Fasten Your Seatbelts

FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | September 3, 2020

“Trump has been joined in his efforts to delegitimize the presidential election by Attorney General William Barr, who is grossly abusing the powers of his office to serve as a Trump partisan political operative.”

It has been clear for some time that President Trump is working to delegitimize the presidential election, which would set the stage for Trump to try to steal the presidency in the event he loses his reelection bid.

The President has repeatedly attacked voting by mail as subject to widespread fraud without providing any evidence to back up his false claims. There are five states that vote entirely by mail and all states allow some voting by mail. Evidence of voter fraud is extremely rare.

The Postal Service is key to voting by mail and Trump has acted to disrupt its services. Trump has opposed giving the Service the funding it needs to operate effectively during this critical period. He is also responsible for placing Republican partisans in key positions in the Postal Service, and steps have been taken in recent months to significantly damage the ability of the Postal Service to facilitate voting by mail in a timely way.

The Chair of the Board of Governors of the Postal Service, Robert Duncan, is also a director of Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s Super PAC and served in the past as Chair of the RNC. The Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, has given more than $1 million to the Trump Victory Fund and also headed fundraising for the Republican National Convention.

Trump has been joined in his efforts to delegitimize the presidential election by Attorney General William Barr, who is grossly abusing the powers of his office to serve as a Trump partisan political operative.

Barr has gratuitously attacked voting by mail, claiming this week that it is “playing with fire” without backing up his claims with meaningful data.

Barr has also rejected the longstanding policy that the Justice Department cannot take actions in an election year that could influence an election, setting the stage for Barr to take action in September or October that President Trump would no doubt use to attack Joe Biden.

In short, Barr has shown that he stands ready to be a willing participant in any effort by President Trump to steal the election.

If President Trump tries to steal the election, he will fail. But as the saying goes: fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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