Justice Sonia Sotomayor used Thursday’s Supreme Court reading of Donald Trump’s political exemption claims to further Democrats ‘ rejected “fake votes” tale.
Trump attorney John Sauer was interrogated by the high court while arguing that the high court’s questioning of him should be dismissed because president are granted lifelong immunity from legal prosecution and cannot be accused of crimes against them that fall under their standard responsibilities as president. Citing the Jan. 6, 2021, mob at the U. S. Capitol, Smith indicted Trump in August over his conversation questioning the management of the 2020 election.
In Thursday’s reading, judges probed Sauer on suppositions and whether resistance may be granted to a senator who, for instance, uses the military to pin his political competitors. Justice Samuel Alito questioned the need to view such behavior through an objective glass and said that “one could say it’s no believable… that that action may be legal.”
” I’m sure you’ve thought of lots of hypotheticals where a president was state,’ I’m using an established strength,’ and yet the leader uses it in an positively outrageous manner”, Alito said. Sauer responded,” That, if it were an objective determination, may well be an interesting approach to take”.
Sotomayor then questioned Sauer, asking him to address the allegations against Trump and making the absurd claim that Republican electors who cast ballots before Jan. 6, 2021, are “fake.”
What is it possible that the president will create a phony slate of electoral candidates? Sotomayor asked. Is it possible that, assuming you accept the facts of the complaint on their face, that that is what he would be permitted to do?
” Absolutely, your honor”, Sauer argued, citing President Ulysses S. Grant” sending federal troops to Louisiana and Mississippi in 1876 to make sure that the Republican electors got certified in those two cases, which delivered the election to Rutherford B. Hayes”.
” The notion that it’s completely implausible … ca n’t be supported based on the face of this indictment”, Sauer added before being cut off by Sotomayor, who asked if such a standard could be applied even with a president “knowing that the slate]of electors ] is fake, that they were n’t actually elected, that they were n’t certified by the state”.
Sauer disputed Sotomayor and Smith’s claim that the electors were “fake” and “fraudulent,” and Sauer argued that “on the face of the indictment, it appears that there was no deceit about who had allegedly entered the state at state conventions, and this was being done on an alternative basis.”
The naming of contingent Republican electors during the 2020 election was neither unprecedented nor unlawful, contrary to the web of dishonesty spun by Sotomayor and legacy media. In fact, as I’ve previously noted, the procedure in states like Georgia” closely resembles efforts made during the 1960 presidential contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.”
A disagreement over who won Hawaii’s electoral votes prompted Kennedy and Nixon electors to cast their votes for their respective candidates, as Margot Cleveland has reported in The Federalist. And while Hawaii’s acting Republican governor initially approved the outcome of Kennedy’s election, a court decision and legal challenge led to the award of the state’s electoral votes.
The alternate electors would have been in place to ensure the will of the people was being exercised if courts had ruled in Trump’s favor in lawsuits disputing the election results in battleground states.
The day after Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, indicts 18 Arizona Republicans for allegedly taking part in what she called a “fake elector scheme,” Sotomayor’s most recent act of activism from the bench came to mind. The charges that have been made so far” 11 , Arizona , Republicans are named for allegedly submitting a document to Congress that falsely claimed Trump defeated Joe Biden in the state’s election” are alleged to have been false.
Former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward and her husband, as well as Turning Point Action COO Tyler Bowyer, are among those named in the indictment.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, also a Democrat, charged 16 Republican electors in her state last July.
As my colleague Jordan Boyd previously highlighted, Democrats and their media allies had no problem” calling for electoral disobedience” after Trump won the 2016 election. So-called “news” outlets ran” a] rticles demanding state electors’prevent an irresponsible demagogue from taking office” and overrule Americans to install Hillary Clinton as president in an effort to keep Trump out of office.
Shawn Fleetwood is a graduate of the University of Mary Washington and a staff writer for The Federalist. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClear Health, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
