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In this Friday, October 11, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., Arrive in Lake Charles, Louisiana. In a television interview broadcast today, Scalise, the second House Republican, backed Trump’s claim that Democrat Joe Biden won the White House due to massive voter fraud. (AP Photo / Brett Duke, file)
WASHINGTON (AP) – Second-row House Republican Rep. Steve Scalise has repeatedly refused to say today that the 2020 election was not stolen, sticking to his claim. Donald Trump that Democrat Joe Biden won the White House due to massive electoral fraud.
More than 11 months after Americans chose their president and nearly nine months since Biden’s inauguration, Scalise has refused, in a nationwide TV interview, to recognize the legitimacy of the vote, instead sticking to it to his belief that the election results should not have been certified by Congress. .
“I was very clear from the start” he said. “If you look at a number of states, they haven’t followed the laws passed by the state that govern the presidential election. This is what the Constitution of the United States says. They are not saying that states make the rules. They say state legislatures set the rules, ” said the Louisiana congressman on “Fox News Sunday.”
Pressed by moderator Chris Wallace to find out if the election went beyond a few irregularities to consider “Fly,” Scalise replied: “It’s not just about irregularities. These are states that have not followed the established laws that the Constitution says they are supposed to follow.
Trump stepped down in January weeks after a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol in a violent riot in an attempt to prevent Congress from officially declaring Biden the winner.
As Trump mulls over a 2024 presidential bid, he has stepped up efforts to shame – and potentially eliminate – members of his party who are seen as disloyal to his false claims that last year’s election was illegitimate. Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who runs for president if the GOP takes control after the 2022 midterm election, continues to defend Trump and his claims.
At a rally in Iowa on Saturday, Trump spent nearly 30 minutes claiming he won Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds stood on the sidelines and hailed his return to their state.
In fact, no election has been stolen from Trump. Its former attorney general, William Barr, found no evidence of widespread electoral corruption. The allegations of massive electoral fraud were also dismissed by a succession of judges and refuted by state election officials and a branch of the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration.
Scalise today appeared to be referring to the legal argument, made in several Trump-backed lawsuits before and after last November’s election, that the Constitution gives election administration power exclusively to state lawmakers. The lawsuits were aimed at overturning a number of accommodations in the era of the pandemic, including expanded postal voting that were put in place by governors, state election officials and judges.
The High Court ultimately dismissed the cases, declining to rule on the matter. There is no indication in any of the lawsuits that the COVID-19 housing modification would have changed a state’s election results.
Representative Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Who sits on a House committee investigating the Jan.6 Capitol uprising, today criticized Scalise for spreading Trump’s opinion. “Big lie.”
“Millions of Americans have been sold to a fraud that the election has been stolen”, Cheney tweeted. “Republicans have a duty to tell the American people that is not true. To perpetuate the big lie is an attack on the heart of our constitutional republic. “
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