Outgoing President Donald Trump’s behavior is a serious danger to the security of the United States of America. During a Friday White House meeting, President Donald Trump reportedly floated the possibility of naming Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate baselessly supposed widespread election fraud. Previously, Powell has pushed utterly unhinged conspiracy theories about the recent presidential election, including the idea that a widely used election management machine company was in cahoots with an election-rigging plot developed by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who died about 7 years ago. There’s no legitimate evidence for this nonsense.
SCOOP – Sidney Powell was in Oval Office last night as POTUS discussed making her special counsel for election fraud. @KannoYoungs and me https://t.co/wUB8ZMrPxp
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 19, 2020
Michael Flynn — who recently received a pardon from Trump — was at that same White House meeting on Friday, where Trump “asked about Flynn’s suggestion of deploying the military,” according to Maggie Haberman of The New York Times. Flynn, who once served as national security adviser in the Trump administration, has openly pushed the idea of declaring martial law in the United States and tasking the military with conducting an entirely new presidential election, a glaringly authoritarian tactic that’s right out of the playbook of dictators. Meeting participants “shot down” the idea of deploying the military to essentially overturn the election outcome, according to Haberman — but Trump nonetheless possesses the wide-reaching powers of the presidency of the United States, for now.
During the meeting, the president asked about Flynn’s suggestion of deploying the military, those briefed said. That was also shot down.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 19, 2020
The New York Times reported that the recent White House meeting including Flynn included “a discussion about an executive order to take control of voting machines to examine them,” and separately, top Trump ally Rudy Giuliani has “pressed the Department of Homeland Security to seize possession of voting machines as part of a push to overturn the results of the election,” although officials have apparently pushed back, telling Giuliani that the department does not have the necessary authority. Haberman said that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone “strenuously and repeatedly objected to these suggestions” at that meeting, but nevertheless — these authoritarian ideas are what the current president of the United States is considering.
On Saturday, Axios reported that top “Trump administration officials are increasingly alarmed that President Trump might unleash — and abuse — the power of government in an effort to overturn the clear result of the election” — although reason for concern isn’t exactly new, and plenty of observers from outside the administration have been “alarmed” throughout the president’s post-election fight against the election outcome, which has never been based in legitimate evidence for his claims of widespread fraud. Those Trump officials don’t get a special pass for finally admitting the obvious danger of Trump’s behavior since Election Day.
