By Rich Moniak
Last week, the attorney general of Texas filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court demanding Joe Biden’s victory in four states be nullified. And in a backward effort to give Americans faith that our elections are fair and free from fraud, Gov. Mike Dunleavy embraced the dangerous fantasy that Donald Trump was on his way to a second term in the White House.
On Friday, the Court unanimously rejected the lawsuit.
After losing every other court challenge, Trump had called this “the big one.” Dunleavy seemed to think Trump would prevail. The day after it was filed, he told Suzanne Downing on a Must Read Alaska podcast with that there was only an “outside chance” that Joe Biden will be our next president. And on Thursday, his acting attorney general sent the court a letter supporting the lawsuit.
Americans “need to know that their vote counts,” Dunleavy said during his interview with Downing. “And if there is any suspicion of fraud, which there is, that really needs to be looked into.” Then he argued if fraud didn’t occur, “then that needs to be proven as well.”
First of all, if the lawsuit had been successful, then millions of Americans would know for sure their legally cast votes weren’t counted.
Further, absolutely no one, including Trump’s Department of Justice, uncovered any serious level of fraud. Only Trump, his loyal parrots, and those who foolishly trust him refuse to accept that fact.
Despite claiming to have “massive proof” of fraud in Pennsylvania, Trump never submitted evidence in court there. Even Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani admitted in court that was “not a fraud case.”
As Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, wrote when rejecting Trump’s appeal of that case, “calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.” In other words, generalized suspicions are woefully inadequate.
That’s why the Texas lawsuit that Dunleavy supported made no such claims. It argued that “expanded absentee and mail-in voting” and “unconstitutional modification of statutory protections designed to ensure ballot integrity … created a massive opportunity for fraud.” But it submitted not one shred of evidence it actually occurred.
Trump’s own filing to intervene in the case further argued it’s “not necessary … to prove that fraud occurred.” Instead, “The constitutional issue is not whether voters committed fraud but whether state officials violated the law by systematically loosening the measures for ballot integrity so that fraud becomes undetectable.”
In one of only two references of fraud, the amicus brief filed by 126 congressional House Republicans states “the election of 2020 has been riddled with an unprecedented number of serious allegations of fraud and irregularities.” And with utter hypocrisy they claim it’s given them and “untold millions of their constituents” doubts about the election “outcome and the integrity of the American system of elections.”
Not one of them expressed any concern when Trump preemptively cast doubts about election integrity from June through Election Day. Since the election, he’s been the primary riddler making allegations of fraud.
The morning after the election, he called it “a fraud on the American public.”
“Tremendous corruption and fraud going on” he said in a speech two days later. “We think there’s going to be a lot of litigation because we have so much evidence and so much proof, and it’s going to end up perhaps at the highest court in the land.”
“Plenty of proof” of “voter Fraud and State Election Fraud” he tweeted the same day. This month, he said in a 46-minute Facebook rant about fraud “may be the most important speech I ever made.”
Then the “big” lawsuit was submitted to the Supreme Court without any evidence at all.
Two days after it was rejected, Trump still claims he “WON THE ELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE … in terms of legal votes, not all of the fake voters and fraud that miraculously floated in from everywhere!”
The real flight path of election fraud began as hallucinations imagined by Trump’s fragile ego sent airborne by his vocal whines and spastic thumbs. It then drifted across America like nuclear fallout. And in the grossest political malpractice ever committed by an Alaskan governor, Dunleavy spewed that poison against American democracy across our Great Land.
• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a letter to the editor or My Turn.
