Dear Editor,

I recently read Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of the Washington Post. It is a deep dive into the final days of the Trump administration and the early days of the Biden administration. They interviewed over 200 people who were close to the president. It contrasts Trump, who was depressed and incredulous that he could have lost the 2020 presidential election, and Biden, a detail-oriented policy person, trying to show that government can work. Trump’s advisors told him that if he got 74 million votes, which he did, he would surely win the election. 74 million votes is more than anyone had ever received in a presidential election to that date, except for one person: Biden with 81 million.

During the final days before the election, the mood in the Trump rallies was one of unity and everyone believed that Trump was the best president ever. The crowds were large and enthusiastic – how could he possibly lose? But what all these true believers did not understand was that Trump is also a lightning rod for throngs of people who believe Trump blew the US Covid response, think he is a liar and corrupt.

Instead of conceding, as Clinton had done in 2016 with a similar Electoral College tally, Trump grasped at any straw that could possibly overturn the results of the election. Never mind the deadly Covid pandemic. He first tried lawsuits in multiple states. Allegations of irregularities pushed by Rudy Giuliani and Syndney Powell about Dominion Voting machines and allegations of foreign influence, all were debunked.

The tally was zero wins, 66 losses, including being turned down by the Supreme Court in a one sentence rebuke. On Nov 12, election security groups, including the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Association of State Election Directors released this joint statement: “The November 3 election was the most secure in American history. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary…the process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Trump promptly fired the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber chief, Chris Krebs, by tweet. Next, Trump leaned on William Barr, his Attorney General, to discredit the election. Barr told Trump that he had investigated every allegation, but there was no evidence to justify overturning the election. Trump screamed that Barr hated him.

Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo as well as the Trump family all hoped that Trump would abandon the delusion that the election was stolen. However, Giuliani and Powell continued to feed into the fallacy. Barr and Pompeo had utter disdain for Giuliani and Powell and their sweeping allegations with no proof. Today they are the subject of a billion-dollar lawsuit by Dominion voting systems because of their unfounded allegations.

Trump next tried for vote recounts in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania. Trump leaned on the Republican Georgia Secretary of State (a Trump supporter), to find him 11,000 + votes; Georgia was counted three times, the results were the same. The Georgia Secretary of State said that he could not overturn the election. Arizona was recounted by a non-sanctioned, partisan group and yet again, voting outcomes remained the same. Recounts and courts did not help Trump.

Trump then seized on another strategy whereby Vice President Mike Pence could throw out electoral delegates and declare alternate delegates, even though no alternate delegates existed. This pressure on Pence continued until January 6, the day that the Electoral College votes were to be certified. Pence consulted multiple people to ask if he had any legal wiggle room to throw the election for Trump, but learned that his job was simply to count the existing votes. Trump then went in front of “his people” that he had summoned to the capital for a protest rally, to put more pressure on Pence to change his mind.

The words of Republican Reprsentative Liz Cheney are powerful: “The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

The riot Trump incited ended up damaging the capital. A makeshift gallows to hang lawmakers and Mike Pence himself was erected in front of the capital, five people died, over 140 capital police were injured, and the greatest threat to the capital since the War of 1812 ensued, with Trump watching it on TV, unwilling to stop it. Levelheaded Republican leaders were trying to get National Guard troops on site ASAP. That is why he was impeached the second time.

Was the election stolen? Here is what Mitch McConnell said on January 6: President Trump claims the election was stolen. The assertions range from specific local allegations to constitutional arguments to sweeping conspiracy theories. I have supported the president’s right to use the legal system, dozens of lawsuits received hearings in court rooms all across this country, but over and over courts have rejected these claims including all-star justices whom the president himself has nominated…. But, my colleagues, nothing before us proves illegality… that would have tipped the entire election. Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence….We cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes with a separate set of facts and separate realities, with nothing in common except our hostility toward each other and mistrust for the few national institutions that we all still share. We’ll either hasten down a poisonous path where only the winners of elections actually accept the results or show we can still muster the patriotic courage that our forbears showed not only in victory, but in defeat.”

Representative Cheney wrote later, “We are also confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before: A former president who’s attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic, aided by political leaders, who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man. Political leaders who sit silent in the face of these false and dangerous claims are aiding the former President who is at war with the rule of law, and the Constitution. When our constitutional order is threatened, as it is now, rising above partisanship is not simply an aspiration. It is an obligation.”

An NPR Marist poll finds 68% of Republicans still believe the election was stolen. This is “the Big Lie.” As Representative Cheney says: “We need a Republican Party that is led by people who remember that the peaceful transfer of power is sacred….We need Republican leaders who remember that fidelity to the Constitution, fidelity to the rule of law — those are the most conservative of conservative principles.” Cheney said. “… I know this nation needs a Republican Party that is based on truth.” One has to wonder if we are indeed on that “poisonous path.”

Bill Thibedeau

Gilpin County