About a week ago, news of Trump drafting an executive order to seize voting machines during the election was revealed following a rally in which Trump promised to pardon all those involved in the Capitol raid if he was re-elected. Throughout this week, more information has surfaced and announced to the public, such as the existence of a SECOND executive order draft.
Background:
As Trump feared he would lose the presidential election, he and his staff began to brainstorm ways to cease the election. He began by asking his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani to call the Department of Homeland Security and ask if it was legal to seize voting machines from swing states. Obviously, secretary Ken Cuccinelli rejected the idea as well as Trump’s follow-up request to form a special counsel to investigate election fraud. While the Select House Committee is investigating the situation and people involved, Colonel Phil Waldron, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, and attorney Sidney Powell have been identified as key components of Trump’s plan. Together they combined efforts to attempt to convince at least three government agencies of fraud in order to carry out the seizure in addition to meeting in the Oval Office to discuss the potential processes of doing so. Thankfully, their plans were never carried out and the orders went unsigned. As of right now, nobody knows who drafted the two executive orders addressed to the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.
Analysis:
Having just completed an assignment regarding insurrections, those who opted to cover the Capitol raids might recognize its similarity to the attempted executive orders. Any potential uncertainty over whether or not Trump was attempting to interfere with the election can no longer be disputed following the release of the documents. George Conway, who was considered for the position of Solicitor General by Trump, gave his interpretation of the executive orders. According to him, the documents didn’t have any guidelines, follow any laws, and cited ridiculous ideas that didn’t have any connection to the actual voting process. To be more precise, they were “Bananas”, “Absolute Banana Republic stuff” if you will. Well said George. Based on the events perspiring during and after the election, it’s reasonable to assume that Trump banked on support from followers who blindly follow him. Not only did Trump attempt to use misinformation and convince government agencies to interfere with the election, he did so again after losing by encouraging supporters to protest in D.C.. For now, no evidence has been presented to support claims of the 2020 elections being rigged, exemplifying Trump’s una-PEELING behavior as an extreme case of poor sportsmanship.
1.) What was your initial reaction to learning about the existence of the executive order drafts?
2.) What do you think would’ve happened if the Department of Homeland Security had complied with Trump’s requests? (Aside from seizing voting machines obviously)
3.) If Trump had successfully overridden the election results, how could it have changed/impacted the nation’s democratic ideals and structure?
Analysis Sources:
Other Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/31/politics/trump-executive-orders-seize-voting-machines/index.html
1 comment:
My initial reaction to learning of the existence of the executive order drafts is that I'm honestly not surprised, but the more that we find about about the election and the events leading up to it, the more concerning things yet. I think that if Homeland Security had complied with Trump's requests, that would point to corruption on a way larger scale (and on a scale where I don't really know what we would be able to do). As for your last question, I would hope that American people as a whole value democracy and the structures that protect it, but I'm not so sure anymore. It's difficult to see how we can fix this with such a divided perspective on what the problems are. I think that with Biden in office, it's easy to be lulled back into a false sense of comfort/complacency, but the more we learn about how close things were to completely falling apart (and how things might not really be that much better now), I think we have to be careful not to forget what happened. (Also I had no idea Rudy Giuliani's full first name was Rudolph).
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