Former President Donald Trump suggested on Saturday that the U.S. Constitution be "terminated" in order to rectify the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
"So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?" Trump wrote on Truth Social, the social media company he founded after being banned on Twitter.
He continued, "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great 'Founder' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections."
There are a few things to unpack here.
This statement followed the release of the so-called "Twitter Files" by Twitter owner Elon Musk on Friday. Journalist Matt Taibbi was granted access to internal Twitter documents regarding the social media company's handling of the New York Post's October 2020 story about the contents of a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, the son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Taibbi released his findings on Twitter itself, more or less confirming what many people already knew: that someone at Twitter suppressed the sharing of the story and Twitter officials conjured up a retroactive justification for doing so.
Some intelligence officials at the time erroneously suggested the story was Russian misinformation, which was uncritically reported by many media outlets at the time. But the story was, in general, true. Hunter Biden's laptop contained various photos and emails which are at the very least embarrassing and which also go to show that Hunter parlayed his family name into a lucrative career.
In the weeks leading up to the Nov. 3, 2020 election, Trump and his supporters made extensive use of the suppression of the New York Post story to amplify both the story itself and their claims that major tech companies and the mainstream media outlets are slanted against Trump. The matter was even brought up during the Oct. 22, 2020 presidential debate.
It wasn't enough. Trump went on to lose the November 2020 election, with Biden receiving 51.3 percent of the popular vote and 306 electoral votes compared to 46.8 percent of the popular vote and 232 electoral votes for Trump. Would things have been different if Twitter simply allowed the New York Post story to be shared as any other story? No one knows.
But here are things we do know.
The frankly underwhelming "Twitter Files" don't justify suspending the Constitution. Such an idea is self-evidently absurd.
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Trump and his allies alleged rampant election fraud, despite the fact they couldn't actually prove this in any venue that matters. Dozens of legal challenges were dismissed, rejected or ruled against. States audited and validated their results.
Trump sought to commit election fraud in Georgia by asking Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" the votes for him, which was rejected, drawing the ire of the president.
Trump also schemed with disgraced Chapman law professor John Eastman to get electoral votes thrown out, which failed because Vice President Mike Pence refused to go along with it.
And Trump, of course, stood by and said nothing as his supporters stormed the Capitol and assaulted police officers as the electoral votes were counted.
The electoral votes were counted, as outlined by the Constitution, and Joe Biden, like him or not, was sworn in as the duly elected president of the United States.
This column was published in the Whittier Daily News, Calif. and distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
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