“The debate over whether or not there was fraud should happen, we never had any presentation in court where we really looked at the signs. Most of the cases were thrown out for lack of status, which can be a procedural method of not really hearing the issue,” Paul said on ABC’s”This Week.”
“Sen. Paul, I must stop you there,” ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos interjected. “No election is perfect, but there were 86 challenges filed by President Trump and his allies at court. All were disregarded. Every nation certified the results… after investigations, counts and recounts. The Department of Justice — headed by William Barr — said there is no widespread evidence of fraud. Can’t you just say the words’This election was not stolen?'”
Paul responded,”What I would suggest is that if we need greater assurance in our elections — and 75% of Republicans agree with me is that we need to look at election ethics.”
Around the nation, secretaries of state and officials at the national level — such as the Trump-appointed former attorney general — have agreed that there was no evidence of widespread fraud or security issues in November’s election.
When contested by Stephanopoulos on Barr’s denial of widespread fraud, Paul pushed .
“He said that, yes. That has been a pronouncement. There’s been no examination — comprehensive examination — of all the nations to learn what problems we had and see whether they could fix them,” he said.
“There were lots of difficulties and there were secretaries of statewho illegally changed the law and that needs to be fixed, and I’m going to work harder to mend it and I won’t be cowed by people saying’oh, you are a liar,'” Paul told Stephanopoulos. “And you can’t simply sweep it under the carpet and say,’oh, nothing to see here, and everyone is a liar and you’re a fool if you bring this up.’ … A journalist would hear both sides and there are two sides of a story.”
Stephanopoulos responded,”I am standing by details. There are not two sides to facts. I did not say this was a perfect election. I said it was not stolen. It is a lie,”
While Paul was among the many Republican politicians that replicated unfounded Trump allegations that fraud happened from the 2020 presidential elections, the Kentucky senator didn’t object to the certification of the electoral college, and it has said previously he thinks Congress shouldn’t overturn consequences because it would be unconstitutional.
“American people right now are fighting. They want pandemic relief,” Klobuchar continuing. “I thoroughly believe that we are able to manage this impeachment trial and — as the American people do — juggle what we will need to get done.
The Senate is preparing to get a unified legislative program with Democrats attempting to balance the Biden administration’s agenda with the second impeachment trial of Trump.
Despite previous reports that McConnell was happy with all the House of Representatives’ impeachment efforts, a growing number of conservative legal specialists and Republicans in the Senate have contested the constitutionality of carrying a trial for Trump because he is no more the sitting president.
When asked by Stephanopoulos about questions behind the legality of the impending impeachment trial, Klobuchar said,”It’s constitutional. We have precedent from back when a secretary of war has been attempted after he had left office and, obviously, there’s a remedy that will help in the future that would prohibit former President Trump from running again.”
With more Republicans touting the lack of constitutional foundation for the trial, Stephanopoulos also pressed Klobuchar about whether there were sufficient GOP senators to vote to convict Trump.
“My colleagues haven’t yet committed about what they are going to do along with the information we just got from The New York Times yesterday that the president was actually actively attempting to carry out his own attorney general and put in an unknown bureaucrat conspiring with him. I believe we are going to have more and more evidence during the upcoming few weeks as though it is not enough that he has sent an angry mob down the Mall to invade the Capitol — didn’t attempt to stop it — and a police officer was murdered. I do not know what else you have to know,” the Minnesota senator added.
Stephanopoulos also asked about what happens if there aren’t sufficient votes in the Senate to convict Trump.
“Would you pursue, instead, possibly a censure or some kind of a resolution under the 14th Amendment to stop President Trump from running for office again?” Stephanopoulos asked.
She refused to rule out anything.
“We’re focused on impeachment, but there are lots of choices. Things can be viewed at. But I believe that the thing that your audiences will need to know at the moment, George, is that we have to do many things at once,” she explained.
