On Monday night, Donald Trump reported that two Pennsylvania counties had received “THOUSANDS of potentially FRAUDULENT Voter Registration Forms and Mail-In Ballot Applications.” One was submitted a third-party group. The other by a single individual. “Law Enforcement must do their job, immediately!!!”
By Wednesday morning he seemed sure that “Pennsylvania is cheating” because they’re “getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before.”
And not a peep from members of his party who understand why such statements are completely irresponsible.
One can almost read the joy Trump felt at finding proof Democrats are out to steal this election. I’m sure he thinks it’ll help him convince more people that they stole the last one.
But it’s never wise to draw conclusions before any investigation is finished.
Local authorities began investigating both situations before Trump demanded they take action. Voter registration applications in the questionable batches haven’t been approved. No ballots have been illegally cast.
It’s certainly possible they’ll find that Democratic operatives were behind both schemes. But his supporters are just as capable of engaging in voter fraud.
Like the woman in Minnesota who admitted voting for him on an absentee ballot she filled out for her recently deceased mother.
Or the Republican precinct committeeman in Indiana who was arrested after a surveillance video revealed he removed two official ballots during a test run of voting machines and put them in his pocket. The missing ballots made the machines appear to be defective.
In 2020, Trump deliberatively created mistrust in the integrity of our elections on a grander scale. And not only did almost every congressional Republican let him get away with it then, they’ve been silent while he continues to spew undisputedly false claims.
“I won that second election so easy” Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan last Friday. “I would bring in papers that you would not believe, so many different papers. That election was so crooked, it was the most crooked election.”
I don’t need to repeat the facts about the 2020 election. Chip Wagoner succinctly summarized them in a recent My Turn published by the Empire. A former Republican National Committeeman for Alaska, he wrote that this will be the first election that he’s not voting for a single Republican.
Sen. Dan Sullivan may not be up for reelection this year. But I imagine he’s among the “overwhelming majority of Republican elected officials, candidates, and party leaders” whose silence has disappointed Wagoner. He argued they’ve enabled “Trump’s lies to fester and potentially reach the boiling point in 2024 as they did in 2020.”
In between the election and the Jan. 6 insurrection, I pointed out that what distinguished Sullivan from many who were directly abetting Trump’s dishonest scheme was the oath he took as a lawyer. Despite the dozens of lawsuits filed on Trump’s behalf that contained no evidence whatsoever to support the accusations of fraud he was making in public, Sullivan never spoke out. His silence contributed to undermining “the honor and dignity of the legal profession” he swore to uphold.
If he was honestly interested in Americans learning the truth, he would have supported the bill to establish an independent commission to investigate the events of January 6 and everything that led up that fateful day. Drafted by the ranking Democrat and Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, it passed the House with support of 35 Republicans.
Instead, Sullivan joined the 53 of his Republicans colleagues to prevent the Senate from even voting on the bill.
Regardless of the logic behind that dereliction of duty, preventing the truth from being uncovered by an independent investigative team resulted in a third of Americans justifying their mistrust of the people and institutions charged with ensuring our elections are free and fair.
The late Washington Post Columnist and Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer believed that “You’re betraying your whole life if you don’t say what you think and you don’t say it honestly and bluntly.”
Maybe not one’s whole life. But there’s no question that by choosing silence over blunt honesty about the 2020 election, Sullivan betrayed his conscience, the nation, and the Alaskans he was elected to serve. And participating in his party’s continued silence is helping Trump amplify the political divisiveness that threatens to rip this country apart.
• 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 My Turn or letter.
