A growing number of conservative Republicans are breaking with President Trump and his legal team over what they view as a dangerous effort to overturn …
A growing number of conservative Republicans are breaking with President Trump and his legal team over what they view as a dangerous effort to overturn the election results by promoting conspiracy theories. GOP lawmakers, conservative lawyers and key figures in rightwing media say it is time for his legal team to either back up their claims about fraud or concede defeat to President-elect Joe Biden. The voices range from Fox News’s Tucker Carlson to Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) to conservative lawyers and thought leaders such as Karl Rove. For many, the tipping point was Thursday’s press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, in which they spun an elaborate tale about how a bloc of communist countries had hijacked the nation’s voting machines by installing an algorithm to flip a percentage of Trump votes over to Biden. The lawyers have not taken that claim to court and have not provided any evidence to support it. “This is delusional,” said Mark Braden, the former chief counsel at the RNC. “I’m a professional Republican so it’s not easy for me to have to deal with my friends on this. Look – voter fraud occurs. I’ve seen it. It happens. But you have to be realistic about the size and scope of it.” Republican lawyers interviewed by The Hill said Trump’s early legal challenges on voter fraud were defensible and reasonable, even if they had no chance of changing the outcome of the election. But they’re disturbed by the dark turn things have taken, and worried that Trump’s claims are undermining democracy and misleading millions of his own supporters. “The Venezuelans didn’t screw around with the voting machines,” Braden said. “That’s 100 percent total nonsense. I don’t know what’s going on here. It’s very dangerous that we’re undermining the system. Democracy isn’t a God-given right. It’s a fragile process. The two most important things are that the person with the most lawful votes wins, and that the people who voted for the losing side also believe their candidate lost. This is undermining that idea and it’s a dangerous thing.
