Republican Lawmakers Prepare To Challenge Electors Jan. 6, Amidst Rising Vitriol and Threats

Jan. 5 , 2021 (EIRNS)—In preparation for the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress convened to count electoral votes for President and Vice President, there are now close to 140 Republican Congressmen and 13 Republican Senators lined up to challenge specific state electors and to call for the creation of a special commission that will take ten days to carry out an audit of the vote. Aside from the 13 Senators lined up to oppose some of Biden’s electoral votes, there are another 13 whose commitment is unclear or not yet stated. Twenty-five are firmly in favor of counting all of Biden’s electoral votes.

It is the case that Senators must challenge the electors of individual states, and while Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) had announced that he will challenge Pennsylvania’s electoral slate, and possibly those of other battleground states as well, there has been skepticism among some Republican layers about whether Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) would commit to challenging an individual state. This afternoon, several media—the Washington Post, The Hill, and others—reported that Cruz intended to object to Arizona’s electoral college results, along with Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs. Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who is running in today’s special election in Georgia, also announced that she would likely challenge Georgia’s electoral slate, The Hill reported. Cruz is also strongly pushing the option of creating the special commission.

Forming the backdrop to this are the ever-increasing vitriolic attacks by liberal Democratic and radical “Antifa” groups—including the liberal media—not only characterizing Republican legislators as “traitors,” and leaders of the “sedition caucus,” but also inciting violence against them. Last night, an Antifa group attacked the Washington home of Senator Hawley (who was away), vandalized and pounded on the front door, and threatened his wife and baby daughter inside. The thugs left signs ordering Hawley not to challenge Biden’s election tomorrow, with one sign reading: “Sen. Hawley—this is not presidential: Cease and Desist!” and another, “Defend Democracy from the GOP.”

Aside from CNN’s Jake Tapper accusing any Republican daring to challenge electoral slates as traitors running “a bloodless coup,” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program that Republican legislators were like “serial killers ... they should live in eternal shame.” Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin went further. In a column today, she demanded that Republicans who have lined up to reject Biden’s ill-gotten electors be booted out of the party and out of their committee posts, because they are “irredeemable domestic enemies of democracy.” If Republicans want to redeem themselves, she shrieked, they should expel those “radicals who would do harm to our democracy”—just as the Republicans once did “with the KKK and the John Birchers.”