As term ends, tenor even more toxic
WASHINGTON — The last throes of Trump’s presidency have turned ugly — even dangerous.
Death threats are on the rise. Local and state election officials are being hounded into hiding. A Trump campaign lawyer is declaring publicly that a federal official who defended the integrity of the election should be “drawn and quartered” or simply shot.
Neutral public servants, Democrats and a growing number of Republicans who won’t do what Trump wants are being caught in a menacing postelection undertow stirred by Trump’s grievances about the election he lost.
“Death threats, physical threats, intimidation — it’s too much, it’s not right,” said Gabriel Sterling, a Republican elections official in Georgia who implored Trump to “stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence.” Trump in response only pressed his groundless case that he lost unfairly, neither discouraging trouble nor explicitly calling for it.
But in the last weeks of Trump’s presidency, the tenor has taken on an even more toxic edge as state after state has affirmed Biden’s victory, judge after judge has dismissed his campaign’s legal challenges and Trump’s cadre of loyalists has played to his frustrations.
“I do not think this goes away on January 20,” Eric Coomer, security director for Dominion Voting Systems, said from the secret location where he is hiding out from death threats.
For Coomer, the trouble began around the time Trump campaign lawyers falsely claimed that his company had rigged the election.
Farright chat rooms posted his photo, details about his family and address. “The first death threats followed almost immediately,” he said Wednesday.
This week Joe diGenova, a Trump campaign lawyer, told a radio show that the federal election official who was fired for disputing Trump’s claims of fraud “should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.” This as election officials and votingsystem contractors in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and elsewhere have been subjected to sinister threats for doing their jobs.
Intruders have also been found on the property of Georgia GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who has defended the integrity of his state’s election, which resulted in a narrow Biden victory.
Said Sterling, the Republican Georgia election official: “Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed. And it’s not right.”