have fuller transition access, sticking with an approach from the disputed 2000 election that was later blamed as a national security shortcoming in the September 11 terror attacks.
Many Trump allies in Washington see no path to a Trump victory but remain wary of crossing the outgoing Republican president — or his supporters — especially with control of the Senate still uncertain. Republican leaders believe they need to keep Trump and his base happy and engaged ahead of t wo upcoming Georgia runoff elections that will determine the Senate majority.
That’s likely why, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of Biden’s victory, senior Republicans continue to support the President’s claims even as he loses a mounting number of legal challenges.
Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested yesterday that Biden doesn’t need intelligence briefings because Trump might remain president in the new year.
“He’s not president right now, don’t know if he will be January 20, but whoever is will get the information,” McCarthy said.
Biden’s victory i s not an open question.
He’s already won the 270 Electoral College votes to clinch the presidency.
There i s no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In fact, election officials from both political parties have stated publicly that the election went well and international observers confirmed there were no serious irregularities.
Trump’s campaign has also launched legal challenges complaining that its poll watchers were unable to scrutinise the voting process. Many of those challenges have been tossed out by judges, some within hours of their filing; and again, none of the complaints show any evidence that the outcome of the election was impacted.
Privately, Republicans on Capitol Hill signalled they would let Trump spin out his election lawsuits and claims for several weeks until states certify the election results by early December and the Electoral College meets December 14.
But beyond Washington, several high- profile Republicans were not willing to wait that long, particularly as good-government advocates warn that a Trump fight to undermine the election results for selfish reasons could do lasting damage to American democracy.
“I am deeply troubled at the general acceptance of unproven allegations that undermine our electoral system,” Utah’s incoming Governor Spencer Cox wrote on Twitter, citing the significant number of Democrats who doubted the legitimacy of Trump’s 2016 election victory.
“It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.”
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who endorsed Trump’s re- election, said earlier in the week that Americans should honour the election outcome only after the president’s legal challenges had been exhausted. By Friday, he had seen enough. “We need to consider the former vice president as the president-elect,” DeWine told CNN. “Joe Biden is the president-elect.”