By now, every single elected official knows about The Man Who Lost The Popular Vote's call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger. There can be no excuses, no pretending, no bullshit. Not even Kelly Loeffler—who absurdly claimed she was “not familiar” with the Access Hollywood “pussy grabbing” tape—would be shameless enough to try and pull something similar today. Or at least if she did, she’d be unable to get away with it.
There is no escaping the question that Loeffler, her fellow Georgia Republican Senate candidate David Perdue, and every member of their party who has not yet spoken on the matter must be asked today: Do you support what Trump did on that call, or will you condemn him and stand up for democracy?
To those Republicans who have spoken out against the despicable effort in Congress to challenge the Electoral College’s votes, I commend them. It is vitally important and necessary that they do so as part of the fight for the soul of the Republican Party I’ve written about recently.
But Trump’s Georgia call—which included a clear solicitation of election theft— goes far beyond even that profoundly anti-democratic political ploy. It is itself a criminal act, according to Ryan C. Locke, an attorney interviewed by The New York Times. “He’s telling the secretary of state to ‘find votes so that I can win — votes that are not due to me,’” Mr. Locke said. “The recording alone is certainly enough to launch an investigation. It’s likely probable cause to issue an indictment.”
According to Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general at the Department of Justice and a former assistant U.S. attorney, the criminality of what Trump did is so obvious that he has but one plausible defense - insanity.
Of course, according to Hayley Mason, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, the president’s actions weren’t criminal, but instead—wait for it—the decision to release the evidence of his lawlessness was the real act of lawlessness.
This is par for the course for a conservative movement that typically pretends racism doesn’t exist, and then blames racial divisions on activists who provide receipts proving it does.
Look, this isn’t complicated. When the leader of the Republican Party openly commits a crime in furtherance of overturning an election defeat—the very definition of an attempted coup d’etat—every member of that party must go on record. Do you support Donald Trump or do you support democracy in our country?
One cannot do both.
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