On December 8 and 10, 2020, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear two cases brought by supporters of President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election.  

In the first case, Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA), a Trump ally, argued that Pennsylvania’s 2.5 million mail-in ballots were unconstitutional—and should be invalidated.

In the second case, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sought to overturn the results in four battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 

Even worse: Seventeen Republican state Attorney Generals—and 126 Republican members of Congress—rushed to support the case.

The reason: They feared Trump’s fanatical base would turn them out of office if they didn’t.

The Supreme Court

Had the Court acted on either request, the results for democracy would have been catastrophic.

For the first time in American history, a President who falsely accused his victorious rival of fraud would have invalidated the votes of 80 million Americans.

Then, on December 30,  Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley announced that, on January 6, 2021, he would object to the certification of some states’ Electoral College results. As many as 139 House Republicans and eight from the Senate joined him. 

Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse bluntly offered the reason for this effort: ‘”We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage. But they’re wrong—and this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions.” 

Having lost in 59 court cases to overturn the election results, Trump opted for some old-fashioned arm-twisting.

On January 2, 2021, he called the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The reason: To pressure him to “find” enough votes to overturn former Vice President Joe Biden’s win in the state’s presidential election.

“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state,” Trump lied.

He even threatened Raffensperger with criminal prosecuted if he did not change the vote count in Trump’s favor: “That’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen.”  

Raffensperger insisted there hadn’t been any voter fraud—and refused to change the official results.

By January 6, 2021, President Donald J. Trump had almost run out of options for illegally staying in power for the next four years.

On January 6, the United States Senate, with Vice President Mike Pence presiding, would certify states’ Electoral College results of that election. 

That morning, Trump urged Pence to flip the results of the election to give him a win.

Pence replied that he lacked the power to overturn those results.

But as Pence went off to the Capitol Building housing the Senate and House of Representatives, Trump had one last card to play.

Mike Pence

For weeks Trump had ordered his legions of Right-wing Stormtrumpers to descend on Washington, D.C. on January 6. 

On December 20, he had tweeted: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” 

On January 6, Trump appeared at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park south of the White House fence. A stage had been set up for him to address tens of thousands of his supporters, who eagerly awaited him.  

Trump ordered them to march on the Capitol building to express their anger at the voting process and to intimidate their elected officials to reject the results. 

Donald Trump addresses his Stormtrumpers 

The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.

• Members of the mob attacked police with chemical agents or lead pipes.
• A Capitol Hill police officer was knocked off his feet, dragged into the mob surging toward the building, and beaten with the pole of an American flag.
• One attacker was shot as she forced her way toward the House Chamber where members of Congress were sheltering in place.

Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol Building

• Several rioters carried plastic handcuffs, possibly intending to take hostages.
• Others carried treasonous Confederate flags.
• Shouts of “Hang Pence!” often rang out.
• Improvised explosive devices were found in several locations in Washington, D.C.
• Many of the lawmakers’ office buildings were occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.

More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol. 

And Trump? After giving his inflammatory speech, he returned to the White House—to watch his handiwork on television. He initially rebuffed requests to mobilize the National Guard. 

This required intervention by Pat A. Cipollone, the White House Counsel, among other officials. 

While the rioting was still erupting, Trump posted a video on Twitter: “I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us….But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order….So go home. We love you. You’re very special.” 

“It was the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life,” the Duke of Wellington said about the battle of Waterloo. 

The same could be said for America’s escaping Donald Trump’s attempt to make himself “President-for-Life.”  

On November 3, 2020, Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 81,283,495 votes, or 51.4% of the vote, compared to 74,223,755 votes, or 46.9% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.

In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump.

It takes 270 votes to be declared the victor.

From the moment Biden was declared the winner, Trump set out to overturn that verdict.

Joe Biden

Speaking from the White House in the early hours of November 4, Trump sounded like a petulant child whose planned outing has been suddenly called off:

“We were getting ready for a big celebration, we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off. The results tonight have been phenomenal…I mean literally we were just all set to get outside and just celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good, such a vote, such a success.” 

For the first time in American history, a President demanded a halt to the counting of votes while the outcome of an election hung in doubt. 

States ignored his demand and kept counting.

Next, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, charging electoral fraud. Specifically:

• Illegal aliens had been allowed to vote.
• Trump ballots were systematically destroyed.
• A sinister computer program turned Trump votes into Biden ones.

Throughout November and December, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. None were supported by evidence of fraud—as even Trump’s lawyers admitted when questioned by judges.

On November 13, nine cases meant to attack President-Elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.

In Michigan, Trump’s attorneys dropped their federal suit to block the certification of Detroit-area ballots. 

By November 21, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.

Ultimately, from November 3 to December 14, 2020, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.

Donald Trump

On November 19, losing in the courts, Trump invited two Republican legislative leaders from Michigan to the White House. The reason: To persuade them to stop the state from certifying the vote.

The Michigan legislators said they would follow the law.

On December 5, Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special legislative session and convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him, thus overturning Biden’s win.

Kemp refused, saying he lacked the authority to do so.

On December 8, the Supreme Court refused to hear Trump’s bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA), a Trump ally, argued that the state’s 2.5 million mail-in votes were unconstitutional.

The Court’s order read, “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice [Samuel] Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”

Although Trump had appointed three of the Court’s Justices, not one of them dissented.

On December 10, the Supreme Court refused to let a Texas lawsuit overturn the results in four battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 

The majority of their votes—cast for Biden—were critical to Trump’s defeat.

“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections,” the court said without further comment. It dismissed all other related claims as moot.

The request for their overturning came in a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. A Trump ally, Paxton has been indicted on felony securities fraud charges. He might have been seeking a Presidential pardon as reward for his effort.

Seventeen Republican state Attorney Generals—and 126 Republican members of Congress—supported the lawsuit. They feared Trump’s fanatical base would “primary” them if they didn’t publicly declare their loyalty—to a man they knew was slated to leave office within two months.

Had the Court acted on Paxton’s request, the results for democracy would have been catastrophic. 

“Texas seeks to invalidate elections in four states for yielding results with which it disagrees,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the justices in legal papers. “Its request for this court to exercise its original jurisdiction and then anoint Texas’s preferred candidate for president is legally indefensible and is an affront to principles of constitutional democracy.”

Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence, Missouri United States Senator Roy Blunt and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner. 

Mitch McConnell

In fact, the vast majority of House and Senate Republicans refused to publicly acknowledge Biden as President-Elect of the United States. The reason: They were still in thrall to Trump’s fanatical base. 

They feared that if they broke with the soon-to-be-ex-President, they would be voted out of office at the next election—and lose their cozy positions and the power and perks that come with them.

On August 14, for the fourth time this year, Donald Trump found himself the first ex-President to be indicted for crimes committed during his four-year administration: 2017-2021.

He faces  91 criminal charges across four jurisdictions: Georgia, Florida, New York and the District of Columbia. 

Two of those cases have already been mentioned. Here is a breakdown of the remaining two:

(3) Federal documents indictment (Florida)

Filed on June 9, 2023, it charges Trump with 40 felony counts for:

• 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information;
• 1 count of conspiracy to obstruct justice;
• 1 count of withholding a document or record from an official proceeding;
• 1 count of corruptly concealing a document or record from an official proceeding;
• 1 count of concealing a document in a federal investigation;
• 1 count of scheming to conceal information the government is seeking;
• 1 count of making false statements;
• 2 counts of altering, destroying or concealing information the government is seeking.

Before leaving office, Trump endangered the country’s national security by taking and haphazardly storing highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

He then refused to return them when asked by the Justice Department—forcing the agency to send in an FBI force to retrieve them.

(4) Georgia election indictment 

Filed on August 14, 2023, it charges Trump with 13 felony counts for:

• 1 count of violating the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations)  Act (conspiring to overturn the vote count of the 2020 Presidential election);
• 3 counts of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer;
• 1 count of conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer;
• 2 counts of conspiracy to commit forgery;
• 2 counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings;
• 1 count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents;
• 1 count of filing false documents;
• 2 counts of making false statements and writings.

This is on a par with the importance of the Federal 2020 election indictment. Trump was trying to illegally remain in office by coercing Georgia public officials to “find” Electoral College votes which did not exist.

Which, in this case, meant creating Electoral College votes which did not exist.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of Republicans have abandoned their traditional “law and order” mantra to attack those investigators and prosecutors who are trying to hold Trump accountable for his litany of crimes. 

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy: “Justice should be blind, but Biden has weaponized government against his leading political opponent to interfere in the 2024 election.” 

Referring to Fanni Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, who indicted Trump for election interference, McCarthy said: “Now a radical [district attorney] in Georgia is following Biden’s lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fundraise her political career. Americans see through this desperate sham.”   

Republicans have proven themselves masters of projecting their own planned or attempted crimes onto their opponents.

Since it was Trump who weaponized the Justice Department during his Presidency, Republicans now accuse—without evidence—President Joe Biden of doing the same. 

Kevin McCarthy

New York Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik: “[Donald Trump] had every legal right to challenge the results of the election. This blatant election interference by the far left will not work, President Trump will defeat these bogus charges and win back the White House in 2024.” 

Trump did in fact have “every right to challenge the results of the election.” What he did not have was the right to try to illegally overturn its verdict.

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham: “The American people can decide whether they want [Trump] to be president or not.

“This should be decided at the ballot box and not in a bunch of liberal jurisdictions trying to put the man in jail. They’re weaponizing the law in this country. They’re trying to take Donald Trump down.”

Biotech entrepreneur and Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy: “I’d volunteer to write the amicus brief to the court myself. Prosecutors should not be deciding US presidential elections, and if they’re so overzealous that they commit constitutional violations, then the cases should be thrown out and they should be held accountable.” 

During the 2016 Presidential race between Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump repeatedly called for her to be “locked up” for using a private email server for official public communications.

She was accused of endangering national security by not using official State Department email accounts maintained on federal servers. A years-long FBI investigation determined that Clinton’s server did not contain any information or emails that were clearly marked classified.

Hillary Clinton

Now, faced with overwhelming evidence that Trump’s behavior had posed threats to American democracy, Republicans are adhering to a double-standard to ignore his multiple crimes. 

Among Republican voters, Trump remains the odds-on favorite for the 2024 Republican nomination for President.  

Joe Biden had become President-elect of the United States by winning 81,283,495 votes, or 51.4% of the vote, compared to 74,223,755 votes, or 46.9% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.

In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump.