TRUMP SETS THE STAGE FOR SABOTAGING THE ELECTION

HE FEARS THE MIDTRMS

In Donald Trump’s crazed and duplicitous speech about election security, his grievance about the 2020 election or pushing voter suppression legislation were covers for his real purpose: setting the predicate for sabotaging the midterms elections.
He will try to use the phony claims of foreign interference, illegals voting and widespread fraud -- which he bizarrely enumerated in a White House speech -- to intimidate voters, especially minorities and interfere with voting and undercut results.
With no internal checks, he seems intent to do anything to subvert the very real prospects of major Democratic gains this November.
Efforts so far to suppress the vote have not succeeded. Courts have rejected proposals to ban mail voting or using the Post Office for restrictions. The SAVE act, requiring proof of citizenship, is dead in Congress.

It’s a distraction to worry about cancelling the midterms; it won’t happen, Instead Democrats, with legal experts expect major Trump efforts to undermine Democratic votes.
He is much better prepared than he was in his futile attempts to overturn the legitimate 2020 presidential election. Unlike then he will not face any internal resistance and no doubt believes the Supreme Court is a more friendly venue.
Trump cares deeply about these midterms, desperate not to face a Democratic-run Congress that investigates the Administration’s misdeeds and holds him accountable.
He already has telegraphed likely moves, and Democrats are preparing challenges pre-election, election day, post election and possibly when the next Congress is scheduled to be sworn in.
The major threats in the offing include:
-- sending ICE agents near heavily Hispanic voting areas under the false pretense of stopping illegal migrants from voting. This is a certainty. These ICE enforcers intimidate Hispanics who’re American citizens; some could be reluctant to show up and face unjustified scrutiny.
That’s what the Trump forces would be counting on in sending agents into Texas’ Rio Grande Valley during the early voting and Election Day. This would be immediately challenged, though the Supreme Court essentially condoned this racial profiling.
-- invoking the Insurrection Act which Trump has threatened multiple times. This would enable him to send troops or the national guard into urban areas - -Democratic strongholds -- creating chaos. The last time that was done was 1992 when the Governor of California and Mayor of Los Angeles requested federal forces to help quell violent riots.
Jack Goldsmith a Harvard law professor and former top Republican Justice Department official and Bob Bauer, a leading Democratic attorney and former White House counsel, have warned that the Act is dangerously unlimited, in need of reform.
Invoking the Insurrection Act would be a provocative and purely political act --the guise would be the threat of violence -- but Goldsmith and Bauer write the President would receive “significant deference” from the Supreme Court.
-- seizing the ballots and voting machines on Election Day to expose massive fraud which doesn’t exist. Trump has said he should have done that in 2020 and he’s far more emboldened now.
Moving quickly, for instance, he might order the seizure of ballots in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. That shouldn’t be legitimate as elections are under the purview of state and local governments, and Congress, not the President.
Legalities are a mere nuisance to President Trump.
-- finally, on January 3 the old Congress will have gone out of business with the new Congress set to be sworn in. In the House, the clerk usually routinely assembles a list of winners to be seated.
But if Democrats have won only a small majority, the clerk, tapped by Mike Johnson, the current Speaker, might reject some Democrats due to charges of alleged fraud.
It’s not clear to anyone exactly how this would play out. It is clear if it means control Trump would do whatever he thinks it takes.
This may seem outrageous but Trump has strong cards. The Justice Department, Homeland Security, the Pentagon and Treasury can be counted to support him, lock step.
This was not true in 2020 when Trump’s Vice President, Attorney General, Defense Secretary and even some White House lawyers stood up to him.
Democrat are fully preparing for this with scores of law firms, public interest and citizen groups. In 2020, Dana Remus and Bob Bauer, top Biden advisers, rallied teams of legal support and designated three former Solicitors General to lead on election challenges: Seth Waxman, Don Verrilli and Walter Dellinger-- the SG 3 or as the New Yorker called them, the three amigos. They were brilliant, winning 60 of 61 cases against Trump, leaving his only recourse to encourage the violent mob that unsuccessfully tried to stop the election count in Congress.
These same prominent lawyers, except for Dellinger, who passed away, are deeply into preparing for the Trump onslaught this year.
This year it’s midterms, not the focus of a Presidential contest, and there’s no chain of command. Privately, there’s concern that someone like Marc Elias might play an outsized role. Elias is a terrific self-promotor, appears often on cable news, and is close to leading Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer.
But he lacks the legal gravitas. He takes credit for thwarting Trump in 2020, and did work on recount and other issues. But those involved with the major matters that resolved the outcome dismiss an Elias role.
He notes he has argued five Supreme Court cases, Waxman, by contrast, has argued more than 90 cases before the High Court and with significant victories on matters ranging from the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill to granting legal rights to Guantanamo prisoners to abolishing the death penalty for juveniles.
After the last election, the SG3 thwarted Trump’s final efforts at the Supreme Court.
In the weeks and months ahead, remember July 16; Trump told us what he was going to do.