Politics
JUST IN: Trump Calls For Special Prosecutor To Investigate 2020 Election: ‘Total Fraud’
President Donald Trump on Friday made a surprise call for a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election, which he maintains was stolen by former President Joe Biden.
His former opponent “lost the 2020 Presidential Election by a ‘LANDSLIDE!'” Trump asserted in a post on Truth Social, indicating that he remains aggrieved over the results of the election and rejections by courts to take up his suits contesting the outcome in multiple states.
“Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD! The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING,” he went on.
Following the election, Trump lawyers launched a flurry of lawsuits challenging the vote in Arizona, Georgia, and other battleground states that narrowly went for Biden. Lawsuits resulted in damaging outcomes for some of his former attorneys, including Rudy Giuliani, who was stripped of his law license in New York, where he once served as the mayor of New York City.
Two others, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, both pleaded guilty to various crimes.
Trump added: “A Special Prosecutor must be appointed. This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America! Let the work begin! What this Crooked man, and his CORRUPT CRONIES, have done to our Country in 4 years, is grossly indescribable! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The possibility of calling a special prosecutor to investigate a years-old controversy is not without precedent. Former special counsel John Durham famously investigated alleged connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian officials, concluding none existed, while former special counsels Jack Smith and Robert Mueller were appointed by Democrats to probe alleged criminal wrongdoing by Trump.
Attempts to reverse the outcome of the election were encapsulated in Georgia, where President Trump urged Republican Governor Brian Kemp to locate pro-Trump votes and purge others, the campaign alleged, who had cast votes illegally. Kemp rebuffed the request, as did Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
After Biden took office, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged President Trump and 18 codefendants with one count each of violating Georgia’s anti-racketeering law, which carries a penalty of five to twenty years in prison.
The arrest culminated in the infamous mugshot of Trump, which later adorned memorabilia and became a rallying cry for his base, who were galvanized by his suggestion that Democratic powerbrokers were conspiring to jail him or otherwise stifle his third campaign for the White House.
Previous rulings by the Supreme Court have concluded that the U.S. attorney general carries the power to hire a special prosecutor if they believe criminal conduct warrants an investigation that the Department of Justice cannot carry out without bias.
In this case, it would fall on Attorney General Pam Bondi to select someone whom she trusts to fairly investigate the 2020 election. The individuals would almost certainly have to pass muster with Trump, who has shown he intends to exercise unprecedented authority over the DOJ.
