Republican reactions to Donald Trump's claims of 2020 election fraud
The researchers found nothing, and the consultancy reported this to Trump and his chief of staff Mark Meadows on a conference call in the final days of the year, before the attack on the Capitol.[19] In the early hours of January 7, 2021, Pence (while performing his duties as President of the Senate, during the counting of electoral votes) conceded that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had won.[37][24][38][25][39][40][26][41][excessive citations] Some observers concluded that statements denouncing or supporting Trump's claims were also part of a conflict inside the Republican Party over who should be their nominee for the 2024 presidential election, and whether to continue Trumpist politics.[43] On November 7, most major American news networks called the election a victory for Biden when vote-counting in Pennsylvania and Nevada reached the point where he would certainly receive the 270 electors' votes needed for the presidency."[44] Several leading Republicans, including former 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Larry Hogan, John Kasich, Phil Scott, Adam Kinzinger, Will Hurd, Paul Mitchell, Fred Upton, Lamar Alexander, Tom Reed, and Jeb Bush, proceeded to congratulate Biden as the new President-elect (and Kamala Harris as Vice President-elect) of the United States; others such as Josh Hawley and Paul Gosar insisted that the election was not over yet until "all lawful votes have been counted, recounts finished, and allegations of fraud addressed.It was never an impossible outcome and we must accept the final results when it is over," to which newly elected Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (a QAnon conspiracy theory supporter) responded, "The time to STAND UP for (President Donald Trump) is RIGHT NOW.While congratulating Trump "on a hard-fought campaign" and saying he "has the right to request recounts and pursue legal challenges," Bush stated the election's outcome was clearly in Biden's favor.[55] At the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference, the Trump campaign team had announced it would formally present several legal challenges against the election process and results on Monday, November 9, refusing to concede the Biden/Harris victory.Speaking on the condition of anonymity to the Associated Press, senior officials, campaign aides and allies said that "[t]he strategy to wage a legal fight against the votes tallied for Biden in Pennsylvania and other places is more to provide Trump with an off-ramp for a loss he can't quite grasp and less about changing the election's outcome.""[57] In response, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated that "President Trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options.Notably, Fox News decided to cut away during her speech because host Neil Cavuto found it irresponsible to continue broadcasting such "an explosive charge."[58] Pilger stated that Barr's action was "abrogating the forty-year-old Non-Interference Policy for ballot fraud investigations in the period prior to elections becoming certified and uncontested.[68] An inquiry from The New York Times showed that throughout the country, election officials representing both parties reported no evidence of significant voter fraud, even though some Republican candidates running for office were casting doubt on the results without proof.Her assessment was rebuked by Republican candidate Loren Culp, who lost his gubernatorial race against Democrat Jay Inslee by a large margin of 14%, leading Wyman to say: "It's just throwing grass at the fence at this point, see what sticks.Senior Republicans who had already acknowledged the Democratic nominee's victory were publicly calling on the President to do the same, with former Defense Secretary and former US Senator from Maine William Cohen describing Trump's behavior as "more akin to a dictatorship than a democracy.[71] Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker commented: "I'm dismayed to hear the baseless claims from the president, from his team, and from many other elected Republican officials in Washington.Lankford took the pragmatic position of not yet acknowledging Biden and Harris as elects while Trump's legal challenges were ongoing, but recognized they would form the next administration if the lawsuits failed, and said they needed to be informed about the country's pressing security issues to be prepared before taking office.Nevertheless, he persisted in leading his agency's efforts in combating what he saw as dangerous nonsense, hoaxes and conspiracy theories such as "wild and baseless claims about voting machines, even if they're made by the president.Spokesperson Tim Murtaugh repeated claims about voting machine irregularities in Maricopa County, but the Trump team dropped its lawsuit because Biden's overall lead in Arizona was too large for the disputed ballots to make a difference.Jones Day lawyer Parker A. Rider-Longmaid stated: "I believe the question is whether this firm should lend its prestige and credibility to the project of an administration bent on undermining our democracy and our rule of law."President-elect Biden stressed the importance of bipartisanship, expressed hope for arriving at a consensus with "Republican colleagues," and criticized General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy's decision to delay the transition process.[99] During a meeting of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, Democrats proposed a resolution affirming Joe Biden to be president-elect, but Republicans voted it down."[105] Nonetheless, in late December 2020, some Republican members in Congress[106] were reported to be considering challenging the results of the electoral college vote on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn Trump's loss to Biden.(Senator Amy Klobuchar, the top Democrat of the committee with jurisdiction over federal elections, regarded the effort a "publicity stunt" that would fail eventually, and amounted to an attempt to "subvert the will of the voters.[128] The chairman of the Nye County Republican Party in Nevada posted a manifesto online that predicted two more weeks of national crisis with "high-profile arrests."[139][140] Maricopa County sheriff Paul Penzone criticized as "mind-numbingly reckless and irresponsible" a demand by state Senate Republicans for routers, which he asserted could compromise confidential, sensitive and highly classified law enforcement data and equipment.[141] In a May post on his blog, Trump amplified a false assertion by Arizona senate president Karen Fann that an "entire database" of Maricopa County voter information had been deleted.Maricopa County recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican who oversees elections, tweeted that Trump's post was "unhinged," noting he was looking at the database on his computer at that moment."[142] The Maricopa county Twitter account later tweeted a lengthy thread with the hashtag #RealAuditorsDont, citing examples including "Release false 'conclusions' without understanding what they are looking at" and "Hire known conspiracy theorists.Thirteen of the 15 new Republicans on the committee had "either voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election ... or are freshman members who have rejected or questioned the validity of President Joe Biden’s win", according to HuffPost.
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