A pro-Trump Georgia lawyer is urging President Donald Trump to declare martial law to keep him in power. A member of Trump's legal team says former top US cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs should be shot, drawn and quartered.
While there are reports that even Senate Republicans are tiring of Trump's election fraud antics, there is talk that some individual GOP lawmakers may be planning to use a long-shot maneuver based on a 19th century law to challenge the election results and, in effect, stage a coup.
All of this comes as Trump's attorney general, William P. Barr, told the Associated Press that he has "not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election."
“There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that,” Barr said, referring to the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice.
"I guess he's the next one to be fired," Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters.
Yes, lunacy reigns in Trumpland.
Martial Law
The call for martial law was made by Georgia attorney Lin Wood, who tweeted, “Our country is headed to civil war. A war created by 3rd party bad actors for their benefit – not for We The People. Communist China is leading the nefarious efforts to take away our freedom. @realDonaldTrump should declare martial law.”
That, of course, plays right into the mindset of Trump, who has been taking lessons in How to Launch a Dictatorship from Vladimir Putin for the past four years. Wood linked his tweet to the website of the "We the People Convention", which is calling for Trump to invoke "limited martial law" to hold a new election.
Meanwhile, Trump lawyer Joe diGenova was reported by Business Insider as saying that Krebs, whom Trump fired for saying widespread voter fraud did not exist and the election was secure, should be "drawn and quartered" and taken out at dawn and shot."
In an interview Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes, Krebs repeated his assurance that no votes were lost, changed, or compromised in any way, noting that 95 percent of the ballots cast in the election had a backup paper record.
DiGenova, who CNN reported is helping Rudy Giuliani with Trump's legal challenge, said on Newsmax that "Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity [for Trump]. That guy is a class-A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot."
Media Matters for America, a left-leaning media watchdog, published footage of DiGenova's remarks.
Facing Reality?
As all of this craziness continues to unfold, CNN's Manu Raju reported that Republicans generally realize that they will have to recognize Biden's victory over Trump, but are trying to give Trump space to avoid his anger. Their strategy? Keep quiet and carry on.
“Republican senators tell me they believe this will all sort itself out on December 14th,” Raju reported. “I have it at two more weeks, hoping it gets resolved by the time that the state electors are chosen, and at that time they hope the president sees the writing on the wall and they do not have to get involved.”
Two weeks would take the calendar to December 14 when electors meet to make the election results official.
But Wait, There's More
Politico is reporting that some diehard Trumpers in Congress are discussing using an 1887 law to challenge the election results and derail that Electoral College vote.
According to that report, individual Republican members of the House and Senate have the right under the Electoral Count Act, to challenge the results from the floor before they are officially certified by Congress Jan. 6.
Politico says several House GOP lawmakers and aides are considering that option to help Trump retain power.
"Nothing is off the table," said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), one of Trump's strongest and most vocal supporters in Congress.
The Electoral Count Act sets Jan. 6 after a presidential election as the official certification date and outlines procedures to be followed. Bottom line: If a single House member and a single senator join forces and object to the entire slates of presidential electors, each chamber must vote on the matter, certifying each state's electors separately.
The Politico report says that if the Democrat-controlled House and GOP-run Senate disagree, the matter would likely go to state governors to decide.
That would turn the election into a fiasco, potentially disenfranchise millions of voters, and launch a constitutional crisis of historic proportions.
Yes, indeed. Lunacy reigns.