During a middle-of-the-night speech at the White House in the hours after polls closed in the election, President Donald Trump self-confidently insisted that he had won the election — although ballot-counting wasn’t even done at the time. Trump has since sunk behind in key states including Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, and he may be on his way to a loss. He’s not accepting this possibility — instead, he is pushing the totally deranged conspiracy theory that there’s a plot to rig the election in favor of the Democrats by including votes that shouldn’t actually be counted. New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) called out the president’s nonsense on Twitter.
Eric Trump, Kayleigh McEnany, and the Team Trump account are all falsely claiming victory in Pennsylvania. That's not a thing. Pennsylvania is still counting ballots. No one has won.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 4, 2020
James issued the following message:
‘Just because a candidate declares victory, it doesn’t make it so. A winner is determined after the ballots are counted.’
Just because a candidate declares victory, it doesn’t make it so.
A winner is determined after the ballots are counted.
— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) November 4, 2020
James has confronted Trump in court before. Before Election Day, the New York Attorney General indicated that she was conferring with her colleagues over possible steps that attorney generals could take in the event of a contested election. She very well might get the chance to put those potential plans into action — a slew of lawsuits have already popped up in the aftermath of Election Day, including one court case in which the Trump campaign is trying to get ballot-counting stopped in Michigan until they get the observation access to the ballot-counting process that they want. The Trump team is also fighting against current ballot-counting procedures in Pennsylvania.
Besides potential court action in election-related cases, James’s office has also been leading an investigation into the Trump Organization over potential fraudulent adjustments to valuations of their assets. These fraudulent valuations were meant to help secure benefits like tax breaks for the Trump family business. Recently, Eric Trump sat for a deposition as part of James’s investigation. The New York Attorney General has pledged to continue her Trump Organization investigation even if Trump loses. Losing the presidency could remove potential protections from potential prosecution for Trump (although James’s Trump investigation isn’t a criminal one).
Check out Twitter’s response below:
